Creating Neurodiversity Affirming Schools with Emily Kircher-Morris and Amanda Morin

Emily Kircher-Morris: When we talk about neurodiversity affirming, neurodiverse describes spaces, all types of brains, all neuro types, and there’s overlap. In the general education classroom, there are neurodivergent students who don’t have a label because they don’t need an individualized education program. What works for neurodivergent kids is going to be good for most kids, and having those options, tools, and strategies available is good for not only the kids but also the teachers.

Amanda Morin: I think inherently what we’re trying to do in neurodiversity affirming environments is to normalize all the things, right? All kinds of minds in classrooms. So, to some degree, what it does is it really equalizes that component of things and says, you know, everybody has reasons that they need different ways of learning. If we build those into the spaces in which they’re learning, we are not only combating the idea that certain kids need different things, but we’re also combating the idea that there are certain reasons people need those things.

Tim Villegas: Hi friends, I’m Tim Villegas. This is Think Inclusive, and what you just heard was a clip from our guests this week, Emily Kircher-Morris and Amanda Morin, authors of the book Neurodiversity Affirming Schools. Amanda Morin is a neurodivergent neurodiversity activist, an award-winning author, early childhood and behavioral specialist, certified teacher, and nationally known speaker, deeply committed to fostering accessible and inclusive environments for neurodivergent individuals. She works with print and digital media, educational professionals, and parents, empowering them to affirm the pivotal roles they play in building knowledge about mental health, neurodiversity, and disability.

Emily Kircher-Morris, LPC, is the host of the Neurodiversity Podcast, which explores the psychological, educational, and social needs for enriching the lives of neurodivergent people. She’s the author of several books for parents and educators related to the development of children and teens who are neurodivergent and cognitively gifted. She started her career in education and now works as a mental health counselor in private practice outside of St. Louis, Missouri, specializing in supporting neurodivergent twice-exceptional and gifted people of all ages.

We’re thrilled to have you here, whether you are listening to or watching Think Inclusive, MCIE’s podcast that brings you conversations with people doing the work of inclusion in the real world. In this episode of the Think Inclusive Podcast, Emily, Amanda, and I discuss their book Neurodiversity Affirming Schools. The conversation explores their origin story, how they met through social media, and how their complementary backgrounds in twice-exceptional education and special education advocacy led them to co-author the book. Our discussion covers various aspects of neurodiversity in schools, emphasizing the importance of identity-first language, reducing ableism, and collaboration among educators. We also reflect on behavior management strategies, co-regulation, the need for mental health awareness, and the importance of small, impactful changes in educational practices.

Before we get into my conversation with Amanda and Emily, I want to tell you about our sponsor for this season, IXL. IXL is a fantastic all-in-one platform designed for K-12 education. It helps boost student achievement, empowers teachers, and tracks progress seamlessly. Imagine having a tool that simplifies what usually requires dozens of different resources. Well, that’s IXL. As students practice, IXL adapts to their individual needs, ensuring they are both supported and challenged. Plus, each learner receives a personalized learning plan to effectively address any knowledge gaps. Interested in learning more? Visit IXL.com/inclusive. That’s IXL.com/inclusive.

All right, after a short break, we’ll jump into my conversation with Amanda Morin and Emily Kircher-Morris. Catch you on the other side.

Tim Villegas: Emily Kircher-Morris and Amanda Morin, welcome to the Think Inclusive Podcast.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Thank you so much. Thank you for having us.

Tim Villegas: I’ve been so looking forward to this conversation. Amanda, you and I go way, way back. I don’t even know how long at this point. A decade, at least.

Amanda Morin: A decade, yeah.

Tim Villegas: And Emily and I met for the first time in person at the CEC conference in San Antonio in 2024.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Amazing.

Tim Villegas: Just briefly, I hung out outside of your session to stalk you, and you were like, “Who is this person? Why is he talking to me?”

Emily Kircher-Morris: That is not true. That is not how that happened. But no, it was lovely. And coming up here, that was almost a year ago because it’s coming up here in a few weeks.

Tim Villegas: It’s coming up here. Will you be at CEC?

