Shows / The MentalSpace School Podcast
The MentalSpace School Podcast
K-12 mental health for educators, school counselors, and families. New episodes three times a day from licensed therapists at MentalSpace School — teletherapy, onsite clinicians, live classes, and HB-268 compliance support for K-12 districts nationwide.
Episodes
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhat is the "3 3 3 rule" for children with anxiety? — Full Episode
What is the "3 3 3 rule" for children with anxiety? The 3-3-3 rule is a simple grounding technique. When a child feels anxiety rising, they look around and…
The MentalSpace School PodcastHow to punish a child with conduct disorder? — Full Episode
How to punish a child with conduct disorder? Tired parents and teachers ask us this all the time, and the honest answer surprises people: punishment alone…
The MentalSpace School PodcastAt what age can a child remember trauma? — Full Episode
At what age can a child remember trauma? Most children start forming lasting memories they can describe around ages 3 to 4. But trauma can affect a child much…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhat are some common signs of ADHD in children? — Full Episode
What are some common signs of ADHD in children? The most common signs fall into two clusters: trouble sustaining attention, and hyperactive or impulsive…
The MentalSpace School PodcastHow to manage ADHD in a 3 year old? — Full Episode
How to manage ADHD in a 3 year old? With routines, clear directions, and support for the adults, long before anyone reaches for a label. The guidelines…
The MentalSpace School PodcastHow to help a teen with severe depression? — Full Episode
How to help a teen with severe depression? Start by taking it seriously and getting a licensed clinician involved quickly. Severe depression is not something a…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhen a Teen Becomes the Parent: Sibling Care and School
Educators and parents: some of the most responsible kids in your building are also the most tired. Students who help raise younger siblings often don't think…
The MentalSpace School PodcastDiabetes, Asthma, Epilepsy and Worry: Helping Anxious Students
A student with epilepsy can be fully prepared to manage a seizure and still spend every class worrying about having one in front of classmates. That worry is…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhen the First Progress Report Hits: Grade Anxiety at Home and School
Progress reports went home this week. If things got tense at the kitchen table, you're not alone. Parents, a few ways to make the conversation useful instead…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhat Changes When a Therapist Team Knows Your Building
What does a school mental health partnership actually change day to day? Fair question, and it deserves a concrete answer rather than a brochure. Here's the…
The MentalSpace School PodcastThe Student Who Won't Talk: Culture, Stigma, and Silence in Therapy
There's a word that gets used too easily in school mental health: resistant. A student comes to sessions, answers in three words, doesn't open up. Somewhere…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhen a Parent Says No to School Counseling: What to Do Next
To the parent who got a call from the school this week and felt your stomach drop: That call is usually not what you think it is. When a counselor reaches out…
The MentalSpace School PodcastCan I Tell You Something? The First Five Minutes After a Disclosure
Most student disclosures don't happen in the counselor's office. They happen to whichever adult the kid decided was safe — the third-period teacher, the coach…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhen a Student Comes Back After a Death
A student loses a parent in September. Week one, the building does everything right — a card, a quiet room, a check-in from the counselor. By week three…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhen the Therapist Gets It: Fit, Trust & Follow-Through
There is a note that shows up in student files everywhere: family declined services. Sometimes that is exactly what happened. Often it is shorthand for…
The MentalSpace School PodcastThe First Call Home: Why Caregivers Hesitate
When a parent says no to counseling for their child, they are almost never saying no to counseling. They are saying one of these, and they usually do not say…
The MentalSpace School Podcast10:40 AM: What Happens After a Student Discloses
A crisis plan you have never rehearsed is not a plan. It is a document. Here is the honest test for any school building. A student discloses something serious…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhy Families Say No: The Cost Conversation Nobody Has
Parents, let's take the awkward part first: what does this actually cost? When a school counselor suggests counseling for your child, that suggestion usually…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWho Holds the Helpers? Secondary Trauma in Schools
A question for principals: who is holding your holders? In most buildings there is one adult students gravitate to in a crisis. It is rarely the person on the…
The MentalSpace School PodcastThe 6:45 AM Stomachache: School Refusal in Real Time
Educators, you already know this student. He is not defiant. He is not skipping. He is the one in the nurse's office at 8:15 with a stomachache that is…
The MentalSpace School PodcastNobody Asks the Principal
To the principals and assistant principals still in the building tonight: You absorbed a bus incident, a crying first-year teacher, a hard family call, and a…
