Podcast Episode 404: Does Your Kid Not Want to Go To School? Here’s How to Help Your Kid (and Yourself) Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

JoAnn Crohn (00:00)

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I am your host JoAnn Crohn joined here by the brilliant Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker (00:08)

Hello everybody, how are you?

JoAnn Crohn (00:09)

We are right in the middle of back to school for most of the East Coast right now in the US. Brie and I were just talking that our kids started school July 16th. So we’ve had a few months to get up to this point right here. But something that comes up a lot in our coaching sessions, in balance, in our balance membership is this, what do you do when your kids are refusing to go to school? Like we hear this a lot, right Brie? Yeah.

Brie Tucker (00:38)

It can be a real difficult task. mean, there’s a point where you can’t drag your kid out of bed and throw them in their car seat and be like, you’re going to school.

JoAnn Crohn (00:48)

They’re absolutely miserable too. Like you also see that as a mom and you’re like, my gosh, I have all the guilt. Am I ruining my child for life? Am I basically needing to pay for their future there?

Brie Tucker (00:59)

Right? And I think honestly, it is a harder one to tackle. That is not as easy of a task to find because the root of the cause, it’s very nuanced for each kid.

JoAnn Crohn (01:12)

It is and that is what we’re talking about today. So just to make sure you’re in the right place if you’re new to the No Guilt Mom podcast, this is for moms who feel overwhelmed, underappreciated and stuck managing everything for their families. We want you to know that you are not alone and every single episode we promise that you’ll walk away with doable strategies to reclaim your time, energy, and joy. And in this episode, you are going to be able to figure out what may be the reasons behind your kids school refusal. And to help us do that is going to be Alyssa Campbell. She is the CEO and founder of Seed and Sow and a globally recognized expert in emotional development. She co-created and researched the collaborative emotion processing method, transforming how adults support children’s emotions.

Her best selling book, Tiny Humans, Big Emotions, shares this research. And her second book, which I have right here. look, we both have it. We’re ready. Big Kids, Bigger Feelings debuts today. Alyssa hosts the Voices of Your Village podcast. It has been featured in the Washington Post, CNBC, NBC, and Vermont Public. And with that, let’s get on with the show.

Welcome to the show, Alyssa. We are so excited to have you here and talk all things school refusal and of course about your new book.

Alyssa Campbell (02:40)

Thank you for having me, I’m stoked to be here to hang with you.

JoAnn Crohn (02:44)

Yeah, we’re both on separate sides of the country. So like when do your kids start school?

Alyssa Campbell (02:49)

ready for this action? Labor Day, like right after Labor Day. Some schools like the week before Labor Day.

Brie Tucker (02:57)

I was just telling you, JoAnn, I grew up in the Midwest, I grew up in Kansas City, and we always started the day after Labor Day. In my senior year, my district went rogue, and we started September 1st, which meant I had a whole two days before Labor Day.

Alyssa Campbell (03:14)

How dare they!

Brie Tucker (03:16)

It was crazy. And there was like, there were people that didn’t come to school for the first two days that were like protesting it. Now granted, this was like back in 97

Alyssa Campbell (03:24)

I was going to just say though, I would have been one of those people, think. I very much am like, hmm, tell me more about why this boundary exists and I’ll decide if I’m going to follow it.

JoAnn Crohn (03:33)

Yes!

Brie Tucker (03:34)

You and JoAnn are gonna be best friends, I swear.

JoAnn Crohn (03:36)

I’m like, I’m sorry. Are you telling me what to do? Why are you telling me what to do? And what is all the reasoning behind it? Because I need to make up my own mind if I’m going to listen to you or not.

Alyssa Campbell (03:46)

So if they were just like come to school earlier, I’d be like, no thank you. Hard pass.

JoAnn Crohn (03:51)

No, exactly. ⁓

It’s so interesting with school. And I love that your new book deals with bigger kids and bigger feelings because so often we hear about the little ones and controlling their emotions. But big kids have these feelings and emotions too. And the way I know that I was raised in the 90s and 80s is that we were just told to suck it up and deal with it.

Alyssa Campbell (04:16)

Mm-hmm. You didn’t actually have those emotions.

