Episódios
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Students sometimes enjoy cuddling, but innocent acts can sometimes lead to serious Title IX cases. These situations are more common than you might expect. Join Susan and Kristina in this episode of Real Talk as they discuss common pitfalls, focusing on important aspects like communication, conversation, and consent. Tune in for essential insights, and be sure to share this information with your students.
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:https://studentdefense.kjk.com/
TRANSCRIPT:Susan Stone:
Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Kristina Supler. We are full time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real candid conversations.
Susan Stone:
Nice to see you on this dreary, rainy day.
Kristina Supler:
Indeed, it is.
Susan Stone:
It is. Well, we're going to talk about something that's actually good to do on a rainy day.
Kristina Supler:
Ooh, tell me more. What could that be?
Susan Stone:
Cuddling.
Kristina Supler:
Who doesn't love cuddling?
Susan Stone:
My gosh. You know what? I'm mourning the fact that my youngest is about to go to college.
And we talked about this on prior podcasts, but do you remember we used to have younger kids. But back in the day.
Kristina Supler:
My kids love to CUDDLE Yeah,
Susan Stone:
There's nothing like that. Cuddling up a little kid, especially on a rainy morning.
Susan Stone:
Couldn't agree more.
Susan Stone:
I love it.
Kristina Supler:
Well, why are you talking about cuddling today, Susan? Do I go with this?
Susan Stone:
Well, we're going to get there because, as you know, nobody sees us and things until something goes wrong. And what is that saying? Everything's fine till somebody gets poked in the eye. Do you remember that thing?
Kristina Supler:
Yes.
Susan Stone:
Well, we're going to talk about cuddling going wrong. But first, let's just talk about why do we cuddle? I mean, I was doing a little research on cuddling and did you know that cuddling produces oxytocin and basically makes you feel good and safe?
Kristina Supler:
Well, that's interesting because I suppose and you know, you're the special ed wiz, if you will, is it could one argue that cuddling is kind of like a form of O.T. in a way, occupational therapy or stimulating you in some way?
Susan Stone:
Well, we know it improves sleep. There are some studies out there that says it actually boosts the immune system and it, believe it or not, lowers blood pressure.
That's crazy, isn't it?
Kristina Supler:
Now that I didn't see that one coming, I'm just thinking about like some of our little kids and people with sensitivities to touch and touch can be a good thing. And also maybe something that can be triggering.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, exactly. Well, I would say that in early childhood, cuddling definitely leads to attachment parenting. You really form bonds.
Kristina Supler:
Well, that like when you first have your baby and they want to put the baby on your chest for the. What does that kangaroo care? What was it called?
Susan Stone:
I think it's kangaroo care. It's been a minute
Kristina Supler:
and they have had a baby.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, but I think your point is well taken that some children actually are averse to touch, you know, like that feeling. But most people do. And a little simple hug or cuddle is wonderful for parents. And I'm a big fan of parents being physically affectionate with children. But.
Kristina Supler:
but there's always a but
Susan Stone:
but we're not here to talk about parents snuggling their babies,
Kristina Supler:
I think as part of our podcast. It's funny, every episode there's sort of a theme of, in reality, things that are nice. Most of the time innocent sure and then put them on a college campus and the title nine world. And of course, there's always room for things to go wrong. So are we talking about cuddling in the context of Title Nine today?
Susan Stone:
We are. Because one person's innocent, platonic, asexual cuddling can be another person's prelude to a hookup.
Kristina Supler:
Indeed, indeed. And that actually makes me think we've had over the years we've had quite a few cases that are sort of rooted in, I don't know, cuddling going wrong, if you will, though I think it probably depends on who you ask. Right?
Susan Stone:
Well, I just learned that there is a definitional difference between cuddling and snuggling.
Kristina Supler:
Now this is totally new to me.Tell me more. I'm very interested.
Susan Stone:
Okay. I read by Rabbi Google. You know, the go to source of all things.
Kristina Supler:
When you're done, I'm going to tell you something that I just came across on Rabbi Google.
Susan Stone:
Okay, good. So cuddling his arms around someone and snuggling is rubbing up and wiggling against a person.
Kristina Supler:
Okay, that makes sense.
Susan Stone:
It does?
Kristina Supler:
Yeah.
Susan Stone:
How do you think it makes sense? Supler
Kristina Supler:
Because snuggling. It makes me think about, like, getting cozy and, like, under a blanket. And you're sort of, I don't know, inching up and just, like, being warm. And as I'm saying this, I'm realizing I don't even I don't know, it just makes sense to me that one's different.
Susan Stone:
Well, so maybe we're not here really to talk about cuddling. Maybe we're here to talk about snuggling when that goes wrong,
Kristina Supler:
Perhaps. But you reminded me, actually, not too long ago, I saw this headline about how in Manhattan, because of course, you can find anything in Manhattan, there are actually
Susan Stone:
I love the Big Apple
Kristina Supler:
professional cuddling services where people charge $150 an hour to cuddle in a platonic way because people are seeking out like that touch therapy thing.
Which made me think of the OT question I asked you earlier. How about that though? Truly, anything you want can be found in New York.
Susan Stone:
It can be. But let's go back. And that's interesting. It may be kind of creepy. I don't know how I feel about it, but let's go back to college, because in college there are people who like to have what they call cuddle buddies.
Kristina Supler:
Sure. And I think that from the perspective of Title nine, how can things go wrong? I mean, it's really in essence, any sort of touching or physical contact, if it's unwelcome, could perhaps give rise to a claim for sexual harassment.
Susan Stone:
So let's set the stage for our listeners. It's late. You've already gone out. The bars have closed.So it's what, 2 a.m.
Kristina Supler:
sure. I guess it depends what state you're in, but I think two AMs a reasonable time.
Susan Stone:
Okay. And you know, nothing good happens at 2 a.m..
Kristina Supler:
Nothing.
Susan Stone:
Nothing. So it's 2 a.m. and you decide to watch a little Netflix and chill for your evening out. Maybe you've had a beer or two or ten and you decide to cuddle and accidentally you might even fall asleep and or not. And the cuddling to one person, they're tired. They want to go to sleep, but to the other person they get aroused, duu duu dun
Kristina Supler:
Sure. I mean, I think one could argue that that is a natural consequence of cuddling
Susan Stone:
and a hand might wander.
Kristina Supler:
It's possible,
Susan Stone:
and a hand might wander without consent.
Kristina Supler:
Indeed.
Susan Stone:
And there's your title nine.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah. I mean, the whole at the heart of the Title nine analysis was the issue of unwelcomeness. And then also, you know, a conversation. It makes me think Conversations we often have with our students of any age is sort of impact versus intent, you know? But I didn't mean for anything, you know, to be upsetting or offensive, but it was received that way by someone else. And so what do you do with that? And that's really, in essence, what all of our Title nine cases are about, cause I don't think anyone ever says, I intentionally did X, Y, Z to hurt someone. It's always I didn't mean to or something was misunderstood or misconstrued. And then you have the, you know, the consequences of whatever the circumstance was.
And that's often what we're navigating through is sort of the the gray.
Susan Stone:
Well, because the definition of content send can be words or actions. And so what is an action? I thought we were cuddling. I thought we were getting closer. I thought you also were romantically interested in me. And so I thought it was a natural move on my part to move my hand.
And the other person's thinking, wait, you didn't even talk to me? But that's not the definition of consent. It's words or actions. And I think that's where the confusion comes from.
Kristina Supler:
Well, and I'm going to say this, that, you know, sort of a prevailing viewpoint might be that, well, come on, please. Everyone knows that cuddling is just sort of a gateway to a hookup.
How would you respond to that?
Susan Stone:
I don't even think that's true because as we started our whole podcast, parents cuddle children, but as we have worked our way through this issue, I think the confusion comes from the difference between cuddling and snuggling. And I think that college students don't spend enough time as they're creating these cuddle buddies to determine, is it truly platonic?
How do you know that you might feel platonic, and the other person might actually have feelings, and the cuddling or snuggling enhances those feelings.
Kristina Supler:
So, I hear you. But then I guess let me ask you this. It sorts of circles back to what I very in artfully tried to define before the difference between cuddling and snuggling. If you're snuggling.How would you define the two? Because if you're saying one is more, it sounds like you're saying one is okay and one can be problematic. I mean, you try to define the difference.
Susan Stone:
Well, I like the definition I gave you. And first of all, both are okay as long as everybody's on the same page.
Kristina Supler:
Right. Consent.
Susan Stone:
Consent. It always comes down to consent. I don't think that snuggling is appropriate without conversation.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah,
Susan Stone:
and it's certainly not appropriate. And many, many contexts. It is, to me, a boundary violation to rub your body against someone without a conversation.
Kristina Supler:
Agree. Agree. There needs to be a conversation. And you know, that makes me think as well that, you know, certainly, as you've pointed out correctly, most school policies indicates consent and again in Title nine world requires it can be given through words or actions.
But I think, you know, from a let's put a lawyer head on from a best practices perspective, we really do encourage all of our students. And when we talk, we sort of make the point that the safest way forward is to have a clear, explicit conversation. Are you okay if we, you know, fill in the blank, whatever it is, to just have a clear understanding of what the boundary is, what a person is okay with, and perhaps not okay with.
Susan Stone:
Let's get a little embarrassing here, can we?
Kristina Supler:
Sure.
Susan Stone:
Sometimes the body does what the body wants to do, even if your mind says something different.
Kristina Supler:
You talk about involuntary
Susan Stone:
erections.
Kristina Supler:
Sure.
Susan Stone:
Okay. Now I do not have a penis. I am a female. You know. The penis is going to do what the penis wants to do. Supler.
Kristina Supler:
Tell me more.Where are we going with this?
Susan Stone:
I can envision a scenario where there is cuddling or snuggling and a male gets a hard on. It can happen easily.
Kristina Supler:
It could happen.
Susan Stone:
And that's really embarrassing. What? What should the guy do? I feel like I'm Howard Stern talking about this. Really? Well, what should happen?
Kristina Supler:
I mean, it can be embarrassing for the male.It could be whoever is the other person participating in the
Susan Stone:
male or female
Kristina Supler:
Male or female. It can make that person. They might like it, but also can make them feel really, really uncomfortable. And then what? What do you do?
Susan Stone:
I don't know. Should they get. Should the person with the erection just get out of bed and go into the bathroom? I don't know.
Kristina Supler:
I don't know either. And I feel like really delve into this topic. We need the male perspective because we're both females, but.
Susan Stone:
Well, no, I. I'm married. Married? We get this.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah,
Susan Stone:
we both have raised sons.
Kristina Supler:
So, the question is
Susan Stone:
not that I've talked about this with my son. Everyone out there, I want to clarify.
I have never discussed this topic with my child.
Kristina Supler:
So, the question is, could that be a title nine violation?
Susan Stone:
Yeah, it could be in today's crazy world. But how unfair is that?
Kristina Supler:
I totally agree. I totally agree. And I think that, you know, it sort of gets back to this issue of the importance of students having
Susan Stone:
self-awareness,
Kristina Supler:
self-awareness, but also the ability to and we talk about this all the time, the ability to have difficult conversations is like, this is awkward. This would be totally awkward to talk about with someone you don't even really know that well, but like, Hey, I don't like that I'm going to go. Or I mean, because I think the worst way to handle it is everyone's awkward and uncomfortable and there's no conversation. And then for days, the interaction is being dissected and analyzed and then outside voices sort of filter, and the narrative gets rewritten about what happens.
Susan Stone:
I'm going to challenge you on something,
Kristina Supler:
okay? Please do.
Susan Stone:
You're a big fan. As am I, on conversation.
Kristina Supler:
I am. I'm a talker. You're a talker.
Susan Stone:
But you know what? Some things you need a little self-awareness. I don't think. And everyone, I would love for you to respond. Send us your comments. I want to know what you think out there.
But if you're really into someone and you secretly like them, can you platonically cuddle? I put that out there. I say, No,
Kristina Supler:
I don't think you can either. That's actually I agree. I don't think you can. I think it's inevitable where where it's going to end up. But are you. So let me ask you.
Susan Stone:
So cuddle Without talking to the person and saying, hey, maybe this is where the conversation comes in.I don't think I can do that. I don't think I can get in bed with you in. And let's face it, how big are college beds?
Kristina Supler:
I mean, there aren't, like, extra long singles twins, right? Yeah. I remember going to bed with me and. And buying extra long sheets because, like, that's what you needed for some reason.
Susan Stone:
Yeah. You still need those extra-long sheets. But what I'm saying is I don't see how someone can platonically Cuddle. And if you're male, not get erect. Or how about this? A woman? We females get aroused too.
Kristina Supler:
I've been told
Susan Stone:
I've been told. I heard from a friend. You know, that's not a natural place to put yourself if you want to remain platonic.So I say a little self-awareness goes a long way.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think also, though, there's you.
Susan Stone:
What do you mean? You don't know. That's ridiculous. You do know if you like, someone don't hop in the old bed with them without thinking that, you know, the juices are going to flow.
Kristina Supler:
How about this? Cuddle or no cuddle? You're alone with someone at 2:00 in the morning watching TV. Like, come on. I mean, I think that, too. It could sort of be a situation where if we're really talking about self-awareness, I don't think it's limited to cuddling. I think it should be, you know, sort of broad into just being mindful of the situations in which we find ourselves. Can you if you have a crush on someone and you just want to watch, I don't know, a show together on Netflix at 2:00 in the morning, You know, one could argue that that's sort of also a recipe to test limits and see where things go.
Susan Stone:
Drunk or not drunk?
Kristina Supler:
Well, let's say both. Right. Because, I mean, either way, alcohol, we've had plenty of cases that are, you know, cuddling, touching, gone wrong with no alcohol involved. I mean, it's not let's face it, alcohol is involved in many, if not most of our cases, but certainly not all. Certainly not all.
Susan Stone:
You know what else could happen? As I'm thinking about this, you could be thinking that you really are just friends. But sometimes you awake the dragon.
Kristina Supler:
I mean, I just
Susan Stone:
Feelings happen.
Kristina Supler:
Feelings do happen. But there's a difference between feelings happening. And then, like, I don't know, I just struggle with the idea of and maybe I'm being to I don't know, traditional in my views, but like platonic cuddling between a male and a female at 2:00 in the morning, I don't know that it's possible.I really don't.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, I'm with you. And I also wonder about those New York Cutlers. Do they really just cuddle?
Kristina Supler:
Well, I mean, according to the news article, yes, but I mean, I'm with you and that I'm very circumspect. And then he also does wonder about germs and whatnot. But supposedly there's like good sanitation measures in places.
Susan Stone:
We're getting so far off my gosh, I'm embarrassed for ourselves. But look, there is a lot of health benefits to cuddling and you can feel lonely in college and there's nothing wrong when the terms are clear. Yes, I will follow Suplers ideas, conversations, key. It can be a really nice way of connecting, forging bonds, getting good sleep, lowering your blood pressure and boosting your immunity. As long as everybody stays on the same page. I just worry for those little accidental erections and things that might go bump in the night accidentally.
Kristina Supler:
Accidental erections. Okay, well, hopefully we've given our listeners some food for thought today. This is just sort of a fun and lighthearted discussion. But I mean, in all seriousness, we do see plenty of matters that, you know, involve components of cuddling and miscommunication.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, and it's not funny when you have a Title nine case. It's embarrassing. our clients who come into our office or we zoom in with their mortified. It's awful. It's just awful.
Kristina Supler:
It's awful for everyone involved and
Susan Stone:
Also awful for the recipient. Who thinks that way.
Kristina Supler:
I was going to say it's awful as well for the person who maybe dozed off and then they wake up and are like, Whoa, what's going on?
So, you know, I mean, again, I think that, you know,
Susan Stone:
No one wins
Kristina Supler:
No One wins
Susan Stone:
Or everyone wins, depending on what happens. Right.
Kristina Supler:
Well, should colleges really be in the mix of passing through these scenarios? I'm not sure about that one. But under the regs, under the current title nine regulations are policies. They are. And so it is an issue that Title nine offices across the country are navigating.And so, you know, bottom line, parents out there, listeners, these two are topics to, you know, put on your students radar.
Susan Stone:
Talk about cuddling versus snuggling. Stay connected if you would like. We'd love to hear from you and see what you think. And let's keep the conversation going.
Kristina Supler:
Until next time.
Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Kristina. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode and leave us a review so other people can find the content we share here. You can follow us on Instagram. Just search our handle @stonesupler and for more resources, visit us online at https://studentdefense.kjk.com/
Thank you so much for being a part of our real talk community. We'll see you next time.
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In this week's episode of 'Real Talk,' Susan and Kristina uncover the secret to their successful partnership. Join them for a hilarious exploration of their working relationship, their practice,and the valuable lessons learned during their nearly decade-long collaboration. So grab a cup of coffee and join them for a candid conversation about what makes their professional bond so special.
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:https://studentdefense.kjk.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Your-Kid-Parents-Todays/dp/1637743807
https://www.instagram.com/stonesupler/ TRANSCRIPT:Susan Stone:
Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Kristina Supler. We are full time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real candid conversations.
Kristina Supler:
Susan ever since the Super Bowl.
Susan Stone:
Oh no, oh no. Don't say it.
Kristina Supler:
I have a secret guilty pleasure. I confess to you and our listeners out there like,
Susan Stone:
Oh my God here, it's coming.
Kristina Supler:
But I am totally, completely obsessed with the dunking Dunkin Donuts commercials, the Ben Affleck Matt Damon commercials. Did you see those during the Super Bowl?
Susan Stone:
Okay. Not only did I see them, but I saw us in Ben and Matt.
Kristina Supler:
That's what I thought.
Susan Stone:
I know.
Kristina Supler:
What is about those two. I was so drawn to it. I can't stop watching when they're there walking in. We got touchdown, Tommy. On the key.
Susan Stone:
You love that one.
Kristina Supler:
I love that one.
Susan Stone:
Touchdown Tommy on the keys. Okay, Because here's what it is. They've been together a long time working and kind of separating.Yeah. We're not childhood friends, but.
Kristina Supler:
No, we're not.
Susan Stone:
But it's been.
Kristina Supler:
It's been a minute.
Susan Stone:
It's been a second. Collaborating,
Kristina Supler:
Creativity
Susan Stone:
Creativity. And, you know, they drive each other crazy, which we do sometimes.
Kristina Supler:
We do. We do. But there's humor there. I can't even tell you how much it made me laugh when Matt Damon looks at Ben Affleck and he's like, how do you like them donuts?
Susan Stone:
Oh my God.
Kristina Supler:
I’m so sorry.
Susan Stone:
Okay. The line I loved is sometimes it's really hard to be your friend or remember, I would do anything for you. This is anything. And I know those moments because in our working relationship, in our friendship, we ask an absolute a lot from each other.
Kristina Supler:
Oh yeah. It's it's really it's been it's been quite a journey we've been on for the past.
I don't even know how long it's been.
Susan Stone:
for the listeners out there. And those of you who are in Greek organizations, I hard rushed Sue Blur to be my law partner. I remember saying, Join me in this practice. And you're like, Well, I still want my criminal defense and you still do.
Kristina Supler:
I still do. You do. I do.
Susan Stone:
But mostly we represent students out there and we do handle a lot of criminal defense and we deal do with that. We still deal with sex issues
Kristina Supler:
all day, every day.
Susan Stone:
It was a hard sell getting you in, but we made it and it's been actually almost ten years.
Kristina Supler:
So why are we talking about this today? Why what is the point of this episode of this topic?
Are our listeners are like what we're gone from done kings and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to to the two of you are
Susan Stone:
Dunking’s or dukin?
Kristina Supler:
it's done Kings Kings because they're kings I swear folks she’s really smart
Susan Stone:
I just feel like what Dunkin Donuts like
Kristina Supler:
Yeah it is but in the commercial they were getting creative. Okay okay,.
Susan Stone:
Guys that's what life is like in the office and why I do
Kristina Supler:
And that by the way I knew when I met her I said, she's the one for me.
Susan Stone:
Absolutely. Guys, please stop. I'm menopausal I’ll pee in my pants. Okay, so how. Here's the thing, guys.
Kristina Supler:
For real.
Susan Stone:
For real.
Kristina Supler:
In all seriousness,
Susan Stone:
In all seriousness, we do handle your serious legal issues, but it's hard work and you really have to grind a lot of hours and there's got to be a lot of trust in the person you work with. And there's got a lot there's got to be a lot of synergy. And I think that we're doing this episode to show that we really are more than law partners, that we will be like being together.
Kristina Supler:
Absolutely. This is sort of a behind the scenes episode, if you will. And I mean, I think that aside from, you know, our spouses and significant others and friends and family member, people who know us really closely, some people are surprised to hear and learn of how much time we spend together. And we always say, well, it's good thing we really like each other because our work is grueling. There's so many hours and traveling and dealing with tough topics. It's important that we have a really good relationship with each other to get through it all.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, we don't get enough time being buds. We try, I agree with, but we really don't because at the end of the day we want to go home and be with our friends and our family and get a little break from each other.But it has almost been ten years.
Kristina Supler:
I know that's crazy to think about. So let's go back in the time machine and you tell our listeners, take it back a little. Austin Powers Yeah, How? Let's talk about how we met. Like what was our first encounter?
Susan Stone:
We met, Yeah, Yeah. So it's funny, I was a working at my old law firm and Cristina's boss at her firm actually merged into us for a hot sec.
Kristina Supler:
That's right.
Susan Stone:
Hot, sec
Kristina Supler:
hot sec. I just had my second child.
Susan Stone:
I can't believe that
Kristina Supler:
lot of professional transition going on, but, you know,
Susan Stone:
and we're talking high school for your oldest, and that little one is about to become his own young king in the theater.
Kristina Supler:
Yes. He is a man of the art. Yeah, But yeah, I mean, I remember it was like 2013 ish, maybe even further back than that, b
Susan Stone:
But a little bit closer to when the Obama regulations came out in 2011.That’s scary guys.
Kristina Supler:
I know. And I remember I'm plugging away doing my thing. Susan's in her world of what At that point, general litigation in special education.
Susan Stone:
Well, and I was in the beginning of starting my own practice, and I knew I didn't want to do it alone. I knew I needed a buddy with me because it's just let's face it, it's more fun.
Life is more fun with a friend. And we had a project, a case came in that required both skill sets.
Kristina Supler:
I remember I got a call for a student at a very reputable university in the area, very infamous school in terms of Title nine. And I got the call saying, Hey, do you do title 9 work? My son's got this issue.He's been accused of sexual assault. And at the time I vaguely knew what Title nine was, but I knew that I knew sex, sexual assault. Right. And so, like,
Susan Stone:
just came out so awful. It's like you just keep it all, you
Kristina Supler:
I know, the how you try to avoid the the puns. They're just right there and you fall into
Susan Stone:
Keep it clean. Keep it clean This is a family show.
Kristina Supler:
But I remember talking to you and saying, Susan, I have this case. I feel like you would be, you know, good person to partner with on it. And you're like, Yeah, I've done some of those as well and the rest is history.
Susan Stone:
And you know what's interesting to talk about, when we get tense at those moments of tension, it's usually fear.
Kristina Supler:
I agree.
Susan Stone:
When we have fear
Kristina Supler:
uncertainty, fear
Susan Stone:
or exhaustion.
Kristina Supler:
That too,
Susan Stone:
I do have to share a story with what a good law partner Kristina supler is. And what a good friend. Supler is. my gosh. Two weeks ago I got hit with the virus. It was one of the nastiest viruses in my life. I will say for me, it was worse than COVID.
I was.
Kristina Supler:
You were so sick. I don't. I don't know the last time I've seen you that ill. I mean you were writhing in pain. You were literally lying on the floor of your office.
Susan Stone:
yeah. Guys, I was in a dress with heels,
Kristina Supler:
a Prada dress, I might add.
Susan Stone:
It was a beautiful vintage Prada, and I had a very nice bike.Black heel, little Lu bu little red showing on the bottom. Loved it. And I was in so much pain and I was sweating. And we actually had a very important 3:00 meeting and I had to be there. I laid on my floor because I was not going to miss that meeting. No holding my stomach got up, turn my camera on and would turn my camera off to puke.It was so ugly. And then you drove me home and I wore to Mass. And then you got sick. So that's just like crazy,
Kristina Supler:
I’m still on antibiotic .
Susan Stone:
Just the gift that keeps on giving.
Kristina Supler:
That's right.
Susan Stone:
So, what we get out of it is really important. I think the feeling of you always have my back and I always have your back. And
Kristina Supler:
Absolutely. Because, I mean, so much of our work is rooted in absolute uncertainty and there's very little like black and white, you know, clear answers for our cases. And so you're sort of working in a lot of gray and working off of instinct, and sometimes you're not sure what to do. And clients are upset. Everyone's upset. It's tough emotionally.
And it's just it's so rewarding to have someone there by your side go through it with you.
Susan Stone:
You do take it for granted. You forget, my gosh, that's your reality. But you know, look, we see clients at our worst and people say and do things when they're in crisis that they would regret later or Yeah, they feel like I've got to take it out on somebody or, you know, not everybody's so nice.
Newsflash, I tell that to my kids all the time. Not everybody's nice.
Kristina Supler:
This is one of life's big lessons for many of our clients, unfortunately.
Susan Stone:
Interesting that I want to go back to Matt and Ben. Yeah, I feel like I know you, Matt and Ben. If you're out there listening, check that out. And Ben. Yeah. Do you think they're going to listen to this podcast?
Kristina Supler:
I'm sure they will. And they probably already know me because I went to Boston University and they're Boston people. So like, I feel a connection, right?
Susan Stone:
Okay, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Hello. And maybe J.Lo
Kristina Supler:
Do you feel a connection with J.Lo.
Susan Stone:
Absolutely. Not even a little connection, but. But I love you. I love you out there. But we have sort of merged because I would say when we began, you were always much more structured. So I would want it. When we started podcasting, I was podcast and you'd be like, we’ve got to get ready. No, no, no, we've got to do it now. I think now I take a little more time and you've got a lot more of that spontaneity. And we just over the years, I think, honestly, ages mellowed me, and you've gotten a little more spark maybe because you're coming into your own.
Kristina Supler:
That's it. That's right. It's funny you always say we're just like an old married couple. But it's true
Susan Stone:
It's True.
Kristina Supler:
It really is true. We can finish each other's sentences. We do mind melding. Remember back in the day when we did improv lessons together,
Susan Stone:
Do you think Matt and Ben did improv to get ready for the dunking? Is it really dunking?
I'm stuck on it. I can't get off of it. Guys who knew I like that you’re such a moron
Kristina Supler:
Anyone who watched the commercials. But that's okay.
Susan Stone:
I was very focused on Tom Brady. Okay.
Kristina Supler:
Touchdown, Tom. Tommy on the Keys.
Susan Stone:
He's kind of cute.
Kristina Supler:
That's my line. I love that line,
Susan Stone:
but I can’t let it go anyways.
Kristina Supler:
So let's talk about.I mean, why we get this question a lot. How do you do what you do? Why do you do what you do and how do you answer that?
Susan Stone:
it's a higher calling for me.
Kristina Supler:
I totally agree,
Susan Stone:
because I'm sure that I would be doing a little better if we had gone into corporate law or tax or one of those like non-sex things that, you know, people do in big firms.
But we get the privilege of helping people at their lowest point in their life. And we have the privilege when you are being accused or you've gone through something on a college campus, it does feel life altering and it is life altering. And to see younger people through the other side is an honest calling and a privilege. And it's exhausting.
It's it's been life changing for me and it's given meaning to my career.
Kristina Supler:
I would say for myself, I mean, I agree it's something you're called to do. But also for me, I would add that there's just something I think it probably does go back to my prior criminal defense roots and that I just can't help but root for the underdog.
There's someone in a room full of people and no one else likes them, wants to talk to them. People are giving them the ugly. I like. That's the person I just gravitate towards and I want to help. And I think particularly with students and these crazy, awful rules and regulations that surround these big court proceedings and then other campus conduct cases, watching young adults in these awful moments and they have to advocate for themselves.
They have to essentially be lawyers. And they're not you know, they're like literally 12. It's it's heartbreaking. And I just feel so passionate about helping these people get through these awful moments in their lives.
Susan Stone:
And you like talking about sex
Kristina Supler:
I love them. I might. There's something I truly enjoy talking to teens and college kids about their social lives, their personal lives, sex.Sure. I mean, it's so funny, though, because I remember back in the day when we first started and we'd sort of have this stiffness, no pun intended, to talk about
Susan Stone:
I don’t believe you, just said that
Kristina Supler:
to talking about, though, you know, the sexual encounter where things went wrong, so on and so forth. And, you know, pre-COVID days obviously before there were virtual meetings and sitting in the conference room and having these terrified kids look at us and like, my gosh, how can I see these these body part words in front of these older women?
But I don't know. There's just something I think we're both very comfortable with the topic,
Susan Stone:
guys. College kids still very few use the proper body parts. We still hear boobies and titties instead of breasts. It's true. We do.
Kristina Supler:
It is true. And aside from slang terms, I think many of them just like literally don't know the right names for parts
Susan Stone:
that's read our book.Yes, Your kid read the book. That's right.
Kristina Supler:
Going with that. How did how did you read my mind News out there to check out. Yes. Your kid.
Susan Stone:
So, I want to end with sharing the best skill I've learned from you, and that is how to deliver really difficult news to people in a way that's kind, firm and compassionate.
Because in the olden days, when I first started out, I would just look at a kid and say, You smoked too much weed, you got to stop.
Kristina Supler:
And you did.
Susan Stone:
I did. You did. And it was true. Guys. I just tell the truth preach.
Kristina Supler:
Well that's the thing, is that your messages, I mean, were they were right. They were spot on.
Susan Stone:
Yes, they were.
Kristina Supler:
It's hard for kids and parents, especially the parents, to hear because as parents, you know, think about I can appreciate this now that I'm a mother, you're obviously a mother. It's you know, we view our children's successes and struggles in some respects as our own or because of us. And I don't mean that like taking credit for it, but rather if it's like, okay, how did I screw up as a parent where did I go wrong? Did I cause this? And I think that's part of the reason why it's so hard for so many parents to hear,
Susan Stone:
I still get research, guys. If your kids drinking too much, I am going to tell you.
Kristina Supler:
Well, you are still Susan,
Susan Stone:
I you got to be me. Got to be good. But I do it in a different way.
You just lead you there. Yes. And so therefore, when the conclusion comes, it's not as much of a shock. And I learned skills from you. I learned it from you.
Kristina Supler:
Oh, thank you.
Susan Stone:
Well, remember that commercial on drugs?
Kristina Supler:
This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs?
Susan Stone:
Yeah. The kid goes. Where did you learn that for the parent?
I learned it from you.
Kristina Supler:
Oh, I had forgotten that part of the commercial
Susan Stone:
We’re giving good lines
Kristina Supler:
I think you know, something that I have learned from you is the importance of just like when there's bad news, when there's something scary or something you're dreading, just hit it head on. Just deal with it. Like, okay, let's pick up the phone, let's make the call.
Let's have the meeting with the client. Let's be direct. Because, you know, in reality, like the bad thing, it's not going to go away.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, I live by the motto. The only way out of hell is through. And I think that defines our relationship is that we walk through hell for our clients. We walk through hell every day and we do it together.So thank you.
Kristina Supler:
Thanks, listeners. And Susan, thank you for being you.
Susan Stone:
You're welcome. It's really dunking. It's dunking. No, it's not. bye, everyone.
Kristina Supler:
Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Kristina. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode and leave us a review so other people can find the content we share here. You can follow us on Instagram. Just search our handle at Stones hoopla and for more resources, visit us online at Student Defense, Dot.com.Thank you so much for being a part of our real talk community. We'll see you next time.
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In this week's episode of 'Real Talk,' Susan and Kristina dive deep into the topic of bullying. Discovering that your child is either being bullied or is the one doing the bullying can be incredibly challenging for parents. However, it's crucial to be informed. Join us in this episode to learn about the necessary steps you should take, the responsibilities schools have, and how you, as a parent, can ensure your child is protected. Tune in for valuable insights and practical advice.
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:https://studentdefense.kjk.com/
https://www.instagram.com/stonesupler/
TRANSCRIPT:Susan Stone:
Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Kristina Supler. We are full time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real candid conversations.
Susan Stone:
Well, good morning.
Kristina Supler:
Good morning, my friend.
Susan Stone:
Gosh, I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. I’m just so tired. Every bone in my body feels tired.
Kristina Supler:
It's funny you say that, because this morning, for the first time in an unknown eternity, my alarm went off to go to the gym, and I chose not to get up. I went back to bed and then another hour and a half to sleep.
Susan Stone:
I've had a lot of those mornings and I'm wondering what's contributing to the exhaustion. Any ideas on your part? I just think it's we're really busy.
Kristina Supler:
We've had a busy January. We've had a lot of hearings. We have a lot of tough cases that I think we both really care about. And, you know, our work is it's not work that you can do if you don't care. You know, I mean, what do you think?
Susan Stone:
Yeah, You know, I try very hard and I know you do to to separate work from home because our family does. Yeah, but I take it home. I carry it in my heart. I carry every client in my heart. And it's hard.
Kristina Supler:
It's hard to turn off your brain at night and stop thinking about these really significant issues that, you know, we've spent hours all day sorting through. But then you go home and, you know, my children are younger, obviously, as you know, I'm in mom mode cooking dinner and helping with homework. And last night we were making cookies for a school presentation on Friday, and it was kind of like, my gosh, the last thing I want to do, but you have to do it.
Susan Stone:
You've got to do it. And I know that I worked last night after I made dinner and I just was losing patience for the client and it was more just fatigue on my part.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah.
Susan Stone:
So I need to recharge and so do you. What do you do to recharge?
Kristina Supler:
that's a good question, because it can be a couple of different things.
For me, sometimes it's just having a weekend that's unscheduled, you know, not having a million activities, but then also sleep and exercise and just sort of having some time for myself and not feeling like I'm running around all weekend, you know, taking care of other people. But I mean, what about you?
Susan Stone:
Yeah, I don't know. I, I don't know.
I keep thinking about it. It's a moving needle. But one of the things I do know is that we do let work move into our home space, and it keeps me up in the middle of the night. So I got to get better at that. And if any of you listeners are out there and have some ideas and yes, I already do practice yoga and healthy.
Kristina Supler:
mindfulness,
Susan Stone:
I've got that mindfulness.But you know what's been coming in a lot and I just thought we talk about it. We're getting a lot of calls about bullying again.
Kristina Supler:
We are. And we get those cases and those calls, I should say, all the time. I mean, every year. But I do feel like in January there's always a bit of an uptick in bullying, say, issues.
And it's really for students of all ages, wouldn't you agree?
Susan Stone:
Yeah. I wonder if you think it has anything to do with the crappy weather.
Kristina Supler:
I hadn't thought of that. maybe we're in Cleveland and it was like literally zero a couple of weeks ago, and no one's outside moving around. Everyone's cooped up in homes. That could be a thought.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, it could be. But so the questions that come in is, if your child's accused of being the bully, how can you help defend my child? If your kid is bullied, what can I do? How do I stop it? Do have a lawsuit? There's a lot of issues related that you would call an attorney for if your child's involved in bullying.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah, I mean, and I think that so often in these initial meetings when we're meeting with parents and children alike, you know, one of the first questions we get is, should I sent my kid to school tomorrow? Should I put my kid out of the school? And it's like, okay, we got to deal with this one step at a time.
We got a lot to unpack here, but you know, there's not a one size fits all answer. I would say in any of the cases.
Susan Stone:
I have a personal question. Were you ever bullied?
Kristina Supler:
Wow.
Susan Stone:
did I touch a personal nerve
Kristina Supler:
or was I a bully
Susan Stone:
or were you the bully? Yeah,
Kristina Supler:
I sincere bully believe I was not a bully.
Susan Stone:
Everybody thinks there not the bully
Kristina Supler:
will be someone out there who feels who feels otherwise. Who, you know, I ran with in fifth grade, but I. I don't think I was. But, you know,
Susan Stone:
We’ll find out
Kristina Supler:
The universe has a way of telling us these things, right?
Susan Stone:
wow. We're going to get an email from someone to you sure hear about you bullied me in the fifth grade.
Kristina Supler:
I this does remind me. I had it's funny, I was saying fifth grade. I had a personal variance that that that deeply scarred me and is still with me to this day. I still carry it with me
Susan Stone:
is it juicy.
Kristina Supler:
Well, I mean, at the time it was. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Susan Stone:
Do share come on I want to know
Kristina Supler:
.I had a group of friends.
Susan Stone:
Were they friends or quote friends?
Kristina Supler:
Well, I mean, friends in the way that anyone's friends during adolescence that, you know, one day, one day you're the coolest kid in school and then the next day no one will talk to you for no reason, and you're not really sure why. But then 48 hours later, you're back on top. So I had a group of girlfriends who I did view as my friends.
I thought we were true friends. Now, in hindsight, you know, what was the quality of the relationship? That's something I would like to have
Susan Stone:
Are you still friends with them now.
Kristina Supler:
No,
Susan Stone:
okay, then they weren't friends.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah, no, no contact. Having contact since, I don't know, 30 years ago. But there there was a boy I had a crush on and my friends convinced the boy to ask me out.
Susan Stone:
Now, what The first of all was the boy's name. Come on, Dish.
Kristina Supler:
The boy's name was Brad.
Susan Stone:
Okay, So did Brad actually in fifth grade ask you out to pizza or what did that even mean? At that age
Kristina Supler:
That ended well, that's it. Yeah. What? What did it mean? I'm still asking myself that, but I assure you, it was very significant at the time.
We were. We were boyfriend girlfriend. I don't know. Like, we didn't we didn't go anywhere. We didn't meet in public. We this was obviously pre cell phones and social media.
So I supposed dating someone was like an eight minute phone call at 7 p.m. before your parents needed the phone because this was also before you know, people have like multiple lines in their house.
And I was like, listen, my house. We were all sharing one phone.
Susan Stone:
And so multiple lines in the stone house, I assure you no
Kristina Supler:
it it's hot, hot competition in my house to get on the phone in the evening. So at any rate, I liked this boy Brad. And one day out of nowhere, he realized that he, too, like me, wanted me to be his girlfriend.
Susan Stone:
So this is not a sad story. This is awesome.
Kristina Supler:
but wait, there's more. So I am just over the moon thinking, you know, I'm like, Wow, this is.
Susan Stone:
It's Brad. Brad.
Kristina Supler:
Well, you'll always have or not. Fast forward, I don't know if it was two days later, three days later, I don't know a certain period of time passed and I'm in gym class and I find out that Brad Shortbread asked me out, but it was really like on a dare or like it was in concerted effort with these like, plans with my friends.
And really it was just to humiliate me. And of course, I found all of this out. And I mean, girl, I was crying hysterically. I ran out of gym class. I was crushed because the humiliation and the worst part about it wasn't just okay, it was joke. Brad doesn't like me. Like, okay, you know, the betrayal. The betrayal that I everyone else had this joke.
I was on the outside. Everyone else knew what was going on. They were talking about me and I wasn't, you know, it was just. Yeah, the betrayal, the devastation, the pain.
Susan Stone:
Did you go to school the next day?
Kristina Supler:
Girl? Are you kidding me? My parents were like, you know, get over it go back to school. You’re fine
Susan Stone:
That was my parents. For sure
Kristina Supler:
There is no cadwelding you know, let's talk about this.
How does that make you feel that? No, no, none of that.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, I didn't have that either.
Kristina Supler:
Catholic grade school. So, you know, back in the day, Catholic grade school. I mean, I will say that the teachers were I don't know, they seemed to handle it like recognize how cruel it was. But, you know, the next day, like no one was checking in with me.
There were no school psychologists making sure things were fine. I mean, they just they didn't do that.
Susan Stone:
This might explain a lot about you. just give me insight
Kristina Supler:
I’m just sharing my vulnerability with our listeners?
Susan Stone:
And I just want you to know how special that is, because Supler is a tough cat and she doesn't really share a lot.
So thanks for sharing. supler, But I want to know what's Brad up to ?
Kristina Supler:
what? So funny thing I have not ever cyber stalked Brad or really anyone from that period of time in my life. But one day I was driving down the street and I walked past an office and I saw his name and I was like, my gosh, here he is.
He's alive and maybe well. And it just it brought back all these memories. And it's funny. I mean, literally, this was I don't even know how many years ago, but I saw the name and it immediately triggered the memory of my mortification and humiliation of the whole my friends and this cruel joke.
Susan Stone:
Well, I have two things to say.One, Brad,
Kristina Supler:
your loss.
Susan Stone:
Your loss. You're a total loser. And two, to those girls, they lose even more. And I win,
Kristina Supler:
Aww thank you. Get lawyerly . Let's talk bullying in a in the legal sense.
Susan Stone:
So first of all, let's unpack the definition of bullying because not all acts of unkindness amount to bullying.
Kristina Supler:
Someone being mean to your kid.
It's so hard. It's so hard because I know, like as a parent, there is nothing. Would you agree Nothing cuts you more than watching your children suffer and feel, you know, excluded or hurt or someone be unkind to them. I mean, that is it's awful.
Susan Stone:
Only reason we can laugh about the Brad story is because it occurred many, many years ago and you're over it and it's you.But if it were, your daughter it wouldn’t be funny.
Kristina Supler:
No. Now, that's exactly right. And it's it's hard. I think I struggle when we, you know, get inquiries from people and parents share these horrible stories and the you know, my child's being bullied. My child's being bullied. I must have a really powerful lawsuit. Help me help me. And and it's it's hard when you say that sometimes sort of have to say to them, like, wow, that's awful. That’s so terrible. Your child must feel terrible. My heart goes out to you. But you don't have a lot of your
Susan Stone:
occasional teasing, not bullying. It's going to be severe, and it's got to be persistent, and it's got to be pervasive. And it can also be personal. Or todays cyber.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah, I mean, and so much of what we see is involves online social media, communication, group chats, things like that. But I mean, I think the key for our listeners in terms of like, how do you identify bullying? Because of course every state and school code of conduct has different definitions. I mean, of course there's similar themes in all of it, but there can be slightly different definitions. But, you know, again, it's got to be sort of recurring and ongoing and isolated incidents certainly could be a basis for a student or students violating school code of conduct.But I don't know if one incident,
Susan Stone:
one unkind word, does not amount to bullying, but a nine unkind word making fun of someone day after day after day after day. That's consistency is one of the identifiers for bullying.
Kristina Supler:
What would you say in terms of whether there has to be like physical or emotional harm or some sort of threats? I mean,
Susan Stone:
Well, certainly if you threaten someone that would amount to bullying, give me your lunch money or I will beat you up. I think that is bullying today
Kristina Supler:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. So what should be what are your thoughts about the issue of location?
Susan Stone:
Yeah. So it's much easier to prove bullying if it happened at school because then it falls under what I would call the jurisdiction of the school.
However, if there is off campus bullying and it impacts your child's ability to perform at school, I think there's an argument that the school's got to get involved.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah, so I know that we not too long ago we had a situation involving some social media online communication and some was at school and some wasn't. And, you know, we were sort of I remember passing through and wrestling with, okay, what is the, you know, in lawyer speak, the jurisdictional analysis in terms of what can the school do when stuff maybe happens at home in the evenings on personal devices, not school issued devices,
Susan Stone:
but it's complicated.
Kristina Supler:
It's complicated. And kids show up at school the next day and there's still the fallout which you know again I'm lawyer speak for impact on education. You're right it's it's tough to know when I would say on the school side sometimes you know in fairness to our educators it's hard for them to know as well where that line is.
Susan Stone:
Well, and you'd think about the Supreme Court case of Brandy Lovie, the cheerleader. You're a lot.
Kristina Supler:
tell our listeners about that because key case and I'm guessing many people out there in podcast world don't know what it is
Susan Stone:
yeah, Brandy didn't make the cheerleading team
Kristina Supler:
poor brandy
Susan Stone:
poor brandy and I couldn't be a cheerleader.
Kristina Supler:
I can't even do a cartwheel.
Susan Stone:
I can't do a split up.
Kristina Supler:
That's like literally not even up for discussion. I can't do that.
Susan Stone:
And it just sounds awful. But that's why we're lawyers. So Brandy didn't make the team, and she posted some nasty comments about the coaches online and they disciplined her and they went all the way up to SCOTUS and there was First Amendment protection.
I think that's what schools wrestle and with. But remember, that only applies to public schools where you have a First Amendment freedom of speech to talk about things, but certain things are absolutely not protected. And we've talked about that in prior podcast.
Kristina Supler:
And I'm going to drop a little bit of legal knowledge for some of our listeners out there and
Susan Stone:
drop away.
Kristina Supler:
Many find this surprising, but at a private school, at a private school on their campus, you don't have full First Amendment rights. And so, you know, schools are allowed to limit and respond to and some might say restrained speech.
Susan Stone:
Correct. And that goes by their honor code and their policy. But I think it's universal that bullying someone based on their appearance, their race, their religion, their ethnicity, a disability will always be subject to discipline.
Kristina Supler:
Absolutely. And I would say for poor parents, if you come to learn that your child is experiencing, you know, negative, hostile treatment by peers or staff, I mean, let's face it, that is something that should be immediately, immediately reported to the school and for schools. It's not even a close call school. Need to jump on that right away.
Susan Stone:
Speaking of reporting, a lot of times we find out from parents they want to immediately sue the school for not bullying. And then I say, well, did you put the school on notice? Do they know about it
Kristina Supler:
the old notice requirement? Yeah. So let's unpack that for our parent listeners out there. notice Look, why is why is known as so important for schools Like what?
What does that have to do in relation to about whether there might be a lawsuit or not?
Susan Stone:
Well, knock the nerd out again,
Kristina Supler:
go nerd away.
Susan Stone:
Go observe versus Lago Vista Independent School District that you cannot make a school district liable for something that they don't know about.
Kristina Supler:
Make sense to me. I mean, some might say it's a tricky legal requirement, but if you think about it in a very practical level, if schools aren't clearly on notice about something, how can they fix it?
