More Than Anxiety

Ep 129 - Empowering Educators to Combat Burnout with Lisa Parry

• Megan Devito • Episode 129

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In this episode of More than Anxiety, Megan Devito and Lisa Parry discuss insights on overcoming burnout, developing emotional regulation, and the importance of mindset for both educators and students. 

You'll hear about:

• Lisa Perry's experience as an educator 
• Understanding anxiety in teaching roles 
• The importance of mindset shifts for educators 
• The significance of gradual change and small wins 
• Navigating and battling hyper-normalization in education 
• The role of personal connections in emotional regulation 
• Strategies for encouraging meaningful engagement in students 
• Addressing disillusionment and burnout in the teaching profession

To connect with Lisa Parry, visit her website at www.principalparry.com

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Megan Devito:

Hey there, welcome to the More Than Anxiety podcast. I'm Megan Devito and I help ambitious women break out of the anxiety spiral so they can stop overthinking and actually enjoy life. This podcast is all about real talk, simple shifts and light bulb moments that'll change the way you think, feel and show up for yourself and everybody else in your life too. You'll get straight up truth, actionable steps and the inspiration to finally break free from the stress and second guessing. Let's get to it. Hey everybody, welcome to episode 129 of the More Than Anxiety podcast. I'm so excited to be able to talk with Lisa Perry this morning. She is a TED speaker. She has so many great things to talk about with you and I'm going to let her go ahead and introduce herself, because everybody does a better job than I could ever do of introducing themselves. So good morning.

Lisa Parry:

Good morning, Megan. It's good to be with you. Very fitting to be on a podcast with the word anxiety in it, because I'm a K-12 principal who definitely has to keep my own anxiety in check. As you all know, educators, there's a lot to be anxious about, so I don't think it's ever about eliminating the anxiety. It's just learning to live with it and actually learning to use it to your benefit. As I said, I'm a pre-K-12 principal in a district of about 300 students. I'm also the curriculum director and I teach AP language and composition at our school. I work a lot with the DOE to support new teachers and new principals. I also now serve as an adjunct professor for a South Dakota university and I love to speak and I love to show up in people's places and hopefully give them just one thing. I may give them 10 things, but I want them to take one thing, because if we try to do everything, we never do any of it.

Lisa Parry:

So that's a little bit about me, and I'm anxious to see what Megan asked me so that I can share what I know and share what I think.

Megan Devito:

This is actually the perfect day, you guys don't know this listening, but Lisa knows that yesterday I went and talked with our local teachers. It was a school system-wide teacher workday, so I was asked to come in and speak about stress and anxiety and the whole time I was just thinking about this podcast interview. Today I'm like, oh, this is good, like I wish we could have teamed up because I feel like you have so much to share. And it was interesting, you know, like knowing everything I mean coming from the classroom and knowing what these teachers they've got a lot on their plates and there's so much going on with teacher mental health and student mental health and there's a reason that everyone's getting to the point of burnout, right.

Lisa Parry:

And so one of those, I think one of those reasons is that those of us who go into what I call human-centered professions, we are by default the kind of people who want to pour into others, want to see that work, want to feel our own satisfaction and gratitude from others.

Lisa Parry:

And a lot of times in a human touch profession like ours, we don't always see that. We may see the pushback or we may see the apathy, we may see the frustration or the anger. And a lot of us are type A obsessive compulsive people- pleasing perfectionists. Megan's work is so interesting to me because I've lived that way and for a long time, it was detrimental, and now that I'm a school leader I actually think it's beneficial because I've learned to kind of rein in those feelings and use them and I can help teachers, especially new teachers, and principals, especially new principals, kind of switch their mindsets a little bit, because until you think differently, you're never going to act differently and you're never going to message differently. So it all comes back to how I think about things, and the way that I think about things has allowed me to really enjoy K-12 for 31 years.

