87. A Conversation with Julia Cook: The Heart of School Counseling, Books, and Teaching Great People Skills

Welcome back to another episode of Counselor Chat! Today, I’m thrilled to share a conversation with the one and only Julia Cook. Julia is a former counselor and celebrated author whose books like My Mouth Is a Volcano and Tattle Tongue are staples on school counseling shelves across the nation. In this episode, Julia shares her journey from writing her first book to creating a collection that’s been translated into nine languages and used in schools worldwide.

We explore:

  • Julia’s creative process and her shift from SEL to teaching “Great People Skills (GPS).”
  • How her books evolve with student needs, ensuring inclusivity and relevance.
  • Practical, hands-on strategies for engaging students and teaching essential life skills.
  • The launch of Julia’s new platform, Cookie Bites, offering videos, activities, and resources for counselors and educators.
  • Julia’s new book, I Am Vape, addressing vaping prevention for younger students.

This episode is packed with actionable tips, inspiration, and a giveaway you won’t want to miss!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  1. The Evolution of Julia’s Books: How feedback from counselors helps her refine her stories to fit the needs of today’s students.
  2. Concrete Teaching Strategies: Learn how visuals and metaphors, like root beer floats and racetracks, help kids grasp challenging concepts like test anxiety and self-regulation.
  3. The Power of Adaptation: Why it’s essential for educators and resources to grow alongside the ever-changing needs of students.
  4. Practical Tools with Cookie Bites: Discover a treasure trove of resources, from grab-and-go activities to videos, designed to make your counseling life easier.

Giveaway Details:

Want to win a signed copy of Julia’s new book I Am Vape? Here’s how:

  1. Forward this episode to five colleagues and CC Carol (carol@counselingessentials.org).
  2. The first five listeners to send their emails will win!

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

  • Cookie Bites by Julia Cook: Cookie Bites Website
  • Counseling Essentials Resources: Counseling Essentials
  • Julia’s New Book, I Am Vape: Learn more about vaping prevention for young students.
  • School Visits and Workshops with Julia Cook: Email Julia at julia@juliacookonline.com.

Stay Connected:

  • Follow Carol on Instagram and Facebook: @CounselingEssentials
  • Visit the Counselor Chat podcast page: Counseling Essentials Podcast

Final Thoughts:

Julia reminds us of the importance of laughter, adaptability, and connection in school counseling. Whether it’s a poopy day or a cookie day, stay focused on the impact you make in students’ lives. You’re doing amazing work, counselor rock stars!

Be sure to subscribe and leave a review if you enjoyed this episode. Until next time, keep spreading joy and making a difference!

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Transcript

Carol: You're listening to the Counselor Chat podcast, a show for school counselors looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration and a little spark of joy. I'm Carol Miller, your host.

I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind counseling Essentials. I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices and using creative approaches to engage students. If you're looking for a little inspiration to help you make a big impact on student growth and success, your you're in the right place because we're better together.

Ready to chat. Let's dive in.

Hello counselors. Welcome to another episode of Counselor Chat. I'm so glad that you're here with me today and boy, do I have something special for you today.

Are you ready? Have I kept it a secret long enough? Because we are with the Julia Cook and the woman I think who needs no introduction because everybody has at least one of her books on her book on your bookshelf.

But Julia is with us today and so Julia, welcome. Thanks for joining me.

Julia: I'm so glad to be here. Carol, thank you so much.

Carol: Do you want to just share a little bit about your story and my story, how you became who you are?

Julia: I'm still a counselor at heart. I was a middle school teacher turned elementary Counselor who about 20 years ago could not figure out how to teach my kids not to tattle on each other.

They were always in each other's business and conflicts were going sky high. And I had a grad teacher who told me if you want to reach a kid, read them a story.

And if the story is good, good stuff spills into their head. And then when you take the story away, then they have what they need to solve problems. And back in that day we had Enemy Pie and Meanji in the recess.

Queen, Queen and Rainbow Fish. But not a lot of of great people skill stories. By the way, you won't use, I won't, you won't hear me say the term social emotional learning S E L because that term is offensive to some people.

So why would you use a term that might be offensive to some people and might say the wrong thing? Why not call it gps? I kind of coined that a couple years ago, which stands for great people skills and it's directional, so it's a real safe label to put on us as well.

Anyway, couldn't find a book on tattling, wrote a story and started using it and it worked. So I had my friend try it at her school and it worked too.

