What started out to be just a current topic at the beginning of the show, the discussion of the mass shooting event at the school turned into a more in-depth conversation between two therapists and the effects of mental health that lead to situations like this. They dive into what kids go through, how they can be aware of their peers’ struggles, what the school systems can do or have been doing, and what kind of involvement adults can have with children to help them manage their mental health.
Tune in to see Mass Shooting Events Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- One of the big parts of this conversation is about how tragic events like this affects humans of all walks of life.
- What does this look like when working with kids that are struggling with mental health issues?
- How do the school systems handle children that need to be assessed for possible threats?
- Parent involvement and awareness are crucial in noticing possible red flags.
- There are systems starting to be put in place to help kids say something when they see something with their peers.
- Kasie states that that the common thread that is missing is that a lot of these people are missing an essential connection with an adult (it does not have to be a parent).
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Episode #189 Transcription
Episode189-Fix
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. And welcome to another edition of through a therapist eyes. We’ve met Casey Morgan back. I’ve been missing you. This was your month and it’s been a weird month hasn’t it.
Kasie Morgan: It has been interesting. Yeah. To say the least. So I apologize that I’ve not been able to fulfill my obligations and commitments, but I’m here today and it’s been an
Chris Gazdik: interesting day.
We’re on zoom instead of our normal office conversion to studio. So we have no Facebook live this week. Uh, and, uh, but it’s going to be cool where we are as we do making it work, moving it around. So bear with us, uh, the zoom audio and video should be good. We’ll have it on YouTube, uh, [00:01:00] channel, uh, still have that book out, rediscovering emotions, re understanding emotions and becoming your best self.
Wow. This is going to be an interesting through a therapist, the podcast where you get personal insights directly from the therapists in your own home and in your car, but not to the delivery of therapy services in any way, help us out with five-star reviews, apple, iTunes, writing things. I really appreciate you guys listening and being with us.
We enjoy doing the show. We enjoy having you with us. Typically we do a Facebook live that you can interact with us. We also have contact at, through a therapist, eyes.com. We love checking things out with you because this is Casey, the human emotional experience. And we do endeavor to figure this thing out together.
We had an interesting current event though. Uh, actually before that I told you I’m going to show you how bad of a person I am. [00:02:00] I promise that before we turn the mics on you, you ready? Casey. She was nervous. I made her nervous, happy birthday.
Kasie Morgan: Uh,
Chris Gazdik: you know what? I am the sweetest, but in singing only we have a cake. You can see.
Yes we did. And you’ll see. Oh, it’s it’s it’s not able to be shown. Let me move the plastic here. You can see. It is kind of been, you know, eaten without you. It’s okay.
Happy birthday. You can have some cake tomorrow. My favorite as well, one of them is red velvet. The other is, is, uh, um, uh, what the, uh, cheese not cheesecake, but, uh, carrot cake, like that’s my favorite. So I love that you have the [00:03:00] favorites as a red velvet, DWS sets you up. I was going to have Neil in the office and we were like going to be eating as we talked in the beginning here, celebrating your birthday.
That’s
Kasie Morgan: so kind, thank you so much
Chris Gazdik: or welcome. Happy birthday. Thank you. So from that, we go to a current event. Thatss just been nerve wracking to so many people in our nation. And I think that we needed a comment about it, discuss it. We have actually an advantage or an interesting component of Casey that I was really excited to talk to you about because you were embedded in the schools.
We have, I would say extensive experience in working directly with students in the schools as this horrible and tragic event in, I can’t pronounce it correctly, please don’t hold me to it, uh, Oop day.[00:04:00]
But is it you’re just yet over in Texas? Uh, it’s, it’s interesting. You know, because I really kind of practiced what I preached and I have not been watching the news. And so I want to start out this current event by really kind of helping people learn. How do we deal with cable news networks in our lives?
H, how do we deal with social media and tracking things as they happen? I’m going to really demonstrate the fact that I really don’t know a whole lot of detail of what’s going on because I’ve made the purposeful decision to not tune in and stay tuned in for an exorbitant amount of time. As little details begin to come out.
I saw when it happened, I checked it again a time or two. I know that I was going to have it as a current event because we needed to talk about it. But I tell you, we need to learn about [00:05:00] how cable news networks in their 24 hour coverage, just create anxiety and distress. And I’m not saying tune out and don’t know what’s going on.
I know what happened. Uh, and I’m, and I’m just disturbed by 19 students. And two adults having been senselessly, just killed. Um, I know a little bit about the shooter. I understand the conversations that people are having about gun control. Some of the officials that have come out and, and, and talked on, you know, the talking points, but I’ve really kind of purposely tuned out.
And I want to invite people to understand the balancing act in current events like this, between know what’s going on, participate in the solutions, but you can’t be tripping yourself out with anxiety and distress and you, you still have to live. There is a, there’s a balance [00:06:00] to be had. Does that make sense, Casey?
Kasie Morgan: Yeah, that makes complete sense because I think what, what we also have to balance too is, is how the media is infiltrating our lives because it’s so directed and it’s so sensationalized in a way that it actually takes away. In my opinion, from. What actually happens in the human emotional experience to kind of relate back to the show when a tragedy strikes, you know, like w we’re not looking at this from the perspective of, this is now a community, a state, a world that has been impacted by this event, instead of we’ve politicized it, or we’ve made it about factors that in all honesty, if I’m that parent, if I’m the grandparent, if I’m a community member, I don’t care what your politics are right now.
Like this is a situation where the human condition has to come together to, to really [00:07:00] wrap their arms around these families, these like the, the school and the students, and how do we even finish out a year with this pending. And so I just think that. You know, the media in a lot of ways blows this up and really takes it to a place to where we start to miss the mark on what is the human condition and what we need to do to take care of each other.
Chris Gazdik: And what’s interesting is that really even think that’s intentional, uh, some might differ with me. I think it’s a function of how humanity deals with news now. And I think honestly, our first experience of that, and then I want to get to you being embedded in schools and some, some experience that you have with that.
