Matt Connarton Unleashed 3-23-24 hour 1

My name is Henry. Let me play the man, the greatness man a black or across the d where all bags and we get my damn you. This not easy. It's like we's all You're going to say, show me the wuck you walk, thank you for me? You will see and say

doors kind of people may make you whats that you will and still be you.

Whats you to remembers of my name, hardness walking, tess, bromy you child being the hard, coolest, me hard the best. We don't back like a little sirs still bears serner, very sore personal. It's just anyski. That's the same. The worst kinds of people don't make it one of the more that you will have at the waterses you, because then the rock is gonna whisper in your ear, Mama Roads and with all the blood on your son's belt here and your tears on that belt, the rock is going to whisper in your ear.

He's gonna wipe your tears away, and he's gonna say, Michelle, what can I say except your welcome? You are listening to W M and H. Come here, God, don't get sorely maself you good morning, everybody here, We go again. It is that time, Ma Connorton unleashed and we are live from the studios of w m n H ninety five point three FM in glorious Manchester, New Hampshire, very very wintry this morning. It is, of course March twenty third, twenty twenty four, and I am not alone and we have someone here with some new theme music.

Jessa DJ Reckless is here. Good morning. I bet people are surprised to hear your new theme music. I know, I mean, and you're wearing a cowboy hat. Hey no, never, no, no, no, I'll go country Texas. Mic is going to be jealous. It's just too bad. It's just too bad. Yes, what's up with this weather? Well, it doesn't bother me because it's spring. I do this is crazy. Once we get to March first, it doesn't really bother me. That groundhogs the first thing going on the grill. Oh, I tell every every year, don't worry about the groundhog.

My sinuses will tell you whether or not it's spring. And it's spring, so you're struggling over there. Oh yeah, oh, it only gets worse, but yeah, so, and it has effected the show today. So we do have guests, but our first two guests in the first hour we have doctor Bethany Abilido, who is going to be calling in. And then in the second hour we have Andrew North of Andrew North and the Rangers, who is going to be skyping in. Because neither of them are it would not be advantageous to attempt to travel today.

Although we do have a band coming in in the third hour when the dead bolt breaks, who actually are driving up because not only are they coming to do the radio show today, but they've got a big show tonight in Nashua at Terminus, so they're going to be coming in to talk about that. We'll get to meet those guys. So they but they kind of have to drive up to New Hampshire. They have no choice because they've got the big show tonight. So and they they do say they will be on time for the third hour today, So but if they're late, that's fine too.

The important thing is that they get here safely. But yeah, when the dead bolt breaks, coming up from the great state of Connecticut. So lots going on. Uh do you want to I don't know, do you want to say anything? You want to update people on what's going on with you. Oh, do you want me to give my eulogy for six o three? Okay, sure, you'll just have to do it relatively quickly. Okay, all right, awesome, be prepared for me to cry, because yeah, don't cry, it's said. Alright, I'll try. Okay, listen, all right.

So as many as everybody knows, I put out on Facebook and all my socials along with six O three, six o three is closing their doors April first, and yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I'm excited because it's a new opportunity for me. As a lot of people have heard. It's bittersweet though, because that was my first DJ residency. That's where you know, I grew up for a little bit. You know, blood, sweat, tears went into that place. Yeah, whull lout of tears. Yeah, uh yeah. It sucks, but it's it's life, man.

Yeah. So it's not it's not a matter of a new like new ownership taking it over. They're just closing. No, it's they're just closing. Okay, wow, Yeah, it's the end of an era. It is. It's it's it's crazy because I went from the Brimmer so something else Venucciese to six o three and I've been there for four years. Yeah, wow, it would have been four years. No, that's uh, that's amazing. Well yeah, sorry too, Sorry to see it go. It's life, but uh, and I it's probably too soon to know what's uh, if there's anything new going on, I mean, obviously something new.

They're gonna close down for a month. I believe it's going to a piano bar. I am hands off. I don't know. Oh, okay, I don't know. I don't really yeah, yeah, no either, okay, all right. A whole lot of memories in that place though, yeah, no doubt. Yeah. Yeah. Uh. The first time Jenny and I and saw you dj Is back when you first moved in with us was at the six three. Yep. That was May twenty first, two twenty one. Wow, yep. Well now it's March something twenty twenty four. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, time goes quick, It definitely goes fast.

All right, Well we do have Oh I should mention too, by the way, we are on Facebook this morning, that's been We've had good luck with that recently. So you can not only can you, of course listen to the show at ninety five point three FM if your local in Manchester. You can stream it on Facebook and participate in the Facebook Live chat, or for all of your live streaming options, you can go to my website Matt connorton dot com slash live. You can stream the show right from there, and there's a If you don't like to post in the Facebook chat, you can always use the chat options at Matt connorton dot com slash live.

Jfed is in the chat room. Hello, checking in of course from the great state of Vermont. Jenny joins us in the chat. She's she's not with us this morning, but she'll be back soon. Uh but uh, she says, this is awesome, which which is that Jenny the Christian was getting quite a kick out of the uh the Jerry and the scumbags. So some of the Earth. Have you not heard that one before? No? Oh? Okay, quite the uh yes, quite the track. And Carol's the Warwitich also joins us, and I did play a little bit of the rock from last Friday on SmackDown.