And this first grade teacher busted my office and said, oh my gosh, you gotta do something with this. So of course, I grabbed a school book off the shelf and the first one I grabbed was Scholastic.

And I got some mean lady from New York who said, well, you know, I said, I'm a school counselor from Nebraska. I just wrote this really cool book on tattling.

It's working. And she says, well, we only publish people who published before. I said, well, how do I get started? She says, that'd be your problem. She hung up on me.

So then I grabbed another book from an educational publisher called that phone number in the front, and they said, oh, send it in. We're looking for one. So I overnighted it on Monday.

They called me on Wednesday. We want to publish your book. Do you have more? How much do I have to pay you? Oh, we're going to pay you. I dropped the phone, I back up, and they said, do you have any other books?

Well, when I was little, I used to interrupt all the time. I have my mouth as a volcano on that. And they said, send that in. So I sent those in.

In 2004 and 2005, December Volcano was released. In 2006, January Tattleton was released.

And now there are about just under 4 million Julia Cookbooks in used in the world. They're in nine languages, and I think they're used in about 85 to 90% of the schools in the US so they wouldn't be anything without you guys.

I mean, you are the ones that use them. And over the years, I've made so many mistakes.

I've put things in books that don't resonate with all kids. And if you ever see any of those things, kind of the cool thing is that every time these books go to reprint, they are revised a little bit.

The first issue of My Mouth is a Volcano had I got a time out, and now the revised version is my teacher had me go sit on the Zen den chair and think about it.

Because our kids change and these books need to change all the time. And if I didn't have great feedback from you, I wouldn't have a job. And I take every grain of feedback to heart, good and bad, because I want these books to work for all kids, not just some kids.

And I make a lot of mistakes and I own them and will fix them. But like I said, I'm a counselor at heart. And if I can't be in touch with my audience, which is you, then I'm certainly not walking the walk.

That's about it.

Carol: And I will say to our listeners that I've known you for a couple years now, basically through the Facebook groups. And the one thing that I definitely know is that there have been times that people have just written stuff or said stuff that was kind of hurtful in a way, and also made it look like you weren't sensitive to kids and their different needs.

And then I see you take it all into heart and like, I'm changing this, and I'm gonna do this, and, oh, I'm moving this around, and what does this sound like?

And I know how personally you take that, and you really listen to people, and I've always been super, super impressed by that.

Julia: Well, yeah, you know, when soda pop came out, Soda pop head. There goes Lester. Watch him fester. His ears start to fizz. He gets mad as it grows. One of the complaints was, why would you shame a child for being angry having other kids make fun of him?

And that person was absolutely 100% right. Now, when that book came out, we weren't thinking about stuff like that. But we have reached. We have changed the drawings, and we've re.

Have.

Carol: We've.

Julia: We've rewritten the book. So he says, I am Lester, Watch me fester. My ears start to fizz. I get mad as Grizz. My face turns red. So did Pad. I have.

You know, I'm a soda pop head. So he's recognizing it in himself. And the other kids are watching, but they're not poking fun at him. Now, it wasn't a problem when the book came out.

However, it is a problem now, because the way we look at things, the way we talk to kids, the way we do everything has to fit kids. Kids have to be more important than the content we're trying to teach them, always, every day.

Which means that these books need to change along with our kids. And so, like I said, I made a ton of mistakes. They. None of them were ever intentional. And I've acquired a troll or two along the way.

And the publishers are like, wow, you're big enough to have a troll. You know, so if you hear or see something that's negative, bring it to the source. And we always tell kids rumors, bring it to the source, because if I'm wrong, then I will first one to change it and get that book off the market and get something better on.

Carol: And, you know, I also think that's really important, you know, especially for our younger school counselors, because things do change. They do evolve. And what was once okay, you know, even.

Cause I've been a counselor for over 30 years. What? When I started, things were way different and things that we used to do were different. And it's like, what you don't know, you don't know, and then you do learn it.

And I always like to say that we sometimes we only know our lived experiences. And it's as we live, our experiences grow. And school counseling is just growing profession. And so, yeah, we.

We just have to grow with it.

Julia: I mean, you think about all these experiences. I remember having an African American principal and saying to him once, this was. Gosh, this was 90.

I don't know, this was like 2000. 2000? No, actually probably 99. And I said, well, I'm always. I'm colorblind. And he goes, you're never colorblind. He says, you are color respectful.

