Calm Parenting Podcast - 3 Quick Ideas for Teachers

Episode Date: March 14, 2021

3 Quick Ideas for TeachersHave a student who struggles with focus, impulsivity, blurting out, transitions, anxiety, and/or social skills? Kirk gives teachers three very practical ideas with scripts to use tomorrow to improve behavior while building a child's confidence. Please share this with teachers, principals, and your PTA. Email Casey@CelebrateCalm with other issues you'd like addressed in future podcasts or in Professional Development Training. We'd love to help! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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getting them to move from one activity or lesson to another is tough. Sometimes they have a hard time just collaborating and working with others. They blurt out, they interrupt, they do things that they think are funny, right? So other kids will like them, but it interrupts your class 14 times a day. Good. That's what we're going to talk about today on the Calm Parenting Podcast. But today I may call it the Calm Teacher Podcast because I really want to do this for our teachers because I just did a phone consultation, of all things, with a teacher who's like, I need your help in my classroom with these kids. And we did some Zoom training with a couple schools. And so I wanted to give some teachers

a few ideas. Now, I can give you hours worth of ideas, but I'm going to try to make this very, very quick so you get an idea of what we do. And then give me feedback and I'll do more podcasts for teachers. And then parents who are listening, please, if this is good, forward it to school or teachers because we would love to come to your school and train the teachers and the parents at the same time, same day. So, and my son does school assemblies to teach kids how to control their impulses and emotions, which may be the most important thing. So teachers, think about this. The students that you have, I know they are very challenging and you've got like back in the day, you might have like two or three kids who had some

behavior issues. Now it's like, oh, like half of them because you're also dealing with kids who have grown up with screens. So guess what? You're competing with Fortnite. Good luck with that, right? So it's tough. But I want you to think about these kids because many of these kids that you're working with, they're very, very smart, but they're not always academically motivated. And most of them have had pretty bad school experiences because from the time they were young, they're not good at school, right? They're not naturally good at sitting still and listening to a teacher talk because many of them have auditory processing issues. They're not very good at memorizing information because they struggle with short-term memory. They do happen to be awesome

at arguing, at chess and checkers, pushing people's buttons because while they don't have good short-term memory, they're very good strategic thinkers, but you don't always use that in the classroom. They struggle with executive function, right? They usually struggle with, they have something called asynchronous development. So they're out of sync, usually get along better with little kids and animals or older kids and adults. But who do they struggle with? Peers, kids their own age. Well, that's kind of hard when you go to 12 grades of school and you only go with kids your own age and you naturally struggle to connect with them. So you find yourself alone in the cafeteria, ostracized or alone out at recess, and you're not

getting invited to the birthday parties and you might be just a little bit odd. It's no different than at home because they get compared to siblings who might be the really compliant sibling and this happens to be a strong-willed child and so so they get yelled at a lot. And probably in the morning, they dawdle a little bit, and so they're getting yelled at on the way to school, and they're in trouble a lot. Just like in your classroom, they're on red on that behavior chart that doesn't work, right? Because these kids don't care about consequences. At home, they're on red as well. So inside they often feel like I'm a dumb kid. I'm a stupid kid. They may be slower processors of information and that makes them feel like they're dumb as well. And they feel less than their siblings and their peers. And so they walk

into your classroom in the morning and guess what? You've got a kid who might be struggling with anxiety, who may be down on himself who hasn't had a great experience in school and so what do we do with that so let me give you three ideas and here's what I encourage you to do let's think of one of those students just pick one I'm not going to pick all of them pick one for one day tomorrow let's try this that three things I want to give you the child walks into your classroom and here's what I want you to say to him. You know what? I'm really glad you're here today. Now are you really glad? I don't know because they're difficult to teach, right? But I want you to be glad because these are really

interesting kids who are very curious. Just not curious about what you're teaching them but they're really smart curious kids. But I do mean that. I want you to say even a low tone pull them aside or just say you about what you're teaching them, but they're really smart, curious kids. But I do mean that. I want you to say, even in a low tone, pull them aside or just say, you know what? I'm really glad you made it here today. Now, if you have older kids who struggle with anxiety, because I know a lot of kids, a lot of girls, a lot of boys who have severe anxiety.