He's so deliciously evil. Can you meet my mic so I can fix this microphone? Oh? Absolutely, yes, yes, so yeah, so we have a doctor Bethany Billdo, who's gonna be calling in in just a couple of minutes, Uh, looking forward to her. Andrew North in the second hour will be skyping in. He's got not only Andrew North and the Rangers, but he's got another project, kind of a side project called Jade Trio, and they've got a lot going on. So excuse me, woo and uh, we're gonna have We're gonna be featuring uh some music from both projects.

But he has been on the show before as promoting Andrew Andrew North end the Rangers. And then like I said, when the dead bolt breaks, uh, you know, hopefully they get here safely. They will be here with us during our number three new Marrow trace and uh oh DJ Reckless is switching seats. All right, let me bring that mic up there there you go back, yes, yes, oh, no worries No. I understand the challenges of that particular Uh it droops. Yeah. Because I sit there on Friday nights for Retrospectrum Radio with poly C, I was like, this MIC's falling over.

By the way, I am disappointed in the weather because I thought I was under the impression that we were just gonna get a little bit of snow and then a lot of rain, and we might yet get some rain. But who woke up this morning to a lot more snow than I was expecting. So I hope everybody stays safe out there. Why it was beautiful? What do you mean like there wasn't a lot of snow? Yeah, yeah, but it was beautiful. Terrible driving, but beautiful. We've had yeah, we've had a pretty Uh, we had a pretty easy winter.

It's you know, I grew up here in the winters hereies just have gotten so much easier over the years. And I was global warming commenting. Uh, I was commenting one day that it seems like California now has harder winters than we do. I mean, granted, uh, you know, they'll only have in California, they'll only have one big storm a year, but it's a giant storm that they're not prepared for. And it seems like it's happened a couple of years in a row. Oh, Jenny says, the opening was awesome. Uh, and then bonus, I love scum of the earth.

Uh, he says my name, you know, yes, of course, yes, very good. Yeah, Jerry and the scumbags. There's a YouTube channel that has the full album, but it's become kind of an unofficial tradition here on the show on Saturday mornings, we like to open with one of those songs. So that's a lot of fun. Uh. Now, is there anything else going on with you? They're a reckless that you can talk about? Or should you not? Uh? I mean I don't think we should. Okay, I don't think we should, but yeah, okay, but you do have some positive news?

Oh yeah, yes, yes, yeah. Follow Where can people find you online so they can keep up with what you're doing. Go on my Instagram at dj r e k lss DJ Reckless and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's a pretty big announcement. I don't really want to cover it on air, yeah, for reasons, but yeah, it's pretty huge. I'm really excited for what's to come. Yeah, very good new project and endeavor. Axel Bigley is in the chat room of course, from the band he's in Debt. Harrison got to see them recently long time Yeah, yeah, and of course he's in Dank Sinatra as well, so he's been on the show a bunch of times.

But he posted a link to the event tonight in our Facebook live chat. It's he says, come to come to terminus. It's dead Harrison plus Dank Sinatra plus when the dead bolt breaks. So that will be tonight in NASHAUA Isaac Banks joins us in the chat room, North Carolina, checking in Greensboro to be civic. Good morning, Matt Connorton. This is Isaac Banks, a k A Iikeman Breezy. You ever when you're djaying? Do you ever work any Iikman Breezy in your set? You got some some remixes or something billboards?

Right, yes, Ikeman Breezy. I don't know if you know this, but they sing and dance. They they they are a pop singing group from Greensboro. I can I can dance too after a few drinks, can you? Yeah? I can't dance ever, It's not not anything A little bit of a two step, not anything anyone wants to see. Yeah, you haven't even been to bed, have you? Why did you help me like that? Why'd you get help me like well? You're remarkably spry for someone who hasn't slept. Oh give me about three hours. Good night, good night America.

I understand, and let's see we have our Our first guest has joined us via phone, Doctor Bethany Billido. How are you? I'm great? How are you doing that? Good? Good? I think you h. I will start by complimenting you on your decision not to travel today because I don't know, I don't know where you are exactly, but the roads here are are really quite quite bad. Well, it's looking fun. I think I've got some hours of shoveling ahead later today. Where are you Are you in Massachusetts or are you up here in New Hampshire?

Oh, Guilford, Okay, yeah, I used to work in Guilford many years ago when there was a I don't know if you, I don't know how long you've been there. If you remember Strawberries that was in the little plaza there where the Haniford is. But I used to work there, and I remember in the winter I was living and conquered and commuting to Guildford to go to work, and I would be coming down one oh six, and sometimes on a wintry morning like we're having right now, i'd be coming down root one oh six. You probably know the spot I'm talking about where you you know it ends, But there's that part where there's no guard rail, even though there really probably should be a guardrail, you know, the part I'm talking about out where it's like like they go like you're coming down this giant hill and the guardrail ends, and it's like I remember just kind of glancing over, you know, like on a morning light today when I'm on my way into work and it's slippery out and thinking, I really kind of wish there was a guardrail there.