But I think that humanity first really, really experienced this with nine 11 in that 2001. So we’ve, we’ve only had, I mean, if you think of all of humanity’s [00:08:00] experience, News and how news is done. It used to be just print news. You heard something a month later, right. You know, cause Paul Revere was riding through the, the, the city’s trying to get, you know, immediate knowledge of something you didn’t have the way humanity has touched tones now.
And we all experienced at least in the states. And I think really around the world moment to moment to moment to moment my entire day, we all remember it very clear was really not doing any work and just watching a TV. Uh, and, and that can be a major impact to our mental health. And my big point here is that humanity is needing to learn it, how to consume this information and how we interact with each other on this information and how we take care of ourselves and each other.
It’s a, it’s an important lesson that, uh, we are struggling with dramatically and on the Eve of an event [00:09:00] like this. I think it demonstrates that there’s a lot of terror out there dropping your kid off of school in Utah, you know? And that’s because it, it, it does invade our emotional experience. It’s a big deal.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah, it really is. And I think that it doesn’t just stop like in that immediate environment, you know? And because when we look at this, even from a global perspective and people see, you know, what’s going on in the United States, when we look at the stats, when we look at things that matter, you know, and we look at ourselves in comparison to other countries and other countries look at themselves in comparison to us, you know, what we see.
Just alarm any like disparages in these events that happen here and not in other places. And that’s not to make a political statement, that’s literally just facts. And so I think when we’re thinking through that, it, it has an impact even [00:10:00] globally on people to figure out like, you know, what is going on and is it safe to come here?
Is it not safe to come here? Uh, and then on a micro level, on your own home battling with, you know, uh, my, my students, my kids are having to, you know, participate in these lockdown drills, soft lockdown, hard lockdown. I was even doing supervision vision with one of my supervisees, uh, three days ago. And they had a soft lockdown at their school because someone was walking around, outside, and then your neighboring community with, with potentially with a weapon.
So, I mean, it’s, it, it just transcends, I think all things, when we think about. Having an impact on a micro and a macro level. And it’s just something that is senseless it’s terror field. It is a tragedy, it is a trauma, and it can have a cumulative effect on the brain and the emotional system of the body moving forward.
So I think if you’re feeling feelings, if you’re having [00:11:00] residual thoughts and feelings about the events that have transpired or really anything around those events, please know that vicarious trauma is a real thing. Secondary trauma is a real thing. Compassion, fatigue is a real thing. So if you’re experiencing any symptoms that feel like you are not okay in this moment based on things that have occurred in our country and around our country, please know one that you are not alone.
And two, if you need to get help, reach out for sure.
Chris Gazdik: Good, good points. Uh, really valuable points. And I, it wouldn’t. Uh, a good transition to our show topic today because our show topic today is going to be human beings are so cool in the pain that we bear. That’s the title that I have, and we’re going to take a different track with that, about what I even mean by the pain and all, but what I think I want to camp out here just a, just a little bit more, because it’s interesting, uh, in, in some of the things that you talked about as I [00:12:00] was, as you were talking, I did a quick Google search and I think the perceptions get really skewed by a myopic view of what is going on.
So around the world, this is a real experience and it’s also not new in, you know, mass events. Uh, I liked it when Craig and I have talked about this in shows a couple of year or two ago, where we had lists of mass events that go way back. I mean, this is human behavior. At its ugliest, but it’s not new as much as people think that it is.
It’s also not specific to the United States. I heard you just say that Casey and I popped a Google search and I got this cool article, Neil. I probably ought to, uh, give you the link or something. So you can have it on our notes. It’s from world population review, and they’ve got a map mass shootings by country, 2022, and [00:13:00] you know, Finland, France, there, there are a lot of representations here, Canada, of, of these types of events that have happened down the way it has an average mean.
So an annual death rate per million people from mass public shootings, right? Us, Canada, and Europe. And this is from 2009 to 2015. Uh, the United States seems like we rank 11th. Actually. Norway is first. With a 1.88, eight second is Serbia 0.381. France is third 0.3, four seven, Macedonia Albania, Slovakia, Switzerland of all places surprised me comes in at seventh at 0.142.
This is the annual death rate per million people. And then you have Finland Belgium, Czech Republic, and then the [00:14:00] United States at 0.089 all by Austria, the Netherlands Canada 0.032. My point here is looking at this map and this data. This is a world wide experience that is full of terror and trauma. And, you know, the Swiss had the emotional experience just as much as those in England and Germany.
And oh, by the way, Russia comes in at number 17 at 0.012. So. It, this is a worldwide human, emotional experience that we’re dealing with. So I really want to touch a little bit on Casey, your experience in the schools and working with kids. This is tough to predict. This is one of the devils of it. There’s we’ve talked about it before on Craig, w w we’ll maybe hit this for a few minutes and then I want to get to our topic, but it’s really, really, really difficult in a mental health screening to have a [00:15:00] predictive component on who will and who will not act in a violent way.
That’s a statement I’m going to make. Does that sound like that is fair? It’s a fair statement.
Kasie Morgan: I think that’s absolutely fair. I mean, there are, uh, marks like settings and things like that. And we can look at, uh, the withdrawal trends of a student, things like that. I think that people automatic. Yeah. As soon that sometimes the boldest, the loudest or the quietest and the most withdrawn are the people who are making up these populations, but it’s not exactly the case.
There are a lot of different characteristics that really don’t cross section very often. Um, so I think the point here that I would like to make is that if you go looking for a trend, you’re more than likely going to be able to find one, but it doesn’t mean that correlation and causation are the same thing.
So just because several people who have participated [00:16:00] in mass shootings or school shootings have intersecting traits doesn’t mean that if you have this. You’re going to be more likely to participate in a mass shooting. Uh, the truth of the matter is, is that people who have like, even mental health-related conditions are far more likely to be victims of any type of crime than to commit any type of crime.