Emily Kircher-Morris: Both of us will be presenting.

Tim Villegas: I’ll be there.

Amanda Morin: Yay.

Tim Villegas: Yes, and Carolyn Telan, our CEO, will be there. So we’ll need to carve out some time.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Perfect.

Tim Villegas: Excellent. All right. I know that this probably won’t come out, so we’re going to be celebrating after the fact. We’ve already seen each other, and it was wonderful. But anyway, we’ve established how I know each of you individually, but I’d love to know, how do you all know each other? And then you can lead right into the origin story of why we’re here today, which is your book. And I’m going to hold it up really quick because it’s video and I like to do that. It is Neurodiversity Affirming Schools, which is a fantastic book, and thank you for sending this to me. So, tell me, how do you know each other, and how did this relationship factor into this book?

Amanda Morin: So we met through social media, like just sort of very similar to everybody, right? We met through social media. We work in peripheral spaces. Emily can tell you more about what she does, but she was working primarily in the twice-exceptionality gifted education space. At that time, I was still working at understood.org, so I was working in the learning disabilities, ADHD, special education space. We met through those professional learning communities that developed on social media, realized we had a lot in common, a lot of ideas in common, a lot of personal life things in common. We’re both raising neurodivergent kids, our husbands are sort of a version of the same person in some strange way, and just realized we had a lot of things that we could continue to talk about outside of social media.

The interesting thing is we continued those conversations. I was a guest on Emily’s podcast, the Neurodiversity Podcast, more than a few times. We continued those conversations through email, chat, and phone calls. We literally didn’t meet in person until we actually started writing this book. We were halfway through the book and hadn’t met in person.

Emily Kircher-Morris: And what we did when we met was we went and locked ourselves in an Airbnb for an extended writing retreat because we just needed to focus. You know how it is, being in person is a little bit of a different experience. But yeah, it was a risk, right?

Amanda Morin: You know, we didn’t know what our in-person chemistry would be like to sit down and write a book together. However, we did know that our ideas were complementary enough that Emily was the one who was like, “There’s a book here.” Emily, do you want to talk a little bit about how you…?

Emily Kircher-Morris: Yeah, sure. I had this idea through my podcast, the Neurodiversity Podcast, and my background in education. We focus a lot on educational practices, and I just knew there was nothing out there that really focused on neurodivergent kids and how to support them. But I also knew it wasn’t something I could take on alone. I thought Amanda was the perfect fit because of our past experiences coming together. I’m also a mental health counselor, so I bring that perspective as well.

I think we were both in airports, different airports, and I called you. I was like, “Can we talk?” I threw it out there, and you had a million things on your plate. I didn’t want to add anything, but I asked if you’d be interested in writing this. We got a proposal together, sent it in, and then we were committed because we had a contract. Then we had to finish it.

Amanda Morin: It was kind of a cool process. Interestingly, the title changed over time, as it often does when writing a book. We really loved the neurodiversity affirming practices component because it included all the minds in a classroom. One of the things that worked out well with the two of us writing the book together was having those complementary perspectives. Emily comes with a different perspective than I do. I come from a special education background, understanding the laws, components, and parent advocacy. Emily also has family work in her background. Just being able to put together the differences between identification and diagnostic criteria was a good starting point.

I always want to stress that we didn’t always agree on everything when writing this book. I think that’s an important ingredient for readers to understand. Even between the two authors, there were things we had to discuss, talk about, think about, and come to some consensus around—or not. To be able to say, “This is important to you as an idea, and I’m okay with that.”

Tim Villegas: Yeah. I’m interested in what you said about the disagreements. I feel like we as a society don’t disagree very well. So, I’m wondering, and I don’t want to get too off-topic here, but I am interested in how you resolved those or at least made it work. Whoever won got it into the book?

Amanda Morin: Notes.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Rock, paper, scissors.

Amanda Morin: Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock. Actually, yes.

Emily Kircher-Morris: I think it’s fair to say that because we both had a similar starting point, even when we had disagreements, it was never too difficult to resolve them. I’m trying to remember some of them off the top of my head, but I can’t think of them on the spot.

