Lori L. Desautels - Connections Over Compliance: Rewiring Our Perceptions of Discipline

In Connections Over Compliance Dr. Desautels redefines the educational process with an innovative neuroscience-informed and compassionate perspective. This transformative volume provides a glimpse into the optimistic future of education and radically dispels strategies vested in antiquated behavioral models of learning that have been engrained in education dogma. Through a transdisciplinary approach, we gain a deep respect for the behaviorally challenged childs attempts to survive in a threatening world, we become aware that learning is dependent on a neurophysiological state that is only efficiently and effectively available when the child has trusting relationships with teachers, and we learn how these relationships can be leveraged to enable the child to feel sufficiently safe to dampen threat reactions and to spontaneously become social and cognitively available to learn. In this accessible book, Dr. Desautels provides tools and exercises to restructure the classroom environment to effectively meet the needs of the most vulnerable and behaviorally reactive children to feel safe in the classroom and to leverage these feelings into cognitive and social successes.

DR. STEPHEN PORGES, Neuroscientist, Author, and Creator of the Polyvagal Theory

Dr. Lori Desautels explores and interrogates the beliefs systems undergirding long-accepted discipline systems and invites readers to reimagine our interactions with children and youth. As a parent and educator, the book inspired me to recommit to relational and responsive discipline in my home and in my work with educators.

BROOKE KANDEL-CISCO, Ph.D., Dean, College of Education, Butler University

I have worked alongside Dr. Lori Desautels for the past 8 years. As our collaboration grows and changes, I continue to use these resources for meaningful and researched ways to support young people, teachers, families, and myself. The unique path they have paved for engaging educators and having worked alongside them, has opened doors and minds to this critical work of educational neuroscience. I look forward to adding Connections Over Compliance to my bookshelf along with all of her other books.

DEANNA NIBARGER, Social and Emotional Behavior Coach, Metropolitan School District of Washington Township

Connections Over Compliance is a gift for teachers, principals, university professors, state and federal departments of education, and for parents. Even more importantly, it is a blessing for all the students whose teachers, support staff, administrators, and parents read, understand, and apply the wealth of information, insight, and practical suggestions contained within the book. Dr. Desautels does an excellent job of translating complicated neuroscience concepts into immediately accessible language. She makes the information real and applicable through the provision of examples and a wealth of resources.

BETH TOLLEY, Director of Educational Advocacy, Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint, Board Member, NAMI Virginia (National Alliance on Mental Illness), Board Member, Early Childhood Mental Health Virginia

This book is an important read for educators or parents who want to understand how to make positive connections with children. It is giving us a much-needed perspective on discipline and how we must build relationships and trust with children. We learn that as adults, we must focus on self-regulating and staying in a calm brain state so that we can best help our children. The calming strategies in this book can be used immediately to have a positive impact on everyone around us. Thank you, Lori, for your expertise and sharing this information at such a critical time.

SANDY BRYANT, Curriculum Coordinator, St. Marys Child Center

In Connections Over Compliance Dr. Lori Desautels provides educators powerful science-based insights, built on years of study and practical application, to enhance their understanding of themselves as teachers and the effectiveness with which they connect with affected students in supporting their growth into adulthood.

JAMES P. BIEN, MD, MPH, FAAP, Chief Medical Officer, VP Quality and Patient Safety, Pediatrician, Indiana University Health Arnett

By giving language to co-regulated ways of being, Dr. Lori Desautels continues to catalyze a new reality in school communities. Her translational fusion of embodied sciences and the art of education practices provides a prescient and essential guide for honoring our shared human journey amid our complex times.

SHEILA DENNIS, PhD, MSW, Senior Lecturer, Indiana University School of Social Work

It is my honor and privilege to write about my support for Connections Over Compliance. With the support of renowned therapeutic researchers, Dr. Desautels identifies key elements that should be a part of any schools approach to discipline and professional development. As she wrote the book, the most serious pandemic in history, COVID-19, threw our world into a new reality previously unexperienced. This experience shed new light on issues for which are unknown and for which we are unprepared.

How will schools cope with the pandemics impact on childrens fears, violence, and a loss of a safe place of well-being when the schools abruptly closed and the remaining trepidation of our new unknown reality? Dr. Desautels book is attempting to provide a backdrop on these issues and a lens for us to see the future.

Schools and school personnel are in the relationship business. Relationships provide the oxygen for connections. With those relationships and connections severed by schools closing. Dr. Desautels outlines how this detachment could manifest itself in behaviors previously unseen. She gives us insight into the possibilities of a new paradigm for operationalizing the effects of adverse childhood experiences.

J. T. COOPMAN, ED. D., Executive Director IAPSS

Dr. Desautels has a passion for leading educators on the journey to understanding brain functions provides the knowledge, tools and hope to better understand the impact of adversity when understanding student behavior. It is an honor to partner with Dr. Desautels in providing professional development and support for our students. She continues to amaze me with the latest research and practical implementation of strategies that best serve our children.

DR. FLORA REICHANADTER, Superintendent, Metropolitan School District of Pike Township, Indianapolis

Transformational! This book sets a brilliant new standard for the urgently needed paradigm shift in education. Based in relational neuroscience, Connections Over Compliance shows educators how to respect and nurture natural brain functions to maximize learning potential and resilience for all students. It should be required reading for everyone who works with students and the systems that serve them.

MONA DELAHOOKE, Ph.D., Author of Beyond Behaviors: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand & Solve Childrens Behavioral Challenges

Dr. Desautels created a must read by combining relational neuroscience with practical application. Read this book if you are starting or already embarking on your trauma-informed journey!

MATHEW PORTELL, Principal, Fall-Hamilton Elementary, Facilitator, Paradigm Shift Education

Dr. Desautels has put together a compilation of current neuroscience that will bring any reader to a foundational knowledge of interpersonal neurobiology as well as explain current evidence-based practices that will help heal and guide those youth that come from difficult backgrounds and may struggle with challenging behaviors. Dr. Desautels work goes beyond just presenting the data, as her compassion for children in need shines through while she shares from her own life of living the model inside and outside of the classroom. This book is truly an essential tool for any teacher or direct caregiver that wants to understand behavior and know how to help children connect, heal, and move into a positive life trajectory.