JoAnn Crohn (04:19)

apparently not. We didn’t have them. It just wasn’t there. Kids are different. they’re not guys. If you can’t hear my sarcasm, they’re not different. We’re just more aware now of what emotions are doing with kids and especially in the part of school and refusal to go to school. Alyssa Lake, what have you seen? What does it look like when a kid is refusing to go to school?

What are some of the emotions parents see? are some behaviors parents might see? Yeah.

Alyssa Campbell (04:51)

So my favorite, like just parenting strategy in general is curiosity. That if we can just slow our own role, because it’s usually just us getting in the way of our own curiosity. Where if I have a kid who’s navigating school refusal and like, ⁓ my God, he’s going to fail or they’re going to call the cops on me. He’s got to go to school a certain amount of days or he doesn’t want to go to school. He’s going to miss all this homework. And then what’s going to happen next? And all of a sudden he like is living in my basement and he’s 28 and has a life and I’ve been arrested and it is a serious

Brie Tucker (05:26)

Why did you get arrested in this scenario?

Alyssa Campbell (05:28)

He didn’t go to school and-

Brie Tucker (05:31)

You got arrested for truancy!

Alyssa Campbell (05:33)

That’s right. And so like, so easy to jump ahead. And when we can slow our roll, same. We recently had a whole thing and my son is four. And in my head, he was 16 and had no friends and not invited to anything. And my husband’s response was like, totally, that might be the case, but today he’s four. So

Brie Tucker (05:55)

I love those people,  that can help you like when you’re going down the spiral, the people that can be like, here’s your here’s your like life preserver. I’m going to pull you back in.

Alyssa Campbell (06:05)

That’s it. And so when we’re looking at school refusal, our greatest asset is going to be curiosity. So if we can for ourselves notice that like flood of fear and jumping to our own anxiety and just pull back and remind ourselves, this is not an emergency and we are going to figure this out and slow down, then we can start to get curious. Cause what we’re going to see on the surface is going to look often like defiance a lot of the time where they’re like,

No, I’m not going. Maybe depending on the age, slamming doors, rolling their eyes at you, swearing at you. They might just be like hiding, right? Like going off into their room or make me go to school would have been a very Alyssa line. And so looking at this, it often shows up in the way of defiance. And what we know to be true about defiance is that it’s a sign of dysregulation.

It means that you’re not in a regulated state. You don’t have access to your whole brain. And anytime we see dysregulation and we can get curious, then we can learn about what’s going to help solve this for them. What’s going to help bring them back into a regulated state so that we can navigate the world, including going to school.

JoAnn Crohn (07:18)

This is such an important point to keep in mind because as parents, a lot of time our own emotions can go out of control. When we see this defiance, we’re like, my gosh, we need to stop this defiance right now. And we come down even harder on the child, like giving consequences. I’ve seen taken away screen time, which only exacerbates the issue and makes it worse. And in our own mind, we’re getting angrier and angrier and more likely to blow up and make this a bigger situation than it needs to be. So first noticing that defiance, may be one of the signals that your child is not wanting to go to school. In your book, Alyssa, you talk about four main scenarios, and I wanna take the audience through these main scenarios, about possible reasons behind it. And so let’s start from like, early age all the way up because you describe a kindergarten situation where the mom has just prepped her child for kindergarten and yet on the first day there are still these hard emotions.

Alyssa Campbell (08:32)

Yeah. Yeah. You do all the prep in the world. And I think we have this idea. I think we’re sold it from a social media lens that if we do all the right things, things are going to be easier. And if you say the right words, if your tone and body language are right, if I organize this activity or I lay out this feast for you in the correct way with shaped sandwiches and whatever, then they’re going to be like, you know what, mom?

Thank you so much. This is my favorite lunch I’ve ever had. Right? It’s going to go smoothly if we do all the right things. And what is actually true is that prep part of this is meant to help the brain start to feel safer. So if you imagine yourself, and I was like, all right, ladies, you’re going to start a new job on Monday and I’ll drive you there and then I’ll pick you up. And I give you nothing else.

JoAnn Crohn (09:30)

That’s a little anxiety provoking.

Brie Tucker (09:33)

I have a job like that one.

