Calm Parenting Podcast - Getting Kids to Stop Procrastinating & Interrupting Work Calls

Episode Date: September 5, 2020

How can you get kids to complete their school work without procrastinating? What do you do when kids interrupt you on work calls? Kirk gives practical ideas drawn from a School BootCamp Case Study from a real family like yours. Visit https://celebratecalm.com/school-bootcamp/ to learn more!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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no multiple step protocols, just simple scientifically validated solutions. The secret is One Skin's proprietary OS1 peptide. It's the first ingredient proven to switch off the aging cells that cause lines, wrinkles, and thinning skin. OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company. By focusing on the cellular aspects of aging, OneSkin keeps your skin looking and acting younger for longer. Get started today with 15% off using code Kirk at OneSkin.co. That's 15% off at OneSkin.co with code K-I-R-K. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So please support our podcast and tell them we sent you. So what are you going to do when your kids have trouble focusing on their schoolwork? What happens when they're doing their schoolwork virtually online and they have school videos to

watch on YouTube and they're going to be tempted to switch over to more interesting things that you find on YouTube? Or maybe they're done with their work. How do you know? And how do you know that they're not actually on screens all day? And what if you're a working parent? How do you manage all of this? That's what we're going to talk about today on the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. And we are getting inundated with emails and phone calls because some people have already gone back to school, whether it's a hybrid of school in person with some remote learning. We're all remote learning right now. And then there are other parents who are dreading it because there are going to be some real, real challenges this school year. But I think it's also a very big opportunity to take back control of your child's education and to do things differently in ways that build their confidence. And that's what I'm super psyched about. So I wanted to share a case study that we've done on our school bootcamp program. And what I love about the school bootcamp program, I'll give you 30 seconds on this. It's awesome because I get to work one-on-one with

you and there's mentoring involved in which you can email me personally. I'm working with each individual family to come up with customized solutions for each family. That's very rare because I usually don't have time for that. But because we're not traveling, I'm able to do that more and I'm loving it. And it's extremely helpful. So you get all kinds of written and audio materials from us. We've already done our 10 steps that I want you to do. That's a foundation. We show you how to get kids off screens, how to help jumpstart their brains, push through when things get hard. But we also, throughout the

school year, we'll be recording special Q&A sessions and case studies to help you as it goes along. And I'm going to help you personally. And it's not expensive at all. Seriously, it's way cheaper than therapy. And you get my help. so look up celebrate calm.com uh look up school boot camp it's awesome so here's the uh one of the case studies we did it is uh uh mom and dad right in they've got two boys um and they're uh third grade and first grade we also handle older kids middle school high school but this one just roll with me here even if you have older kids because there'll be things that are relevant to you. So third grade and first grade.

Last spring, it was a nightmare getting work done because they wouldn't get their work done. They would procrastinate until 5 p.m. And then we'd fight all night. Sounds lovely. So got it. This year, though, we're not going to sit the whole year. This is an opportunity to teach your kids the way their brains work best.

So we're going to start using some movement. We're going to have kids sitting on an exercise ball, rolling a tennis ball underneath their foot, doing chair push-ups, chewing, fidgeting. There are all kinds of ways to introduce movement and stimulate your child's brain while they're watching online and even while they're in the classroom. And we're going to cover all of that. Look, the reason we procrastinate is because we push hard things off,

because we feel overwhelmed, and procrastination is a way to stimulate the brain. If I put things off to the last minute, there'll be pressure, and then I'll get it done. It is a negative tool, but a helpful tool that many of us use. So I want to show you how to jumpstart your child's brain so you get an early win. And it's one of the things you'll hear on the program. We want to begin with a win. Begin with a win so we can build some momentum. We get small successes and we use momentum to help your kids get their work done. So I asked the parents, and this is what I will ask you if you sign up for the program too, what does motivate your child? What does your child love doing? And the third grader loves

sports. Past couple days, he's been watching old college football games on TV. He puts on his entire football outfit because he has to dress the part and then asks me to come and watch him play. He loves riding his bike. Important. Loves fancy sports cars. We can use that. And he especially likes high school and college age kids. We can use that. So I want you to observe your kids because they will tell you how to teach and motivate them by observing their natural tendencies. So look, we can make analogies to sports. You can do math related to football points, right?

