Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to the Nimble Youth podcast, where we provide expert insights and valuable resources for parents navigating the complexities of their children's mental health. We empower parents to nurture healthy minds in children, teens, and young adults through real conversations.
Our team of seasoned professionals, including physicians, therapists and educators, delve into pressing topics, share research-based strategies, and offer practical advice for fostering mental and emotional well-being within your family.
Welcome back to Nimble Youth, the podcast where we explore the emotional lives of children, teens, and young adults and give parents and the people who work with young people practical tools for helping them navigate difficult moments. I'm your host, Matthew Butterman. Today we're going to talk about a moment almost every parent recognize. Your teenager is upset. Maybe they're angry.
Matt (host):Maybe they're anxious. Maybe they're overwhelmed. Their voice gets louder. You tell them to calm down, which as most parents eventually discover, has probably never caused anyone in the history of adolescence to actually calm down. And suddenly, you're no longer arguing about the original problem.
Matt (host):You're arguing about the argument. So what do we do instead? My guest today has spent more than thirty five years thinking about precisely that question. Steve McMahon began his career as a teacher working with students with disabilities and later became a district wide behavior intervention specialist. He is the founder of Mindset Safety Management, an organization that trains educators, behavioral health professionals, and others in prevention, de escalation, and compassionate crisis intervention.
Matt (host):At the heart of Steve's philosophy is a deceptively simple idea, connection outperforms control. And there's another idea we discussed before on Nimble Youth that runs through his work, behavior is communication. Today we're going to find out what those ideas actually look like when a young person is angry, defiant, frightened, shutting down, or approaching a full blown crisis. Steve McMahon, welcome to Nimble Youth.
Steve McMahon:Thank you very much, Matthew. I'm happy to be with you. Appreciate the opportunity.
Matt (host):So you've spent more than three decades working with young people and the adults responsible for them. Take me back to the classroom. What did you believe about challenging behavior when you were a young teacher that you no longer believe today?
Steve McMahon:Well when I was a young teacher it was 1990 so it's been quite a while and I sit back and remember reflecting upon those years about conduct and control, codes of conduct and disciplinary procedures in school which led down the path of watching a lot of kids lose it in the context of the teachers coming down on them if you will for misbehavior that I believe was actually misinterpreted. But I had my problems as well as a young teacher following the directives of my administrators and this is what we do around here, this is how we handle inappropriate behavior, is how we maintain control of a classroom and, you know we went down the path also looking at like token economy systems and point systems and level systems and all those things but it's been quite a career path. Children having meltdowns because of what adults were doing and it really led me down a different path and I'm grateful for that. I had opportunities to change.
Matt (host):Sure. So was there a particular student or incident that made you realize trying to control this behavior is actually making this situation worse? Well, the
Steve McMahon:career path was I began as a fifth grade teacher in an elementary school and I began my career four weeks after the school year had already begun and I was the first male teacher to be hired by this elementary school and they looked at all the other classroom teachers and said we need to take five kids out of your class and we're going create a new class for this young dude who's coming to be a teacher. I got immediately the challenging kids and we had a great year. It was a wonderful year. It took a lot for me to understand that taking a child to the office and in the South where I live in Georgia, I'll never forget the first time the principal handed me the paddle and said I had to give this kid three swats. And I didn't really want to do it, but I was directed by my boss to do it and when I did, our relationship shifted completely.
Steve McMahon:There was fear, there was anxiety, there was and so I decided in my soul I would never do that again. And so I never sent another child to the office. I actually sat with them through their turmoil and talked with them about what their behavior was and what they were trying to communicate through their behavior. And I was recruited to go to work for a regional program with kids with significant emotional and behavior disorders and that's where things really changed for me.
Matt (host):So you've picked up on something that one of my recent guests, Rafael McMaster of Indivisible Arts and I discussed recently and that's the idea that young people often communicate through behavior before they're able or willing to communicate through words. So let's take a teenager who says, you know, leave me alone. They slam the bedroom door, they refuse to go to school, won't do the assignment, or suddenly erupts over something that seems completely insignificant. So, if behavior is communication, what should the adult be asking in this situation?
Steve McMahon:Well the adult in this situation also is a human being too and they also communicate through their behavior as well and so I think part of the biggest problem that we have as adults is recognizing ourselves and whether or not we are in a regulated space to be able to interact with the individual in front of us and so it's recognizing those subtle cues if you will and I think the question to ask of a child really comes down to what do you want? What is it that you're seeking through this behavior and oftentimes as the, you know, the behavioral analysts will tell us there's only four functions of behavior and it's escape, attention, avoidance or tangible items and so often times behavior of youth is misinterpreted as defiance when it's really I just want to be left, you know, just leave me alone for a moment, let me get myself together and then let's re engage but I believe also that as from a parent perspective, those things need to not just acceptable behaviors but there ought to also be like alternative methods of getting our needs met because one of my heroes in this behavioral world is Doctor.