There is a huge difference. And just by hearing that, it was like, oh, yeah, he's right. I'm color respectful, you know, so you learn all the time. And we live in a profession where, man, if you see something good, you steal it, you use it, and you change it to make it work for your kids.

It's all about big. A big bag of tricks. And the longer we do this, the bigger the bag. I know for a fact that since COVID when I do a ton of school visits.

So if any of you are ever interested in booking a school visit, a parent talk or a staff professional development, or even a district level professional development, you can email me at julia@juliacookonline.com

and I'll send you information on that. But since COVID I have to work eight times harder to keep their butts on the floor when I talk to kids. And I'm pretty much in their face on the floor with them, sitting and reading.

But the energy level that it takes me is astronomically higher than it was before COVID And we can sit there and blame Covid and blame Covid and blame Covid, but then there has to be a point where we say, okay, how are we going to make sure that we accommodate our kids regardless of the situations that they come to us with?

And right now, our kids, you know, in order to teach them, they constantly talk all of the time.

And so I like to. I do this little exercise with kids, and I said, pretend like there's a racetrack. And I have this little paper racetrack that's laminated, that's just black with light, light lines.

And I set it right underneath my lower lip. Pretend like there's a little racetrack that's sitting on your tongue and goes all the Way back to your brain. And every time you talk, and I got a little hot wheel car here, a little tiny car drives out of your racetrack.

And every time somebody talks to you, a little tiny car drives into your racetrack. Now, tell me what would happen if you talk at the same time someone talks to you and someone say, oh, the car's crashed.

That's right.

So you basically give them a concrete visual that they can relate to to understand why they shouldn't talk. When you're talking, what happens? Okay? And that's the why. Because kids will pretty much do.

Kids have not changed. I mean, kids will rise to the expectations placed on them if they feel seen, heard, and validated. But they come in and they push A to get B.

And if B doesn't work, then they push C, D, E, and F. And if a kid goes into a classroom and loves what's going on or is interested and feels seeing her and invalidated, they will do backflips to stay in that classroom.

But if a kid goes in a classroom and is told what they have to do because I say so, or if you don't, I'll call your parent. I mean, my goodness, when our teachers call parents these days, sometimes they get told to pound sand.

We can't control what they bring into us with or what they bring into our classrooms, where they come from. We can't control what happens after they leave. But if they feel seen, heard, and validated in the classroom, they will do backflips to stay in there, and your tier one behaviors will go down.

But we have to teach. I tell teachers every day, carol, if you don't love your job, you're working too hard in the wrong direction.

Because our kids have really not changed the circumstances that surround them.

And their behaviors have changed. But innately, they are the same little being where they push A to get B. And so I show them this car thing, and it crashes.

And then I wave my hand in front of my face, I say, these are your words coming out of your mouth. And I wave my other hand in the air and I say, these are the words that I'm saying to you.

And if we talk at the same time, the words crash and nothing gets into your head.

Now, that's not quite enough still, because those kids are going to be like, so why do I care? So then I take out a colored water in a clear glass, and I say, this is really important stuff, okay?

And when I say all in, I want you guys to really listen. That means, and I get these big Ears, your ears are big, your eyes are open and your mouths are closed.

And everything I say is going to go right into your head. And I pour the liquid out into the pan and I say, here, it goes, here is that important stuff.

And if you are all in, what happens is you're like the quicker picker upper. And I take that paper towel and I absorb it into, I wipe up the whole spill and I show them, look, it's in your brain.

You absorbed it into your brain and you absorbed everything I said. You don't ever have to try listening to that again because it's in there. But if you are talking when I talk and I pour in that red colored water again and put a plastic bag on my hand and I say, then it's like you're trying to wipe this up with a plastic bag.

Does anything get into your head? And they say, no. And I'm like, you know, if you talk when your teacher talks, does it hurt your teacher's feelings? And they say, yeah.

And I said, no, not really. I said, it doesn't hurt your teacher. It doesn't hurt your teacher at all when you talk because your teacher already knows what they're going to say.

But when you talk, when your teacher talks, it ends up hurting you because once it's in your brain, you don't have to worry about finding, you know, you just have to find it.

You don't have to listen to it, but you're robbing yourself of learning that stuff right now, so you don't have to do it later. You can save so much time.

And if you can point out the what's in it for me, then all of a sudden those kids understand the why and they understand the benefit of what's in it for them and they self regulate a little bit.