The MentalSpace School PodcastIt Starts at 11pm, Lands in 3rd Period
A question we get from assistant principals more than any other: what do we do when it happened online, at night, off campus? The honest answer is that the…
The MentalSpace School PodcastThe 72 Hours After Fall Break
Fall break re-entry has a rhythm to it, and most buildings feel it on day three rather than day one. After a week off, sleep schedules slip, peer groups…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhy Coaches Move the Needle for Athletes
Two-a-days are underway. Something else started at the same time, and nobody's charting it. Fall sports stack a lot onto one teenager: a body that's constantly…
The MentalSpace School PodcastResilience Is Not the Absence of Need
How many students in your building are on their sixth school? Near a Georgia installation, the number is usually higher than staff expect. Military-connected…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhy Foster Students Test New Adults
Some students walk in this month having changed schools three times in two years. The roster gives you a name and nothing else, and often that's intentional. A…
The MentalSpace School PodcastThe Kid Who Says They Don't Care
Some students spend the entire ride to school rehearsing how to say hello. Then they walk in and say nothing. Friendship anxiety and social re-entry are one of…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhy 'Too Much Phone' Never Works
Every August, the same conversation happens in thousands of Georgia homes: "You're on that phone too much." It rarely works, and here's why. Summer screen…
The MentalSpace School PodcastThe New Kid: It's Lunch That Scares Them
The new student in your building already knows the academic part is survivable. It's lunch that scares them. Belonging isn't a feeling schools have to wait…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhen Sleep Debt Looks Like ADHD
A tired teenager and a teenager with ADHD can look nearly identical from the front of a classroom. Inattention. Irritability. Forgetfulness. Falling behind on…
The MentalSpace School PodcastThe 20 Minutes That Set the Whole Day
The hardest twenty minutes of a family's day happen before 8am. Shoes that can't be found. A stomachache that only appears on school days. A child who was fine…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhy 9th Grade Predicts Graduation
Ninth grade is the year most likely to knock a student off track — and often the year districts watch the least. The research here is unusually consistent: how…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
When Sleep Debt Looks Like ADHD
A tired teenager and a teenager with ADHD can look nearly identical from the front of a classroom. Inattention. Irritability. Forgetfulness. Falling behind on…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
The 20 Minutes That Set the Whole Day
The hardest twenty minutes of a family's day happen before 8am. Shoes that can't be found. A stomachache that only appears on school days. A child who was fine…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
Why 9th Grade Predicts Graduation
Ninth grade is the year most likely to knock a student off track — and often the year districts watch the least. The research here is unusually consistent: how…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhat Breaks in a Real School Crisis
The worst time to write a crisis plan is during a crisis. Every Georgia district has some version of one. The real question is whether it holds up at 2:15 on a…
The MentalSpace School PodcastThe 6th Grade Confidence Drop
Sixth grade is one of the biggest jumps a child ever makes. One teacher becomes seven. One classroom becomes a schedule, a locker, and a hallway full of…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhy October Is When Schools Feel It
The first 30 days set the tone for the whole school year. For a lot of students, going back isn't excitement — it's a stomachache on the bus, tears at…
The MentalSpace School PodcastTeacher Burnout: Why Wellness Days Fail
Before the students arrive, a word about the adults. Your teachers are walking into this year already carrying last year. Many of them spent it de-escalating…
The MentalSpace School PodcastWhy School Crisis Plans Fail in Practice
Question for Georgia school leaders: if a student in crisis walked into your building tomorrow morning, how many hours would it take to get them in front of a…
The MentalSpace School PodcastSchool Refusal: When Avoidance Takes Over
Georgia classrooms open in a matter of days — and for a lot of students, the anxiety started weeks ago. Back-to-school anxiety rarely announces itself. It…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
Teacher Burnout: Why Wellness Days Fail
Before the students arrive, a word about the adults. Your teachers are walking into this year already carrying last year. Many of them spent it de-escalating…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
Why School Crisis Plans Fail in Practice
Question for Georgia school leaders: if a student in crisis walked into your building tomorrow morning, how many hours would it take to get them in front of a…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
School Refusal: When Avoidance Takes Over
Georgia classrooms open in a matter of days — and for a lot of students, the anxiety started weeks ago. Back-to-school anxiety rarely announces itself. It…
The MentalSpace School PodcastIf your teen has seemed newly irritable,...