And so I think that people automatically assume that these are troubled people, people with like seedy past, or like might have this explosive internet history, or they’re constantly focused on the death of others or have had some type of sexual trauma or something like that. But the truth of the matter is, is that with the accessibility and the ongoing and pervasive environment of the state of our world.
Now, what I see is a lot of. Fear, a lot of terror, a lot of bullying, a lot of systemic things that are [00:17:00] allowed to continue for periods of time that infiltrates school settings on. And that there really isn’t a lot of adequate information assessments and tools to screen out students or adults or whoever maybe coming into the school building to determine whether or not they are going to end up becoming a mass shooter.
Um, the other thing that I think is just the stigma around kids who look as if they could be mass shooters. And it really bothers me to no end when I hear other adults in the building come to describe students to me by saying, you know, I really think that, you know, like they might just wear a trench coat in here one day and shoot up the whole school.
And I’m like, yeah, let’s not say that
Chris Gazdik: I do
Kasie Morgan: because one. That’s never been your reality or you wouldn’t have said it like that. And
Chris Gazdik: we had that said to you in schools that you’ve been embedded in,
Kasie Morgan: um, probably 30 times probably [00:18:00] no less than 30 times. Yeah. That went on the referral. It like they would actually put potential school shooter or a referral to me.
Yeah. That’s terrible. It’s, it’s horrible. It’s horrible. Because first and foremost, these are kids, you know, these are kids and, uh, I think that’s the first thing. The second thing is how stigmatizing is that, that if you notice someone in your classroom that has a quirky behavior or withdrawn, or maybe they are wearing clothing that you wouldn’t necessarily pick out for your own children, or they have an alternative lifestyle that you’re not accustomed to, that you would mark them as someone that potentially could commit some kind of heinous acts such as a school shooting.
Um, the truth is the percentage of people that would ever be capable of willingly taking the life of another person outside the context of being employed by the military to do so and being commanded by, [00:19:00] you know, like the authority of the wall, to be able to carry that out. Isn’t in a school, the number of people who are actually able to look at another human being and take a life.
It’s a very small percentage of people. And so to have 30, sorry.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, I’m in a debate in my brain right now. Um, Neil, you might chime in with us as well to see what we want to do. I’m I’m, I’m, I’m thinking really, very much about just pulling an audible and saying, Hey, let’s, let’s really just talk about this tonight.
Cause it’s, it’s, it’s on our minds, it’s in our hearts. I know that our show is going to be coming out in another week and a half later, but. Debating doing our topic. Human beings are so cool. And the pain that we bear and then revisiting this as a current event next week, but I’m thinking we have probably a lot to just rap about here.
Uh, what, what do you guys think?
Kasie Morgan: Yeah, I think, I mean, this topic [00:20:00] seems very timely and pertinent to me and I, and I think we could go on all day and I think there’s some market fit points that as clinicians we could even map, like we could even make here, you know,
Chris Gazdik: that new
Neil Robinson: you’re the boss. Yeah. I think, I think it’s, I was trying to figure out how you could transition cause you, in case you are a little bit inaugural hitting some key points and I feel like there was a lot to add to.
So I’m glad that you decided to get into this topic even further. We’ll update the notes and, uh, yeah, I’d love to hear your guys’ take on this from the kids’ perspective, the families that have dealing with the administration, your experience with all that. So yeah. I’m looking forward to see where you guys go with this one and, and hearing your, your professional, uh,
Chris Gazdik: take on it.
Yeah. I, that stay here. Yeah. Let’s, let’s stay here because it’s just too raw, you know, it’s just too raw. And I think that, you know, we can do a service for people to really think about these things because you made the point earlier, Casey, right? Yeah. I mean, people are feeling [00:21:00] fear. They’re feeling traumatized and secondary trauma.
You didn’t really describe that, but I’ll take that and run with it for a moment because if you get into a space, when you, when you watch what you’re watching, you know, it’s funny, we worry about little kiddos watching violent movies. You know, games and, and, and we ourselves as adults more so here this more so than I would say, kids I’ll make that bold statement, get inducted as a word right into the terror and the fear and make decisions and an act out on that.
Kids really don’t do that quite as much as I think adults do. For what reasons? Kind of curious to hear what you would say, but which, by the way, the whole video game and the fear of kids like that is not an indicator at all of, of what’s going on with when, when we look at violent acts, um, what, what is say.
Kasie Morgan: No, I, I don’t, I, I don’t think that there is enough strong. There’s not a [00:22:00] strong enough correlation between those two things. Now I do think that obsessions with violence can start at an early age if exposed too early to things like grand theft auto, and you’re like six, you know, but what I have seen, and this is not the show, but could probably be another show.
Is that more often than not kids that display what I would refer to as reactive behavior, which means emulating or mimicking, what they’ve seen in video games are far more likely to, uh, have reactive behavior towards sexualized behaviors, as opposed to violent behaviors. Now, sometimes that can lead to sexually violent behavior, which again is a whole other show, but very rarely do I see the emulation of any type of.
Random acts of violence or like an obsession with like weapons and things like that. Um, emulated play with things like Fortnite or other like, um, games that might have, you know, first person, shooter games, things like that. [00:23:00] Um, I see it as pretty normative children, like behaviors, same thing as if we played like cops and robbers or something of that nature.
Um, I’m not seeing a lot of overt, violent acts of children, um, emulating what they see in video
Chris Gazdik: games at all. Uh, and we’ve had that backed up by a Paul Weedman who was on our show. That’s a number, that’s a name that just coming at me by memory from a while ago, can’t even quote them. Not going to worry about looking it up, but we’ve had professionals that specialize in that.
And we’ve talked about that now, but what I’m saying and suggesting, and is a concern here with these types of realities are the school officials or police officers themselves in the way that we try to, you know, act preventatively, destructively, which is violent acts and things. I’ve had clients that get caught into disciplinary expulsion, very hardcore reactions, to really [00:24:00] simple things.