But let me so let's take that a step further. What about and say, well, teachers saw it happen. They saw my child, you know, sat in the hallway. How could they not know?
Susan Stone:
Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But if it's not in writing, it didn't happen, then you know that.
Kristina Supler:
There you go. There you go. And that's why it's important for I mean, look, not every single piece of communication needs to be in writing, but it's things you know, about misconduct, mistreatment.
Send an email to the school. Nothing wrong with.
Susan Stone:
I love documenting anything that you think you're going to want to rely on later as a piece of evidence and to prevent miscommunication, we often give advice, and I'd like to pingpong our common words of advice for parents, and I'll start the ping. Number one, put the school on notice and ask for an investigation.
Kristina Supler:
Follow up. If you don't get a response and push for something to be done to keep your kids safe.
Susan Stone:
Number two in While an investigation is pending, ask for interim measures. What does that mean?
Kristina Supler:
Well, an easy one that comes to mind is some sort of no contact or stay away. Order.
Susan Stone:
Okay, Now separate the kids.
Kristina Supler:
Maybe ask, for instance, for schedules to be changed, different lunch periods, maybe some sort of restrictions or regulations for who goes where at recess, on the playground, things like that.
Susan Stone:
And the bus. the bus,
Kristina Supler:
Yeah. I'm so glad you said that. We have a lot of matters where things are okay during the day and then kids get on the bus and everything rapidly falls apart.
Susan Stone:
Number three, ask the school to provide mental health support services if your child's suffering.
Kristina Supler:
And it's important, I would say that families really avail themselves to those services.
Sometimes there can be a hesitation to take advantage of school services, but they're there. Use them. And particularly now, you know, this is such a cliche to say post-COVID, post-COVID, but truly there is such a shortage of available, readily available mental health services. And, you know, I know I think Susan, we here at least once a week in difficult I called the therapist and they can't take my kid.
You know my kid's in a waitlist. It's going to be six weeks before we get an appointment. If you're tired suffering, you can't wait that long.
Susan Stone:
It's been really since COVID a struggle to get the mental health support for all those students who need that help. Last and this is self-serving, guys, I know it, but if you ever need doubt on how to handle things, consult a lawyer.
Kristina Supler:
That's right. We're here to support families in crisis, talk through the legal issues and really help kids. I mean, that is at the heart of our legal work. I think kids and using that label broadly, kids can be like 25 30 that the support students,
Susan Stone:
you know, people think that just because you call a lawyer, we all sue. And while we do file lawsuits, that is one of our
Kristina Supler:
we do we do
Susan Stone:
we do a lot of other things like counseling and navigating and helping people through crisis.
So don't just think because you call a lawyer that you're going to be suing the district. Maybe the lawyer will help you nip the situation in the bud and get a better resolution quickly.
Kristina Supler:
And that really, I think, is a win, you know, because court, let's face it, though, we're our lawyers and go to court. Let's face it, it's not for everyone, that's for sure.
And certainly it takes a toll on families and kids. But I think this was a good, good talk today.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, And I have to say something. You girls who did that to my partner, Kristina Supler, if I ever meet you, I am going to be watching you and Brad. You missed out.
Kristina Supler:
That's right. Look at me now.
Susan Stone:
Yeah all, This is more.
Kristina Supler:
Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Kristina. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode and leave us a review so other people can find the content we share here. You can follow us on Instagram. Just search our handle at Stones hoopla and for more resources, visit us online at Student Defense, Dot.com.
Thank you so much for being a part of our real talk community. We'll see you next time.
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In this week's episode of 'Real Talk,' Susan and Kristina take on the daunting task of deciphering the ever-changing slang of today's kids. From navigating linguistic rollercoasters to tackling new words and phrases that pop up daily, they show that staying in the know is not just essential but also a fun challenge. Join them for some laughs and linguistic acrobatics as they take on today’s latest trends.
TRANSCRIPT:Susan Stone:
Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Kristina Supler. We are full-time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real candid conversations.
Have a fun podcast today, Supler.
Kristina Supler:
What are we talking about?
Susan Stone:
We are going to talk about decoding teen slang and trends.
Kristina Supler:
Oooo, fun, I like it.
Susan Stone:
Yeah. Before we launch into our podcast today, can I just say it is so flipping cold out.
Kristina Supler:
Oh my gosh. It is freezing out. To our listeners out there, We are in Cleveland where it's a balmy four degrees or one degree, depending upon the device you look at, and it is just frigid.
Susan Stone:
Okay, So hubby last night noted that there are no terms for cold and it's been called an ‘arctic blast’. You ever thought that we were experiencing…
Kristina Supler:
I feel like I've heard like local weather people use different iterations of Arctic blast. Arctic freeze. I don't know.
Susan Stone:
All I know is I was trying to walk the dogs yesterday and it was truly a miserable experience for me and the dogs. They didn't even want to go out and go to the bathroom. It was awful.
Kristina Supler:
Funny, I had the same experience this morning when I took my two dogs out. It was like quick rush, take your business and get back inside. But even inside, Freezing. Freezing, freezing, freezing.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, and didn’t you have… What happened with your uh… was it your, was it your water heater? Your power? What happened this weekend?
Kristina Supler:
So, Cleveland got a big storm over the weekend and yeah, I didn't have power for 24 hours so I was, we were away. It's fortunate that we were away but it was a little nerve racking in terms of, I don't know, bad things happening in the house. Fortunately, my husband informed me that power has no impact on our heating system because we have steam.
I didn't really know. Yes, but yeah, food in the fridge, all those fun issues that Midwesterners deal with, so on and so forth. But here we are today and hopefully we've got something light and funny that can warm things up.
Susan Stone:
Yeah. You know what we did yesterday? I took my youngest and we went and saw Mean Girls.
Kristina Supler:
Oh I read about the like re- uh, relaunch of that movie. I’ve never seen it. Tell me about it.
Susan Stone:
Well, I love the original. And the original was amazing. Rachel McAdams, Lindsay Lohan,
Kristina Supler:
I was gonna say isn’t Lindsay Lohan in it. That's. Yeah, the two comes to mind.
Susan Stone:
Yeah. And that was one of her. And she's in the remake.
Kristina Supler:
How’s she looking these days?
Susan Stone:
She's looking gorgeous.
Kristina Supler:
Really, good! Good.
Susan Stone:
Shout out to you, Lindsay. You are aging fine. But I will say, Tori, my 18 year old, did not like the movie at all.
Kristina Supler:
Really? Why? Now, did she had she seen the original or. No?
Susan Stone:
No, she had. She just thought.
Kristina Supler:
the remake was not hitting her right?
Susan Stone:
No. She thought it was insulting to her intelligence.
Kristina Supler:
Why is that?
Susan Stone:
Well, she felt like it didn't capture the original flavor of bullying.
And she thought bullying is such an important topic that they sort of made fun of it and made light of it and made it seem ridiculous.
Kristina Supler:
So let me ask you, was there any, like redeeming message or takeaway for viewers of the movie? Any lessons to be learned?
Susan Stone:
I mean It was the same lesson be kind, be nice, blah, blah, blah. I'm not trying to put down.
Kristina Supler:
Sure that's and that's a good one, but it's a little basic.
Susan Stone:
But the way it was delivered, that's the word
Kristina Supler:
Basic.
Susan Stone:
It was basic. Yeah. So, you know, I wanted to love it. I want it to because I love the original and I know there's now the musical and, you know I love me a Musical.
Kristina Supler:
You love a Musical.
Susan Stone:
Oh my gosh. I mean, there isn't a musical that I don’t rush and see.
Kristina Supler:
I think it's so funny that we're talking about this because I have to imagine while and I've experienced that, sometimes people think that as lawyers we’re, you know, reading the news and thinking about Supreme Court opinions and all these, you know, intellectual things, and here we are, “Hey, Supler I saw Mean Girls yesterday”.
Susan Stone:
But on to our topic about the way kids talk and how language changes. So I was, I did a little research. Truthfully, I forgot the fun terms I used when I was in high school or were popular in the eighties.
Kristina Supler:
Okay, lay it on me.
Susan Stone:
Okay. Ready?
Kristina Supler:
Ready.
Susan Stone:
Gag me with the spoon. Did you say that?
Kristina Supler:
Never. No. I can honestly say no. I never said Gag me with a spoon.
Susan Stone:
Ready?
Kristina Supler:
Ready.
Susan Stone:
Eat my shorts.
Kristina Supler:
Uh that, that I'm familiar with through one, Bart Simpson. You really said that? You said eat my shorts.
Susan Stone:
I didn't, but others did.
Kristina Supler:
I just. What does is it really mean? Like, like.
Susan Stone:
Do you think it means Bug off? Maybe. I think that's what it means. Eat my shorts.
Kristina Supler:
Okay.
Susan Stone:
And gnarly.
Kristina Supler:
Now, Now. Okay. Who doesn't know? Gnarly. Sure. I think gnarly still kind of with us. The West Coast vibe a bit. I don't know.
Susan Stone:
So, Let's talk about some of the terms. I didn't know that well. Proposed by our fine marketing department.
Kristina Supler:
Let me ask you, though, what's what generation were you? Are you?
Susan Stone:
I am the beginning of Gen X.
Kristina Supler:
Ohhhh.
Susan Stone:
Babies baby
Kristina Supler:
Sure, sure, sure, sure.
Susan Stone:
Madonna spoke. You can't see me Voguing. Voguing, guys.
Kristina Supler:
Best music video ever. Ever! What's interesting about that is I think of myself as a Gen Xer, but actually, I shudder to admit this. I don't want to admit this, but I must. I am technically the beginning of millennials.
Susan Stone:
There is nothing about you that’s a Millennials
Kristina Supler:
I don't identify that way. I really see myself as a Gen Xer like the nineties vibe, but I guess according to the internet, according to Wikipedia or what have you, I'm technically a first year millennial.
Susan Stone:
That's interesting that I’m a Gen Xer. I was a latchkey kid, and for those of you who don't know what that is, my mom went to work and I had a, what was it, a shoestring with a key.
Kristina Supler:
You literally had a key on a shoestring.
Susan Stone:
I literally had a key on a shoestring.
Kristina Supler:
I didn't know that was a real thing.
Susan Stone:
That's why they called it ‘latchkey kids’ Supler. It's a real thing.
Kristina Supler:
Well, I have to confess, I grew up in a house that we never locked. I never had a key.
Susan Stone:
That's a beautiful thing.
Kristina Supler:
It actually is.
Susan Stone:
That’s a beautiful thing .And I was the MTV generation who didn't remember Tabatha Sorenson. So cute. And I was on MTV once.
Kristina Supler:
No.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, I danced.
Kristina Supler:
Tell me more.
Susan Stone:
There's not that much to tell.
Kristina Supler:
On the Grind? Were you on MTV on the Grind?
Susan Stone:
It was one of those shows, you literally waited in line and when they told you to dance, you danced. It's hilarious.
Kristina Supler:
But was it the Grind? Yes or no?
Susan Stone:
I don't think so.
Kristina Supler:
Because I really hope that it was.
Susan Stone:
And my roommate in college had a picture of Ronald Reagan above her bed.
Kristina Supler:
(Laughing) What did she love him?
Susan Stone:
She loved him.
Kristina Supler:
Was she attracted to him?
Susan Stone:
I don’t know Ronny was hot. Ronny was hot.
Kristina Supler:
Sensible citizen. Oh my God. Now that is the funniest thing.
Susan Stone:
Okay, guys Let’s talk about some words and then we can respond to what this generation is "saying. And I am going to mispronounce it, but ’gyat’.
Kristina Supler:
I, I just can't with this one. With this one, I just can't. I am told, so for all of our listeners out there, I've only recently come to learn this, this word, this phrase, and apparently it is a high compliment. It is a major, major compliment to give someone indicating that their derriere is large.
Susan Stone:
Yeah. I asked my daughter, do you know what ‘gyat’ is? She’s just like ass. I'm like, okay.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah. So I guess it rhymes with squat or bought
Susan Stone:
or fiat.
Kristina Supler:
And then it can also be, I guess I'm told, an acronym for something about the backside being thick. I don't know.
Susan Stone:
But I have to be honest, I've never heard it used in my house.
Kristina Supler:
I've never heard it used. I've never seen it. I mean, in our work representing students, we read a lot of text messages and social media posts. I've never even read it in a text, so I personally am very circumspect about this word and its use and popularity. I feel like a journalist or someone Internet writer out there just like made it up or heard one person use it and then said, oh parents, hey, you need to know this word. And it's really not a thing.
Susan Stone:
I don’t even like the way it sounds. But you know, you have a question for you. Why? When we read and we read thousands of text messages in our case, what's the point of Bruh B.R.U.H
Kristina Supler:
I wish I knew. I wish I knew. I've got nothing for you on that. And we see it literally every day and it's constant, It's constant. Like every other thing is ‘bruh’. And then the other question I have for you is ‘lol’, after everything, even after stuff that's not funny, you still put ‘lol bruh’. That you see a lot as well. I don't know. That is more with people, our clients who are a little bit older. It's not like high schoolers, but that I see all the time and I feel like it's just a habit because it's literally like on text where there's not even something funny said.
Susan Stone:
I don't get it, I don't get it. I agree.
Kristina Supler:
I think for parents, the key is… And parents out there, Please don't please don't say gyat.
I mean, that would just be mortifying to your child.
Susan Stone:
Yeah, you really will look like a total loser.
Kristina Supler:
Way to not mince your words.
Susan Stone:
I know. Okay, parents try it and then they'll tell you your kids that you're a total loser.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah. No they won’t, they won't want to go in public with you.
Susan Stone:
Now, this is all from our marketing department, so shout out to Amanda for doing the research on this. But the next word is…
Kristina Supler:
Well, hold on. Drum roll, please. For the 2023 word of the year.
Susan Stone
Rizz
Kristina Supler:
Susan, what does Rizz mean?
Susan Stone
Charisma.
Kristina Supler:
Ohhhhh the ability to charm someone or woo someone. Now, have you ever So I have not heard my children use this. My kids are a little bit younger. What? You have a senior in high school?
Have you heard her use it?
Susan Stone
No, I've never heard her use Rizz, but I did. Again, just like I am curious her and she says it's more used in the negative, like she doesn't have Rizz.
Kristina Supler:
Oh. Okay. I guess I see it. I don't know. Some of these things. Truly. I feel like you're just, like, made into things for internet writers to launch off on. But we'll have to see if Rizz continues on to 2024.
Susan Stone
Don't think it's going to make it.
Kristina Supler:
I'm inclined to agree. But let me ask you, though, 2024 word that's going to become, you know, plastered all over text messages. Do you think it'll be like a compliment, an insult, a rhetorical turn of phrase? What were you going with this?
Susan Stone
No clue, guys. I don't know.
Kristina Supler:
Come on bruh, come on bruh!
Susan Stone
But what I do know is that, you know, what's the point of this podcast is important, and it's because we don't want parents running around saying ‘Rizz’ and ‘Gyat, and ‘Bruh’.
Kristina Supler:
Yes, let's be clear. We are not advocating for that on any level. We are talking about this though, because I think it's just important for parents to know what these things mean. So I don't know. For instance, you go snooping, you read your kids, you know, messages in the phone. It's sometimes you literally can't tell what they're talking about. And so it's important to know words and phrases.
Susan Stone
Well, on our case, I have to say I use the Urban Dictionary a lot.
Kristina Supler:
Oh yeah. I mean, I can't I can't deny having had to turn to it on more than one occasion. And also, I'll tell you what else I really am uninformed about and trying to do better with is emojis and what they mean.
Susan Stone
Oh those are hard.
Kristina Supler:
Those are hard. I mean, obviously, we know like happy, sad, so on and so forth, but some of them are very confusing to me. And again, we go through text in cases all the time and it's like literally have to Google what certain emojis mean.
Susan Stone
I even know, you know, about peaches and eggplant. You had to tell me.
Kristina Supler:
I was going to say, I definitely feel like I knew that.
Susan Stone
But you did. But I went to you. And once it was explained, I kind of saw the Peach.
Kristina Supler:
You saw the booty,
Susan Stone
I saw a tush, but it wasn't intuitive to me.
Kristina Supler:
Sure, sure. Well, and you have a very good vocabulary, so, you know, you're like pulling out your dictionary words, not Rizz, but, you know, the fancy dictionary words. And so
Susan Stone
I do I pride myself on that. And, you know, I like to think of myself as a reader.
Kristina Supler:
Sure. Me too. Me too.
Susan Stone
I started the new James McBride book. so good. Anyways, that's a sidetrack. Let's talk about one last topic of what's going on in Teen Trends, which is different. It's kind of like a redo from my gen. What is preppy?
Kristina Supler:
Well, I think we've come full circle with our mean girls theme and like redos, re- rehashing something out because preppy is back and alive full well now and it's interesting
Susan Stone
It is different.
Kristina Supler:
It is different, and I see preppy now this I have familiarity with through my daughter and her friends. And back in my day, growing up, when I thought I was a Gen Xer, but apparently I'm not heartbroken. Preppy was like Lacoste and you had your Gap, Argyle, V-neck Sweaters and…
Susan Stone
The Gap, the Izod, with the collar turned up.
Kristina Supler:
Pop the collar, baby.
Susan Stone
Pop the collar and Bermuda backs.
Kristina Supler:
Oh no, I don't know what that is.
Susan Stone
They were these cute little purses where you could change the outer side and little button them on there. They’re cute.
Kristina Supler:
Penny loafers, suede bath box. Do you remember those? That was hot in Catholic grade schools.
Susan Stone
I didn't go to Catholic grade school, but I know you did. But yeah, preppy was the and the preppy handbook that was really big.
Kristina Supler:
I do not know what that is.
Susan Stone
It was a book on how to be preppy. I mean, it was a how to, but today it seems very expensive, what preppy is.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah. Well I mean I guess it probably was back in the day as well with, you know, buying your Lacoste shirt and whatnot. But so for the youngsters now, it's interesting. It's sort of I would say it's like a lifestyle. It's a look and a lifestyle.
Susan Stone
Is it like Goop, a lifestyle brand?
Kristina Supler:
Yeah, I mean Goop is, kind of in a way. But Goop is for what middle aged women be. So think lots of pink and…
Susan Stone
Like Barbie pink?
Kristina Supler:
Yes, Barbie pink. But before it was a thing. Before Barbie was the Barbie remake. Sure. Lululemon, there's no point getting dressed if you don't have on Lululemon.
Susan Stone
But see I think of Lululemon as middle age housewife.
Kristina Supler:
Well, you think of it athleisure.
Susan Stone
I do.
Kristina Supler:
And I do too, actually. But for the young ones out there, it's just what you wear. It's what you do. You always have your water bottle you're carrying around your Stanley thing. But that's not like, I don't know, I, I funny enough, I was doing some reading the other day and came across something on like how Stanley got big and it was a few like Instagram accounts that really made Stanley, like become a huge, huge thing more recently
Susan Stone
That Laneige…
Kristina Supler:
Lip balm?
Susan Stone
Yeah!
Kristina Supler:
Lip Mask? Yup.
Susan Stone
My daughter’s
Kristina Supler:
Yeah.
Susan Stone
The oldest one. Hey, Alex bought it for me and I have say, shout out to Laneige epically now in this bad cold weather.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah.
Susan Stone
I really like it. Oh my gosh. I meant to ask you, you know how I bought you. Just as a you're the best business partner in the world, Jones Road Balm?
Kristina Supler:
Yes.
Susan Stone
I am loving it this winter. Do you notice I have a little on?
Kristina Supler:
A little a little subtle glow.
Susan Stone
a little subtle glow. But it does keep you moisturized in this weather. So I bought you that gift. Are you using it? I'm putting you on the spot.
Kristina Supler:
Well, now that it's cold out, I might, I might bring it back in the summer. It just. It didn't do me right. But now it might be time. Now that my skin's dryer. I will tell you another example of, like, the penultimate preppy brand for girls now is the Aviator Nation sweat wear. And I so I actually, coincidentally enough this weekend was driving and listen to the how I built this podcast.
Susan Stone
I love that guy, Raz.
Kristina Supler:
Who doesn’t, who doesn’t!
Susan Stone
Shout out to him too.
Kristina Supler:
And they had on the founder of Aviator Nation who, by the way, her brother was the founder of Tom's. Think about that family gene pool. Isn't that interesting? But Aviator Nation is essentially like very high-end sweat- sweatshirts, sweat pants, so on and so forth, known for like applique, essentially sewing on stripes of things like that.
Susan Stone
I'm looking at it on a website because I didn't know about it. I don't get it.
Kristina Supler:
Well, you know, it's just like it's a thing. What makes the sweatshirt worth $150? I couldn't really tell you, but kids want it. Parents are paying for it.
Susan Stone
I don't get it.
Kristina Supler:
I think it's like a status thing, too. But it's supposed to be very like colorful. And again, it's a lifestyle. It's an aspirational brand. And the young ones are all about it now. So I don't know that these are kind of like the key, I shouldn't say the key, but brands that come to my mind in terms of like, what the tweens now or viewing is like preppy and what is preppy and skin care. They're very they're very intense in skin care
Susan Stone
Oh my gosh and I think that's a good thing.
Kristina Supler:
Sure, why not?
Susan Stone
I think that establishes really good lifelong habits. But I got to share something. My, in my day, it was either Gloria Vanderbilt or Jordache jeans.
Kristina Supler:
Oh yeah.
Susan Stone
I've got to tell you, my mother would not buy them for me. We were out of my family's budget and I remember crying over it
Kristina Supler:
in my day. It was Guess jeans.
Susan Stone
Yeah, but.
Kristina Supler:
But you wanted the Gloria Vanderbilt pencil pouch. That was like the hot item at my school.
Susan Stone
My parents didn't cater to that.
Kristina Supler:
Mine didn't really. But like, my mother understood why it was important to us. And so we always had to like we had chores and allowance and we had to save our money and then go buy it ourselves.
Susan Stone
So yeah. And you know what? I really try not to capitulate and rush out to every trend.
Kristina Supler:
Sure. No, I think that and that actually by the way, I think that is those are words of wisdom for listeners of any age, because a trend is just that, a trend here today, gone tomorrow. And so, I mean, if you're going to jump on board with the trend, go for it. But I wouldn't, you know, do so in an expensive way.
Susan Stone
No, no. Because, you know, we know what that creates.
Kristina Supler:
And parents, we all know here today, gone tomorrow in terms of what our kids are interested in, what they want. So what they're saying. Right.
Susan Stone
And what they're saying. So for us, it's a necessity. We can't get, do our job unless we can read their texts.
Kristina Supler:
Yeah, I mean, kidding aside, of course, this was obviously we were being light with the topic. But truly, there are often times in many cases where we're going through social media communication and there's text back and forth and they're really important. There, you know, relevant to the case and who did what, said what, when, where, so on and so forth. And we need to understand what's being said. And we don't always.
Susan Stone
Okay, bruh.
Kristina Supler:
Thank you, bruh. LOL. Until next time.
Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Kristina. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode and leave us a review so other people can find the content we share here. You can follow us on Instagram. Just search our handle at Stones hoopla and for more resources, visit us online at Student Defense, Dot.com.
Thank you so much for being a part of our real talk community. We'll see you next time.
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Welcome to Real Talk with Susan and Kristina! In this episode, we’ll dive into the importance of addressing uncomfortable topics with your children. Join us as we explore why these difficult conversations are crucial for your child's well-being and navigating life's challenges. Gain practical tips on addressing sensitive subjects, fostering open communication, and dive into real-life situations drawn from our cases and personal experiences with our own children.
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW: https://studentdefense.kjk.com/ https://www.instagram.com/stonesupler/ https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Your-Kid-Parents-Todays/dp/1637743807 TRANSCRIPT:Susan Stone: Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Kristina super. We are full time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real candid conversations.
Susan Stone: Okay. This is Martin Luther King Day, and we're in our new studio. What do you think about our new digs? Miss Supluar.
Kristina Supler: I like it. Fix some adjustment. But I. I actually. I think it's nice. It's cozy. It's more intimate.
Susan Stone: that is interesting. Well, hopefully not as interesting as our topic today, which is parenting through tough conversation. Anything recent you want to share from the old simpler house?
Kristina Supler: Funny you should ask. So recently we had a little tough conversation parenting moment in my household with my daughter and some Netflix content. Let me tell you, these these parent settings and these accounts, number one parent listeners out there, if you don't know how to do that and check for content and age-appropriate restrictions, please do so.
Very important because if you don't, your child has unfettered access to everything, and I learned that on Netflix. If you don't put on like parental controls and kids are watching like they can access NC 17 material, there's some steamy stuff on there.
Susan Stone: You know what? I had no idea, but I want to know where to find that steamy material. (Laughing) Kidding
Kristina Supler: After a long day of work, Susan's going home and firing up the Netflix.
Susan Stone: But my kids are older, so I don’t have to worry about it.
Kristina Supler: So, you can do that. That's right. That's right. But yes, there are these settings. Make sure you have you know, how they work, and they're turned on and fired up and good to go. But so, it was brought to my attention by, I'll just say, a family member
Susan Stone: a family member
Kristina Supler: that said, hey, you might want to give an eye towards, you know, what your daughter's looking at. And I said, my gosh, thank you for telling me. Because I think it's important to not always say, my child would never do that. You have to sort of be open to the possibility of your kid doing anything.
Susan Stone: Well, Supler considering you are a coauthor on a book saying, yes, your kid, it would be slightly hypocritical if you didn't think your own kid could do something.
Kristina Supler: Indeed, indeed. And to our listeners out there, check out. Yes, your kid available at all. Booksellers
Susan Stone: I did not mean for that to be a plug.
Kristina Supler: no no.
Susan Stone: But I was topical.
Kristina Supler: I had to seize the moment. So at any rate, I said, Well, let me do some digging and you know, you like to call me investigators Suplar
Susan Stone: Oh my gosh.For the listeners out there, nobody and I mean nobody can get to the bottom of different facts. Like my law partner Kristina Suplesr. So, what did you do?
Kristina Supler: Well, so I start doing a little a little digging just late light investigation. Let's say I call my husband and loop him in to what's before us. I get his thoughts.
And I was like, you know, before before having that parent child moment, I want to get my own facts right so that I know. So I sort of like a little, I want to say test, but I suppose it is test like is my is my when I confront my daughter, will she be truthful with me or not?
So that you know, I know where to go with the conversation. So we did some investigating and digging that my husband got all in on it and like for hours were testing iteration of what you can and can't do with these shows and what record shows up in this and that. Just to know, you know, what what actually happened, it is best we could. Of course. And it was interesting because my daughter eventually had a conversation. She said, Mom, I wasn't watching those shows.
Susan Stone: And is it true?
Kristina Supler: I went through that viewing history up, down, left and right. You can download spreadsheets. We did all these simulated tests and delete history.
Susan Stone: Tacky for me, way too tacky.
Kristina Supler: The shows weren't there, so I don't know if look, we don't know what happened and who did what, but what I do know is that I saw no evidence that my daughter did what she was accused of doing.
Susan Stone: So, Not your kid,
Kristina Supler: not my kid, fortunately. But that is not to say that it could never be my child. And I actually think you and I are both like very real about that possibility. That notwithstanding what we do for a living in conversations we have at home, things still happen.
Susan Stone: Yeah, we have difficult conversations with our clients every day.
Kristina Supler: Every day.
Susan Stone: And it is a skill.
Kristina Supler: absolutely. And I would say it's a skill that requires cultivation and over time it's a skill you improve with experience, which is true of most things, but tough conversations, it's you get better at having them, but they don't ever really get easier.
Susan Stone: It's not fun. But here's the deal. In today's day and age, what we're finding is that having tough conversations with your kids is more important.
And at the same time, we're seeing a lot of conflict avoidance and it's creating bigger issues.
Kristina Supler: I totally agree. I totally agree. And I will tell you, from our perspective as lawyers, of course, we want to help all of our clients and get the best outcome possible. But, you know, success. We arrest a lot. What's your success rate?
And we sort of often say, well, you know, it's relative because every case is different. And the reality is, is that you can't always have a perfect outcome in every case. But the cases that hurt the most are the ones where we look at each other and we're like, this didn't have to happen this way.
Susan Stone: I agree. And when we talk to parents about why, why have the tough conversation? Because let's face it, nobody likes to confront their kid. Nobody wants to cause an argument.
Kristina Supler: No.
Susan Stone: it's a fight.
Kristina Supler: No, you want to have nice, fun conversations about what are you getting for dinner and what's going on at school. But the reality is these tough conversations are so important because really, at any age, they're essential for helping, I think, keep your child safe, even when your child's a young adult.
Susan Stone: What I find is even when you're getting pushback from a particular child, they still hear you.
Kristina Supler: Oh absolutely. I totally agree. I totally agree. They hear you. And I think there's also just a component of sort of communicating to your child that you care and, you know, whether it's just that you want to see the best for them in all ways and it's okay to make mistakes.
It's okay to be curious, but you just have to be smart about the choices you're making here.
Susan Stone: You know what? Kids need to know where their parents stand on issues.
Kristina Supler: I totally agree. I totally agree. And, you know, that's a tough one in this day and age, because I think that, you know, we're in a country that's so divided and there's all these political issues, cultural issues, religious issues.I mean, you name it every day. There's some like very hot ticket controversial thing on the news. But I think it's so important as our children are being, you know, bombarded with content from tick tock and who knows where else that they know what their parents think that they know. You're like my mom and dad say that's important or my mom and dad or say that that's really dangerous, that it's just giving some structure to your kids.
Susan Stone: Talk about how to have a conversation, because you know what we know how students behave when confronted and we're not going to sell you the bull, that it's going to go swimming. This isn't a sitcom. Life is not a sitcom. So you might have pushback. You may have a temper tantrum. I've heard even of situations where things have gotten physical between parent and child. Things can go really wrong.
Kristina Supler: Oh I believe it.
Susan Stone: Yeah,
Kristina Supler: I believe it. Especially with teens. And when there's hormones and angst and rage about life being unfair, I absolutely.
Susan Stone: So, when you're going to have a conversation. I think first time in place.
Kristina Supler: Yes. So what what do you think? What are your preferred times and places?
Susan Stone: It's hard. I at first thing, I'm a working mom,
Kristina Supler: Mhmmm
Susan Stone: so I can't do after school. That's not realistic for me.
Kristina Supler: Right.
Susan Stone: Ideally, that really is the best time, right when they get home from school.
Kristina Supler: Well, depending on age though, I don't know if your kids are younger. If they're older, they probably have sports or job or other stuff after school. But I hear you.
Susan Stone: I like where they're a captive audience. So ideally, again, the car is a great place because where are they going to go?
Kristina Supler: I agree with that. The car is a great place. We I drive my kids to school in the morning and sometimes it's a good opportunity for a quick check in the short drive, but a quick check in
Susan Stone: and nothing wrong with that. But again, I now have older kids. Well, my I have two grown kids and one left, but so I don't really get the ones they start driving. You're not going to get more. I think at night you just pop in their room, knock on the door, come in and you have to dive, dig in. And and it's got to be organic sometimes, too, as things come up that you hear about, whether it's bullying or peer pressure, drugs, mental health, sexting, I mean, that topics are endless.
Kristina Supler: So let's do a hypothetical.
Susan Stone: Sure.
Kristina Supler: You get a question? Yeah. There's there's buzz about sexting in your child's school. Let's keep this high school. You're hearing rumors from other parents, maybe like, I don't know, some online parent group, because actually I learn a lot in those parent groups online. And there's talk about nude images going around the school. Would you bring that up? And like, how would you go about having a conversation to make sure that it's understood that sexting is a no no?
Susan Stone: Well, that could be brought up at the dinner table because that's a general conversation. I don't consider that a difficult conversation just because it's a racy topic like vaping or marijuana use. To me, that's not difficult to recognize that I'm a little different when I think of a difficult conversation. I think you are confronting your child about something
Kristina Supler: Mhmmm
Susan Stone: you suspect they're doing. Yeah, general topics are important and hopefully can pave the way to not have a difficult conversation. But a difficult conversation is I think you're drinking with your friend. That's a difficult conversation.
Kristina Supler: Yeah. I mean, I'm. I'm not sure I totally agree with you, because I would say that you and I, given what we do for a living, are pretty comfortable in Converse. And are these types of issues, right, Like social media, drugs, sex, bullying, cancel culture. I could go on and on, but I think for a lot of families, I mean, the thought of having a conversation, much less at dinner with everyone there about nude images, I think a lot of parents find that incredibly difficult. And I think that's why we see so much of what we see in terms of families not understanding repercussions, kids not understanding repercussions, and parents wanting to talk to their kids about it, but they just don't quite know how.
Susan Stone: or I’ll tell you. What's a difficult conversation When kids get sloppy with their homework, and you get those alerts? I remember,
Kristina Supler: oh yeah,
Susan Stone: when one of my children, it used to be and Il remember being at work and getting an alert that they didn't turn in homework and it would make me not like, why didn’t you turn in your homework? How hard is it? You do it, you put it in your book bag or you you turn it in. I guess they don't do that anymore. You do.
Kristina Supler: You upload it. Whatever,
Susan Stone: and do your homework. This is your job. And while the job of someone in school is to do the homework.
Kristina Supler:Yeah. Yeah. Well. And see that I would say is an easy conversation. It’s a frustrating conversation. Certainly, but not one that's necessarily that embarrassing or involves using body part words or something super incriminating. But I don't know let's so the sexting you thought that was easy That wasn't a hard one in your house?
Susan Stone: because also there's been a lot of education at my kids school about sexting and they all know about predators. And I think there's just a lot more awareness.
Kristina Supler:so how would you let's just say like, let's go with a low hanging fruit for what I would say. You know, most teenagers, drugs and alcohol, you're worried that your child may be experimenting with one or both and you want to, you know, have that confrontation in a, I don't know, firm but loving way. What are your thoughts on like how to has lean into that conversation with your child?
Susan Stone: First, of all I’m a lot like you in the sense that I do a lot of snooping and just want you to know there's no right to privacy in my home.
Kristina Supler: Totally agree. Totally agree. And I mean, I think it's important to, you know, let your kids know that once in a while you might be looking at their stuff or in our house.The rule is that we have to have all passcodes. And if we don't, the devices are gone. Because I'm very pro snooping. I think it's an essential part of parenting.
Susan Stone: Yeah. So I don't understand. I mean, occasionally you have to go into the bedroom and look around.
Kristina Supler: Well, and I'm going to I'm going to say something that's perhaps controversial.Yes. Children and parents are not equal.
Susan Stone: Whoa!
Kristina Supler: at the risk of sounding old fashioned, I'm going to say my house, my pocketbook, my rules. And so I yeah, I think that look, I think it's an interesting theoretical conversation to talk about, you know, kids and their right to privacy. But in my mind, the reality is if you have questions or concerns or doubts, look at the device.I think it will go through the bedroom. I don't see a problem with that. I don't
Susan Stone: Now. It's funny. My number two, when I went out of town, threw a party.
Kristina Supler: Mhmmm Haven't we all.
Susan Stone: Oh my gosh. It it was devastating to learn about.
Kristina Supler: Sure And how did you find out about it?
Susan Stone: Oh my sister found out.
Kristina Supler: No. How did she find out? Did she drive by the house?
Susan Stone: She drove by the house.
Kristina Supler:Ahhhh
Susan Stone: I know she kicked the party out.
Kristina Supler:The kids weren't smart enough to, like, park around the corner or down the street.
Susan Stone: There were too many. Too many.
Kristina Supler:Oh my gosh.
Susan Stone: I was not calm during that. So I have to say, sometimes I have failed during difficult conversations.
I've raised my voice and I've become a raging, screaming lunatic. Yeah, I'm a yeller.
Kristina Supler: I think we all have no judgment. No judgment
Susan Stone: in a perfect world. You know, we were looking at an article preparing today from Psychology Today. I love this.
Kristina Supler:Lay on me. What you got?
Susan Stone: It says, stay calm.
Kristina Supler:Oh okay, Sure.
Susan Stone: Stay calm. Help your child feel safe.
Kristina Supler: Okay.
Susan Stone: I think none I lost my shit.
Kristina Supler: Sure.
Susan Stone: Okay. I did. I lost it.
Kristina Supler: It happens.
Susan Stone: Yeah, sometimes it does happen. And you know what? When you do lose it, it's okay later to apologize for that.
Kristina Supler: I agree with that as well. I in I myself have been in that position where maybe I didn't handle things as well as I would have liked to.And I totally think it's important and I think it's setting a really good example for your kids to go back, you know, maybe an hour or so later, maybe longer days, perhaps after the dust settles and just say, look, you know, I thought about our conversation and, you know, I'm sorry that I raised my voice, said, you know, fill in the blank.
But I want you to know I love you no matter what. And you know, I was wrong. I think it's I don't know. I think it's important for your kids to see you admit fault, too. You know, I think it helps sort of teach them the importance of apologizing. We're not perfect and being thoughtful and maybe not writing people off right away to when they say something you don't agree with
Susan Stone: It kind of goes with the job. On the other hand, it's okay to walk out of the house, go to yoga, run around the block and do what you need to do to regroup, because raising teenagers can be really, really, really difficult. You have to have the conversation, you know, want. I feel bad sometimes when you and I having the conversation.
Kristina Supler: Oh yeah. I mean, just circling back to something I said earlier, Kids make mistakes. People we all make mistakes. And, you know, often it's mistakes that brings families to us in moments of crisis. But the really the heartbreaking ones are when we think, oh my gosh, if only there was a conversation about, I don't know, rough sex. We deal with that a lot. You know, having that conversation with your child about the dangers of choking and strangulation and just because everyone else is doing it, you know, what are the implications? In our title nine cases, we see that a lot.
Susan Stone: Well, we talk a lot about that in the book and actually the genesis for the book.But choking parents out there, you all need to tell your kids Cut that out, that no choking, choking, equal bad. Now, for parents, they all think, my kids wouldn't do that. And again, this is all in the book, but that is an important conversation to have. Don't choke. But things have changed from when I grew up because, I mean, my mother didn't have to tell me, don't let anyone choke you and don't choke others.
Kristina Supler: Oh having that that mental picture in my head right now, Having met Susan's mother, I'd love to envision this conversation.
Susan Stone: My mom was like, don't get pregnant.
Kristina Supler: Sure. Sure. And I think that that's, by and large, the conversation in my house as well. We're different generations, but it was still sort of that construct that, you know, the worst thing that could possibly happen or that could, you know, go wrong was unplanned pregnancy.
Susan Stone: and become a pothead. That was a big one.
Kristina Supler:Sure. Yeah.
Susan Stone: But parents today, the stakes are higher with fentanyl I really cannot make it. Yeah, I remember we did a podcast with Birdie light.
Kristina Supler: Yeah, yeah. That organization that is promoting education about that the fentanyl test strips super important thing to be aware of. So let me ask you this. You're trying to have that conversation and your your child is walking away saying, Mom, stop, I know this.
Oh my gosh, leave me alone.
Susan Stone: That's okay.
Kristina Supler: What do you do? Do you leave him alone?
Susan Stone: Yeah. What are you going to do? Follow him in the room screaming like a lunatic? No, it's okay. They hear you.
Kristina Supler: Well, that's what I think as well. And again, I mean, our kids are different ages, but I do think that at all ages, kids are listening. They're like little sponges absorbing. And, you know, even if they pick up a little shred of what you're trying to instill in them, I think it you know, something will land and hopefully achieve the, you know, intended effect.
Susan Stone: I do want to kind of recap and conclude one thing. Just because you have a conversation, you we're not God.Okay. As parents,
Kristina Supler:what do you mean by that?
Susan Stone: Meaning you can't necessarily stop something from happening.
Kristina Supler: Sure. Right.
Susan Stone: It can happen with the conversation. It can happen without a conversation. But at least if you're done your level best. It will help later with parental guilt. At least you can say I tried, man.
Kristina Supler: Yeah, parental guilt. That's an interesting one, because I experience it personally.I think we come across it in our jobs every day. And, yeah, I think that, you know, my goal is to not parent for, for my own selfish purposes, like, so that I don't feel guilt. But at the end of the day, let's be honest, life is hard, Life is unpredictable. We can't protect our kids from everything. And so hopefully we can at least arm our kids with information to make good choices.
Susan Stone: I’ll tell you what wouldn’t you as parents wouldn’t rather have the difficult conversation that have to hire two lawyers who are a complete stranger, be the first ones to talk to students about the fact you're doing too much,
Kristina Supler: you're engaging in dangerous sexual behaviors. Your putting yourself in a bad situation at school with cheating.
Susan Stone: cheating. Yeah, right in battle. And, you know, don't use that chatGPT.
Kristina Supler: Oh, but It's so it's just there and it just spits it out beautifully.
Susan Stone: Oh, yeah It’s a ticket out of college, you know that
Kristina Supler: Sure is. Sure is.
Susan Stone: Okay. I think we've covered it. What do you think?
Kristina Supler: Yeah, this has been a good conversation. I hope our listeners, all of you parents out there, I hope you've enjoyed it and we've given you some food for thought and we welcome your feedback as well.Thanks for joining us.
Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Kristina. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode and leave us a review so other people can find the content we share here. You can follow us on Instagram. Just search our handle at Stones Supler and for more resources, visit us online at Student Defense.kjk.com.
Thank you so much for being a part of our real talk community. We'll see you next time.
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On this episode of Real Talk, Susan and Kristina are joined by Dr. Christopher Thurber for an insider’s guide to summer camp success.
Dr. Thurber has dedicated his professional life to improving how trusted adults nurture others and to enhancing the lives of adventurous youth. A graduate of Harvard and UCLA, Dr. Thurber has served as a psychologist and instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy since 1999. Over the past 25 years, he has been invited to lead workshops on five continents.
His best-selling family resource, The Summer Camp Handbook, was recently translated into Mandarin to help launch the youth camping movement in China. And his most recent book, The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure, was described by The Atlantic as “a tour de force” and “the rare parenting book that respects both parents and children.”
Dr. Thurber’s research and writing have focused on homesickness prevention and healthy parenting, especially in the domains of pressure and learning from mistakes.
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:
https://drchristhurber.com/
https://www.exeter.edu/faculty/christopher-austin-thurber
https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Your-Kid-Parents-Todays/dp/1637743807
SHOW NOTES:
Introduction and the importance of planning for children’s summer camp (00:21) Introduction of Dr. Christopher Thurber (00:57) Ideal age for children to start attending overnight summer camps (1:53) Benefits of longer stays at camps and how they affect homesickness and personal growth (3:07) Insights into the positive impacts of summer camps on children's social skills and self-confidence (5:54) Choosing the right summer camp and what to look for (7:34) The role of camp advisors and the best time to start looking for summer camps (9:19) Indicators of a camp’s quality (10:14) Tips on how to vet summer camps (11:46) Addressing homesickness and how to prepare your child for camp experiences (14:32) Impact of technology and social media on children's camp experiences (17:00) Guidance on managing communication with children at camp (19:19) Advice for parents on conversations to have with their children before sending them to camp for the first time (22:55) Importance of not making 'pickup deals' with children and fostering independence (24:24) Tips for selecting the right camp (26:00) Conclusion with final advice for parents on preparing for the camp season and fostering a positive experience for their children (28:00)TRANSCRIPT:
Susan Stone: Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Kristina Suler. We are full-time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real candid conversation.
Susan Stone: Kristina, believe it or not, even though we're looking outside and there's a lot of snow out there, yuck.
Did you know what time it is?
Kristina Supler: Well, umm, if I'm thinking about what we're going to talk about today, I'm gonna guess that we're in the time of year that despite the snow outside, we have to start planning for our children's summers.Susan Stone: And especially summer camp. Believe it or not, if you want your child to go to one of the more, uh, popular summer camps, now is the time that you would register.
And it's hard to think about it because like Santa Claus hasn't even come down that shoe.Kristina Supler: I know, and I'm particularly excited to speak with today's guest because I'm in, in my own family, wrestling with the idea of sending my son off to camp. And so this is, I'm really looking forward to today's talk.
Susan Stone: We might learn a little something on real talk. Why don't you introduce our guests?
Kristina Supler: Sure. Today we are joined by Dr. Chris Thurber, who has dedicated his professional life to improving how adults nurture others and enhance the lives of youth. A graduate of Harvard and UCLA, Dr. Thurber has served as a psychologist and instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy since 1999.
Susan Stone: I've heard of it.
Kristina Supler: Sure, he's written some books. His best-selling family resource is the Summer Camp Handbook, which has been translated into Mandarin. Believe it or not, and more recently, he has authored The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure, which was described by the Atlantic as, “the rare parenting book that respects both parents and children”. Dr. Thurber's research and writing have focused on homesickness prevention, healthy parenting and helping children learn from mistakes. So Doctor Thurber, thanks for joining us today.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Thanks for having me as a guest. Yeah, I'm excited to be here.
Susan Stone: So it's so funny. I was thinking about summer camp and I still remember that when my oldest, whose birthday it is today, happy birthday, Alex. But when she was in 3rd grade, I went on a field trip to Maine with her and we looked at camps together.
Kristina Supler: I can only imagine. Ohh camp touring. What a life.
Susan Stone: Yeah, it was great. We had the best bonding time, but the question is for you. I chose for to be a rising 4th grader as a time to go to camp. We looked at camps when she was a rising 3rd grader. In your professional opinion, what is the best time to send students away for a summer camp and experience? And I just have a second part to that question. I chose a camp where I just threw my kid in for seven weeks because I was told on from a well-known Cleveland area psychologist that they do better with a longer stint because when you do a shorter stint, just as you're getting over homesickness, you're yanking them away. Thoughts?