Megan Devito:

That's amazing, like I love that, and it is such a thing where you look at people and you know that I mean, no one goes, this is so cliche, right, but nobody goes into education for the money. We know what we're getting into ahead of time, right. We go in because we want to make a difference, and one of the things that came up when I was talking with them yesterday was these things will work. These things that I'm teaching you, that you can do to lower your own stress and that you can do with do in your classroom with your students, they will 100% work. The problem is that you can't make anybody do it. I can't make you be mindful. I can't make you change your mindset you know.

Lisa Parry:

And the other thing is we, we think that change or revolutionizing ourselves. It's just we should be able to hear something Megan says, or here's something Lisa says, and all of a sudden show up differently, and it doesn't work like that. I, I do not exercise, I don't believe in exercise, I don't like to sweat, I I'm married to a guy who likes to exercise and he's always hurt, so I, I feel like I'm better off, but I do have an exercise analogy to share. It's like the weight room. Somebody who heard Megan yesterday is going to have to take one of her ideas and, rep after rep after rep after rep to build it, because it's a muscle.

Lisa Parry:

And whenever we think we're going to change a habit, we think we're going to change a mindset, we think we're going to change the way that we talk to people, we are ridiculous to think that that's going to happen today or tomorrow. It takes a long time and I think we'd throw it out the window because we're impatient. I really encourage everybody to read Atomic Habits by James Clear and if you're not a reader, please find the PDF online, because there's a really succinct summary of what Clear has to say. But basically he says in the Adam Small suited matter. You have to change, you know, bit by bit, by, bit by bit, and you've got to remove friction in order to make those changes. So it isn't just about change, it isn't just about adopting a new way of thinking about things, like everything that's beneficial, it takes work.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, it absolutely does, and it's not. I wish I could tell you that. It was like oh yeah, then you just change your mind. But it's not like your mind. Your brain is designed to want to do the same thing over and over again because so far, so good, Right, Like you've survived it so in our brain is looking for danger.

Lisa Parry:

I mean that's you know that that's what we're primed to do, because once upon a time there was danger around every corner, and in some places in the United States, unfortunately, there probably is danger around every corner. I am not in danger here, but yet my mind is always looking for places that I might get trapped, and then, therefore, I'm like always on pins and needles, and that part of our brain that doesn't want to be quiet can really sabotage us, because a lot of times when we think there's danger looming, there isn't. And here's one thing I ask myself all the time, aside from my thoughts, am I okay? And you know what, almost 100% of the time I am. It's just my brain is trying to help me, but it's sabotaging me. Aside from my thoughts, am I okay?

Megan Devito:

Yeah, that's a huge question. Uh, that, actually that also came up where we were talking about some of the more reactive, like the reactive kids. You know, the kids who are no matter what you do, they're just going to, they're going to refuse, they're going to blow up, they're going to do those things. But also those kids who are I don't know the right term for it, I guess but almost like silently reacting, where they're just sitting there thinking about everything that they're terrified of, and kids that are kids are afraid at school. My kid's afraid of school and so I mean and he's talked about that where he's like no, I will absolutely keep my phone under my thigh in case I need to call you, and that breaks my heart. But I think that I think it's easy for maybe teachers and for parents to say you know what? You're really safe there, you really are safe at school. Statistically, you're safe there.

Lisa Parry:

Right, just like an airplane, right. We've seen a couple of recent crashes, and still airline travel is exceedingly more safe than auto travel. But all of these big incidents get a lot of ink, get a lot of minutes, and they should, but they they do tip our bias toward terrible. Things are going to happen there, and, you know, it's something we always have to be ready for, but it isn't something that we have to soak in, and, and I think that that's important, and I think when um kids know that the adults have a plan, and when the adults know they have a plan and they know what the plan is, which takes a lot of communication from admin, then everybody you know that that kind of helps to lower the temperature a little bit, because we don't want we don't want to not know what to do if something terrible goes wrong.