And I find that I have to write letters or help school officials. You know, I had one school official really freak out when I simply use the word homicidal ideation, they were just like, whoa, let’s they way backwards into like, oh, this freaks me out. And I have to, you see, we get inducted into fear.
When we get inducted into reactionary practices and make real hard decisions. My fear is very unnecessarily. Kind of like you just said, when people have literally written on an assessment referral, potential school shooter, get, get, get screened, go see Casey. Like what happens in our minds is like, wow.
Kasie Morgan: Wow. Yeah. I mean, and I think it’s the most dangerous game to play that because the truth is, is that we want to take every threat seriously. Right? Like we don’t want to discount any potential threat that that is for sure. [00:25:00] Um, I think what we miss though, is that we look at the. Just who are the most boisterous about it, who maybe have, you know, written stuff on the bathroom wall, written stuff on the mirror, things like that.
And, and those are like real. And you know, those are, we have to, we have to investigate that. But what we often overlook are kids that are, uh, missing several days of school in a row are going through hard emotional times that are not being picked up by teachers because we’re overworked over consumed with compassion, fatigue, or experiencing a lot of burnout ourselves as the adults in the building.
That we pay attention to those who have the biggest and loudest behavior and the ones that are kind of flying under the radar get missed. And that’s not anything against teachers. I was a teacher for six years. It’s just that when, when we’re not noticing the [00:26:00] nuances, the things that are outside of the norm, that’s when they kind of lose focus on what might be clear and present.
What we also see is this like,
Chris Gazdik: right. Go ahead. So you were, you were a teacher for six years prior to becoming a clinician and then worked as an embedded clinician in the schools. That’s what you’re, I’m learning this now.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. Oh yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So that was a, uh, behavioral disorders teacher for six years or what used to be called beat behavioral and emotional disorders.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, it’d be the, yeah, we have our, an acronyms don’t we? So let’s, let’s talk for a minute. Casey, about threat assessments. Sure. Threat assessments are done in schools now generally pretty readily. And that’s where I think we’ve made hopefully some of the improvements. So while being embedded into these schools, you’ve gotten these threat assessments done, generally speaking in the school systems around at least our state.
I’d be really curious around the world, [00:27:00] but who, who is involved in these threat assessments? Because it used to be a principal, a safety officer, and maybe an assistant principal that would be going to people’s homes. I’ve I’ve had, uh, I know of these events and there was not a mental health professional involved in that.
Can we say that we’ve made improvement in that so that that’s no longer the case anymore? Or is that still danger.
Kasie Morgan: Uh, I definitely think that I definitely think that that’s still a danger, that there’s not a mental health clinician. That’s often involved in those things. What I will say has improved is that here now recently, especially in like rural community, these, we are seeing more and more opportunities for clinicians to be embedded into schools, or at least having access to an immediate clinician to come to the school, um, is, is a potential for the majority of schools in rural areas, um, [00:28:00] urban areas, uh, inner city areas.
They have usually their own processes for those things. But as of right now, even just in the state of North Carolina, I know that out of a hundred counties, that there are many, probably 30, 40, 50 counties that do not have a mental health professional accessible to some of the schools, uh, in their school system, uh, in the county.
Is that the agency that. For serv, we had one-to-one at the schools and if not, one-to-one, it was one to two in the systems that we serve. And we were making ourselves available to run, um, to the areas that were, that had the most need, because that is a pertinent issue. That will be,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, that’s just really tough because you know, one of the things that we have developing, I heard in one of my briefer encounters, listening to radio program about this, the expectations that we have on teachers [00:29:00] to, to engage this issue, like, dang, they’re talking about doing more drills and having more responsibilities placed on teachers because they have their kids and they’re with that adult.
And I think that the spirit is well, what do you do when the alarm goes off? And people don’t know, you know, how trauma is. Yep. Yep. You get chaotic. You’d, you’d lose your frontal cortex thinking, you know, you’re tripping and, and, and in some of those things would be helpful, but man, it’s almost like we’re expecting teachers to be clinicians or assistant principals to be clinicians.
Like, guess what? They’re not, they’re really, really not. And I have a concern about being in a, in a clinician role and not, I mean, dang, I mean, what an awesome responsibility, because you don’t have any training about.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah, but what I will say is in giving consultation to school [00:30:00] systems across our state, again, I can always speak for North Carolina because this is the only state that I’ve trained in, but also working with several, um, Sheriff’s departments, uh, school resource officers doing CIT training or critical incident training.
Um, what I will say is there has been a development of policy and procedure where a lot of school systems will now default, but if they do not have an immediate clinician to do that threat assessment with the student and parent, then they will say that they will release the student to the custody of the parent.
And the parent will have to then obtain an independent evaluation before the student can return to school. So usually a lot of school systems are now requiring that you do interface with a clinician
Chris Gazdik: for the return to school. See, that’s huge. Yeah. I’m glad to hear that. That is a, that is a fantastic development.
That that hits this, straighten the head, because I tell, well, I shouldn’t use that statement, I guess, straight, straight to the [00:31:00] heart. Right. Big. Because you know, maybe that’s not better. I’m trying, yeah. Digging a hole, but really, because we’re looking at answers, like people are like, what can we do? I’m sorry, we’re not going to do a lot of predictive development here.
You know, forensic psychologists in the FBI and CIA will tell you, we, we talked to some of them, we have them around there. There’s not a lot of that, but there’s things that we can do. And that is something that the top of the list, I would say that is a very positive change that you will have clinicians involved in these kinds of assessments when you see risk and alarm, because I believe mental health is right in the forefront of this stuff.
I’ll make that bold statement. There’s just no doubt in my mind. You can talk about gun control. You can talk about issues of policy, you know, there’s, you know, financial and payment for clinicians or mental health in the schools or what, [00:32:00] you know, what disciplinary procedures with expulsions and all that kind of stuff.