Yeah, I'm gonna just keep going. That would be sad. Yeah, So welcome to the program. We have DJ Reckless here with us as well, and I'm very interested to talk to you. I don't know if you know anything about my background, but I'm a certified hypnotherapist, so I see clients for various issues and and you know, a lot of it's a lot of what I get is people who want to quit smoking, that's the number one thing. But also I see clients for, you know, they have some other type of behavior modification that they want to accomplish, and so anything in that realm is very interesting to me.

And of course I was reading up on what you do, and I'll kind of give you the floor. I'd like to hear you explain what it is. The specialty that you're kind of working in is very interesting to me. Yeah, and I love the area of hypnotherapy. There is so much that can be done with that as far as like aiding in sleep and helping areas of the brain, and it's such a progressive field. I wish that it was utilized more and more readily acceptable in systems practice and things like that, because there's just so much that can be done with that field.

But I actually provide behavioral supports to students in school districts, primarily students who are demonstrating disruptive behaviors. So when I say disruptive behaviors, I'm really talking about students that are either completely have withdrawn and isolated or in refusal or are physically aggressive often so those students are typically the students that we serve, but we serve the staff as well. So we provide about one hundred professional development trainings a year to school districts, and our model is very very different.

We really are looking at how we can provide safety to students and once they feel safe, and then safety to staff. So once those people feel safe, and we do that through body stance, we do it through how we interact with the students. We do it through tone of voice, we do it through a number of different modalities. But once the student and the staff feel safe, then we can start teaching regulation skills. And once we've taught some regulation skills, then we can start either reintegrating into the classroom or we have safer behaviors in the home.

We work both in the home and in school districts, and at that point then we can really say, Okay, now we can do some of the harder work. We can look at somatic practices, or we can look at meditation, or we can look at all of those social emotional learning, all those other pieces that we need to bring in in order to help. We look at nutrition, we look at sleep, we look at all potential exposures a student might have as far as like toxicity and things like that. So it's a very very different field of study, but our results are astounding.

We typically run really large programs in school districts, alternative education programs, where we have one to two of our staff working in those programs, and then the school district might have a number of staff working in those programs, and we're training those staff to at some point take the program over. We don't typically stay in a school district more than one to two years, mainly because there are not students that are displaying disruptive behaviors. And those disruptive behaviors come from a variety of things.

Trauma experiences in the past, significant medical issues, could be significant exposures that they've might have had COVID, you know, things that are happening in their home environments, the experiences they've had with schools, so trauma, significant trauma histories that can be for a variety of reasons.

We have about an eighty two percent success rate. Students are off of our caseload, usually not displaying those disruptive behaviors within three months and we fade away into the background and the school has their school back, the family has their family back, and you know, we then you know, move on and work with other people. But yeah, it's always evolving. You always changing, and we're we refine our approach and adding new techniques all the time that just speed up the process and everything.

So it's great. I absolutely love what I do. I would work every day, and most of people that know me will probably say I do work every day I can relate. Yeah, yeah, I'm very curious to learn more. And I was reading about you online and your backstory. I'm curious to hear you talk about how you got into working in this particular realm, because I have to tell you, it sounds to me just incredibly challenging of all the sort of modalities to be working and to be working with disruptive children, sounds like probably just about the most challenging thing you could possibly be doing in your field.

I mean, how did this come about? How did you find yourself doing this? I think the primary reason my story really revolves around one of my children. I have four children, and one of them really struggled as a small child. He was extremely hyperactive. He was born premature, and he was asked to leave three different daycares by the time he was eighteen months old because of his aggressive behavior. He was fighting kids, you know, he was hitting kids and that sort of thing, which most of the time the daycares were tolerant of it, and they were saying, Oh, it's too bad, And I was like, oh, gosh, you know, am I that parent?

I am I'm that parent. I'm that parent that has that kid that's doing these things, and I felt awful about it, and he, you know, got assessed and found out he had some sensory issues as well as some learning challenges. And I went into a school that was an alternative school, and I was like, this is it. It was a school that was set up to meet his sensory needs and he thrived there, and I was like, these are my people. Like I had been a teacher prior to that. I taught earth science as well as regular ninth grade science for a period of time, which is the whole nother story, and I said, I've got to start working more in the behavioral fields.

I had been dabbling in it because of some of the work I had done, but I was like, I need to learn more about this. And so pretty much everything I started to learn about was to how I could help him be more successful. And through that, I was a foster parent for a period of time and such and really being able to help meet the needs of those, you know, children that were living in my home. And it progressively started to morph into people were asking me to do assessments in school districts, and then I was starting to work in people's homes and then you know, bigger agencies were asking me to do trainings for them and that sort of thing, and it's pretty much stemmed from there.

And you know, my goal is really to make it less painful. Like some of these kids, like they get up in the morning and the last thing they want to do is go to school. Right. They just feel like this is not the place for me, and that is such a painful place to be for both the family as well as for that that kid. They just they don't want to they don't want to get up and go. It's it's miserable for them. And my goal is really to make it less painful for the family, for the student, and for the schools to you know, this doesn't have to be this hard.

Can there's a lot of technique, simple, simple things we can do to make this easier. Can you give us some examples of by the way, for people just joining us, we're talking to doctor Bethany Bildeout or apparently you go buy doctor b for short. Yeah. Yeah, lots of people call me doctor b very good and uh oh and also before I ask my question, Elizabeth England is in the Facebook live chat and says good morning Matt. Here from the Behavior boot camp. Very good, welcome. What can you give us some examples of the techniques that you use, because I would imagine even for parents hearing this who maybe maybe aren't in a in a situation quite as severe as the ones that you're used to dealing with.