Steve McMahon:Ross Green, Doctor. Bruce Perry and you know, Doctor. Steven Porges who talk about the neurobiology of the brain and understanding them, people get dysregulated, they're not functioning from their cerebral cortex, they're functioning from flight, fight, or fear, or flock, or fawn, where their brain needs to reengage and sometimes it takes time. It takes a lot of time.
Matt (host):Yeah. Well, let's dig a little bit down deeper into that situation and let's talk about what's actually happening inside the young person because when a teenager becomes highly emotionally activated, what happens to their ability to reason, listen, process language, and solve problems?
Steve McMahon:Well, comes right back down to the basic core of, you know, the the the cerebral cortex is engaged when we are calm, when we are having a good day, when everything's going well and we're not triggered. And oftentimes we get triggered also by our trauma experiences from the past. And so here's this person making demands on me and I'm just not in a place where I'm ready to hear those demands because of something else has taken place during the day and we know teenagers are often involved with social media context of communication is different than what we grew up in as adults and so therefore we don't accept the fact that this is a true thing. There's got to be a methodology whereby we can connect with these kids, you know. Within the context of the human brain, there are then the limbic system, there's, you know, the hippocampus and the amygdala and when the amygdala gets triggered, then we revert to defensiveness in our human existence.
Steve McMahon:Doctor. Steven Poor just points out that our neurology is basically a surveillance system in order to create a safe space. When we feel like we're in an unsafe environment, we're going to do things to protect ourselves and sometimes that's walking away, which actually is quite an innocent thing to do. However, adults will often say disrespectful, don't walk away from me. And the best thing to do at this moment is have separation, you know, and what separation needs to be guided by previously discussed boundaries, you know, we can't have separation when a kid just runs out the door and runs away for the weekend.
Steve McMahon:Right. So it's like how do we keep everyone safe and that's my metric for success. My metric for success has never been compliance. Metric for success has been safety. Once we're in a safe environment then we can have a logical rational conversation But I cannot have a rational conversation if my brain is not in the right space.
Steve McMahon:And so how do we bring them back from that survival mode in the reptilian brain back through the limbic system back into the cerebral cortex. We teach a simple four step model that is absolutely beneficial, not only for when dealing with children, but also for when dealing with adults. Every person alive needs to have acknowledgement, acceptance, validation, which leads to empowerment.
Matt (host):If I had a say a 15 year old who's an eight out of 10 emotionally, what's my immediate objective? I suppose it's not to, you know, trying to solve the problem right then and there. Am I simply trying to move the child from an eight to a seven? If we're considering zero a baseline, yes, we want to try
Steve McMahon:to move people toward their baseline, but we also need to understand that not everyone baseline is zero. When it comes to the escalation continuum, the scale of volatile behavior, some people because of their disability or because of the trauma that they've experienced in their lives may never reach a zero in terms of being calm. What does it mean to be calm? And for some people being calm might mean pacing in the front yard, going back and forth in the front yard, maybe even taking a wiffle ball bat and beating up a box outside. I'm cool with that.
Steve McMahon:That's not going to hurt anybody. And it helps them come to a place where they might be able to come back in the house and say, hey, I'm ready to talk. And that's what we need. We need people to be ready to talk, ready for the conversation before we start delivering demands on people. When And we come down on our own children, you know, I am a parent.
Steve McMahon:I have a lot of children. My wife and I together have six children. We have six grandchildren. I've been down that road of being the angry parent. I have done the things that I teach against in terms of like yelling and making demands and saying, yes, you will.
Steve McMahon:And I've I've taken things away from kids. I've I've initiated punishment whereby they've they've been grounded for the weekend. I've I've taken their things from them and ultimately, it worked out, but it takes a lot of time, you know. Right. And it also may causes gaps in our relational experience with our own children.
Steve McMahon:When we have the when I had the best times with my kids and with the kids that I've worked with over the last thirty years was when I was able to say, I am human too. I make my mistakes. My brain is just like your brain, and sometimes you say things that trigger me. But for God's sake, let's not do that intentionally to one another and let's sit down or have restoration, restorative conversations following an incident in which I can accept my behavior and accept their behavior and come to a better plan for the future.