Okay, so these ideas, what I did was I people kept wanting the read alouds. They wanted me to read books aloud online. And if I do that and I show the storybook, then nobody buys the books.

And Julia Cookbooks are printed by nonprofit publishers. So when they make money, the money goes back to kids and teachers and counselors. And so that makes me really proud to write for Boys Town and National center for Youth Issues.

And so that wasn't going to work, but it was like they wanted the read alouds. So I thought, well, I'm just going to put all my read alouds online on a website, which is me reading the book, so then you can hold up the book and I'll read it to your kids.

And then I Started thinking, well, there's all these ideas on how to teach kids things. Like, Carol, in your practice, you're always trying to find a concrete visual that goes with what you're saying, because the interest level perks up that way.

And so I started videotaping myself doing all these ideas. Like, if your lesson is on teamwork, I bring in everything. Eighteen items, by the way, that you need to make chocolate chip cookies.

Okay, 18 things. You need spoons and a bowl and pan and chocolate chips and flour and sugar. Then I show. Okay, in a baggie, I have two cups of flour.

You need two cups of flour, and you only need one teaspoon of salt. Does that mean the salt is less important than the flour? No, because it's not about the flour or the salt.

It's about what they do together to make the cookie that matters. And that's just like a team.

Every team member has a role, and every role matters.

And that is so important when they see. And then. And then we share chocolate chip cookies, and we just have a cookie to remind us about teamwork. And you're taking a concrete visual and relating it to your lesson.

And then another one is when you're teaching test anxiety, you get a root beer float. Everything on the test is the ice cream. The root beer is the anxiety.

Every test you take needs a little bit of anxiety. Every root beer float needs a little bit of root beer to taste good. Anxiety is your best, best emotion. It puts you on your toes.

It helps you prepare what might be on there. But if you have too much anxiety, then it kind of makes a sticky mess out of everything like this, you know, Then all of a sudden, they're relating something that's comfortable to something that may be uncomfortable.

And then they realize, anxiety is an emotion that I need and it helps me. And so I'm going to use it to my advantage. And as long as I can control it, then, you know, it makes sense.

These days, our kids have to see it, hear it, feel it, do it, show it to somebody else, and relate it to something they already know. So these videos on this website do just that.

They teach you how to teach kids. You don't show me doing these things. You watch me doing these things. And then you do this with your kids. So you're kind of a trick show when you walk in.

And then for each topic, which is, for each topic, there's a book, but it's not book based. So if you don't have my books, you don't need this. You know, you can still use the website, but there's two or three grab and go activities.

One of them counselors love is hard things weighs down like a backpack full of rocks. Label each rock with something that's hard for you.

And there's one on planning and prioritizing and interrupting. And you know the car one that we just showed you that the two cars coming out. And then when you get done talking about a topic, there's a five point takeaway sheet that hey, today we talked about controlling big emotions.

This is what I covered. You can hand it to the teacher, she can hang it up in a room because they're all driven like a poster. And then can you work on these things with your kids?

And that's huge. And then there's 17 years of posters that I've seen in schools. It's hard to be a smart cookie with a crumbly attitude. Be a voice, not an echo.

And there's probably 150 of these posters that you can just print off and use and put wherever you want in your building. So it's basically everything I've ever done or thought of in 18 years in one spot.

And you own every bit of it for five bucks a month.

I totally believe that people that work with kids deserve everything they can get their hands on to help our kids. So it's $5 a month. You can cancel any time.

If your school buys it for you, it's like 45, 50, 50 bucks a year, I believe, which is less than a dollar a week.

So we do group discounts and district discounts and it's called Cookie Bite. C O O K I E B Y t s by julia.com and I would recommend the substack auction versus the Patreon auction.

But you can get on there and try it for five bucks a month and if you don't love it, you can cancel it. And if you see something on there that could be better, you email me and I fix it.

And if you can't find something on there that you need, you email me and I will create it for you. So every month, new videos, new read alouds, everything on there will be on there and, and it will continually grow in size, but it will never go up in cost.

That's one thing. I've signed my life away. It will never cost more than five bucks a month ever.

And it's just kind of a way of giving everything I can back to this profession without costing an arm and a leg. And that's the cookie bites philosophy.

Carol: And I think that first of all, that's amazing and for so cheap, because I don't think anyone else would have said, I'm only going to give all of this away for $5 a month.