If your teen has seemed newly irritable, anxious, or down, it's easy to chalk it up to moodiness — or to leap straight to fears about addiction. But there's a…
The MentalSpace School PodcastIf your child suddenly won't eat certain...
If your child suddenly won't eat certain foods, keeps asking "what if I get sick?", or begs to stay home from school, it's easy to chalk it up to pickiness or…
The MentalSpace School Podcast"Kids are resilient — they'll bounce back...
"Kids are resilient — they'll bounce back from a move." It's true that children adapt, but a big transition can hit harder than we expect. When a family…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
If your teen has seemed newly irritable,...
If your teen has seemed newly irritable, anxious, or down, it's easy to chalk it up to moodiness — or to leap straight to fears about addiction. But there's a…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
If your child suddenly won't eat certain...
If your child suddenly won't eat certain foods, keeps asking "what if I get sick?", or begs to stay home from school, it's easy to chalk it up to pickiness or…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
"Kids are resilient — they'll bounce back...
"Kids are resilient — they'll bounce back from a move." It's true that children adapt, but a big transition can hit harder than we expect. When a family…
The MentalSpace School PodcastTo the family quietly worried tonight —...
To the family quietly worried tonight — this one's for you. 💛 When a child has Tourette's, often with co-occurring OCD, it can feel isolating. But those tics…
The MentalSpace School PodcastLet's bust a myth: "Teens changing...
Let's bust a myth: "Teens changing themselves to fit in is just a phase." Sometimes it is. But adolescent identity and peer-pressure stress can genuinely…
The MentalSpace School PodcastHeadaches that app
Parents and educators: when a child has frequent headaches but the doctor finds nothing physically wrong, stress may be doing the talking. Psychophysiological…
The MentalSpace School PodcastIf mealtimes with your young child have...
If mealtimes with your young child have become a daily struggle, more than the usual 'I don't like that,' it may be worth understanding Pediatric Feeding…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
If mealtimes with your young child have...
If mealtimes with your young child have become a daily struggle, more than the usual 'I don't like that,' it may be worth understanding Pediatric Feeding…
The MentalSpace School PodcastIf your child comes undone at the sight...
If your child comes undone at the sight of a needle, a dentist's chair, or even the doctor's waiting room, crying, shaking, or flat-out refusing to go, please…
The MentalSpace School PodcastHere is a myth that piles shame onto kids...
Here is a myth that piles shame onto kids who are already struggling: "A child who keeps picking at their skin is just fidgety and needs to be told to stop."…
The MentalSpace School PodcastThis is one of the most important things...
This is one of the most important things we will ever post, please read it and save it. If a teen you love is talking about wanting to die, feeling like a…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
If your child comes undone at the sight...
If your child comes undone at the sight of a needle, a dentist's chair, or even the doctor's waiting room, crying, shaking, or flat-out refusing to go, please…
- The MentalSpace School Podcast
Here is a myth that piles shame onto kids...
Here is a myth that piles shame onto kids who are already struggling: "A child who keeps picking at their skin is just fidgety and needs to be told to stop."…