Matt (host):So, let's talk about what parents should not say. I'm gonna give you some phrases that adults commonly use when a teenager is escalating. So, you tell me what's wrong with and what you might do in bed. The first one is calm down.
Steve McMahon:Yeah, well I'm not able to calm down right now, am I? Yelling at me or raising your voice at me and saying calm down is not necessarily going to reach our goal. However, looking at the child and saying I see you, I see that you're walking back and forth, face is turned all red, your fists are quenched, obviously you're very angry. That's what we call acknowledgement. Yep.
Steve McMahon:Okay. And then accepting that as a real human emotion driving that feeling. It seems like you're frustrated. It seems like you're anxious. It seems like you're worried again about and that's all it is, it's one two.
Steve McMahon:That's step one and step two of our four step counts. And we get to the others later, but right now the question was, why not say just calm down? Also, why are you doing that is a terrible question to ask. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve McMahon:So,
Matt (host):It's another one.
Steve McMahon:I Well said that's a real big deal because you know what as adults and as parents we have the right to say that because this is our home and as we have our boundaries, right? Because I said so is a really good thing for us to say. However, the interpretation of because I said so is the and turns into the child believing because I don't matter. You know? Right.
Steve McMahon:So because I said so is judgmental. It's also hierarchical hierarchical in terms of authority. And we know you were a teenager, Matthew. You know, the nature of being a teenager is rebellion. Right.
Steve McMahon:I want to accept the fact that you're human and teenagers do rebel, but they also what they really need is they need to be heard and they need to be seen. So because I said so is never good enough in my opinion from the adult perspective. Why did you say so? When we were saying so because we want to keep them safe because they're teenagers and we're gonna say you're not gonna stay out until 12:30 at night because I said so is not necessarily the rationale that they need to hear. The rationale is because it becomes very unsafe after whatever time you decide as a parent, and that is all dependent upon the culture and the and the the values and the morals from which you, you know, live your life.
Matt (host):Yeah. Yeah. So here's a here's an next phrase is that Something that think my parents have a tough time stepping away from, and that's the statement. If you don't stop this right now, you're losing your phone for a month.
Steve McMahon:Parents can't do that anymore because by the time a day goes by, they're gonna give the phone back anyway because the children has made your life so miserable because you took it from them. Losing something for a month, that's an extended period of time of punishment and extended periods of time of punishment like that tend to backfire because as we said before, are rebellious and they may give the phone over to you or I've had a child at one time when I said that would take that phone and throw it into a rock and bust it to pieces because I've escalated the problem behavior instead of trying to understand it.
Matt (host):And so the final one is sort of the ultimate loaded question.
Steve McMahon:That is That is The others want the others weren't loaded? Is that what you're saying?
Matt (host):Yeah. Not gonna break up. This is the ultimate question. Okay. Alright.
Matt (host):What's wrong with you?
Steve McMahon:Yeah. What's wrong with you is incredibly judgmental and incredibly harsh. You know, what's wrong with you is trying to ask a child who is completely dysregulated to understand the neurological workings of the brain because if you ask me what's wrong with me, I might have to say, well, you know, was triggered yesterday because so and so said this to me and then they wrote about it on Facebook or social. Facebook, oh my kid. They put it out on Snapchat and I was now and now threats are taking place back and forth and then sometimes that results in domestic violence.
Steve McMahon:Yeah. Yeah. That was a loaded response to a loaded question. Thank you very much.
Matt (host):Absolutely. So let's talk about the classic parent teen power struggle and going back to the, the statement, I'm gonna take away your phone for a month. A parent will say, put that phone away. And the teenager says, no. So now something fascinating happens.
Matt (host):The original issue may have been the phone. And in about thirty seconds, the issue becomes who's gonna win here? So how do you deal with that power struggle?
Steve McMahon:It's a classic power struggle and that's also one that has taken place not only with teenagers now but also with, preteens and sometimes young children because there's been an allowance of the fact that screen time and cell phone usage has exploded in our society and so it's become part and parcel of their being, if you will. This is how they communicate with the outside world and you have just shut down their connections to everybody other than you and whatever the reason you wanted to take the phone away from them, they didn't abide by your regulations, they didn't abide by the timelines, it's past the time when they should be using the phone, all of those things are valid. They are valid. I want to honor the parents also, but the truth of matter is that cell phone has become much more to that child than it is to you and so I want to think about it from a perspective of what this cell phone right here means to me and I'm running a business and the cell phone has become a connector to my clients as well as to my family and my friends and to say shut it down is very much like taking a child and putting them in solitary confinement.