Let's be real. I think most people would have charged, like, probably $80 a month. But I think it's incredible. What I really love is that there's so many activities that you can use in, like, right away in your classroom, whether it's with a small group, with an individual kiddo.

Julia: Yeah. Like your classroom perks, your program perks. I love, by the way, because you've taken the Ask US Standards and you've incorporated it into your entire program. I mean, there's character strong, there's second step, and there's perks.

And Cookie Bites does not compete with those, nor should it ever replace those because they don't have. It doesn't have, like a framework. You know, Cookie Bites is just adds to whatever they do.

So if you have perks, Perks gives you the scope and sequence. And then Cookie Bites is like, oh, I need one more activity for attitude or how do I teach kids about cheating?

Or whatever. You can get on and grab something and grab and go. And those activities take like five minutes, ten minutes to do. So you can. And if you get sick of reading my books 9 million times, you hold up the book and I read it to kids.

And so you just turn the pages. And that's kind of cool. If you have your own children you want to listen to read alouds in the car before they go to bed, you can do that as well.

And that's kind of fun. I had a K8 counselor email me, and she said, my teachers have incorporated Cookie Bites into their classrooms for the last three weeks, and my tier one behavior referrals have dropped 50%.

Because if you use it as a counselor, it's going to help your situation and it's going to make your prep time easier. And it's always going to be great for if you have a sub or you need a kid or you have a kid in the office and you hand him soda pop head and let him listen on your phone, how to read it, or whatever, that's one thing.

But if your teachers start doing that, then all the tier one behaviors start getting managed at the classroom level. And teachers, I don't ever want it to be a one more thing they have to do.

But if they have to do a character lesson or they're required to do a whatever, this is the content they need. It's all research. Based.

And it's all done by me. So it's. It's not controversial. There's no political one way or the other. You're not going to get in hot water on any of these things.

It's a safe bet. And it's a great resource for parents. It's a great way to connect schools to parents. For CASA members that need to know what to do with kids, for teachers, for if your teachers start doing it.

I mean, I remember when the activity books came out that counselors were like, don't let the teachers see those, because I don't want to have the same lesson that they did.

And whatever. There's so much stinking stuff on here that you'll never have that problem. And even if they did say, oh, we did this already, then you could take it one step further and say, well, what'd you get out of it?

You know, what's going on there?

Carol: I think the opportunity for more discussion is there, you know, and I think that's how kids learn, too.

You're right, because kids definitely need to. They need to see it, they need to hear it, they need to practice it. They need to do it, feel it.

Julia: Right. Yeah.

Carol: And so it's not just. We're going to give it to them once. It has to be done in a variety of ways, and it has to be done over a period of time, because that's how real learning takes place.

Like, it's like my garden, right? I like to plant peas in the summer, and so I'll plant the peas in the row, right? You put one pea every couple inches and hope that it grows.

But if later on you're looking at it, you're like, oh, I got a whole section there where none of those peas took. Then you just drop another pea right in the spot.

So sometimes you have to put multiple peas in the ground for, you know, to get all your. Your whole row up.

Julia: Well, there's more than one way to milk a duck. And kids are so individualized that, you know, the whole purpose is to make a difference with the time we spend with these kids that, you know, it's kind of like I tell.

I tell counselors, you know, you're a volleyball setter. You can't control the passion. You can't control where the ball comes from. You can control the hitter after you set it.

But if you do everything you can to better the ball, if that kid's better because of you or in their lives, that's enough.

Because we see. We tend to borrow trouble, we tend to think about all the things that are going on with these kids and where they come from and this and that.

And if you start stressing over the things you cannot control, it is an overwhelming burnout position.

You can only focus on the things you have control over. That is your job. And you are not to fix problems for kids. You're not a fixer. You are the Home Depot for great people skills.

And kids come to you and they buy a skill and they. And you show them how to use it, but you don't build the house for them.

Carol: You know what somebody told me the other day, which I was like, oh, my God, that sums it up. They said, you are not a microwave. You're a slow cooker. Like, that's what school counseling is.

You're a slow cooker. You know, you gotta put things in, keep. Let it go for a period of time, and then it's done.

Julia: Right?

Carol: We just don't know how much time sometimes things are gonna take to cook. But we are definitely not the microwaves. We're not, like, shoved in for 30 seconds. And.

Julia: And, you know, when parents come to us and they need resources, okay, well, they could get on this site for five bucks a month and listen to stories.