Dr. Chris Thurber: Well, in terms of what age a child should be at overnight summer camp and I, I do think that like any experience overnight timer camp is not for everyone. But I would say that in my experience as a parent, as a researcher, as a psychologist, there's probably a camp for everyone. And I think it's a perfect complement to the traditional classroom setting. So a way of boosting kids social and emotional learning, a way of increasing their social skills, their confidence, their sense of adventure. And there's wonderful research to support all of my life experience and anecdotal evidence. The age at which a young person might go to overnight camp for the first time depends a lot on their previous life experiences and a little bit on their personality, and I think the way I would answer that question is not by giving you a number like 7 years old or 8 years old or 9 years old. But I could say that most overnight camps uh would take children as young as seven or eight. So that tells you something about 150 years of trial and error has landed us at that age, but for particular child, it really is gonna depend on that parent or primary caregiver looking carefully at that child's readiness, which depends a lot on what previous experience that child has had away from home. I don't know for Alex, but I would imagine that she had spent overnight at a friend's house, or she'd been at her grandparents house without you there for a couple of days. And that's the perfect sort of preparation for multiple weeks at an overnight camp.
Susan Stone: And do you have a thought about the second part of my question, 4 weeks versus 7 weeks or maybe even shorter depending on the camp?
Dr. Chris Thurber: Well, I haven't in my experience noticed a difference in the factor that your friend cited, which is intensity of homesickness. In fact, this was what I wrote my dissertation on was homesickness and have followed the research that's been done since then, quite closely enough to know that there isn't a difference in, say, homesickness intensity between someone who's staying at camp for two weeks versus 4 weeks versus 7 weeks. That again, I would say your friend was right in that longer stays and I would say four weeks or more result in a more immersive experience for young people and that shorter stays just a few days are a good taste of what? Overnight camp is like, but aren't gonna create the kind of social bonds and result in the sort of self-reliance and you know, willingness to try new things that will happen with a longer stay.
Susan Stone: That's exactly what I learned at that time. That you'd really takes a good chunk of time like 4 weeks as the minimum before you can really develop the friendships, develop leader styles, or even reinvent yourself. You could be that nerd at school and that fabulous person at camp. It's a chance of really defining yourself.
Kristina Supler: Sounds like a good movie.
Dr. Chris Thurber: It is very cool in that way. Well, it's a good movie and an even better experience. It's one we, you know, we underestimate sometimes. I think the social pressures that young people feel in elementary school even and you mentioned the unlikely art of parental pressure that I wrote with Hank Weissinger. We took a look at a lot of the research that's been done and were surprised ourselves to see how pernicious the effects of unhealthy pressure are for even elementary school age children and a lot of it is about pressure to conform, conform to dress, conform to preferences for favorite TV shows and how you present yourself online. So there are a lot of different domains of conformity, all of which happily evaporate at the best camps, and I think that that sort of reinventing yourself and boost in self-confidence can happen in as little as two weeks. I would also agree with you that a longer stay like 4 or 7 is going to strengthen that young person's confidence.
Kristina Supler: Dr. Thurber, I'm curious to hear your thoughts for our listeners out there, parents with the child, let's just say in grade school age is irrelevant, but a child who's maybe only slept at grandparent's house or has had maybe one or two sleepovers with a friend family member, whomever, what advice would you give those parents for sort of the building blocks to help ease your child into this experience to go away from home?
Dr. Chris Thurber: To have more of those, I mean, and we were at deficit because of having to quarantine many of us during the pandemic. So we have some catching up to do in providing healthy experiences for kids away from home. And just as you suggested in your question a day here a night here a couple days expanding to you know, two or three days, those sorts of experiences are what give a young person confidence in their ability to spend time away from home without their primary caregiver or caregivers and they can alert you as a parent to any sort of anxieties that need to be sorted out prior to a camp stay.
Susan Stone: What should parents look for in and overnight camp?
Kristina Supler: Hmm. That's a good question because no camp is gonna say yeah, send your kid here. We're OK. I mean, every camp has a long list of superlatives. Best, most fun. Exciting. You name it. You know, everyone's smiling on on the video on the website. What do you what should parents look for when vetting camps?
Dr. Chris Thurber: You guys are cracking me up and it's such a great question. First of all, can I just say how happy I am that we're recording this in late November and hopefully it'll be provided to your listeners soon because as you said in the opener, this is the time. This is the time uh. I get asked to do podcasts all the time in May, right?
Kristina Supler: But well, I know this was and this was Susan's idea, this idea, an experienced camp mom sender offer.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Well, may all moms and dads be as pression as Susan and Kristina? Seriously, it's it's, you know, this is the time to be thinking about it. This is the time, as Christina said, to be preparing with practice time away from home and what you should look for in a summer camp is a great question because and you were joking about it, you go into a camp's website. Remember that that's marketing, and I'm not deriding camps or their websites, and it's important that they have them and there's great information on them. But remember, it's marketing and the the camps are gonna look similar. I mean, you can distinguish the all boys camps from the all girls camps, from the all gender camps, from the Coed camps and the ones that have horseback riding from the ones that don't have horseback riding. And that is information that you can call from a website, but that's not telling you anything about the quality. So I would say three things that I think parents need to look for and you have listeners all around the world, but let's bring it down to North America. In Canada, there are provincial camp associations like for Ontario and for British Columbia, et cetera. In the United States, we have the American Camp Association. These are the accrediting bodies for camps, and it doesn't guarantee that a particular camp is a great match for your kid. But these associations are a first step that can't that parents should look for is the camp accredited to be an operation? It needs to be certified by the Board of Health in most states, so you can assume that that's the case, but you can ask to see their, you know, Board of Health cert. Then I would say by whom are you accredited knowing that accreditation happens once every few years and it is a way of saying at the time this camp was visited by trained peers and the camp world it it met these minimum criteria? Or maybe exceeded them then is where it gets interesting, and that's why Jon Malinowski and I wrote the Summer Camp Handbook, because there are lots of accredited camps and some of them I wouldn't ever send my own child to and some of them I would be glad to. So I think what you need to look for is first and foremost after it's passed Board of Health and accreditation. Is this a place where there's a good deal of tenure among the staff now? Potentially, the director who was there for 30 years, just retired, and so the new directors only been there for a couple of years. But you wanna look over time? What's the average tenure of the director? What is the average tenure for the other senior staff, assistant directors, program directors, waterfront directors and how long did the staff who work there generally work there, and that tenure tells you a lot about the loyalty and the spirit and the consistency that will exist at that camp, which I think are all important contributors to a young person having a really positive experience. Next is where do they get their staff and how do they train them? And this is really my wheelhouse because yeah.
Susan Stone: I remember that because the camp I had sent my children to through a lot of counselors that they receive from Australia and England, and I remember because they made my kids eat Vegemite and they thought that was hilarious, but they were great. They really had some really fun and they were learning the fun, cute accents and they love it and I don't know if you agree with this, but I really like that the camp we ended up selecting had a therapist and staff to deal with the issues and it really was quite helpful.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Yeah, I endorsed that wholeheartedly. And I think that people in that position, a mental health professional who's part of a camp, often also participate in the staff training. So as I was saying, where the staff from where they how are they hired? How are they trained that that's really crucial, right? I mean, the centerpiece of the camp experience is gonna be your child's new relationship with this young adult surrogate caregiver. Will they make peer friends? Yes, of course. But who influences the experience more than anyone else are the young adult leaders. And so you wanna know as much as you can about them.
Kristina Supler: That's a really great piece of advice for parents out there listening to this though, to look at the tenure of staff and employees, how many come back year after year because that speaks volumes for the nature of the experience, happy staff then hopefully translates to happy campers. So I love that.
Dr. Chris Thurber: It definitely does.
Susan Stone: Now, I don’t want to date myself in my next question. Do you remember the Alan Sherman song? Hello mudda. Hello fada. I won't sing for everybody. It's like one of my favorite songs. It's a really funny song. Alan Sherman. Hello mudda. Hello fada FADDUH. Great song for you listeners out there. I would play it, but it talks about homesickness and you know, I remember when I sent my kids to camp. I I thoughts homesickness was normal, so when I got the first I miss you mom letter. I knew it was temporary and then by the time you picked them up, they're like, oh, I wanna stay in there crying that they're leaving. However, my kids were young and went to camp pre COVID and pre the mental health issues that Kristina and I wrestle with every day. I mean, I believe that kids are wrestling with social media. My kids did not have cell phones when they went to camp. It was unthinkable that a young child or a middle schooler would have a cell phone.
Kristina Supler: That's so interesting that you say that, Susan. I hadn't thought about that, and imagining well my daughter, I mean, I guess I have a direct experience with this, but I hadn't really tied it to the context of our practice. When she's away at camp in the camp experience, she has every summer's two weeks of sleep away and there's no electronics or anything like that. And she's fine. I mean, she adores her camp experience, but for many students who are so tied to their devices, social media, all those connections to then have them ripped away, it makes the transition all the more difficult. And pile on top of that homesickness. It actually is a lot. It's a tall, emotional order for adolescence.
Susan Stone: So how do you know Doctor Thurber between normal homesickness, that a parent should go, huh that'll pass, versus something's curious I need to check in on this and how. What is the appropriate way to check in on this? It is not get on a plane I assume and pull your kid out immediately. But is it?
Dr. Chris Thurber: No, absolutely not.
Susan Stone: I could be wrong.
Dr. Chris Thurber: No, you're not wrong. Again, you're right. You're also again present in, saying that home sickness is normal because it absolutely is. Of course, it varies in intensity from one person to another, but adults miss things about home when they're away as well, like on a business trip or something like that. So right, so look, the and this is really essential preparation in addition to what I said earlier about some practice time away from home. But letting your child know that you expect that there will be some things they miss about home. Maybe it'll be home cooking. Maybe it'll be you, or if there's another parent in the household, maybe it'll be the comforts of their room.
The dog, dog, sibling, whatever it might be and you know it's different things for different people. But with practice time away from home and with an understanding that this is an absolutely normal phenomenon. And I tell kids. Look, there's something about home you miss that means there's something about home you love. That's wonderful. And all those things that you love are gonna be there when camp wraps up. So love this while you're at camp, love this experience. Make yourself at home here and look forward to what you're going to return to. You know, it's fantastic, however. There are instances when you know the intensity of home sickness is getting in the way of that child's enjoying activities and participating in other ways at camp. It's getting in the way of their making new friends and it's getting in the way of their eating and sleeping and well-trained staff are gonna know. How to spot that? Here's a kid who isn't eating well, sleeping well, not participating, not making friends. So those sort of primary functions of a camper when they're, you know, a day or two, we're going to make it if it's that extreme on a chronic basis, that camper is not eating well, sleeping well. Connecting participating. The first thing that's gonna happen again with at a camp with a well-trained staff is someone at camp is gonna contact you and say, here's the situation. Here's how we've been managing it. Let's talk about options, but it would be a huge mistake for any parent to preemptively respond to what is in 99.9% of cases, a normative, homesick letter by getting themselves to the camp and robbing their child of such an important developmental experience.Kristina Supler: Do phone calls help or hurt a child sort of weather the storm of homesickness.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Unequivocally, they hurt until you've passed at least the two-week mark and then phone calls, if it's a four or seven week experience, are appropriate if they are scheduled not as a treatment for homesickness, not you missed your mom or you miss your dad or and so let's get them on the phone. It's never a treatment for homesickness and it if it's ever used by camp directors who don't know the research, haven't been to one of my workshops or parents who, you know, haven't read this summer camp handbook. And again, these are loving, well-intentioned people, but it is absolutely the wrong thing to do. If it's a scheduled contact after the two-week Mark that's used simply as a way to keep in touch, great. Even better though, letter writing. Because think about the difference you have to ponder You have to personalize. You have to reflect and then to get a response you have to wait and that's really good for kids. They don't have enough practice.
Susan Stone: Delayed gratification.
Kristina Supler: Though I will say that all the the shishi camps now, there's still some letter writing, but then there's the there's emails and it's not, you know, unfettered access, but you have to wait a day for your response. So there's a little bit of delayed gratification, but it's not like a week for the post to be delivered.
Susan Stone: Oh, what about care packages? Because I know that I remember this like it was yesterday. What started out as send a few pieces of candy, then became my kids were saying this one got this and this one got that, and you don't love me if you don't send me this and….
Kristina Supler: The status thing, it almost turned into as well. The comparisons who got what.
Susan Stone: And I was always on the bottom. Does that surprise you?
Kristina Supler: I doubt that very much.
Susan Stone: And I’m telling you I sent some good care packages. Thoughts?
Dr. Chris Thurber: Well, if you know if, if you're bored this summer, you could send me some care packages just to my home because I won't be. But now I see it it that is the problem you just described it and most camps are moving to a policy of no care packages. Sending your child to camp investing your you know time and your money. Although many camps also offer financial aid, you did a wonderful thing by involving Susan, your child, in the search for what camp is it going to be? It gave Alex decision control. She felt involved in the process. That is a wonderful way to diminish the intensity of homesickness. So without having a conversation, the two of us, you did so many things well. And I would say if the camp now is not allowing care packages, they're doing something well, because having your child go to camp is a way of showing you care in all caps, bold exclamation point, italics underlined. This is a way of showing you care and the camp has wonderful food and snacks and lots of things to do. So you don't need to send care packages and that makes it easier for everybody, not just in the name of equity and preventing this kind of comparison, but also in the name of hygiene, you know, camps that allow care packages.
Susan Stone: Or lack thereof.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Ohh. Or exactly?
Susan Stone: I mean, I came back and saw some yellow teeth. I doubt we're brushed, but you know that's part of it.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Yeah, well, there's that. There's that, but there's also raccoons and mice and squirrels and all the other, you know, creepy crawlies that also love your chocolate chip cookies.
Susan Stone: Yeah. Who wouldn't.
Kristina Supler: I'm curious, are there any conversations that sort of come to mind that you encourage parents to have with their children before sending them off? Probably the first time or so to camp.
Dr. Chris Thurber: So it's it, you know, it's normal for expect that your child is gonna express some kind of trepidation. It could be, what if I feel homesick? Or what if I don't like this? Or what if I'm not making friends, but the response that I coach parents to have when there's some kind of expression of, you know, concern is or anticipatory anxiety? Hey, I'm glad I'm glad we're talking about this. I think there will be some sort of adjustment because it's a new place with new traditions, different menu of activities and food. And of course, like that takes some getting used to. It's also part of the excitement is that it's different, different from home. It's different from school and I've every confidence that you will be able to push through those periods of adjustment those days when you feel like, ohh, you wish you had another friend or you're missing something from home or you don't like what's served for lunch. That's part of the experience and then you know, so that's the conversation to have is one that expresses optimism, optimism and confidence. The conversation not to have at any cost in any circumstance is the pickup deal, so saying, well, if you don't like it, I'll come and get you.
Susan Stone: Umm, Nope, not happening.
Dr. Chris Thurber: If you feel homesick, yeah. Because you have, you have just, you know, incapacitated the camp staff, whatever they would say to coach your child through a normal bout of homesickness is immediately surpassed by your offer on the table, which is there something you don't like? I'm gonna come and get you. What we wanna be doing as loving parents is saying, you know, there's something you don't like or if you're uncomfortable, I want you to learn the coping skills to manage that right. I mean, and you don't have to use those words, but when you say you can persevere, the camp staff are there to help you write to me about how you feel. And I'll write back. You know, this is this is what we want to say. Without ever, ever putting on the table a pickup deal it just it it it's horrible.
Kristina Supler: But what's interesting is that essentially what I'm hearing you say, reading between the lines are listening between the lines. It is parents don't insert yourself in the process. So no, I'll come get you if you're miserable. Don't insist on phone. Let your child have an opportunity to excel and navigate conflict and emotions on on the child's own footing.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Yes, PS:, we deserve a break. As you know from full-time parenthood, so enjoy yourself.
Susan Stone: Amen. Well, if you can't do the pre summer before the summer tour, which I have to say I could do for my first child. But then two and three didn't have that luxury. What is the advice you give parents right now, end of November, early December, to help give students the choice of camps. Would it be helpful because you really can't do a camp visit now? Camps are closed. So would you say have them look online and watch those great videos and then maybe have a call with the camp director?
Dr. Chris Thurber: That would be perfect. I think they're probably some things you can do before you go online, such as, you know, open ended conversation about what do you imagining you'd like to do at camp and are you imagining that you would like to be at an A Coed camp or an all gender camper or voice camper or girls camp? Are you imagining you would like to be in the mountains close to the shore on a lake. So you can throw some of those parameters out there, and if you have camp experience, you can also describe the camp where you at and what that was like and then you can go online and do a bit of a virtual tour, but the American Camp Association website and kids camps and a few other places, if you Google databases of summer camps, you're gonna be able to find keeping in mind that the American Camp Association database and the provincial camps associations databases are the only ones that camps are not paying an extra fee for to advertise. So yes, it's all marketing. Yes, it's all advertising and yes, you have to pay to be a member of the American Camp Association or the Ontario Camp Association, but you don't have to pay anything extra to be listed. You do have to pay extra to be listed in these other online listings, so you may not get a complete list, but you can narrow it down and then you can start as you said, going on to the websites and taking a peek. And it's wonderful to be able to talk to the camp director. One other thing that I would ask the camp director is could you give me the names of some families local to me who have kids at camp right now or have in the last few years. And the reason I would phrase it like that families local to me is twofold. One, if you say give me the names of some families, they're going to give you the names of the two families that are their personal friends who loved camp the most and are an extension of the marketing. If you say families local to you, that means that they can't hand pick the two families to zoom with, their local to whatever town you're in. Plus, if they are families local to you, this is the best thing getting families together, whether it's during this winter break or you know sometime in January, February or maybe the March or April break. But you know, so the kids can talk camp. You know, I'm talking about a returning camper and the parents can chat about what helped their child and what helped their own adjustment, because of course they're gonna miss their kids. But I think that's wonderful. So just add that as the cherry on top to your virtual tour idea.
Susan Stone: I remember doing that by the way, calling the parents were local. I did and I also used, they were great, a camp advisor where I spoke to the person and said what I was interested and they generated a list and it was free. So parents should know. You know, I don't know how you feel about camp advisors. There are people who take their fees from the camps and not the parents.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Mm-hmm. Right.
Susan Stone: Umm. Is that something you would recommend as well?
Dr. Chris Thurber: I think that as long as you recognize what it is that is being paid for, either by you or the camp which is access camp advisors can be enormously helpful in meeting a family, meeting a child, helping that child cull down you know their interests or listen to what their interests are and cull down the list of camps, knowing that you're going to be getting a choice or be offered a few camps that are already on that camp advisor’s list. The pro being that camp advisor has personally vetted those camps, so they've done some of the background research for you. The downside being the list is limited to the camps that paid to work with that advisor or you know it's a limited by the advisor’s geographic scope, but it can be enormously helpful and wonderful dimension to finding camps. You do your virtual camp tour and then talk to a camp advisor. You start to get some like convergent validity if you're coming up with the same two or three camp names, right?
Kristina Supler: Absolutely. Look, Doctor Thurber, this has been a real treat. I think that you've given us some really, really great information and food for thought.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Oh good.
Kristina Supler: For parent listeners out there and I'm glad that we were able to talk summer camp, but gives us something to look forward to on this cold snowy day.
Susan Stone: Kristina, do you think that we could go to summer camp?
Kristina Supler: I wish. Spa weekend. That's our summer camp, right?
Dr. Chris Thurber: There you go, Club Med.
Susan Stone: A spa hour, if we're lucky.
Susan Stone: Thank you, Dr. Thurber. We really loved having you.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Thank you both.
Susan Stone: We really loved having you.
Dr. Chris Thurber: I love being here. Happy holidays.
Kristina Supler: Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Kristina. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode and leave us a review so other people can find the content we share here. You can follow us on Instagram, just search our handle @StoneSupler and for more resources, visit us online at studentdefense.kjk.com. Thank you so much for being a part of our Real Talk community. We'll see you next time.
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Are you familiar with the term "Turkey Drop"? This phenomenon occurs when college freshmen return home for Thanksgiving and often part ways with their hometown sweethearts. In a special Thanksgiving episode of Real Talk, hosts Susan and Kristina are joined by three students from a prominent midwestern university. Each student candidly shares their personal experiences of going through breakups during this period, offering valuable insights into the complexities and emotions leading up to these moments of transition.
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:
https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Your-Kid-Parents-Todays/dp/1637743807
SHOW NOTES:
· Introduction to the show and hosts, Susan Stone and Kristina Supler (00:01)
· Discussion on the excitement of the first Thanksgiving when students come home from college (00:14)
· Introduction of the "Turkey drop" concept and personal experiences (00:38)
· Introduction of three student guests: Laney, Jenna, and Morgan (01:41)
· Discussion on the reasons behind the "Turkey drop" (06:02)
· Sharing locations with friends and partners for safety and convenience (08:59)
· Experiences post "Turkey drop" and current relationships with ex-partners (16:04)
· Advice for freshmen with high school relationships (17:49)
· Suggestion for a holiday gift: the book "Yes, your Kid" (19:35)
· Conclusion and thanks to the guests (20:10)
· Outro and promotion for the show (20:46)
TRANSCRIPT:
Susan Stone: Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Kristina Suler. We are full-time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real candid conversation.
Susan Stone: So in anticipation of Thanksgiving, Kristina, I wanted to do a really fun podcast, but I have to tell you that I know parents who have the freshmen who went off to college. The parents are so excited because there's nothing like that. First Thanksgiving when your kid comes home from college one day. You'll say that to me. I remember when you told me that.
Kristina Supler: I'm sure I don't doubt it.
Susan Stone: But not all is Turkey and pumpkins because some kids come home from college and they do the Turkey drop, which is when college kids come home and break up with their hometown, honey. But Kristina, you have an interesting view of this and actually so do I, but I want to hear what you say.
Kristina Supler: I did not do the Turkey drop, so I married my high school sweetheart. I didn't come home from Thanksgiving and do the breakup that you see everywhere. And now I'm married and have two kids,
Susan Stone: And I also want to share, and I hope I don't embarrass her, that my own daughter did not do the Turkey drop and she just married her high school sweetheart this summer. So it doesn't always happen. But with that said, I'm hoping we're going to get into some juicy conversation about it. Why don't you introduce our guests?
Kristina Supler: Yes. We are really excited today to be joined by three students from a wonderful Midwestern university that we're very familiar with. We're joined today by Laney, Jenna, and Morgan, who are going to share with us their perspectives on the Turkey drop. So ladies, without giving away anything that would reveal your identities, tell us a little bit about yourselves and what you're doing at school and really what you know about the Turkey drop
Susan Stone: And identify yourselves because of course our listeners can only hear you and not see you. So say it's Jenna, it's Laney.
Jenna: I'm Jenna. I am currently applying to law school right now, which is exciting and going through the process. Yes, and I did participate in the Turkey drop my freshman year of college.
Susan Stone: What happened?
Jenna: Pretty much verbatim what the Turkey drop would be. Two days after Thanksgiving, he came over to my family Thanksgiving party and then I was like, this is just not it anymore. And then two days later we broke up and now he's dating my best friend from high school.
Susan Stone: No, well, there you go. Jenna, what question? Were you both freshmen at different colleges or was he your hometown and still in high school?
Jenna: He was from my hometown, but we were both at separate colleges. We went separate colleges, so did long distance for the first three months and then called it quits.
Susan Stone: Was it hard for you? I was just going to ask.
Jenna: I was upset a little bit, but I was very much ready for the relationship to be over. But I feel like when you're date for a while, it's always a little bit upsetting, but definitely. Well, it's
Susan Stone: We’ll it’s always over until you meet the one, right? Right. Yeah. Laney, what about you?
Lany: Okay, so my story's a little bit different. Well, I'm Laney and I am a marketing major, and I did the Turkey drop second or my second year of college, so my sophomore year. So we actually made it through the freshman year, but then sophomore year we did it for a while. I just kind of was like, I don't even know. I was kind of just bored. I needed something new and then I was seeing all these new faces at school, so I just decided to participate in the Turkey drop and it happened. Well, he knew it was coming that I was going to break up with him. So when we were from the same hometown, but we went to two separate colleges, but he knew I was going to break up with him, so he just made me do it over the phone because he didn't want to have to see me in person to do it. I think he was embarrassed.
Susan Stone: I think that's reasonable, don't you? Yeah, I mean,
Lany: Yeah, it's reasonable. We ended up talking after that, but we dated for about four years, so I feel like it would've been a little more mature if he let me do it in person.
Kristina Supler: Oh, that's a long relationship to just have a breakup over the phone actually. I agree with you.
Lany: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, but then we ended up talking later over Thanksgiving, I think at Christmas break is when we actually ended up talking in person. But nope, just over Thanksgiving break I went for a drive and just broke up with him over the phone.
Kristina Supler: Morgan, what about you Morgan?
Morgan: I know. So I participated in the Turkey job my freshman year of college and we went to two different colleges. We dated all through high school and I don't know, I kind of just got to college and realized there's more to do in the world than be with my high school boyfriend, and I just decided that it was becoming a lot, having to keep up with him all the time, and I thought it was time to go our separate ways.
Susan Stone: And I mean, was the grass greener on the other side of the fence?
Morgan: Yes, I will say I think that's so bad, but I think it was a long time coming Halloween and he surprised me on Halloween right before we went home for Thanksgiving and it was fine, except I think I realized that was when I wasn't the most excited to be seeing him. I was excited for a fun Halloween with my new friends that I had met at college. So it was definitely that for me that I realized I think I was better off just doing my own thing and being more independent than having to rely on my high school boyfriend.
Susan Stone: Well, that leads me to the question for all three of you, and maybe we just kind of go in reverse order. What do you think the main reasons are for the Turkey drop?
Morgan: I think for me, it wasn't even like I met someone new at school that I was interested in. I think it was more just realizing I didn't want to have to be, I don't know. I wanted to be able to go out and not have to worry about texting my boyfriend where I was, who I was with, what I was doing. And that's kind of what it was for me freshman year because I know for me, I really loved my school, but for him it was a bit of a different story. So it was just two different dynamics and I think it was just time for us to part ways and meet new people.
Lany: I would say almost the same thing. Yeah, we went to two very different schools. He was playing a sport in college, the division one sport, so he was super busy and we were just living two completely different lives and I was just meeting a bunch of people and we're in a sorority, so taking people to date parties, it kind of just got to the point where I just wanted to be able to go to more date parties with boys and bring them to mine. And I don't know, just our schools were very different, so I feel like I would be doing things completely different than he would on the weekends. He would be going to games and I would be going out and stuff. Just meeting a lot of people.
Jenna: And then I think for me was our relationship was fine, except I think that once we both went our separate ways to college, we were a little too okay without each other and we never went to visit each other, never really cared to. So I think it was more of a just fizzling out of a relationship because we just really kind of realized that we were very okay without each other and didn't really need that anymore.
Susan Stone: So I have a question, Jenna, you mentioned not wanting to have to go out and then check in with your boyfriend when you got home. I am curious, how common is it that you share your locations and you check in with each other after a night out? Are all college students doing that now or is that something that only parents do to keep an eye on their students?
Jenna: It's actually funny. I still have his location. He still has mine really, because we just never unshared them. But I think, all my friends have my locations and stuff, so I think it's really common now just for a lot of people to have your location, not necessarily making sure you're in a certain place or whatever, more for safety purposes and stuff and just because fun to see where everyone is. I do think it's kind of normal now if you guys would say the same. Yeah, definitely.
Susan Stone: I just want to point out that I always disagree with parents about locations. I'm one of the few parents I know who does not share location.
Kristina Supler: You always say Susan, I don't want to know. Let them lead their lives. I want to live my life.
Susan Stone: Well, parents say to me, but it's a safety thing, and I respond back, what are you going to do?
Students: That's so true. Yeah, that is very true.
Susan Stone: And I also don't want to know my husband's location, and you know what? I don't want him to know mine. I am. Amen. Yeah, I just feel like I got to be a level of trust. Do you think, do you view it because I know all our clients sharing location is a thing, so do you view it as a way of forming intimacy with a friend or a boyfriend or a safety issue? Because I find it creepy.
Lany: I feel like I use it a lot more for my friends than I do with my family. Like you said, what are you going to do about it? Yeah, if I'm going out and it's two in the morning, my mom's sleeping, she's not looking at my location. But I feel like for friends, it's super nice, like, oh, we're at one bar, but I don't know where my friends are. You just look at their location. If sometimes in the bars your phone's not working or people just aren't on them, it's good to just be able, oh, they're here. I can go there. Or someone's picking you up from class and you can just check to see how far they are. I feel like it's honestly very useful. Convenient. Convenient for roommates, but I'm not ever really looking at my mom or dad's location. Well, my dad will share it. I feel like locations be a good thing until you take it. If someone was to take it out of pocket, I feel like if you had a boyfriend really tracking you and keeping tabs on where you are, then I feel like that's just taken to the next level. But I agree. I think I use my location more for just us. Yeah, for sure.
Susan Stone: Interesting.
Kristina Supler: Yeah. I'm wondering for, so the three of you have all done the Turkey Drop. Do you have any friends who have done it but then maybe reunited with the dropped person later?
Student: I do. I have a friend who did. I don't remember if she did Turkey drop or if it was over Christmas break, one of the two. But then, yeah, they reunited back over summer, but then broke up two months after that. So I think it was for the best that the Turkey drop should have just stayed.
Susan Stone: Do you think you could manage, if you sort of were on the fence, okay, that you realized, I do love this person, but I don't want to be timed down. Could you remain open or is that too much?
Student: I feel like that's the point.
Student: I agree with that. I feel like I was to the point where I was like, if I'm going to break up with him, I just like it's going to happen. I didn't want to, don't know. I feel like I was past the point of making the effort, trying new things of if I would do open or anything. It was kind of just past that point. She was staying open.
Student: I think that I feel like I was already kind of doing that. We really didn't. I never texted him the whole time when I was out. I did my own thing. I usually really never knew where he was or what he was doing, which just goes to my point where I think we were a little bit too comfortable with being away from each other.
Student: I think mine was more of kind of random. I remember calling my mom, she's like, why are you breaking up with him? I didn't really have a reason. I feel like it was just not being able to see him. We lived in the same neighborhood, so I saw him all the time before every single day. So I think just kind of growing apart and nothing really happened, so it was hard, but I feel like, I don't know what I'm even going with this, but I feel like if we would've went to the same schools, we probably would've stayed together.
Student: I feel like when it begins to feel like you have to text them and you have to tell them things, you kind of just know this is fizzling out. We're going to go our separate ways. When something exciting happens and you're like, they're not the first person you want to go talk to about it, you just don't feel like it, then it's probably a time to Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Susan Stone: Ladies, you are on Real Talk with Susan and Kristina, so I'm going to ask you something and I want you to be real. The breakup, was it in your minds at all? Oh my gosh, we're heading into the holiday season, have to buy gifts, spend time with their families, all of that. Was that on your radar or no?
Student: No, but we already started buying gifts for each other for Christmas, and I was like, I got him $200 raybans. So I was like, okay, I'm just going to return them. And he was like, no, let's meet up in a month, go to lunch and exchange our gifts. And I was like, okay. So I ended up giving my ex-boyfriend $200 Raybans, and I got a plastic Starbucks cup and
Susan Stone: He cheaped out on you?
Student: Yeah, that was definitely something.
Student: Yeah, so I kind of have a similar thing. My birthday was in September, so for my birthday he bought me tickets. I was a really big Louisville football fan. He's big Kentucky, so the big game was over Christmas break, so for my birthday in September, he had bought me those tickets. I don't even know if he had bought them yet. So we were supposed to go over Christmas break, so I never even got my birthday present because then we broke up and then I didn't even get the tickets. Shoot. I know. So not Christmas gifts, but I didn't even get my birthday.
Student: I feel like I really, I was just so kind of in my head just over, I knew it was kind of over. I don't really think I thought much into Christmas gifts or anything because I just knew when I got home and saw him again, I was just going to cut it off. I didn't want to do it over the phone because we had been dating for a while and I wanted to try to be respectful about it.
Susan Stone: If you saw the person now, would it be friendly, awkward? What's the state? How do you feel about that person now?
Student: So my ex-boyfriend's actually in my high school friend group from home. I definitely see him more often than not when I'm home, but I feel like it's not really awkward because it definitely was at first for sure. But now at this point, I mean we've seen each other over breaks. We just kind of say hi. We're not really small talking, but we're still civil and friendly with one another.
Susan Stone: That's nice.
Student: Yeah, that's how I am too. Like I mentioned earlier, we live in the same neighborhood, so I definitely run into him every once in a while. It's not really awkward at all. We still, every once in a while we'll text and catch up. I dated him for so long, so we're still good friends and we'll catch up, but I was really close with his family, so sometimes when I go home for a night or something, I live pretty close to school, I'll see his family and I'll go over to his family's house and hang out with them when he's not there. I was just so close with him, his parents and then his older sisters I was super close with. So it's not awkward at all for me.
Student: Same for me. We're in the same high school friend group too, so we saw each other a few times over the summer and it's never really weird. If I have my friends over, I invite him. We ended things very on good terms, so it's all good.
Susan Stone: How many of you are big sisters in your sorority?
All: We all, yeah, we all are. Yeah.
Susan Stone: Are your littles freshmen?
All: They're they're juniors.
Susan Stone: Oh, okay. So if you had advice for a freshman who you knew had a hometown, honey, what would be your advice
Student: I think that it's always worth a try, but don't go in with the highest expectations because nine times out of 10 it doesn't work out. And that's fine and you'll be fine.
Student: Yeah, I mean, yeah, that I guess is better advice. Go in it with it, but also don't miss out on things. Go to the date parties. If your boyfriend trusts you not to do anything, then I think it's totally fair to be friends with a guy as just friends and go to his date parties and stuff. I feel like when me and my boyfriend broke up, I met so many more guys. I wasn't, there wasn't even a guy that I liked. You just meet so many more people when you don't have a boyfriend because you get invited to those things. I guess that's for being in sororities and fraternities, but just don't miss out on things because of a relationship. And if you are, then it's probably not meant to be.
Student: I definitely agree. I think freshman year is one of the most important times to meet new friends and figure out what you want to be doing and what you like and the people you want to be around. And I think that it's like you need to make sure that having a boyfriend isn't holding you back from those types of things because those are the friendships you're going to look on to later on and be so happy that you met those girls and you went to that thing. You went to that event, you went out that night just because, I don't know, you don't want to miss out on stuff like that. And if a boyfriend's holding you back from that, it's probably time to let him go.
Student: Agreed.
Susan Stone: So Kristina, I have a suggestion for these lovely ladies. What they should get their parents for Christmas or for the holidays?
Kristina Supler: Oh, you are the most clever of them all. Ms. Stone, what is it? What do you think it is? Oh my gosh, look at that.
Susan Stone: I think on Amazon, all of your friends should get a copy of Yes, your Kid. What parents Need To Know About Today's Teens and Sex - Co-written by yours truly, because there's some new topics about the new sex ed in here, like rough sex, choking, plan B. We know what you really do, guys, so I think you should let your parents know. What do you think, Kristina?
Kristina Supler: Check it out. It's a good primer for parents on what I mean, what you all know, but what we're seeing when people come to us for various types of matters and what's really going on college campuses these days, which is shocking to some parents, but not to us because it's what we do. But it was really such a treat speaking with you all. Thank you so much for joining us, Laney, Jenna, and Morgan, and hopefully this was a fun little episode for our listeners to just talk about the Turkey drop.
Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Kristina. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode and leave us a review so other people can find the content we share here. You can follow us on Instagram, just search our handle @StoneSupler and for more resources, visit us online at studentdefense.kjk.com. Thank you so much for being a part of our Real Talk community. We'll see you next time.
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On this episode of Real Talk, Susan and Kristina are joined by Dr. Debby Herbenick to discuss their new book, Yes, Your Kid: What Parents Need to Know About Today's Teens and Sex. Covering various aspects of sexuality and sexual education including the challenges of working with students in crisis situations, the evolving definitions of what constitutes "sex," and the prevalence of rough sex practices, specifically choking, in contemporary sexual experiences. In this episode, they touch on the confusion and lack of comprehensive sexual education, and how the digital age and online media have further complicated these issues. The conversation highlights how different individuals may have varying definitions and perspectives on what constitutes sexual activity.
Pre-Order Our Book "Yes, Your Kid" Today!
Links Mentioned in the Show· https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Your-Kid-Parents-Todays/dp/1637743807
· https://sexualhealth.indiana.edu/
Show Notes: Book announcement (00:25) Introduction of Dr. Debby Herbenick (1:50) Book summary (3:10) Why should parents buy this book? (4:10) The different perspectives during the writing process (6:10) How the research is different from the legal perspective (9:57) How the types of cases change over time (13:30) How sex changes (15:00) How choking has grown in prevalence (18:10) How well are students educated about sex (19:40) How the internet changes student education (21:40) How the definition of sex changes over time (22:20) How different groups of people define sex (25:45) The goal of being an “askable” parent “(27:50) The importance of providing information to kids and students (30:00) What was your favorite part of writing this book (32:05) How sex on the spectrum is discussed (34:50) Current trends of mental health in students (36:30) -
In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler discuss the digital landscape, what parents should be aware of and how to promote healthy offline connections.
Pre-Order Our Book "Yes, Your Kid" Today!
Show Notes:· Discussing the digital landscape, what’s new and what parents should be aware of (00:45)
· What platforms are commonly used? (1:20)
· Description and explanation of Snapchat (2:15)
· What can parents do at home (3:20)
· Cell phones and driving (4:35)
· How phones effect sleep (5:20)
· How to help promote healthy offline connections (6:10)
· How the pandemic effected digital habits (7:15)
· Offline activities (8:30)
· Being aware of online bullying (9:20)
· Social media and FOMO (9:50)
TranscriptSusan Stone: Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Christina Soupler. We are full-time moms and attorneys, bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real, candid conversation. After school time is happening, and I think you and I need to explore what we saw last year to helpfully give our listeners some food for thoughts this school year for younger kids, the middle school and high school crowd.
Kristina Supler: Today we're going to talk about the digital landscape and what parents need to know and what's going on out here.
Susan Stone: Now what's new? And what's new today will not be new, it changes every day. So I think our first piece of advice to parents is stay on it.
Kristina Supler: And don't give up hope. I mean so often we hear, I don't know, I'm not good with tech these kids in their phones, who knows. But I mean at the end of the day, you don't have to know the intricacies of how to post the most perfect video. You just have to understand the platforms that kids are using and generally what's going on and what are the dangers of those platforms really.
Susan Stone: So to prepare, I called my rising senior and said, "What is everyone on your grade on?" I thought I'd start there and I wasn't surprised. We knew the answers.
Kristina Supler: TikTok and Snapchat.
Susan Stone: TikTok and Snapchat. Everybody is both viewing and making videos on TikTok, TikTok, is trending really well. And that B-roll, B-real, right, Kristina?
Kristina Supler: B-real.
Susan Stone: B-real. Real film. Got it. Where they would send a notification and then you have to take a quick picture. What was the purpose of that? That was a new one.
Kristina Supler: I guess to be spontaneous and be your authentic self versus having these perfectly choreographed videos. And anyway, it's always changing. But there's ways for parents to find out what's going on out there.
Susan Stone: Word of advice on snapchat. So the whole idea of parents for those of you who don't know is that you send a snap, I guess that's what it's called, and then it disappears. Does it?
Kristina Supler: I would say yes and no or sometimes. I mean, it seems like every case that we have there's an issue with snapchat and sometimes messages are recoverable, believe it or not, through backup files and other means and forensic analysis. But often they're not. And, you know, again, sometimes it's a blessing that messages can't be recovered. And then you know, sometimes you're like, oh, I would do anything if we could track down these messages. So, you know, I think snapchat it's just one of those things where the bottom line should be, you don't know what's going to happen. Just be thoughtful about what you put out into the universe.
Susan Stone: And don't assume just because you send a snap to somebody that it is going to disappear before someone has had a time, a chance to take a screenshot. Show and reproduce and send off that snap. Careful what you snap in a snap.
Kristina Supler: Amen, there you go. What about, I mean, what can parents do at home to educate their children about online safety and then model healthy behaviors?
Susan Stone: Well, I don't like lecturing. It never works. I think modeling healthy behaviors,
Kristina Supler: I totally agree.
Susan Stone: And I just share one pet peeve that I see all the time. I hate phones at the dinner table.
Kristina Supler: I agree. And in my house, we're actually very strict about that because if we weren't, there absolutely be a cell phone and then iPad at the dinner table. There'd be a YouTube video playing in the background and my husband and I was like, turn it off, turn it off. And it's just sort of like, eyeroll, okay, mom, fine. But if we didn't make them do it, they wouldn't do it.
Susan Stone: Well, let's be clear. Adults are just as bad about looking at their phone.
Kristina Supler: Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. It's how often do I know I catch myself all the time. I'm in a conversation, I'm listening and then I pull out my phone and I'm still kind of listening, but I'm also like totally engrossed in my Instagram feed and it's just you don't even realize how splintered your attention is.
Susan Stone: Do not look at your phone while you're driving that is in no bueno distracted driving is a huge problem.
Kristina Supler: And I don't have data. I wish I had some study to say I'm sure there's good research out there, but you know, I would say the reality is regardless of your age, texting and driving, bad, dangerous because if you're looking at your phone, by definition, you're not looking at the road.
Susan Stone: I'm very mindful that my children have always seen a pile of books. Very messily next to on my bed, stand next to my bed.
Kristina Supler: Same with me.
Susan Stone: I mean, I always have five books going, but the other night I caught myself looking at my phone and you know, it's not good for healthy sleep.
Kristina Supler: No, and actually that that was something. I guess you could say I had the good fortune of learning back in college. I had tremendous trouble with sleeping. Insomnia, I would dread going to bed because I was just later for hours and hours and hours. Yeah, and you know, through that though, I learned the importance of having really good boundaries with electronics and the bedroom. And so not laying in bed on your phone or not looking at your laptop, shooting off some emails before you try to go to bed because you can't wind down.
Susan Stone: Well, and again, it's that modeling. If you want your kids not to be addicted to their devices, we have to establish healthy boundary with our own devices.
Kristina Supler: Absolutely. So what do your thoughts, Susan, on how to help promote really healthy offline connections?
Susan Stone: By doing.
Kristina Supler: Yeah.
Susan Stone: Again, it's that modeling. And so, I think it's important to, when I know when I go out and walk the dog to just say, "Hey, you want to come with me to walk the dog?"
Kristina Supler: Yeah, and I think this is one of those things that it's ironic that we're talking about this in the context of healthy tech habits because I think the practical advice is rooted in just old fashioned behaviors. And by that, I mean, just do stuff, try sports, try other clubs, maybe it's theater, just find stuff that's interesting. And it's through trial and error, you know, some kids are going to find stuff easier than others that they like. Some kids like everything they do. Others don't. Others, it's a more difficult journey to find stuff that's interesting and exciting. But you just have to keep encouraging them. And I think as parents, it's so easy, we come home from work, we're exhausted. Our children just want to be left alone in their bedrooms, but we still have to encourage them to do stuff. We still have to make the effort to have conversations, right?
Susan Stone: It was really challenging during the pandemic. Everybody lived virtually. For me, the conversation is how lucky we are that we're not living that pandemic life, even though, of course, people still get COVID. And it's here to stay. We're not locked in our homes. We can interact. There are people out and about into really show gratitude for things that were taken away from us.
Kristina Supler: That's such a great point about, you know, essentially perspective, because if you think about it in 2021, 2020, when we were locked in our houses and couldn't go anywhere, it was just like, "Oh, you do anything. You'd be exciting to go to Target, right?" And now it's interesting to see how sometimes we lose perspective on having the ability to go out and do things and socialize and interact with people.
Susan Stone: I love going to the movies again. I don't care what anybody says. To me, there is nothing better than getting a big box of junior mints and sitting and watching a flick in a theater.cI love it.
Kristina Supler: I still want to be with you on this one. But I know like movie theaters. I actually, I am one of those people. I'd rather watch a movie in the comfort of my own home. But I hear you, though. I agree with your point generally speaking. Let's just getting out and doing things.
Susan Stone: And live theater in summer concerts.
Kristina Supler: Yeah. Yeah.
Susan Stone: Musical theater. I have my tickets for Six.
Kristina Supler: Oh, yes. I was looking at that over the weekend.
Susan Stone: The best. It'll be the second time I saw it. So I'm a repeat offender for sometimes seeing the same musicals. But everybody out there needs to stay informed on what's happening online. And be cautious about online bullying too.
Kristina Supler: Oh, that's that's such an important topic. And I actually think particularly with younger children now, little school, it's something that they're very aware of because they're taught so much about it in school. Which is a good thing that they know about it because let's face it, it does happen. And I mean, they don't want to be a total Debbie Downer, but let's face it, the internet is full of dangerous stuff. And people with bad intentions.
Susan Stone: The last topic I want to bring up is FOMO.
Kristina Supler: Hmm. Tell me more.
Susan Stone: Let's talk about this because I think here again, modeling can come through. Just because you see people smiling on that Instagram picture. It's a picture. It's a moment in time. It's okay if you're not included in that event.
Kristina Supler: Oh, this is so interesting you bring this up because in my household, the issue with FOMO had to do with Taylor Swift tickets. Because we did not have the much sought after tickets.
Susan Stone: Was everyone saying, yay, I got my tickets online?
Kristina Supler: And they went and we were the only ones who didn't. I mean, kidding aside, it was like a big, it was a big thing in my house. And we just sort of had to work through it. But to your point Susan, you see these photos on Instagram and wherever whatever the platform is. It doesn't really matter. Everyone's smiling and happy and in, you know, cool outfits. But it's important that we, children and adults alike, we don't lose sight of the fact that it's not reality always.
Susan Stone: You know, one of the things I said to my kids growing up is you're invited and you are placed where you're meant to be. And that's okay. You're meant to be somewhere else and just be grateful for where you are and not in life and not what you think you missed out on.
Kristina Supler: Yeah, and that, I mean, something in our house that we talk about a lot is just the idea of treat others the way you want to be treated. Which again is so simple and basic, but I mean, it's, it works and all facets of life. All facets. Glad we had this little chat.
Susan Stone: Indeed.
Kristina Supler: To our listeners, thanks for joining us and we'll catch you next time. Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Christina. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode. And leave us a review so other people can find the content we share here. You can follow us on Instagram, just search our handle @StoneSupler. And for more resources, visit us online at studentdefense.kjk.com. Thank you so much for being a part of our Real Talk community. We'll see you next time.