Lisa Parry:

I would say, though, that if something terrible went wrong here today, I'm 100% sure the plan was just about the window, and, and I would do whatever my mind thought would be the right thing to do with these kids, because, really, that's kind of how we operate under stress. I'm probably not going to go to the flip chart, right. Some of those pieces are really embedded in my brain but otherwise I'm going to do what I think is best for kids in that moment really embedded in my brain, but otherwise I'm going to do what I think is best for kids in that moment I hope kids trust that the adults are going to take care of them. Sadly, I'm not sure that that happens in every building. You know, I think that there are things that go on and I think that the adults in the room don't always manage people as well as they should and then, therefore, that gives room for that anxiety to the kids, anxiety to grow.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, yeah, it does. And when the teachers look frazzled, when the teachers are burnout and just over it, the kids know. We talked about that too. Like you, bring your energy to the room, you, when you show up and you had a bad day at home. I'm not asking you to leave your luggage at home, it's impossible. You can't forget that you got into a fight with your spouse or your husband or your spouse or your kids or whatever. But when it comes into the room, the kids read it and they know. Right.

Lisa Parry:

So I think that's true. Go ahead.

Megan Devito:

No, no no, no, continue.

Lisa Parry:

Well, I heard a term the other day. It was hyper normalization, and I'd never heard of this term before. But when you, you know hyper being over and we know what it means to normalize something, and the context was, you know what's going on in the nation and how the divisiveness and all the things that are plaguing us right now, and how you know, we just we get up, we eat breakfast, we go to work, we go home, we eat supper, we go to bed and all of this is like on fire around us and we're just acting like everything's fine.

Lisa Parry:

And I started applying that to school and I think about all the things that we, we just work through, like that's a thing and and I never really had this epiphany before, but it's it's very dangerous to start normalizing things that are not in people's best interest, whether it's the staff member who isn't doing what he or she should, or the student who's acting out in ways he or she should. You know and I think everybody listening can kind of think of their own list in their own school, but I don't know, that's just. That's been something that's been sitting on my brain and I've been thinking about.

Megan Devito:

You trying to think about how to think of it, because I think that it's important. It is that, and that you know that, that normalization that we see. Even I remember talking about this with my oldest son where there was some TV show that he wanted to watch and I didn't want him to watch it as his mom. I'm like I don't want you to see that, and he's like. He's like it's not that big of a deal. I'm like it's only not a big deal because you've seen it so many times and we have gotten to that point where we're like, oh, that stinks, that that happened again, or well this is just what kids do and that's, boy.

Lisa Parry:

That's changing their brains, like literally, literally changing their brains. You know we talked about always looking for danger. I mean those thoughts form like neural pathways in our brain and it's just like a path, like you keep walking the path and pretty soon there's no grass on it and then it's easier to keep going that way going. They're going off on paths that 8, 12, 15-year-olds were not meant to trod. I mean they're just those are not the woods and the forest for them, and yet there they go and and I mean that just is what it is it's no surprise to see a small person with a cell phone on YouTube, and that's unfortunate. We're starting to kind of see the fruits of that now. We're starting to harvest some of the fruits of that now, which is kids who have a very difficult time in social settings, students who have a lot of anxiety, students who have very limited attention spans. You know it's all coming home to roost now, and then you have to ask yourself what's next and what are we going to normalize next?

Megan Devito:

Yeah, and really the only thing they can do when they feel unsafe or they feel bored or they feel confused or they feel frustrated or they feel anxious, is get a quick dopamine hit. So the only thing I can do is I have to be on my phone, I have to have my Chromebook to play a video game, I have to have that dopamine and it's we talked about. I talked a little bit and recommended the book Dopamine Nation. It's horrifying Like I read it. So, with everything that teachers are dealing with, I mean they are, they're they're fighting cell phones, which is so crazy and I realized that they can't solve all of this. I mean, a lot of this has to go back to the parents. It's not their job to parent these kids, but we are. That's another thing that we've normalized. Like well, the parents don't need to do it. We'll just send them to their teacher or their therapist or anything else, and I'll just hang tight here and be the be the good guy, which great, and no, please don't, but what do you think is this, like what is causing the burnout, what is making this teacher shortage that we are experiencing across the country right now such an issue, because it's not Indiana, it's not South Dakota It is everywhere right you know