But mental health is right in the middle of this. So that is a very, very positive change that is happening. I N G I would submit because that’s really new, that’s pretty new. And that’s a golden suggestion. That’s right. On the top, you have a concern about a kid and you don’t have access to, you know, an immediate embedded professional that’s in mental health.
Then you go and attain that in your area. And we can do that. We can accommodate that as a system, got insurance, got sliding fee scales, we’ve got Medicaid and go to all kinds of agencies. And even in rural settings that you can just have an interaction. And honestly, that can be a huge, huge. Um, a component that prevents events trouble is.
You just won’t hear about it. [00:33:00] You won’t hear about it.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. I think the, the, the other point here that I think becomes this concerning too, is the lack of awareness on the part of, and this is me too, of on the part of parents. And this is why I say that you would not believe the number of students that I have interfaced with that have been on social media platforms, primarily Snapchat, um, where you can post things anonymously, you can post things and it disappears in five seconds.
Uh, you know, if someone’s downloaded or screenshot at it, because it tells you that there’s been a screenshot or a download or a say to a chat, and there’s additional apps that link to that app. Um, but the number of students. Uh, interface with that, you know, something has happened at like eight o’clock at night on Snapchat.
And I won’t see the students again until eight o’clock the next morning. And then a student comes in and tells me that, you know, Billy has posted, you [00:34:00] know, four pictures of guns and pills and things like that on his snap story. And mom and dad are literally just sitting downstairs. And so it’s a whole thing where there’s just a lack of awareness too.
And it’s not necessarily to say that parents aren’t doing their job. It’s just that we have to continually stay a step ahead or figure out how do we interface with the applications on kids’ phones that we have access to see, you know, like what’s going on with them while balancing that with giving them privacy and confidentiality.
And that is an ongoing thing that I do see and face as both a clinician and a parent. To know, or to be in the know as to what my child actually does have access to. And what are they telling other people that they may not be telling me because they can be having dinner with me and literally be upstairs, you know, showing off their knife collection that I don’t even know that they have and then [00:35:00] taking them to school the next day.
Go ahead.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, it, it it’s, and as I’m listening to you here, how about this? Right? Like we get so fearful of technology. Uh, it is possible. I think as humanity sort of wraps our arms around some of these issues, that technology can be a huge aid in identification of concern. I mean, we don’t think about things that way, but we probably need to begin shifting our thoughts around because guess what technology ain’t going nowhere.
You know, Elon Musk might buy it, but it’s not going to be terminated. And so can we begin thinking about how best to interact with that? Because also by the way, I’m going to school and I still have a life outside of school that you [00:36:00] can’t, you know, like, uh, hold me accountable for things that I, it’s not like I’m texting in English class, these things, or snap chatting in English class, you know, we may, but not at eight o’clock at night.
I see your facial expression. Right. You know, so, so it’s, it’s such a part of our interaction. Like my question is really more of a, of an alarm to shift our minds, to think about how can these technology pieces and apps and whatnot become an aid rather than demonized as just a complete. Destructive force.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. Well, I think one thing is that, you know, the vast majority of kids that I have worked with in all honesty, um, if they see something, they typically will say something, they are tired of, you know, people like one of the leading causes of death for latency, age, teenagers as suicide, you know? And so they’re, they’re tired of [00:37:00] seeing, seeing and hearing about people in our community dying.
And so they really are taking an initiative today with teenagers today to report the things that they do know. Um, so I think that that is helpful. So I think that that teenagers really are leading the charge on this and using that technology and using the information that they have and the skills that they have to help prevent the unnecessary and untimely deaths of their friends.
But I do want to give nod to the latency age teenagers that I’ve worked with, because I think that they’re very committed to helping each other and really kind of understanding this as a collective experience. I think I can back
Chris Gazdik: you up on that. I mean, I see, you know, yeah, you’re right. Probably the teenagers, not so much younger kids just because they don’t know, but middle schoolers or any other teenagers, you know, they’re definitely see something, say something that needs to be like a national or global slogan.
It is. We did that. Yeah, we did that. Well, terrorism, [00:38:00] we did that with terrorism, but I don’t know that we’ve done that with mental health as much. Right. That’s a shift.
Kasie Morgan: So I think one thing that I really love that I’ve seen in a trend in schools lately, that I think is something that needs to be encouraged everywhere is I have seen, um, anonymous tip lines and anonymous reporting through texting, or even like tweeting anonymously.
Um, To give in anonymous accounts on like a school system’s website or a school systems, Facebook page, Twitter feed, or Instagram, where you can literally tweet in check on this student. And like I’m concerned about this student and they will go like a clinician, a school official, whoever will take that alert and go and find that
Chris Gazdik: person.
Here’s the, here’s the immediate concern that pops into my sarcastic head though, this, and I feel like, I feel like this is a cool conversation because it’s [00:39:00] parsing out the realities that we see and, and, and the, the idiosyncrasies that humanity is going to have to learn in how to kind of manage these situations, because you’ve also got, you know, a little Sally and, and, and, and Jimmy being in, you know, dating and they break up and, you know, Jimmy’s gonna shoot out a, a, an anonymous tip about Sally who is mean to him and getting her in trouble.
So the point here is like, right, see something, say something, oh, you know it first, there’s going to be a lot of paranoia as this is not a normal event. And it’s going to be like, whoa, we got a possible mass shooting here in Gastonia, North Carolina, you know, instead of where I feel like we would get to is okay, we have something that we need to look at.
Let’s not overreact, but let’s get some eyeballs and minds on this to check things out really, really, really, without [00:40:00] the mental health stigmas crashing down or being punitive on people. So it’s, you know, how has that system potentially manipulated? How are the stigmas a part of the process? And again, can we have clinicians involved in those tip lines and those tips so that see something, say something comes more normalized.
You see.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah, no, I do see what you’re saying, but I think first and foremost, I would rather check out every bogus tip and actually find the one out of the 100. That actually is a real tip. Um, then miss it first and foremost. But I think the other part of that is that I think that it helps keep a lot of things accountable in line.