Alyssa Campbell (09:37)

Had!  Had past tense because like, it is for your brain says, wait, I need so much more information. What’s gonna happen there? Well, I have lunch. Who am I gonna be around? What’s expected of me? Am I supposed to wear certain things? Like all of the missing information spirals into anxiety as your brain tries to make sure that it can keep you safe. And so when we’re looking at prep, what we’re really doing is sayingI’m going to give you some information so that you know what to expect a little bit here so that you can start to feel safer in this space. It doesn’t mean I’m going to give you all this prep so that then you’re like, okay, I exactly what to expect. I’m not scared at all about meeting these new people or doing this new thing for the first time in my life. And see you later, mom. See ya at pickup.

Brie Tucker (10:26)

So what I’m hearing is our expectations might be a little off as to what we are accomplishing as parents when we are quote unquote prepping our kids for kindergarten.

Alyssa Campbell (10:37)

That’s right. And I think it actually comes back to our fear of their heart emotion that we’re like, if I do all of this, they won’t have a hard time.

Brie Tucker (10:45)

I can’t stand heart emotions. JoAnn will tell you. It’s like water in the Wicked Witch for me. Someone starts crying. What do I need to do?

Alyssa Campbell (10:55)

Let me save you. And so I think that’s really what we often are seeing here is I don’t want to be around your heart emotion because it’s hard for me. If there’s a world in which I can live where my kids don’t have to experience hard things, sign me up. Yes, please. That would be lovely. And that’s not how the world works. And they are going to experience these hard things. And what we’re really looking at here is this separation anxiety. We tell this story in the book of this kindergartener.

Alyssa Campbell (11:25)

where they’re leaving their safe person that they feel comfortable and safe with to go into a space where we know they’re safe, but their brain and body haven’t experienced that yet there. And we’re saying like, trust us, you’re gonna be okay here, you’re gonna be safe here. And they’re allowed to say, I’m nervous about that. I don’t feel safe yet.

JoAnn Crohn (11:48)

It’s interesting because this puts something in perspective that I just dealt with my son when he started school in seventh grade. And my son has a lot of anxiety that we’ve dealt with through the years that he’s dealing with through the years. And he’s very similar to me in that regard. But we went to his new junior high and he picked up his schedule and then he wanted to walk to every single one of his classes.

to make sure he knew where they were. And after we walked to every single one of his classes, he wanted to walk back and make sure he got the sequence. And then when he came home, he drew a path on the map to all of his classes. And now after talking with you, Alyssa, yeah, I’m like, my gosh, he’s just trying to control what he can of the situation and make himself feel safe so that even though he had nerves, and we talked about those nerves, he still had the…

He was still anxious about it. He still feeling anxiety about it. Still a little nervous about it. But he was able to feel safer because he went through the prep.

Brie Tucker (12:53)

I was him, but when I was in middle school I did the same thing.

Alyssa Campbell (12:58)

Yeah

Alyssa Campbell (13:01)

I’ll pull you into some nerd facts for what’s happening here is that anytime we’re doing something new, we’re forming what’s called a neural pathway. And our brain is then learning what happens when this happens, what happens there. think of like, you have this new job that’s starting on Monday. And the first few times you drive to work, you might even need like Google Maps to get you there.

Alyssa Campbell (13:25)

where you’re like, wait, which way do I turn? How do I go? And then after you’ve done it a few times, you’re operating from your subconscious. You can do it without thinking about it in the same way that when I go through my morning routine, I don’t have to think like, okay, how do I make the coffee? Where’s the cup? My brain can just do that from habit and practice because I have enough reps. I’ve done it enough times that that neural pathway every time we repeat that same pathway, it’s like going to the gym and doing reps on it. It just gets stronger and stronger and it becomes a part of your subconscious habits and patterns. So as he is walking there, walking back, drawing it, every one of those is a rep for that neural pathway that starts to feel safer and safer and more known.

JoAnn Crohn (14:06)

Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, definitely. And I have to say his first day of school went off really well. He came home and all the like normal things you expect to happen on a first day, they happened still. The strong emotions still existed, but overall it was good. So first point, for kids in school, as much prep as you do, the prep is still important, but hard emotions can still happen. They can both be the same at once.