Steve McMahon:So it's a huge deal to the kid and yes, you pay the bill, you can shut it down and very well you may have to shut it down at times because of unsafe behavior, but to take it away arbitrarily because you're mad at them is probably not a good idea because they're just going to get that much more angry. Right.
Matt (host):Following up on that, this is a situation I think parents think about and that certainly is how do I disengage from a power striker without communicating that the teenager gets whatever they want? In other words, I think the fear that many parents have is, you know, I back down now, haven't I taught my child that dreaming and carrying on
Steve McMahon:works? Yeah, yeah it's about reinforcing behaviors, right? So when you're thinking about, am I going to reinforce this behavior and I'm going to become weak in front of my child's eyes and therefore I have no authority over this child, I think you're coming from the wrong place. I think that's where it comes back to connection over control which is how we started this conversation in the first place. The book that I have on the market, one of my books on the market is called Transformative A Journey to a Mindset and the reason I titled it that is because a lot of people see the word crisis as damaging and damning and I see the word crisis as an opportunity for growth.
Steve McMahon:We grow through crisis if it's handled properly and crisis often results from power struggles. Well, struggles are real and they can be subversive, they can be coversive, they can be outright blatant and when they happen, if we feel ourselves as though we're gonna have things make things worse rather than make it better, the best approach of us is for us to do is to say, we'll come back to this and take a few steps away. One of the things I've learned over the years is that you've got to be able to give teenagers the space to be able to advocate for themselves. Because what are we about as parents anyway? We want our kids to be problem solvers, we want them to be critical thinkers, and want them to explore the world and become self actualized.
Steve McMahon:To be successful human beings in in the in the adult world. And when power struggles happen and we just immediately shut them down because we have the authority to do so, I don't think we're giving them the appropriate skill set necessary to problem solve in the future. So by walking away and saying we'll bring this back up when we're both calm and then come back together and listen to one another, give them the rationale for why you're doing what you're doing and tell them it upsets me when you say these things, it makes me feel like you disregard my authority and we're gonna talk about that too. And most of the time it works out pretty well and it also benefits the relationship as a whole. And in terms of having other children in the household or in the classroom or in the baseball game or football game that also see this, I have these conversations all the time with educators in my work.
Steve McMahon:It's very important to realize that I need to have a stance of authority in front of my kids, I get that, but it's better for the kids to see you not lose your stuff in front of them and it's better for the kids to see you remaining calm because that creates the sense of psychological safety that leads toward people thriving. Right. So one of the
Matt (host):principles in your approach is promoting choice and trust. So why is choice so powerful when someone feels emotionally cornered?
Steve McMahon:Well, you just said it, when you're feeling cornered, you're gonna come lashing out fighting, right? So, what kind of choices can you actually provide to somebody who's actually in disagreement with you and think about the variety of choices that could be offered to someone, you know, where else can you be, you know, right now, you've got your room, you can go outside, you can sit on the porch, you can go out back, whatever you need to do, calm down, that is your choice, I'm not going to make demands on you right now, I just want you to be in a safe space. But those choices also need to be within the parameters of that safety, right? A choice of a kid might be, I'm leaving here, F you, I'm out of here, I'm going to Johnny's house for the weekend and you, you have, and that's not okay. As parents, we have the authority to say no.
Steve McMahon:And so when we provide choice and here are the choices that you can do, but they have to be livable choices. Right? Right. And that develops a sense of psychological safety and it also empowers the individual because they're now making decisions for themselves rather than complying to your demands. Right.
Steve McMahon:Right. That makes sense. Which then develops a sense of trust with one another. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve McMahon:I mean, how here's the thing too, Matthew. What about this? I've lost it with you so many times and yet you still stick with me. You know? As parents, that's probably the theme of our lives.
Steve McMahon:Our kids lose it with us continually. What's really also very evident is they will lose it with us more often than they will outside of our homes. Right. And they do so because they trust us and they know we're gonna keep them safe. Exactly.
Steve McMahon:Same thing with school teachers. Right. And moving on into the realm of school, So you've spent many years in schools. So let's talk about something that teachers understand very quickly, and
Matt (host):that is the audience matters. If you correct a teenager in front of 25 classmates, and suddenly the student isn't just responding to you, they're performing for everyone watching. So why does moving a difficult conversation into a more private setting often change the entire dynamic?