If we, as a United front say, we are going to check on you, you know? And so like with the bogus reporting, if there, you know, it’s almost like filing a false police report, like, Hey, you reported this. Like what’s going [00:41:00] on. I mean, it’s anonymous, but I mean, you know, like what’s going on here. We can get to the bottom of some of the.
You know, smaller issues, but the truth of the matter is, is that I really believe, um, in teenagers today, I think that the ones that you’re talking about are more of the outliers now, and that people who are reporting these things really are doing it out of generalized concern. And
Chris Gazdik: guess what, you know, when, when you, when we imagine this kind of a system or this kind of process, it involves technology.
Yeah. We very well may prevent the one out of a million events that would end up in shootings or stabbings and, and, and mass murders. But when we kind of get a tip of just a concern for a kid, guess what, where else we’re also guess what we’re also going to be screening out and getting early intervention on.
How about that 13 year old [00:42:00] substance abuse? Right. How about those sexually acting out molestation events that you never would’ve known about right now? How about the simple, just depression and anxiety that the kid never knew or here here’s one for the educational system. How about significant learning disabilities that can, can begin to be assessed?
And of course suicide you like, right? Like when we’re, when we’re interacting and touching, when doing these assessments, those things also. So this, this doesn’t, you know, address, you know, two birds with one stone, it addresses like 10 birds, right?
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. You know, earlier on when I was talking about looking at correlation and causation and how we’re really quick as a cohesive country to say, oh, this kid had autism or this kid had a mental health problem, or this kid did [00:43:00] this or this mass shooter did this.
And, and we’re trying to connect dots because we want to make sense out of senseless acts and we really can’t because in all honesty, the human condition is not to murder out of anything other than self preservation. You know, like when we look over time, people who have actually committed murder or have killed another person, it typically, typically is for self-preservation these senseless, random acts of violence.
One are not always random, which is what we know, but two are senseless, which means we can’t make sense of it. So trying to do that is really hard, but what I can tell you as a betting person, and this is going to be a bold statement, this is not scientifically factual, but what I want to say right now is a bold statement as a clinician, especially when it comes to working with teenagers, which I’ve done my whole entire career and working with a latency age, adolescents, and knowing their [00:44:00] traumas.
What I will tell you is that one thing I bet I could a hundred per cent pinpoint to all of these cases is the lack of an essential connection with at least one significant adult in these kids’ lives. And that is what I would say is the bold statement that the majority of these students who commit these senseless acts do not have an essential connection, meaningful, an essential connection with an active adult in their life who either a, does not need or demand something from them that it’s not transactional.
That it’s actually an essential connection with an adult who unconditionally cares about that kid. And I can tell you with almost a hundred percent certainty, that that is probably true. And each of those people’s lives.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I’ve seen that. I, I think I get back you up in that in a sense. You know, and that’s not just mommy and daddy, that that is a important [00:45:00] figure.
That creates a, an ability to reason through the pain that you’re in, you know, to tune in next week, because we are going to talk about that human beings are so quote unquote, cool in the pain that we bear, that’s what we’re going to be doing next week. The way that we try to present ourselves, the way that we try to, you know, we deal with vanity.
So there’s going to be some cool things that we talk about with that, because we really do try to, you know, shield ourselves from being exposed with the hurt that we have. But when you have that essential connection that you speak of, you know, you have an outlet, you have a validator, you’ve got a thinker, a rational thinker.
And when you’re a kid, particularly a teenager, you literally don’t even have the brain. Processing to do that. Uh, I can’t imagine life without that. Can you imagine the fear that you would have the right? I [00:46:00] mean, gosh, the whole world just looks like a scary place that’s against me and now I’ve been bullied or I’ve been hurt, harmed or struggling with, with school.
I’m struggling with different things that are going on in my life and I’m like, wow, I don’t have any backup. I don’t have any, any support. So yeah, we need somebody waved her. We’ve we’ve got a, we’ve got an inner, this is the world we live in with zoom,
Kasie Morgan: right? Yeah. Sorry about that. But yeah, but it is the world that we live in.
And I think that me as adults, if, if you’re an adult listening to this podcast, You know, and I know that this is kind of a cliche statement, but when it comes to kids, when it comes to your adult children, when it comes to other kids, you know, in the community, uh, and I’ve heard this used time and time again, but be the [00:47:00] adult that you needed when you were growing up in your interface and with kids be the adult that you needed, because we all know those adults in our lives that did have an impact on us.
The ones that we needed more from the ones we probably could have did with less from, but the truth is, is that as someone who has made it this far in your life, I guarantee you part of that resiliency, part of that reason is because you had an essential connection to a centralized figure in your life.
No matter what their relation was to. There was someone in your life where it was not a transactional relationship, meaning you didn’t have to give something to get something, but that you ate. You were able to have an essential connection with a meaningful adult that had an impact on your life. And that is part of the reason why you are where you are today and how you are, where you are today.
Chris Gazdik: You know, it just occurs to me, Casey, you know, we’re talking about this [00:48:00] and, and wrestling a little bit with it. I’m curious how you would see it working with these kids in the schools, because you know what, I don’t hear a whole lot and please I’m a teacher supporter. I really, uh, they’re overwhelmed and overrun and the pandemic has made it exponentially triple digit times worse, but you know what?
I don’t think I hear as much. Our kids that are saying, wow, you know, that teacher, I had this influence from this teacher this year, at this class. I, I, that’s almost like gone cause I can cite two or three of them that I really had. And I wonder if we’ve just inundated the system’s full of all this stuff and you know, we’re, we’re kind of limiting and minimizing just that human touch and human relation.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. I mean, I, I definitely think that that’s probably true. And I think that for good reason, because [00:49:00] like everything, human beings, we kind of screw things up for ourselves a lot, you know, but I do think that there have to be a lot of safeguards in place now because you know, just like with every profession, there are professionals out there that do not act accordingly and being a professional.