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In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler are joined by Carrie Hull, who founded the You Have Options Program, nationally recognized for providing reporting options for survivors of sexual violence. Carrie also created the Certified FETI® Program, standardizing trauma interviews. They discuss the importance of utilizing effective interviewing techniques in investigations, specifically within the realms of law enforcement and Title IX cases. They also explore the necessity of gathering accurate information and avoiding biased assumptions through neutral questioning. The role of body language and filtering out implicit bias is also discussed.
Show Notes:· Carrie’s Background (1:30)
· The FETI framework (2:30)
· The science and study behind FETI (4:15)
· The applications of a FETI interview (5:30)
· How to ask questions using the FETI methodology (7:00)
· Collecting the dots vs connecting the dots (08:30)
· Receiving answers without judgement (10:00)
· Use in different disciplines (11:45)
· How FETI can be used in Title IX cases (13:50)
· The importance of framing an investigation (16:30)
· The role of body language in an interview (18:00)
· How to prevent leading questions (19:45)
· How to filter implicit bias (21:00)
· How a FETI investigation differs (23:00)
· Conclusion (25:20)
Transcript:Susan Stone: Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Christina Subler. We are full-time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real candid conversation. Today's episode is gonna focus on a topic that Christina and I really take for granted, and that's the actual interviewing process of somebody who is either reporting a Title IX complaint or a crime.
Kristina Supler: I am excited for today's guest because I think that sometimes when lawyers are brought in for student advisors, in particularly campus Title IX cases, there's so much focus on the hearing. But I know Susan, you and I always talk about how important the interview is, and we spend so much time preparing our students for their interview.
Susan Stone: I agree. And we have seen so many different styles of investigators. It's like snowflakes no two are the same. And I, I really do mean that we've seen people who make our students feel interrogated.
Kristina Supler: Sure. And, and then we've also had, you know, investigators who I felt were very impartial and truly there to just have a conversation to collect evidence.
Susan Stone: On the flip side, you want your investigator to be impartial, but you also want the details to come out and you wanna make sure they circle back and do a thorough investigation and really try to dig out the truth.
Kristina Supler That's right. That's right. Well, I'm excited to speak with today's guest, Carrie Hall. Yeah. Carrie is an Oregon native, a former de detective with the Ashland Police Department and a leading figure in improving law enforcement responses to sexual violence. She created the Certified FETI® Program, which is an interviewing methodology intended to sort of standardize investigative interviews. And through her consultancy, Carrie Hall Consulting, she also offers specialized training to law enforcements across the globe. We're really pleased to have you join us today. Carrie. Welcome. Welcome, Carrie.
Carrie Hull: Well, thanks so much.
Susan Stone: We're gonna start with the first question. We like to go broad and then whittle down called the, is that the funnel approach? Carrie?
Carrie Hull: Funnel Technique. Funnel
Susan Stone: So describe the FETI framework. How's that?
Carrie Hull: Yeah, so FETI stands for the Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview, and it really is made up of a series of principles and foundational, you know, metrics that are on the practitioner. So when we say practitioner, we mean the person who is conducting the interview. We don't have any requirements or any restrictions that are placed on what we consider the participant. We don't view our participants as victims, witnesses, suspects, anything like that, because we really want them to remain and us to remain in the neutral. We are fully just a methodology that is about information collection. So it's been very interesting when I, when I was listening to that introduction and you talking about interacting with some of these different investigators, what I think is such a defining piece for me as an investigator of FETI is that it forces me to stay in the interviewer role and not conflate being an investigator at the same time, which lets me gather information in such a, well, more robust way, but also a more accurate way, because I'm not driving towards a conclusion, which is really more of that investigative side.
So what FETI does is it asks the practitioners to really just be an interviewer, even if their other roles are also to investigate and to put things together. What the forensic experiential trauma interview methodology allows us to do is stay very, very specifically in information collection. So within that, we have some, you know, pieces of our framework. It's science-based. That's very, very important for us because that as that changes, as the neuroscience and, you know, the information about the brain comes out about memory and encoding and retrieval, we wanna make sure that we are actually are applying that and it's not taking years and years to be able to bring that into our methodologies. And then we have something called opportunities for information, and that's the bulk of the methodology. It's talking about using brain-based cues, very specific, we call them systems of security, to provide a lot of options for the people who are stepping forward and giving information to be able to actually have that information collected, but also have it documented accurately. So for us, it's very, very specifically not an investigations practice. It's all about information collection.
Kristina Supler: And what are the, the realms in which the applications for use of FETI methodology, criminal cases, school cases, a mix?
Carrie Hull: Yeah, it's definitely a mix. It started out very much focused within sexual violence cases. So this was born out of law enforcement, specifically out of the Department of Defense in the Army. One of our instructors who was very active still with us, Lori Hyman, was the first one to actually use the FETI methodology within an investigation. And that was within the Army criminal command. And, and that was focused around sexual violence cases predominantly. So it started out being used with people who were stepping forward and either identified themselves or identified by someone else as a victim. What it has grown into in mainly because we wanna enhance that neutrality. Our learning was that this needed to not focus so much on what somebody was saying they were, or putting them into a box, but just trying to really gather the experience of what they are saying happened in a really three-dimensional way. Then we take that information and we move it into another system. That could be an investigation, that also could be a hiring process. I do a lot of work, surprisingly. I I did never intend for this to be the case in human resources. We use this a lot within human resources. So the applications are endless. It really is focused on if somebody has had an experience, being able to gather that and document it accurately.
Susan Stone: Carrie, I have a question that drives me crazy when I listen to interviews and it's how should fact gatherers? 'cause I'm not gonna call you investigators. I'm learning, try to elicit information as to the ultimate issue without being too obvious. So for example, if you ask somebody, did you steal the cookie? What do you expect? No, no. With crumbs all over. And the reason I say that is we were just involved in an investigation where there were just blanket denials. And I can't help but think that the reason everyone was just denying was because the questions were just too conclusive.
Kristina Supler: Did you do this really bad thing? It's true. Yeah. Yeah.
Carrie Hull: Well, and, and for me, it's so funny when I hear stuff like this because it just takes me back to the beginning of my career as a detective. Well, even prior to that as an officer. And I wish that I had this understanding then, because I used to, you know, find myself in very similar situations. And it was frustrating for everybody. 'cause you just didn't seem like you were able to do anything with it. Right? You just had people on one end denying people on one end, assuming, and then not a lot of information being shared in between, which is not helpful. So if I just use the cookie analogy, I'll just use that as an example. Let's say you have somebody that has res all over their face, right? And you have somebody who's accusing them of taking a cookie that they weren't supposed to have. And so what we would say with FETI is move back from looking and making the accusation, because you might be wrong, right? The experience of the crumbs could have come from numerous other things other than a stolen cookie. Some of them might be unlikely, but it doesn't mean that they're impossible. And so we really just focus on gathering what that experience was for the person. So if I was walking up and interviewing the person who had crumbs all over their face, I might start out by saying, you know, help me understand how you feel right now instead of accusing them of doing something. Because just like what you mentioned, that's not one gonna be probably the most fruitful way to do it. But more importantly, you might be wrong. And what you're doing by, by going into that sort of investigative focus, driving towards an answer is you're losing all the information that helps you ultimately get to the answer. So what we've found is by just backing away from trying to, you know, connect the dots, we say in FETI, we collect the dots. We do not connect them. This is a massive shift from where we started when, when FETI was in its infancy, we used to use this analogy of puzzle pieces. And we used to say like, you're gathering the puzzle pieces. And the instructors would go up in front of the room and they would like throw a puzzle up in the air and do this big, you know, explanation of some puzzle pieces are upside down and right side up. And the goal right in the interview is to be able to gather them and put them together. That was so misinformed. And, and this is one of the things I love about this methodology, is we're, we're not guardians of it. We want it to change. And as neuroscientists push back, as practitioners push back, we realized, no, our goal as an interviewer is not to put the puzzle together. Our goal is just to collect the dots. So we, we say in our training that the dots are information, we collect them, we do not connect them. Connecting the dots is what you do in the investigation after you've collected that information. So to go back to that cookie analogy, I would just collect as much information as I could. You know, help me understand what I'm able to see on your face right now, and then let them answer. Right? Let them, even if let's just say they are absolutely fabricating, they, they come up with whatever it is. You know, aliens came down from outer space and rubbed a cookie all over my face, right? I'll just give a ridiculous one. Okay, tell me more about the aliens. And genuinely we're not gonna say that, you know, with any sort of judgment, we're not gonna say anything with that because that's not my role.
My role is to document whatever they're able to share with me at that time, and then to really, really be able to allow them space in that experience. And if that is a fabrication or a lie, that's okay, I'm gonna document that. That's just as important to take forward into an investigative process to be able to corroborate or refute that as, you know, this sort of feeling that we need to solve it in the moment. And once I realized that I didn't need to have the answer in the interview, life just got so much more effective. And it actually got simpler. My job was actually what it truly was, which was to interview. What I see people do instead is they call an an interview, you know, this form of gathering information. But when I review it, when I evaluate these, they are absolutely investigating. They're not interviewing, and they've completely bypassed the interview at all. And they've moved right, to trying to draw conclusions. So that's really what the methodology does, is it, it puts those kind of breaks and those reminders on the practitioner to truly go in and gather.
Susan Stone: So you don't make credibility calls.
Carrie Hull: We do not within the interview. Now, in other functions of like my work, I will absolutely be part of that process. But what I would say to my team if I'm working with them or myself, is I, have I gathered enough to be able to make that credibility assessment, right? So it is, and it can be pretty fluid, you know, as a police officer, we work all the time with people that are patrol and we work, you know, we don't ever encourage somebody to like say to the person they're interacting with right now, I'm doing an interview with you, right? And hold on, I need to stop and now I'm gonna be doing an investigation. That's absolutely not what we're saying. These are fluid principles and processes that you might be moving in and out of sometimes within a very short period of time. I'll give you a really quick example. We never anticipated this to be used, be used with paramedics. This a hundred percent was first for law enforcement and detectives. And we started seeing these paramedics coming to our trainings, and I remember I got to talk to some of them and I said, you know, one of our cues help me understand using this methodology in your work. And they started talking about just little tweaks that they were able to make to the questions that they're asking of their patients. And, you know, this was always the pushback we got is, I don't have time to do this. It takes too much time. And I love this example because it shows that it's really, the onus is on the practitioner for the words coming outta their mouth for how the data's collected. So they have somebody in the back of an ambulance and they said, they've just modified from before. They would say, where are you injured? Instead, now they've shifted to, what are you able to tell me about your body right now? And it's such a distinct and important difference. It costs the same amount of time to say, but what I'm told is they get so much more valuable information because one is asking for a conclusion, and it's also asking for a patient to be able to assess what injury is. That is a complicated thing for a brain, let alone if they're experiencing some sort of physical event to their body. So instead they say, what are you able to tell me about your body right now? And they're, yes, some of the information may not be relevant, but a lot of it is. And then they can pass all that information off to the ER staff who then are essentially, you know, the equivalent of the investigators that are gonna take that intel and decide whether it's relevant and whether it's needed for their assessment. So I, I really see that as sort of this enlightening of separating out the investigation from the interview.
Kristina Supler: It's interesting to hear you speak so much about, I like the phrase collect dots, don't connect the dots. Yeah. It, when students come to us, particularly in the Title IX realm, and we're sort of preparing to embark on navigating the student through the process, oftentimes we're just engaging in information gathering and, and trying to identify what evidence might be out there. And so often, particularly with sex cases of any type, we're met with the response. Well, it, it was just, there was just two of us alone in a room. So who's to say it's one person's word against another? Carrie, I'd like to hear from you what sort of damage can occur when an investigator in Title IX case frames a case as a a, he said, she said, or something along those lines during an interview.
Carrie Hull: Oh, it's my most hated phrase, and there's a lot of things that I don't like hearing, but he said, she said is just one that crawls up my back and, and gives me the worst feeling. So what I will say when I'm working with investigators specifically, and, and I get a lot of pushback for this, some of them take it very personally, and I think they should. But I am adamant if you as an investigator are ever saying it's a he said, she said case. Now, again, I'm talking as an investigator. Unfortunately society uses this term way too much. But as a professional, if you are using the term he said, she said, what you are communicating to me loud and clear is that you are very bad at your job. So if I, if I work with somebody, well, because what, what you have communicated, if you say, I have a he said, she said case one, the gendered problem is right there out, out as the front. But let's just say it is somebody stepping forward who identifies as a male and somebody identifies as a female. All you are telling me is that you have done two things in that case at best, you've talked to the female and you've talked to the male, you haven't investigated anything. So you don't have a case. You have two interviews. That's not a he said, she said case. And so that's where I say, you are really bad at your job if you said you have a, he said, she said case. There is always something to corroborate or refute, even in the cases that seemingly have very little information, you need to actually put the time and work in. This requires effort. These investigations require effort. And so if you are just going forward and you're taking a, you know, the report from one person and you're going and talking to the other person, and you're not doing anything else to corroborate or refute the information that's gathered in those, you don't have a case, you have two interviews and you just need to be accurate in your documentation that that's all you did.
Susan Stone: 2 What I worry about in terms of what is considered cooperation, it's often bringing up prior mud slinging character evidence saying, oh, well she has a reputation of X, he has a reputation of Y and therefore they must have behaved a certain way at the incident in question. And so I agree with you, there are, it is limited when you frame something as, let's say they said, they said to be more neutral, but I also get worried what we consider to be valid corroborating evidence.
Carrie Hull: Sure. And again, that's where I separate out the interview from the investigation, because now we're talking about drawing conclusions, we're talking about bringing that in. And instead, if somebody said to me, I just go immediately to my, my interviewer mind when I hear somebody say like mud slinging, for instance. And that's, of course this happens and it's horrible and it shouldn't, well, let's just go with the reality of it happening. If somebody came to me in one of my investigations and they said something like that, well, this person A, here's the reason that they should not be believed. I am going, Ooh, this is another opportunity for an interview. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask permission, you know, would you be willing to sit down and tell me more about that? Because when it is truly just the quote unquote mudslinging, right, there's no real relevancy. It falls apart in a really good professional interview when you have somebody who's skilled and knows what they're doing, or you can at least get back to this is where that credibility potential comes in. And at least now you're taking all those dots and you're offering them to whoever is the finder of fact or whoever's making that determination so that they have more than just a one or two word statement, which is traditionally what I see now that should not be entered in there, but, but there could be really good intel underneath that, right? Help me understand more about this, whatever that is. And I'm gonna have them explore it. And if it comes into, it's just an opinion, we don't really weigh opinions in our investigations very much. There needs to be more than that. We don't disregard it. We include everything that somebody gives us. But again, it's for that professional finder of fact that needs to determine the weight of it.
Kristina Supler: Carrie, what role does body language play in both an interview and then I guess subsequently in an investigation because they're very different roles?
Carrie Hull: Yeah, so for us as an interviewer, any sort of somatic response is again, just an opportunity. We, we really, this is a huge part of the framework where we talk about opportunities for information. We don't draw any conclusions about it. We just gather it and we document it. For instance, I do a lot of human trafficking work. There's just a ton of, you know, investigations that I get invited into to do the interviews for both people who are accused of being involved in human trafficking and people who are, you know, stepping forward as a victim of it or identified as a victim. And in those interviews, it is very, very common for there to be body movement, right? So, you know, as we're going in and, and they're, they're sort of inviting us into their experience. We'll do a lot of tell me mores. And as somebody's talking about it, I will might see them touch a part of their body. Sometimes it could be outside of their awareness, sometimes it could, it's not for me to determine that, but for instance, I might see them do this, right? Touch their wrist or do something like this. Now that can just be something that somebody does that could just be that they do that frequently when they talk. Or it might be something that is connected to the memory of what they're telling me about. My job as the interviewer is not to make a determination. My job is to cue to it. Now, what I won't do in an interview is I won't point out, oh, I see you that you're rubbing your wrist because that's leading, that's the same as a leading question. And I don't wanna do that. What I will say instead is, when appropriate, without interrupting them, what, if anything, are you able to tell me about your wrist at that time?
Right? If they're talking about a specific event occurring, I'm, I'm going to, as long as they have a wrist, it's not leading right. But I'm not gonna point out that they're doing that movement now based on how that was encoded for them based on their memory. It may be that that then jumps off into a memory that they're able to tell me about or something relating to the event. There may also be nothing there. And so by not pointing it out, but queuing to it instead, I haven't done anything to sort of change their memory or alter it. I've just given them an opportunity to enhance it without me being the director of that. My job as a really skilled interviewer is just to be sitting with them and hearing and collecting not to ever be giving anything back. We call it within FETI unidirectional interviewing. We as the interviewer, should never under any circumstances, put something into that interview. We should walk away from that interview fully, just with things they gave to us. So you would,
Susan Stone: Well, it's so funny, your unidirectional interviewing has led me to a thought. And I'm wondering, when you're looking at body language or the way people frame responses, how do you filter in or filter out implicit bias?
Kristina Supler: Oh, that's a good question.
Carrie Hull: Yeah, it's incredibly hard and it really requires a lot of practice on the part of the practitioner. We rely on something we call the never again 10. And again, it's, it's a system for us that is baked in to hopefully interrupt that and keep it from happening. We do acknowledge humans are human, and so you're never gonna have it perfect, but the goal needs to be neutrality. So for instance, one of the requirements of the never again 10 is you do not ever offer any personal information or advice. So there is just no, it's not at all allowed, especially at an advanced level for FETI, I would say most of our basic practitioners really avoid this as well. That really helps For any of that. Again, going into these interviews, my ideal situation is not to know anything about what happened. That can be harder depending on how involved I've been with the investigation. But I'll give you a just an example. If I get called to deploy to something, usually something's gone wrong, right? There's usually a mass casualty incident or something's been really bad, they're not usually calling in outside interviewers unless something's gone wrong. And they will often call me up and say, Hey, here's what happened. I have to stop them and say, Nope, I don't wanna know anything about what happened. I try and go into those interviews as blind as possible, as neutral, as much of a blank slate, whatever, you know, you want to use as that. And that's a very different, when I was a detective working on the homicide team, we would sit around for, I mean, days, weeks, coming up with every question that we wanted, reading every report we could get our hands on everything we could to formulate our questions. And what that did was really increased the chances for bias. And what it also did is gave us the feeling like we already knew the answer and we were driving to something. So instead, we really try and go in as neutral as possible.
Kristina Supler: So you're making me think back to the anecdote you mentioned of paramedics and like, oh my gosh, we're responding to a 911 call. There's cars and bodies on the side of the road. We don't have time. We have to get information fast. And hearing you talk about going into interviews as a blank slate, I'm just imagining, again, in, in our world, in campus, title IX proceedings interviews conducted with this methodology. I, I would think they take a really long time. Is that accurate?
Carrie Hull: I, I mean it, it's everything above, right. You know, so I can go in, I might have been working with a team for three years and our human trafficking work is a really great example. I have tons of knowledge of that case. And so it's on me to remind myself before I go into these interviews, I literally will have a process that just works for me. I'm a very visual person as I'm walking to the interview, even if it's a phone, if it's a, a zoom, whatever it is in person, I actually mentally bulldoze the information I think I know out of my head just for that interview piece to the best that I can. Now you're still gonna have stuff that creeps in and that's when you're gonna see potentially a leading question or something like that. But as my skill has gotten better, I've really gotten better about being able to do that.
And it can be quick too. We work with our, you know, like I mentioned, our patrol officers on traffic stops, you know, they, they on viewed something that made them make a determination to, to make that, whether it was a field contact or a, you know, they stopped a vehicle. So they have that information. What we encourage them to do, just very quickly, same as the, you know, paramedics just go up there and just remind yourself that you don't know everything and you're just collecting, you already have this other facts that you've observed. And that's fine. We're not saying throw it away, but go up into that, that sort of interview, even if it's a very quick one, that information collection and just be open because there might be some other reason that this happened that you're not aware of often there is. And it's gonna give you so much more access to that. And you can always bring that other information back in very quickly. Write the ticket, you know, do whatever you need to do, but engage with that person and see if they're willing to share with you about their experience. Because they had an experience too. You observed something, but they also contributed to whatever this interaction is. And we wanna hear from them. We just don't wanna, you know, diagnose it or we don't want to make a determination about it until we give them a chance to engage with us about it.
Susan Stone: It's really a mindset FETI. Yeah. Versus, it's not the same as telling an attorney when you frame questions don't lead, right. Open versus closed. Open versus closed question. It's really just having that mindset of being open to whatever you're going to hear. But as we close the investigation of you, oh, any CSI TV moments that you'd like to share with our listeners out there?
Carrie Hull: 4 Oh gosh, I don't know if there's anything I'm allowed to share. I'm under about a hundred different non-disclosures. Oh,
Kristina Supler: Come on. I bet you've got the best stories at cocktail parties. That's terrible. You can't share anything with our, you know, I literally-
Carrie Hull: Don't think I have
Susan Stone: Hundreds of thousands of your best friends. They out. No, no doubt. No one
Carrie Hull: I wish I could secret. There's a lot of things that I wish that people knew. And you know, what I will say is that you would think that with the work that I'm exposed to and all these things that I hear, 'cause you get, really get to get in to people. A lot of people are surprised that I'm not more pessimistic. And I will actually say this work has made me the most optimistic about just humans that I've ever been. Because when you allow someone to sit down and truly share their experience without judgment, no matter what side they're on, whether they're accused of something or whether they've had something happen to them, you really get such a better understanding of the human behavior. And that has given me a lot of optimism. I see that we're gonna be much better at this, and we have these skills and these tools now that weren't available to me when I started my career. So I do wish that people had the opportunity to hear what I hear. I do think that if you use something like this, it doesn't have to be FETI, right? But something that is truly neutral, truly around information gathering, it's gonna make all this work that we're involved in that's really difficult. Just a little bit better.
Susan Stone: Oh, I love ending on that.
Kristina Supler: Optimistic. I was just gonna say, I think that's, let's end on a positive note. That's great, Carrie. It was really, thanks Karen, a lot of fun to talk with you today and I'm so interested in your work and what you do. I think it's wonderful. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Christina. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode. And leave us a review so other people can find the content we share here. You can follow us on Instagram, just search our handle at Stone Souper and for more resources, visit us online at studentdefense.KJK.com. Thank you so much for being a part of our Real Talk community. We'll see you next time.
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Real Talk podcast is joined by Hank Nuwer, a renowned anti-hazing journalist, author, and scholar with over four decades of experience. He is known for his unwavering dedication to eradicating hazing culture and has authored many influential books on the subject. Hank maintains a comprehensive database of hazing deaths and continues to be a leading voice in raising awareness and advocating for prevention efforts in colleges and beyond. He is a respected authority on hazing and has conducted extensive research and interviews to shed light on this issue.
Show Notes:● Sharing personal experiences with hazing (01:20)
● Analyzing the role of institutions in hazing prevention (05:10)
● Highlighting the importance of education and awareness (08:15)
● Should schools abolish Greek life or fraternity sororities? (10:25)
● Discussion about different types of hazing (13:00)
● How to define hazing (13.40)
● How hazing manifests in different organizations (15:00)
● Hank discusses his books and plays (19:00)
● Hank discusses future projects (20:30)
● Positive turn around stories from institutions (21:52)
● Experiences at other universities (23:50)
● How can we get coaches involved (25:00)
● How lonliness factors into hazing (26:30)
● Conclusion (28:00)
Transcript:Kristina Supler: Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Christina Supler. We are full-time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real, candid conversations.
Susan Stone: Today's podcast is going to tackle the issue of hazing and what a lot of you out there may not know is that Christina and I have looked at hazing from many different perspectives in our career. We have defended accused of hazing. We've actually been asked to help a Greek organization against accusations of hazing. And we have represented victims of hazing. So we have a real 360, don't Christina?
Kristina Supler: We do and we're, as our listeners may know, we're located in Ohio, but we handle cases across the country. And what's interesting is that Ohio has been a real hotbed of this activity, though, of course, it happens in students across the country are dealing with these sorts of issues. So we're excited to jump into this topic today.
Susan Stone: I really am too. And I am super excited about the guest we have. I feel very fortunate. I want all our listeners know before we give our name out that we reach out to him or her. And we just kept at it because I really wanted this guest on the podcast. So with that, why don't you do the intro?
Kristina Supler: Sure. We are joined today by Hank Newer, who is a renowned anti-hazing journalist, author and scholar, known for his unwavering dedication to eradicating hazing culture. With over four decades of experience, he's authored many influential books. He maintains a comprehensive database of hazing deaths. And he continues to be a leading voice in raising awareness and advocating for prevention efforts in colleges and beyond. Welcome, Hank. We're so happy to have you with us today.
Hank Newer: Thank you. I'm very pleased to be here.
Susan Stone: And I got to add. We just learned Hank lives in Alaska. So we got a little northern exposure going on here. So I love it. But with Hank, let's kick it off. How did hazing become your career focus?
Hank Newer: Not because I was hazed, but because I was at the University of Nevada, Reno. And we had a hazing death that was just off campus. But I had seen the initiation. At that time, hazing was rampant, not against the law in a lot of places. I had seen the initiation on campus. And then at a campus bar, I saw someone passed out at a pool table. He was foaming at the mouth. The organization was called the Sun Downers. And their alumni are some of the leading citizens in Nevada. The initiation consisted of making people drink ever clear. And they would throw a match at their lips. So a lot of people were--
Susan Stone: Oh my gosh.
Hank Newer: Yeah, that was supposed to be funny.
Kristina Supler: That's shocking.
Hank Newer: It was. So the person that was foaming I got them to take him and walk him. But I think if I had called the police or so, they wouldn't have done it another time. And John Davies might still be alive. So they did it one more time. And they did this one, not in public. They went to an Indian reservation. And John Davies died, and another pledge was without oxygen for a while. And so I've done database reporting since the 70s. So I made a database of all the hazing deaths that were out there. And editor friend of mine put me in touch with Human Behavior Magazine. And so in the mid 70s, that first article came out. And I kept the database going ever since.
Susan Stone: Wow. I can't even respond.
Kristina Supler: I think your database is really an important resource. And tell us more about how you receive information and reports that you put into your database. And how do you verify the accuracy of this information?
Hank Newer: It's actually time consuming. I also on the page have a long list of deaths that are not considered hazing deaths, but appeared in the press as deaths. Some of these, in particularly around 1900, were with sensational reporting. And I had to track them to find out if these really did occur. So mostly it's from media reports. But people get in touch all the time. If there's a death, the chances of me talking to the parents within two or three days are very good. They're going to be calling for information. And now I would say it's the most difficult part of doing this job. But it was a lot of time. And it was very expensive in the 70s. I had a pay for Lexus Nexus myself. I paid the New York Times for their database. And I started a list serve in the 80s. And people were sending in information on that list serve, which you still could find some places online. So I just kept that over and over. And the good thing about being so public, if people disagree or want to talk about it, it's all out there with full disclosure, where the information comes from.
Kristina Supler: That's the purpose of the database.
Hank Newer: Because in the set, as I said before, there were a lot of deaths that did not occur that were listed. People were taking any alcohol related death at all and calling it hazing. And so I was trying to break down the details as much as anything else. The next database I'll do will be all these sexual haze and cases involving athletes. And I hope to have that done next year.
Susan Stone I'm sure you're thinking about that because of the Yates versus Northwestern case, am I correct?
Hank Newer: You have a lot of phone calls about that.
Kristina Supler: And we're seeing a real rise in those sorts of cases in our practice that we handle the issue from all different angles. So I think that's really important work you're doing.
Susan Stone: I applaud you. What I want to know in your work because we address this, so I'm going to ask you a very selfish question, because I want to know the answer. But I'm sure Christina does too. So much of hazing is shrouded in secrecy and the members of hazing protect each other. What's the best way for a person who's a victim of hazing to gather the evidence to expose what's going on, especially in a culture of silence?
Hank Newer: The way I try to do things is I go to the alums, people who've graduated a year or two earlier. And that's very, very quickly after a death when I'm doing a story. Talking to the alums, yes, some of them will close, you know, shut the phone on you, but others will talk about it. And it's a good way of getting into the middle. I try to talk to the advisors and get information from them. And if you just talk to people on campus, hazing isn't as shrouded in secrecy as you think. People are going to be talking to their significant others. So it's not the secret that fraternity members would like to think that it is.
Susan Stone: For sports organizations, correct?
Hank Newer: Yeah, for sport, well, one of the big problems is they don't consider it as hazing
Kristina Supler: No, we know. We got it. We got it. I just wanted to comment that I think it's also important to point out, and I'd like to hear more of your thoughts. I think often hazing is sort of conceptually conceived of as just happening among young men in fraternities. And in fact, it spans across all student organizations, entities, athletic teams, military groups. And it's also not exclusively a male issue. I mean, Susan and I have plenty of case experiences involving female athletes in hazing. Can you talk a little bit more about what you're seeing in the breakdown? And is there any rise in female hazing in your research?
Susan Stone: Generally, what are the trends?
Hank Newer: Yeah, I don't really see a rise. I think it's consistent. We've not had a death this year or last year, but we've had so many close calls. So people would like to think that we have a trend of deaths ending. We don't. The people were lucky. Maybe what's happening is they're quicker to call 911 and not to just drop somebody off at the hospital where a few deaths have happened.
Susan Stone: Or leave them at the foot of the stairs like at Penn State?
Hank Newer: Yeah. Well, that-- he was just left alone there. But several times, members have gotten frightened and taken somebody to the hospital and just dropped them off at the emergency. And it's too late at that particular point. From what I saw in the one case, people went from standing up to being dead drunk and just short amount of time. So they're talking, talking, talking, and then suddenly, it hits them. That case of foaming at the mouth was the most dramatic that I've ever seen.
Kristina Supler: I can't imagine. I just can't imagine what that must have been like and how that experience has obviously stayed with you. Hank, I'm curious. I'd like to hear your thoughts on whether you think schools should abolish Greek life fraternity sororities? Or do you think that there's value in these organizations?
Hank Newer: With certainty, abolish pledging. Not abolish Greek life. I taught 18 years of Franklin College. We didn't have any incidents. I was the advisor to the honor society there, which is male and female. And we had positive initiations that could not in any way shape or form be considered hazing. And the students brought their parents or grandparents to the ceremony. But for me, it's like a mathematical equation, pledging, becomes hazing as pledging becomes hazing. In terms of sports, get rid of the word rookie and stop this dominant subordinate culture that we have out there. And the other is a lot of the coaches will either turn their heads or say, don't take it too far. And that is very, very common. Now, it's very, very dangerous for coaches to do that. If you say, don't take it too far, and you're allowing it. And if alcohol is involved, it is going to go too far.
Susan Stone: Hank, just to kind of turn the question and turn the dial a little differently, there are the extreme cases of alcohol. The one you described you witness is horrific. And we've also worked on some pretty scary cases. But I have to say, we've also worked on cases where activities were labeled as hazing and taken as this serious infraction. I don't know. I didn't think it was so serious. I want to give you an example and get your response. We worked on a case where there was a pledging and when the pledges went active, there was a champagne shower. Like they do after car racing.
Kristina Supler: Yeah, it celebrates.
Susan Stone: That was investigated for being hazing. I don't think that's hazing. What do you think?
Hank Newer: I broke it out out into criminal hazing and non-criminal hazing. Certainly, with something that you're describing, I would have never gotten into this kind of thing. The hazing that I had as a fraternity member was being dropped off in the country. We knew about it ahead of time and had money to call friends. So when you look at it that way, you don't think it's so bad. But then you look at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. Four pledges were killed and aligned as they were walking. And actually, alcohol wasn't involved for them when they were in the middle of nowhere. So the problem is that what would look like innocent fun, sometimes things go wrong. In that case, it's a hard line between what's hazing and what's an accident. And in talking to fraternity advisors, you can't punish the same way. You can't punish somebody for having a pledge pen, the same way that you would for having them drink a handle of alcohol. But in some cases, hazing is hazing, and it's punished that way. It doesn't make any sense at all.
Susan Stone: So how do you define hazing?
Hank Newer: And hazing to me would be any activity that's silly, dangerous, or repulsive, that's done to newcomers by veterans in order to bring them into the organization.
Susan Stone: Why silly?
Kristina Supler: Is it because you think it's humiliating and embarrassing?
Hank Newer: We're talking about the things that you said were not so bad. Like for me, I think it says something about male attitudes toward women when baseball players make each other dress up and go on to play in women's clothing or so on. But what about singing a song? Singing your fight song? That was in the movie, Paper Lion. Alex Karris was in that particular movie. George Plympton, who I interviewed about it, was pretending to be a player, a quarterback on the Detroit Lions, and he brought out a lot of that. So that kind of culture is still there. The only problem is, and there's no real study on it, our people going to take it farther if you have this kind of dominance. Somehow it got into from singing to tying people up to a goal post. And these are big, burly guys fighting back in people have been injured. Or hockey, it's gotten sexualized as you probably have seen in your research.
Susan Stone: We have.
Hank Newer: Band is very physical. Look at the death of Robert Champion. And when you were talking about different kinds, so when I'm talking to parents in 2018 in South Carolina, the parents were of a band member, their fraternity members. Interestingly enough, no sorority moms have gotten involved. I don't know exactly why it is, but the activists are the parents of fraternity members. And Kathleen Wyatt, for example, in Ohio is a big actress. Yeah, yeah, a lot. And before I took Robert Fairbanks, by the way, I was the editor of the Solana paper.
Kristina Supler: Many of our listeners are parents of high school and college students. And so based on your experience and knowledge with this subject, what are some of the warning signs that parents, but also students should be aware of and look out for regarding hazing within organizations?
Hank Newer: Well, there's like a personality change, a good way that a young woman put it, who was hazed at DuPau with having cigarettes put between our legs and burnt.
Susan Stone: That's torture.
Hank Newer: That one was interesting. It was Kappa Kappa Gamma. They were members of a family within the organization. And this happened at Chico State too, where the family has their choice of alcohol. One death, Adrian Hydeman at Chico State, it was brandy. These young women, I can't remember what their alcohol was, but they had to drink that particular liquor. And so with that particular case, the warning signs were that she lost her bubbliness, and that's the best description I could give. That she, the young woman, had been dancing. She grew up with ballet. When I interviewed her, she was working in a pizza parlour. And she had put on a bit of weight with stress. And that was one interview. Another young woman who fought back and later got her PhD in family studies fought back. So people have just different kinds of reactions. Mine with the case of having to go out, I didn't really think that much about it. Because we had somebody pick us up right away. But if somebody had gotten killed on one of those marches, I'd be looking at it differently. If the death hadn't occurred at Nevada Reno, I certainly never would have written about hazing.
Susan Stone: You have written four books, is that correct?
Hank Newer: Yeah, four books. And then I have a novel which has a hazing of Basques and Chinese in the early United States.
Susan Stone: And you've also written a play, correct the broken pludge?
Hank Newer: Yes, it was a winner of an Anne Frank Award at Buffalo State University. It used to be Buffalo State College. And I got to put my one man play on. And I put that play on for athletes. And I call it Death Of A Rookie. And then there's the Broken Pledge, which is about fraternity members. But it's pretty much the same. A grandfather, buries his grandson that day, and this overcome with grief, hatred, asking where God was when this occurred, losing his faith, and then turning it around with quotations that were in his son's diary from Martin Luther King. So I hope it's as powerful as I think.
Susan Stone: Well, I have to tell you, I watched a lot of it. And I thought it was incredibly poignant. How is it that you keep able to turn out content on this one issue and see so many angles and sides of it? It's impressive.
Hank Newer: Yeah, I think part of it is by talking to the parents and experts and people that are in the Greek world, they have the insights too. So I had interviewed Louis Lamore one time and he said, it's not that we're so clever, we're a sponge, we're a filter, and we take all of this in. So I think I have to give credit to other people for their perspective and how they see things, but I do have a good memory.
Kristina Supler: What's next for you, Hank, on the horizon of this project?
Hank Newer: Okay, so we'll be doing that database that I told you about with sexual hazing. I have a chapter coming out for the University of Toronto, Cress out in 2024 with my own experiences which will be on athletic hazing. I am putting together in the garage about all these files, putting together all the hazing incidents I can find and to do those as a database as well. It's a little more difficult when you're working as an editor than when you're teaching. The amount of free time is not quite as much. And now it's politics coming up elections. You know, Ohio and Alaska, I won't have as much time at all this weekend, I'll be in that office constantly.
Kristina Supler: This is, we've talked a lot, a lot of heavy things and we always like to give our listeners something a little positive as well when, you know, contemplating our various topics. So can you share with us in your experience any success stories of schools, institutions, and specific organizations that have really tackled this issue of hazing and essentially turned a really negative situation into a positive to recreate culture surrounding this issue?
Hank Newer: Yes, Alfred University did that. They had the death of Chuck Stenzel, which was the subject of my book Broken Pledges, came out in 1989. But they got rid of the Greek system also. And there were a lot of lawsuits with that.Dr. Norm Pollard and a colleague of his, we were the ones that did the first high school hazing surveys. They also did surveys of fraternity members. I got to help write the questions for that, but they did most of the work. That was a big, big turnaround. And the impetus was not only the death of Chuck Stenzel, they had a bad football hazing. And I don't think they lost the season, but they did suspend the team for a game or two. So yes, that was a turnaround. My personal story is I spoke at Penn State, and not two weeks later at Penn State, I got a phone call from the advisor at that particular time to say that the sorority, not hazing, had a woman take way too much alcohol, near point four BAC.
Kristina Supler: Oh my gosh, wow.
Hank Newer: The young women did not want to make the call. And one person who heard the, they all heard the talk, one person insisted, and they saved this young woman's life.
Kristina Supler: And it only takes one person. It only takes one student to reach out for help that by standard intervention to stop something horrific.
Hank Newer: And it only takes one idiot in the room, sometimes, who's, especially if that person is physically powerful to cause all these bad things as well. You hear that over and over again. So when there was a death of a lacrosse player at Western Illinois University, the punishment for the players, which was interesting, they were all fraternity members too, was to have a writer come in and go through the hazing with them, not the alcohol related part, which was 15 bottles put on stands, but to go into the river, to go marching through, to go to the house, so I'd be able to write about that. In a way, I felt like I was punished as well, because I did that at my own expense. And then it went into a book. But over and over, what's the point? The point is they kept pointing to the student coach who not only did this, but instigated so that they would get the team credit card and put gas into their own vehicles. And each one had the same story. I thought somebody else would step up. Over and over, I kept hearing that same thing. And guess what? The instigator would not talk to me. He never went to jail, either. The judge did not follow through. But yeah, there was one perpetrator who was the prime mover.
Susan Stone: How can we get coaches to get on board?
Kristina Supler: Great question.
Hank Newer: Really difficult. So I talked at a Quaker school in Delaware, athletic director, a female, really against all kind of hazing, really working football coach. The veteran comes up to me later and said, yeah, this is all fine, but we're not going to take it too far. I thought, geez, you just heard this whole talk. You saw the pictures of the kids on the screen and you're going to tell me this. And so then also when I was at Regis in Denver, I was talking, the athletic director was very much against it, talking to the different coaches. And I asked the coach, after what would happen if you heard there was hazing on your team, would you punish them? And he said, starter or reserve?
Kristina Supler: I was just going to say, I mean, obviously, in particularly collegiate athletics and big schools, coaches are often evaluated based on their winning record. And so it's decision for them to make when a hazing perpetrator is also a star athlete. We just hope that the coach makes the right choice in terms of promoting student safety versus thinking about wins and losses over truly in the long run, what's best for the team from a cultural perspective and student safety perspective.
Susan Stone: I think that especially as kids just went back to school, everybody wants to feel a sense of belonging. People can be a very lonely place, both high school and college. And we have to train people that abuse is not the way to bond.
Hank Newer: And here in Fairbanks, there was a case I never heard about until I came here where the football coach called it team bonding to have the players jump into the swimming pool and take off all their clothes to switch it to everything, put them back on while in the pool and there were three near deaths. And he forbid his assistants to jump into the water until it was almost too late. And yes, he lost his job, but I never heard about it because our paper in covering it called it what he called it, a team building or team bonding.
Susan Stone: Right.
Hank Newer: I've written about that since and called it hazing exactly what it is.
Kristina Supler: It's been a pleasure speaking with you today, Hank. And I think that you're obviously a wealth of knowledge on this topic. So we really appreciate your knowledge and insights and encourage our listeners to check out your wealth of material on the topic as well, your books and your database. You are worth the weight.
Susan Stone: You are worth the wait. Really. Thank you so much.
Kristina Supler: Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Christina. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode. And leave us a review so other people can find the content we share here. You can follow us on Instagram, just search our handle @StoneSoupler. And for more resources, visit us online at studentdefense.kjk.com. Thank you so much for being a part of our Realtalk community. We'll see you next time.
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Pull Quotes (Try to find a minimum of 4):
· “I think often hazing is sort of conceptually conceived of as just happening among young men in fraternities. And in fact, it spans across all student organizations, entities, athletic teams, military groups. And it's also not exclusively a male issue. I mean, Susan and I have plenty of case experiences involving female athletes in hazing. Can you talk a little bit more about what you're seeing in the breakdown?” (08:25)
· “I can't imagine. I just can't imagine what that must have been like and how that experience has obviously stayed with you. Hank, I'm curious. I'd like to hear your thoughts on whether you think schools should abolish Greek life fraternity sororities? Or do you think that there's value in these organizations?” (10:00)
· “I broke it out out into criminal hazing and non-criminal hazing. Certainly, with something that you're describing, I would have never gotten into this kind of thing. The hazing that I had as a fraternity member was being dropped off in the country. We knew about it ahead of time and had money to call friends.” (12:20)
· “I think that especially as kids just went back to school, everybody wants to feel a sense of belonging. People can be a very lonely place, both high school and college. And we have to train people that abuse is not the way to bond.” (26:41)
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In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler are joined by Carly Boyd, a domestic relations attorney. In this episode, they talk about the effects of a recent Department of Justice Investigation at Case Western Reserve University will have on student life. They discuss the biggest misperceptions students have around Title IX issues, why students don't report harassment cases in both Greek organizations and Sports Teams, and what triggers most harassment cases.
Show Notes:
(04:31) Biggest Misperceptions Students Have with TitleIX and Other Issues
(05:28) The Reaction to the DOJ Sexual Conduct Investigation at Case University
(08:41) Why More Students Don’t Come Forward
(11:32) Why Athletes Don’t Report Harassment
(14:08) What Lies at the Heart of Most Harassment Claims
(15:32) Is Bystander Intervention Training Effective?
(16:46) Carly’s Advice for Students this New Academic YearTranscript:
Susan Stone: So Kristina, last week we just received a copy of the resolution agreement between the federal government and Case Western Reserve University. And for our listeners out there, Case is right in our backyard. It's where I went to law school. And apparently the Department of Justice conducted an investigation of the university's response to reports of claims by student on student and employee on student sexual harassment between the years of 2017 and 18, 20 and 21. So right smack in the pandemic.
There were a lot of interviews were conducted with a whole host of administrators. And in particular, I couldn't help but notice there was a lot of interviews and roundtables that were facilitated with Interfraternity Council and the Women's Health Center and a lot of Greek organizations.
Kristina Supler: Yeah, it was really interesting report to read, Susan. And I was surprised to see the report come out. I think a real upside to this is that Case is committed to strengthening its strength. It's training in response to programs associated with reports of sexual assault or harassment.
Susan Stone: Exactly, because the Case is actually rolling out it's a whole entire program called It's on CWRU, which is a violence prevention campaign. And it'll be interesting to see how that impacts Greek culture and hazing in general.
Kristina Supler: There's a lot of new obligations in that resolution agreement that the university is committed to. But also that fall on members of Greek life and,for example, sororities and fraternities have to disclose to the chapter when there's internal investigations of sexual misconduct. There's new operating protocols. And I'm really curious to hear more about how this is going to play out on campus, day to day realities.
Susan Stone: We are so lucky because our very own Carly Boyd, our partner, might have some inside scoop.
Kristina Supler: Welcome Carly. We're pleased to be joined by Carly Boyd. She's a skilled domestic relations attorney who has been working in that field for over a decade and she's in the firms here at KJK family law practice group. And Carly, you might be thinking, why are you having a domestic relations attorney on this podcast. But Carly is actually a former advisor to the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority at Case Western Reserve.
And so she's here today to just talk with us about this resolution agreement and looking to the future, what it means for Greek life. So welcome, Carly.
Carly Boyd: Welcome, Ladies. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk about this.
Susan Stone: Yeah. Carly, just tell us to start, what do you do or what did you do? Because I know you just stepped down in July for, and can I call the Alpha Gamma Delta the Alpha Gams? Is that correct?
Carly Boyd: Yeah, that's Okay. I was their chapter wellness advisor from 2018 to just this past summer. Case Western just added Alpha Gam in 2018. It was a new chapter for them, which was really exciting. Just, like Susan and I went to Case Western for law school and I was really excited to combine my passion for Alpha Gam at Case.
And so in a sorority and a fraternity, they have a main chapter advisor. And then there was a bunch of different ones to help with the different directors. So I was there to assist with the director as they needed me. The chapter wellness kind of focuses on membership on activities and really just being there for retention of members was where I was at. They didn't need me all the time, but there was issues I could be there as a guidance and as a true advisor for them.
Kristina Supler: So you were really, in the trenches having contact with the students. I'm curious to hear, Carly, based on your experience working with the students, what do you see as the biggest, misperception or misunderstanding among students about issues like Title IX or maybe hazing and other student conduct issues?
Carly Boyd: Yeah, I think, when it comes to the Greek life and the misperceptions and what people think of, it's all bad. It's all hazing, and it's all drinking. It's all, Just horrible stories that come out of the Greek life. And I think there's a balance between there's a really good of Greek life, benefits.
When it comes to Title IX, I think people mainly look to like men and women's sports or inequality in that way. I don't know if people outside of your practice, understand the larger implications of what Title IX means on a campus and that it goes down into sexual harassment and misconduct and on those deeper levels. when I was thinking about this, I do believe just the idea of a Title IX investigation, do people understand how.