I would imagine anyone with with kids could could get some value out of learning from you, whether they are dealing with a pretty dire situation like some of the ones that you're working with, or even just someone who maybe has, you know, maybe their kid is a little bit out of control on a small scale and and could just use some advice. Can you can you give us some examples of uh advice and so? And I would say, I mean, what a parent hasn't had a kid where they felt like they're a little bit out of control or they've felt like themselves has been a little bit out of control.

So the top technique that I usually give to families to use as well as the schools to use, is the use of water. And I know that kind of sounds like an odd thing, like why would you use water? But water is a natural regulator for all humans, So utilization of water is so important and it can be something as simple as putting on the sounds of rain, running the water faucet, not that we want to waste water, but running the water faucet, you know, having them make ice cubes, filling up the dog water bowl, watering plants at schools.

Oftentimes I'll have them fill water bottles, things like that. Anytime you see running water, it's a regulator. So many of us who are parents who probably remember that time period with kids where you're like, it's time to take a shower and they're like, no, I don't want to take a shower. I hate to take a shower. Or my favorite is when they go into the bathroom and they turn on the shower but they're not really in the shower, and then they come back out like twenty minutes and be like I took a shower and you're like, yeah, but your hair is not wet.

They touch onto that and they start wetting the front of their hair and that sort of thing. But then when they get in the shower then you can't get them out. You're like, Okay, come on, the next kid's got to get in. Let's go. You've been in there thirty minutes. And they're like, I'm good. I'm good. And the reason why they're good is because that water, the movement of that water and everything regulates their body and they don't want to get out at that time. Like if you think about like when you get out of a shower or bath and you just feel like and many people say, I do my best thinking when I'm in the shower.

That's for all my ideas well, it's because it's a natural regulator for everyone. So just using water, fight sound, or using water itself is so helpful and can regulate. If I'll tell parents, if you're at home and you see that, you know, the kids starting their rile up, like they're starting to get agitated, they're starting to do something or trying to pick a fight, just turn on the water and start doing the dishes or start doing something like that, or if they're not escalated, must say we'll talk about this after.

Can go take a shower right now and then we can talk about it afterwards. I don't want to have this discussion right now or something, And sometimes that can delay it enough so if the kid comes out and feels more relaxed and can have a conversation where they can actually tap into that part of the brain where they can their verbal skills work, because the verbal skills probably don't work really well when they're a little bit agitated in the same you know, and it's true for all humans. There's no age limit on this one.

That's interesting. Yeah, I never would have thought of that using water in that way. That's that's very interesting. Yeah, what about something more? Can you give us an example of a technique you would use or a process you would go through for someone. I mean, obviously the example that you just gave, Like I said, you know, can you give us something general that anyone could probably use with their kids, But can you give us any examples of techniques that you have to use where you're dealing with a situation that is really severe, where maybe you have a child who is you know, acting out violently in school or whatever, really really serious yeah problem.

And oftentimes it happens because I'll walk into a school, I haven't even taken off my coat or my backpack, and they'll look at me and say, doctor b you know this hallway blah blah blah blah, and I go down. Often I haven't even met that student before. I'll walk into the hall and there's a kid, you know, physically aggressive towards the staff number or whatever it may be, and I will walk up on the situation. And the biggest thing that I utilize as body stamps. Students know by watching me because my feet are about shoulder with apart.

My thumbs are pointed up, which can base confidence. My hands are in front of my body, so they know where my hands are, which makes them feel safe. I don't have a lot of excessive movements. My chin is slightly lifted. I get to their level and I say to them, are you okay? I'm here to keep you safe, And oftentimes I'll have the staff step back and I minimize the space. So if we're at a hallway, I might move to a corner and they will typically follow me because I am a sign of safety at that point.

So once we're there, oftentimes I'll take off my scarf or I'll take off my backpack and I'll say, hey, can do you want to use this? Can I put this on you? It basically provides compression if they're carrying my backpack, or the scarf provides comfort, and so they'll put it over themselves for a few minutes, and I minimize the space because it's the bigger the space is, the bigger the escalation can be. So if you've ever been in an airport and people are oftentimes on edge in an airport and somebody gets upset about their flight or something like that, they will feel much more likely to be able to yell when they're out in the middle of the airport than if they have to walk into an office space and meet with somebody.

And the reason why is because their body and their volume and everything has to fill the space. So the worst place to be if you've got a student or a person who's escalating is in like a large open space. And I'm not talking about outside. I'm talking about like in a gymnasium or in a cafeteria or a place like that. So the smaller the space is safer, they're going to feel so. And that's just true of human beings in general. You think about how we sleep. Most people say I got to be under a blanket.

I'd love to have a blanket over me, or I love to have the sheet over me. Why because we feel safe. It's that caving feeling allows us to feel safe and let some of our guard down so that we can actually rest and be more productive at that time. It's the same reason why people say, oh, I'm you know, I might need to go use the bathroom, and they're not necessarily always using the bathroom, but they step into that smaller space for a few minutes, or they move into those smaller areas, or they like to wear hats, or they like to wear hoods, like students always want to wear hats and hoods, and this is a constant challenge I have with some school district.