And so I think it does. Teachers and myself included nervous when you’re in a helping profession like that. And you are with impressionable lives that you have to maintain like a level of boundaries that is really succinct this day and age, because if not, there’s a lot of legalistic things that can happen and, and a lot of things that go on.
So I think that’s part of it, but I also think the way the rigorous coursework that’s set up right now in our school system, particular with teenagers is it really is a lot of teaching and testing right now because that’s the nature of the way things are operating. And so that time for like relational activity is very [00:50:00] limited because you have all of this material that you have to cover and all of these things and all of these objectives and all of these standards and all of these differentiations and all of these individual plans and, and all in all in all.
And so it’s really difficult to find the time. To sit down and have those one-on-ones with kids and talking through like, you know, how are you, like what’s going on in your life, that kind of thing. And so we’re consistently dependent on other service providers to come in to help us out with that. So I think as human beings in that setting, we’ve had to step away a lot from that relational kind of interaction because of all the technical stuff that has to get done.
Um, and that’s sad and it’s disheartening, but it’s also, again, like you said, the nature of the world that we live in, but I’m very, very comforted in the fact that the schools that I have been in at least have recognized this and have implemented a lot of strategies to help out with that. For example, the high school that I used to work at does a community meeting and it was a small enough high school where [00:51:00] like once a week, every week they would meet altogether in the gym and do some type of like.
Psychoeducational or a social emotional kind of component to that, or talk about vaping or like, you know, things like that. Like a community type of
Chris Gazdik: setting. It’s gotta be fun.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. I was, I was a part of that and of course I used the whole gym for as a map, but, um, anyway, um, but then also like breakout coaching groups.
I love that. So now a lot of the schools that I see working with teenagers, they have these enrichment periods or coaching groups and yeah, they’ll address some academic stuff, but that’s where they’re really developing like these coachable moments with kids. And, and I think that that is vital to be able to do that.
So I do think that there are efforts being made. The efforts are being recognized. That that is one of the biggest needs is that social, emotional component on. But I think we’ve got to do better at understanding that sometimes when kids get to school, they need an [00:52:00] opportunity and a space to just be, and just to talk through like what last
Chris Gazdik: night was.
Mr. Rogers was so ahead of his time, you know, neon, let it turn to use a gather your thoughts that, you know, kind of, what are you hearing and as just your perspective, I want to, I want to pull you in, in a moment, but yeah, I, I said that because, you know, we grew up with Mr. Rogers and he talked a lot about, you know, what do you do with your feelings of hurt?
And what do you do with your, you know, your feelings and, you know, the neighborhood Chi that, that really allowed people to just be a kid and, and, and allow their emotional experience to be, to surface. I, I am fearful. We’ll talk about next time. You know, we, you know, we’ve, we bear the pain that we’re in and don’t show it, you know, and, and it’s, it’s almost, you know, like you’re going to be punished if you show it and makes it even more fear, fear provoking it.
You know what I love about our conversation in Neo. I’ll be curious to see your thoughts in, in having just listened. Like we have solutions, [00:53:00] Casey, I feel like we we’re talking about. This is, this has been a solution focused conversation. I feel like rather than a fear-based conversation or a punitive based conversation or a defensive conversation, which isn’t what we get a lot in the world when these events are happening, you know, Neil, what are you hearing, sir?
What are you, what are you, what do you get in your mind listening to us banter and drone on about this?
Neil Robinson: I, I mean, honestly, I, I think Casey kind of hit on the head when it talks about the central parent or that central contact with SRE, sorry, with an adult, you know, that’s, that’s a huge part that I think every kid needs, uh, because it, when you, when kids talk to other kids is through a very filtered lens, it’s a very filtered mindset of, you know, oh my God, my parents just did this to me.
Like, oh, that’s horrible. That’s so unfair. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. [00:54:00] An adult can come on with their experience, you know, as coming from a teenager, they kind of experienced it and then they can help them digest it and process it. It’s not, it’s not a matter of the adult being there saying, you need to do it this way, are you sure?
But just being able to help them think about it. You, you brought it up, Chris, about that cognitive, the cognitive, whatever of the, of a teen. They just don’t understand those processes. And so just having that as an adult, whether it’s a teacher, you know, I’m thinking about my kid is, Hey, Mason loves his band teacher.
You know, he’s going to be there for four years is probably the most influential teacher he’s going to have because it is four years. He’s going to spend more time with his teacher during high school than he is with us, just because of marching band, all this other stuff. And I think they’re still there and I think.
Good. I th I think teachers do play a bigger part in kids’ lives than they tell us. That’s one of those things, like as a senior speech or 10 years after they’re like, [00:55:00] oh, I remember this, this teacher. Yeah. You’re an adult. You think about those teachers, you remember, but as when you were in high school, because you really think about, oh, this is my favorite teacher and he really helped me become the person.
I am usually it’s 2, 3, 4 years down the road. And I think so.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. That’s a good thought. That’s, that’s, that’s hopefulness. I think, you know, I mean, I, of course I’m a weird thinker when I was that age, I was very aware of that. And one of them was my band instructor, you know, and I think people have ROTC, you know, uh, connections and people have their, uh, boy coaching coaches, right?
Like your athletic coaching, cheerleading moms, you know, there’s there’s interactions and people around, you know, I, I guess that I have a lot of hopelessness about getting through the pandemic and having those things kind of reignite because I think they’ve really been lacking. Just something terrible over through the pandemic.
Yeah. I
Neil Robinson: think part of the struggle because of the pandemic is as the fact that parents lost the crutch of having [00:56:00] teachers. And so because parents still had to work, parents still had responsibilities to do kids. Weren’t actually at the school with those adults, it was a hard shift for an entire household.
And so I think that’s part of the struggle because during those, these last two years, a lot of the kids probably didn’t have that a central contact with an adult because they were no longer going to school and really getting involved with their teachers. And so that’s where a lot of that stuff kind of starts dropping.