And so if you were to say to them sometime, you know what? Nobody, nobody knows how much of courage it takes for you to get here every day. And I appreciate it. That will begin to change their heart, change their mind, and help them get ready to learn and just be more engaged with you. So let's start. Now, as soon as you say, hey, I'm glad you're here today, transition quickly to, you know what? I really could use your help. And then just make up something. These are kids who love the adult world. They're not always great at kids, but they love the adult world and they love being helpful.

Not at home to their parents, but they love helping other adults. So if you transition, you know, I'm so glad you're here. I could really use your help. Now, if you can give them a job to do using one of their particular gifts, talents, and passions, that would be even better. And what you're doing is you're starting the day with a success. So they walk in and instead of the first thing that happens being class, turn in your homework. Oh, I forgot to do that. Now they're already off to a bad start where they're blurting out or something else is happening and we have to discipline or correct them right away. That's not a good start. So you're proactively creating a success for the child.

Again, if you can use their particular talents, it's awesome. If you can get them engaged in a special project. So maybe you're studying ancient Rome and they're really good at creating and making stuff or building with Legos, you may say, listen, we're starting this new unit on Rome. You know what I could use help with? I want to create like a reconstruction of a Roman Colosseum. Do you think you could do that for me? See, they love doing stuff like that. Just not the normal stuff you want them to do, but you're engaging them, starting with a success. Let's try that tomorrow morning.

Number two, and this is where when we do the live or Zoom presentations with teachers, we spend most of our time on giving kids tools to succeed. So rather than just giving consequences because you found that usually doesn't work for these kids, instead of giving a consequence for failure, I'd rather proactively give a child tools to succeed. And we have dozens of these, but in this podcast, I'm going to do one. So a child blurts out, what do we typically do? Hey, hey, listen, you are not going to blurt out my class that is rude. And right then the child shuts down because in his heart, his motivation is not to be rude.

It's this. These kids struggle with short-term memory. And let me give it to you in a course of how I would say it as a teacher to the child. You may pull this child aside at recess or sometimes say, listen, you know why I love having you in my class? Because you're really, really bright and you're really curious and you're filled with all

kinds of ideas. And so when you're sitting in my class, your brain is just exploding. It's so busy and smart with all these ideas, but then you're afraid you're going to forget the idea. Now, whether you want to explain this to the child or not, it depends on the age, but I don't mind saying to them, listen, I know what's going on. You have this awesome brain filled with ideas, but you struggle with short-term memory. And so that's going to make it a little bit more difficult for you in school because school requires the use of short-term memory to memorize information for tests. But what I want you to know is it's okay because after you graduate, you don't have to use short-term memory a lot. What you use then is your strategic brain for coming up with ideas when you work in a company or something or a

think tank or an education, come up with all kinds of ideas, right? And so I'm trying to give them context to know there's nothing wrong with their brains. They have really good brains, but it will make it a little bit tougher. So what I love about you is you've got all these ideas and you're like a junior Thomas Edison and you get the idea, but then you're afraid you're going to forget the idea. And that's when you blurt out. Now, blurting out unacceptable in my classroom. Notice I use the word unacceptable, right? I didn't say you're being rude. I just said that's unacceptable. But here's why you're doing it, because you're afraid you're going to forget your idea. So I'm going to give you a tool to help you so you don't forget your idea. Now, there are a number of different ways to do this, but I love the idea of the talk tickets. So you make up three little tickets, cardboard paper tickets, and say, listen, Jacob, I'm

going to give you three tickets, talk tickets. Here's how it works. Every time you get one of your amazing ideas, instead of blurting out, right? Big principle with strong will kids, whenever you tell a child to stop doing something inappropriate, you give them something appropriate to do. So look, blurting out my class, not going to happen. Very even matter of fact. But when you get that idea, hold up one of these talk tickets. I will either say, hey, zip, because I believe you can hold it till after class. Love that phrase. I believe you're capable. I believe you can do it. You can hold it till after class. Love that phrase. I believe you're capable. I believe you can do it.