You can do addition, subtraction, multiplication, algebra using point spreads between the two teams, right? So you can use their natural curiosity you can do word problems and create stories between two separate teams and this team got off to a lead and they've got two touchdowns but the other team just got a field goal how many more points do they have to get to take the lead there are there are thousands of variations of that but you can use real-life situations. At the grocery store is a fantastic way to teach math, and I'm finding with my experience,

I'm volunteering in an inner-city community center. These are at-risk kids, and so I am putting all of this into practice, and I'm having to at times look at their worksheet and say, let's cover up the worksheet. Let me tell you a story. See, stories, within stories, you can create context, which is really important. And it's really helpful at times to actually go through your child's curriculum. And I'm finding, look, I'm going through multiple kids a day that I'm working with. And I'm looking at the curriculum, the little packet of information from school. And I'm like, that's pretty confusing. And I'm working with and I'm looking at the curriculum the little packet of information from school and I'm like that's not that's pretty

confusing and I'm 54 so I'm kind of rewriting the curriculum for them so that they can get it and I'm drawing them in using stories because it draws them in and you see you see the light bulb go off inside and they're like, oh, now I get it. It's not just numbers on a page. This is related to me, right? And I use manipulatives. The other kid the other day, we were building, we were doing his math facts and he's building things with Jenga blocks, right? Because he can feel it in his hands. For older kids, you can use their Instagram followers. You have this many followers. Your friend has this many. What percentage increase in your popularity, fake popularity, do you need

in order to be as fake popular as him? Right? So take back control and learn to do that. So he likes to get dressed up in his entire football uniform. Good. So use that. So maybe every day for school, he dresses up in a different way. Monday, it's one team. Maybe Tuesday, it's a different sport. I don't care. Use it. Maybe in order to feel like, you know, dad going to work, he wears a shirt and tie. I don't know. You don't know what's going to work. So try everything. If you can take a break during the school day, if you can, and during during your work day because many of you are working from home and I strongly encourage you to do so for this child he loves to ride on bikes so

go ride on bikes right if you can do it make a picnic lunch throw it a couple pb and j's go for a bike ride do your homework and school work while they're outside eating on the ground set up maybe you set up just a little obstacle course and he has to ride his bike through or maybe you time and say hey you've got to ride from here to here around the block. Let's see if you can do it in under 58 seconds. Make it very specific. And then challenge him, right? Because he's like a Ferrari on his bike and you affirm him like, man, you're getting so fast. And now his face is all red and he's all like, he's breathing hard. That's a great time to quiz your child on math facts and vocabulary words while he's actually on, he's breathing hard. That's a great time to quiz your child on math facts and

vocabulary words while he's actually on his bike because the endorphins of fresh air and accomplishment in any area of strength, all those things are really helpful. Look, try everything. I would encourage, I encourage these parents. I was like, maybe just maybe you bring into his bike and let him sit on his bike while he's watching his Zoom class, or better yet, get one of those indoor bike trainer stands where you put the bike on it and the kid can pedal but stays in place. It's a hundred bucks, but you let him ride while he's watching his videos and doing work. I don't see why there's, see, we've wanted for years to be able to go into the schools and what I train teachers to do.

And we're still doing training via Zoom and some live training too. So reach out to us if you want to train your school, PTA, school assemblies. Casey's doing school assemblies by Zoom. It's really cool. So just reach out to Casey at CelebrateCalm.com and we'll send you a quote. We'll show you how to do it. It's pretty cool. But we've wanted for years to be able to teach our kids in different ways.

Now you have an opportunity because you don't have to worry about them distracting all the other kids in class while your kids do weird things. So try it. And we also found out he looks up to older kids. Huh. So watch. This is a cool idea. I guarantee you there are tons of smart, bored college kids stuck at home because they weren't

able to go live in dorms this fall. And so you could hire a local college kid or a high school kid because look, I've got friends, their kids are done with school every day by like noon or one o'clock. They have time to do things. I'm starting to recruit them to go to the community center with me because it's really cool for them. Look, you can hire them to help tutor and to do their schoolwork. And it's cool because your son looks up to older kids and they're going to listen to older kids or other adults more than they're going to listen to you because you're just a stupid parent. And it's a lot cheaper, right? To do that, especially a lot cheaper than going to therapy from yelling at your kids all day, you can also hire those kids, say, take my child outside, wear him out a little

bit, right? You know what happens? You do the world two favors. One, your son gets to look up to an older kid. He now has a mentor, someone he listens to that takes an interest in him. And that older kid who's helping may just be one of our teenage kind of kids who's bored and but gets along really well with younger kids like many of your kids. They get along better with little kids and older kids and animals, but not kids their own age. And so you just gave him a job to do doing something meaningful. And he gets to go, he gets, look, his family may get a break from him while he's over helping your child. And now he's doing something meaningful and it costs you a lot less than getting a regular

tutor. And if you need to get a professional tutor, by all means do it. I'm not trying to take work away from them, but what the heck, use what you got. Okay. How do we get them off screens after his work is done? I'm going to save that for later. I've got a whole section. We're doing a ton of that in the school boot camp. It's a little bit longer answer. So I'm just going to save that for that. Mom says, I need him to get his work done more quickly. Here's the thing.