Lisa Parry:

I read an article, um, I think it was last year and it was, I think was arguing that everything that teachers are experiencing in terms of like the negative negativity in their lives via their work, that there's two categories; One is burnout, which you mentioned, and the other is disillusionment. And I think that disillusionment is an important piece too. I'll get to burnout in a second, but again we come back to people who are so like starry eyed and optimistic and they're going to change the world. And thank goodness they come in like that, because if you came in, you know really cynical, where, where would you end up. So you have to come in so very wide eyed and eager, but disillusionment is okay.

Lisa Parry:

think what I thought this was, and it isn't. Here's what I thought this would be. It's not, and I don't. I don't know what to think about that, I don't know what to do about that and um, and then burnout, I think is just sustained disillusionment. I think that burnout comes to the point where you know well what it is. I mean, it's very clear what it is and you can't take it anymore.

Lisa Parry:

And I think that it's really important for early principals, early teachers, to have conversations, and admin need to set this up, have conversations with somebody who's been in the field and who knows what this is, who can kind of I don't know introduce those you know, introduce and help them come through those situations that they didn't anticipate.

Lisa Parry:

Because you come in and you, you have all these problems that you think are going to happen and you kind of have some ideas of what you're going to do about them, and then all these other things present themselves and you have no tools in your toolbox for that and therefore, you know you become more and more disillusioned because it's less and less what you thought it would be. It's not some utopia. It turns dystopian sometimes and I think that I think that it's prolonged disillusionment. Like I came here to do something important. I came here to add value to the world. I came here to to pour into others, and I can't because the context of this doesn't let me. And then the longer I feel that way, the further I drift from my purpose. Then I think that that's where burnout comes from.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, and that almost I would say almost a resentment for the entire state of education, and whether that's a top-down problem or a bottom-up problem, I don't know, but that idea of it is. I mean, you see, I have my daughter's friend is a first-year teacher and she's so excited I always like I joke and I'm like you are, miss Frizzle, like you are driving the school bus like she is that girl and I'm like hang on to that. Yes, yeah, you can, because inside I'm like oh, sis, yeah like I mean and I'm so excited that we have those people but we see it fall so quickly.

Megan Devito:

So if you can pull teachers in, like if you can set this up, where you pull these teachers or you pull these administrators in and you were going to teach them one thing that would help them be a little more resilient or kind of set them on fire again for education, what would you teach them or coach them on?

Lisa Parry:

One thing before I go into that. But it's those kids and I'll call them kids, even though they're going to teach. She's a kid. Yeah, I've got two kids of my own who are teachers. It's those kids who we've got to worry about the most and it's those kids who are. You know, the thing is like, as principals, we look around and we're like, okay, ooh this person seems to be faltering. So, you know, we kind of go that way. But the person who's still kind of like, oh, I love this, that person is actually more susceptible to disillusionment and burnout than the person who you know, who may be struggling or maybe showing up with like, ok, I'm here to four, I go home, I'm not that invested. But when somebody looks like they've got everything together, like okay, they're okay, over here, we're going to go over here, and meanwhile, that person who's especially susceptible to that idea that I fell short or that I'm not enough, those are the people who need our help.

Lisa Parry:

So there's two things that I like to talk about. One is it is personal. I mean, everything in education is personal and if you teachers and admin, if you did not think it was going to be personal, you did not think. I mean, this is people's, these are children and thankfully most of them belong to people who really love them and want to advocate for them. And of course it's personal. Of course it's personal when a kid gets suspended. Of course it's personal when a kid gets an F. Of course it's personal when a kid gets an. You know, has had too many absences and I have to call the district attorney. But that doesn't mean it's about you. Like, we like to make everything about us. It isn't about you, it is about a system that says when this happens, this happens, and when they're angry about that, it's railing against the system. It doesn't matter who implements the system, it doesn't matter who puts the zero in, because that's what you do when a paper is late X number of days, or that you serve ISS. If you have this infraction, it is not about you. But to that parent, that is scary, it's humbling, it's frustrating, and those are the emotions that are coming out and they really are just reflecting what they're feeling.

