Teaching with Heart: Trauma-Informed Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence with Danielle Warden

Host Connie Warden welcomes listeners to the Mindful Kindful podcast and interviews her daughter-in-law, Danielle Warden, a certified classroom teacher with nearly two decades of experience, a mother of four, and a passionate advocate for social emotional learning and trauma-informed teaching. Danielle explains trauma-informed teaching as understanding the whole child and being mindful of how expectations, tone, and reactions affect students. She shares how pausing to consider what lies beneath behavior helps bridge the gap between intent and impact, and emphasizes restorative “repair” through apology and relationship-building to cultivate trust. Danielle recounts classroom practices like check-ins, student sharing, and writing to process strong emotions, highlighting the importance of validating feelings. She recommends The Anxious Generation and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, and outlines a practical framework: notice, pause, choose, repair, and begin again.

00:00 Welcome to Mindful Kindful

00:38 Meet Danielle Warden

01:42 What Trauma Informed Means

03:00 Intent vs Impact in Moments

06:31 Repair and Restorative Practices

07:54 Camping Story with Luna

10:40 Classroom Trauma Check In

13:18 Writing It Out to Reset

16:22 Books That Shaped Danielle

18:11 Notice Pause Choose Repair

22:08 Begin Again Closing Thoughts

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