I can't promise he's going to work as quickly as you want because most of our kids have very, very busy brains and they don't process things that quickly all the time. Sometimes they're slower processors, but deeper processors, which is an advantage in the real world, but usually a disadvantage in school. So they work better in spurts with momentum. So you're going to have to manage their energy, not their time. And I want you to reset your expectations, type A mom and dad, because you're going to have to manage their energy, not their time. And I want you to reset your expectations, type A mom and dad, because you're going to be like, well, just sit it down, go for it. That's not the way their brains work. He also compares his workload to his younger brother,

who doesn't have to do as much, and it's not fair. Of course, it's not fair. I don't like having to work harder than other people, but I only do it because there's usually a reward for it somewhere. So could we provide some unequal rewards as well? Maybe older child gets a special privilege he gets to enjoy with dad because he's the big kid and the firstborn. So you do more work, you get more privileges, even if you just make something up. He loses steam throughout the day. He gets excited about a product, comes up with great ideas, but when it comes time to do the work, he wants us to do the typing or put ideas down on paper for him. We wouldn't, of course, but then that would lead to him not doing the work or doing the minimum. It's frustrating, so many great ideas, but he didn't get turned in because he wouldn't

complete the project. So two thoughts. One is in the program, we're going to go through how to jumpstart his brain, use momentum, maximize his brain energy, and we're going to show you how to do writing projects in a completely different way because it is extremely difficult to get those thoughts down from head to paper because they just swirl in the brain. So I'm going to show you how to do that. But here's what I want to encourage you to do.

Sometimes just write the words down for him. You're just going to have to do it, right? And you're just going to have to write the words down and maybe you type some things in for him. And I know you're going to be like, oh, but he needs to learn how to do it. And yes, he does in certain ways, but it's also third grade. It's not he's not working at a real job. It's not rocket science here. It's third grade. And so I encourage you, I don't want to make this harder than it needs to be either for him or for you guys, right? So if he's engaged, right? Like he's got this idea and he's pacing around the kitchen because that's how often how this works and he's pacing because he thinks better while he's pacing around and he's mentioning all these things one thing you

can do is have a whiteboard there and he jots down one idea that he gets while he's walking around and you put it into a template a structure intro five blocks introduction three support points conclusion and maybe maybe jot that down, but you write a lot of the notes down. I don't have a problem with doing that for him, as long as he's not saying, well, why don't you write it for me? If he's engaged, he's coming up with ideas. You're becoming, you're a tool that is helping him right now until he gets a little bit older, until he gets a little bit of confidence, then he'll start doing it. But don't make it harder than it needs to be. And you're going to have to resist the urge because you want

to get all anxious and project into the future thinking, well, we can't do it. You know, we can't do his work for him. How will he be able to succeed in college or the real world? Because mommy can't come to the dorm room. But I promise you that he will change. He'll be independent when he's older and when he's motivated. But don't make things harder than they need to be. It's a third grade project. It has nothing to do with his future. It has no bearing on his future success.

And all of us are going to have to define what is really important and what isn't. Use a long-term focus, not what is being asked of them right now. Because much of the work that they're being asked to do is arbitrary. You're the parent, you know what's important and you know what isn't. And we've got two working parents here who are tag team schooling the kids, right? So that is difficult. You're not going to get everything done. So choose wisely, choose the important things.

Now, what happens when we get interrupted at work? I'd hang something red or a big red stop sign on your home office door or around your neck or hold up a sign when you see him coming in. It's a nonverbal. It's red. It means stop, right? I want to use that so he learns to respect the need for quiet. Now, if you're on a call in your little home office or wherever it is, you could have your sensory come in, to cut child come in, lie underneath your feet and you roll a ball across his back. Or maybe you give him some sensory pressure while you're on the call. That way you're connecting.

You meet this need while you're focusing on your work project. And maybe that keeps you awake during boring Zoom meetings for work, right? But be creative with it. So I encourage you with that. I wanted to share what this mom said. Found a podcast last spring. We were fighting over schoolwork. I proceeded to listen to every podcast and cried through most knowing that there wasn't anything wrong with my son. And I wanted to end this with knowing there's nothing wrong with your kids. They may be wired differently, but that's just different. Different doesn't mean wrong. It doesn't mean bad. It just means you have to work differently with their brains and your kids are going to be just fine.

You're just going to have to be a little bit creative in how we do school. So if we can help you with that, reach out to us. We've got a 50% off sale while it lasts right now on the school bootcamp program. You can reach out to Casey for help with that. If you have questions, we've got a massive back to school sale on our regular programs that is 60% off. So if you need help with anything,

email us, tell us about your family, your situation, and we will recommend the right products within your budget. We'll help you out. But thank you for listening and we'll talk to you soon and be sure if you don't mind spread the news tell other people about the calm parenting podcast if you find this helpful because you never know they might just get insight into their kids it changes their relationships that's kind of a cool thing and that's what we love doing talk to you soon bye