Lisa Parry:

I'm a dog mom. I've got two Labradors and they're yeah, they're like fur kids to me. And I heard once and this especially stuck with me and it might stick with your dog people like if you approach the dog, you know like snarling and snotting, and you would be like, well, I'm not getting near that thing, like that thing's psycho, get away from me. And if, upon further inspection, you noticed its foot was caught in a trap, the way you think of it changes. You still aren't going to run up to it and, you know, scratch its ears because it's still dangerous, but you're, you're probably going to find a way to release it, to relieve it, to help it get away from its pain.

Lisa Parry:

And so when I've got people who are just unloading on me, I think to myself, what is the pain point here? What are they scared of? And when you ask yourself what people are scared of instead of what are they mad about, it changes everything about the way you want to deal with them, because I've been scared for my children and now I'm a grandmother and I will be scared. My oldest grandchild will start preschool next year and there's going to be things that bother me and that upset me, and it isn't because of any single person who's in her educational life, it's because I want everything to go well for her, and if it doesn't, that's going to be emotional to me.

Lisa Parry:

The other thing I like to say and this came from our Souix Fall's mayor, Paul Tenik, and he was doing a debate once before his last re-election. He said something about, or one of the opposition said to him well, you've only done this and this. And Paul said, You know, I don't hit a grand slam every time, boy, I wish I did. I do not hit a grand slam every time, and every once in a while I strike out, but I usually hit at least a single, and if you hit enough singles you score runs and I like to tell that to new teachers, and I like to tell that to new principals, because again we're back to people pleasing perfectionists who just want to rack up the wins, they want to rack up the grand slams.

Lisa Parry:

That isn't how it works. You know you can take the best and again, I'm not. I'm not an athlete, I don't, I don't exercise, but you can take the best major league player, and I should have looked up the stats. I used to know them. You know, the best hitter ever did not have hit a grand slam every time he came up to bat. And we have to remember that we need to celebrate the little things and not set these expectations like I'm going to turn this class around. I'm gonna, you know, fill in the blank with whatever ideal you have, and you just have to realize that if that's where you're setting the bar all the time, you're always going to fall short and then disillusionment sets in. So, setting goals at a reasonable level and we veterans, we need to help newbies set goals that are reasonable so that they can check things off. You know that. I got to win, I got to win. I got to win, I got to win.

Lisa Parry:

I used to coach volleyball. You know I got to win, I got to win, I got to win, I got to win. I used to coach volleyball. You know you win a set, you lose a set. There's still a next set, you can still win. You know we won, we lost, heck, we lost, we lost. We can still win if we win the next three. So you're going to lose and you're going to strike out.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, and I think that, like really going back to that idea of what are you focusing on and what are you choosing to think about. So even you know, earlier in this conversation, are we going to focus on everything that we're afraid of? Because when we do, you know when we're focusing on, yeah, but that kid today they blew up and they yelled at me and then their parents called, or whatever it is that happened in the classroom. That's because that makes you feel so emotional and so anxious, and so I mean it makes teachers feel that way. Right, like I messed up. I, you know, I can't figure out what works for this kid, I can't control them, I can't. You know, now the parents are mad at me when we take all of that in instead of looking at what am I scared of?

Megan Devito:

I think that that is so. You know, we're looking, we're focusing on all the things that didn't work, and I think that really is a. It's just stepping stones out the door at that point, like well, it's not working. Nothing I'm doing is working, and I think that you know that idea of this. I mean, back to hyper-normalization. If you're normalizing everything that's not working or focusing on what's not working, like, well, it's pretty normal for me just to not have anything work out, so I guess I should go.