I understand the reasons why they don't want them to wear it, because of some of the things that students put underneath hats and all of that, but it really helps for the student to feel safe, and that taps into that major nerve we have in the body, the vagus nerve, and a lot of boring scientific stuff that goes along with that. The stimulation of that nerve makes someone feel safe, and so having them feel safe in that way, and students just sense it from me because of my approach, and they sense it from our staff and typically the escalation reduces instantly.

So we have lots of videos online that show how to use that body stance and where to put your arms and everything else. To emulate that so that you can show that safety. But it's safety language too. I'm not repeating expectations or telling the child what they did wrong or that. Oftentimes it's teenagers too, telling the team what they did wrong and saying I'm sure to keep you safe. That's it. But shrinking of space is huge too. Yeah, reckless. I thought I heard you, uh sort of chuck chuckling knowingly because you had a job where you were working with young people and I was sorry, let me let me turn hold on, let me get closer, Okay, I'll do it.

Yeah, sorry, I'm like summed over over here. Yeah. No, when I worked at job Cory, it was the same situation. Yeah, you had to go through your sort of trainings like this to understand where these kids came from. And I went to that school. I was a troubled teenager growing up, So I get exactly where she's coming from because when I when I was in placement, they did similar trainings and there were certain ways they had to deal with it. Oh. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Does some of what doctor B's talking about, does it sound familiar in terms of the training that you went through, any any of this or these.

I mean I wasn't really hands on with the kids because of what I was doing with security, Like, I'm surely dorm staff right and right staff to deal with it. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. We also have a question Doctor B in the chat room, Kate Lucas is asking, how do you help a child who is a runner to regulate and stay in their space? And runner is in quotes, and I assume Kate means, uh, yeah, I mean, is that literal like a kid who just tries to kind of take off while you're trying to deal with them.

My guess is that's exactly what she means. She probably is meaning that the student is trying to elope from either the classroom or the building itself, or even from the homes. That can be an issue, and the biggest thing is to have, you know, have some sort of safety component within the spaces that they're accessing. So oftentimes in classrooms, I'll help teachers build a safety space is what we call it our cap and will build these like little feeding structures at somewhere in the room. Oftentimes they're low.

When the student is in them, they can feel the sides of the walls, and that sort of thing, so that there's a safe place for them to go when they're there. As far as when students are actively engaged in you know, elopement or running, I never chase. You know, that's the last thing you want them to do, because that's going to heighten their their systems that much more. I will oftentimes have code words that I use in buildings or okay, staff come out and you're near these doors, so that the students say safe.

And again we shrink the space. So the more you can shrink that space, the less likely the student's going to be do welope it. And we're shrinking it with our body and moving them into that space. I'm not touching the student. I don't need to do that. And even though I work with students who are tightened and oftentimes very physically aggressive, I don't need to put hands on because they were able to de escalate their behaviors so quickly that there isn't a need for that. So we don't have to put our hands on in that sort of way with kids, and it's because of our training, but we make that space smaller, and we also provide a lot of heavy work for that student.

If that student is just a student that needs to our youth, that needs to run in exercise. I've had students that I've gone to their house and been like, we're going to run stairs for twenty minutes before you go to school, and they have flights of stairs in their home and I run stairs with them for twenty minutes before they head to school. Or if they have one of the large outdoor trampolines, you know, okay, we're going to jump on the trampoline for fifteen minutes before you head to school today, and that sort of thing, because they need that deep proprio acceptive activity in order for their system to release endorphins, dopamine their tone and all that fun stuff, all those fun hormones that make them want to be productive and able to learn and access that front part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, because otherwise they're like they're operating in the lower parts of the brain and they're just like wow, and they can't put anything into long term learning.

So I'm always like, that's not the time to teach. You know, when the kid is frightened, I know that it's like, well, we're a lot to teach some something. They can't learn. Yeah, what's kind of the age rage age range of age range? I can't. I'm still getting used to doing the show in the morning.

You got this going better than me. The age range of kids that you work with, doctor B it's typically about three to twenty two, Okay, So, and I know that's a huge range. I'll be honest. When I first started my company back twenty years ago, I worked mainly with high schoolers. They were primarily some middle schoolers middle schools. Really I love middle school but I worked primarily with high schoolers, and that was really where the refusal was coming from and some of those behaviors and such. Nowadays, I'm in kindergartens in first grade daily, so and a lot of that comes from everything that's happened with COVID and everything else, and the inability to regulate and the fact that kids are younger right now than you know their emotional level should be because of that time that we lost during that period, so and people feel out of control.

So I work with them younger and younger now than I have, and the strategies are very different. What I'm going to do for a four year old is very different than what I'm doing for a fourteen year old. You know, there's just more layers of social emotional development that are very different at each age level obviously, and staff work at all levels. So I have staff that works at elementary and at middle and at high school, and that you know, they're trained to work with those age groups and they're doing age appropriate activities with those people.