They can also download any of the activities and do them with their kids. They can watch the videos and do those with their kids. So that's a great liaison between school and family at a price that's pretty affordable.

But I mean, if you need to hand a resource to a mom or a dad and you don't want to give them your book, you can hand a worksheet out and just say this, you know, work on them.

This is the five things you want to talk about when you talk about stealing with your son, or when you talk about being trustworthy or when you talk about, you know, cheating.

Here's five things you want to make sure you cover. And you hand that to parents, and it gives them a guideline of what they, you know, I do want to say if you get on the site and you, You.

You go on the tags, you'll click on a tag, like a topic, attitude, or whatever. And the. If you click on attitude, I know that attitude comes up and winners don't win and winers don't win.

But then you have to click on the book to see the videos and the resources. I do want to mention that too, because it's kind of like there's nothing that says click on the book.

So.

Carol: So to our counselors that are listening, I am going to Drop the links for both perks and cookie bites in the links in the show notes because you need both. You need Julia and you need me.

Julia: That's right.

And then there's one more book that just got released. It's called I Am Vape. And there's really nothing out there for younger kids with vaping. And it's like if you scare them into it, they try it.

And if we wait till middle school to talk to them, then there it's too late. But this book actually is the vape pen talking. And he says that, you know, he tries to trick kids into thinking that using him makes them look cool.

He talks about the things that are doing vape juice, like arsenic and.

And weed killer and formaldehyde. And he also talks about that when you breathe in vapor, it's 390 degrees. Now, if you stick your hand in a boiling pot of water, that's 212 degrees.

So when vape goes into a kid's lungs, it's 390 to 410 degrees. So it actually sears that layer of skin that allows the lungs to rejuvenate. And so it's four times addictive as cigarettes.

So then they use it, and then they use it again and use it again, and pretty soon that that layer burns away and they end up with popcorn lung, which means that even if they quit, they can't breathe anyway because the layer of skin that.

That helps the lung heal is gone. And it feels like they're breathing in through a straw.

And then it also talks about that the nicotine changes how they think nicotine. Every time, since you're a kid, every time you learn something, your brain cells connect to build a bridge.

Nicotine knocks those bridges down and rebuilds them differently. And this makes you think that you need more nicotine. So if a kid starts when they're 10 or 11, every bridge they build from there on has this little factor.

I need nicotine in that bridge, in that idea bridge, which convinces their brain over time that it's okay to use other drugs. And it, you know, and it talks about addiction and, and how addiction can grow.

It's just a really cool book. That's not a scary book. It's just a factual book. And it talks about, I. I'm thinking anywhere from grade two to grade eight for this.

I am vape.

And it just came out. Actually, it's not supposed to be out until November 1st, but I have them.

Carol: And that's perfect because we're going into Red Ribbon week, which is, you know all about making those healthy choices and things like that. And for our listeners, I really wish that you could have seen this because I can see Julia and she can see me.

And Julia's holding up the book and this is beautiful picture book. And you know, she's talking about how the, it burns like the lungs. And I just had this like total look of disgust on my face.

I don't know if you noticed, but.

Julia: I'm like, yeah, you did. And you know, I was kind of.

Carol: Glad that you guys can't see this.

Julia: But there'll be a tick tock video out on this in a day or two too. That kind of shows the, the book a little bit too. And then on Cookie Bites, there's a really cool way to show addiction to teach.

It's a video on, it's called the Yarn, you know, the magic yarn. And it's a great way to show how addiction works in our brain. So I encourage you to check that out too.

And then there's a bunch of activities for vape, you know, vaping prevention on there as well. And like I said, if you can't find something you need, you email me, I'll fix, I'll make it for you because this is your website and that's how I want you to feel about it.

Carol: That is awesome. And I know I'm going to just speak for all counselors that we really appreciate all the work that you put into your writing and how you keep thinking of all the really critical issues that kids are dealing with so that we can talk to them in a really easy.

Julia: Do you know where I get these critical issues? I hear them from you.

And I. I'm most appreciative of the school Counselor Exchange Facebook page. I troll that. Not, not in a bad way, but it gives me a way to listen to your concerns and listen, you know, and so many times I read and I'm just heartbroken by how depleted you feel.

And you know, every once in a while if I have excess of something, I'll reach out to somebody and say, hey, you know, I can send you, you know, three copies of this book or whatever, but if I can't keep a handle on what you need, then I'm no good to you at all.