Lisa Parry:

Yeah, exactly, and I and I like to think and this is not my language, I don't know whose it is, but to a certain extent you know things that we can predict, we can prevent. And so, as leaders, if you know, if we've got a teacher who, especially in a certain class period, you know the group is especially boisterous or, you know, apathetic, whatever they are, If I can predict that a teacher is going to have difficulty in that setting, then I can do some things to help her. Because if you can predict it, you can't necessarily prevent it. But you need to go where and be where you predict issues are going to crop up.

Lisa Parry:

I spend every day in the lunchroom, not because I want to. That's a hard environment for me, but I would rather be in there than clean up the literal and metaphorical mess that can get made in there if I'm not. And so you got to choose your heart. You know it's hard to go where the problems are. It's hard to go to that hallway where the problems are. It's hard to go to the recess where the problems are, the bus line, the lunchroom, it's hard to go to those spaces. It's harder to not go.

Lisa Parry:

So if you know where your hot spots are. If you can predict that that's where things are going to fall apart, get yourself there. Be there for that teacher who's going to struggle with their third block. Be there in the lunchroom so that you can make sure that the environment isn't so chaotic that the kindergarten people are, you know, freaking out so much they can't eat their corn dog. Be outside when the fifth graders are out there and they're known to throw ice chunks at each other.

Lisa Parry:

Like, if you can predict it, you should be trying to prevent it. And sometimes, if you can predict it, you can prevent it, but you should be trying to at least, Because there's so many things that pop up that we did not anticipate, and so we really we got to just like roll with those and figure it out as we go. There's a lot of things you don't need to figure out in the moment. There's a lot of things that you should have figured out yesterday or last month or in August, and if you're still figuring that out, then you are not. You're not maintaining an environment that teachers and students can operate well in. You got to go where it's bad.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, that's hard, that's a hard choice, right, like nobody wants to have to. It's exhausting to have to do that, but it's that paying it forward idea Absolutely.

Lisa Parry:

And when you raise your hand and say I want to be principal, I want that title, you are saying I want to go and do the hard things and support the people who do the harder things, which is teaching in a classroom. And if you don't want to do that, then you should not raise your hand and say pick me as principal or lead teacher or coach. All of these things come with added responsibilities and it's strange to me how many people you don't want the benefits of leadership but they don't want the pain. And I mean that's your job. Your job is to maintain a culture where teaching and learning can take place. That's your job. And and that's a big umbrella and a lot of things fall under it, including me being in the lunchroom, but I'm in there because that's what I signed up for.

Megan Devito:

I'm really glad that you brought this up because I think that I had a thought earlier in the week. I kind of expanded on it yesterday when I was talking with this group of teachers and it came off of a, I don't remember if it was a book or what it was that sparked this thought. But in this age where we are, where kids do have cell phones all the time and I mean I joke about this still that I remember I'm old enough to remember when they told us we wouldn't always have a calculator, and we're like, oh yes, we will, so now we just carry one with us everywhere, right, somebody, good plan. But because we're in this age of phones and AI and instant, overwhelming amounts of information, more information than our brains were ever designed to handle, which I think is a huge problem and why we're so anxious we just, I mean straight up, we know too much. Sometimes we don't need to know this stuff, and we have kids who the only way they know to feel better is to grab that phone and to scroll.

Megan Devito:

My thought, my, even my suggestion that I brought up yesterday was you are not having kids that are going to need the same information that we had previously. Right like they don't. They don't, they don't need it. They can Google anything. They don't have any idea what to do with how they feel there and I know we're going to cross over into that whole SES thing right like we don't want to talk about all of that.

