Creative Behavior Systems

09/30/2026

Updated website includes previous client access to resources, places to stay connected and ongoing upcoming events!
Creative Behavior Systems helps schools, organizations and communities create conditions people need to regulate, connect, learn, work, be valued and belong.
Regulated people build connected communities.
Connected communities create safer systems.
We can build community..
Together.

Link below and/or in bio.
https://creativebehaviorsystems.com/

09/28/2026

Five years ago, I became certified in Dr. Bruce Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT).
That learning continues to shape how I understand behavior, stress, regulation, relationships and the environments we create for people to thrive.
Grateful for the science that continues to inform the community building work I’ve spent decades doing.

09/25/2026

Ready to shift?

I was asked….
It’s a practice.

www.CreativeBehaviorSystems.com

09/11/2026

1 week and 1 day away!
Somatic Breathwork, trauma aware. Saturday, September 19th, 9:30-11:30am.
Come experience a practice of calm like no other.
Please read entire link in bio (or in comments). Registration and waiver required. Attendance limited. Recording permissions were granted from attendees for media purposes only. Recording during session does not occur.

09/11/2026

The Shift, again.
We keep trying to change behavior without fully understanding what creates it.
Almost 30 years into this work, I keep coming back to what I’ve always called “the shift.”
It was never about fixing those kids. Or those parents. Or teachers, staff or leaders.
It’s about understanding what is happening within them and what is happening within us in response.
Once we understand that interaction, we can actually see it unfolding in front of us. That’s when things begin to change for the better.
Connection grows. Trust becomes possible. Boundaries can be firm and respectful. Student behavior can be addressed fairly without shame. Staff can be supported instead of blamed.
We live and work in systems still deeply rooted in discipline, fear and reactivity and right now, that feels like it’s accelerating.
This work can bring calm into that chaos. But first, we have to understand what’s happening.
And it doesn’t always take hours of training. Some of the most powerful shifts are happening in 50-minute sessions: a new perspective, a few practical tools and something you can implement the very next day. Then you watch it unfold.
The testimonial I’m sharing came from exactly that experience. A teacher took a couple of ideas from a very short workshop, tried them and saw the difference in only one day.
That’s the work.
Not fixing people. Understanding people and understanding ourselves well enough to respond differently.
I started pushing mindfulness, movement, community and restorative practices nearly 30 years ago. Created this page in 2011 and back then called it, “Acceptance and awareness, of self and others”!
It’s been an adventure and this shift is still the most challenging part. But when this shift occurs, calm, connected and trusting relationships blossom.
Almost 30 years later, I’m still pushing for the shift. I still believe in it, and I still love what I do.

09/10/2026

This is how communities change.
Leadership, teachers, students, families, all of us.
Not because hate disappears, but because more of us decide we will not be passive in its presence.
We teach so much about how to protect ourselves from harm. We need to be just as intentional about teaching what to do when the harm is happening to someone else.
Notice it. Don’t join it. Stand beside someone. Get help. Speak when it is safe. Refuse to make cruelty comfortable.
Belonging isn’t created by those being targeted learning to tolerate more.
It is created when the rest of us decide that protecting one another is part of belonging here.
And that takes all of us.

09/01/2026

The Performance of Caring

I’ve been thinking about the performance of caring.
Not necessarily fake caring, since I do think many people genuinely do care. Caring sometimes creates discomfort while it presents us with something that needs attention, effort, time, responsibility, maybe an inconvenience or a change and when we don’t know what to do with that discomfort, when there is such an easy way to get rid of it, we find somebody else to hold it!
We…..
Point.
Did you call them?
You need to do this!
Has this or that been done?
Someone needs to take care of that….

And somewhere in there, concern quietly shifts away, good old blame and shame rears their ugly head and that shift feels pretty good.
Which is incredibly convenient.
Blame and shame take responsibility right off our own platter. If I can establish what you should have done, I don’t have to spend nearly as much time considering what I could have be doing.
Concern expressed. Fault identified. Responsibility transferred. Conscience cleared.
Feels pretty damn good.

For some there comes the little internal pat on the back:
Well, I tried.
I said something.
I told them.
I did what I could.

But did you?
Or did you simply transfer your discomfort to someone else?
I don’t think this is limited to how we care for people. I think it is connected to how we handle responsibility almost everywhere in our lives.

Look at the workplace..
Especially systems of care!

There are people who notice what needs to be done and become part of getting it done. They anticipate. Organize. Problem-solve. Follow through. Check back.
It’s not performative, it’s care.

There are people who notice what needs to be done and become extremely efficient at making sure somebody else knows about it.
Performative.
Those are not the same thing.

Or, a home..
One person may be carrying the invisible architecture, remembering, scheduling, anticipating, purchasing, cleaning, repairing, planning, noticing and thinking three steps ahead.
Another person walks into the kitchen and announces that the milk is almost gone. Technically, both people noticed the milk.
Only one of them is carrying the house. And when something finally gets missed?
Here comes the feel good blame.
You forgot the milk.
Which is fascinating when the person doing the blaming never considered it their responsibility in the first place.
We do this emotionally, too.

We point out someone else’s reaction without examining what happened before it.