Coming up next, we are going to dig down and talk about some situations that may not be as apparent from the outside for you at home. And that’s coming up next. So before the break, we talked about how prepping your kids for school is great, but it doesn’t mean that they won’t experience heart emotions as well. This next example, Alyssa, really hit home for me because you described a girl who constantly got stomach aches and was constantly sick at school. We have gone through this in my house multiple times. Stomach aches, there’s no medical reason for them. Like we go get them checked out by the doctor. They’re totally okay physically. So it turns into this is something else that is happening. And I know a lot of our balance members come with this situation as well. Why are my kids getting stomach aches all the time when there’s nothing wrong with them?

And your insight on this with the example you gave in the book was so insightful. Tell us about the stomach ache in classroom core.

Alyssa Campbell (15:37)

Yeah, this one we share a story about this little girl named Jada and she’s in first grade and she’s got a stomach ache. I have a headache. Like we’re seeing all these physical symptoms, but she’s not sick. And at one point, one of her moms goes into the classroom and when she comes in, she notices the environment, the artwork on the walls, the sound of the bell ringing.

all these pieces of stimuli adding up. And Jada turns and is like, mom, my head hurts. Can we just go home? And this light bulb went off for Shayna of, she’s overstimulated. Actually, her nervous system is feeling so overwhelmed in the environment that she probably is getting a headache. She probably is getting a stomach ache because her nervous system is saying, this is too overwhelming for me to handle. We got to get out of here.

every single movement. So when we’re looking at the nervous system, we often hear of our first five senses, sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. There are four others. We have intraception. This is where we notice those internal cues in our body, like I have to go to the bathroom, I’m hungry, I’m tired, I have a stomach ache, my heart’s beating fast. Then we have our vestibular system located in your inner ear. It’s responsible for your movement and balance. keeps you upright. If you’re vestibular sensitive, you might get motion sickness easily.

If you’re vestibular seeking, you might like love a swivel chair where you can kind of rotate.

Brie Tucker (17:10)

A yoga ball that I sit on a lot during the day.

Alyssa Campbell (17:13)

Yes, there you go. And then we have our proprioceptive sense. This lets us know where our body is in relationship to other things.

Brie Tucker (17:21)

I think I didn’t get that when I was born. I run into everything.

Alyssa Campbell (17:25)

I’m you.

I have low perceptive awareness. And so I’m like, there’s not a world in which my body can figure out where my bed frame is in relationship to my leg. Like I always have bruises.

JoAnn Crohn (17:38)

I always have bruises as well. You know where it is too. It’s always right there on your upper thigh and you’re like, that’s the space that my body has no.

Alyssa Campbell (17:40)

Cut that cord!

So that’s your proprioceptive sense. For folks with lower proprioceptive awareness, we often actually need a lot of proprioceptive input. So think like deep pressure, adding weight, heavy work, big jumps, big body play, big movements, it’s all going to turn that on for your body to say, here’s where your body ends and something else begins.

JoAnn Crohn (18:11)

That is so interesting. like me like needing to sit with my legs on the chair right now I’m like folded right here. I have to move all the time. So that’s a proprioceptive

Alyssa Campbell (18:21)

Yeah, it’s giving you a preperceptive implant. And actually, if you put like a weighted blanket on your lap, it would probably feel really grounding for you.

JoAnn Crohn (18:27)

I have one upstairs.

Alyssa Campbell (18:29)

I have like a weighted vest because peri-menopause and all the rage and I will sometimes just like have it on my lap when I’m recording. And then we have our neuroceptive sense. Neuroception is our spidey sense. It lets us know if there’s anything that isn’t safe. If you’ve entered into a room and two people have been arguing, they’ve been in conflict and they aren’t anymore, but you can feel that tension and that energy, that’s your neuroceptive sense. Or if I came on and you’re like, how are you? And I’m like, I’m fine. You know I’m not fine because of your neuroceptive sense that reads all those nonverbal cues. So when we’re looking at these nine sensory systems, we all filter this information differently. Some humans come in and they notice all the details. They hear the sounds in a heightened way. They can detect smells. They’re seeing all the visual stimuli. These are humans we call sensory sensitive because they’re sensitive to all that stimuli and it can flood or overwhelm them faster. Then we have humans who are sensory seeking. We have high seekers and kind of neutral seekers. Our high seekers are like, I need all the input, all the movement. We have someone on my team who is a high seeker and she has like an essential oil roller in her purse at all times that she can like pop on. She listens to music throughout the day when she’s working. She’s like, give me all the stimuli.