What that really means in a detail of what they were looking into.
Susan Stone: When you read the resolution agreement, what are your impressions?
Carly Boyd: I'm surprised that these things weren't happening already. It was my first thought. Really? I just, I think of this day and age of just trainings and so many things that we have to do as professionals. That I'm surprised that just certain annual trainings and reports weren't happening already. And I do believe that my experience with my chapters, they were doing those things that were very on top of providing resources, mandatory trainings.
And so maybe I was just surprised that wasn't on a higher level happening at the university. I'm glad
Susan Stone: to see that. We don't know. I happen to believe that it probably was happening. But we don't know all the backstory. We're only looking at the resolution agreement.
Kristina Supler: Yeah, Carly, I'm interested to hear, since you seem to have some surprise when you read this, in some ways this is a whole bunch of nothing.
Shouldn't, wasn't this already going on? What do you see realistically to be in terms of likely impact on Greek life, starting this academic year?
Carly Boyd: I hope there's a big impact and implication and how people feel in the Greek community. I hope they feel protected and heard through all these things.
I don't know if there'll be a change in the actual work that needs to be done. If they were already doing their local chapters, we're already requiring annual trainings. The Navy doesn't change their day today. For, my chapter, you had to do certain trainings for the whole chapter to be in good standing and you had a report in it.
And that's been like that for years internationally. Isn't that? Wasn't just a case Western thing. So I would hope that on a day today. The chapters are used to when you get new members, you educate them, you're doing these regular trainings. If they weren't, I'm looking forward to seeing how that could be implemented and that it's a positive effect in the community.
Just because you do these trainings, though, are the members actually feeling like they're doing something good? Just because we all do these trainings and everyone has to go through it to check a box. Are people actually going and hearing it and feeling protected and safe because of those trainings.
And so that's what I look forward to seeing is what is the impact of these trainings.
Susan Stone: From our perspective, and Kristina, correct me if you're wrong, we want there to be a culture of reporting. We want, yeah, We want students to come forward. I don't know, Carly, if you've had a chance to look at the complaint against Northwestern and what was going on with the team there, the football team, I believe.
Kristina Supler: And swimming. And it's. As they're digging deeper, far wider spread than initially suspected, and according to the news, right?
Susan Stone: And it's not just sexual assault. It's bullying. It's harassment of every kind. And as attorneys who represent students, we want to hear from those parents. We want to hear from those students.
We want to be proactive. So we're hoping that more resolution agreements that lead to more training will lead to a culture of people feeling more comfortable to come forward. What are your thoughts on that? I
Carly Boyd: think that's great. If people can come forward, But I think it's if I come forward, what's, what do people do with that information? If I don't believe a university or a team or Greek life will actually do anything with my complaint, why am I going to come forward?
And I think that's the biggest part is, I think the negative view of Greek life is this hazing aspect. You have to be tough, you're hazed, that's just normal. Maybe your parents were in Greek life, your dad went through it, so you just deal with it because that's the culture. And I think that's the dangerous part of Greek life, is if I say something am I going to be looked at as weak or am I going to be kicked out? Am I going to be isolated? And maybe I'm at a different college, I'm out of state.
I don't know anybody. And this was going to be my community. If I speak up what happens, especially if no one listens. So I'd love, the resolutions, I like the transparency. I like that people can report. But then looking to the institutions to actually act on what's being reported and doing it right,
Kristina Supler: Carly. You've just made me think about. there's a portion of the resolution agreement with Case that specifically is focused on Greek life. However, you were a collegiate athlete as well, weren't you?
Carly Boyd: I was supposed to be but my sister was. At a Big Ten school as well. So I went to a Big Ten school and I was about to be and I backed out at the last
Kristina Supler: minute.
Well, you're still qualified to answer my question or share some thoughts. So I'm curious, and Susan, feel free to chime in as well.
Susan Stone: Do I ever not chime in? True. Very true. come on. Are we, is this not real talk?
Kristina Supler: It's real. It's real. For better and for worse, right? But I'm curious that this notion of training and bystander intervention and having students feel free to Terrific question. Come forward and report when they see something that isn't right.
Do you think there's really any difference between how sports teams handle these issues versus Greek life? Is there you know at the core some cultural differences between the different environments? Or do you think it's the same foundational issues in terms of helping students understand what resources are available and how they can participate in a process if they choose to.
Susan Stone: That's so deep. Because basically, are you asking, is it the type of organization or is it just changing group think in general?
Kristina Supler: Exactly, because I'm thinking, what's the difference between a sports team and a fraternity or sorority if it's You know, there are obviously many differences, but in terms of these types of issues, what are your thoughts, Carly?
Like a band.
Susan Stone: Does it really matter? Are we always picking on one type of organization for this? Or is it endemic to certain types of groups? I don't know. This is deep.
Carly Boyd: I think it is. I'll go back to the sports versus their Greek life. I think sports has such a different environment because if you speak up, are you now going to be the starting position in your college team?
Yeah, you speak up. And if you're not starting, are you then not getting to the next level? Are you not going to
Kristina Supler: Fear from retaliation? Right?
Carly Boyd: I think that is a much. Worse fear in sports is that retaliation. There's another person there to take your position on the team or on the relay if you speak up. And how easy it is to know.
Yes, you didn't practice as hard. There's no measuring that. And all of a sudden, why would I speak up Greek life? If you speak up, you might have social implications. You're going to remove yourself from that fraternity. And I use the term fraternity for both sorority and fraternity. But I don't think there's as much future implications there if you are removed from Greek life.
And I think that's where sports teams are different. I think that's where they foster a lot more is because they have a lot more on the line. Maybe, they've trained their whole lives to be there. They want to make their parents proud. They have this persona. I think that's where it's such a different mentality.
Kristina Supler: Interesting. Well, and sports teams are also inherently competitive, Whereas Greek life isn't supposed to be, in an ideal way.
Susan Stone: Correct. Well, it's the opposite. It's fostering community and a family relationship.
Carly Boyd: That's absolutely correct. And I think, I do think that sports teams have both of that.
When I was going to college and I decided not to swim, I did turn to the sorority life for that family. I was going out of state to a college and I wanted someplace where I could belong and meet people. But it is less competitive. I think there's a lot, there's a different, there's a different, that fear of retaliation, you are correct in how to look at that.
I still
Susan Stone: wonder if at the heart of most claims is the root is drinking. The sexual assault, maybe even the bullying, feeling a little more comfortable to let certain words out of your mouth or treat someone in a different way that if you were sober, would you behave that way?
From your work on the campus, how do you see? the drinking and the drug use. And do you agree with me that at the heart of it all roads lead to consumption?
Carly Boyd: I would imagine if you looked at the cases, where there's alcohol is a lot higher when there's not alcohol. And I think that's the hard part with Greek life is in Greek life, you have specific purposes of putting Fraternities and sororities at a social event, right?
That's a very specific thing you do each fall, each weekend. And then there's alcohol at these events. So you're already putting yourself in a position of alcohol and partying. I believe if it's all done correct, it can be monitored and done right. But again, it goes back to, are people going to actually follow that?
So you can have as many policies as you want as to managing alcohol, monitoring it. I don't see it as an issue necessarily. But I also wasn't there to see it on that level. I'll put that out there. So I was as an advisor knew what we approved what they came to us about. That was our role. And that's what we handled.
if it's done right, you're get you're having sober monitors. You're having sober drivers. You're there was rules to prevent anything that goes wrong. Because I do believe it's around alcohol.
Kristina Supler: In your experience, Carly, how effective is bystander intervention training? Do you see students really taking that training to heart and implementing it?
Carly Boyd: When it comes to bystander intervention training, I don't have as much knowledge on that and what is happening with that on campus or what maybe, if it's happening, I'm not realizing that's what it's called, I'll say. So what is, to you guys in your experience, what is a bystander intervention training specifically?
Susan Stone: Teaching people to intervene if they see a buddy who's drunk, making sure that the person gets home safely, reporting if you see something happening that's concerning to
Carly Boyd: you. I think those are very important trainings, because I think, I was thinking about this, these are still college students that are young.
They all come to college with different experiences and backgrounds. And they may not have the tools. They may not have never drank before. They've never been in those situations to have those training, at least planted in their mind of what they would do when they see it. And I think having more of those trainings and exposing people to those methods is beneficial to everybody.
Kristina Supler: I would agree. I guess as a parting, note, Carly, what would you, for our student listeners out there, what would you like them to know or hear going into, being at the beginning of this school year?
Carly Boyd: I think it's important for the students to know that people do care. These resolutions are put into place to protect their students and that people are listening and they have heard and that there is, people looking out for them.
They want to know if there are issues. They want them to be safe and that you can be a college student, you can be in the Greek life and enjoy it and not feel pressure or feel unsafe.
Susan Stone: One of the many joys of being a partner at KJK and working with attorneys like you, Carly, is that you mix your professional experience working with families and your personal life, working with people, volunteering, hoping that there are better relationships, because really that's what you are. You build relationships and when they're ending, you make sure that they end in what I would call a respectful way.
So thank you, and thank you for being on our podcast and enjoying a little student athlete defense time.
Kristina Supler: Thanks Carly. Thanks for having me.
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In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler talk about when and how parents should talk to their college bound kids about drugs and alcohol, practical advice about drugs on campus, and tips on how parents can better monitor their child’s academics while on campus.
Show Notes:
(01:15) When should parents talk to their kids about drugs and alcohol
(03:57) Tips to help parents have conversations with their kids about drugs and alcohol
(04:31) Borrowing another students medication and Fentanyl
(05:11) Dangers of mixing alcohol with medication
(07:05) Do you know the campus culture your student is going to be in?
(08:34) How to tell if your child is doing well in their classes
(09:06) Why parents need to get a FERPA
(10:27) Is your child a good fit for college? Are they ready for college?
(12:02) The Red Zone: Is your child at risk?Transcript:
Susan Stone: I love having guests and actually I do too. I know I love talking to our guests. But sometimes I feel like our listeners miss out on what makes us. And that's just the two of us talking to other.
Kristina Supler: I have fun talking to you. And I think that we often,We have such different and unique life experiences and together I think we just have, interesting insights.
Susan Stone: So you ready to talk? Let's talk. Okay. What are we talking about? I wanna talk about school starting. Kids are going off to college. Let's have a real conversation. What parents should say to their students about drugs and alcohol.
Kristina Supler: Let's. I think it's a good time of year for us to have this conversation because families are busy planning for the future. And sometimes that's when you just overlook these sort of foundational building block conversations with your kids.
Susan Stone: I think the best place to start is really being honest with yourself where your student is with regard to their relationship with drugs and alcohol in high school. So for example, some kids, and I don't wanna label them, but some kids are not using drugs or drinking alcohol. They're just not.
Kristina Supler: Oh, absolutely.
I think sometimes when there's discussion about these issues, it's easy to paint with a broad brush and say all high schoolers are partying and drinking and using drugs and having sex and engaging in everything over the top. But that's not always true.
Susan Stone: That's not true. So for those students, there's gotta be one conversation about, look, you're going to college, you're obviously gonna be exposed to this.
You probably have already made choices that are good choices. Keep up the good work.
Kristina Supler: This makes me think also about being realistic. We say this a lot, but it's true. Be realistic about who your child is for better and for worse. In terms of how likely are they to succumb to peer pressure?
Are they, is your child of the personality type of like more is always better? Or do you have a child who's more reserved and maybe shy and unlikely to jump into social situations.
Susan Stone: And anybody can be in a social situation and decide to make a choice to have a drink or experiment with something. I, and again, I hate the idea of labeling students, but anybody at any time can make a choice that doesn't turn out to end well.
Kristina Supler: I'm imagining some of our listeners saying, okay ladies, sure. You are assuming that parents have accurate insight into, how their children behave socially and maybe not all parents do, right? I agree. Agree. I mean, I, I,I think it would be, it would actually be foolish for us to assume that we know everything our own kids are doing. But I think you still know fundamentally who your child is in terms of tolerance
Susan Stone: and things like that.
I agree. And I've also heard stories of students who were big partier in high school, got to college and really grew up and buckled down. So the reverse can be true. Just because you have a big partier in high school does not mean you're gonna have a partier in college. And just because you have a kid who doesn't party in high school doesn't mean that they're gonna stay that way in college.
So I think the conversations must be had. So let's just highlight some of our favorite tips for parents.
Kristina Supler: I think. first of all, when talking to your kids about drugs and alcohol in college, it's just important to have a conversation about how there's more danger out there. And not to be fatalistic about what's out there in the world.
But in this day and age, things are being recorded. The danger of drugs, it's so much more intense than it ever used to be.
Susan Stone: I'll give you an example. Fentanyl. Yeah, that was not a problem when I went to college. Did that in, was that on your campus?
Kristina Supler: No. Oh gosh, no. No.
Susan Stone: So we do know that there, every year there are students who borrow a Friend's a. A D H D medicine, for example, and the Adderall. The Adderall. And it's laced with fentanyl. It's really important to talk to your students that you are never, ever to use anybody's prescription drugs. If they need a prescription drug, they have to see a doctor and get their own prescription drug. That to me, is a rule that you just have to pound in your student's head.
Please don't ever borrow anybody's drugs.
Kristina Supler: I'm also thinking about, we've had so many cases where, the students involved were experiencing some form of depression or anxiety and just navigating mental health issues. And in this day and age, it's fairly well known, but you can't assume everyone knows, mixing those prescription medications with alcohol can have really dangerous consequences.
Susan Stone: including feeling more depressed.
Because alcohol is a depressant. So I think it's very important if you know your student is on various medications, to maybe even have a conversation with your student's doctor and get the facts straight. What will happen? Does it reduce the effectiveness of the medication? Does it increase depression?
Education is the key there and a conversation about it is the key. Can we just talk about binge drinking now? That was around when I went to college.
Kristina Supler: Yes, indeed. Changed there and it sure is still here to stay, unfortunately. But I think that,with binge drinking, again, this idea of the hookup and everything that happens when students quote unquote party.
We're just in a different day and age now. And some of that, I think there's many students out there who recognize that, but there's also many who don't.
Susan Stone: I'll tell you the difference that is new. I don't remember people planning on drinking so much that they became blackout or brownout drunk. That language of being blackout, brownout, gray out, that was not part of my college language.
Kristina Supler: When I was in school. I mean, I definitely had friends who talked about oh, I was so blacked out last night. But I don't remember anyone. going out with the goal of becoming blacked out. I, that's definitely, I don't know, I guess something that's quote unquote newer. I don't know. It's certainly not anything I experienced in college.
The other thing that I'm thinking about though, as we're having this discussion is just the importance of being aware of the campus culture for the school where your child picked up. I agree. not all schools are alike.
Susan Stone: Some schools are big drug schools. Some schools are big drinking schools. Some schools don't have the same level of party atmosphere. And by the way, you can send your kid to the biggest party school.
But that doesn't mean that they're gonna have that kind of friend group too.
Kristina Supler: Absolutely. Because if you think about it, also, many of the schools where, perhaps they're in cities, but not even necessarily if there's just more access to interesting things in the community. There's more for students to do other than party.
I
Susan Stone: agree. They're busier. There's more cultural outlets, more athletic outlets, more restaurants. I know as I'm looking at schools for my rising senior. It's very important for her to be in a city where there's great food. She's quite the foodie.
Kristina Supler: Amen.
Susan Stone: So let's talk about school.
Kristina Supler: academic consequences, right? Yeah.
Susan Stone: And the red flags for parents. You send Johnny, or Janie, or Barry, whatever name you have for your kid off to school. How do you know if they're drinking too much? You're not there.
Kristina Supler: Yeah. That's such a. You're right, you're not there, so you don't know.
But I still think that as parents, I mean it with mothers or fathers in your gut, you know your kid. And we often have that sense, could something be off? So if you're calling your kid, texting your child and you're just not hearing back until you 2, 2, 3, you're asking them how's your economics class?
And they don't really have anything terribly substantive to say. You think, gee, are you really going to class? What's going on here?
Susan Stone: Look at the grades.
Kristina Supler: Oh, that. I think one of the most important things that we should encourage our listeners out there to be on top of parents of college students, make sure you get assigned FERPA release.
Otherwise you can wear your little heart out, call the school a gazillion times. You're not gonna get any information.
Susan Stone: And you still won't get information. Remember, this is college. So we do every year have parents who call us and say, why didn't the RA tell me that my student is drinking too much? That call is not gonna happen.
Kristina Supler: Those are some of the, I think most difficult calls we get is they cry for help from parents after sometimes it's too late. And the anxiety and the anger, like, how could no one tell me? And we have to be the cold callous lawyers and say, legally, the school wasn't required to tell you anything.
And every year we get so many of those phone calls. It's,
Susan Stone: it's hard.
that being said, If you need to make an executive decision. And you find that your student is not hitting the ground running, and the drinking and the partying are really getting in the way of success, it's okay to pull a withdrawal and say you're not there for the right reason.
Get your head together. Come home. Maybe get therapy. And we'll evaluate whether you're at the right school or whether you're really ready.
Kristina Supler: Yeah, and it's Plans change, right? just thinking about the future and our hopes and dreams for our children. Again, so many people say, oh, such and such university was my dream school.
If you're not going to class, if you're drinking too much, whatever the circumstance may be, if those things are happening, maybe it's not the right place for you. And it's okay to withdraw from school to transfer, to take some time off. you don't. There's nothing wrong with, thinking about maybe a leave of absence for a semester.
Those are all important things for families to keep in mind.
Susan Stone: I do want parents out there to be aware of the withdrawal deadlines.
Kristina Supler: Oh, yeah. Good point. Let's talk about this more. Because every school can have different deadlines, and once the deadline's passed, It's passed.
Susan Stone: Right? So what that more specifically means if you can withdraw before a deadline, you don't have a failing grade on the transcript or an incomplete, you just have a withdrawal.
The first couple weeks of college are the toughest for any student. And we all know that homesickness comes in. I say it takes until Thanksgiving break before you really know if something's a good fit. But, just do a little more check-in. Not too much. But do a little, be a little more on top of things as parents.
I would say. September, October, which also coincides with our Red Zone Talk. Hmm.why don't you tell, remind our readers, I know we and our listeners out there what a Red Zone is.
Kristina Supler: Sure. So the red zone is a hot topic of controversy. Is it a real thing? Is it not a real thing. But broadly speaking it, refers to periods of time on college campuses, colleges and universities, even high schools, where reports of sexual assaults increase.
And so students all the way around are just at greater risk for having to navigate, behaviors that could lead to the Title IX office.
Susan Stone: Our hope, to all of our parents out there and their students is they prepare and they're packing up for college, is that everybody has a safe experience, a healthy experience, and a happy experience.
Because college is a great growing time. But if there's a bump on the road, pay attention to your campus resources.
Kristina Supler: It's really important that parents and students alike understand what resources are available through a college and university, and then also in the community where the school is located.
Because, let's face it, some schools have more readily available resources than others. But students need to know where they can turn to for help, in any type of situation.
Susan Stone: And just like ET phone home. There's gotta be that conversation if something goes wrong, just feel that you can keep the lines of communication open with your student.
I like this talk. This was a good way to help our listeners kick their students out of the nest.
Kristina Supler: Food for thought. Until next time,
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In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler are joined by Samantha Pierce, CEO of Renegade Soul. In this episode, they talk about topics relating to health and fitness. They discuss why physical fitness is mroe than just lifting weights, how grief recovery impacts our health and physical fitness, ways we can plant seeds to effect someone's trajectory change.
Show Notes:
(02:57) How Samantha is Much More than a Personal Trainer
(04:11) Sam’s Plan to Build Confidence
(06:33) Shut Negative Self-Talk Down
(08:10) What Age Should Kids Start Exercising
(10:08) What Parents can do to Get Their Kids Exercising
(13:44) Body Dysmorphia: What We Can Do
(17:06) When to Tell If You Should Cut Back on Indulgences
(19:13) Why We Numb Ourselves with Food, Alcohol, Sex, etc
(20:56) Why Numbing Doesn’t Work
(21:58) Grief Training: Why We Numb Ourselves
(25:20) How Tragic Loss Changed Samantha’s Trajectory
(28:11) How Grief Recovery Impacts Our Health Physical Fitness
(31:14) Alarming Stats with Grief Recovery and Prison Populations
(34:22) How Anything Can Plant the Seeds of Trajectory Change
(36:34) Reframing How You View a Bad Situation Into Something PositiveTranscript:
Susan Stone: We are going to talk a little bit about exercise and wellness and the benefits that you might not think you're getting when you get up and go to the gym in the morning. And I know that. A lot of our podcast, Kristina, is dedicated to mental health as it pertains to our clients. And just that when you find yourself in crisis, you get stuck.
You think it's gonna last forever, whatever you're going on.
Kristina Supler: And some, sometimes it lasts longer than others, but I think today we are here to talk about how to get unstuck or to use the phrase of our esteemed guest effectuate a trajectory change.
Susan Stone: You know, when we learned about that phrase, I sound like my 17 year old mic drop trajectory change.
Yeah, we love that phrase. Oh my gosh, I wish I had coined it. Because no matter what's happening in your life, no matter how dark things seem, Until it's over, you can do a trajectory change. And I'm really excited about this guest because she's gonna teach everyone out there who's listening to this podcast how they can have a trajectory change no matter what the circumstances.
So with that, Given Invi an intro.
Kristina Supler: Sure. So today we are pleased to be joined by Samantha Pierce, who is the C E O and founder of Renegade Soul. Sam is a master's level social worker, a certified personal trainer, and a grief recovery specialist. With her background in social work, she really brings a holistic approach to her personal training.
Sam designed Renegade to take care of black women of childbearing age in particular, and today she works with child, clients from all different backgrounds, ages, shapes, and sizes. And I have to add, I'm pleased to note that I am one of Sam's Renegades.
Susan Stone: You are. You have joined the Renegade Supler.
Kristina Supler: So happy to have done so.
So Sam, welcome to.
Samantha Pierce: Thank you. Thank you. It's such a pleasure to be here with you ladies.
Susan Stone: So Sam, you are so much more than about just squatting and pushups. You, isn't that the truth? You are about trajectory change. So could you tell everybody about how you are so much more than just a personal trainer in what you do and what you bring to those clients?
It's really incredible. It is.
Samantha Pierce: It's a loaded question, really. When people ask me what do I do, I just look at them like, well, where do you want me to start? Okay. So personal training is what I wake up in the morning and head out the door to do. But when you said trajectory change, the reason that I say that is because your life trajectory is something that we often study in social work.
Especially when you get a person in front of you and then you just can't look at the person in front of you. You gotta look at their past and their parents' past and all those different pasts that sets them on this trajectory. But we are actually really in control. So when I'm at the gym with personal client, with personal training clients, a lot of times they come to me because they wanna lose weight.
Sure. Literally, they have no idea that I have a whole different plan for them, right? Yeah. You gonna drop this weight, but we gonna work on, we gonna work on that gut that you're trying to lose. We're gonna, build arms and muscles and legs and all of that. We are also gonna build confidence. are going to work on where you are in your soul spiritually.
Like you, you just never know what you're gonna walk into in the gym. On at any given time, on any given day.
Susan Stone: How do you do that?
how do you I think that
Samantha Pierce: I'm very open as a person and the conversation. I'm never, I am never afraid of a conversation. So I don't veer away from any conversation.
Someone says, Tim, I really need to ask you this. Go right ahead. Because I'm an open book. But I think that is just where my life trajectory has me. That I've gone through a lot of hard things in my life. And instead of being quiet about it, I'm very verbal about it. I'm very open about it. And I understand, it might be too soon to even say this, but I'm just gonna say it. I understand God's plan.
That a lot of times things happen, but it is not, to put you in a bad place, but it's to put the next person in a better place because, oh, you're ready to come and master this thing. You're getting ready to move this mountain. So that you can teach the next person how to move that mountain.
And there are people that are just watching you and they don't even need you to teach them to move, how to move the mountain. They're watching you do it, and they're already motivated. So things happen for a reason and sometimes it has nothing to do with you. So when we talk about getting into the gym and being able to talk to different people about different things and putting them on.
Programs that will not only change their body, but also change their mind. That comes very natural to me, especially as a, I'm a I, I call myself a recovering community organizer and a social worker, so that's what I am, and then I use all of that energy and personal training.
Susan Stone: Sometimes I go to the gym and I have all this internal negative talk.
My thighs look like this. My stomach looks like that. I'm getting old. Do you ever have that internal negative self-talk?
Kristina Supler: Oh my gosh. Every day I.
Samantha Pierce: Every day. I think I, yeah,
Kristina Supler: it's and it's one of those things where you feel frustrated at times when you put in all this work or at least what you believe to be hard works 'cause it isn't always right.
and don't see results. And then that affects your mind, your spirit and it can continue on through your day. So it's something I've been working on personally is how to, Hold onto those endorphins and feeling good when I leave the gym and carry that through my day and not get bogged down in negative self-talk.
Samantha Pierce: in Renegade land you aren't even allowed to come in with negative self-talk. Nope.
Susan Stone: But how do you know Sam, if it's going on the inside?
Samantha Pierce: How do you check that?
Well, you know what, it comes, it always comes out. If you're thinking it, it comes out. if a client says, I can't do that, that's automatically self negative, self-taught.
And so before a client even comes into the gym, when they sign up, I send a welcome email and I send this link to a video that I did about I am statements and how careful you have to be with your I Am statements. And Kristina, I don't know if you watched that video or not, but it talked about, how God referred to himself as I am.
And so anything that you say after I am is invoking the power of God himself. And in fact, if you say something negative, you might be just using his name in va. So you gotta be careful what you say behind I am. Because when people say I can't do a thing, or I'm fat, or I feel fat, or my stomach is that, and it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
We gonna re we gonna rephrase that altogether. So I am fat, meaning I am at the gym changing how I look because I want it to.
Kristina Supler: Love that I do too. Sam, let's roll it back to basics. As many of our audience listeners are parents who are raising children of all different ages. So at, for our parents out there who are listening who maybe have a child who seems to be a little stuck, particularly as we've gone through Covid these past couple years, what should parents know about the age at which children should begin exercising?
Samantha Pierce: oh, that's easy. So exercising should begin. act actually exercising does begin at crawling. they're scooting, right? They're trying to move their bodies, trying to move their legs, move their hands a little bit. That's exercise. And as soon as they start walking, they take that first step and boom, they take off.
You gotta chase them all around the house. 'cause now they know how to walk. I would say to cultivate that energy from that moment on, get them out into the park. They love that stuff. Anyway. They're gonna do whatever you wanna do anyway. And so I remember when my kids were younger that we would go into the mall when it's cold outside.
So we are in Oh, wonderful. Weathered Cleveland. And so we get mostly cold weather and then three months of hot weather, right? So during the cold weather, we used to take our kids to the mall and we would just let them walk and just, that's just a way of moving your body a little bit. But there, it's never too soon to start your children on exercise.
And exercise looks different for everybody and it doesn't have to be regimented like that. So when we think, oh, I gotta do my cardio, some people think, oh, I have to be on the treadmill, sweating my, my, my hair out in order to consider it as cardio. And it's no, not necessarily. you just have to undo.
So Renegade needs to. to subside what you thought as societal norms is regular, right? So renegade is you have to forget everything you thought you knew, right? So everything you thought you knew isn't necessarily it. So when you think about your kids and exercise, just get them out there walking, moving.
And then as you become, as they become older and you become more active, they will see what you are doing and they will automatically become more active.
Susan Stone: But how do you fight that teenager who just wants to stay in their room, play
Kristina Supler: video
Samantha Pierce: games? Yeah. I remind you, you're the parent. Oh yeah. Oh, Touche.
Oh yeah. Say to them, you know what? Put the game up or you're gonna lose it for the month. We gonna go for this walk. And they're like, I don't wanna do that. You're the parent. Take it. Take that game away and make them go for that walk or wherever it is that you're trying to go.
Susan Stone: not only are you a parent, and I love how you say you are the parent, but you are so in charge. When you're in the gym training, it's not just, like you say, get on that machine and. Do that leg lift, but you also have that I'm in charge. Go do it. And I think that really helps, don't you?
Kristina Supler: Oh, absolutely.
I think that, something that's really important and wonderful about working with you, Sam, is this balance between. Go do it. But then also encouragement and positivity when there is a little like,no, it's no, go do it. You can do it. Which is refreshing and nice.
Samantha Pierce: Yeah, I wouldn't tell you to do it if I didn't think that you could do it's right.
So here's the thing about that though, you have to have a certain level of confidence. And so you have to find as a parent what you're absolutely confident in. And so as a parent, I know for a fact that if I don't get my kid exercising, they're gonna grow up to be unhealthy. As a parent, I'm like, oh no, that's not gonna happen on my dime.
You could do that on your dime, like when I'm long gone and you decide you're gonna sit on your butt for the rest of your life. I've already given you all that I can and I'm gone. But as long as I'm alive and you're under my care, then I am confident that if I tell you to do a certain thing, it is for your best interest and you're gonna get up and you're gonna do that.
And it's the same way with dealing with clients. Kristina, grab those 20 pound weights and go lunch and you're looking like, what? And I'm like, yeah, I'm confident that you can make it down that aisle and back and that your legs are gonna be stronger and bigger because of it. So go do it. Like I said, it's the same thing as parenting you.
You just gotta be confident in what you're telling them. Like when you give them that Tylenol, when they have that toothache, you know that Tylenol is gonna work. There's no question about it. You don't even leave room for, I don't wanna take the Tylenol. Nope. Take this Tylenol. You gotta have the same confidence when you're dealing with your kids and exercise.
Susan Stone: How do you balance, because I know I struggle with this wanting to never, I grew up, Sam, I'm gonna share something with you where every girl I knew struggled with some level of body dysmorphia was. Either throwing up or starving themselves. And then I saw a positive shift of body positivity.
Kristina Supler: I was gonna say that those issues were still in my generation as well through high school and college.
Everyone had some sort of issue going on.
Samantha Pierce: Right.
Susan Stone: So you wanna be potty body positive. But is there a point where you're also saying to someone, You don't wanna have that cookie and you do need to exercise. Like how do you balance those thoughts? And I know we've talked about this on prior podcast.
And I'm bringing it up again, so it must be a real issue for me if I'm bringing it up again.
Samantha Pierce: So here, okay. I don't know if you've ever talked to a bodybuilder about this. has this conversation ever happened with a bodybuilder before? no, I have not had this conversation with therapist.
Kristina Supler: Therapist. Okay. Or pediatrician. Or pediatrician. So
Samantha Pierce: here it goes. We all suffer from body dysmorphia. Every last one of us. We all have something, especially as a, so what you didn't say is that I'm a bodybuilder and that I actually compete on stage. And let's just backtrack for two seconds and let you know that in itself is one of the hardest things that I've ever done in my entire life. And that is because every bit of body dysmorphia that I've ever had and is encompassed in that journey by itself. It is a 24 week journey to the stage, right? 24 weeks to get to the stage, and the body does so much in those 24 weeks. So we get to eat.
Then we get to do all of this cardio, all of this lifting, and then all of a sudden we begin depletion and he starts cutting everything to expose the muscle, right? So when you are dealing with, how do you come away from the stage body? Because to get to the stage body, you have to do so many things that is not sustainable. So the stage body is not a sustainable body, no way, shape, or form. And I'm sure you've seen the pictures of all of the bodybuilders in the hallway. That is a body that we cannot maintain even if we wanted to because of how hard it's to get to there. That there is a point and the journey where we're literally eating about maybe 700 calories per day.
I
Susan Stone: can't imagine how I would think.
Samantha Pierce: Yeah. Yeah. I still don't know how I was thinking. But anyway, commitment and dedication, it gets to that point, and then you get, you hit the stage, it's lights, camera, action, and then boom, you're done. I don't know if you can think about how much of a a brain fart that could cause It's
Kristina Supler: whiplash. Yeah. All of a sudden you're done
Samantha Pierce: trying to balance, right? Do you run to Mitchell's to regular people? Regular people who struggle with a cookie? So I, and trust me, we get donuts every Wednesday in my house for the kids. It's donut Wednesday. We go get donuts before school and everybody eats donuts every Wednesday except for when I'm on prep.
And so when it comes down to what the discipline is that is necessary to maintain, what I tell my clients is, when you're beginning a journey, you need to do what you regularly do, and then as the journey progresses, you start progressing. So I don't expect any client to come in and start training two to three times a week and then cut everything out of their diet.
No, I tell them not to even change anything that they're eating. Let's get into the regimen of the workout first, and then as you progress and you want more, then you're willing to give up more. So then you're saying, eh, I plateaued. I'm gonna give up. I don't know, wine. Whoa. Those are Sam Wine.
Kristina Supler: Sam, you struck a nerve. My gosh, Sam,
Samantha Pierce: anything but the wine.
Susan Stone: Okay. I'll fight you for my wine.
Kristina Supler: Okay.
Samantha Pierce: Wine and only have wine on the weekend. You're not gonna have wine every night. Maybe, oh, that got very personal. I had so many conversations with Susan where I'm like, it's real.
Kristina Supler: girl, you know you're not gonna cut the wine.
Samantha Pierce: But you never know. There may come a point in her fitness journey where she says, I can't get rid of this Pudge right here. And her trainer might say, give up wine for seven days and take a picture every single day, and then see what happens with your pictures and if you see a difference. And then at the end of seven days she'll say, wow, there's a huge difference here.
That's a lot of sugar. And she might say, I'm not gonna drink any more wine, I'm gonna switch to vodka. True story. That is exactly what happened to me. So anyway, so the journey is the journey. But you have to be patient in any journey. Not just the fitness journey, but in any journey, you have to be patient and know that evolution is natural.
You will evolve into the person that you need to be in order to do a certain thing. That is how God built us. So as you progress, you'll say to yourself, Kristina, one day you'll just come to me out of the blue and be like, This ain't working. And maybe I need a meal plan, and I'm gonna say, perfect.
I've been waiting for you to say that. And then, because only when you say, I'm ready to make a change in this area, will you actually make the change in this area. And the meal plan may be something simple okay, what are you eating? Okay, let's do that every single day except cut this rice at the end of the night.
Or, whatever the case may be. Something simple, but it. It's an evolution. And so the cookie that you struggle with is a matter of what do I want more? Do I want this cookie more? Do I want these abs? Because if what I really want is abs, then I, a cookie is nothing. I can say I forego that cookie.
Let me see what my body does. If I don't do the, I already know what my body does when I eat the cookies. Lemme see what my body does when I don't.
Susan Stone: How does this mindset help college kids or kids of any age. Who suffer from anxiety and depression and wanna turn to alcohol or drugs
Kristina Supler: well or numbing out with food even, or
Susan Stone: numbing out with,
Samantha Pierce: we can numb out with just about anything.
But can you numb out with exercise? You can actually, in grief recovery, I'm a grief recovery specialist. We call this, it's a disturb. Give me a second to pull this out of my brain. It is a temporary relief of of what you're feeling. I can't pull all of the S T E R b, I can't even pull it outta my brain right now, but it's a temporary relief of whatever it is that you're feeling and it comes out in many different ways.
And exercise is one. Alcohol. Definitely one. Sex definitely one. There's so many different things that you can use as comfort, right? And so when you're talking about college age kids and, and high school age kids and anybody before and after, as a matter of fact, these behaviors are learned through just living.
So they may have seen a parent do it that way. My parent comes home from a long day of work and what does he do? He grabs a beer. And so that's the behavior that we just learn, right? And what I would say when we are dealing with kids of any age and even adults our age, is that, sometimes it's, it is better to sit in the feeling and sometimes if uhoh, what did I, strike a nerve again, Susan.
Susan Stone: Yeah, you struck a big nerve because I know that it is so hard. Just sit in the feeling. 'cause sometimes it just hurts. Feels yucky. Oh, it just hurts so bad. Yeah. It just gets you and you cry. But that's not bad is it?
Samantha Pierce: But it is hard to explain to children and young adults how bad it's gonna hurt when it comes back around.
So you can numb this with alcohol, drugs, whatever, exercise, food, whatever it is that you're gonna numb that with. But when you, when the numbing subsides, you are going to feel it anyway. And it's hard to explain to children and young adults. It's easier to explain to an adult. I can say that to you and you say, oh dang.
I hadn't thought about that. But kids, it, that's just not gonna sit with them. So a lot of times what they need is, we are talking about children and young adults. What they need is someone who can sit in it with them without the judgment. Now, are you a parent that's going to be able to sit with them?
I'm a trainer that can sit with clients. So a really good example is a client comes in and she's in full blown tears. And you know her. She's I can leave if I need to. And I'm like, no, you here. You're here for a reason. Let's sit in this and, figure out what needs to happen next.
And so a lot of times though, I do a lot of grief, not a lot. I do grief training, right? I have clients that come to me out of grief, and their training looks different. In fact, a lot of times their training is separate from everyone else because what they need is a quiet space where nobody's around and like a million wrecks of something that they can just say, okay, she told me to do a hundred squats. I'll never get through these a hundred squats, but at least now I have something to do. And distraction. and they just start moving, right? And I'm just standing there like this,just, waiting for them to do whatever it is.
They might do 20 of them and then they'll turn around and say, was that a hundred girl? Yes, that was a hundred. Let's move on to the next thing you know, and that as long as you can move your body, Grief and pain and things like that, it just helps. And but I know that because I am a grief person, like I work in grief recovery. I, my specialty is child loss, parents and grief.
So what I,
Susan Stone: What could be more painful? What could be more painful? Nothing.
Samantha Pierce: I'm sure there is some things that could be more painful, but I think it depends on who you're asking. Like I think that the child loss has been my greatest pain. But somebody else could say that rape has been their greatest pain.
Okay. It just depends on, see, child loss can happen to, to two different people and it affects them differently. Sure. And that's not to negate abortion as child loss because that affects people differently too. People come from different backgrounds and what they view as the most painful thing they've ever experienced is going to differ from person to person. I
Susan Stone: remember I had two miscarriages. And I remember after both miscarriages, my mother saying to me, that's just God's way of making sure you only have a healthy child. And I remember thinking, that does not help. That was not helpful, mom. I know she meant to help.
She meant well. But she missed. Missed the mark. She did mean well. But she missed the mark on that. 'cause I was grieving.
Samantha Pierce: Yes. And so your mom is of a different generation. And they don't know how to put that into a healthy place. And grief recovery, we talk about this all the time, spiritual truths that are just not helpful.
And then people, people come to you and say, God gives, and God takes away. And it's I know. That don't help. Just like you just said that don't help, and that doesn't mean that God didn't want me to have a, an unhealthy baby because there are children out here with autism and children with other special needs that are born and that are good.
So it's not like God was just trying to protect me from a thing. It's just, this just happened and now I have to deal with it. Yeah, I think different things hit people differently, and generationally speaking, we are differently equipped to deal with certain things.
Kristina Supler: Sam, I'd like to hear a little bit more about your grief recovery training.
That's something I've never heard of before and I just think it's interesting 'cause it sounds and please tell me if I'm wrong, it is a combination of in many respects, meditation and exercise in a way.
Susan Stone: And this is great because I know you may not know this. Kristine and I both love yoga, so
Samantha Pierce: I think I did know that.
Yeah. Love my yoga. I'm a yoga instructor. So grief recovery is, it now, after the twins, I have twins that passed away. They were born at 21.6 weeks, and they had no chance of living because they just didn't have lung function. And they each lived about an hour after they were born, and they were born on separate days.
One came. And then we had to induce the other. Oh my gosh. And so after that, my husband and I went to tons of counseling. We saw, we saw a group,which was great. We went to phototherapy, we went to individual counseling. We did all kinds of different counseling. And it wasn't until during my work on a pregnancy and infant loss committee for the county that they brought in a grief recovery specialist.
What they were doing was, and I did not know this, they threw me into this mix. But what they were doing was they were going to make everyone on the committee go through grief recovery method. And then they were gonna train us to become grief recovery specialists. So they signed us up for the Grief Recovery Group.
And I went to it as an eight week group. This one in particular was an eight week group. And I was like, yeah, I'm here for child loss. yada, yada, yada. And when I got there, we were talking about all kind of other losses. We were talking about losses of teddy bears when I was six years old and what that did to me and what that meant, and loss of keys and job interviews and stuff like that.
I'm sitting there, I'm confused, I'm just like, what? What are we doing here? And it was the most thorough, I actually called the, my, the chair of my committee, and I was like, I'm not doing this. This is not what I signed.
Kristina Supler: I think they put me, I'm in the wrong group. I belong in
Samantha Pierce: the group down the hall.
Yeah. what are we doing? Like, why are we talking about all these different losses? And I'm tore up from the floor up, like I'm just gone. And she was like,no. This is accurate. You are okay. Just stay with the group. And so when I completed it, what I realized is that this was the most thorough grief class I have ever participated in.
And it starts from childhood and then it takes you through a relationship. So what we say in grief recovery is that grief begins as soon as you come out the womb, right? You come out of that warm space, you are covered. You come out, it's cold, there are bright lights, you cry and some doctor slaps you on the butt.
And this is your intro to life.
Susan Stone: How do you incorporate that knowledge in the Renegade Group you run?
Samantha Pierce: Oh, honey, I spot them. Actually, in fact, I've had several renegades go through, grief recovery method. I offer them a discount. I did a group of Renegades, but when, like for the example that I gave you a little while ago, the lady that came in absolute tears, I said, you need grief recovery and we're gonna start that next week.
And I took her through the for one-on-one and seven weeks, the seven week program, and she was like, I didn't even realize I was dealing with all of this. Because a lot of times listen carefully to this. We did not talk about this before, so this was never in any of the prep questions, but a lot of times you get stuck a journey. Journey. And it's related to grief. It's not related to anything else.
So you think you're stuck because you wanna eat macaroni and cheese in a fitness journey. But the truth is, you're stuck because you've got this unresolved relationship of a person that is gone from your life, has been gone from your life for 20 years, and you're stuck in emotion that you didn't realize and that has got you not able to make other changes because this person loved macaroni and cheese, they always made it for me. And so I'm gonna eat it. It was my beloved mother. Whatever the case may be. And this is just a wild example. So this is not anything that has actually happened, but this macaroni and cheese is in your way of your ads.
And so when we go through the grief recovery method, when we start talking about what different relationships affected you, and you start working through relationships for the unresolved things that happen and unsaid things that you never got to say before they left your life, whether it was from death or just Estrangement, it is, it just opens up a different world in your brain of being able to deal with other things because now you can see, oh, this was compounded with that and this, and I've never been able to deal with this particular situation, and so I've never been able to trust another person.
With this part of me, you, it just opens you up to something totally different and a different piece. A different piece of healing that can occur.
Susan Stone: We, Kristina and I deal with sex issues every day. Every day we talk to college kids about sex. We help students on their journey dealing with either defending against an allegation of sexual assault and what that feels like to be accused, or people who have been have
Kristina Supler: experienced sexual violence.
Susan Stone: And we talk every day about that. I'm wondering, and we're seeing a lot of. Violent behaviors in the college dorm room. And I'm wondering if grief ties into sex and in the way we have sex and the way we make love with each other. Do you have thoughts on that?
Samantha Pierce: I got a lot of thoughts on that.
Let's back up. I saw a study, a long time ago that said that 60% and this number could be off. And I don't recall where I saw the statistics, but we probably can find this somewhere, but it was something like 60% of the prison population was heavy in grief. And can we just add, oh my gosh,
Susan Stone: that's
Samantha Pierce: amazing.
We put every single person that's sitting in prison and took them through grief recovery or some other grief, acknowledged their grief and help them work through whatever it is that they're grieving over and allowed them to begin a healing process. How that might change.
Susan Stone: How about getting them before the crime is committed?
Samantha Pierce: If we could only get them before the crime is committed, right? Then our prisons would look totally different. but it's hard to get to people because again, grief begins at such a young age. We all have this backpack and every little loss that occurs, we add rocks to the backpack. It just becomes heavier and heavier.
So when you're talking about sex, grief, hurt, people do hurt people. I hate that saying, but it's absolutely true, right? If you are a hurt person, you don't know any other behavior than to hurt the people around you. A lot of that has to do deal with you not being able to trust the people around you, and so you cut them off and you hurt them.
So when you're dealing with dorm rooms and violent sexual behavior and people, young people, young minds trying to deal with a social media parents. Siblings school and grades and studying and parties and Greek life. I wanna join a sorority, fraternity, whatever. All of this other stuff is happening.
And then by the way, I haven't healed from whatever happened to me back home before I got to the dorm room, right? So if you are dealing with all of that, and this is a very young mind, this is not a mature mind. You are going to need some help in placing things in the right compartment and dealing with things and healing.
So even though we didn't talk about grief recovery and our preparation for this, I would thoroughly suggest that college age students, so we do grief recovery method for 18 and up, that college kids all go through grief recovery like that would almost be. That should be a curriculum change actually, because then you start to work through relationships all the way up until they got to 18 and then moving.
Susan Stone: That's a trajectory change. That's a trajectory change. Jack. That is a, that was, yeah. You gotta start that business.
Samantha Pierce: Oh, here you go. And I'll
Susan, you know me well and you haven't even known me long. I see
Kristina Supler: you. I think seeds are planted. Seeds are planted.
Samantha Pierce: And that's So what is trajectory? What is the trajectory change? It literally is seeds being planted. It literally is. If you can plant a seed in the mind of you got it else, then you can change the trajectory of the life of a young person simply by introducing a thought.
That something else is out there. I remember I took, my, my neighbor at my old house. She thought that the world was right there in our little corner of the street, right? And so I took her with me and the children. We went to my doctor's house, and she lives all the way out in her Aurora. She's got this big swimming pool in her yard.
Sauna and closed in deck and it's like this big mansion, right? And I'm like, we're going to, see my doctor, do you wanna come? And she's yeah, I'll come. And I took her over there and she saw this place and she was like, people live like this. This isn't just on tv. And I'm like, yeah. we don't live like this yet, but We'll, like This is just, you sometimes all you need is a level of exposure to change your whole outlook on life. And if you want it bad enough, you'll change your trajectory on your own.