Steve McMahon:You said it yourself, the audience is everything to some the chance to also what we have to recognize is kids are savvy and they set people up sometimes because they got their friends ready to pull out their cell phones and record it and you'll wind up on YouTube before you know it. And so moving moving away from rather than toward the aggression is also one of the themes that we teach, moving with it instead of standing opposed to it. Most kids that I have dealt with in schools and I have taught teachers this for the past twenty five years now is that if you are calm with them while they're riled up, they generally will calm down. But if you lose it in front of them, they are not going to calm down and they will go with you to the hallway. They'll go with you to the back of the room eventually if we can remain this calm presence.
Steve McMahon:One of the things that interests me when it comes to power struggles in a classroom is that teachers think that they have to have immediate immediate compliance to demands and they stand over kids often, like, I need you to take out your Chromebook, open it up, turn turn to this website and do this test prep thing. And the kid's gonna go, no. It's like, okay, you know what, Alan, I need you to do and then walk away. And most of the time when we walk away within moments the kids like, oh, whatever and then they pull out their stuff and they start working or not and if not, it indicates there's something else going on that's underneath that behavior that may need to be dealt with by somebody else. And one of the nicest things about our curriculum that we teach is that we tell people all the time, we're not asking teachers to be mental health professionals, although in many cases they feel as though they are.
Steve McMahon:Right. What I'm asking them to do is what I call emotional triage. You know, figure out whether or not this kid needs further help. Right. For goodness sake, further help does not come from an office referral.
Steve McMahon:Exactly. Further help comes from understanding and compassion and care. And you know what? When they get out of that classroom and they're talking to somebody that they trust, they will tell you everything that's going on, some of it's not very nice as some of the things that kids go through right now are not very pleasant.
Matt (host):True. It's true. So we've talked about the yelling, the aggression, but there's another kind of escalation that's much quieter and that's when the teenager stops talking. They look away, you know, they put pull their hood over their head, they won't answer questions, put their head down, and adults sometimes interpret that as disrespect, you know, look at me when I'm talking to you. But could the withdrawal itself be a sort of communication?
Steve McMahon:It absolutely is a form of communication. What is it communicating other than leave me alone and leave leave me alone can also be interpreted as I'm not ready right now. I'm not ready right now and another thing that we need to think about is how much emotional investment have we put into this? How many times do we withdraw from this child's bank of emotional without ever depositing things into it? And another story I wrote was about my youth, my growing up diet, so I grew up in the sixties and seventies, I barely made it through high school myself in 1979, but thank God for several teachers, right?
Steve McMahon:When I was 19 growing up, recognized this in my writing, was that we often neglect to understand what our parents are going through while we're also going through our stuff. And so in our situation in the early seventies, our parents were going through a lot. You know? Early nineteen seventies, we still had Vietnam going on. We had people coming back from the Vietnam War.
Steve McMahon:Richard Nixon was elected. Richard Nixon promised we're not gonna continue this war, and then we did. And then we had Watergate and we had Nixon's resignation. We had the Tegas crisis of the time. We had all this stuff.
Steve McMahon:And we as kids had no idea what our parents were dealing with. And so oftentimes misbehavior was a was a result of our parents not paying attention to us, which they couldn't because they were paying attention to everything else and our older brothers and sisters were getting into stuff, you know, it was a really it was interesting, but I didn't know all the truth about it until I became a grown adult and started talking to my mom about it and she told me all these things that our family and our extended family were going through. I was like, holy cow, you were holding up a lot. But we don't expose our kids to our own vulnerabilities. And so therefore, when kids shut down, it is a signal to us that we need to try to get bread.
Steve McMahon:Maybe not right now, but maybe later today or maybe tomorrow, we can take a ride and we can talk to them about what happened yesterday when I tried to talk with you and you put your hoodie up over your head and you refused to talk or you went to your room and you wouldn't come out. And then you can also be vulnerable enough to tell your children that it kind of scared you. You know, I get concerned about you, not only for your physical well-being, but your emotional well-being. Are you okay? We need to open up doors of communication with children because honestly, I believe they want us to even while they're shutting down.
Steve McMahon:But just going up and making demands that they take their hood off and they look at you is creating conflict that doesn't need to happen. But rather I see you've got hoodie up over your head, you must be feeling really bad today, did something happen today, is there anything I can help you with? You know, homework is a big deal. I mean, homework is huge these days. I can't believe the amount of work that's gonna require students to do outside of school and on top of that, they have all of their other extracurricular activities with all their sports and their clubs and their it's just life has become incredibly busy for families.
Steve McMahon:And sometimes I think we need to take a step back and think about how do we connect with our kids. Do we ever have do we even have a moment where we sit down together in quietness? Right. Right.