Megan Devito:

But if we're talking about emotional regulation and we're talking about things that kids need to be able to do to look someone in the eye when they're talking to them, or to be able to not have to grab their phone every time that they feel anxious or they feel stressed, or even teachers, right, like we're all guilty, how did my phone end up in my hand? How long have I been scrolling on Instagram? I would even venture to say that finding ways to incorporate mindfulness and like managing those feelings and those emotions inside of their body so that they are even capable of learning anything and not having to Google everything, is going to be a huge part of the future of education. I just cannot imagine, like, if you just say, okay, go learn these things, these kids know they're like why would I learn that when I can just put it into chat GPT, right, I think, and maybe this came from our conversation previously.

Lisa Parry:

Actually, I think now more than ever, there's two categories of things that we need to be working on with kids. One is what to do. They know how to get the information. They need to be taught what to do with it. But the other thing they need to be taught is how to do blank. Um, I think the problem is and I see this in myself and my own family is that when you that, when you're on that phone, you're not producing, you're not moving, you're not creating. People who bake bread or bicycle or crochet or are photographers or work on engines or sew clothing, these people, at least anecdotally, are people who are way better off than people who don't know how to do blank, whatever that is. And I can't believe I'm going to tell you this, but I started making my own dog food because I didn't like the little dog food.

Megan Devito:

Me too, and I'm so embarrassed about it.

Lisa Parry:

No, I know we are confessing and that now is something. I'm like this mad scientist with, you know, frozen peas and ground turkey and seeing what I can come up with, and I'm doing something and doing that and failing and succeeding and experimenting and trying to think about it. That process, you know, pulls me out of my head, pulls me out of the world's problems, pulls me out of politics, pulls me out of school and allows me to focus on something else. And what I fear the most and what I see the most is that there are too many people who don't can't fill in the blank I like to blank or I can't blank, that they got nothing. And that's scary because for me, my mental health, if I let my brain just sit and not do something, it's going to catastrophize. That's what I do while I'm making dog food and on the internet and trying to figure out this and that and how do I get a, get a more, whatever. That pulls me out of my head and I think it's really important that we are looking at providing more experiences and skills. It's not.

Lisa Parry:

I used to teach Shakespeare's birth year, shakespeare's death year, what his wife's name was, what his children, that doesn't matter. I teach now how to read, how to read Shakespeare, that is. You know that's a skill, and so you know some schools are better than this and others. But kids need to build school skills so that they can use to be distracted from. See, we're distracted by our phones. We need to be distracted away from our phones, but that takes.

Lisa Parry:

You can't just tell me or a kid to put your phone away and then we're just going to sit there. It just nobody can do that. So what else am I going to do, mom? What should I do, mrs Perry? What should I do? Get into Boy Scouts, go bowling, like? And this is where parents really have to join us too, because we've got these kids for a finite number of hours. But when these kids learn to do something that they like to do, just and we don't even have to talk about SEL, because automatically the doing and the commitment to something, learning something and be excited about it it takes care of a lot of those issues.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, and that movement is so important. I mean just that whole process of moving. I mean I I joke, but every kid should be taught how to crochet, even if they're only going to make a really long string and tear it apart and do it again, it's magic. I mean it's repetitive motion. It's amazing. And are you going to do anything with it? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Even if you could crochet while you listen to your teacher talk. Amazing what it will do for your brain and it's those things. I'll joke right now that when I was little, we had to learn how to square dance in Indiana, which I'm like. What is the point of this? When am I ever going to have to square dance? Never, I love it.

Megan Devito:

It was so dumb, but we had a great time

Lisa Parry:

Here in South Dakota and I'm sure other communities or other states will understand this, but you know, the kids are in 4-H or who grow up on farms or ranches. It isn't. It isn't that they grew up on the farm, because you can grow up on the farm and not do anything on the farm, but kids who show cattle, kids who care for goats, kids who have a crop in, kids who are fixing a tractor, these kids, these kids are busy and they're excited to talk about what they do, and these are just not kids who live on their phone. They got too much to do, they got too much at stake.

Lisa Parry:

And you know, I look at that often because I'm I'm not a farm family, Um, but but I see that in so many kids and a lot of kids who aren't necessarily excited about Shakespeare and triangles, they have so much going for them outside of school, something that just like really jacks them up and gets them excited.