Kristina Supler: Wow. I'm just processing that.
Susan Stone: That's, I'm about to break down and cry. Yeah. I'm feeling very, I'm a little f clumped.
Yeah. You say it's a really
Kristina Supler: powerful,I gotta be honest, I think that's our ending thought. It's just powerful. The idea that we can effectuate our own trajectory change bit by bit, and then even more so with community around us, helping to lift us up and empower us. But it, so much does start from within.
Samantha Pierce: From within. And if it's not within and you have somebody around you to input it, that's even better. Like the work that you ladies are doing with these children, I say children because even college kids are, They're children. Oh,
Kristina Supler: that go on and on, on
Samantha Pierce: and on about that. If you could just, feed them positive thoughts, like they're in a bad situation.
It looks grim for them, but if you could just say to them, if you can input this thought of Yeah, but God's gonna use you anyway. You're gonna have this really abundant life. Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard what God has for you, honey. And when they, you look at that and you say, and you can give them examples of that, and you can point out people that have lived through really hard times, like start looking at these celebrities that they love so much and find out their backgrounds.
Oh, so and so did this and they come from the projects. whatever the case may be, if you can overcome a thought process. And Susan, Kristina, y'all think about back when y'all went to law school. There was something that made you go to law school, right? There was something there that said, this is what I'm gonna do, and you showed up every single day.
There has to be something in each of these children that makes them show up. But if you can find out what that is, then you can tap into that and you can keep them either moving in the right trajectory or changing it. This bad thing. Yes, it happened to you, but it doesn't have to define you.
maybe it happened for you. Not to you. Maybe this was an eye-opening thing that's gonna change the way you affect, and I'm talking about the children. You went through this thing so that you can help change the world.
Kristina Supler: Powerful thought. I
Susan Stone: really powerful thought. I just think about, we do a lot of talk with, especially with my K through 12 practice, and those kids who are on IEPs, individual education plan about transition planning.
But we don't really, we talk about sex ed and we talk about occupational advice, are you gonna be a doctor, lawyer, candlestick maker? But we really don't prepare people for just the pain of life. Yeah. And that's what you can offer the world. And that's what you do. You are the navigator of that trajectory change once you get stuck in life.
And we thank you for the work you do with people.
Kristina Supler: Oh, thank you. I agree. And Sam, we are so pleased that you joined us today. Thank you for sharing. So much insight and food for thought and wisdom with our listeners. Thank you so much. it was really a pleasure chatting with you today.
Samantha Pierce: So much for me y'all.
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In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler are joined by Becca Gruenspan of RG Adoption Consulting. In this episode, topics include the myths around adoption, how adoptive parents can improve their chances of a successful adoption, and the competing emotions between birth parents, adoptive parents, and the adopted child.
Links:
RG Adoption Consulting: https://rgadoptionconsulting.com/
Show Notes:
(02:40) How One Adoption Lead to a Purpose-Filled Mission
(06:39) Why Becca focuses on domestic adoptions
(08:47) Greatest Fear: Will the Birth Mother Show Up Again?
(11:03) Adoption Roadmap: the Proprietary Process to Help Adopting Parents
(13:54) Details Matter: What is Important to the Birth Mother
(15:16) How RG Adoptive Consulting Helps Improve the Chances of Success
(17:36) What Some of the Difficult Obstacles are for Adoptive Parents
(19:31) Addiction: How Babies Fare When Born Addicted to Drugs
(21:26) Competing Emotions: What Birth Parents and Adoptive Parents Feel
(24:43) What Adoptive Children Struggle with EmotionallyTranscript:
Susan Stone: We're gonna talk about adoption today. And the reason we're gonna talk about adoption is that in our special education practice, we've represented a number of families of adopted kids, and the unique issues that children or students who are adopted had such as, attachment issues.
Kristina Supler: I'm really excited about today's episode. Because Susan Adoption's something that, you and I have no direct personal experience with. But it's an issue that comes up so often in our cases. And we regularly see the issues that adopted children's often experience in schools. And then the issues that the PA parents and families navigate through as well.
Susan Stone: I agree. And at this point I think I've worked on close to 50 to a hundred cases where there has been a student with an issue that is direct, directly related to the fact of the adoption status. But again, by the time you come to our office, it's because there is a need or a crisis or an issue that needs to be worked out.
I hate the fact that I never get to hear the success stories.
Kristina Supler: I know. I'm excited for today's guests to, to learn more about the adoption process, some of the challenges, but then also the good things and the success. Because you're right, Susan, we don't often hear about that so
Susan Stone: We never, I just wanna remind you, remember I always say we only get to see the dark side of life sometimes.
It's great to see when things go swimmingly well.
Kristina Supler: With that, let's welcome our guest today. We are joined by Rebecca Gruenspan. And Becky is a single mom who herself has gone through open adoption. She founded RG Adoption Consulting shortly after adopting her son in 2011. And we're so happy to have you with us today.
Susan Stone: And do you go by Becky, Rebecca.
Becca Gruenspan: Becca.
Susan Stone: Thank you. Okay,
Kristina Supler: Becca, tell us a little bit about your role as the Founder and CEO of RG Adoption Consulting.
Becca Gruenspan: Thanks for having me today. I started my business, we're about to be celebrating our 10 year anniversary. Um, wow.
Susan Stone: A decade.
Becca Gruenspan: Yes, we're very excited.
I started it two years after I adopted my son as a single woman, at the time who had gone through years of infertility and just really knew I was meant to be a mom. And I really wanted to be a mom. So I sought out first on the fertility path. And after that I failed, for lack of a better word.
I thought about adoption. But it really scared me probably for all the reasons you said you don't hear the good side. I was scared 'cause that was all I knew to, as well as all the stories I put into my head about what it meant to have to, to adopt. And then I was put in touch with, and it was also very overwhelming having gone through so much loss already. And long story short, I was put in touch with an adoption consultant. And I was told that this consultant was gonna hold my hand, tell me what to do, and how to do it and where to go and what to read and what not to read. And I was like, okay, I could use an easy button I'm around about now. And nine months to the day that I first called my consultant, I had my son in my arms.
Susan Stone: So it was a great experience using a consultant. Correct?
Becca Gruenspan: It was. Interestingly, I was told because I was in my forties and single and Jewish, that it was gonna be really hard for me. But voila, nine months later, I adopted.
So it was a very, great experience. Also scary. And I knew that, after I adopted my son, I wanted to help other people and I became this magnet to people who wanted to adopt. And I was very, passionate about the fact that they really needed help going through this. Because you don't know what you don't know.
Sure. Long short, two years later, I became an a consultant myself. And I thought, gosh, I'm putting all this money into my consultant that I use Pocket. I think I can do this now. I. and so that's when I started my business.
Susan Stone: Kristina. I had the privilege of actually going to yoga and having dinner with Becca. And I learned that Becca's not alone in this venture.
How many people work for your business?
Becca Gruenspan: Yeah, I think there, my team is seven or eight people right now. And we are all across the country. And we only work with the hopeful adoptive parent. We do not work with the birth mom or expectant mom. So that's really a distinct, a distinction between an adoption consultant and other entities such as a facilitator or an adoption agency.
We are not.
Susan Stone: So you are hired by the potential parents. And I just for clarification purposes, you only work on domestic, not international adoptions. Am I Correct?
Becca Gruenspan: You are correct.
Kristina Supler: Tell us why. But what's the difference between the two. Or why did you choose to just focus on domestic?
Becca Gruenspan: I can't even talk to you that much about the difference between the two because there is a big difference.
And so it's like you go down one path or the other, as well as like foster to adopt. That's a whole nother path as well. Each path has its own nuances, its own clearances, its own licensing. And it's done. Each is done very differently and is its own separate path, even though the end result is being an adoptive parent.
So I didn't know anything much about, international. I know just enough about all three routes that I just mentioned to talk about the pros and cons of each. But not enough to really guide someone through those, those paths.
Susan Stone: Certainly if you chose domestic and that's what your business is focused on.
Can you tell us what the benefits are of a domestic adoption?
Becca Gruenspan: Sure. I think the biggest benefit is the fact that most domestic adoptions now are open on some level. Now that automatically scares people. And people have all sorts of questions about, is that a good thing? Aren't you scared that your child is gonna want to go back?
Is, aren't you scared that someone's gonna show up at your doorstep? And the fact of the matter is 20 years ago, most adoptions were closed. And what that does is create a sense of fantasy in a child's mind about where they came from and who they are instead of a reality and an openness about. Everybody wants to know who they are and where they came from, right?
Your identity is such a huge part. It's everything, of who you are. And so by able, by being able to have an open adoption, you can know health history, you can have a relationship with the first mom or the birth mom and the birth dad. You can see what kind of life they have.
So a child is no longer needing to live in this fantasy world of where they came from, who they are, what other people look like them. There's so much good about a healthy, open adoption relationship. And that doesn't mean it doesn't come with some complications. Sometimes it does. And healthy boundaries need to be put in place.
It's Cousins, right? Having, you don't, you're not best friends with all of your cousins in your extended family. But you learn how to live together and navigate the relationship. And some are great and super, super close. And some are a little bit more difficult and you have to, manage that.
Kristina Supler: Well, it's interesting to hear you talk about the benefits of open adoption, but also the importance of boundaries. Because I know that sometimes, there's a fear. if we do an adult, an open adoption, the birth mom's gonna come back and haunt us or try to take the child back. Is
Susan Stone: Well Becca just mentioned it.
People think they're gonna show up at the door.
Kristina Supler: How realistic, of course there's always extremes. But in general, is that. Just a myth that's taken hold? Or is it something that rarely happens or can you talk a little more about that?
Becca Gruenspan: It is absolutely a myth. It really, I don't.
I don't even think I know one situation where that's happened. The laws
Kristina Supler: that's really a powerful piece of information there. Yeah. That you just shared with us.
Becca Gruenspan: The laws are in place to protect everyone really. And every state, and this is the confusing part, every state has its own set of laws around when a mother can terminate her rights, like at what point after birth can a mom
terminate her rights as a parent. And at what point It's irrevocable. So every state has different laws. So for instance, we tend to work in states where an expectant mom can sign her rights away can terminate her parental rights between 24 to 72 hours and then it's irrevocable. You cannot change your mind by law. Unless you can prove that it, they were made to sign under duress or fraud.
Susan Stone: You mean 22 to 72 hours? I wanna clarify after birth.
Becca Gruenspan: I'm sorry, ask me that again.
Susan Stone: You said 22 4 to 72 hours, but you, I just wanna clarify for our listeners. You mean after the birth of the child?
Becca Gruenspan: After the birth of the child. Now that's just some states. Every state has different laws about the length of time you have to wait.
Some they can sign right away. But then they have 30 days to change their mind. That's scary for an expectant, for an adoptive parent. That's also nerve wracking, I would think, for a birth mom who just gave birth, who had already kind of worked through all of this. Hopefully they were getting good options, counseling and went through all the things to make sure that the, this decision was the right decision for them.
But again, every state has their own laws and we tend to work in the ones that are more compact.
Susan Stone: So does your business focus on the potential parent that wants to adopt until what point? Do you take them through when the baby gets in their hands?
Or are you there to provide support and services throughout the life of the adoption, the childhood.
Becca Gruenspan: Great question, and this is I think, what differentiates maybe RG Adoption Consulting from other consultants. So we have a four step proprietary process called the Adoption Roadmap.
Kristina Supler: Very, tell us about the roadmap.
Becca Gruenspan: Yeah, take a second. The adoption roadmap has four different steps to it. So we work with to, to answer your question simply, we work with people from the very, very beginning. I wanna start the process and I don't know how. All the way their contract ends once they bring their baby home. However, we work with our families for a lifetime.
So the four steps are this: one is we educate people about adoption. So we want people to understand what the process is going to look like before they start it. So that there's not any real surprises as they're going through the process and then we help them, find the right places to go to get what's called a home study, which is the legal process that they have to go through to be approved to be able to adopt a baby.
So every person has to go through what's called a home study. Somebody comes to your home, they interview the people in the family, they make sure you have the right finances, they do FBI clearances, all of that to be able to make sure that you are who you say you are. And that you are able and well to take care of a baby or a child in your home.
And then the second step is the storybook process where you put together what's called an adoption profile. It's a storybook of your life through pictures and letters. Think Shutterfly book. But we do even nicer ones 'cause we work with a designer. So we help them do that because that is the sole tool that's used for an expectant mom to choose who she wants or who they want if dad's involved too, to parent their child.
Susan Stone: Wow. Is it like a dating app almost? a more detailed book.
Kristina Supler: Pitch for your family, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Becca Gruenspan: you're really showing an expectant mom. What is your child gonna look like in our life? Let me try to give you a little bit of a picture, a little bit of peek into our window of life.
Susan Stone: Wow. Tell us what goes in that book. I'm so fascinated.
Becca Gruenspan: Yeah, it's really cool. And this is where I love working with families 'cause I get to know them on such a
Kristina Supler: deeper,
I'm sure that process personalizes everything for
Susan Stone: like, you show the house, the family dog, the kitchen, what's in the cupboard.
Becca Gruenspan: You know what?
That might be a good thing. I'm gonna use that next time. What's in the, what's in your cupboards? But those, funny you should ask that, but sometimes it's exactly those little details. Sure. Mom like, go, oh my god. I can relate to this. Or I love this about them. and sometimes people don't realize how important those little details are in their life.
Who are their friends? What are the, what does their friend makeup look like? Is it diverse? is it not diverse? Does everybody look the same? Does anybody have tattoos? Do they not? Do you have dogs? What does your family look like? Where do you go on vacation? Where do you work?
All those things are really important. And so the pictures are important. The words are important. The stories are important to really relay and get the feeling of your personality across. So it's, I hate to use the word marketing tool, but if you're gonna if anything, it is a marketing tool on who your family is.
And a lot of people don't understand either that in most cases, an expectant mom chooses the family. So it's like they both choose each other. She first chooses them. But then they have to also say, yeah, I, after learning about her and her situation, we choose her too. And then a match is made.
Kristina Supler: Becca. I'm wondering,if a family, an individual or a family really want to adopt domestically, how likely is it for to be successful in the process? Are there instances, is it common for a family to maybe not, be chosen or be able to adopt? Or in the US is it generally if a family or individual wants to adopt, they'll be able to?
Becca Gruenspan: Yeah. So to help answer that question, I'm going to explain my step three in the process, which is where they put together their agency portfolio. So let me ask you guys a question, and this is a question I always pose to people wanting to find out about our process. When you go to a financial planner and you say, here's a million dollars I wanna invest, wouldn't that be nice? First of all.
Do you, will that financial planners say, great. We're gonna put it all into this one stock. No, you diversify. Exactly. And that's the strategy that I use with my family. So instead of putting all your eggs in one basket and signing up with one agency, say, we're gonna pick the largest agency.
It's $15,000 up front. And we're gonna, they have great success. I say, why don't we sign up with three or four agencies for $5,000? And that way you're at way more places. Plus when agencies and attorneys are stuck and either don't have the right family for what an expected mom is looking for. Or maybe they don't even keep a list because sometimes that's a pain for them. They'll reach out to me and say, do you have any families for this particular situation?
So now I have a family who's at four agencies that they've signed up with. Plus I'm getting situations every month that I'm sending to them. Their chances of matching successfully are so much higher because their profiles in front of more people.
They're seeing more situations. So to answer your question, it's very high percentage of people who are successful. In fact, the people that I have worked with who have not been successful are really, truly only the people who give up. If you don't give up, your chances are very high to adopt.
Susan Stone: Are there certain adoptions that are more difficult, such as you mentioned that you were single Jewish female?
Are interracial differences a problem, same sex couples, like what is the most, is there, I'm just curious about the difference
Kristina Supler: Profiles that are chosen more often or, less frequently.
Becca Gruenspan: So the ones that are most difficult are families with multiple children already. I'd say if. If it's a couple, if you're both over 50, but, and if you're single over 50, that's gonna be more difficult.
I can see that. Yeah. Yeah. And then the more narrow your criteria is, the more difficult it's gonna be. As open as you can be, the easier it's gonna be. So sometimes people will come in and have a gender preference and have a preference on are very narrow on, they don't want any drug exposure or they don't want any mental health.
Yeah. And that's gonna be much more difficult 'cause then we're looking for more of a unicorn. And that's, those people are not placing their babies. Yeah, those people aren't the children. They cannot, handle because of their life situation to parent at that time. So you have to be wow open and you have to do a lot of education to understand who is an expectant mom.
And typically it's a woman who has multiple children already. Who can't hold down her job because she can't afford childcare and parenting. Who can't afford another child and maybe just lost her condo. So is going from family member to family member or friend to live with heart.
Heartbreaking. Yeah. And maybe,birth father isn't involved. And he has five other children of his own that he doesn't support either. This is just one scenario. There is no two scenarios that are the same.
Susan Stone: How do the kiddos that have come from birth mothers who have used alcohol and or drugs fair? We deal with those, that population and it, the cases again, that we see, it's a rough road
Kristina Supler: Right. The, the impact of fetal alcohol syndrome is lifelong.
Becca Gruenspan: Yeah. The good news is we do not see alcohol as an issue as much as drugs. And opioids, we all know about the opioid epidemic in the world. And that certainly translates into the expectant moms and the birth moms that we are seeing and that our clients are working with.
alcohol is, is rare. More rare
Susan Stone: With the babies, how long do those babies go through withdrawal at
Becca Gruenspan: birth?
Yeah. What I have seen with through my client's eyes is typically three to five days. Oh. Sometimes less, sometimes more. But the good news is these babies are so resilient. And we have had many a, an adoption medicine doctor speak to our community and the children fare very well.
They do well once they go through that with withdrawal. And I'm talking the drugs more than the alcohol. But opioids they tend to thrive really, and grow up just like any other, child as it pertains to those, that substance exposure.
Kristina Supler: You're listening to, you speak it, it's really reminding me or making me think about what a complex process adoption is emotionally In terms of, for the parents or individual who are adopting the child. It's an exciting and happy time. Maybe, some anxiety as well.
But at the same time, how do you reconcile that with the idea that perhaps a beautiful thing in your life is beginning on the heels of a heartbreak or a tragedy in someone else's life. Whether it's substance abuse or whatever the circumstances are for why the child is being put into the adoption system.
And so how do you, how do you talk to parents about that or prepare them to work through all those competing emotions?
Becca Gruenspan: Well, you hit the nail on the head. Because every adoption starts with trauma. It starts with loss. And it is. Imagine being in a hospital. And on one side, and I have the chills talking about it on one side.
Susan Stone: Oh my gosh. Me too. I'm just thinking about it.
Becca Gruenspan: Are so excited that their dream is coming true.
On the other side, you have a woman who is doing the most difficult thing that she could ever do in her life. And probably is really suffering because of this decision that she had to make for whatever reason.
And in the middle. You have a child that is feeling maybe not consciously yet, both sides of that. So this child is growing up having experienced loss for the very first breaths of their lives. And that stays with them.
We try to do another thing that really differentiates RG Adoption Consulting is that is the education component.
So education and community, I believe, are two things that you cannot go through this process without. You need education, which never ends. I am almost 12 years in and I learned something all the time about what my child is experiencing and the different developmental stages and what, how they process identity issues at different stages.
And if I didn't commit to continually learning, I. from adoption professionals and trauma specialists, I wouldn't understand how to be the best parent for my child. So when when you choose adoption, you really have to know that it's at least an 18 year commitment. And that you have to commit yourself to continuing to learn about your child. Because if you don't, your child is going to, No, it's gonna affect your child.
And ultimately, everybody wants to be a good parent to their child, right? And if you're not doing the work, that's only going to get in between your relationship with you and your child.
And so there are so many layers. So education and community, just being around people who have, who understand this in a way that nobody else does, you know as well-meaning as our friends and families are.
They don't know.
Susan Stone: I just wanna interrupt. I remember when we had dinner. Yeah. And I made the comment that children who get to land in wonderful homes are so lucky. And you really corrected me rightly so that is not a great way to frame adoption. Because there are aspects that are unlucky.
And we all have visions of Daddy Warbucks and Orphan Nanny, and everybody's dancing off the stage. But we have to remember that as wonderful as your adoptive parents are, children are conflicted.
When does that conflict get integrated? Or does it ever, if ever, yeah.
Becca Gruenspan: You know that term lucky, right? Everybody can feel lucky. Individually at different stages throughout this process, right? From all different, we call it the adoption triad or the adoption constellation. So it's the adoptive parent, the birth parent, and the, adoptee.
If somebody says to my child, wow, you're so lucky. You guys are so lucky you have each other. That doesn't give my child who may be struggling internally, because of the adoption, that doesn't give him room to have those feelings of, wow, why does, struggle of all the feels. Because that puts so much pressure on him to have to feel like, oh, I'm supposed to be really grateful to my grateful.
Yeah. And that's a lot of pressure for someone to go through life feeling I can't ever talk about what I'm experiencing as an adoptee. I don't look the same as anyone else in my family. But I'm supposed to be this one way because everybody tells me how lucky I am.
Kristina Supler: That is really powerful food for thought, Susan.
I would've made the same, gaff that you did. And I, it's just, a different perspective that I'd never thought about and, I hear you, Becca. That's really, thank you for sharing that. Because I hadn't really thought about, the alternative considerations.
Susan Stone: And when I made the comment and you responded in such a poignant way, it's obviously stuck with me. And I probably will stick with me for life because I was like, wow, not that all children. I know I have the talk with my kids. You don't appreciate me. I think all parents that feel that way. Have you ever said that
Kristina Supler: to your kids?
Never. I feel appreciated and valued every day. Yeah.
Susan Stone: yeah. I'm still working on it and my oldest is 25. But and I do say that to my kids. Show a little gratitude.
But, we have to remember the circumstances. Becca, I could talk to you forever and in fact, this is my second time talking to you and I still have more. So we might have to do a part two with you. Okay. I would love that. And it's just great having you as
Kristina Supler: it's been wonderful talking. Yeah. And a lot of good information, for our listeners out there.
And we are really appreciative of your time today. So thank you.
Becca Gruenspan: Thank you. Thank you.
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In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler are joined by Mark Coffin, the owner and President of Academy Custom Test Prep. In this episode, they talk about the sweep changes coming to the SAT. Topics include what big changes are coming to the SAT, how colleges are responding to those changes, and what strategies students should consider when preparing for either the SAT or ACT.
Links:
Academy Custom Test Prep: https://academycustomtestprep.com/
Show Notes:
(01:45) What are the Big Changes to SAT in 2024
(04:49) How will the SAT be different?
(06:58) Some Key Differences Between the SAT and ACT
(07:34) What the new SAT Focuses on with Reading and Grammar
(09:52) The Mysterious Logic Behind Taking the SAT Online
(12:08) The Biggest Change to Taking the SAT
(12:54) Cheating: Varsity Blues Scandal Explained
(14:10) All Scores are Not Created Equal
(14:33) Adaptive Tests: Are They Equal?
(17:08) Will Colleges Know if You Got a Hard or Easy Test?
(18:15) Will the new SAT be of Any Value?
(18:39) The Response from ACT
(19:55) Do Colleges Prefer SAT over the ACT?
(21:37) Should Students Go with the ACT?
(22:43) A Simple Strategy Students Can Use to Prepare for the SAT
(24:40) How Colleges Are Responding to the SAT Changes
(26:33) Tutoring versus Self-Prep: What works better?Susan Stone: Kristina, is this the first time we're recording a podcast and we're not together?
Kristina Supler: It is and it feels weird. I feel so alone.
Susan Stone: I was gonna say, I feel so disconnected from you. This is so weird everyone. You know that we're always attached at the hip, but I'm in New York and I.
Kristina Supler: I'm in our studio in Cleveland, Ohio, and, we're gonna do this with technology today, and I think we're gonna be talking about technology a lot today.
Susan, what are we talking about today?
Susan Stone: Oh my gosh. We're gonna talk about the changes to the SAT because there's a lot happening and I'm gonna also wanna delve into, is the ACT gonna do the same thing, it's. The time of year where everybody's trying to get their last scores in before college applications go out.
So good time for this talk. And, with that, why don't you introduce our guest?
Kristina Supler: Sure. We are joined today by Mark Coffin. Mark's the proud owner of Academy Custom Test Prep. ACT P helps students with the ACT , SAT, P-SAT and GRE tests, as well as common app essays and other college admissions essays.
So Mark, thanks for joining us today.
Susan Stone: Happy to be here.
So Mark, big changes are coming to the SAT in 2024. Yeah. Complete. Describe the dun da. So can you describe the changes?
Mark Coffin: Sure. It's a complete revamp. The, college board who, runs both the P-SAT and SAT testing, they make up the tests and score 'em and all that.
They made major changes to the SAT in 2016. So this isn't a long time for them to have had this new test. They made it then much closer to the ACT. Now effective with the P-SAT. This fall they're given traditionally in the high schools to juniors, sophomores, and juniors in October of each year.
So this fall, both sophomores and juniors will take the new version of the P-SAT, which will be very much like the new version of the SAT. The first new SAT will be in March of 24. So current juniors who pretty much have already taken some of these tests, have taken the old s a, the current SAT.
The new one will be for current sophomores and younger kids starting next March. Now a current sophomore could in fact take SAT tests this fall. There are, four testing dates. And take the current version on paper. But starting with March, it's going to be a very different format, for a number of reasons.
Number one, the test is gonna be completely online. So there'll be no printed tests. Students will take it at testing centers, not at home, designated as they do now, but they can use their own computers or they, a computer will be provided when they go in and get ready for the test and start, their computer will basically be frozen. So they can't use it for research or texting or anything else they might want. And they download through a link, the new SAT test. And so they will have their own test on their machine or on a provided machine that's online and everything must be done online.
The test will be shorter. It's currently a little over three hours. It's gonna be two hours. They're shortening it by combining some of the sections and reduce, just simply reducing the number of questions. The current SAT has a reading section. And a writing or grammar section. And those will now be, those are now separate sections.
You finish one and then go on when the time's up to the next one. And then it current one has two math sections. One without a calculator. You can't use a calculator. And then one with a calculator. And again, you do the non calculator. You finish when the time's up. You go on to the next one.
Susan Stone: Mark. I just wanna interrupt, how did they know whether you have a calculator or a non calculator?
Do the proctors manage that? Yeah, the proctors.
Mark Coffin: The proctors are walking around and they see you with a calculator. you're kicked out. so
Kristina Supler: it sounds like it's almost, it's a really different test.
Mark Coffin: It's different in a lot of other ways too. One hugely important way, which I'll get to after I've covered the more, the simpler questions. So the current two sections that are reading and grammar, they call it writing and language, are gonna be combined into one section so you don't finish big. That's a big, that's a big change. That's a big change. In the, reading part, in the current test, you generally have around 11 paragraphs to read, eight to 11, and then you answer 10 or 11 questions about each paragraph.
So you have to be not only a perceptive reader, but a pretty quick reader because I'll give you a lot of time. The current, the new test will reduce this, I think, to four passages for the reading with one question and just be a paragraph with only one question per paragraph. The, reasoning is that students will have more time to absorb the material and answer one sort of more broader question about the point of the paragraph so they have more time to ponder it in effect.
Susan Stone: Mark,
Kristina Supler: is that easier?
Yeah, it sounds like they're in some ways watering the test down. Am I wrong?
Mark Coffin: The questions are not easy. I don't think it's easier. It's easier in the time sense. You're not hurried to read a paragraph and answer 10 or 11 questions. Because you have to have pretty good recall to read a paragraph and then immediately go to the questions and remember 11 different answers.
Now it'll be one answer. And I've taken a practice test. Khan Academy, which many people are familiar with, is Sure. An online practicing entity for basically the SAT. They now have a couple of these, new format practice tests. And I've taken one, the question's not, I'm not a junior in high school, so I may be somewhat better at taking these tests than some kids, but,it's a fairly difficult question, I thought for a junior.
Susan Stone: Okay. So sorry to, they're taking
Kristina Supler: the time management pressure out of it, but the substance of the questions is still weighty.
Mark Coffin: Yes, I think so. The. Yeah, they're trying to give kids more time. The SAT compared to the ACT has never been a time crunch. The way the ACT is. The ACT is much more direct, and so there are many more questions in the same three hour period.
For example, the math section in the ACT is 60 questions in 60 minutes. you gotta move. SAT was never that time crunch. But they're dropping it from three hours to two dramatically reducing the number of questions. The whole idea is to make it, an easier test, frankly.
Susan Stone: So let's go back.
What are the other changes, cuz I wanna make sure we cover 'em all.
Mark Coffin: I told you they combined the two reading and grammar. Grammar will have much more emphasis on vocabulary. The SAT before they changed it in 2016, was much more of a vocabulary test than the then new SAT. They reduced the, you really had to study vocabulary if you took an SAT in 2005.
Kristina Supler: so are we back to that? Are we back to studying vocabulary?
Mark Coffin: I think so, somewhat. The but they'll, there'll be more emphasis on vocabulary, not so much, you don't have to define words, but they will have a blank in a sentence and ask you which word best fills in that blank. So you don't have to know the definition, but you have to know pretty much the context of words, how they're used.
And in some words will be absurd. You just wouldn't use 'em. It might be farmer, where the right word is horse. I'm using simplistic examples, but you would never put farmer in the, in that blank. So some of them will be obvious, but some won't be. It'll be difficult. So anyway, those are two of the changes.
The, making the math all, maybe I didn't get to that. The math is now gonna be all with a calculator, fewer questions than the two previous sections. But you can use a calculator anywhere. And you don't bring a calculator. The calculator is on the screen. One of the big changes with this test going online is that you have to be adept at taking the test online. With a paper test going forwards and back, skipping a problem, but coming back to it later because you circled it on your paper.
Those things are second nature to kids now. I'm much older than a junior in high school. I think many of these kids are much more adept at online testing than I am.
Kristina Supler: There's all sorts of online testing now, for sure. Yeah, I
Susan Stone: know, but I would struggle because I remember that taking the SAT and seeing something that was challenging, saying, okay, I'm gonna come back, and I would just jot where to go back.
But now you've got a manage and negotiate everything on the screen.
Mark Coffin: Well, you can have to help with that. You can have scratch paper, obviously you can't bring anything other than blank paper. They'll provide scratch paper. So you can write down section one. I wanna come back to number 11 or something. But you still gotta be able to do it on the screen.
Now there are arrows. Kids know how to do that. But it's another step I think thatIt just makes it, for me, it makes it much more challenging to take this test online. So essentially those are the format is largely the same. The material tested largely the same. Just many fewer questions.
Their thinking is that by making it shorter and online, I don't know how they come up with this logic, but that it will appeal to many more kids. That it'll be fairer. I don't know what makes this fairer. That's what they put in their press releases, that they think more kids will take it. I think that may be true, but not because they've improved the test.
I think kids will be, a p will be attracted by the two hours instead of three. These tests are no fault.
Susan Stone: for sure.
Kristina Supler: So were these, what motivated, or caused SAT to make these sweeping changes?
Mark Coffin: There's no question that these tests, ACT or SAT are culturally biased. If you come from a good school system, a nuclear family, maybe get prep work, tutoring, you have a huge advantage over a student that doesn't have those things.
So that makes the score. The score is it's almost a. It's hard for an inner city kid, for example, to score, and many do nonetheless, but they have a bigger hurdle to get the kind of scores that a kid's kid from a top flight, public or private school can get.
Kristina Supler: So in other words, if you have resources, you can game the test.
Mark Coffin: I tell people only partly inject ingest that academy's job is to be a legal cheater. Our job is to train these kids interesting, to improve the on the test. And think of this as a move on an athletic field. Think of prepping as a move on an athletic field or learning in an instrument or lines in a play.
If you do the test over and over in practice, you're just simply gonna get better.
Susan Stone: Yeah, but Mark, my understanding of the TE biggest test change is that students will get different tests cuz the computer will spit out different questions based on how you do.
Kristina Supler: Is that true? I'm gonna track you, Susan?
Is that what you're getting at?
Mark Coffin: There's two parts to that answer, and it's the biggest change. The first part is everyone in the room will have a different test. Forget the adaptive nature I'll get to next. Every, the person sitting next to you will have a different test than yours. I believe.
That's simply a plain attempt to stop cheating. You can't look at the person next to you and see what they're answering. Not only is it online, but they have a different test. They're gonna have, 17 is gonna be a different question for John than Mary.
Susan Stone: so you can't use AI to help you with the test.
Kristina Supler: No. This was one thing I was wondering as well, aside from ai, is this some sort of response to the varsity blues, matter and all the cheating that happened just a couple years ago?
Mark Coffin: That was pretty genius, frankly, what that guy did it, it hinged on you moving your test center to one of his.
And to do that was very simple. He said, I've got a wedding that day in Texas and can I take the test there? Yeah, sure. And you take the test to his test center and he either, gave you the answers or he had someone else take the test.
Susan Stone: Just sit there. Yeah. That wouldn't have prevented varsity blue because he actually I agree had someone take the test for you. But you won't be able to really move test centers, correct?
Mark Coffin: No. I don't know that. You go, you still go to a test center, so I guess that same argument still applies. But obviously they're paying much more attention. That was a, he called it a side door. And of course the bad part of that was that he had athletic coaches, letting a guy who lives in a desert get in on the crew team kind of thing.
Susan Stone: But the question is, now that everybody has a different test, how do you compare? How can a school say, look at Johnny Smith versus Johnny Jones. And if they both have a 1300, how do you compare? Cuz they're two different tests,
Kristina Supler: right? Not all 13 hundreds are created equal with an adaptive test, right?
Mark Coffin: Yeah, that's correct. And of course some kids are better at certain phraseology, better re even though you end up with the same score, you might do well on certain questions that the other guy didn't do well on. But it comes out to the same score because vice versa. And other questions. The yeah, there is no comparative value that I can see. and I haven't even gotten to the big change.
Susan Stone: Okay. give us the big change. Yeah. wait,
Mark Coffin: take us there. I'll one more comment though, on the sitting next to people with different tests. The college board maintains that the test, no matter being different, they're equivalent. Well, that's a value judgment. And I don't know how you That's a great comment.
How you can really ascertain that or say it with a straight face. If it's a different test, by definition, it's not compar comparable. So you're right. So that's a fairly big change right there. But here's the killer. The tests are now gonna be adaptive, meaning I, I mentioned, I think I mentioned before, that when you do the verbal part, the reading and the grammar. They're gonna be two modules.
And the same thing with math. Two modules. So when you finish the first one, say the, reading in, in grammar, the program is gonna analyze how you did and either give you harder questions for the second module or easier ones. So if you screw up early on, even if you're brilliant, and then just half asleep and start off slowly, you're gonna get easier questions.
Same thing in the math. After the first module, they're gonna adjust the following questions. That also will adjust the score you can get the maximum score is gonna stay still. 1600, 800, 800 on the two sections. Which is pretty hard to get by the way. But the maximum score now will be essentially 1200.
So if you get in both sections, the easier Second module, your score will be capped in each section at 600, so two would be 1200. Even if you answer the second module, both the verbal and the math perfectly, your score can't go over 1200, or maybe it's 1225. It's not specific, but it's low 12 hundreds. And it's nowhere near 1600.
Now if you, obviously, if you do well in the sections, you get the harder questions and your maximum score could be the 1600. But this means, again, Everyone is taking a different test that when you start changing the second module from the first module. And by the way, the first module is already different, and now you're gonna change the second one.
What possible value do two scores have when be like a batter's batting average when they're in a different ballpark against a different pitch. It's not the same ballgame.
Susan Stone: Mark, will colleges have any way of knowing that? Let's say Kristina and I both took it. I got an easy version. She got a hard,
Mark Coffin: I.
Not in anything I've read. I don't believe so. It's a very good question. But I don't think colleges will know. college board has been quiet on that and colleges have been crickets on this. They haven't said anything basically about this new test. Part of that is because it's not in their ball ballpark yet.
The kids that are gonna be taking this test, are gonna be next year's juniors. They don't apply until the fall of senior year. So we're two years away from colleges even having to think about these scores. D do they matter or not?
Kristina Supler: Well, it's interesting to think about the change, really significant changes in the SAT coupled with the affirmative action ruling from the Supreme Court.
You know how that the trickle down effect of both those changes on the college admissions landscape. It's it's gonna be really significant.
Mark Coffin: Well, certainly certain minorities are gonna have a harder time. They're not getting favoritism theoretically on paper. And is that good or bad? We could argue the point. But, and they're, both sides have plenty of value in the argument.
But yeah, it. In my mind, this new SAT will be of no value whatsoever to colleges. Because its only value is comparative. And that's a limited value. But if you take the comparison value away, what, what's left? They took, they got a score.
Susan Stone: So what is ACT gonna do? Are they gonna sit back and hold the course?
And what that test is?
Mark Coffin: So far, the ACT has said they are not doing anything except they're investigating, going online with their test. And they, the SAT is has already been online abroad. If you took it, if you're a student taking it abroad and want to apply to a US college, which many do, that is currently the new version of the SAT and it's online. The ACT, all they've said is they're looking into going online, away from paper tests.
Now, here's problem for a company like mine. There are no paper tests anymore. The college board currently puts out a big blue book, has eight practice tests. And kids that's how we give kids homework and that's how they improve.
They do the tests,
Kristina Supler: ah, materials for practicing, and yeah, so on and so forth.
Mark Coffin: There are no materials now. I don't have any way of having a tutor sit with a student and go over the questions and answers. It's just, it's not on paper. It's not there. You can't do women computers.
Kristina Supler: Mark, I'm wondering, irrespective of the changes to SAT, let's set that aside for a moment.
As things currently stand, in your opinion, do colleges and universities prefer the SAT over the ACT or vice versa?
Mark Coffin: No, they did 20 years ago, 15 years ago. They clearly did. The East Coast was an SAT area. Largely they preferred the SAT. So if you were uva, Harvard, any, any East Coast team you wanted an SAT.
Same thing with the West Coast. They wanted SAT. Basically the Midwest has always been the ACT home. But that all changed, I don't know, 2 20 12 kind of thing. All colleges then and now say that they don't have a preference. And of course, as many colleges have gone test, some are test blind.
If you turn in a test, they won't even consider it. But many are test optional. So many kids have opted out, would've opted out of even taken the test. Cuz it's no fun. If you really want to do well, you pretty much have to prep. And that's expensive and time consuming. And these kids are busy. Junior year is a really busy year for a high school kid.
So many of them have opted to go test fun. And of course any student who forget, just not wanting to bother. any student who knows they're a weak test taker or maybe takes the test one time and is very disappointed, of course they're not turning that score in and they're not gonna take it again.
So test optional is still, it helps if a school's test optional, you can turn in a good score. It helps in two ways. It's a tie breaker for a student that looks like you on paper without a score. And it's also a help for marade. Almost all colleges consider if they get a score, it's a factor in.
And colleges, as are really expensive. So getting merit aid is a big plus. But, you're only turning in a good score. So you can see what that does to the average scores that colleges now.
Susan Stone: The average score is now higher. I'm gonna have two follow up questions based on what Kristina said.
One is, now with the change of the SAT, would you recommend students just stick with the ACT? Because it'll give Yeah. Pardon?
Mark Coffin: Completely. Partly because I can't, and I'm on it. I've already started talking to parents whose kids are, rising juniors. We're not tutoring the SAT I can't do it.
And I also don't think you should take it. If you're going to take the test, a test, take one that matters. Why take a test that's meaningless?
Susan Stone: And then my follow up is something that you said if it's gonna be online and it's difficult for you to get practice materials, are you just gonna tutor with like, general testing strategy.
Mark Coffin: Well, we're doing that with some kids. We have our, or we're set up to do that with some rising juniors who know they are not taking a paper test in the fall. They're taking the first in March, the first,new format. And the mom said to me, since the material's largely the same, I understand the timing and all those things are different.
But can you just tutor her for the current SAT using paper tests? She'll be better, won't she? At the real, the new SAT the answer. That's a great question. Of course she will be. And we are doing that with some kids. And I've suggested that to some moms. But,But it's not, it's still not prepping him for the exact same test.
So that as a businessman, that makes me a little uncomfortable taking your money, but I'm preparing you for something you're not gonna do.
Susan Stone: So what are you going do? How are you going?
Mark Coffin: Just ACT. And so unless something changes now, we're still a ways away from next March. If there are sufficient numbers of online practice tests and they become accessible somehow. I'm not a computer geek, so I don't know what that means, but if there's some way we can use them sitting down one-on-one with a kid, yeah, of course we'll do that. Except again, I think it's hard for me to justify to a mother. Why do, why are you gonna take the SAT?
Why's your student taking the SAT? It's a pointless test now. And I think colleges will come to that conclusion. Now, if you get a 1500. Whether it's a different test or not, of course that's an indicator. You're a pretty, pretty good student, at least at this type of work. Does it compare to another 1500 or, I don't think so. But a but a strong score is a strong score.
I think they're dumbing down the test, and I think it'll be easier to get a pretty good score if you take it. but
Kristina Supler: Mark, how would you respond to someone who, a listener out there who might just say,geez, this guy's in the test prep business. And, it's sour grapes for the SAT because now you've in, you've said you can't tutor on the SAT.
it's just your business interests are driving your opinion of the test changes. How would you respond to that?
Mark Coffin: I think the colleges are gonna have the same business interest. And they're gonna be making the same evaluation I am. How valuable is this number now? As I said before, they haven't gotten there yet.
They don't have to. It's not even on their radar. Another interesting wrinkle in this is, the state of Ohio currently requires as a diploma requirement, graduation requirement that all public and parochial, not private schools, but public and parochial, give their junior class either an SAT or an ACT For free.
For free. For free. Yes. Yes. And the school picks the date. And they pick which test. And some schools pick ACT, like Solen, west Joa, but many schools pick SAT like Orange and Kenston and Chagrin Falls. The SAT, they're gonna be able to give, and they typically do this in the spring. So the SAT they're gonna have available to them is gonna be the new format.
Are they gonna give that SAT as a graduation requirement or are they gonna go to ACT? I would think they'd go ACT. But I don't know. I've asked a couple of college guidance people and they say it's not on our radar yet. That's so far ahead. So yeah.
Susan Stone: That's really interesting. I would say that, Look, you can't deny, especially with the test, optional, that there's a positive inference by submitting a score.
Correct. And I don't know that's gonna change. So it is still important and studying practice makes perfect with this test. And there are some good free resources available. We can't deny that. But it Mark, after having three kids go through it, No matter what the free resource is, it helps to have a human being sit with you and explain things, doesn't it?
Kristina Supler: Not quite the same as working with the tutor.
Mark Coffin: Yeah, the one-on-one is very different than doing it yourself. Partly cuz when you miss a question, it might be cuz you don't understand how to do it. Not just a casual error. Like I forgot to bring a minus sign down. The other thing is motivation. None of humans are very good at doing things we don't particularly enjoy and prepping on your own. Very true is difficult, to sit there. And plus, when you prep, you're not taking a three hour test, eight o'clock on a Saturday morning. You take a, you do a math test for practice and you get up in the middle of it and go get a soda or something.
And it's just very different on your own even if you do it. And one of the reasons that my business is attractive to parents is it's a way of, in effect, forcing their kids to do it. It's like a doctor's appointment. You gotta get, go meet with this person, do the homework, and just take this seriously.
It's costing me a lot of money. Yep. And doing it on your own just isn't the same motivation. Very few kids are successful at doing it on their own. Some are, they're some kids that are driven for this kind of thing. But I think the answer to your earlier question is this self-serving course.
It is. it's my business, and I want it to work as well as possible. The good news is tutoring works. And it's very rewarding, especially for my tutors. When you raise a kid's score, 250 points on the SAT. You take 'em from 1150 to a 1500 or something. it's, it, that's very big job. Big job.
Yeah. and it happens. it sounds incredible. But it's a function of the kids putting in the effort. And again, they're the same tests every time, different material, but they get used to the material. It brings back stuff like the math they may have had two years earlier and have basically largely forgotten since ninth grade.
Kristina Supler: There's so much to consider now for families, planning for the future with the college process. But this has really been a wonderful discussion that's full of chock full of good information for parents to be aware of as they, plan for the future and the college process with their children.
Susan Stone: And again, another difficult decision, SAT V versus ACT or whether you should take it at all. Lots to think about. You gotta know your kid. Absolutely.
Mark Coffin: Another point, the test may become more available to companies like mine because there are huge national tutoring companies like Princeton Review, Kaplan.
They don't wanna stop tutoring the the SAT. Some of them are making their own tests trying to divine how are we, how's this test gonna look? That's, that doesn't work very well. but they, they've got a lot of incentive to get something out there that little companies like me can use and students can use.
Kristina Supler: What's the saying? Necessity is the mother of invention. So there you go.
Susan Stone: That's a good one. Supler. That's a good one. Mark, it's been such a pleasure.
Kristina Supler: Feel free to reach out to Mark Coffin at Academy Custom Test Prep.
Thanks for joining us, Mark. Thanks.
Mark Coffin: My pleasure. Thanks. Have a good day. Bye-Bye.
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Title:
In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler are joined by Dr. Lauren Streicher, a Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University’s medical school, and the founder and medical director of the Northwestern Medicine Center for Menopause and the Northwestern Medicine Center for Sexual Health. In this episode, they talk about if current contraceptive methods really prevent STIs, current edge products to make "safe sex" a reality, and misconceptions around current contraceptives.
Show Notes:
(02:20) Getting Real about Failure Rates with Contraception
(04:20) Why Failures Rates are So High
(06:14) Why Condoms Don’t Prevent STI’s
(07:28) HPV Vaccine: Should College Students Get It?
(08:44) Protection During Oral Sex
(09:36) Introducing a New, Superior Woman-Controlled Contraception
(13:08) What Makes the New LUWI Superior
(14:42) Does the LUWI have Lubrication?
(15:45) FDA Testing of the New LUWI
(17:32) Misconceptions Around Emergency Contraception
(19:11) Why the “Morning After” Pill Works for 5 Days
(20:26) Reproductive Rights and IUDs
(21:53) Why “The Pill” Can Fail
(25:17) Why the LUWI Will Be on College Campuses First
(27:40) Myth or Fact: Do You Gain Weight on “The Pill”
(28:32) Contraception and the Impact on Dating AppsPull Quotes:
Susan Stone: It has been approximately one year since the Dobbs opinion, and I'm still in shock. Are you?
