What happens when a student is overwhelmed — and discipline alone isn't solving the problem?
Teachers see it every day. A student shuts down. Another becomes restless or reactive. A conflict between students keeps escalating. A child who is worried, angry, embarrassed, or overwhelmed is expected to immediately sit down, listen, and learn. But sometimes the first problem isn't motivation. It's getting the student back to a place where participating is possible.
In this episode, I sit down with Nilufar Rezai, a school counselor and SEL specialist with extensive experience in Chicago Public Schools, to talk about what supporting students actually looks like in real classrooms. We talk about regulation, bullying, restorative approaches, educator stress, and why understanding what may be happening underneath a behavior can change how adults respond to it. This isn't about excusing behavior. It's about asking a better question: What will help this student return to connection, problem-solving, and learning?
When behavior is communicating more than we can see
A student who looks oppositional may also be overwhelmed, worried, embarrassed, distracted, or struggling to recover from something that happened before they ever walked into the classroom. We talk about why noticing the context around a behavior can give educators more options for responding — without abandoning expectations or accountability.
Regulation before problem-solving
When someone is highly activated or overwhelmed, adding more language, correction, or demands does not always help. Nilufar and I discuss practical ways adults can reduce escalation and create enough space for a student to re-engage. The goal isn't perfect calm. The goal is returning to participation.
Bullying, conflict, and restorative approaches
We also talk about bullying, peer conflict, restorative justice, and why repairing relationships often requires more than simply identifying who broke a rule. How do we help students understand impact? How do we create accountability? And how do we help young people regain enough stability to actually participate in those conversations?
The adults in the room matter too
Teachers, counselors, school leaders, and parents are often trying to help children while managing their own stress. That matters. Supporting students cannot depend on adults having unlimited patience, time, or emotional bandwidth. We talk honestly about educator burnout, co-regulation, boundaries, and why effective support has to be practical enough to work in real life.
In This Episode, We Discuss
- Trauma-informed approaches in schools
- Social-emotional learning
- Fight, flight, freeze, and stress responses
- Student regulation and return to learning
- Practical de-escalation strategies
- Bullying and peer conflict
- Restorative practices and peer mediation
- Supporting anxious or overwhelmed students
- Educator stress and burnout
- Co-regulation
- Parent-school partnerships
- Creating more responsive school environments
From Erin Vandermore, Host
Think about the last time a lesson was interrupted because one student — or the entire room — was having trouble settling back into instruction. What happened next? Did you repeat directions, raise your voice, wait, redirect individual students, send someone out, or spend five or ten minutes trying to get everyone back?
Those moments are one reason I keep coming back to the same question in my work: What is the fastest, lowest-burden way to help students return to participation without turning every difficult moment into a major intervention? That question eventually became part of the work behind Mind Circuit™.
Erin Vandermore, LCMHC-S, is a licensed mental health therapist, former educator, and founder of Mind Circuit™. Before becoming a therapist and entrepreneur, I worked in Chicago Public Schools as a school counselor, coach, and district-level counseling specialist. Across classrooms, counseling offices, parenting, and therapy, I kept seeing the same problem: We often ask people to think, talk, learn, or problem-solve at the exact moment they are least available to do it. My work now focuses on a practical question: What helps people recover from stress and return to what they need to do next? That question is also at the center of Notes to My Nervous System.