Amanda Morin: Regardless of what we weren’t sure we were agreeing on, one of the things we did was use one of the practices we talk about in the book: understanding each other’s communication styles. That was super important because each of us has our way of communicating. One of the things I really like about my partnership with Emily is she will dig deeper if she doesn’t understand what I’m saying. I do the same. Being able to understand that maybe there was more agreement underneath if we just got to the right words and understanding of the ideas was the bigger piece of it. We didn’t have tremendous disagreement; we had different ways of talking about things and a need to understand what we were each talking about.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Yeah. I think that’s really important, Amanda. Another strategy we talk about in the book is explicit instruction, being really explicit and direct. We developed a rapport where me asking Amanda, “What do you mean by that?” was never interpreted as anything other than, “What do you mean by that?” There was no other connotation. Sometimes when you can’t communicate that way with someone, when there’s implicit meaning in what people are saying, it creates barriers. That was another thing we were able to do.

Tim Villegas: Yeah. The language we use to describe what we’re thinking or feeling may not be another person’s language. Being open to figuring out what that means is important. I think there’s a lesson there, y’all.

I’d like to talk a little more about language and how the language we use in schools can support learners. I’ll give you an example, and maybe you can reflect on it. When I was a teacher, I mostly taught in segregated self-contained classrooms for students on the autism spectrum. I was called by many teachers an “autism teacher.” There are educators in schools called “inclusion teachers.” Sometimes we even refer to students as “the AU kid,” using AU as a designation for autism. How can we reframe the language we use that seems to other teachers and learners? How can we use language in a more productive way?

Emily Kircher-Morris: One of the pieces that has come out of the neurodiversity movement, and that Amanda and I talk about in the book, is using identity-first language instead of person-first language when talking about diagnoses. This is interesting because as educators, mental health professionals, and people trained to work with individuals with disabilities, there’s always this component…

Emily Kircher-Morris: We are taught to use person-first language, so a student with autism or a child with ADHD. What has come through the self-advocates who are part of the neurodiversity movement is this embracing and destigmatizing of those labels and a desire to use identity-first language. So, talking about an autistic student or an ADHDer, because recognizing that those aren’t things that are ever going to be cured—they’re part of who that person is.

Amanda Morin: Nor should they be.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Right, nor should they be. And I think that is part of it because the language we use really does convey our values about things. When we say, “This is a person who has autism,” it sends a different message. Beyond that, another example of some of the language we shifted was, you’ll often hear people talk about neurotypical students in comparison to neurodivergent students. We did not use the term neurotypical in the book intentionally. We moved to using the term neuronormative peers compared to their non-normative peers because “typical” kind of indicates there’s a right way to be. Neuronormative brings it more into the statistical sense, where we’re looking at a particular trait and on any particular trait, you have a bell curve with outliers on either side. We really tried to shift that as well.

Amanda Morin: To your point of othering, Tim, it really is an othering of our students and our teachers. One of the things we did in the book is a gentle correction of the term “regular classroom.” We talk about general education classrooms versus special education, segregated, or resource room classrooms. If we talk about the idea of a regular classroom, then everything else outside of that is not regular—it’s irregular. When you talk about the autism teacher or the inclusion teacher, that’s othering the teachers as well. I want to make sure people understand we’re all teachers. We’ve all taught in different kinds of classrooms, but our goal is to give learners an opportunity to access information and make sense of it, regardless of where we are teaching that learner. It’s important to recognize we’re all teachers first and we’re all teaching learners. Those learners are all there to learn, and it doesn’t matter as much what the classroom is. If we’re not going to other students, we should be careful not to other teachers as well. Special education teachers can feel really othered because they’re away from the general education classroom. There’s a specialized knowledge expectation that goes with being a special education teacher, but we want to fit in and be part of the club.