Okay, we have a question in the chat room. Sarah patno is asking, good morning. I have a who is always bumping into the walls walking down the hall. What could I do? That's a student who, thank you so much, Sarah. That is a student who absolutely needs more proprioceptive feedback, so they they need to lift, push, pull different things. So you have that student in the classroom that always taps their pencil. You know, I was that student that always taps their pencil or blurts things out. And it's the same kid who walks down the hall and pulls things off the walls and everything.

Again, I was that student. That student needs a lot more approprio acceptive students. That's a classic kid who it's like, okay, how many times a day can we have them go upstairs to the guidance department or whatever it might be, to bring items up there and bring items back down because they need that deep muscle engagement in order to do better. If it's not you know, there isn't a natural time when that happens, and they can't leave the classroom easy around that is, I'll have that I'll have many of the students in the classroom standing.

Most students don't function real well in a seated position, right, Their brains just kind of shut down when they're seated. So I'll have them stand in the classroom and sometimes I'll have them periodically lay over their desk or their chair, And when they do that, actually we have a lot of serotonin in our guts, and that pushes the serotonin out into the bloodstream, so that helps them feel a little happier and be a little bit more productive. It also helps deprime social engagement, so they want to socially connect and that sort of thing more.

But if they're standing, that makes it less likely that they're going to have a lot of those behaviors when they're leaving them wrong. Balance activities work great for that too. If it's not a high schooler, oftentimes they will be willing to do a balance activity, like you can say, like, can you balance on one foot while you write this down or something like that. High schoolers are not going to be willing to do that. Sometimes I'll just say, hey, can you stand up? And everybody puts your bag underneath your chair?

So they'll stand up and put their bags underneath their chair, and the whole class do it, and then I'll say a little while later, okay, everybody, can you get your bags out? And the reason why I do that is because they have to lean over and put pressure on their stomach in order to get their bagsack out from under their chair. Oh interesting, and I'll tell them that, Oh it's so nobody trips. You know, your bags are a fire hazard and if you put them on the back of your chairs, it's going to flip your chair.

So you know, I just come up with reasons that work and are appropriate for the room and everything for that person. And that's a technique that works really easily. I have a lot of teachers that use that technique, especially with high schoolers, because it helps to kind of wake up their nervous system too, because, as we know, most high schools start pretty early and kids come in and they're pretty much asleep the first two hours of the day, and then they wake up and they're on say yat about eleven o'clock, right right, yep, I remember those days.

That's exactly what happens. Yeah, So then they have to rain them back in to be able to actually learn and be in the part of the brain where you know, we can do that higher intellectual work everything. Emily Picard in the chat room says, how can school staff best support students that are escalated with limited verbal skills? Oh that's a great question. Oh yeah, that's a great question, Emily. Fantastic question. So there is. We're super lucky because we're experts and body language, so understanding what their body language is telling you.

We're also the majority of our staff have gone through micro expression training, so they're able and also face reading training, so we're able to actually tell from their facial expressions where they're at, what's going on, what emotion they're connected to at that time. And that's part of the reason why we make success so fast, because we can tell where the student is and then meet them where they're at. I mean, there's so many ways in visual supports that you can use to support students, and most of the time, even though they might have limited language, they understand us way better than we understand that.

So we have to really work that much harder to make sure that we're understanding them too to really be able to provide services in an ethical way. So under having some background in that knowledge is really important. Utilizing verbal supports and environmental cues as often as you possibly can, so utilizing if there's a a sound system in the building every time classes are changing, using that as queuing techniques instead of constantly queuing that student, verbally queueing that student usually visuals to help that person.

As far as like schedules and the sorts of things can be really helpful, and those are really basic techniques. The things that we really rely on are being able to understand their body language and read their expressions when they're occurring accurately so that the student doesn't have to spend a huge amount of energy trying to relay that information back, and being willing to use other forms of communication with them, whether it's I have a student who emails me many times throughout the day who is nonverbal, and it's to tell me things like this is what I like about this class today.

This is the problem I've had with this class. This is something that I need to work on, so on and so forth, because that form of communication is really comfortable for them, So utilizing chat, GPT and things like that to make it much more efficient to the student, but teaching them socially appropriate ways of communicating with peers too, so that they can have those peer connections. Many times staff are in schools and stuff, are parents or whomever. They'll say, well, my child isn't really motivated to connect.

Probably not motivation, it's probably lack of self esteem and lack of self potentially lack of self worth is the reason they're not connecting. So once that self is the increases, they absolutely want to connect. So we want to be building those relationships constantly. I mean, that's a huge That is the biggest area as far as happiness and feeling successful in later life is connection. Absolutely absolutely. Yeah. A lot of what you're talking about too, not only are these obviously techniques for dealing with these kids, but also there's a lot in what you're saying that you can take just sort of of as really good life advice.

Right. For example, what you were just talking about connection. You know, just anybody at any age really, if you don't feel confident in yourself, if you don't have a sense of self worth and self esteem, then like you were saying that, you're not going to be motivated to connect with other people because or I shouldn't say, let me correct that, or you you might be motivated to, but you don't feel like you can. You know, it's absolutely yeah, and you can see that, and that can come from so many different things and everything.

I mean, my husband always says to me, I feel like I can't anything from you. Bethany ever, you always know what's going on when you look at me, right right, Melanie law Liberty. In the chat, one of our friends from the Great State of Vermont was asking if you were talking about kids in special education, but it doesn't sound like I mean, do you work with special ed kids as well? Or I do? I yeah, from ye all areas. So oftentimes what will happen in school districts will say we don't know what's going on.