JoAnn Crohn (19:49)

Right? Free’s laughing because she feels seen. my god!

Brie Tucker (19:57)

Which is weird. And I wanna know where you got your vest. We’re gonna have a conversation. Cause my weighted blanket is 15 pounds. That’s a bit much to bring downstairs from my bedroom. So I wanna try a weighted vest. But go on, go on.

Alyssa Campbell (20:09)

Yes. And so what we’re doing is we’re taking all of this information and we have a QR code in the book, but also it’s seatquiz.com. You can take a questionnaire, you can take as many times you want. totally free for any age kid. There’s age specifications, so it gives you specific results to their age. You can take it for yourself and it’ll look at, yeah, super red. worked with a group of OTs for it, but it’ll look at those nine and say, where are you on the spectrum of sensitive to seeking for these? And understand your nervous system a little bit more because what was happening with Jada is she’s sensory sensitive. So she was noticing all this stimuli and she was getting overwhelmed by it. What we were able to do is just put some things in place that helped her nervous system kind of get a break from stimuli. This can look like having headphones or AirPods where you get to listen to a song instead of the chaos of a transition that’s happening in the classroom or instead of eating lunch in the lunch room, maybe there’s a small group that eats together.

It could look like some flexible seating where you have a seat that swivels. You can get that input throughout the day and help regulate your nervous system. Depending on the kids sensory profile and regulation strategies, it’s going to be customized to them. But we guide you through different ways to understand your kids’ nervous system and then how to advocate for your kids’ sensory needs at school.

Brie Tucker (21:28)

I think that’s a key right there, isn’t it JoAnn? Because like so many of us, unless you’ve worked in the field of education or special needs, you probably don’t necessarily know about the sensory. So having somebody being able to have such simple tools at their fingertips is so huge. Cause it really takes a kind of complicated topic and makes it very specific to what you need to work on.

Alyssa Campbell (21:54)

That’s right. And you know what, Brie, is so interesting is like in a lot of school districts, it’s still seen as like things that are reserved for kids who have an IEP or have a 504 plan who receive special services. we do the bulk of our work at CETA actually is in school systems. And what we do with our school systems is really shift that cultural lens to everybody has a nervous system. Everybody. Yes. And so you might have a kid who

Alyssa Campbell (22:24)

they hold it together all day at school and then they come home and you get their meltdown. because they haven’t had the sensory support throughout the day and now you get this whole meltdown and maybe they couldn’t even like pay attention to the lesson so they don’t know how to do the homework. But they don’t have an ID, they don’t receive special services, they still have a nervous system.

JoAnn Crohn (22:47)

Yeah, that’s a mic drop moment, Alyssa, because so many parents can say that they have experienced the end of school meltdown. attaching that to a kid’s sensory needs were not met during the day, makes so much sense. So much more sense than the typical advice that’s given be like, you’re a safe space. They feel OK melting down around you. While that may explain the situation a little bit, it really doesn’t give parents a path forward on how to help that situation because it’s very stressful when you have to deal with that as a parent. So I absolutely love that. So we’ve talked about first prep and strong emotions can coexist as well as being able to advocate for your child’s sensory needs. That may be a reason that they’re refusing school as well. Coming up next, we’re gonna talk about that peer issue. And that’s right after this.

So far this episode, we’ve given you two little things to keep in mind when your kid is refusing school. The next reason is something so many of us deal with, and I’m sure that so many of us dealt with it when we were in school as well. It’s dealing with our peers and how our peers are reacting to us. But unlike us 80s and 90s children who were told to suck up and deal, we can actually help our kids.

Learn how to navigate these social situations. In your book, Alyssa, you talk about giving kids this framework for how to classify this rude or mean or bullying behavior and the nuances between each. Can you share a little bit about that?

Alyssa Campbell (24:30)

Totally. So it was really key to this age group that really once we kind of start school and we’re in elementary school and beyond, something developmentally happens that’s so important for behavior. It’s that inclusion and belonging starts to matter in a new way where they’re starting to see who am I in the world? What is my identity? Who do I like to be around? What are things I’m interested in doing or playing?