You know, a lot of those, you know, you see the anxiety, depression, those statistics are going up because they don’t have that. So it was going back to Casey’s statement when you lose that, when you have that, that teacher that can help you and process and see those types of things, you lose, that your parents are going into work.
You know, they’re not there for you really during the day stress.
Chris Gazdik: What was that? Do we have an event, Casey? I don’t know
Kasie Morgan: that wasn’t me
Chris Gazdik: was that you
Neil Robinson: deal? That was me. There was a tornado warning in the area. Oh,
Kasie Morgan: wow. [00:57:00]
Neil Robinson: I love just to turn Chris. He lives
Chris Gazdik: right next to her in that
I know. All right. If this, if this program abruptly ends, please pray for your, through a therapist size, uh, you know, people, uh, I, I liked that though. We can interject a little bit of humor into this, this whole deal and be like, you know, look, I mean, I guess we’ll start taxing in for a landing guys because they’re, this is, this is a very terrifying event.
It’s, it’s horrible to think about kids dying and we. That’s why like our conversation that invokes a little bit of hope and in volts, some ideas, and some things that as, as a people, as a humanity, we’re wrapping our arms around to kind of have some things be addressed. I, I, I don’t get into the doom and gloom and maybe that’s because I haven’t been watching a lot of the news, right.[00:58:00]
I, um, I’m coming at this fresh and objective and not in a state of terror about it. And hopefully in the next weeks and months, as we continue to develop, you know, good agencies like you came from Casey can continue, you know, really good work to make progress with some of these, some of these ideas.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah.
I definitely agree. I think that, you know, there, we have to start coming towards, in my opinion, more of a middle ground, a top to tackle these harder and deeper emotional issues that come along with losing people and senseless and violent. Um, w we really have to look at dropping some of our own weapons of polarized politics to be able to come together and say our children are hurting, you know, and whether it’s mental health, whether it’s abused, like whatever the case may be, these are not [00:59:00] happening in isolated ways where we can’t make sense of where some of this comes from.
But I think what we’re looking at are things that are in putting value on things that aren’t nearly as important as those root cause issues. And I think that’s where we have to start locating like, um, uh, Desmond Tutu said, uh, instead of pulling people out of the river, we have to go and look at where they’re getting in the river and figure out.
And that to me is quintessentially my point in all of this. Like, we can’t just look at the problem after it’s happened and say, oh, this is what it needs to happen. Whether it’s guns or this or training, or t-shirt like, we have to look at the people who committed these acts and back up to how did they get into this river?
Yeah. Not just pull them out, like how did they get there? And [01:00:00] then start from there. You know, this is an alignment of years of systemic. Like whether it’s a freshman abuse, mental health, substance abuse, uh, bullying, things like that, like what is going on. And once we get a pulse on that, I think then we’ll start to see some real change.
And
Chris Gazdik: honestly, I think that goes back again a lot further than just the last 50 years. This is part of what, you know, we’re more sophisticated now. We never really knew how to even have the conversation and 1828. Yeah. You know, we really didn’t. And so I have a lot of hope that we have a lot more knowledge as, uh, as, as a group of human beings about emotions and neuro-transmitters about, you know, different disorders and processes that go on, you know, and, and we never even had that before.
So I, you know, I know that the, the dramatic, massive events are increasing in some ways, [01:01:00] uh, but so is our knowledge and our knowledge base. And so I’m, I’m hopeful and thoughtful about, as you just said, pulling together, not out of fear, not out of punitive, not out of stigma, not out of, you know, racial, but just out of an understanding and, and a connectedness from a human spirit.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So let’s wrap this up. I think, uh, closing thoughts or comments. I mean, mine will be, you know, it’s funny. I had a conversation with my brother, not too long, you know, these things happen and everyone’s like, oh, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers. It’s like, well, yeah.
You know, thoughts and prayers to people. I mean, my heart goes out to people that are experiencing trauma in their lives. Losing a child is just on horrible event. You know, the, the pain that we have, I wish we can make it better instantly. We [01:02:00] can’t, but I think we can be together so that people aren’t feeling alone.
And that’s, that’s part of what we try to do with the show. We’re blowing up stereotypes and myths, disseminating information so that we can really be in alignment just on a humanistic in a humanistic way.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. I, I definitely agree with that, you know, and. He did a show on, well, not, I think we did. I did a show with you about toxic positivity.
And I just want to say, like, this is not the time for, you know, blasting people’s feeds with like, you know, all this toxicity of like a positive future and things like that. People are really hurting and people are suffering due to these events. And I just want to say that, you know, I cannot begin to imagine the immense and the, and the gravity of the feelings that are happening, um, across the community with the families and, and [01:03:00] beyond.
And so my hope for the future is that this never would happen again. Um, I think that that’s a, that’s probably a fallacy and something that, you know, uh, probably will continue for decades and decades beyond. And it doesn’t take away from what happened this week. But I do think that right now, the best thing to do is just tell the people that you love, that you love them.
Um, because you don’t know what the future is and you don’t have control over that. But what you can have control over is what you do with what you’ve learned and moving forward from there. And so my hope would be that tonight you learned something about yourself, you’ve learned something about, you know, what to do for kids you may have in your life or the adult children of your life.
And, uh, even if it means reaching out to the person that had an impact on you and letting them know, Hey, listen, you are, you know, you are that person. [01:04:00] Yeah. And you’re important. Um, because every person at their central core is a person, no matter what they do. And so you are important, your life matters what you do with your life matters.
And I think that’s where I would drop the mic for.
Chris Gazdik: You know, I’ll, I’ll say one more thing that I say at the top of the show, it’s very meaningful to me that, you know, this is the human emotional experience, and I promise you that we will continue the endeavor together to figure this out. That’s what, that’s what we’re about here.
What are your friends going to say next week? We’re going to talk about human beings are so cool in the pain that we bear. It will be a nice follow-up to our conversation. I’m I’m glad we stuck here. I’m glad we
Kasie Morgan: take care of yourself and take care of each other guys.[01:05:00]