You can hold it till after class. Or I'll say, go ahead. Why don't you redeem one of your three tickets? Share your amazing off-topic idea. Now that's sarcasm, so don't use that. But their topic is going to be, it's going to be off-topic, right? It just is. So I know that. So they redeem their ticket, right? And now they get to share the idea and they get three of them. So they've got to think about it through the day. So let's say that afternoon, they're starting to, you know, you're doing class and they start to blurt out, right? And they said, Mr. Henderson, you know, the new Star Wars video game is coming out. And then they stop themselves and they hold up a talk ticket. Do you know how awesome that is? Because now you get to use positive

affirmations. So you know, it was really cool. You wanted to blurt out, you started to blurt out, but you know what you did? You caught yourself. You held up your talk ticket. That's called self control, my friend. And that's the way we do it in my classroom. Fist bump. Affirm them for making a good choice. Because if you start affirming these kids throughout the day for all the good choices they make, instead of just noticing every time they mess up, which is a lot, it will motivate them to work harder for you. That's one idea. We have hundreds of them, dozens of them. I'll try to share more, but let me do this one. So recess, transitions, difficult. So let's do this in two different ways. So I pull Charles aside because I know he

struggles at recess because he doesn't always have a lot of friends and they're going to cheat at games, change the rules of the game. They're going to steal the ball. They're not going to play by the right rules, make up their own rules, and nobody's going to enjoy it. So I say, hey, listen, Jacob, I need your help. Listen, next week we're going to start a new unit on reptiles. I've noticed you're really good at doodling and drawing. And I noticed Frankie over here loves drawing too. If I bring some poster board outside, could you guys during recess draw all kinds of different reptiles for me? And then I'll put that up on the board next week and it'll really help me out.

And now I've done a couple things. One, I'm using the child's gifts, talents, and passions. I'm creating a success. And I'm giving them a project to do with another child who shares a similar interest because they both like dinosaurs and reptiles and they're both good at drawing. So I'm kind of helping him make a friend here and I'm keeping him really busy during recess. And it's a relief for him because many of these kids aren't necessarily athletic. So now he gets to do what he's good at doing. It's awesome. And the other kids next week get to see, hey, this kid sometimes has some issues and some behavior issues, but man, can he draw? That was really cool. Now, I also say this, hey, when we come in from recess, here's what I want you to do. Picture these three things

in your brain. One paper towel, one roll of paper towels. I'm sorry, I messed that up. One water bottle, three paper towels, and the front row of desks in my classroom. So what the child knows what you want him to do. He's going to grab a water bottle, three paper towels. I like it to be very specific. And I want you to clean the first row, not all of them, first row of desks in my classroom. So now he's coming in and instead of, hey, come on, sit down, sit down, be on your best behavior. See, that's all vague in general. I gave him a very specific job to do when he came in. Now he's spraying down the desks. And now he's putting sensory pressure because he's pushing down on that table. And he's cleaning.

Remember Karate Kid. Wax on, wax off. We're crossing the midline of the body. We're meeting some sensory needs. It's very good for cross-brain stimulation and communication. It's really awesome. And he does that while all the other kids are coming in and I get to end that scene with, hey, good job. Thank you for doing that. Thank

you for doing that. That was awesome. Now go throw the paper towels away, put the water bottle back and now come sit down. I created a success by doing that. I want you to try something like this tomorrow with this child and see how it works. Then you email us. I want you to try something like this tomorrow with this child and see how it works. Then you email us. I want you to email our son Casey because he was the strong-willed child you probably didn't want to teach in your classroom, right? But email him at c-a-s-e-y at celebratecalm.com. And if you want more ideas, just email us. Tell us what's going on in your classroom. We'll be glad to throw out ideas. If you want us to come to your school and train you, email him. Tell him about your school and we'll send out a proposal or tell us other ideas and

I'll do a podcast on it because we want to support you as teachers. We want to support the parents and we want to support these kids. We thank you for what you're doing out there, parents and teachers. Please share this with your school, with your PTA, with teachers, your principal. If we can help in any way, let us know. Love you all. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.