Do I like this sport? Do I enjoy hanging out with these people? And all of a sudden they’re like, wait, mom, I need these shoes, or I want to do this activity and I want to hang out with these people. And it’s really that they are coming into who they are. They’re getting to know their own identity. And with this comes a lot of hard feelings and challenge because they’re going to be embarrassed and left out and disappointed and so many hard feelings that we would love to save them from.

JoAnn Crohn (25:29)

Yeah, all parents would love to save them from all those hard feelings.

Brie Tucker (25:32)

I saved everything. I just had this conversation with my husband yesterday. forget what was, I know my daughter came home and she had something that had happened that upset her between her and her dad. And I was trying to, I didn’t want anybody to be upset. And my husband’s like, you know, it’s kind of nice to sometimes let people just have their feelings. And I’m like, yeah.

Alyssa Campbell (25:46)

Mm-hmm, sure.

I guess so. Nice for who, bud? I’ll 100 % get this. I mean, the thing with inclusion and belonging is that what I really want kids to know is that they aren’t always going to belong in a certain space or in a certain crew. And to be able to delineate who do I want to hang out with? What does feel good for me?

JoAnn Crohn (26:00)

There you go.

Alyssa Campbell (26:19)

And to build that skill set, it’s messy. There’s gonna be times where they aren’t included. was just chatting with somebody who their eight year old came home and was upset. And of course the eight year old didn’t say this at first. It was like rude behavior to the family and like throwing her backpack and stomping down and slamming her door and then opening and slamming it again. Like, do you see what I’m going through? And eventually got to a place where she was sharing with her mom that

Her friends were all together in this group doing this TikTok dance together and she wasn’t invited to be a part of this.

Brie Tucker (26:54)

Aww.

JoAnn Crohn (26:55)

Yeah.

My daughter has come to me about something like this, but it was more because I didn’t let her have TikTok when she was younger, because I think the algorithm in TikTok is so…

Alyssa Campbell (27:06)

Yeah, we talked about that in this book.

JoAnn Crohn (27:09)

Yeah, so good. But because of that, she didn’t know the trends and she didn’t know the TikTok dances. And so she felt excluded that way.

Alyssa Campbell (27:17)

I shouldn’t feel hip and jiggy with it, as the kids say.

JoAnn Crohn (27:21)

That is exactly what the kids say today, Alyssa. Ice, ice, baby. But these like exclusion things are so real and so hard for them. I mean, I’m dealing with a text message right now between my daughter who wants to have five friends over on a school night. And I’m like, no, but her perspective of it is

JoAnn Crohn (27:48)

But mom, we’ve already been planning this and now I’m gonna have to tell my friends no and disappoint them and I can totally see.

Alyssa Campbell (27:53)

And what if they hang out without me?

JoAnn Crohn (27:56)

Yeah, if they hang out without me. don’t think they will in this group. But if they did. The exclusion piece is real. Something else that I see happen a lot is parents will say that their kids don’t want to go to school because one kid is bullying them.

Alyssa Campbell (28:14)

Yeah. Yeah. Let’s break down this framework.

JoAnn Crohn (28:16)

Yeah, I saw this as a teacher too, because parents would come in and be like, this kid is bullying. And I’m like, OK, there’s a nuance here. Let’s break that down.

Alyssa Campbell (28:25)

Yeah, so we have an entire chapter on bullying, but we do go into it here in this chapter a little bit where we bring in Signe Witsen’s framework on what’s the difference between like rude, mean, bullying, so that we can A, know it from our perspective as an adult of when do I actually need to step in? And also, what could I do to maybe help my kids start to learn these differences for themselves as well? We go,

in depth in this on another chapter, we also go into like, how can schools respond? What does the data show on practices for schools and all that jazz? So there’s a whole section that goes deep, but let’s just break down these three right now. Rude behavior is typically kind of unintentional. It’s thoughtless. And it could be like a kid goes and they cut in line from somebody else. Mean behavior is more deliberate and hurtful.

could be like name calling or excluding someone. So in the case of like the girls in the TikTok video, if they intentionally excluded this girl from making the TikTok dance together, that would be mean. If they just didn’t think about her, they were all together in a group and she wasn’t right there and they started, that would be rude. Like, she didn’t come into my purview. And then bullying is…

way more intense. It’s repeated. It’s an intentional act. It’s often physical and or verbal or social. The repeated part is really key that it’s happening over and over and over and over. It’s not this one off this thing happened. And it’s a term that at this point actually is thrown around so much that it is not being adequately addressed because we’re treating everything as bullying behavior. 

