Step Into My Sessions: It's Not About the Charger
"Why did you take my charger?"
It's the start of a new school year, which means it's a good time to return to something I keep coming back to myself: mental state verbs (MSV.)
Words like know, think, assume, wonder, and remember, the language we use to talk about what's happening inside our own heads, and to guess at what's happening inside someone else's. 🤔💭 These words matter for cognitive, linguistic, academic, and social development. In other words, for all of development.
Access to Mental State Verbs
Here are two students facing the exact same moment. One has ready access to mental state verbs. One doesn't.
A student takes a classmate's charger from the table. The other student says: "Why did you take my charger?"
🧠⚡ A student with access to mental state verbs might say:
"I didn't know it was yours."
"I thought it was extra."
"I assumed nobody was using it."
These responses help explain what the student knew or believed.
😶🌫️ A student who struggles to explain their thinking might say:
"I didn't do anything."
"It's not a big deal."
"Relax."
"You're overreacting."
"Whatever."
These responses don't explain the thinking behind the action, so the conflict often gets worse.
1️⃣ Notice what's happening in that first set of responses.
"I didn't know it was yours." "I thought it was extra." "I assumed nobody was using it."
These aren't excuses. They are windows. They tell the other student (and us) something true about what was going on inside that student's head at the moment they reached for the charger. 🔌🫲🏻
2️⃣ The second set of responses tells us nothing about thinking at all.
"Relax." "You're overreacting." "Whatever."
These don't explain; instead, they defend. 🛡️ And when there's nothing to explain with, conflict has nowhere to go but up.
MSV aren’t just vocabulary words.
They are the raw material our students need to make their own thinking visible to someone else, and perhaps more importantly, to themselves.
And that raw material isn't only for smoothing over a moment with a classmate. 😬
👉 The same words a student needs to explain why they took a charger are the words they'll need years from now to make sense of a much harder moment: a parent becoming ill, a plan falling through, a decision they're not sure how to make.
Knowing what you assumed, what you expected, what you're now realizing, is part of how a person finds their way through something difficult. It's also part of how a person plans a life on purpose, rather than just reacting to whatever comes next. 🚫 And this isn't specific to neurodivergent students.
💡 Mental state verbs are part of how any of us, neurodivergent or neurotypical, come to understand ourselves well enough to find happiness in our lives and our relationships, whatever that might look like.
Wishing & Hoping
As an example, there is a pair of mental state verbs I have been thinking a lot about lately. I have been noticing how often wishing and hoping get used as if they mean the same thing, when they're actually doing very different work.
We use them interchangeably all the time, but they're not doing the same job.
🤞 Hoping holds onto a real possibility. "I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow" only makes sense if rain is still an open question, something that hasn't happened yet.
🌟 Wishing tends to show up once that possibility has narrowed or closed. "I wish it hadn't rained" is looking back at something already decided. So is wishing you could go back in time and change what happened, or what you said or did.
Hoping keeps you facing forward. ⏩ Wishing tends to look sideways, or back. You can't really be disappointed by a wish, because there was never enough possibility there to be let down. Hoping is different. Hoping can disappoint you. 😔
What does this now mean for the students with whom we work?
These nuances in the vocabulary of mental process are important. The great news is that MSV, with a little attention and focus, can be taught. 👩🏫 That's the beauty of mental state verbs. ✨
In the years I have been working with my students on MSV, I have seen dramatic changes in how they understand, use, and, most importantly, incorporate them into their daily lives.
Interested in learning more? 🤔💡
➡️ You can download a free list of mental state verbs to use with your students and distribute to parents and teachers.
One of the reasons I started the Studio was to be able to think more deeply about MSVs, so if you want to be on board for Arc #2, I'd love to have you sign up. 🖊️
The first arc, covering rubrics, will be finishing up in a few weeks (you can still catch some of that). Next up will be MSV!
Can you believe it’s already October??! 🎃🍂
Anna
🌿 Still looking for engaging materials for your school year?
If you're looking for tools to support your work this year, from conversation to social-emotional learning, I keep everything organized by what you're actually working on at socialtime.org/start-here.
It's built to help you find the right fit quickly, whether that's a specific skill area or something to lean on all year.