We criticize someone for being overwhelmed without asking what they’ve been carrying.

We shame people for dropping a ball while conveniently ignoring how many balls we, ourselves might have handed them.

And we call ourselves “concerned”.
Maybe that is why genuine responsibility is so closely connected to follow through.

Responsibility isn’t noticing.

Organization isn’t keeping track of what everybody else needs to do.

Communication isn’t transferring information until the problem lands in somebody else’s lap and caring isn’t pointing at the person already carrying the weight and explaining how they could carry it better.

Real responsibility has a loop:
Notice it.
Own your part of problem/solution.
Act.
Follow through.
Check back.

That last part tells us a lot.
Because people who take ownership tend to circle back.
Did that get handled?
How did it go?
What still needs to happen?
What can I take on?
People who are primarily trying to relieve themselves of responsibility often don’t check back. Sitting in the “I told them…” is enough to feel like they’ve done a good job, it’s handed off and mentally that file is closed.

When things don’t go well, blame and shame provide another exit ramp.
Someone should have…
They should have known…
Why didn’t they…

When the harder question is:
Why didn’t I?

Not because everything is our responsibility, but because maturity requires being able to distinguish between what belongs to us, what belongs to someone else and what belongs to us, together.
Which requires something much harder than pointing fingers.
It requires looking in the damn mirror. What do I consistently take ownership of? Where do I follow through? Where do I expect other people to carry things I could reasonably help carry? Where have I confused identifying a problem with contributing to its solution? Last, where have I used blame or shame to make myself feel as if I’m being “responsible” without actually taking a bit of responsibility?

There is a tremendous difference between caring about something and participating in its care.

From loved ones to friendships to those we can see but may never ever know, you don’t get to point at the weight, tell somebody else how they should carry it, blame them when they struggle and pat yourself on the back, that’s blame and it delivers, shame.

08/26/2026

This. So powerful, and simple!

08/22/2026

Welcome back, teachers, leaders, students and families!
The first few days of school make or break your entire first month or more.. I have a gift. How we experience one another at the beginning can shape how students, staff and families feel about school long after the new supplies and first-day excitement is gone.
Most of us remember walking into a classroom and hearing the rules: what we can do, what we cannot do, and what happens if we don’t comply. Expectations matter, but so does voice, value, agency and belonging.
One of the simplest restorative tools for beginning differently is a Treatment Agreement. Rather than creating rules for students, we create community WITH them by asking: How do we want to treat one another? How do we want to feel here? What will we do when things get difficult? It’s everywhere online, so simple. Student to teacher, teacher to students and students to students. Poster paper!
This isn’t about removing expectations. It’s about creating the relationships and shared responsibility that make expectations easier to hold.
I’ve been teaching this work since 2011. Over the years it has been called trauma-aware, trauma-informed, restorative, relationship-centered and social-emotional learning. Early on, I simply called it “acceptance and awareness of self and others.”
Whatever we call it, the need underneath it hasn’t changed.
Students need voice, value and belonging. Families need it. Educators and leaders need it, too. We are all carrying stress into our communities, and we don’t need another complicated initiative to begin creating something different.
A circle. A check-in. A genuine, authentic greeting. A Treatment Agreement. A few minutes spent listening rather than directing.
Community isn’t something we create to our students, at our students, or for them. We create it WITH our students.
So before we rush to begin the work of another school year, perhaps we can remember: creating the community is the first work.
May we begin with curiosity before assumption, connection before correction and community before compliance.
I have a voice. I have value. I belong here. We all do.

08/12/2026

What If We Cared This Fiercely?
There is something about a lost animal that calls something fierce out of us!
They cannot tell us where they belong, explain what happened, what they need, what hurts or what they’re afraid of. They may be hungry, exhausted, injured, confused or hiding. Fear may make them run from safety. They are navigating circumstances they did not choose and dangers they may not understand. They are vulnerable, disoriented and without the ability to advocate for themselves. We notice, search, share, leave food/water, walk streets with flashlights, check fields, shelters, cameras. We keep looking long after it would be easier to stop.
Because vulnerability calls for care, fear deserves safety, being lost should not mean being forgotten.
Because a living being who cannot find their own way back still matters.
Perhaps that is part of why the plight of a lost animal reaches so deeply into us: we recognize what it means to be frightened, unheard, displaced, unable to make sense of what is happening, dependent upon the compassion and courage of others and desperately hoping someone will notice.
A lost dog can bring an entire community into action.
But I wonder how often we recognize that same vulnerability in one another.
How many people reading this stopped for a human being today who was frightened, lost, hungry, displaced, confused, unable to advocate for themselves or simply in need of someone to trust?
What if we brought even a fraction of that same urgency, tenderness and determination to them?
What would it feel like to be that scared, unable to find your way back to safety or need anyone to just help?
And what would it feel like to discover that the world around you had more urgency for finding a lost pet, than you? Far too many people are experiencing the very same right now, today and throughout history.
Given the direction we are going as a nation, I fear this identification will only increase over time. Find some way to advocate for those who are in need.
May we never lose our fierce compassion for animals, may we simply become as fierce in extending it to one another.