Kristina Supler: I, it was interesting over the weekend reading news stories and it's like, wow, a year has passed and it it's wild, wild.
Susan Stone: And it's changing the election.
It's changing culture. We are really reverting back and, so the topic today is more important than ever. We're gonna talk about contraception post Dobbs. And we're gonna hopefully unpack myths and make sure students know what they need to do to be safe out there. You know, last week we had a guest and we were talking about the health issues of transgender.
We actually learned a new word larc. Remember that?
Kristina Supler: I do. And I'm. Certain that our guest today has more to say.
Susan Stone: I think she knows a larc is not a bird. It's a long acting reversible contraception. But today we have a repeat guest that we love to see.
Kristina Supler: Yes, today we are really happy to be joined again by Dr. Lauren Streicher. Welcome, Dr. Streicher. Welcome back. I should say welcome back.
Dr. Lauren Streicher is a clinical professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University's Medical School. And she's the founder of Northwestern Medicine Center for Menopause and the Northwestern Medicine Center for Sexual Medicine. Dr. Streicher's, a medical correspondent for top rated news programs in Chicago and has been a guest on other national shows like the Oprah Winfrey Show, C N N, C B S.
2020 just to name a few. Dr. Streicher's also a bestselling author. She's written several books and she hosts the popular podcast called Dr. Streicher's Inside Information Podcast, Menopause, Midlife, and More. Welcome, Dr. Streicher.
Dr. Lauren Streicher: it's a pleasure to be back.
Susan Stone: Anything new? What's different, on the horizon coming up? Birth control. Give us the landscape.
Dr. Lauren Streicher: Yeah. first, let me tell you that there, there are always new things and I'm gonna tell you about some very exciting new things.
But I'm glad you started off with talking about larcs, L A R C, as you said, not l a r k, which is the bird. And this is actually not a new term. For us, new term for you, but we've been talking about long acting reversible contraception for a long time. And the reason is, is that we are in an era right now, which it is more important than ever to have reliable contraception. Because when we talk about contraception, we not only look at user, preference, but we look at failure rates. And we know that something that is not going to be controlled on a case by case basis is what's going to have the best rates of success.
So when we look at a long acting reversible contraception, that is something that is not, as we say, user dependent. These are contraceptions that we set and forget, and as we go through the list of options for college students to use, that is certainly high on the list when it comes to the most reliable.
But before we get to the specific contraceptions, I just wanna kinda set the stage for why this is such an important conversation. Because please, absolutely, Dobbs, no question, but even before the Dobbs decision, when it became potentially life-threatening, you know, now it's, it's not just inconvenient or scary, it's, Life threatened to become pregnant. But beyond that, we know that women in college are very high risk for not only getting pregnant, but for getting a sexually transmitted infection.
We're talking one in four women will contract a sexually transmitted infection. We know that most college women, about at least 70% are sexually active. And when I'm talking sexually active, I am talking penile vaginal intercourse. Because sexually active of course you mean many things. A lot of different things.
But if we're talking about just the ability to get pregnant, we're looking at about 70% most people.
Susan Stone: Is that just because you're more fertile in your twenties?
Dr. Lauren Streicher: It's a combination of increased fertility. And it's a combination of complacency of not using contraception on a consistent basis or using it correctly.
And that's one of the things that is really the theme of today, is I think many college women are very much aware of what's available to them. But just because they're using a contraception does not mean that they use it correctly. And in fact, if you look at statistics for unplanned pregnancies, roughly 50% of pregnancies are unplanned.
And according to the Guttmacher Institute, 50% of those use some form of contraception in the month before. Now think about that. That's really wild. You know, so many people think that if someone gets pregnant it's because they were just complacent or they were lazy, or they, the worst is when people actually think that some people use abortion for contraception, which is simply not true.
50% of unplanned pregnancies are people who did use some form of contraception, but it failed. And some methods are more likely to fail than others.
And at the top of the list, quite frankly, are male condoms. I'm currently doing a study with the Kinsey Institute that I will tell you about with male condoms.
And so I've been reading a lot about it and looking at these studies. And I was floored at the number of couples that even if they say, yeah, we use a condom, they don't use them properly and they have incomplete use of condom, meaning they're not using a condom from the start to the finish of sex.
And the
Susan Stone: Question though, in terms of preventing sexually transmitted infections, Am I correct that the condom,
Kristina Supler: the condom was the best way
Susan Stone: or the only way? How else can you prevent an infection?
Dr. Lauren Streicher: Okay, so let's switch gears for a little bit and we're gonna switch from contraception to protection of STIs.
So when we talk about STIs, the most common STI out there is human papillomavirus, right? Where women get human papillomavirus on the vulva. Do condoms protect their vulva? They do not. So when we look at condoms as protecting against STIs, it is one of the best methods that we have out there. But it is not the only method and it is not as protective as it needs to be.
Because it is going to protect against cervical, sexually transmitted infections. Gonorrhea, chlamydia. Things such as that. But it will not protect against herpes. It will not protect against H P V, and that's even if the condom is used properly. These studies, which completely, you know, just I was like blown away by is the number of men who do not use a condom from start to finish because of condom associated erection problems.
Something we don't think about in young men, but certainly exists. They talk about,
Susan Stone: We've been hearing about it in a lot of our cases. Yeah. But I just want you to back up a little bit. sure. I know with the H P V, we now have a vaccine. Yes. We don't have a vaccine that I'm aware of for herpes. Correct.
So what's, what's a gal to do?
Dr. Lauren Streicher: Okay. Well, first of all, let's circle back to the vaccine for a minute. I wish I could say that 100% of college age men and women have been vaccinated against hpv, but they have not. Some of them are also folks that were vaccinated earlier on so that they got the quadrivalent vaccine, meaning that it only protects against four subtypes of H P V as opposed to the newer vaccine, which prevents against nine subtypes.
So even people that were vaccinated, depending on when they were vaccinated, may not have complete protection. But there's an awful lot of people that aren't protected. And quite frankly, a lot of times it's the guys that aren't protected. But to your point, herpes.
There is no vaccine and herpes is has nothing to do with intercourse. In many cases it's about oral sex. There's this idea that type one herpes is on the mouth and type two herpes is on the genitals. And we know that's not the case. You can have both type one and type two on the mouth or the genitals because of transference during oral sex. So how do you protect yourself?
Let's, I mean, I'm sure all the parents are sitting out there and people are saying, okay, we'll get to it already. Yikes. how could you protect yourself, understand it, give us answers, short of stepping in a hefty bag or locking yourself in your dorm room and becoming abstinent, which is not gonna happen.
So number one. There is a new product called Laurels, r o l a l S. Are you familiar with this one? We are, yes. Yeah. Laurels is a disposable latex panty, which is worn by a woman, and the purpose of laurels is to protect her during oral sex. So if a guy or a woman is giving her oral sex and that person has herpes on their mouth or gonorrhea on their mouth as you can. And, that means that this will protect her. It's latex. And this is a disposable panty. It's a one use panty that is, does not decrease sensation. In fact, some people think it increases sensation. I actually have a whole podcast on it in my, Protecting Yourself Podcast. And it's really an interesting new product.
And the idea being that. It also can be for anal play, not just for vaginal play, but it's not for penetration. It's not for penetration. What's new out there for penetration is there is a product which is about to get f d a cleared. I'm working with this company, it's very exciting, and it's called LUWI, as in L U W I, as in let us wear it.
And what LUWI is. Is this is a woman controlled, very important, a woman controlled contraception for both pregnancy protection and S T I protection. And this is a polyurethane single use internal liner. So it's an internal sheath that protects the vagina, but it also protects the vulva. And this is inserted by the woman up to eight hours in advance.
And she's not aware of it. The men are not aware of it. And the idea is it, not only is it not going to decrease from her pleasure, but it is going to protect from STIs both in the vagina and the vulva. And what's interesting, and I mentioned, I'm doing a study with the Kinsey Institute right now.
The study that we're doing is specifically to identify couples that the man either doesn't use a condom. Or does it use it from start to finish in complete use? Because he says that it impacts on his sensation, it impacts on his ability to orgasm. He can't maintain his erection. He has discomfort with the condom. There's a whole long list of excuses, right?
So what we wanna see is with use of a woman controlled contraception with LUWI, are we gonna cross all of those things off the guy's list? What's really interesting is, I don't know if you're familiar, with A C H A, the the American College Health Association.
Are you familiar with this group? No. No. I just came from their conference. This is basically a group of all of the people that run student healthcare. All over the country. So there are 700 different colleges that participate in A C H A. They have a conference every year. The American College Health Association Conference, it took place three weeks ago in Boston.
I was there, and the reason that I was there is because we were introducing LUWI to all of these college, health student, centers. And I gotta tell you, The excitement was over the top.
Susan Stone: No pun intended, right?
Dr. Lauren Streicher: Yeah, no, really, because they are what they do the, colleges buy condoms, you're aware of that, that they buy condoms?
Yes.
Susan Stone: Yes. And they, but are they easy to use and Yes. Can they get stuck in the
Kristina Supler: vagina? I was wondering, does it get stuck? Does that float around?
Susan Stone: Can it cause toxic shock?
Dr. Lauren Streicher: No, not at all. So if this wasn't a podcast, I would show it to you because I happen to have one right here with my purple sparkle vulva that we were using.
hold it up and we'll describe it to our 10 seconds to step away and get my purple vulva. I
Susan Stone: gotta see it. Get your purple vulva and listeners out there. We will describe the LUWI LUWI to you. I speaking. LUWI.
Kristina Supler: Oh,
LUWI. LUWI. Ok. Here we
Susan Stone: go. That's right. Carrying the
Dr. Lauren Streicher: right. Here we go. Here is my purple vulva.
All right. So you can see in the purple vulva. Here's the vaginal opening. Here's the clitoris just to orient you. Okay. And we made the vagina clear. So that you can see what happens inside. Okay, so this is LUWI. It looks just like a condom, a male condom, except it
Susan Stone: looks like a condom. Exactly like a condom.
So listeners out there, it actually looks like a condom. Yeah.
Dr. Lauren Streicher: What the difference is it's made out of polyurethane. And so what that means is it's much softer. It's much thinner. It doesn't decrease sensation. There's no odor. It doesn't have that funky latex odor. It's completely colorless. There's no color to it, and there's this very kind of soft, flexible ring.
So basically the way that it works is a woman just takes it and she just pushes this inside her vagina. super like a tampon. Not even. Yeah. But it doesn't even have to go up as far, you just, like with her fingers, she just pushes it in and then she takes this ring and she puts it right over her vulva. And then when the penis goes in, it pushes it in for her, gets it in all the way.
So then, but this is, it's cool. It is, as you can see, it's over the vulva. And if you, if someone touches it when it's thin, you can't. It doesn't decrease sensation at all. But the beauty is, is a lot of women position this ring right over this clitoris. You know where I'm going here. So what this means is that it's going to ensure that during intercourse that the woman's not just gonna have less pleasure, she will potentially have more pleasure.
Studies also show that she'll have more pleasure cuz she won't be as worried. if someone isn't worried about getting an STI, or getting pregnant, they have more pleasure. So this act, so this covers the vulva, and what this means is that if the guy has herpes or H P V, her vulva is protected. This can also be used for anal intercourse.
Male to male, female to male. Same kind of protection instead of pushing.
Susan Stone: What about lubrication? Does it block the lubrication?
Dr. Lauren Streicher: It comes with a lubrication. Okay. So the lubricant is inside, and I mean around the side of outside of it. This one's on lubricated for demo purposes. Otherwise, my purple Volvo gets all greasy.
And the recommendation is to use a lu with a lubricant just because it's gonna be easier. And in fact, the packaging will come with a lubricant. So when we went to this meeting and there was a tremendous amount of excitement because the healthcare services know more than anybody that there's all these STIs and undesired pregnancies.
And that this is really going to be a huge solution. They were all signing up to, to buy them for, to distribute on campuses. So with the condom fairy, if the college, lots of college campuses have condom ferries and all kinds of things that they go around and they're gonna be distributing these.
And it's not gonna be for this school year because the F D a clearance is just coming through and they're just being manufactured. But we are looking at the 2024, 25 school year. So that's the newest thing that's coming out. That's very exciting. And the thing that's exciting,
Susan Stone: women have to worry about leakage when you pull out?
Dr. Lauren Streicher: No. So this is part of the FDA clearance, process. It's just like with the latex condom, they test it to make sure that sperm can't get through, that the STIs can't get through. Sure, like a male condom, if somebody pulls it off or doesn't use it, or doesn't use it from the beginning, of course there's always gonna be a chance of there being a problem.
But if it's properly used, you don't have that problem and it's very, very easy to use. You know, there's been, it's been tested. We've looked at focus groups. It's launching, interestingly, it's for any age woman. But it's being launched on college campuses for a variety of reasons. And one of it is because they have one of the greatest unmet needs when it comes to protection.
And again, people are not aware. You are. But the general population is not aware of incomplete condom use. And improper condom use on the part of men. And even though a lot of these women do have, as we talked about, very reliable, long acting, reversible contraception, that's not user dependent. That's not gonna protect them against an STI.
I love IUDs. I think every single woman should have one 99% protection against pregnancy. But that is not gonna protect her against a sexually transmitted infection.
Susan Stone: Wow.
Kristina Supler: Dr. Streicher bringing us the latest cutting edge developments and contraception. When there's discussion and debate between birth control oh and abortion, and obviously again it in the wake of Dobbs, it's really important that listeners and, and everyone out there is aware of the distinction between the two.
Because there's often a lot of conflation. And so can you clearly explain for our listeners whether an I U D or an emerge or emergency contraception plan B, do they cause abortion?
What is the difference between?
Dr. Lauren Streicher: And I'm glad we're discussing it because there is a great deal of misconception and has been from the get go. And one of the reasons historically is that emergency contraception, the first morning after pill, came out about the same time as we started having medical abortions.
So it was very confusing and they are very different things. And to put it very simply, there's a difference between terminating in a established pregnancy, that's when abortion is, versus preventing pregnancy. So if you look at emergency contraception, that is basically preventing pregnancy from occurring. It is not an abortion.
And it's something that we have been using for decades, even before they had an FDA approved option available. Because it was something that gynecologists did off label, meaning we would use a combination of standard birth control pills given within a short time after unprotected sex, particularly in emergency rooms when someone would come in as a victim of rape and you don't want them to get pregnant, of course.
So we would give them our version of emergency contraception. And so fast forward now, here we are. that we have much more, reliable and FDA approved emergency contraception. So we have emergency contraception pills, which we don't call them morning after pills anymore, because there's this idea that if you don't take it the morning after that, it's not gonna work.
And we know that's not the case. The sooner you take it, the better. Ideally within 72 hours. But you do have up to five days to, to use emergency contraception.
Susan Stone: We've had cases where they. Don't work. So we've heard that they don't work if you're ovulating. Is that true?
Dr. Lauren Streicher: No, it does. It can work because this is the timeframe.
When someone ovulates the egg is released from the ovary, it then travels down the fallopian tube. If a sperm meets up with that egg in the fallopian tube, that's actually where the sperm penetrates the egg. And then it makes that trip down the fallopian tubes and then it lands in the uterus. Where if there's a nice cushy bed that's, comfortable in waiting for this potential pregnancy, it's gonna land and it's gonna in bed.
But that's why you have, even if you have sex, the moment you're ovulating, you've got this five day window before it's gonna travel down and become an established pregnancy. So again, it is not a pregnancy, a viable pregnancy until it lands in the uterus.
So the same can be said for IUDs. We now know the placement of an intrauterine device.
Within five days of unprotected intercourse is going to dramatically decrease the rate of an unintended pregnancy. And then the beauty of the I U D then is you could just leave it there and you're protected going forward. And that's critically important because in this world of jobs, not only is abortion at risk, but so contraception.
Mm-hmm. And I think's very clear about that is that when we're looking at reproductive rights in these states that are passing these insane anti-woman laws, it's not just about their ability to get an abortion. It is about the ability to get contraception.
And so my advice to women, who are looking for reliable contraception is quite frankly, almost, basically a hundred percent of women are candidates for an intrauterine device. And the beauty of that is that no one can take away your I U D no matter what laws passed. So if you get placements of an I U D, you're gonna be good for up to eight years, maybe even a little bit longer as far as contraception.
Susan Stone: And so how does the plan B fail? Well, it can, it can fail.
Dr. Lauren Streicher: If it's taken too late, it can fail. And the other thing also is that, most of these contraceptive methods are not a hundred percent. Even if you look at a lot of the user dependent methods like birth control pills or the patch or the ring, we know that these are not 100% effective. Because there's theoretical effectiveness, which is very different than typical use failure rates.
Typical use failure rates are higher. So for example, if you look at birth control pills and you think, how can birth control pills fail? 7% of the time they do. And one of do you get to
Kristina Supler: take it? Do you go to bed and you
Dr. Lauren Streicher: Exactly. And the other thing also is the most common time to miss a pill. You know when that is during your period?
No, it's the beginning of a new pack and Oh. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that. Reason why is some insurance companies and some healthcare, student healthcare systems, they're not gonna give you 12 packs. They say you gotta come in every month. Who's busier than a college student? Who has less access to getting to the pharmacy than a college student?
So they go off their, pill for their five days or seven days, depending on the pill. It's time to start the new pill. They've got a final. They've got something to coming up. They say, I'm not gonna make it there. So instead of starting their new pill pack on a Sunday, they might start it on Tuesday.
And that's the greatest likelihood of having a failures at the beginning. I'm a huge, huge advocate of continuous pill taking. Meaning there is no off days. There's no placebo days. There's no period. Get your pill. Take an active pill every single day. Because not only are you not gonna get a period, which is a wonderful thing for all the obvious reasons, get rid of the cramps, the expense of tampons.
The list is very long, of, of advantages to not having a period. But the other advantage that people really don't appreciate is that you're your failure rate's gonna be lower. Because it's with starting that new pack that people ovulate and quite frankly, when you send your student off to college, one of the best things you can do is forget insurance, purchase a couple of extra packs, a pill, send them off with some extra packs.
So if they go away for the weekend and they forget it, or it gets flushed down the toilet or whatever, you wanna make sure that that you're gonna have some extra pill packs and that they can take them continuously without worrying about it. And the same is even like with the ring. You know when you look at the new ring and Vera, are you familiar with those two?
Yes. And the people may not be familiar with Vera, which is a vaginal ring with estrogen and progestin and it that can be used for up to a year. And the recommendation on the part of the manufacturer and the FDA approval is you remove it one week a month to get your period. And I'm like, are you kidding?
Don't remove it for God's sakes. Put it in and leave it there for a year and just don't even think about it. And it's, and that's safe. That's healthy. Absolutely. But they didn't. But for a variety of reasons, the FDA did not, did not okay it for that, and the company didn't try and get it through because, It's really not about medical, it's more about that.
it's just it's perfectly safe to take your pill continuously. It's perfectly safe to leave your ring in. If you wanna take it out, you can take it out for a couple of hours, rinse it with cool water, put it back. But every time you take it out is a chance for it to get lost, for it to get forgotten, and for not to be put back in time.
So maybe if you wanna take it out and get a light period, don't take it out for the whole week. Take it out for two, three days and put it back. it's a lot of this. It doesn't have to always be done by the book. There's ways to, to use these different methods of contraception so that you will decrease the failure rate based on some of the real life situations that come up.
Susan Stone: Kristina, I just thought about the funniest thing preparing for this podcast. Did you watch Seinfeld?
Kristina Supler: I did. Loved it.
Susan Stone: Do you remember? Elaine and saying, is someone sponge worthy? Oh, yes. Do you remember? Yes. No, we're
Dr. Lauren Streicher: enough that we know about sponges, but the college students certainly don't know about sponges.
Susan Stone: So do you think now it's gonna be, are you LUWI worthy?
Dr. Lauren Streicher: the thing is that,it could be. But the idea is to make this stuff easily attainable and affordable. Absolutely. The reason it became sponge worthy was because they were so hard to get expensive who were hoarding them. But the idea, particularly on college campuses, is you want to be as easy as buying a pack of gum is to have access to reliable contraception.
It shouldn't have to be LUWI worthy. It shouldn't have to be condom worthy. It should be. Just in case worthy, I'm gonna, I love that I'm put this in because I don't know what's gonna happen tonight. But in the event that something does happen, I sure don't wanna wake up tomorrow morning and think, oh my God, what did I, you know, what just happened there?
And obviously we wish that there weren't situations where people had too much to drink. Where there was non-consensual sex. But let's talk real life. Let's talk what's going on on campuses. And if a woman goes to a party or is out drinking, even if she has no intention of having sex, if she can place something in her vagina that is gonna protect against both STIs and pregnancy.
Think of the peace of mind. Think of the anguish that young women go through the morning after when sometimes they're not even sure if something happens.
Susan Stone: But how long can that stay in you? The LUWI?
Dr. Lauren Streicher: Eight hours. You can put it in eight hours in advance.
Susan Stone: Okay. So it's not something that a young woman should keep in her backpack or purse and then run to the bathroom.
It should be something put in before
Dr. Lauren Streicher: Yeah, no. She can put it in 10 seconds, but you can do both. Yeah. But you can have it in up to eight hours, But you can absolutely keep it in your backpack. And and everyone should. And it's, I really think it's gonna change the landscape because not only do you get the increased protection, but let's face it, historically, it all comes down to being women controlled.
Always has been.
Kristina Supler: You've shared so much information with us today and I think, our listeners have learned a lot, hopefully by listening to this episode.
I want to clear up one piece of information that I hear often and regularly and it's been going around for an eternity. And that is, oh, I don't wanna go on birth control cuz it's gonna make me gain weight.
Yeah. Myth or fact.
Dr. Lauren Streicher: Total myth. Total myth. And this isn't my opinion, this is based on literally millions of women over long periods of time. And you know, multiple, multiple studies that the average weight gain at most with a birth control pill is like two pounds, and the majority of them there is none.
And the reason women gain weight when they go off to college is, the reasons you knows everything.
Kristina Supler: The unlimited meal plans,
Susan Stone: not alcohol. Alcohol.
Dr. Lauren Streicher: The alcohol is actually a huge factor because I think that the college students forget about, Not only how many calories there are in alcohol, but you kinda lose your willpower when you're sitting there drinking.
You're also
Susan Stone: I know that's true at any age. That's my menopause excuse too thought I, it's not the red wine. Okay, this was a great episode.
Dr. Lauren Streicher: If you do think it's gonna make them gain weight, it will not. But there are so many other options and I really do believe that an i u D is critically important for young women of all ages.
But I wanna, one other little fact that you may not know that's so interesting is there is,the Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute, Justin Garcia, he is the consultant for match.com, and every year they do an analysis of what people are looking for on online dating, as many students will do, and Tinder and what are the factors, all of them, right?
And they found for the first time ever, that being anti-choice was a deal breaker for a record number of women. Isn't that interesting?
Susan Stone: I'm so happy you didn't let us stop this podcast until you got that out. that's a great fact. That's a beautiful and interesting fact. Yeah. And I wow.
Dr. Lauren Streicher: A whole episode with Dr. Garcia talking about all the match findings and it is really interesting. But I love that one cuz it, it means women are paying attention. And Absolutely they're changing their behaviors based on it.
Kristina Supler: Well, thank you so much for your time today and all the wonderful information you've shared.
It's always such a pleasure to have you on.
Susan Stone: You know we're gonna ask you back cause anytime wealth of information. Thank you so much.
Dr. Lauren Streicher: Thank you.
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In this episode, KJK Student Defense attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler talk with Dr. Michelle Fourcier, a Professor of Pediatrics, Assistant Dean of Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Dr. Forcier specializes in gender, sexual and reproductive health. In this episode, they talk about what all the terms of LGBTQ+ mean, how pediatricians work with both parents and children about gender identity, and resources for parents to learn more about this complicated issue.
Links:
PubMed Website
Show Notes:
(04:12) Understanding the Gender Terminology within LGBTQ+
(06:59) How Does Type of Care Different from Heteronormative
(09:27) Assigned Gender versus Gender Identity: What is the Difference?
(12:16) Is the Child Just Playing With Identities? Or Do We Need to Act?
(15:02) When Does a Physician Decide if Hormones are Required?
(16:44) Do We Want Puberty in Children to Happen Later?
(18:11) How Pediatricians Work With Children to Keep Them Safe
(19:15) What are the Side Effects of Hormones?
(20:52) Blockers: What Do They Do?
(22:43) Conversations with Parents Who Are Not on Board with Hormones or Blockers
(24:45) When Do Children Go Through Surgery?
(25:32) When Surgery for Minors may be Necessary
(27:46) What are LARCs? How Do They Prevent STIs?
(30:36) Dual Method for Birth Control and STI prevention
(31:46) Consider This Thought If Your 14 Year Old Child is Sexually Active
(34:19) Resources for Parents to Learn MoreTranscript:
Susan Stone: So everybody out there listening to this podcast know that my, this is Susan and my daughter got married this weekend, and I'm a little tired.
But
Kristina Supler: though you think everyone knows that. Everyone doesn't actually know that.
Susan Stone: I know, but I felt the need. This is Real Talk guys out there on listening land. I am exhausted. But I had to come into work today cuz they knew that we had, the books, the recording of this podcast. And we're gonna talk about pediatric health for the L G P.
Lg, I told you I'm tired. BTQ Plus community and I, Kristina, I just wanna have a conversation about the health needs and not a political conversation.
Kristina Supler: Yeah. I'm really looking forward to today's episode because I think there's so muchto talk about and learn to have more real conversations about the issues versus some of the politicized language that has pushed people into corners and people have in many ways shut down and are not open to learning new information.
Susan Stone: and I think we're just forgetting that we're still talking about kids. So why don't you kick off the guest so we can just launch in and talk about whatever the health needs are of the kids and guys, let's leave the politics out. Okay? For once.
Kristina Supler: Today we are really happy to be joined by Dr. Michelle Fourier, who is an associate professor of pediatrics and an assistant dean at the medical school at Brown University.
And with extensive training and experience in adolescent health and sexual healthcare, she's dedicated her career to addressing the unique needs of the LGBTQ plus youth.
Susan Stone: That is the guest we needed for today's podcast, a Doctor.
Perfect.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: So let's jump in.
Susan Stone: Let's just jump in. Dr. Fourier, can you explain exactly what you do for that population?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: I have been a pediatrician for about 25 plus years. And I've been providing gender, sex and reproductive justice care, basically across the lifespanfor this period of time. And it's been a pretty exciting, community, pretty wonderful and satisfying community to work for and to work with.
And the way I look at providing care for the L G B T Q community is that it really is primary care. Basically gender and sexuality are part of human identity. And they're there before we leave the womb. There's a neat study about in utero masturbation, which is kind of cool. So we get started early and we are gendered and sexual persons, until we die.
So if we look at gender and sexuality as being a ubiquitous part of the human experience, and we look at biology as absolutely diversity is a part of biology. It's one of the basic tenets of biology. Then we understand that both sex and gender are gonna be diverse experiences for a range of different people and folks.
And my role has been to provide care for some of our most marginalized community members, which is the L B G T Q I A plus. Sometimes it's easier just to say rainbow population. I like that.
Kristina Supler: Before we dive in further, just to get some terminology nailed down for our listeners who maybe aren't as familiar. you've spoken about gender and sex and we're referencing the plus, but can you just define those terms for our listeners, particularly the plus as well?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Sure. For many gender has been considered in this very binary, traditional way of male, female. Or heterosexual and homosexual. Sexuality is about who we love and who we're attracted to and who we have different sexual behaviors with. Gender is who we are. It's a part of our identity in terms of being masculine, feminine, non-binary and all the other ways that we could express, a gendered self.
And the world for many years has been pretty limited in terms of only discussing these binary identities. I think with time, with improved social discourse, with the advent of the internet and increasing knowledge spread in, in diverse ways and diverse communities, we understand that there are many, many ways to be sexual and many ways to be gendered.
So the L stands for lesbian, which are persons, we might say women who are attracted to or have sex with women. Gay usually is referenced to either, males or females who are attracted to the same gender partner, bisexual, historically has been the term for people who identify as being attracted to both males and females. But now we have even more inclusive terms, which are things like pansexual, which means gender doesn't factor into who I'm attracted to. Transgender or gender diverse are persons whose gender identity doesn't exactly match the gender they were assigned by their parts, chromosomes or hormones and birth.
I is another. Initial for intersex or persons who have differences, in sexual development in the parts and organs they were born with. And A can mean asexual or persons who really don't have a sexual affinity or an interest in, sexual activity.
allied, And the plus means there are probably a million different ways, and we know there are a million different ways people may identify in terms of how they see themselves as a gendered person and their gender expression and gender role and gender self in the world, as well as their sexual, um, attraction, their sexual behaviors and their sexual identity in the world.
Susan Stone: That's a lot. That's a lot. But here's messy. Something that comes into my mind, because you are a pediatrician. How do those differences make a difference in terms of just treatment for well visits? What is, what type of care is specific and unique to that population as opposed to what I would call a heteronormative child.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Sure. to be honest, in any visit, and again whether it's children or whether it's adults, we should be talking about these aspects of selfhood and behavior and health needs across the lifespan. Of course, we should do it in a developmentally appropriate way. So if we're gonna talk to a six year old about their gender identity, we might ask them, they're like, what is it like to be a boy or a girl?
How does that feel to you? How do you express boyness? How do you express girlness, For a 16 year old, that may have very different words in terms of, how do you view your gender identity? What parts of it are comfortable for you, what parts are not comfortable? Do you have any questions?
Again, the same with sexuality. Who might you have a crush on versus, a full sexual history forlater teen or young adult who's sexually active with one or more partners. So it's all about, again, using the language of the patient and understanding where they are developmentally to continue to talk about these aspects of both selfhood and wellness during health visits.
Susan Stone: Well, I guess I wanna press you on that because I'm a mother of three. And I would say for the first 14 years of, checkups. It's, you know, height, weight, weight, vaccinations,
Kristina Supler: poking and prodding,
Susan Stone: poking and prodding, talking about school and milestones. We really,
Kristina Supler: or at least that was your experience with your child's children's pediatrician.
Susan Stone: Yeah, but I just don't rem I don't think conversations regarding sex came into play until when the making a decision about the H P V vaccine or maybe when does menstruation start for that being the end of growth? I guess that's what I'm confused. Or birth control when that comes in. But other than that, I think of, how big is the baby?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: And I'm thrilled that you ask about this. Because what I'm proposing is a slightly more advanced model of care in the sense that, again, if we know that there is gender diversity in the world and some youth present as gender diverse, gender exploratory as early as four, five, and six. Shouldn't we be talking to parents about, say again, educating people?
Your child who is assigned male or female at birth. But we don't know what their gender identity may be later down the line. And that's the one or two sentences that a pediatrician can have with a parent to, again, describe and educate the difference between an assigned gender at birth and the fact that potentially two or three of probably more percent of the population of young people are going to be, or exploring gender, or at least talking about it over time.
Then when we know that many youth undergo puberty and it's considered normal. As early as seven or eight year old, you can start having breast buds. By age seven or eight, it's considered within the normal range. You can be having a period by the age of 10. So if you're waiting for the magic number of teen years, 13, you've missed a whole bunch of folks that have already started many and of the stages of puberty and actually maybe completely, adult in their hormones and progressing toward adulthood very quickly in terms of their bodies.
So by waiting till kids are teens until quote unquote, they're ready to be sexual or ready to go through the process of puberty, we've missed the boat in preparing both parents and kids for helping their children approach adolescence, approach the changes of puberty. Approach the concepts of being a gendered or a sexual person in a healthy and supportive way.
Think about it. Wouldn't it be easy as a parent or easier as a parent to talk about sexuality when it's theoretical? Versus you're coming in because your daughter's pregnant and you didn't even know she was having sex?
I would prefer to talk with kids in a developmentally appropriate way over time. So that kids are prepared to make decisions and that we're not going back and saying, okay, now we need to deal with an issue. Now we need to deal with a problem. Now we need to deal with some sort of health need versus let's talk about anticipatory guidance.
Let's have our kids be healthy.
Susan Stone: I know that you are involved in giving T blockers or hormones.
Kristina Supler: Oh, I was gonna ask about that.
Susan Stone: Yeah. I'm really curious, when do you decide that's appropriate? What are the side effects? Are they safe and are they safe? And also, how do you know, and this is a lot, that a child's just not playing with identities and trying on what suit fits because there is discussion versus this is real and we need to act.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Sure. So we know that gender play trying on identities is common among kids. It's how again, we explore and figure ourselves out. But every kid that plays with their gender identity and gender rules and gender expression doesn't get hormones and doesn't go to a clinician to go get hormones.
So if a child is really thinking hard and long about their gender identity, and oftentimes they'll think about it quite a bit before they even talk to their parents, they'll have that conversation with their parents about maybe the gender they were B with were born with doesn't quite fit them. Or maybe it absolutely doesn't fit them.
And we have kids really at young ages, just like they know their cisgender identity. We have some kids at very young ages know their transgender identity. Regardless as a parent, in some ways, it really shouldn't matter what their gender identity is. What you want is to create a home situation and ideally again, or early clinical situation where kids and parents have lots of information so they can explore gender in whatever ways make sense for that child in a safe and healthy way.
If you look at the studies by Kay Olson, the Trans Youth, project, she shows that kids that grow up in supportive environments, kids who present early as gender diverse and exploring gender identity, she demonstrates that they look just like their cisgender peers in terms of anxiety and depression growing up in supportive households.
Now a supportive household doesn't care. The endpoint is a happy and safe child. It doesn't matter which directions the child goes in terms of gender identity, because as an accepting and loving parent, I don't care what their gender identity is. I want my child to be authentic.
I want my child to feel safe. I want my child to feel loved. I want my child to feel heard and respected. And it doesn't matter what their gender identity is. They're my child.
Kristina Supler: Is there an average age when the research shows children start to explore gender identity and conversations are starting to be had within households or is it different for everyone?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: It's different for everyone. I've had 80 year old patients come to me and say, now is the time that they're ready to start their gender affirmation process.
Susan Stone: But I do wanna press back on the question. Yeah. Because there are parents who do want to help their child. Yep. Good hormones are a health option. And I think Kristina's question was a good one.
When does a physician make, how does a physician, and when does a physician make a choice that this is appropriate and are they safe?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: It's not based on age. It's based on need. And so a patient will go through a very thorough evaluation. People don't just walk in clinic and get a shot of puberty blockers, people.
Kristina Supler: What do those evaluations entail?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Oh, long history. About home, about activities, about the family medical history, their medical history, their social history, substances, self harm and mental health issues, exposures at home, in school,
Kristina Supler: it's like I assume questionnaires are given to children and parents as well.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: It depends. And I mean, I find that most kids would rather talk to me than fill out a piece of paper.
Susan Stone: Yeah. So we talk. So if you make the decision that it's appropriate, what are the, the benefits and what are the risks?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: So the benefits, again, just remember we're not having the same conversation about, say, kids that are using the same medication for precocious puberty.
Again, just to remind yourself in the context of avoiding political chatter, same medicine, kids not talking about it at all. So these are very safe medicines that have been around for many, many years. And we've used them in first, studied them with precocious puberty. Again, completely reversible.
Susan Stone: because Provo, is it true doctor, that precocious puberty, which just for our listeners who mm-hmm. don't know what that is, that's the onset of pub. Pub of puberty, very, very early at life. And we wanna delay that as much as possible because they're now finding that, especially for females, you want a puberty go in later and menopause to be later.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Well, you want puberty to be later for a couple reasons.
Number one, it would be really, really weird to have a fully feminized body at age six. Horrible. Yes. So they're social as well as biological consequences. And these kids use puberty blockers far longer than many of our trans kids. Again without all the bruja about safety and effectiveness.
So puberty blockers basically are an hormone analog, and they fool glands in the brain to shut down and stop secreting the hormones that trigger ovaries and testes to secrete testosterone and estrogen, the sort of puberty hormones that start to create adult body and adult sort of physiology.
And by putting this temporary pause on those brain gland signals, the ovaries and testes just sort of rust. They stop secreting. And when we take away that hormone, the ovaries and testes start secreting again. So it's sort of like putting a pause button on your Spotify or your, your music player.
Pause, lift it back up. The music starts right back where it was. It just has a delay in time.
Susan Stone: Have children ever gone back but forth and said to you, you were, they were on the medication and then said they changed their mind? Or do you see that when kids are evaluated, you make that choice, they're happier, more fulfilled, and they'll stay on it long-term?
Or is it across the board?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: It's across the board. as a pediatrician, we wanna keep asking kids, is this the right path for you? Should we be doing this? Does this still help you figure out who you need to be, where you need to go? Or are, have you figured some of these things out and don't need puberty blockers anymore?
Or have you figured these things out and now need gender hormones? It all depends on the child. So our job is not to push someone forward through gender hormones or puberty blockers. It's to keep asking kids, what do you need? And that's medicine 1 0 1 patient. Sure. What do you need? Where are we now?
Things change in our body. Things change in our heart and mind. We have to keep talking and listening to kids to find out what they need. So if they need to stop, they should. And if they need to, start again because stopping actually demonstrated that they are really uncomfortable with the changes of puberty.
Then, yeah, we can honor that request and honor their experience.
Kristina Supler: So what are the, what are some of the risks though, that can be attendant to taking these hormones?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Well, the way I tell kids and parents having to come to the doctor to get a shot kind of stinks. So that's a risk and that's a bummer. Let's see if kids start these medicines very early in puberty, there's very little change in their internal hormone environment.
So they don't have side effects like say, menopause, some hot flashes and some little bit of irritability as hormones are shifting.
Is growth impacted?
Growth usually, is, that's a great question. Impacted in the sense that, trans boys may have the potential to grow a little bit taller because we're gonna block estrogen's effect on growth plates.
And for trans girls, again, we can work with them to look at again, their potential height or their, high trajectory to figure out how tall they are gonna be. And will that factor into, again, starting estrogen or gender hormones so we can use it again to inform our patients what their options are. So that they can be in a body that's comfortable and safe for them.
Susan Stone: Well, is, are those blockers different than hor gender hormones to help, let's say in a trans. Would it be a child who identifies as trans male wanting to be female? I hope, again, I'm terms right and forgive me if I'm getting 'em wrong. So if you want to help someone develop the other way, or maybe a female by birth sex, who wants to be a male, is that a different type of hormone or medication protocol?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: So blockers are used basically just to stop the current gonads, ovaries and testes from secreting, estrogen and testosterone. If a patient is either way past the beginning of puberty or a patient is on gender blockers, you know, puberty blockers, they can start the other hormones in the past referred to as cross-gender hormones to basically start the puberty that makes sense for them.
So if I am identifying as female, and I have been on puberty blockers, At age, say 13 or 14 or 15 or 16, whenever again that child, that patient says it's appropriate for them, they have parent support and we all have a plan. They may start estrogen so that they can develop just like their peers. Which we think, again, has a positive health benefit in terms of, again, that congruence.
Socially with my body is developing just like my friends. I feel normal, I feel accepted, I feel like,I'm a part of my community. So for boys puberty usually happens a little bit later, so sometimes they might start their male testosterone hormones a little bit later, say, than females.
But again, It's all dependent on when we first see a patient, how far they've gone through puberty, what they understand of their gender identity and where they are in terms of making a plan to affirm their gender identity or not, or just learn more and explore.
Kristina Supler: What do you say to parents who are in your office with the child and the parent you can tell, just isn't on board with the child's desire to start hormone therapy or whatever the circumstance may be. What sort of conversations do you have?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Would that ever happen? Never. So yes, that happens quite frequently.
We have parents that want us to say, this is just a phase or a fad. Let me tell you, being transgender or gender diverse is hard in our culture. It's hard. And when we see kids in our clinic, the vast majority of the time, they're there for real issues, real goals, and real pain. And we need again to start with taking our patients at their word and carefully explore what they mean by their experience, their dysphoria or their goals.
So I tell parents, listen, you and I are coming from the same place. I want a safe kid, a kid who's around alive participating in the world, the kid who's healthy. Who's mentally and physically healthy. We may come at it from slightly different approaches. You're coming at it as I expected my child to be cisgender and to I wanna walk them down the aisle, at their wedding and they're gonna have a baby and provide me with grandchildren.
And my job as that child's pediatrician is to say, your child is telling me that their body, if it's to continue to develop, say, into a female body, is gonna create such harm, such discomfort with their physical self, such anxiety and depression because in their heart and head they identify as male. And so we have to really listen to your, your child and hear what they say in terms of how do we explore the identity you were assigned at birth with the identity that you are telling me you experience now.
Susan Stone: When do you talk about surgery? When does that enter into the conversation? Because it's, I think, One, I think it's a very different conversation.
When do you start maybe blockers or hormones versus when do you actually put a child through radical surgery that you can't reverse?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Most children don't go through quote unquote radical surgeries. In fact, children have far more radical surgeries for lots of other issues or problems, and they ascent to the process of surgery for whatever their healthcare needs, along with the consent of their parents.
So I think that's the first thing to take that. would some children
Susan Stone: wa, I would say would wanna com complete the process right?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: But many children don't have necessarily the support or the resources to necessarily go through some of the more major and intensive surgeries.
Vaginoplasty and phalloplasty creating a vagina and a penis are very intensive. People don't usually do that until after age 18.
Susan Stone: Okay. So it's not really a pediatric issue then?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: No. Now say there are some youth, and this is the more quote unquote common surgery, although again, with blockers, we don't have to do this quite as often now is say a child's developed breast at age seven or eight and say they identify longstanding as a trans male. Why? When they come see me at age 16, or they come see me at age 14 and by age 16 they're gender dysphoria regarding their adult size breasts, which they've had now for eight years is killing them.
They're not showering. They're wearing a binder 24 7. They have suicidality and again, nothing's changed in their gender identity. Why would I say you need to wait two more years until the magic number of 18 to have a male chest construction knowing that nothing has changed from age six to now 16, and you have had eight years of female breast tissue
That's harmful. The harm in that is far greater than the harm of saying you're 16, you've been through years of care with us. You're gonna be as assessed by a surgeon. The surgeon may require other information before they do your surgery. And then through this long standing process, not I come in the clinic and tomorrow I have my chest removed, oftentimes months to years I get my chest surgery and I no longer have to wear a binder 24 7 and I can take a shower. And look in the mirror.
Susan Stone: So it can be a pediatric issue. Yeah. Something that a pediatrician. Okay. That's all I wanted to understand. Yeah. Is this something that pediatricians deal with versus not?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Not too often. And most of the time when we get to the point of surgery, again, there may be a number of people involved including gender specialists as well as including mental health people as well as the team that works with the surgeon. So we're talking about a whole lot of people.
Kristina Supler: Dr. Forcier can you tell our listeners a little bit. I, in preparing for today, we came across the term or pneumonic I had never seen before. Lark.
Susan Stone: I looked it up too.
Kristina Supler: How do you work with this population in terms of contraception and tell our listeners what a lark is and yeah,
Susan Stone: Because a lark is not a bird, guys.
It's an acronym.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: No, and it's wonderful. It's a long acting, completely reversible contraception. They are a little device we can put in the arm or an intrauterine device we put in the uterus. So the I U D, right? Yeah, exactly. They're so effective in terms of preventing pregnancy.
Now we know that young people may not identify, they may identify as straight, but they have either same sex relationships. We also know that young women who have sex with women are actually at increased risk for STIs in pregnancy because they're not prepared.
Susan Stone: Wait, wait. So I was gonna say, if you have a child who tells you that they're interested in only sex with their own matching sex, not gender.
Mm-hmm. Because that can be an identity issue. Yeah. You know what? I have to be honest with you, Dr. I would think, why do I need to go down the contraception path?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Because the data says that young women who have sex with women get STIs and get pregnant because they're exploring well, but wait.
Susan Stone: But long act larks won't prevent an sti I only condom use.
Correct. Or dances. They're not
Dr. Michelle Forcier: having sex barriers prevent
Susan Stone: STIs. yes. But given we all know, we can all say that. But we are in the world. World and teens engage in sexual activity. I like the idea of a lark in terms of, you don't have to depend on taking that pill and memory. You got, I gotta be honest with you though, it's not as good though in terms of St I. Infection prevention, is it?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: No, it's purpose is not to prevent STIs. To be like asking your microwave to show you a TV show. Your microwave isn't gonna play Netflix. It's a D, it's a d it's a device for a different purpose. So we need, so I feel like I'm missing about this. Talk about them as separate
Susan Stone: pieces.
Help me out. help me out. I'm getting confused.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: I dunno.
Kristina Supler: I'll ask the dumb question. so I mean it's essentially an i u d .
Dr. Michelle Forcier: What's essentially an i u D? A lark. Well, no, there's one that goes in the arm or and there's one that goes in the uterus. There, there are different kinds of long, I was confused.
Thank you. Yeah. Got it. Cause it's just about the location of the implant. Some young people don't want people putting things in their uteruses. They don't want a pelvic exam. They're freaked out. And so that little rod in the arm that suppresses ovulation, wonderful. Very effective, very easy to put in and take out.
Nice.
Kristina Supler: So it's really about patient comfort and what the patient is more,open to.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Shouldn't that be patient care 1 0 1 anyway?
Susan Stone: Yes. Yeah. But, but, but we still need to insist that students are mindful of using condoms or other ways of preventing disease. So what do you recommend a LARC plus what
Dr. Michelle Forcier: I mean the lit well number when the literature shows that, dual methods are wonderful and especially dual methods of STI protection with some sort of barrier method or condom, internal external condom. Or again, a lark in terms of a long-acting reversible contraceptive.
So again,think about the story.
You have a parent coming in and she's worried about her teen being sexually active, right? And she says, I don't wanna, I don't wanna allow her to have birth control, even though she tells me this is what she wants, cuz that's gonna give her permission to have sex. Do you really think the parent allowing birth control gives that child permission to have sex?