Can you come in and take a look at this student? So on and so forth, or a parent will call me. I spend about probably ten to twelve hours a week in phone calls to parents where I'm trying to coach them on the phone. That's part of the reason why we put so much out on social media at this point and everything to kind of help that the process as they move along. But they'll you know, they'll say, my kids doing this. They don't have a you know, an education plan, they're not involved with special eds, so on and so forth, and so oftentimes we're giving them those techniques and those sorts of things.

School districts will often try to, you know, use a special ed process to secure funding. That's oftentimes how they'll access our services sometimes or through grants and that sort of thing. But it's not necessarily needed. I work with many students who were temporary, you know, the students going through a rough time right then, and for whatever reason it may be, they they're demonstrating those behaviors, and after they work with us for a few months, it's, you know, it's no longer needed. They don't need to access special ED services and they don't need to access our support.

Okay, So it's a variety of things. We definitely work with students who are engaged with special ED, but we work with a lot of students who are not and who probably won't need to be. It's just a matter of their going through a time that's challenging and we can help make that less painful. Logistically, are you working with one school at a time or do you work with multiple schools, because like you said, it's you know, it's not like it's a permanent thing, and at some point you're you're handing it off to the school to continue what they've learned from you.

And in terms of applying applying these methods, do you work with multiple schools at once or how does that work? It's a great question. We worked with about eleven schools a year. That's through the staff. So the staff move, you know, basically come into a school district and they work in that district for usually an entire year, sometimes two years. The two year model works really what probably works the best, and then they transition out at that time period. I work all over the US, so I go to wherever it's needed.

I'm a sucker for a bad story, and you know it's been struggling and they have not been able to find success. I look at that, it's a personal challenge for me and I'm like, there's got to be a way. There's there's you know, I do not want to see this family and pain any longer, or this district in pain, and I find a way to make it work. So I tend to work with I work with a lot more districts. I probably with a minimum of fifty districts a year. Okay, wow, that's remarkable. Melanie was also asking, and I'm not sure what this means, but I assume that you will.

Melanie's asking is is she referring to ABA type of supports? I'm not. We were ABA, an ABA organization that's applied behavioral analysis. Okay, we were an ABA company back twenty years ago. That was the primary platform we were using. Excuse me one a second, and we utilize that system. There are a lot of progressive approaches out there at this point, and we can make success much faster utilizing other systems. And we also believe that motivation to do the right thing and the ability to do the right thing are things that the person has to feel safe, the person has to feel regulated, and we need the skills to be able to do that and really be able to understand this choice versus that choice, And so those things are intrinsic and we want the person to make the right choices because they have the ability to choose, and not because they're reacting to a situation.

So we don't use ABA anymore. For the most part, all of our staff are trained and RBTs and that's the ABA system, and that's primarily because the school districts know what those are. But our approach is a little different. I typically come in when BCBA, a Board Certified Behavior analyst who is you know, an expert in ABA, has tried and tried and they're not making progress with the student and they can't figure out why. So like we can't really put our finger on it, We don't really know what else to do.

They need to do that, or the school district's telling me and to come in and do professional development so that all the staff has a lot of these skills because we train on probably fourteen or fifteen different modality that we have created that are part of our process and we realize helps make it work, so we come in and do those trainings too, and oftentimes the districts then don't need us because they start employing some of those strategies and they're like, wow, this is great. All, you know, our students that were behavior problems are no longer behavior problems or their minor problems at this point.

By the way, Melanie said, love that answer. Thank you very nice. Thank you and Melanie for asking it. Great questions. Well, see the time goes so quick, but we'll sneak in one more question from the chat room. Isaac Banks from UH North Carolina is asking about encouraging kids to get into music. That is I could go on and on and on all day, Isaac, love it. Yes there. Music is one of those things that stimulates all areas of the brain, and we use some systems. We use some systems by Stephen Porges the Safe and Sound Protocol and we use those and what that actually does is it calm down this stressed nervous system and helps to prime for social engagement.

So we utilize that system with students. We also utilize by neural beats, which is beats that help to tap into certain brain ways and help to get students e they're more focused or get them on the right sort of you know path as far as being able to access things so that they can access certain neural pathways and everything. And Matt, you probably know a ton about neural feedback and everything, so it kind of caps into some of those brain waves you're looking at when you're looking at neural feedback and everything else.

Music is it's such an underutilized modality. It just there's so much that can be done with light, with sound and with those sorts of therapies that it's I think we're just seeing the tip of it right now. In the next ten years is going to be such an exciting time because we're going to really see like what how much people can tap into their potential just by utilizing some of these other resources. So I could go on all day about it. Honestly, Well, we will have you back in the future to do just that because I would love to explore that further.

Absolutely. Yeah, Light and sound, it's like there's so many neat things that are going on right now, and it's just like I were within a school this week working on an assessment and I brought in some of my like light blocking glasses that filter some of the light. And they're not like people think, oh, blue light glasses or whatever. In a basic form, that's what it's like, but these lights actually filter out some of the harsh fluorescents that make the brain unhappy and everything. So and you can just tell like the student had them on for literally it was like six or seven minutes and all of a sudden, and I've never seen the student relax I've observed in a few times, and all of a sudden, his shoulders relaxed.