Tim Villegas: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Emily Kircher-Morris: When we talk about being neurodiversity affirming, neurodiverse describes spaces, all types of brains, all neuro types, and there’s so much overlap. In the general education classroom setting, there are definitely neurodivergent students who probably don’t have a label because they don’t necessarily rise to the point where they need an individualized education program. Amanda mentioned I came from the gifted ed world, and I spent some of my career teaching. I also felt that othering. Now, as I built more into the twice-exceptional and neurodivergent world, I’m going, “Okay, there are OTs at the school, there are SLPs at the school, there are all these other people.” Why are we not collaborating and bringing all these resources and tools together to support students? What works for neurodivergent kids and kids in special education is going to be good for most kids. Having those options, tools, and strategies available is good for not only the kids but also the teachers.

Tim Villegas: I love what both of you had to say about language and special education teachers feeling like they want to be a part of the school community. As you’re describing neurodiversity affirming schools and spaces, this idea that a school or a setting can work for a wide variety of students seems to be anti-ableist in nature. When you think of the flip side of exclusionary practices, where you have a “regular” classroom or general education classroom, and because a student doesn’t fit into a particular mold, they need to go somewhere else to be taught a different way or with different people or tools. The idea that you can serve a wide variety of learners seems like an anti-ableist structure. Am I picking up on that?

Amanda Morin: Yes, I think inherently what we’re trying to do in neurodiversity affirming environments is to normalize all the things. We want to talk about them the way they are. We want to make sure we’re not making anything less—it’s different, not less. We want to make sure we’re not using those isms as a way to other or compare. If you think about it from the perspective of educating all kinds of minds in the classrooms, it also gives us the opportunity to say there are all sorts of reasons we would move kids into different spaces to teach them. It’s not just because they’re disabled or neurodivergent; sometimes it’s because they need acceleration. That also means we may need to move somebody into a different space because that’s where that class is being taught. When we’re talking about really putting everybody in the same space and providing them with what they need to learn because of the mind they have or the way their mind interacts with information or the things they need, if we’re bringing all of those…

Amanda Morin: Teachers and related service providers together in one space create an anti-ableist environment by realizing everybody needs something different to learn. The reason we pull students into different spaces doesn’t have to be because they’re below grade level. It could be because they missed school last week due to the flu and need to catch up on some work. We don’t think about that as pulling a kid out of class; we’re just saying this kid needs to catch up because they weren’t there. It equalizes that component and says everybody has reasons they need different ways of learning. If we build those into the spaces in which they’re learning, we are not only combating the idea that certain kids need different things, but also the idea that there are certain reasons people need those things.

Tim Villegas: That’s an excellent point. I love the way you explained that because I think there is a misconception when we’re talking about inclusion and language. I was just writing about this—when I say inclusion or inclusive practices, each of you probably has an idea of what that means, and it may not be exactly what I think it is. A lot of times we’re talking over each other because we’re saying, “That’s not inclusion,” or “That’s not inclusion,” or whatever. But I think there’s a misconception about what I mean when I’m talking about inclusive practices. It doesn’t mean everyone’s in the same room all day, every day, no matter what. The setting and the school are flexible. That’s why I really love your book, y’all, because that is such an important part of what you are trying to bring to the forefront of what it actually means to be neurodiversity affirming. How many times have you heard, “Inclusion is one size fits all”? No, absolutely not. It’s actually the complete opposite. We can be flexible, we can move around as long as we’re talking about all kids. What you said, Amanda, was it’s not about only these certain kids having access to these certain spaces or having to be in these certain spaces. All spaces can be different, but they are accessible to all kids. Am I picking up what you’re putting down?

Amanda Morin: You are picking up what I am putting down. Emily, what do you have to add to that?

Emily Kircher-Morris: I think that was a good explanation of everything. I think part of it, just to touch on the ableism piece, is recognizing that we really have to start questioning some of our expectations and biases for what we expect from students as far as what they should be doing or how they should be acting. That is a big part of what makes schools not a safe space for neurodivergent learners because they do approach the world differently.

Tim Villegas: Let’s talk about behavior. Your book is great; everyone should get it. I was really interested in your chapter about behavior and reframing. I was talking to a guest who said he doesn’t like using “challenging behavior” or “problem behavior.” He likes using “stress behavior,” which I thought was really interesting. Tell me more about that.