And so, and you know, I sometimes I think, well, I'll just put cookie bites out there to show them that. And then I'm thinking, well, they'll think it's an advertisement.

And I, I'm just trying to give you as many resources you can for as cheap As I can. So I. There's no advertising intent on there. Please don't take that that way.

So anyway, but Carol, thanks for creating that website and such a nice resource for people.

And, you know, I actually, I think.

Carol: That'S how we met.

Julia: Yeah. Yeah, it is. And, you know, I don't know, it's just. I just am very respectful of being able to listen to all the concerns that you have. And I read almost.

I read them all and I, you know, it's almost heartbreaking because some of you guys are so tired and so worn out, and I just want to grab you and say, listen, you know, you can't control what they bring you, and you can control what after.

But if you can change the middle, if you can better the ball while it's in your presence, that's enough.

That's enough. And you can't control the fact that sometimes you are at recess duty and sometimes you are at lunchroom duty. So you have. If you can't control those, then you can't stress over those.

You just have to figure out a way to make it work for you. So what am I going to get out of this? Well, maybe I can listen to some.

Maybe that's your school counselor exchange. Because if you're in that lunchroom, you're going to hear things that you wouldn't hear just by, you know, I mean, there is a silver lining to every situation.

And. But if you don't love this job, get the hell out. And I'm not kidding. I mean, it is not for everyone. But our kids need you so much right now.

And I, you know, a lot of people go into counseling because they need to feel needed. Well, man, you're never going to have to worry about that. Yeah.

Carol: Because you're needed every day. More than one level every day.

Julia: You know what's going to happen. You never know what they're going to say to you. I got a note that says, dear Julia ****, I love your ****. And it was cook spelled wrong and **** was shirt.

So I'm. Yeah, I know that. You know, so that. Where else could you get a note like that where you. Where you, you know, an asset, not a deficit. So there you go, dying.

Oh, it was so cute. I think she's first. Dear Julia Cocke, I love your.

And I thought, wow, that says it all.

Carol: Please laugh because that needs to be framed.

Julia: You have to laugh every day. You have to laugh every day. So whatever it is you get on a TikTok that makes you laugh or something, but you've got to laugh every day because that just, that just balances the sorrow and.

Yeah. You know, and I'm just going to.

Carol: Say, speaking of TikTok and all those things, you know, Julia, you're right. You have to, you have to laugh, you have to smile, you have to find that silver lining. And so for our counselors that are listening out there, stay off the tick tocks where all they do is like nitpick and nag and put things down and, you know, and that's their way of feeling good.

Because when we start going down that rabbit hole, I'm telling you, you're not going to feel good. You're just going to feel like, oh, this is wrong and oh, that's wrong.

And you got to stay away from.

Julia: Your 6 year old grandson who watches YouTube once in a while. His mom's very specific, but she said, I let him watch one YouTube and it was a 15 year old kid who had an absolute phenomenal birthday party and they decorated the house, they brought in Taco Bell and his whole YouTube was about his birthday party at 15.

And he got off that YouTube and all of a sudden he started acting like a little jerk. He's six. And I said, do you realize that YouTube shows kids everything they don't have when they watch it?

All they see is things I don't have that I wish I had. And so it actually takes a chunk out of them. I mean, if they're making something on YouTube that's productive that they realistically could make and it's a positive outcome.

But why would you want to watch something that just makes you feel like my shirt, you know?

Carol: Yeah, yeah.

And that's, that's the other side of it, you know, like when people are saying, oh, I wish my room looked like that, or I wish I had this, or wow, you have a counseling budget because those are a lot of the things that come up in the Facebook groups.

You just have to remember, you know, people are sharing their highlight reels. They're not showing the miserable stuff either.

Julia: I mean, who wouldn't spend five bucks a day on Starbucks? You know, this is five bucks a month for 30 days of stuff. And I think it's about $10,000 worth of stuff, you know, so.

And also there's also an option where you can have your parents gift it to you or you can have classroom parents gifted to teachers because they're always looking for something for teachers to have.

So that's kind of cool.

Carol: I wonder if we could do a donors choose for you, Julia.

Julia: I don't know.

Carol: That would be cool. I'm going to try it.

Julia: A lot of people do donors choose for.

Carol: I know, I just thought of that when you said gifting it.

Julia: Yeah, yeah. I mean, they, and, and they get them from Amazon and they do the donors choose for them. If you get an Amazon book, I can't autograph it, but if you get it from my website, I can.