Brie Tucker (30:23)

That’s what I going to ask because I feel like so much, and this is me totally arm-charing it. Do not ask me for my data because I don’t have it. I don’t have the receipts.

Alyssa Campbell (30:30)

Drain you doing a fact check after?

Brie Tucker (30:32)

There might be. I feel like the schools, they’ve almost become deaf to the term of bullying because so many school districts have the zero tolerance of bullying.

JoAnn Crohn (30:43)

And it’s not bullying!

Brie Tucker (30:45)

But it puts them in a position. Then you get stuck between the parents being upset that the school isn’t doing anything. And sometimes I feel like it makes it so that the school is almost like parent, like they can’t do anything. And it really is hard when it’s your kid for someone to tell you, no, your child’s not being bullied.

JoAnn Crohn (31:07)

being a teacher in the classroom, you know, I would say that framework, Alyssa, that you just mentioned, I taught fifth graders, most of fifth graders behaviors that rude. They’re just don’t thinking about it. Correct. They have no idea. Yeah.

Alyssa Campbell (31:20)

Yes. When we are looking at bullying, there’s one thing that’s also really key and that it involves an imbalance of power. And so when we think about like, what does that look like? It might look like this person has social power over somebody else. It could look like physical power over them. It’s going to show up in a number of different ways. But when we’re looking at zero tolerance policies, I think it like sounds effective.

Brie Tucker (31:49)

It does, it sounds like it would just nip the problem in the bud.

Alyssa Campbell (31:54)

Instead, what it often does is it leads to unintended consequences like ostracizing both the child labeled as the bully and the victim of the bullying without actually addressing the underlying issue of what’s coming up for this person who’s doing the bullying and how do we support them with the skills that they need.

JoAnn Crohn (32:14)

Yeah. Because bullying is usually a power struggle. It’s correct. Bully feels like they’re powerless and this is how they maintain their power and their position in the school. And the victim is just that, it’s a victim. Where I think that these zero tolerance against bullying, it’s like punishments. You punish someone thinking that, if I make you feel bad, you won’t do it again. But in reality, that doesn’t work because no actual learning took place to address the actual issue behind the bullying behavior.

Alyssa Campbell (32:45)

It requires a shift in perspective. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it requires a shift away from this person is bad and just doing a bad thing and we need that behavior to stop to I wonder what’s causing that behavior.

JoAnn Crohn (32:58)

So probably for parents who are experiencing their kids not wanting to go to school because of another classmate, what are some action steps that those parents can take?

Alyssa Campbell (33:07)

Yeah. So first, just like really stepping back, giving your kid a space to express if they will express is huge. Being that container for them so that they can share if they’re willing to share. And for all kids, this will look different. My daughter is like, my gosh, talk to me. And like, let’s have this back and forth. And just a million times over, there’s not enough talking and touching that could ever happen. And my son is someone who really benefits from like a little talking and then space and maybe coming back to talk or journaling back and forth or even like having an opportunity to talk where he doesn’t have to look at my face like we’re driving in the car or we’re playing like a game together and he’s not trying to process my emotions on my face and he can just express what’s coming up for him. So that’s

JoAnn Crohn (33:54)

First, I get the most out of my son through texting. When he has really big things, he will text me even though I’m in the house with him. And that’s how we get the most information.

Alyssa Campbell (34:04)

It’s a safe way for him to express it and not have to look at your face and see how you feel about it and what’s coming up for you. And he can probably formulate his thoughts and not feel like he has to figure it all out auditory. First, understanding those nuances and that each kid’s going to be different, but giving them that space to express so that they can communicate what they’re actually experiencing. Some open-ended questions that I love. What really took place here?

and having them just share their perspective of like, what really took place here? Who was involved? How did it make you feel? I wonder how they were feeling. Good one. Yeah, them to like, think about the other human and what was coming up for them. I had this conversation recently with a nine year old, and he was fired up. And this other kid is such a loser and he’s so dumb and venting because he didn’t feel included.