Matt (host):Yeah. Yeah. And finding those areas where we can
Steve McMahon:share an experience. Connection, right? Connection over control. Right. Another well, I like to like to fish.
Steve McMahon:I like to go fly fishing. I live in the mountains of Northeast Georgia. We've got creeks and rivers all over the place. We've got lakes we've fish on. That's ideal.
Steve McMahon:I've got a 12 year old grandson now who wants to get into deer hunting, and I'm just like, I have never shot a deer in my mouth. Yesterday, I bought a I bought a deer rifle, and he and I are going to a DNR child hunt thing on in two weeks. He's thrilled. It's not something I really wanna do, but he does, and so therefore, it's important. You know?
Steve McMahon:Right. I think that's a key too. What we've gotta find our passions that our kids are into. Yep. Yep.
Steve McMahon:I tell teachers all the time as well. I was I was a teacher with a severely emotionally disturbed youth in the nineties when Pokemon came up. Yes. Good face, the weather. I know more about Pokemon than ever.
Steve McMahon:Too. Wanted to know. You know? Right. I wanna we wanna know what the kids are into.
Steve McMahon:We wanna be a part of their world instead of just send them off to the room for them to play their PlayStations by themselves. Right. So
Matt (host):And it's important. Yeah. Following up on your experience as a special education teacher, I want to talk specifically about children with ADHD, autism, sensitivities, or other types of neurodevelopmental differences. What we would call neurodivergent these days. So adults can sometimes interpret the overwhelm that these children exhibit as defiance.
Matt (host):Know, child won't enter a noisy room, they refuse an assignment, they can't transition away from activity, they might melt down when a plan suddenly changes. So how do we distinguish this child won't do what I'm asking from, you know, this child can't do what I'm asking right now.
Steve McMahon:So it's interesting, Matthew, what what what's happening these days too is we're getting a lot of calls from churches who are working with, families with neurodivergent children, wanting them to become involved in the church and then the ministry is wanting them to be a part of it. We're getting calls from people wanting to have trainings in churches for volunteers and staff to understand neurodivergent children. Know? Mhmm. Mhmm.
Steve McMahon:And we talk about children on the spectrum, how we talk about children with, trauma, trauma experiences, and we talk about behaviors and what behaviors look like and how to recognize whether it's a can't versus won't thing and what I say all the time is it's individualized to the tenth degree, it is so individualized. You've got to know your kids, you've got to understand their idiosyncrasies and their quirks and what they need to do to remain regulated and we need to provide them the tools necessary to do so. And often we are overwhelming them with our expectations and you know think about any child whether they be neuro divergent or not, how long does it take? How long are adult attention span these days? How long do we stick with things and you know providing opportunities to practice are good, but also we've got to find space for the idea that while we're in those confined spaces, there also needs to be opportunity for sensory input.
Steve McMahon:So being able to understand what that sensory input looks like you know, it's different for every kid. Once you know one child on the spectrum, you know one child on the spectrum. So you know everyone is an individual and everyone needs to be acknowledged as individuals Mhmm. And it's not always gonna look the same for every kid.
Matt (host):Exactly. Exactly.
Steve McMahon:And also, not every child will be able to talk about it. Right? So we also have children who are also limited in their verbal capabilities. Yep. And we've gotta find ways for them to teach them to communicate.
Steve McMahon:And as you said in the beginning of the show, you know, all behavior is a form of communication.
Matt (host):Your organization describes itself as prevention first, so perhaps the best de escalation technique is never allowing the situation to become a crisis in the first place, right? So what are what are the early warning signs that parents should look out for?
Steve McMahon:Well, think it's that, you know, there's there's several different types of behaviors that indicate something's up. There was a Mazda commercial back in the day like the and that was like, zoom, zoom, something's up. Right? I remember that. Yeah.
Steve McMahon:We have to be hyper vigilant as parents and as as as educators for children to watch out for those early signs of dysregulation. You know, looking for the clenched fists, rocking back and forth in chairs, pacing back and forth, spinning around, if you will, behaviors that are suggesting I need something more than what I'm currently getting. And it's unfortunate because in schools, there's this bent on compliance demands in order to move forward in your academic achievement and so kids are under a lot of pressure most of the time. So thinking about what they need, how they need it, where they need it, and when they need it. Also goes back to nutrition and thinking about what are we doing in regard to the types of, you know, that we have in our bodies in regard to the things that we eat, how we eat them, how much processed food is taking place, how many red dyes are there out there, and we all know that there's an abundance of information about that.