But if I'm ever at your school, I sure will take all the books that are there and autograph them for you. So. You bet.

Carol: Awesome. Well, I am definitely for our listeners, I'm going to put all of these links in the show notes. I'm going to put all the resources that, that Julia shared, I'm going to write down in there so that you have all those links and stuff.

And yeah, this has been great.

I think we have one little surprise too, don't we?

Julia: Yeah, we do. We want to give away five copies of I Am Vape.

Carol: So twin your own copy of I Am Vape.

Just forward this podcast episode to five of your friends and say, hey, take a listen to this interview with Julia Cook and send that to your five friends and CC me in your email.

Carolounselingessentials.org and the first five people are our winners. So first five people who, who send this podcast to five of their besties and cc's me in on that email, you're our winners.

Julia: Then, then Carol will give the first five people that have five emails a copy of the book and I will autograph it and send it to you personally.

Carol: Exactly. So that would be really cool. So my friends, I will be looking for some emails from you.

Yeah, send it to your co workers, send it to your colleagues, send it to people that you think, wow, this would be really helpful. So I will put all the info in the show notes.

So you have to go to the show notes and yeah, I'll be looking forward to those emails. And we'll see somebody's five people, five lucky winners. First come, first serve, my friends.

So anyway, Julia, is there anything else that you'd like to share with our, with our people?

Julia: You know, I'm a counselor first, so if you ever have an issue that you just, you need to vent about, I'll answer every email you have. Juliauliacookonline.com Sometimes it takes me a little bit to get back, but I always answer all emails and so I am very approachable.

And if you see something in a book you don't like, or if you need anything that I Can help with. Please always feel free to reach out. It might take me a week or two to get back to you, depending on what's going on.

But that's how I stay current is by listening to you and your needs and trolling you on. Well, not trolling. I guess I just like. What's that sound?

Carol: Kind of creepy. You are. What is it called?

Julia: No, I don't stop.

Carol: No, that's bad too.

Julia: I don't know. I just kind of watch. I always have.

Carol: You're fangirling, you're fan.

Julia: Yeah, I watch that feed on School Counselor Exchange. And if you ever have anything negative to say, don't think you're offending me at all because I listen and I read and I think, oh, okay, well, then we need to get better because negative input is.

So don't think you have to change the way you respond on School Counselor Exchange in case I look at it. Because I just want your true, honest opinions. That's what helps me grow the most.

Carol: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time tonight.

Julia: Thank you for having me. I appreciate that so much.

Carol: And for our listeners, thank you for joining me. I really hope this was pretty special. I always love talking to Julia and I hope that this was special for you. And I can't wait to see your emails and hear from you.

Tell me what you think. Tell me if there's any other person like Julia that you would love to hear from or if you want to hear.

Julia: Brian. I launched him. I told him how to get published with Boys Town and led them all the connections.

Carol: So if you.

Julia: Well, and that's another thing. Maybe you are a person who has an idea for a children's book. No one would help me do this, you guys. And I tried really hard.

And I thought, well, if I ever make it in this world, I'm going to make sure I help everybody. Because you can't have enough cool books out there. It is not a competition, it's a cooperation.

So if you have that idea and you want to try to get it published and you want to ask me about it, I am brutally honest when I read these books that people send to me because I'm not going to waste your time, but I will help you all I can to get published because we can't have enough cool stuff out there for kids.

And that's true. So Brian Smith, be a great host on your show. He's amazing. Trudy. Trudy Lugwood is amazing, too. I could hook you up with her. She's awesome.

Carol: All right. Well, we have lots in store.

So once again, thank you, my friends that are listening. Thank you so much for joining us. It really, it always makes me happy that you guys are out there listening and I just love it.

You guys are rock stars.

I know you guys are doing great things. Keep it up. You are amazing, amazing, amazing. And, and you'll have poopy days.

Julia: You'll have poopy days sometimes, too. Just make sure that your cookie days are better than your poopy days, that you have more of those cookie days than poopy days. But laugh every day and listen to great music and go to your happy place in your head and take some mental vacations and be kind to yourself.

Carol: All right, everyone, bye for now.

Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor Chat. All of the links I talked about can be found in the show notes and at counselingessentials.org

podcast. Be sure to hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player. And if you would be so kind to leave a review, I'd really appreciate it. Want to connect?

Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at Counseling Essentials. Until next time. Can't wait till we chat. Bye for now.