Amanda Morin: I like that too. I’ve been on a journey with behavior. When I was in the classroom, I supported students’ behavior in a certain way. Then, when I moved into a different role, I learned even more. Now that I’m out of the classroom, my conception of how to support kids is very different. How has your understanding of behavior changed?

Amanda Morin: Mine has definitely changed since the beginning of my career. At the beginning of my career as a teacher, behavior was always a negative thing because it challenged me. I’m going to be really honest in saying that the behavior I didn’t know how to support or understand was a challenge to me. I probably called it problem behavior because it was a problem for me. Over time, I realized it was also problematic for the student, not just because they got into trouble, but because they were having some sort of struggle that made it hard for them to meet my expectations. That interaction between the expectation and how a student is meeting or trying to meet that expectation has really changed my perspective on behavior. I often now look at behavior as a reaction to whatever is going on around. My reaction and action in response to a student’s reaction will change that dynamic as well. For me, that’s been an enlightening journey. Behavior is really a reaction to something. How we interpret that behavior depends on where we are, what we understand about the child in front of us, and what our expectations in the moment are. That has been a huge change and shift in my mindset over time. I think what we don’t always understand is that student behavior isn’t directed at us. It’s happening. Sometimes it may be directed at us, but there may be a reason. We need to look for those reasons.

Emily Kircher-Morris: I would say that there’s always a reason.

Amanda Morin: Yes, thank you. There is always a reason. One of the most challenging things for me as an educator is to take myself out of the equation and realize this isn’t about me. It’s not about me unless it’s about me because I’m not helping that child meet the need they’re not able to meet or the skill they don’t have to express themselves in a different way. Emily, I’d love for you to talk about your perspective on the phrase “behavior is communication.”

Emily Kircher-Morris: Sure. Let me start by talking about my overall trajectory from a personal experience. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was a kid, in fifth grade, which was rare for girls and women my age at the time.

Emily Kircher-Morris: While I had the diagnosis, which was something that a lot of people didn’t have, that didn’t mean there were any supports. Everything was still basically handled through discipline—consequences, losing recess, notes home, all sorts of different things. Part of the reason I went into education was because I thought it shouldn’t feel this horrible to be a student. It was really hard. When I got into the classroom, I started using some of those same behavioral techniques to manage student behavior because I didn’t know what else to do.

Amanda Morin: Mm-hmm.

Emily Kircher-Morris: But I knew it didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel good to me, but I didn’t have any other options. I remember it was a while before I adapted things in my classroom and moved away from those tools. I couldn’t really articulate why I was doing that. We had a school psychologist working with our school when I was a school counselor. This psychologist, Dr. Jerry Cox, collaborated quite a bit with Ross Green. I remember sitting in a meeting with him and other school counselors, going through Ross Green’s tool about lagging skills. Dr. Cox said, “You can have a classroom without a behavior management plan. You don’t have to have that.” My mind was blown. I knew that in my heart, but to have him say it out loud was a shifting point for me.

As I got into my mental health practices, working more one-on-one with kids who were struggling, I realized the behavior plans we put in place to manage behavior work for the kids who don’t need them. The neuronormative population doesn’t need a behavior system in place to tell them what to do. If they’re a little off track, you adapt and move on. For the kids who need it, the neurodivergent kids who are struggling, they don’t work. It doesn’t make any sense. We have the phrase “behavior is communication,” which many of us have heard. When we assess what that communication is and the context, we move away from a compliance-based interpretation of behavior to a contextualized interpretation. Recognizing there’s always something underneath a behavior that seems defiant or disengaged. It doesn’t mean there’s a quick fix, but it helps us focus on solving the problem rather than just disciplining the problem.

You may use some behavioral techniques in a classroom and get short-term compliance, but you haven’t solved the problem. You haven’t built emotional regulation skills, self-regulation skills, or executive functioning skills. You haven’t actually solved any problem other than the kid thinking, “I can’t do that thing.”

Amanda Morin: I would add that if you’re going to become more neurodiversity affirming in your practices, classrooms, and schools, it would behoove us as a system to think about how we are teaching and supporting educators in understanding their own regulation strategies. If you have a dysregulated teacher, they won’t be able to help students regulate their own behavior. As much as I’d like to say I always go into every interaction with every student as a regulated human, that’s just not true. There are outside stressors that come into classrooms with me, and I need to consciously figure out ways to deescalate or regulate my own nervous system so I can help students regulate theirs. It would behoove us to help teachers understand what they can do to regulate and understand what’s behind their own reactions so they can support students in their classrooms.