Steve McMahon:It's almost like drinking from a fire hose at times. And when parents are trying to find answers for their kids, I don't want to say it's the worst place to go, but Facebook Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and, you know, there's a lot of information but there's also a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of products that are on the market that have been proven to be ineffective and also, you know, you can waste your money, you can waste your time and you can frustrate kids. So, you know, we work in an environment where we call that de escalation first, safety first, right? A friend of mine once said, So what is it that you do?
Steve McMahon:I said, Well, we travel the country, we train trainers in our approach in schools and behavioral health programs and hospitals and so on to be able to redeliver our curriculum to staff who will be able to then be the practitioners of this approach. So what's the approach? I said it's about being nice to kids. It's about understanding their needs, understanding what communication is, and it's also how to translate this into what we do together as adults. And recently we've been doing a lot of work in terms of school culture and school climate across the board, seeing it as a tier one intervention approach and also helping staff help staff.
Steve McMahon:Because it's not only children that struggle, it's also as adults and we need somebody to come alongside of us in our most desperate times.
Matt (host):For sure. For sure. Digging down a little bit more deeply into the idea first, we need to address the point at which interaction stops being an argument and it devolves into a safety issue. You know, the teenager will throw something, punch a wall, threaten someone, and becomes physically aggressive. So, what should the adult's priorities be at that point?
Steve McMahon:Yeah, it's really hard speaking about it from a parental perspective and so that easier talking about it from an organizational perspective, isn't Yeah, because if it's within your, the context of your home, you have the, you have the responsibility, not just the right, but the responsibility to keep your children safe, not only from others but also from themselves And so, you know, having to call the authorities is oftentimes a thing that parents do not want to do, you know, but often I think it's necessary. You sometimes have to get to a point where this is against, it's not only against our own rules and regulations, it's against the law. You're damaging this, it's criminal trust. When it's a child with a disability, however, it takes on a whole different flavor, doesn't it? So, context of our curriculum, we teach appropriate physical containment techniques in schools and behavioral health agencies but we cannot teach that to individuals in their homes and there's a specific litigious reason for that.
Steve McMahon:We are held liable for what we teach, right? But the people who we teach it to are held liable for their actions and that makes it very risky if you will because if you as a parent lose it with a kid and are holding your own child, you can hold your own child in whatever manner you feel necessary, but you cannot hurt your child, right? Right. Because then you become legally responsible for that. So it puts parents in a very, precocious position if you will.
Steve McMahon:How do I help my child without harming my child and he's banging his head into the wall and how long does this go on and I really feel for parents often because they don't have the resources necessary within the context of their own you know provider services to help them handle that type of volatile behavior at home. If it happens chronically and consistently then unfortunately placement options need to be considered. No one wants to hear that. Right, right. That was a pretty loaded question.
Steve McMahon:There's a lot to that. I've had my own situations, schools, I mean, we used to take kids out camping in the woods, right, doing high ropes course, low ropes course initiative activities, which was great for the kids, but there were times when it was really hard and kids get to become volatile not only toward themselves but also toward one another And honestly, we weren't really trained in a very good approach of how to handle that. You know, was pretty much on the job training back in the nineties, and we were actually doing things wrong, very wrong.
Matt (host):Well, I think teachers, yeah, teachers these days feel very overwhelmed because there's so much no and there's so relatively little that they've been trained in.
Steve McMahon:Right? Yeah. Yeah, we only train the physical techniques in our of our curriculum within the context of a crisis intervention team, crisis response team that is, and also within the context of severe special needs environments. We also, it's a last resort. It's not something we go to to manage behavior, it's something we go to for the sick.
Steve McMahon:No one's gonna want to see a child, whether they be, whether they be a child with special needs or not, run into traffic, right? So, but I also tell people, you don't have to be certified in any particular approach to be able to stop a child from running into traffic. It's our, it's our, in my opinion, human responsibility to stop something like that.
Matt (host):Yeah. So, Steve, I wanna close our conversation today with by by turning the microphone around. There's a teenager listening who's been told, you're difficult, you're defiant, you're out of control, you have an anger problem, maybe they become believing that's simply who they are. What would you like that young person to hear?
Steve McMahon:I would like any young person to hear this very, very specific truth about myself, I know what it means to be that kid, you know? It's hard, It's really hard to hear people say that you're not worthy, that you're not good enough and that your behavior exhibits these things that will push people away because you know what, it's true, it is that is going to do, but it's not always gonna seize us away. And if we can find a way to change our responses to people's opinions and understand that we are worthy, that we do matter and find those that peer group and adult mentorship necessary and pull you through these times, you're gonna be alright. I run my business from a certain motto that I learned a long, long time ago. I don't control much of anything.