Or do you think that child's gonna make that decision to have sex on their own?
Susan Stone: You're talking to two lawyers whose whole practice is dealing with students and issue sex issue. So and and I have to gather that people who listen to our podcast are well on the way of understand. I guess our questions are focused differently because really our parents all are very supportive of their students and their choices.
We're very lucky that by large, by and large, not all of 'em, but. By and large. Yeah.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: but I think the main thing is your kid's telling you they need something and you may not agree with the fact that you want them to be sexually active. Most of us aren't super excited to think about like our 14 year old being sexually active, but I'm not a 14 year old.
But if my 14 year old is sexually active, I would really wanna make sure they had good birth control and I would really wanna make sure they understood things like consent. Saying no, saying you need to use a condom. And walking away from that encounter feeling empowered and safe. We don't how Advocacy, yeah.
Yeah. If we don't talk about sex and how to manage it, how are young people gonna make thoughtful decisions? And safe decisions.
Kristina Supler: What are some of the most promising or not promising, pressing health issues facing the lgbtq plus community today?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: I thought we weren't gonna talk about politics and legislation.
so I'm gonna say health issue. Health issue. Health. Health issue. Yeah. Those are health issues though. Because those are about geographic and political access to care and a state by state basis.
Kristina Supler: So Access's huge. Yeah, funda fundamentally just, it's not even access so much access, the medicine or the science, it's access.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Sure. The science is actually a lot less exciting because the science is pretty consistent. In terms of avail, like different types of availability and access to care for larks is really important. The safety of abortion, the benefits, short term and long term of gender affirmative care.
The science, again, we're not seeing there's like a huge variance in terms of different outcomes in different studies. The outcomes are pretty consistent in terms of access to care improves outcomes. And a whole host of these sexual gender health issues.
Susan Stone: I have to tell you something. I learned something today because, I learned a lot. I did not know what a lot of these acronyms meant, and they're missing, I have to be honest with you.
I like taking worries off the table and I did not think you had to worry about pregnancy when you have a child. I thought that, that's, a huge benefit is that's one issue off the table. Or I didn't think about the s t I issue. So I thank you for educating me.
Kristina Supler: Absolutely. I think that this has been a really good discussion with a lot of information for our listeners.
And if, parents out there listeners want to learn more about you or any of your research or any good literature, where would you direct them?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: PubMed has lots of good information in terms of all the research. Not just me, but all the research that supports sort of making these types of decisions.
Up to date is a nice summary of different information about gender, sexuality, and reproductive healthcare. I'm happy to come on with you guys if you ever wanna have a question and answer session. This is really important stuff and I'm really excited to talk science and to talk evidence and to talk about listening to kids.
So I'm, I so appreciate what you're doing and happy to be helpful in any way.
Susan Stone: Thank you, and I'm concerned. I can't imagine, doctor, how many doctors in your area are across the country?
Dr. Michelle Forcier: I wish, that's what, that's why we keep talking about this healthcare being primary care. Primary care, pediatricians, family, medicine doc, nurse practitioners, we all should be comfortable talking about gender and sexuality because they're a part of our lives and they're a part of primary care.
Yeah. So we're,
Susan Stone: I can, we're doing more and more training. Yes. Yeah. We do need more discussion about this. Because like I said, when I think of a well visit with the child, I do think of weight, health, and, pumping meningitis, getting,yeah. Yeah. So thank you.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: My 14 year old did not wanna talk about pooping and peeing.
There were more pressing and more pertinent issues relevant to her life. Oh, than age 14.
Susan Stone: You need to spend a day at my house because, Pooping is an everyday conversation.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Okay. And not that, I think it's time to wrap it up.
Kristina Supler: Time to wrap it up. Dr. Forcier thanks so much for joining us and we, hope our listeners enjoyed this episode.
Dr. Michelle Forcier: Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
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In this episode, KJK Student Defense attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler talk with Andrew Fishman, licensed clinical social worker in Chicago, Illinois who works with clients to understand the impact of video games on mental health. In this episode, they talk about the subject of kids socializing in video games. Topics include why kids are using online games to meet people, what works and what doesn’t work for balancing kids between the online and offline world, and simple strategies parents can use to ensure their kids are safe online.
Links:
Andrew Fishman on Psychology Today
Show Notes:
(05:16) Why kids are using video games to meet people
(07:41) Texting or Voice: How kids communicate in these virtual worlds
(08:34) Did Covid cause online meeting to explode?
(09:18) Stranger Danger: Can Anyone Talk to your Kids Online?
(11:05) At What Age Should You Trust Your Kids to Chat Online?
(11:45) Do Time Limitations Work?
(12:46) Why Some People Prefer Online Socialization
(16:14) Video Game Addiction: Is It Real?
(16:59) When Anything Could Be Classified as Addiction
(17:47) Dopamine Hits: Overblown or Real?
(19:13) Simple Strategies Parents Can Implement to Get Kids Into the Real World
(21:07) Are Kids Even Interested in Reading Anymore?
(23:12) Roblox: Friendly Game or Hateful Space
(25:01) How Parents Can Really Judge if a Game is Safe For Their KidsTranscript:
Susan Stone: So I just got back folks out there in listening land from Portugal, and I haven't even told this story to Kristina yet. So one morning I'm at breakfast and I see a cute family, a mom, a dad, and a little boy. And I had noticed them the other day at breakfast and I actually had noticed them the evening before at dinner.
We had landed at the same restaurant probably cuz the concierge always sends you to the same restaurant. Do you guys know that out there? Totally true. Totally true. And, The little boy is just being so well behaved. And I remember when my kids were little that it was really difficult in a restaurant to be kids.
Kristina Supler: Oh, he has such anxiety going to a restaurant with these kids. Oh yeah.
Susan Stone: Yeah. Talking to the mother, she there, she's fascinating. She was really lovely. Fa. They're from the UK and I said, I cannot believe how well behaved your son is. I remember when my kids were little and you know how well they're doing on this trip to Portugal.
While it was a lovely romantic vacation for my hus, hubby and I. I didn't really see it as a place for
Kristina Supler: kids families.
Susan Stone: Yeah. I mean it was, there were a lot of family, but when, I think when my kids were little mm-hmm. They just wanted to splish splash at the pool. Do kid stuff. I did a lot of kid stuff and she said,I really believe that to raise children, they need to be bored and come up with their own creativity.
And in theory, I play by that rule too. Kids need to engage in imaginative play. But Kristina, the kid's face was glued
Kristina Supler: to a tablet, let me guess.
Susan Stone: To a tablet. I'm like, I saw where you were going with this. Ah, that is not imaginative play. In my days, I would give my kids blank paper, not even coloring books.
And some crayons at a restaurant and say, Keep yourself busy, dude. And then they didn't, they misbehaved, but that stuck with me. Sure.
Kristina Supler: it's in this day and age when in any situation for kids, the minute there's like even a hint of misbehavior, you give them a device.
And even for adults, if you think about it in an awkward situation, you have time to kill. What do we do? We immediately turn to our devices versus looking around us talking to a stranger. Looking at something, on, on the street. It's just, we are so into our devices, whether it's kids or adults.
Susan Stone: Oh, how many times have you gone out to dinner with someone in their faces of, in their phone. And I've done it. And I'm not judging this parent because you know what?
I didn't have that available when I raised my kids dad. Sure.
Kristina Supler: And I just also, as a working mom, I just have, I just think about you have a long day. You wanna enjoy an evening out with your family, with your kids. You wanna have family time. And then something starts to unravel or someone's a little cranky, or who knows what the situation is.
It's, I get it. Like it's easy to just say, here, honey. Okay. Look at my phone.
Susan Stone: And so is the tablet, the older kid pacifier.
Kristina Supler: Sure. Look at that. I think so. yes. The tablet is the modern day Passy. There you go. There you go.
Susan Stone: There's your baby Bop. Or as Josh, I'm gonna embarrass you out there. He used to call him his baby ah. But why don't you introduce our guest.
Kristina Supler: Sure. So today we are really happy to be talking with Andrew Fishman. and we're gonna talk. Hi Andrew.
Andrew Fishman: Hello. I'm happy to hear here.
Kristina Supler: Welcome Andrew. Andrew's a licensed clinical social worker and therapist based in the Chicago area. He specializes in working with adolescents certified in treating video game addiction.
Andrew is dedicated to addressing the challenges faced by young individuals in today's digital world. Passes everywhere. He actively contributes in the field that's good, in the field of video games and mental health by sharing his insights and knowledge through his articles on Psychology Today.
Andrew's expertise has garnered attention beyond the realm of therapy. He's been featured in publications like The Wall Street Journal and Al Jazeera. He's also given a host of Noteworthy speeches.
Today, what drew us to Andrew was an article that appeared in Psychology Today entitled, Why So Many Teens use Video Games to Meet others. And so this is a cool topic that we're gonna jump into.
And again, Andrew, we're really happy to have you with us today. Welcome. Thank you again.
Susan Stone: So let's kick it off. Your article, which I have right here with me. Why so many teens use video games to meet others. Your premise is that the video games have become the new mall where kids meet. Can you, yeah.
Talk about this and elaborate a little more.
Andrew Fishman: So kids really want to spend time with each other in person. But it's where can they go? They wanna hang out with each other in person. But they just there's nowhere to do it. When I was a kid, we had all sorts of places to go. That was 20 years ago.
But all those places I looked at them, they're all closed, oh yeah.
Susan Stone: Or you don't feel safe sending them. My dad used to drop me off at the mall.
Kristina Supler: I was gonna say, and my day, it was Camelot music. We all went and hung music store. So I, there's not a lot of places. For kids to go, I'm saying kids, but teens, young adults and people's houses.
Susan Stone: Why not mm-hmm. The basement.
Andrew Fishman: Yeah. No, that's it. that's great. And that's one of the places that they have. I think part of the problem with, for my clients at least, is how do you get to those places? Mm-hmm. With both your parents now work. You're,and you don't have a car yet.
You can't go to their, you can't go to somebody else's house. And a lot of the parents don't want their kids going anywhere during, on a school night, which makes a certain amount of sense, but that's now five sevenths of your week that you can't see other people. And so they're they come home on a Monday night and they're exhausted from school and they wanna see somebody else.
They wanna talk to a peer. And their options are calling somebody on the phone, which nobody does, or they can,or they can text each other, which a lot of them do. Or they on, on Snapchat or something. Or they can have a long fun voice chat while sharing a game and that, so those, what they call third spaces, which is the place other than school or work or home, the malls, the bowling alleys, the churches, all sorts, the places we used to meet people.
This has become their third place where you go home after school and you can go to a virtual third place and spend as much time with your friends as you want. And so it, it certainly makes sense that you would go there.
Susan Stone: How do you talk to each other? Or are you just playing? Explain how it works to this.
Kristina Supler: Are people who are in these online communities only talking about the video games? Are these people talking about, I don't know, favorite food sports team's life?
Andrew Fishman: it depends on the game, but generally, yeah. People talk about all sorts of things when they're with friends. People talk about their day. They complain about teachers. They, do all the typical adolescent conversations and even if they're not, Talking about their lives outside of the games and they're just talking about it.
I still think it's a positive experience.
Susan Stone: Wait, are they talking or is it texting?
Andrew Fishman: That's a, it's a good question. There's both. So some of the games, most games, if there's a multiplayer component, will have a text feature in the game. Some of them also have a voice chat, and there's also supplementary apps you can use.
There's one that's really popular called Discord. It's a website and Yep. So it's for listeners, it's a website or app that you can use to communicate and build little virtual communities. I have, I, I met a few of them myself, and they're fun, but you, it also has a feature where you can just, make a group of friends and then set everybody up with a headset and then chat on this external app while playing a while, playing a game.
Kristina Supler: Andrew, these online gaming communities,they're obviously extremely popular. Were they popular pre covid d or do you think Covid really caused the huge surge in, in the involvement of young people in these online communities?
Andrew Fishman: Actually, I think I, they've always been popular. I think that it's certainly, there, there was definitely a surge. And I think a lot of the surge was people much older than adolescents where I, I wasn't always online talking to people that's ing about adults,
Kristina Supler: I think.
Andrew Fishman: Huh? Yeah. And so suddenly I was alone in my apartment. I just, I needed something to do. And I wasn't allowed to go outside for a lot of it. And so I could go to, somebody's virtual island in Animal Crossing and go run around and catch bugs there. And so that was just a nice way to spend time with other people.
And so there was definitely a surge. I think the surge might have happened with our age kind of people though.
Susan Stone: Can, is it limited to your own friend group or can strangers infiltrate? Is this state?
Andrew Fishman: That's a really important point. So there are many people just talk to their friends.
Some people only talk to the people on their team. If you're playing a team-based game, us versus them. And sometimes you're just open to anybody who's around. You can hear you talk and you can talk to them. They can talk to you.
I don't like that. I don't like that.
Right? And so and so that gets ugly really quickly.
I hate that. I don't usually use it at all. Because as soon as I turn on a game, if I have what's called public chat on. There are slurs. There's derogatory comments made. There's ju offensive things said pretty quickly. I don't know that I've ever turned on and been turned on a game and really been happy with the conversation for the whole time.
And so most of the time I just turn off the public chat option.
Susan Stone: I'm gonna ask you a question, Kristina. Sure. And then I wanna know what the expert has to think. Would you allow your youngest is how old for our listening?
Kristina Supler: almost 10.
Susan Stone: Would you allow your 10 year old to play this type of game? And I'd like to know what Andrew thinks about what age is appropriate.
Kristina Supler: Chatting and interacting with others.
No. But Animal Crossing for example, is fairly benign. My son does play Animal Crossing and I watched it and it's a little animal game with the, the settings and the, age specification for, you know, the version we bought. But I mean, what do you think on that, Andrew? In terms of kids, let's say grade school, third, fourth, fifth, even sixth grade, and in these online games with the community interaction component in chatting?
Susan Stone: Yeah. What age should you, what age is recommended in your professional opinion?
Andrew Fishman: I think it depends on the kid and the level of maturity. So for public chat, I wouldn't let them use it until 16, 17 at the earliest. If they're old enough to, if they're mature enough to handle hearing some really heinous things. And they know how to handle them. For chat or chatting with their friends, that's a different story for me.
if you would let them talk to their friends on the phone unsupervised, it's probably fine to have them talk to each other while playing a game. That doesn't bother me at all. But public chat even I turn that off most of the time. Cause it's bad in some places.
Susan Stone: Do you think we should put a time restriction on how long your, you let your kid play? Because you would let your kid go to the mall for hours?
Andrew Fishman: And so there is some evidence that being on screens for too long every day is harmful. But it depends. I guess what the alternative is if they are, if they have the option to go to soccer practice, that's probably better for their physical health than their mental health is to be running around and being with people in person.
But if not, if they would be sitting and playing a video game by themselves versus playing it with friends, that's, I wouldn't encourage with friends anyway. And if they're not showing any signs of video games doing harm to them. There's probably not much of an issue with sitting around and playing for several hours.
Kristina Supler: Andrew, I can just imagine my peers, my friends, and Susan and I were based in Cleveland. And so though we're not in Chicago or New York, we're also not in a total social desert. And I can just hear people I know saying, why would anyone prefer this online socialization? I don't get it.
So can you shed some light on why, in fact, some people do prefer online socialization?
Andrew Fishman: It's a lot easier for some people. It's, it might be the only thing that's possible for some of them. So take for instance, somebody who has depression. It is just by definition, really hard to get out of bed. You have low mood.
It is hard for you to just find the energy to do anything. Let alone set up plans. And then leave the house and get dressed and showered, and then go out and get to the place and then have to use all this energy to socialize if you know the way you want to. That might just, that might literally not be possible for some people.
You are,
Susan Stone: Would you say from a therapeutic perspective, the goal is to maybe use it for scaffolding? Or do you think it's enough for some people? Meaning would you say, if someone has severe depression, okay, why don't we start here, but I really wanna get you, so you're going to a party and not abstaining from a party.
Or do you think, why are we, this works if it's not broken. And this person can socialize this way, who cares? What's the downside?
Andrew Fishman: And a lot of the time I do want to use it as a scaffolding, as a less bad option. Because it's research shows that it's not as good to be online as it is to be in person.
I think we all, that's gonna be my question. Yep. And so it's better than not having a person to talk to for sure. But it is not as good as going out to a party if you're, if you have the ability to do. And so we're comparing, I think, three categories of people. One is the people who just can't. Who do not have the ability to make friends in person for a variety of reasons.
People who can, but it's difficult. And then people who really it's a choice. they go out all the time and they also wanna supplement that with games. And so each one of those, I would encourage to be in person whenever possible. But it sounds like for each of those three categories and people, and for all of us, if you, if your choice is being isolated and alone in your place, or to be sharing even a virtual space with somebody else, that's probably better for your mental health, just as a social animal.
Susan Stone: What about playing, having someone over and playing chess or Monopoly or Scrabble or banana grams?
Kristina Supler: I think though what I'm hearing Andrew say is that for many that's just not an option for potentially a variety of reasons. And so I think that, I don't know. Would anyone disagree that having a friend over to play a board game is preferred to online social interaction?
Probably not. But maybe for whatever reason, you have an ill family member, you live in the middle of nowhere, who knows? maybe you can't.
Susan Stone: Andrew what? I, two good points. Kristina w
Kristina Supler: So we read a lot in the news and in magazines and newspapers about the negative effects of video games, video game addiction.
The who?
Susan Stone: Yeah. Online addiction. You're your thing, right?
Kristina Supler: Yep. Or the, the predators trolling these online chat groups. And some. Really fear the internet in terms of allowing their children to have interaction with it. In your opinion, what are some of the red flags that parents should really watch out for in terms of gauging whether their child's use of the internet is becoming problematic?
Susan Stone: And is video addiction a, is it real or is it just not? No limitations.
Andrew Fishman: That's, I think you're heading at the heart of something really important is that there isn't a psychological, there isn't a, a consensus yet. So there's a thing called the dsm. You may or not be familiar with it. It's what psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose people.
Video game addiction is in there. But only in the back as a condition for future study. So they're, they're aware of it. They're researching it. They're not sure whether to put it in or not. But some of those criteria that they're suggesting might be in there are what you would expect.
The letting it interfere with your schoolwork or, professional life. If you're choosing to play a game, instead of hanging out with people in person.
If you are choosing, if you're. Spending more money on games than you can afford.
Kristina Supler: Sounds like any vice really.
Andrew Fishman: Yeah, it is. Yes. Where if it is starting to affect the, your quality of life, it's affecting the way that you live and you have lost control over it. That it's like any vice. But this, it seems like this is, video games are intentionally made to be habit forming. So it does feel a little more specific, like a kind of addiction rather than, let's say eating or, golf. Because, you could have the same kind of problems with golf where you would go there instead of Thanksgiving. And you could choose to ignore other people and spend a ton of money on it.
But golf isn't specifically made to be addicting like video games are.
Susan Stone: I read an article that people get little dopamine hits. When they play video games. Is that real?
Kristina Supler: Yes. So like the slots in
Andrew Fishman: Vegas Uhhuh. Yeah. So I think that's a little bit of a, it is technically correct. But I think that's overblown because technically anything you enjoy gives you dopamine. And so that's just the mechanism by which your brain tells you that something is fun.
And so when people say, well, video games give you dopamine, and so does heroin, that's not a fair comparison. Eating something gives you dopamine too. Really anything that you, you know that makes you smile is gotta give you dopamine. And so for me, an ice cream Sunday,
Kristina Supler: I was just, yes, ice cream Sunday gives you, which I save ice cream Sunday might give.
Not really because like it genuinely makes me happy.
Susan Stone: Oh my gosh. A little hot fudge and whipped cream and some salted pe. We've gotta go to Mitchell today. It is my birthday today. So I want a Sundae yay. Thanks. Thanks. I get to be with you Andrew. Now we're socializing right now. I'm getting to know you.
Mm-hmm.
Kristina Supler: So what are your thoughts, Andrew, in terms of guardrails that parents can put in place to help their kids find the balance between, Okay. Online socialization, good outlet. But also, as Susan says, have a friend over for a board game or go play soccer with some classmates. Go ride your bike, whatever.
What are your thoughts on parameters parents can put into place?
Susan Stone: Or walk The dog Love Dog
Kristina Supler: and the dog. Walk my kids to help walk the dogs. Walk the dog.
Andrew Fishman: One thing I often recommend to parents is to not take the games away. As much as add other things in. In their place. I love that.
So if you're, if you're going to tell your kid, all right, you're playing too many video games, you should, we're gonna live at you to an hour a day and you haven't filled that time with something else, then they're going to want to play more and more. They're gonna complain. They're going want to do that.
If you then say, all right, let's get your ballet lessons. That sounds fun. Let's do that two days a week. You have expressed interest in that. Let's get you going.
Kristina Supler: Wasn't it also human nature? The minute you tell someone they can't have something that's prohibited, it's all you want.
Susan Stone: Yeah.
I still remember Saturday nights at home when watching my lineup was Love Boat and Fantasy Island and you've just aged yourself. I just did, but and I would spend sometimes, and then Sunday morning cartoons, I could watch those for hours. Is this healthier than regular tv?
Andrew Fishman: There actually isn't very much evidence to suggest that it's any better or worse.
Interesting that you are being more active while you're playing a video game. So if anything that aspect is, is better, but it's. would you rather be playing a game or watching somebody else play one or watching somebody else or just passively watching Netflix for several hours. Or engaging with your friends in a virtual space.
Kristina Supler: That's a great point, Susan. Cause I hadn't thought about that in terms of, is playing a video game really all that different from just watching tv? Mm-hmm. Arguably not. And yet, some might argue that video games are unfairly vilified versus A kid plopped in front of the television on Netflix for three, four hours.
Susan Stone: What I get concerned about though, is I'm a big pleasure reader. As are you. I am, I love to curl up with a good book and a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. I'm not that picky on my beverages. But do you think Andrew kids are just reading for pleasure anymore?
Andrew Fishman: I think yes. I think it depends on the kid and it depends on the environment they grew up in.
I think that people watch their parents more than they realize. And so if you are the kind of person who is saying, you should be reading more and you mean it, but you are on your phone playing Candy Crush for several hours a day, they see that. Yeah. They see that. That's what people do.
Where if you are the kind of person who shows them through your actions of other things to do. If you are the kind of person who does dedicate time to reading, they might pick that up. If you read with them and or find books, go to the library, find books recommended for them. Find that ones that they would really enjoy. A lot of kids would choose a book
Susan Stone: Or cooking. I spent a lot of time with my 17 year old in the kitchen and we cook some wacky things.
Kristina Supler: But I love the, it's just food for thought for parents in terms of, no pun intended. There you go. The environmental influence, sometimes Susan and I deal with parents who all over the country are dealing with various issues tied to, you know, a child being in crisis and kids, students of all ages. And sometimes it's, we get these cases with these really big issues. and there's all these therapists and counselors and you name it with outside professionals involved.
And sometimes it's like the easiest, not easiest, but simple things shouldn't be overlooked. You want your kid to read, have books in your house. You want your child to do be more active. Ha spend less time online with video games. Provide other options. Have other stuff in the house available. It's just, I, as we're talking, I'm just thinking about like the importance of not overlooking basics.
Susan Stone: I'm a big fan of KISS method. Keep it simple. So were any other parting thoughts? Is there anything we haven't asked you that you really need our listeners to know about what you do? Warning signs, benefits, the floors open. I'm gonna say take your best shot.
Andrew Fishman: I think one thing that I really want to address is the game Roblox.
Because it's the most popular game. It's the most popular game for I think, five to 12 year olds, or was last year at least. It's a, it is a people misunderstand it. They think it is a game. it's a platform for building and playing games. So all of the games you look like a little Lego person running around.
It's very blocky, very sort of Minecraft aesthetic. But you can make any game you want using this software. So I think there's, I think there are 4 million different games people to, for people to join. Like different, you can play tag or you can play a shooting game or you can raise pets. Or you can, there, there are millions literally of, different kinds of games you can play.
And it is as complicated as that because it's so varied. They, the social environment in a game where people are gardening for fun is gonna be very different than one where people are playing something for doing something violent.
There was shooting, yeah, there was a really notorious example that they took down. But existed for some time.
Was there was a on Roblox? on Roblox? Yes. Okay. So this was something you could go to, And join at least pub publicly for at least a while before they caught it and took it down. But there was a concentration camp simulator.
Kristina Supler: Oh my God. Oh my gosh.
Andrew Fishman: Which is, which is like the worst thing I could possibly think of for people to be going, I to be going and participating in. And this was not meant to be ed educational or anything.
This was just for fun doing some really hateful things. And so the people in that community are gonna be very different than the people in the other ones. And so parents here, I'm going on Roblox, and they think, okay, Roblox is fine. Roblox is a catchall term for a lot of things. Some of which are great and some of which are really not.
And so I think parents should be careful which games they're playing on Roblox to play with them to see what kind of game culture they're experiencing. There's voice chat in the game itself. So if they can turn that on, then anybody can talk to you if you set, if you have that set onto, if you have that, setting set on.
So that's something to be really careful about. And more than anything, I'd recommend that parents try the games themselves and play with a play along with their kids. Just say, Hey, you can playing that a lot. let me, can you show me how to do that?
Susan Stone: That's tonight's dinner conversation.
You know what I do with my, daughter every night? We Wordle. Awesome.
Kristina Supler: I love Wordle. My kids are big Wordlers too, but I'm not.
Susan Stone: Yeah, you're not a Wordler.
Kristina Supler: I'm not a wordler, but my kids like that. I love Wordle. Yeah.
Susan Stone: Yeah. I love world Wordle. And actually it's interesting because I learn things about my daughter every time I play Wordle in terms of strategy. She's far more strategic than I am I this roadblock though.
Listeners out there,
Kristina Supler: good tip for parents. Really play the games with your kids. Know exactly what the games entail. That's, again, really straightforward advice, but excellent advice and.
Susan Stone: Ask questions. Wow. Wow. We packed a lot in 30 minutes. You did.
Kristina Supler: Well, thanks for joining us, Andrew. It was a real, thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, it was a good time chatting with you about these online communities and the gaming world. And I think that you've, demystified some points for us and I think helped us, you know, or hopefully helped our listeners recognize that there's some good in there too. And think about your own child and your circumstances and your family and just know what's going on with the game. So thanks.
Susan Stone: I'm still on Roblox I can't get off of it, but thank you.
Andrew Fishman: So I don't wanna vilify Roblox. There's a lot of good there too. There's a lot of safe communities for kids. But there's just be careful. Talk to your kids. Play the games with your kids. J. Make your own decision as a parent.
Yeah. But thank you so much for having me. Bye-Bye. Thank you.
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In this episode, KJK Student Defense attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler talk with Professor Amna Khalid, an associate professor of history at Carleton College in Minnesota. Topics they discuss include the impact of trigger warnings on education, why teaching history needs to be done in context, and some strategies on handling difficult material in the college environment.
Links:
Professor Amna Khalid: https://www.carleton.edu/directory/amkhalid/
Banished Blog: https://banished.substack.com/
Show Notes:
(02:36) What is the real definition of a Trigger Warning?
(03:45) Do Trigger Warnings really work?
(04:35) How Trigger Warnings compromise learning
(06:26) Why universities need to teach tough topics
(08:09) What professors can do to teach tough topics
(09:49) Do universities have a responsibility for students with mental health issues?
(11:39) What Professor Khalid teaches in her classes
(15:18) Why the “customer approach” to higher education compromises learning
(18:07) How Professor Khalid handles difficult material in her classes
(19:41) Why learning about history is important
(22:09) Cancel Culture: Is there a connection with Trigger Warnings?
(24:21) What are the two biggest threats to higher education?
Transcript:
Susan Stone: Okay, listeners out there, I am gonna give you a trigger warning that we're gonna talk about trigger warnings. So I expect some of you might, send in some comments. We want your comments. But frankly, we're diving in on this sensitive topic, cuz I'll tell you what, recently Cornell University rejected a resolution requiring faculty members to provide trigger warnings about classroom contact that students might find traumatic.
And I'm done with that. I agree. What about you, Kristina?
Kristina Supler: I agree as well. as Susan, we have this conversation a lot. outside of higher ed, like in the real world, life doesn't come with a trigger warning, does it?
Susan Stone: I gotta, I wish it did. I wish it did. We're seeing it and come into play in our practice when we're trying to help students who've been accused of some form of misconduct or have hired us to help i. pursue their claim of misconduct. And we wanna talk to them and work through difficult subjects. Difficult subjects. They're like, you're triggering me. I'm like, dude, I'm your lawyer. I'm not your mommy. We gotta work through the materials.
Where's the grittiness?
Kristina Supler: on that note, let's jump in today we're really pleased to be joined by our guest, Amna Khalid. Who is an associate professor of history at Carleton College in Minnesota.
Having grown up under a series of military dictatorships in Pakistan, Amna has a strong interest in issues relating to censorship and free expression. She speaks regularly on academic freedom, free speech, and campus politics, as well as at professional conferences across the country. Her essays and commentaries on these issues have appeared in various outlets, the Chronicle of Higher Education inside Higher Ed, and she hosts a podcast herself, an accompanying blog called Banished, which explores censorship in the past and present.
Welcome.
Professor Amna Khalid: Thank you for having me.
Susan Stone: Could you start with the definitions of what is a trigger warning? I think it's self-explanatory, but just let's set the terms.
Kristina Supler: For people maybe who don't know and what's all this talk?
Yeah. So give us
Professor Amna Khalid: the basics.
Yeah. It's a good question actually, because even for people who know, I think they get a little bit confused between what is the trigger warning and what is providing context. So a trigger warning is really just basically a label, if you will, saying whatever you're going to see or read next is going to include certain things that might be disturbing. And then it'll enumerate the things. It'll say sexual harassment, sexual violence, racism, et cetera.
And it's the idea behind it in academic circles at least, or on university campuses has been that it prepares students who might be suffering from trauma to, to get ready for the difficult stuff and dive into it. And it's supposed to aid their learning. So that's the kind of, supposed benefit of trigger warnings.
And that differs very much I would say from something like providing context. I teach difficult material. I always give my students a head up, heads up and I'll say, we're going to be dealing with difficult things. And I explain to them why they may be difficult. But it's not this kind of standard trigger warning, suicide, trigger warning, racism, that kind of thing.
Susan Stone: Does the trigger warning work?
Professor Amna Khalid: Well, according to all the research, which there's plenty of now, when they first came onto university campuses, there, there wasn't much research. But according to the research that has been done, what's been found is that A, they don't work. Two in certain cases, actually, they can be, they've been found to be exacerbating the situation so they make things worse.
And from an academic point of view, I think what I would say is what bothers me the most is that it reduces what could be a complex text or material that you put in front of students to just being problematic. And then all you are doing is dealing with or anticipating the problem that's going to emerge.
So it really reduces the learning experience and flattens it out.
Kristina Supler: So really what I'm hearing you say is that trigger warnings, the irony here is it's compromising scholarship. Would you agree?
Professor Amna Khalid: It's certainly compromising learning. Yes. And I think it's not very helpful for students. I think we live in a, in an age of entitlement where people feel, especially young people, and it's not really their fault.
So I don't want this to sound like kids these days. That's not the idea. But we live in an atmosphere where they've been taught that they're entitled to not be offended. And this really does come into conflict with what we are trying to do at college.
College is a very different environment. We're preparing young adults for full adulthood and as citizens of the country. And this kind of Molly coddling unfortunately, gets in the way of what a proper education should be equipping them with.
Susan Stone: Amna, I grew up with, my parents are both first gen Americans, my grandparents, all four were immigrants escaping oppression.
My grandmother suffered a mental breakdown after she learned that all of her family was killed in the Holocaust. Nobody survived. So I grew up with my parents talking about the Holocaust at a very early age. I saw videos of the concentration camps. I think I was six years old when I saw my first Holocaust video, and of course, grew up thinking about Anne Frank, wondering what her life was like in the attic, knowing about me.
How do you and you yourself, grew up in Pakistan and that could not have been easy. How do we teach important history lessons so history doesn't repeat itself? without getting into the nitty gritty. How do you talk about the Holocaust without talking about concentration camps?
Professor Amna Khalid: You've said it.
How can you possibly teach it, and how can it possibly have the kind of effect that it's supposed to have learning about the Holocaust? My colleague and I, we often say if you read about the Holocaust and you're not disturbed, there's something wrong with you. You're a sociopath.
It's meant to disturb you. So the point is that I think all of this is in, particularly when it comes to the study of history and literature, somehow you really can't have the growth that you are looking for without contending with these kinds of difficult things. There's no short circuit to it. And having said that, the other thing I want to say is that I really don't like the way we now have this line.
It's, it's the battle lines are being drawn between faculty and students. As if we're there to harm them. This language of harm is very, very destructive to the college experience, I'd argue. We much like the Hippocratic Oath, we don't, we don't come into our classrooms aiming to harm our students.
We are there for an education and, to give them an education. And the point is that much of the kind of growth that we want to contend with, much of the kind of history that is absolutely essential to know, like you said, there's no way of doing it without actually confronting the difficult things head on.
Susan Stone: How do we talk about abortion? How do we talk about our own history of the Civil War? How do we talk about apartheid? Utah and South Africa. I don't know how you talk about apartheid without getting into some difficult conversations.
Professor Amna Khalid: One of the things I think that needs to be said is that I think like in all professions, I think there are bad professors. So let's just establish that.
I think that there will be professors who don't necessarily do things with the adequate amount of care. However, that is a minority, I would argue, and that doesn't entitle us to change the way we do education entirely. And so for that reason, I'd say yes, you can't talk about apartheid, you can't talk about the partition of India without discussing the gruesome violence and the sexual violence that entailed.
You can't teach about the Holocaust without actually talking about what gas chambers were and what the implications of, that you know, of the Holocaust has been for the rest of history. I. I really, I'm struggling a little bit because truly we can't get away from it. I think we can teach with care and compassion.
I think we can teach and equip our students to, to confront these very difficult things, but we can't take away the fundamental kind of distress that some of this material might cause. And in fact, that distress is what you need. It is our jobs. I tell my students, you should be leaving my class feeling immensely uncomfortable and uncertain.
It's to cultivate that intellectual humility and to cultivate the capacity to deal with difficult things and understand them. that is the aim in a college classroom.
Kristina Supler: Certainly through the Covid Pandemic, there has been a tremendous rise in mental health issues and I don't think there's any dispute that our country and the world is experiencing a mental health crisis.
What can universities and professors do to support students mental health and their wellbeing without compromising academic rigor?
Susan Stone: Or organic discussion?
Professor Amna Khalid: Well, one thing I'd say is I think universities do have a responsibility towards taking care of students who are suffering from mental health issues.
And that happens not so much in the classroom as it happens through counseling services and other kinds of auxiliary services that we provide on campus. Professors are not there to, we're not trained. We're just not trained to be therapists. It's not that we want to be mean or anything. It's just that we do not have the requisite skills.
Having said that, I think professors do have a responsibility. We talk about academic freedom. Academic freedom comes with academic responsibility. And one of our responsibilities is to introduce students to material in a fashion thatthat is in line with our disciplinary, professional ethics.
And those professional ethics require us to, to be mindful that we are dealing with young adults. You wouldn't just spring things on them. How do we help? Having said all of that, I will also say that yes, we are in a time when I think we are facing a mental health crisis and sometimes I see certain students and I just think you are not ready for college yet.
Susan Stone: oh, preach. We talk about that, but on the other hand, tell us about the courses that you teach that can be particularly challenging from an emotional perspective. What is, what classes do you teach?
Kristina Supler: What subject matters are you delving into?
Professor Amna Khalid: Sure. So my expertise is in South Asian history, Indian history, 19th century mainly.
But I teach Indian history and South Asian history across, different periods. I also teach history of medicine, and most recently, in part because I feel students are not fully aware of what free speech means. I've started teaching a course, which is a global history of free expression. I can talk about that more.
But first about the two areas I highlighted earlier.
South Asian history, I teach about colonialism in India. Some of those topics that come up, with regard to colonialism, how, issues of gender, were entailed, in, were part of the ways in which colonial rule worked. When we look at labor issues, those are all very difficult things to think about when we talk about racism in that context, when we talk about violence in that context. One of the places that it gets really tricky for me, is when I teach the partition of India in 1947 into two separate nation states, India and Pakistan.
And that was one of the most bloody moments in world history. There were about 15 million people that were displaced. And I believe it is one of the largest migrations in world his, in the history of the world and very little is known about it in the American context. School context. And one of the things that the partition, one of the kind of key features of it was the very gross and very brutal degree of sexual violence that was enacted.
And most of it was on the bodies of women. Not exclusively, but most of it was on the bodies of women. And there's a whole kind of, rationale behind why that happened.
But as I teach that, we read some very distressing first person accounts of what happened. We read some very, s like secondhand accounts of what happened. And these are not easy to read. These are difficult readings. Sometimes we, when I teach about South Asia, I te teach about the pogroms that have happened in India since partition.
And there's been a lot of communal strife. We watch documentaries, which again have some first person narratives of some of the survivors of this kind of violence. And when I'm sitting there in my classroom watching these, what's interesting is there are times when, and I've seen them several times, you know that they're so disturbing that I too am distressed. And I have tears in my eyes.
But the point is I can't shy away from it and I have to confront it. It is through confronting things that we begin to think about how we can have solutions to them. Or how we can think about history not repeating itself. Similarly when I teach my history of medicine course, we talk about the kind of decimation of native populations in the new world. For instance, when Europeans first came through small pox. And we read some of the accounts of missionaries who were writing about what was going on, and then some of the kind of accounts that talk about manifest destiny and how these people felt that they were entitled to be in this land.
Those are not easy things to read and they shouldn't be easy to read. So that's like giving you a sense of some of the material that I'm delving into in my classrooms, eh, history courses tend not to be places where we talk about very happy things. Occasionally, but the bulk of the material that we're contending with is stuff that we find difficult. Things that we want to not happen again. And we want to dive into the full range of human experience for those,
Susan Stone: But maybe this would be a mid-level approach that I actually could get behind. When you draft your course description and your syllabus I think it should be in the course description that this course is gonna contain highly sensitive material. And that you have to somehow give the consumer, because let's remember, you do teach at a private college. They have the right to take your class or not take your class. And if they choose to take your class, you have the right to deliver your message within academic freedom. Would you agree with that on any level?
Professor Amna Khalid: I. At most levels, but I want to just take a little bit of issue with, I think part of the problem, even though I do teach at a private liberal arts college, I think part of the problem in private colleges and public institutions is the neo liberalization of higher education and the corporatization of higher education, which has resulted in this customer approach and this consumer approach.
So when students begin to take that kind of customer approach, then it comes with the idea of the customer is always right. And this is where we see administrators bending backwards to try and accommodate their needs and what some people say, pandering to students. I don't wanna say pandering to students. But I do want to say like jumping at every kind of little complaint that comes.
So when it comes to the syllabus and putting things in your syllabus, if you are taking a course that is called Plagues of Empire, and on the first day we go through the syllabus, which is what we do, and we talk about the topics that are going to be there, it really shouldn't at college level be any mystery what we're going to be diving into, right?
If we're talking about colonial expansion in the new world, clearly we're talking about disease, we're talking about the decimation of people. This should not come as a surprise. And like I said, it's not I believe strongly. N that we should contextualize what we teach. And a good history teacher does that.
A good literature teacher does that. We go through what exactly is coming up and how, and why I think the rationale of why we've included it is one that helps students figure out why they must contend with something.
Susan Stone: But by the way, can I just challenge you on something though? Sure. I love a challenge.
This is Real Talk. And I'm not great at math. Did you know that Kristina?
Kristina Supler: yes. Yes. I did
Susan Stone: Not My thing. Okay. So when I was in college, if there was a class that required heavy math, I didn't take it. And that I just wanna say I was a consumer. This isn't high school. I had the right to pick my own major and pick my coursework.
Likewise in law school, I knew that there were certain areas of law that I was never gonna practice beyond the foundational year of one l. It was about me crafting an education that would fit the future that I want. Not everybody's interested in history. But they might have a history requirement and maybe they're not interested in Southeast Asia.
Maybe they're interested in the history of chocolate. Now,I just think you do have some rights as a consumer when you're paying that level of money. Challenge.
Professor Amna Khalid: So let me just, break this down. It's, I'm not anti-choice, right? There are, of course, as a college level student, you take whatever course you want to take, including the things that are required.
So to be very clear, my argument is not that you have to take every course and you must be okay, contending with difficult material, right? But when you, but there are certain things which are require requirements. Now, I'll come to the requirements in a minute. On the first day of class, most of my classes, which are electives, I, I say to my students, this is the material and it's not just the material.
I also tell them about my pedagogy. I say, this is how I teach. And that may not be conducive to your learning style. And I appreciate that. And my recommendation to you is, since this is an elective, don't take this course if this doesn't work for you. So it's not that I'm saying everyone must be subjected to my way of teaching in the material that I pick come what may.
I think you do have a degree of choice as a student that you have to contend with. As a professor, you have to contend with the fact that students may or may not take your courses. And that's fine. But once you enroll in a course, you also have to deal with the fact that the care, the syllabus is very carefully put together by professors for a pedagogical reason, for a particular learning outcome.
And just because you are upset by it doesn't mean that you should be A entitled to opt out or too entitled to have an alternative assignment. There's no alternative to teaching the Holocaust. You have to contend with what that is. And I had a student the other day saying, could we just have a reading that made this point without actually going through all of this?
And I was like, no, we just can't. It doesn't exist. And we know we, we don't do that.
Susan Stone: But I'm sure the people who went through the Holocaust wish they had an alternative reality. Right? Well, they just like,
Professor Amna Khalid: Exactly, and that's what I tell my students. I'm saying, if our ancestors, whichever context you're thinking about, or people before us had to live through these things, had to live through colonial oppression, had to live through the Holocaust, had to live through civil war.
The very least we can do is read about it. Because in many ways that act of reading is about bearing witness to history. And we must not forget and we must make their suffering and their experiences relevant for our times today. Because it's so easy to forget. And the biggest trouble, I think we're facing in our times, is that there's great historical illiteracy.
This kind of entitlement is actually, I would argue, born out of historical illiteracy. When people somehow feel that they're entitled to not be upset, it's like you clearly don't know what the world is about, the bigger world beyond you.
And it reminds me of James Baldwin, who has this quote, which is You have your own suffering and you think this is the worst it can be. I'm paraphrasing, I can't, his words are far more eloquent. And then you read. And then you read and you learn that the world has so much more suffering. It's about getting that perspective.
And that's what I think my business as an educator is to give my students that perspective, not just by looking at history. like I said, I worry that we've become historically illiterate. But also by placing our experiences in the wider global context. The US has a kind of exceptionalist narrative that has turned into an isolationist narrative. And I think at our own peril, we suffer.
Kristina Supler: Amna, you used the word perspective and that makes me think, in our own law practice, Susan and I, in recent years, we're doing a lot of work across the country with restorative justice and we've seen such a rise in cancel culture. oh my gosh, you took up
Susan Stone: amazing. Bless Karen. it's
Kristina Supler: really, disturbing what we're seeing in my opinion in terms of a rush to just judgment so often My question. For you Amna, is whether you think there's any correlation, in the rise of the use of trigger warnings on college campuses and the dramatic increase in cancel culture as
Susan Stone: well.
Oh my gosh, Kristina, I was thinking that very same question and that it is, it's like the three monkeys hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
Professor Amna Khalid: So I'll tell you, is there a connection? I think there is a connection. I'll also say I wrote a an article, a kind of longish article with my colleague Jeff Snyder on Cancel Culture, which is on my blog Banished, which is precisely looking atdebunking the myth that there is no cancel culture.
People who challenge that, and I would ag argue it's very real and it's very alive.
Susan Stone: Oh, we know it's real.
Professor Amna Khalid: And I think there is a connection. I think we, this kind of lack of, we've become so unforgiving. And we've become so, like there's no room for mistakes. So I agree. There is this way in which we want to, it's not about justice now. It feels like it's about revenge. It's aboutwanting blood. People are out for blood. Nothing kind of satisfies them.
So I will say that I think there is a gross connection between these things. I think it's of a peace, this particular way of sensitivity and then this entitlement to not be offended to the point that you will not even consider the intent of what you're supposedly offended by and can demonst straight away.
So I have a huge problem with this kind of idea of inte impact and intent being divorced, such that you are so concerned only with the impact that it has on you to the point that you don't even care how someone intended something.
And again, I would say that kind of breeds this kind of naval gazing and this self involvement and that divorces you from the rest of the world.
That divorces you from other people. So it makes it very difficult to build connections if you're so self-involved all the time.
Susan Stone: I just wanna give a plug. Because we could talk to you all day that you put some YouTube videos up with your buddy Jeff Snyder, one on trigger warnings and the difference, and another one on the difference between training and education. And they're amazing. I really enjoyed them. Thank you. And this
Kristina Supler: is, I enjoyed watching them as we got our thoughts in order and prepared for our dialogue with you today. And so I encourage all of our listeners to I love them. Check it out and check out your webpage to see your other materials there.
There's lots of really interesting articles and videos and it was a real pleasure speaking with you today.
Professor Amna Khalid: Thank you so much. And just before I go, can I say one more thing? Of course. Yes. Yes. As someone who is in the space of higher education, and education more generally, I think the biggest threat, I will recognize that there are threats to academic freedom and learning that are coming from within the academy.
So things like trigger warnings that try and curtail what you can and can't say. But I think the biggest threat is coming right now from state legislatures. That are trying to Yes. Ban what you can and can't study. If you ever want to have a conversation about that, I would be happy to come on again and talk about it. Because I think people need to understand why what is happening at the level of, state legislature is so wrong.
Susan Stone: that's a whole other tune. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Yeah. Cause we do wanna talk about, don't say period.
Professor Amna Khalid: Perfect. Yeah, we're on it. Period. period. Okay.
Kristina Supler: Don't say gay. Don't say gay. Gay. again, thank you so much and to our listeners, we hope you enjoyed today and come back for more. We're gonna do another episode with Amna delve into these other big, interesting issues.
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