Tim Villegas: I love everything about this conversation around behavior. We could probably spend a whole episode just on behavior. I want to reiterate something you said, Amanda, about teachers being regulated. It goes along with what you’re talking about with self-regulation, Emily. The journey I’ve been on in understanding co-regulation—if you have a dysregulated teacher trying to manage behavior, how do you think that’s going to work out?

Emily Kircher-Morris: I’ll tell you how it’s going to work out because I’ve got children. They unfortunately get the worst of my reactions. I think it’s important to normalize that reality. Whether it happens in the classroom or with your own children, we often have knee-jerk reactions, sometimes responses to our own past experiences. The only thing we can do is reflect on it, try to be more intentional, and repair relationships or find a different plan going forward.

Tim Villegas: Yeah.

Amanda Morin: I hope what you’re hearing is that Emily and I know we don’t do this perfectly all the time either. It’s easy to talk from having written a book, but the book goes through a whole process before it gets to the shelves. We’re still learning, adjusting, and growing.

Tim Villegas: I’ve told you two parts of the book that were really impactful for me—language and behavior, anti-ableist spaces. Is there a part of the book that you are really excited about, that you love talking about? Is there something on top of mind for you?

Amanda Morin: I love where we’re talking about reframing strengths-based and deficit-based language. I really do. Maybe that’s a place to nerd out, but I think it’s important, especially when we’re talking about individualized learning plans. I love the idea of looking not only at where students are lagging or have deficits but also at the strengths they bring. I often use the Winnie the Pooh characters as an example. If you look at Tigger, you could say he’s all over the place, jumping around, distracted. But Tigger is also super eager to learn, friendly, makes friends easily, and is communicative. These flip sides are important to talk about. When we look at students simply from a deficit-based perspective, we’re not getting the whole picture. To me, that’s an exciting part of the book—reframing traits to look at the positives as well as the skills that need work.

Emily Kircher-Morris: I think one of the pieces that stands out to me is the section where we talk about camouflaging and masking behaviors, what that might look like in the classroom, and how to interpret and impact students. Many neurodivergent students have been taught they need to look or act a certain way, which is more detrimental than we realize. Another piece is the segments about the double empathy problem, which is all about perspective-taking. It helps us understand situations from the perspectives of the neurodivergent student, the teacher, and other students in the classroom. We often approach situations expecting compliance with the normative way of doing things without considering the neurodivergent student’s experience. The double empathy problem looks at this and provides great conversation starters for educators to think about different angles.

Tim Villegas: Speaking of educators, we have a lot of educators that listen—teachers, principals, school administrators. Is there one thing you want them to take away from this conversation?

Amanda Morin: I want educators to know this is not an all-or-nothing proposition. We’re not saying take a book on neurodiversity affirming practices and do all of them at the same time and change everything you’re doing. I want educators to take away the idea that small changes can bring big rewards. You don’t have to change everything at once. Tackle one thing that feels manageable and see what the change is in your classroom or school. For me, that’s the most important thing—try something different and you might be surprised at what happens.

Emily Kircher-Morris: I think the thing I would want people to take away is how much it can change the experience of a student when we de-stigmatize the parts of them that make them who they are. We can recognize that sometimes those things are hard and they may need support, but it doesn’t mean they are broken or need to be fixed. That message is powerful for young people as they grow into adults, become independent, and are able to self-advocate more. It’s a powerful thing for our students and society.

Tim Villegas: Where can people find your book, your work, and your podcast?

Emily Kircher-Morris: We are releasing a limited series podcast called Creating Neurodiversity Affirming Schools. It’s great as a standalone or as a supplement to the book because we align each episode with the theme of each book chapter. You, Tim, have been a guest on one of the episodes. People can check it out wherever they listen to podcasts or go to neurodiversityaffirmingschools.com. I’m also the host of the Neurodiversity Podcast, which you can find wherever you listen to podcasts.