He starts to talk to me, like, I think that this would help. If I did this in school, I could do this. If I did this in school, I could do that. Maybe we could do this. And I was like, yeah, don't you have this activity right now? Yes, let's go, and went down the hall to that activity. It was you know, it was magical. Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. Before we run out of time too, doctor B do you want to tell us just briefly about the behavior boot camp. I want to make sure we get that in sure. So a number of years ago, it had been my dream to create a platform for parents and for teachers who weren't able to access our services, either through cost or because we tend to be oversubscribed and we have a wait list for services in school districts and such.

So we created this platform that people could access in order to get additional training and that sort of thing, and you can reach it through the behavior boot camp dot com. But we also we offer free webinars every Thursday. We have tons of stuff out on social media. I just feel like it's our responsibility to make sure that we're giving people these strategies because they're not super complex, and if we can make it less painful for one student, one family, one teacher, then it's worth it. Yeah.

Yeah, very cool, very cool. And people can learn more about that at the behavior boot camp dot com. And what else should people know, Doctor B about where to find you if they want to connect with you, maybe for advice or just follow all the great work that you're doing or where's Yeah, so we're on most of the social media platforms and most of it is under the behavior boot Camp dot com. I'm on some social media's too, under doctor B or doctor Bethany abilduh and we're we'd love to connect, We'd love to hear stories.

I'm always happy to chat with people or to get emails that say I'm struggling with this and I'm like, you know, and if I can provide a resource or even redirect them or give them a strategy, I'm happy to do it. So we want to make sure that people have these techniques because they can really make the difference between you know, the student wanting to participate in school or wanting to leave the house versus not. So it's to us. We are on a mission for people to feel safe, both psychologically as well as physically and mentally, and we really want to make sure that you know the use of these strategies.

It just helps tremendously and they're really simple. Yeah. Oh and by the way, Elizabeth England did post the link to the Behavior boot Camp in the chat room as well, and Sarah pat No says thanks and yeah, doctor b this has been wonderful. We will have to have you back and it'll be great, you know when the weather's obviously the weather will This is a brief moment in time, this early spring storm. But I'd love to I'd love to meet you in person and and have more have a longer discussion, especially about the music part that we bear I had time to scratch the surface on.

I'd really love to talk to you more about that. There's so many things out there with that right now between you know, that are coming down the pike, which we're super excited about. I mean, we've used safe and sound protocol within many of our students in many of our districts for a few years now, but there's so many other things that they're they're discovering. It's just it's just scratches at there's good. It's going to be so many more techniques that we can use to optimize our potential. It's unreal.

And by the way, I think I apologize. I think I mispronounced your last name. Is it Billy Doo? Yeah? Okay, I was saying Billadoh. I apologize. I know a lot of Billado's who spell it the same way, but it's doctor Bethany Billidhu. All right, very good. I want to make sure you know it was a marriage last name, so i'm that you know most people use doctor b. I didn't even notice the pronunciation of it. Well, very good, Very good. I feel better then, But uh, all right, doctor b. But we will be in touch.

We will. We will do this again for for a more in depth discussion. But I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. I love it. It was great. So it's good talking with you. Matt and you guys have a great day, all right, thank you you too, Bye bye, bye bye. All right, that was fun. Yeah, doctor I enjoyed that, Doctor Bethany Billado. Yes, yeah, yeah, she was great. That was fascinating. So yeah, we'll definitely have her back and and we'll have a we'll have a longer discussion and hopefully get to meet her in person because she's writing Guildford.

But yeah, the the driving today is treacherous. The weather outside is uh, how does the song go? The weather outside is frightful? This is no, it's not Christmas. No, I don't even like Christmas music. All right, So we're going to take a break. We're gonna show some love to our amazing sponsors, and we're gonna play a song. I've got a song cute up from our our number two guest, Andrew North and the Rangers. And uh, they also have another project that are a couple of the guys, A few of the guys will they've got another project we'll learn about to the Jade Trio.

Oh wait, I just answered my own question. It's three of the guys because it's a trio. I just hadn't over. I'm still listen. I don't know how long I can get away with using this excuse, but I'm still getting used to doing this in the morning. Yes, you got one down too to go? What do you mean one hour down? Two to go? All right, we're doing fine. Okay, yes, we got this. We do you more than me, right, but we got this. I've only had to go for a one one walk to the bathroom and I dropped my hat in the sink, so that's fine.

No, did you really could have been one and I forgot it was an automatic sink, so that was that was great. It could have been worse. At least you didn't drop it in the urinal? Do you ever do that? I've dropped my phone, have you really? Oh? That sounds unpleasure? My friend flushed his toilet toilet. My friend flushes his phone down the toilet once? Really did it actually go into the piping? Uh huh wow? Because it was one of those smaller It was back when like razors were around and they were just going into touchscreens.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, so one of those, and that's when they were super small. Oh that's not good, and that's when they are just also automatic toilets don't flush your phones down the toilet people, the more you know, all right, we're gonna take a quick break. Our number two is coming up. Thank you again to our friend, uh doctor B and uh we'll see you on the other side of this. W m n H rip The Nobles

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