Alyssa Campbell (35:03)

And has he like vented and expressed his side of things. We got to a place where chatting and I was like, man, I wonder what he was feeling. I am so curious what was going on for him. He was like, he was feeling like a dumb loser. And I was like, yeah, you’re so mad and that makes sense. He wasn’t kind to you. I know there have been so many times where I’ve done things that aren’t kind. And sometimes it’s cause I’m feeling nervous that people won’t like me.

I’m not going to be included or I’m feeling embarrassed and I don’t want them to look at me so I want them to pay attention to something else. I wonder what he was feeling.

JoAnn Crohn (35:42)

That’s a great question.

Alyssa Campbell (35:43)

he like sat with it and he was like, I think he was feeling left out. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense. And he wanted to be included and he thought of the only way he knew how to be included. And that meant making fun of you in that moment, which is not kind or fair in that moment. And I wonder how we could help him when he’s feeling left out. So he learned something else to do.

JoAnn Crohn (36:10)

That is an amazing conversation to have with kids. So many conversations that looking back at my childhood, like I wish our parents had been equipped to have these conversations because usually it went like, I was bullied in middle school and I didn’t tell anyone because I felt it would burden my parents in some way instead of looking to them to help me through it. Just like you were talking about Alyssa with like unloading through text or something. Seeing them process my pain was awful.

like more painful to me than the pain that I had to endure. So, and that’s the same with our kids too. So giving them these safe ways, giving them these questions where they can really think about, okay, what caused my behavior, but also like to think about what’s going on in the other person and develop those skills as well. You’ve given us so much great information for when kids are refusing to go to school, both like just to run it down for everybody listening.

That intentional prep and heart emotions, can co-exist. Don’t give up your prep just because the heart emotions exists. It’s useful, the prep is anyways. The advocating for your child’s sensory needs and to figure out how to do that. Also, Alyssa has a QR code you can scan in her book. So go get her book. So you could take that test to see like what those sensory needs may be. And then looking at that social issue and helping kids figure out how to handle those complex social situations. Alyssa, this is something that we do at the end of every podcast. What is something that you are excited about that’s coming up for you?

Alyssa Campbell (37:46)

We are this school year piloting a system of support for elementary, middle and high school programs to be able to use that we’re piloting with a few schools and hoping to launch in the greater landscape next year for the 2026-2027 school year. And I’m so stoked to have more of this support and information through our schools that would be able to help teachers, admin kids and help families all in one kind of bucket there. If folks are interested in learning more about that, head on over to Seed &Sow and there’s a spot to like join a wait list to get any updates on it. And if you’re interested in bringing this to your child’s school, you’ll be able to at seedandso.org, let us know and we’ll have you in a little queue so we can gather some information and see if it would be a good fit for your kid’s school. All about impact.

And if we can do more of this work in schools, if a teacher has these skills to be able to scaffold this, every single year they’re seeing new kids. Every single year they get to support more more kids with this. And so I’m super stoked about that right now.

JoAnn Crohn (39:00)

That sounds really cool.

Brie Tucker (39:01)

Yeah, and how great would that be for the teachers to be able to actually have some support besides a pat on the back of, we know you can do it.

JoAnn Crohn (39:10)

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! Here’s to Starbucks!

Brie Tucker (39:13)

Here’s your gift card. Now stop complaining.

Alyssa Campbell (39:17)

And for our special ed side, we work a lot with special educators and so much of what they’re navigating the special ed world is really behavior challenges that we don’t have enough systems of support for. And so they get kicked up to a tier three in a multi-tiered systems of support. And it is really burdening the system as a whole. We, as a fun fact, real quick in our pilot of this program last year, starting a two-year pilot, we just did the

very first quarter, Q1 to Q2, we just did sensory supports for all classrooms and some education for the teachers on how to really use this in practice. And we saw a 60 % reduction in behavior support calls from Q1 to Q2.

JoAnn Crohn (40:00)

That’s amazing. That is amazing. Well, Alyssa, you are doing such fantastic work and I’m so excited that we got to chat and I definitely want to keep in touch.

Brie Tucker (40:11)

Everybody needs to run out and grab your book because it’s gonna be so helpful. Big kids, bigger feelings.

JoAnn Crohn (40:17)

Yep, available today. And with that, remember the best mom is a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker (40:25)

Thanks for stopping by.

JoAnn Crohn (40:29)

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