Amanda Morin: On neurodiversityaffirmingschools.com, you can find more about me and Emily, the work we do with educators and school districts, and the training and experiences we offer. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Threads, Blue Sky, and other typical places. The book Neurodiversity Affirming Schools: Transforming Practices so All Students Can Feel Accepted and Supported is available at all major booksellers. I always recommend ordering from your local bookstore because I’m a big supporter of independent bookstores, but you can find it pretty much anywhere.

Emily Kircher-Morris: The pull of that Prime delivery when it’s going to be here tomorrow between 4 and 8 AM is strong. I know you live in Maine, Amanda, so you don’t get that privilege, but we have an Amazon warehouse very close to our house and can get stuff really quick.

Tim Villegas: Fair, fair. But I do have a Barnes & Noble that’s a quarter mile away from my house. We can walk to it.

Amanda Morin: Emily thinks I live in the boonies, but I do have a Barnes & Noble nearby.

Tim Villegas: You live in Maine. It’s practically Canada.

Emily Kircher-Morris: No, it’s fine. It’s just the Northeast. Well, that’s a separate conversation. We’ll take that off tape.

Tim Villegas: Note for the audio: we’re going to cut that. Alright. It’s mystery question time.

Emily Kircher-Morris: I was very intrigued by this when you sent us some notes about the outline.

Emily Kircher-Morris: I’m like, Ooh.

Tim Villegas: I used to have a really large stack of prompt cards called Pod Decks. They’re just little questions, and I started asking my guests at the end of every episode a mystery question. I’m almost done with them, and I told my 12-year-old that as soon as I’m done with them, she’s got to start writing my questions for me.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Love that.

Tim Villegas: Yeah. She’s an avid listener, probably the only one of my family members that listens. I don’t know if you can relate to that.

Emily Kircher-Morris: To be fair, I don’t always listen to all of my own episodes. I sat through them once already.

Tim Villegas: Okay, here we go. What is one thing you wish you’d spent more time doing when you were younger? Let’s put it right on the camera. What is one thing you wish you’d spent more time doing when you were younger? So we all answer it. Does anyone have one off the top of their head?

Amanda Morin: Ooh. Oh man, I’m deciding which way to go with this.

Tim Villegas: In my younger years, I ran a lot. I still like to run, but when I was a teenager and in my twenties, I didn’t run cross country. I played basketball, but I would run around my neighborhood. There were no trackers, so I didn’t know how long I ran. Now you can track it precisely. I didn’t have special running shoes; I just enjoyed running. I used to do a lot of it, but when I got married and started having kids, I kind of got back into it. Now, my body is falling apart, and I can’t do it regularly. I’m actually really upset about it. I feel like I didn’t take advantage of it enough. I would’ve liked to do more.

Amanda Morin: That’s interesting because mine is maybe similar. I was a competitive swimmer from the time I was seven until I was 16. One of the things Amanda and I have in common, which we did not know. I was a competitive swimmer, top in the state and New England for many years, which meant practices in the morning and evening. I spent a lot of time in a pool, but I didn’t spend a lot of time just swimming for enjoyment. I don’t swim much anymore, probably because I spent so many years doing it competitively. I wish I had spent more time just enjoying the opportunity to swim. I think better in water; I have my best ideas in the shower. There’s something called Aqua Notes you can put in your shower to write down ideas. I wish I had spent more time enjoying swimming instead of the competitiveness.

Tim Villegas: Yeah. Thanks for sharing.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Can mine be something I wish I didn’t do as much?

Tim Villegas: Absolutely.

Emily Kircher-Morris: I wish I hadn’t tried so hard for people’s approval. As an ADHDer, we recently did an episode on our podcast with Dr. Bill Dodson about rejection sensitivity dysphoria. After talking to him for an hour, I realized it probably impacted me as a child more than I realized. I spent a lot of energy trying to be what I thought people wanted me to be, protecting myself from negative feedback. It filtered through adulthood. I was never afraid to be who I was, but always worried about what people were thinking or trying to figure out how to get their approval. It got me into toxic relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships. That’s something I would do differently.