Steve McMahon:All I really control is how I respond to it. And so when my colleagues, the people that work for me are all concerned about decisions that they're making and I don't know what I'm doing, ah, and they want me to give them an answer. I don't really give them an answer. I give them this one phrase, it will all work out. Yeah, yeah.
Steve McMahon:It'll all work out because you know what, if I think I'm in control of it, I probably won't. So all I'm in control of is how I respond to the things that are right in front of me and in my life, it hasn't always worked out the way I wanted it to but it's all worked out, I'm still here, you're still doing good things and you will make mistakes but that'll be okay too because that's how we learn.
Matt (host):Exactly, so you're a veteran of of all this, you know, and you've written several books about it. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about the books you've written and where they might find them? I'll tell you about the process.
Steve McMahon:It was weird because I wanted to be sure that my first book came out as a, it's an, you know, non fiction book about the work that I do and the neurological base behind it, the research behind it and the how to do it and how this mindset approach can actually transform crisis into growth, not only for individuals, but also for organizations. Because if we function in this manner with this four step model that I described, you know, with acknowledgement, acceptance, validation, and empowerment, we can go a long way in creating a very safe environment for everybody. And I got done with that book. I was like, was cool. I enjoyed writing that book.
Steve McMahon:That was neat. And so I told my wife, Tammy, I was like, I need to write my own personal story. And so I wrote a book. It's my personal memoir. It's called Choosing Connection for Love's Sake.
Steve McMahon:And I've been through a lot in my own personal life, including the death of a spouse and the death of a colleague and my mentor who taught me these things passed away and left this in my lap, basically. The last one, two of the children that I taught died while I was where I came with them. Unfortunately, one with a automobile accident and the other was terminally ill. I did a homebound instruction for this child for nine years. And, yeah, and so my life story's written on this book, Choosing Connection for Love's Sake.
Steve McMahon:I got done with that book and I said to my wife, I'm like, Sandy, look, there's more to be said. And that's where that book came out from. Thinking about my childhood experiences in the nineteen seventies that I spoke of earlier, and it's called Gritty and Relentless. And Gritty and Relentless is written from the perspective of a 10 to 14 year old boy growing up in Upstate New York, and it's all about the shenanigans that took place. I wrote it specifically because it's the connections that heal.
Steve McMahon:The connections will heal through trauma and when connections heal your trauma because people sit with you through it, who was it that sat with us and it was each other. It was the kids. We pulled ourselves through that time. And then I sat back couple of months later and I started writing again and this time I wrote about the idea of choosing connections for love's sake led me down a path of knowing that trauma can be healed through relationships and so I wrote a novel of a kid growing up in the nineteen eighties. And it's called What the River Gives Back.
Steve McMahon:And it was through the experiences of mentors, friends, teachers, coaches, and how they helped him overcome his traumatic experiences. That was pretty cool. It's called What the Rigor Gets Pack. But it's been it's been an interesting ride, you know, running this business for the past, you know, twelve years and beyond. I started this company of mine in 2007, but I went full time in it in 2011, and now I'm grateful we go all over the country and teach this stuff.
Steve McMahon:And thank you for having me on, Nassau. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you.
Matt (host):Absolutely. We'll have links to your business website and then all the titles that you've written as well, where you can find them because we want people to take advantage of your knowledge and experience. And my guest today has been Steve McMahon, founder of Mindset Safety Management. Steve has spent more than three decades working in education, behavior intervention, crisis prevention, and de escalation, and his organization trains educators, behavioral health professionals, and others to create safer environments through proactive relationship centered approaches. And as mentioned, we'll include the information about Steve and mindset safety management in our episode notes.
Matt (host):One important reminder, the strategies we've discussed today are intended to help adults recognize and reduce escalation, not to substitute for individualized professional care or crisis training. So if a young person presents an immediate danger to themselves or someone else, safety comes first and appropriate professional or emergency assistance may be necessary in that situation. If you know a parent, a teacher, a counselor, coach, or any other adult who regularly works with young people, please share this episode with them. I think it will be very helpful for them. And if you enjoy Nimble Youth, follow the podcast and leave us a rating or review because it helps other families find these conversations.
Matt (host):Until next time, remember, sometimes the most powerful person in a difficult moment isn't the person who can exert the most control, it's the person who can remain calm enough to create a path back to connection. I'm Matthew Butterman. This is Nimble Youth. We'll see you next time.