How can teachers support student mental health without pushing students too hard—or making everything too easy? In this episode of Suck Less Tomorrow, host Carlton Glassford sits down with Lawrence Harris, a 20-year-old author and speaker, to explore school anxiety, autism, bullying, and how educators can help students build resilience without dismissing genuine distress.

Drawing on his lived experience with autism, childhood abuse, bullying, and school struggles, Lawrence shares how he turned personal challenges into a platform for helping students, teachers, and families. From reaching out to strangers online to speaking at major conferences, his story offers a powerful reminder that you don't need to have everything figured out to make a difference.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Student mental health: How to distinguish healthy discomfort that encourages growth from distress that requires intervention.

• School anxiety: When to encourage students to face their fears and when to adjust expectations or provide additional support.

• Classroom strategies: How smaller presentation settings, fidget tools, and lunch-period homework support can help students succeed.

• Practical coping skills: How breathing exercises, journaling, physical activity, yoga, and reframing anxious thoughts can help students manage stress.

• Autism in education: Why stereotypes and misconceptions can prevent teachers and parents from understanding what individual students actually need.

• Building resilience: How Lawrence used rejection, persistence, and a pivotal speaking opportunity to grow his impact.

• Student leadership: How one conversation helped inspire students to start their own mental health nonprofit.

Whether you're a classroom teacher, school counselor, parent, or student, this conversation challenges the idea that students should simply tough it out. Supporting young people means knowing when to encourage them to take the next step, when to change the conditions around them, and how to help them develop the skills to handle future challenges.

The goal isn't to eliminate every struggle. It's to make sure students have the support they need to grow through the right ones.

Subscribe to Suck Less Tomorrow: A Podcast for Teachers for honest conversations about teaching, classroom practice, and getting a little better every day.

Hosted by Carlton Glassford, author of Suck Less in the Classroom Tomorrow: Honest Advice for Teachers in Their First Years.

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