Tim Villegas: To be clear, not her current relationship.

Emily Kircher-Morris: To be clear, yes.

Tim Villegas: I like how you took that. We have a little bit of time, so I’m wondering if there’s something in your life that’s going well that you want to make sure you do more of. I’ll go first because this popped into my head when Emily was talking. I’ve been focusing on my mental health lately. It’s always been a priority, but I’ve really put in some practices. One of the practices I’m learning more about is meditation. I wish I knew about it sooner; it has been life-changing. I’m more comfortable talking about it now. I’d like to mention it here for the world to know. It’s something I’m getting into and getting a lot of benefit from, so I want to keep doing that.

Amanda Morin: That’s awesome. In the past year or so, I’ve done a lot of thinking about work-life balance. I’m feeling better about that. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to work and be everything to everyone at work. I’m learning how to choose what I do carefully and say no, not just because my calendar is full, but because I deserve some time to myself. It’s hard, but I’m proud of getting to a point where I’m thoughtful about what I choose to do and when I choose to do it. It affects my mental health and relationships. I’m enjoying being able to say I matter too.

Tim Villegas: Yeah.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Mine is somewhat related to Amanda’s in some ways, but it also has to do with being stretched really thin with a lot of things. Something I’ve been struggling with that I want to improve is letting go of things I’ve started. For example, I started a local nonprofit here in the St. Louis area. I was the founder and president for almost a decade, but it got to be too much, and I had to hand it off. Now, there are some growing pains, and I feel a mixture of guilt, responsibility, and sadness that I didn’t build something more sustainable.

The same goes with my counseling practice. I’m still counseling, but because of the podcast and speaking engagements, we sold the practice. I don’t own it anymore, and that’s a very weird feeling. I’m still working there and seeing clients, but I’m not in charge of everything. It’s been an odd adjustment, and I’m trying to reconcile all of that and put it into perspective. I can’t keep doing all of the things; there’s literally no time. I don’t really know where I’m going with that, but I guess that’s it.

Tim Villegas: Just keep letting go and being okay with things like that, I guess.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Yeah. Maybe what I wasn’t expecting with some of these things is the feelings of disappointment and sadness that I’m now experiencing later. It’s almost like a little bit of a rebound. It’s not immediate, and that’s just kind of a… I wasn’t expecting that to come to the surface as much as it has.

Amanda Morin: Look at all of us trying to be self-actualized humans in big ways. I mean that sincerely—congrats to all of us for trying to sort that out.

Tim Villegas: Yes. It’s hard work being a human and an adult.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Isn’t it? And a parent.

Tim Villegas: Yeah. Wow. I really appreciate that. I’m going to keep all of that because I guarantee you someone is going to need to hear that conversation play out.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Yeah.

Tim Villegas: Thank you, Emily Kircher-Morris and Amanda Morin, for being on the Think Inclusive Podcast. This was so much fun.

Emily Kircher-Morris: Thank you for having us.

Amanda Morin: Yeah, thanks. It was great.

Tim Villegas: Welcome back. That’s the final chapter of this episode of Think Inclusive. Now let’s turn the page to the credits. Think Inclusive is brought to you by me, Tim Villegas. I handle the writing, editing, designing, mixing, and mastering. This podcast is a proud production of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. Original music by Miles Kredich, additional music by Melod.ie. A big shout-out to our sponsor, IXL. Check them out at ixl.com/inclusive.

We truly appreciate each and every one of you who tunes in week after week. We love to hear how you’re using these episodes. Are they part of your teaching toolkit? Are you sharing them with school administrators, friends, or family? Do you have a favorite episode? Drop me a line at tvillegas@mcie.org and let me know. If you’re still with us this far into the episode, it probably means that you love Think Inclusive and the work that MCIE is doing. Can I ask you a small favor? Help us keep the momentum going by donating at our website, mcie.org. Just click the button at the top of the site and chip in $5, $10, $20. It would mean the world to us and the children in the schools and districts we partner with. Thanks for your time and attention. And remember, inclusion always works.

Download the complete and unedited transcript here.