Lisa Parry:

These kids, these kids who could become really, like, despondent in school, they're not, because on the other side of that, they got something that really lights them up, and it's the kids who get their butts kicked in school every hour of every day because we don't we don't accept their currency, right. And they don't accept ours and then go home to nothing to do. Those are the people we need to worry about, the ones who ball, the ones who work, the ones who you know they're making money, working at Walmart or at Subway, whatever. Those people are just so much better off. And so when I look at kids, the ones I worry about are the ones who grind through this day and then go home and, you know, either have to battle the demons at home or sit and stare at the phone. They have to learn to do something.

Megan Devito:

Yeah, there's so much that I mean like I could go on for hours. I really feel like I just need to take a vacation to South Dakota and come hang out with you.

Lisa Parry:

Absolutely, absolutely. Don't come to the East, let's go to the West. It's's pretty out there. I live in farmland, but western here's the commercial pitch for my state. If you have not been to western South Dakota, uh, the Black Hills, the Badlands, mount Rushmore, it is, it's pretty stunning.

Megan Devito:

I really, really need to go there because I have not been to South Dakota.

Lisa Parry:

Yeah, it's stunning, it really really is.

Lisa Parry:

Um, yeah, well, you want to go to?

Megan Devito:

Indiana, it is Southern Indiana or Lake Michigan, and just maybe, yeah, just go to Western Michigan. I like it. Yeah, well, thank you so much. Tell people where they can reach you, tell them a little bit about what you do and how they can connect with you, because you've got so much information and knowledge that this country needs right now.

Lisa Parry:

I appreciate that. Well, yeah, I do a lot of speaking keynote speaking, I do a lot of, you know, breakout sessions, virtual sessions. I am a Principal Matters associate, so if anybody knows Will Parker and Principal Matters, I work with Will and so I am fortunate enough to kind of teach some of his content and work alongside him. I love to speak, I love to present, I love to come in and work with.

Lisa Parry:

One of the favorite things I ever did there was the school who had two teachers who just they needed to work together and they couldn't. And so the principal called me and was like can you just like mediate? And I did, and I, you know, I don't know these two people, I have no idea what the politics are, I don't know anything about them, and so I was able to say things, ask things, think about things, that it was too close for them, and I actually got really good results from that and I like to do that kind of work. I like conflict and I like to unravel it. I do have a website, www. principalparry. com, and you can email me from there. I'm also very active on LinkedIn, so Lisa P-A-R-R-Y, and you can find me. My picture is a little picture of me next to my TEDx sign and yeah, that was a lot of fun and listen to my TEDx. You can find that on my website too.

Megan Devito:

I will link that in the show notes. Make sure that everybody gets to hear that I'll put all of your links up there.

Lisa Parry:

Um, if you start getting mountains of people for that I hope so I'd love to travel to you or we can do a virtual thing. Um, let me know, I'd love to get you on my calendar.

Megan Devito:

It'd be awesome thank you for spending your morning with me. I know it's early out there and you've got kids waiting for you, probably busting in the door any minute.

Lisa Parry:

So I'm seeing them out my window.

Megan Devito:

Yep.

Lisa Parry:

Well, it's good to talk with you. Thank you and thanks to everybody for listening.

Megan Devito:

I appreciate your time. Thank you, we'll talk again soon.

Lisa Parry:

Yeah Bye now

Megan Devito:

. Hey there. Before you go, I just want to say thanks for hanging out with me on More Than Anxiety. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review so the other people can find it too. And if you're ready to quiet your mind, stop overthinking and actually enjoy your life, there are two ways I can help. One, I have a group called Ambitious Overthinkers Anonymous. It's my monthly coaching community where you'll get live coaching, real talk and a super supportive crew who get it. And the second way is through one-on-one coaching. So if you're ready for a deep, personalized support to help you feel calm, confident and in control head over there, you can find both of these places in the show notes. Just click the link and let's talk.