Calm Parenting Podcast - School Anxiety? 5 Ways to Avoid Meltdowns

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

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They're going to be on their screens all day. Or what if they can't ask teachers questions? Or they start to fall behind in their classes and they're not good at organization, they're not good at attention and follow-through and all these other things that are going to happen. What about social skills and friendships? Because your kids already struggle with that. Now they're not going to be in school with anyone, and extracurriculars are canceled. And what about screens? Because your kids have to do their schoolwork on screens now.

At least for some of us, school was a way, at least when they were in class, it was 50 minutes at a time where they weren't looking at the screen. Now they have to do their work on screens. How are you going to handle that? There's a lot of anxiety out there. So we're going to talk about that today on the Calm Parenting Podcast. And if there was ever a time when we could use Calm, it's now. So I'm Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at celebratecalm.com. Pretty easy. Reach out to our son, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at celebratecalm.com. He's an awesome kid. He will be able to help you.

You email him, tell him about your family, what you're struggling with. We convene as a family. We talk about it. We come up with ideas. We email you back. We give you suggestions and strategies and recommendations. If you're interested in our products, we'll put together a special package just for you to meet your family's needs within your budget. And by the way, we have huge sales right now because families are struggling and we want to help

because that's our mission. So look at our website. You'll see it at CelebrateCalm.com. There's a special sale. There's a boot camp. There's no BS program. Whatever you need, we're here to help you. But let's talk about that anxiety, right? Because we're getting emails already. Look, we're yelling already. Everybody's all tense. We're just starting out. And so I want to go through a few things with you. Number one, before we get to your anxiety, let's talk about your kids. And I want you to listen to your kids because your kids have a ton of anxiety about school this year. Because, well, I've got five different classes, but my teachers all use a different platform. One uses Google Classrooms and the other YouTube.

And I'm not sure how this whole thing works. Like, when do I talk to them? And how do I get my assignments? And like, and then zoom was down today. And so I don't know what to expect. Like, this is weird for me because I'm just a kid, never been through this before. And I'm already kind of, they're not going to say this, but I'm always already kind of awkward socially. And I get along better with like little kids and animals and older kids and adults, but not kids my own age. But now I don't get to see anybody and I'm kind of isolated.

Like this is hard. I don't know what to do because now everything's different. So listen to your kids. Listen to them. Right? And find out what they're anxious about. One, that'll help you with your own anxiety because one of my favorite tools to deal with my own anxiety is to listen to other people and to be involved in their

lives because then I can think more about their own anxiety than about my own. Number two, let's calm your own anxiety. And this is what this podcast is going to be about a lot, is calming your own anxiety. Because I will promise you, your biggest enemy as a parent, my biggest enemy as a parent, is our own anxiety. Because our anxiety causes us to project what we see now into the future, and it is wrong almost 100% of the time. Our anxiety creates the very outcome that we dread. Look, it's very easy. If you tell your kids, watch, we tell our kids we want them to move. Guys, got to get going. Guys, come on, get to the car right now. The more anxious you are, the more you try to get your kids to move more quickly, the slower they go. You've noticed the more you lecture and the more you go on and

on and the more you talk to them like this and really try to get them You've noticed the more you lecture and the more you go on and on and the more you talk to them like this and really try to get them to understand, the more they shut down and they do the opposite of what you want. That's the way it works. By the way, when you walk into their bedroom in the morning, the first thing you have to do every day when you wake up is not think about your kids, is not to think about anybody else. It is to first get control of your own anxiety, your own anxiety, your own control issues, so that you can be at peace, so that you can be calm inside, so you can look outward. Because if you don't do that and you wake up running because you've got,

you are overwhelmed. You have way too much to do as a parent. You've got your own job. You've got to take care of the house. You've got to take care of the kids. You've got to make sure that their schooling goes well because you don't even know how it's working. Teachers don't know how it's going to work and you're overwhelmed. So you hit the ground running. And if you walk into their bedroom, guys, come on, guys, look, you've got, get up for school. We have to start school. If you go in with that tone, you're done for the day because they are going to resist you. They're going to dive under the covers. You're going to get a power struggle and they're not rejecting you. They're rejecting your anxiety because they can feel it on you and they can hear it in

your tone of voice. They can feel it. And what it says to them is the situation is unstable because mom or dad is already upset and it's only 7 22 or 8 22 in the morning and they're already kind of in that mode and I know that even if I do get up I'm not going to get up quickly enough I'm not going to eat the right thing and and I'm not going to be prepared enough for school right and you're going to be all over them so you must ruthlessly ruthlessly focus on yourself first thing. My goal in life is to be able to give out to other people, right? And so the way that I do that is I am ruthless about my

self-care first thing in the morning. I don't think about other people. I think about myself and I work on myself. Whether that's a two-minute little thing of kind of like centering my brain, giving thanks, gratitude, whatever works for you, prayer time, go for a walk, whatever it is, singing sometimes, listening to certain types of music. When I take care of myself, now I am available to everybody else and I can look outward because I already calmed all the ick that was going on inside of me. One of the most selfless things that you can do is self-care. The reason we do self-care is not to be selfish. It is so that we can actually be selfless,

and so other people don't have to manage our emotions for us. Because by the way, when you walk into their bedroom in the morning, or they're not doing schoolwork the right way, and watch what happens. Your anxiety begins to dump on them because you're getting upset and watch over anxiety because what if my kids don't put in their best effort and they don't work as hard as they could because they could apply themselves more and what if they don't make friends like and what if they don't follow through and they're and they don't get good grades and what if they fall behind

like if they don't have good grades how are they going to get into college and if they don't get good grades. And what if they fall behind? Like if they don't have good grades, how are they going to get into college? And if they don't get a college, how are they going to get a good job? And if they don't get a good job, who's going to marry them? They're going to be living in my basement until they're 28. And now I'm going to feel like a failure. And all that stuff wraps in your brain very, very quickly during the day. And when you react to your own anxiety and you project out into the future, your kids reject it. And watch, we're going to come back to this in a few minutes. But it sends a really insidious message that you don't trust that your kids are going to be successful.

And so you get all wound up and it creates the very outcome that you actually dreaded. And so the reason that I practice, that I focus on myself very quickly in the morning is I want to see clearly so I can look outward. So that instead of the day being about, watch, instead of the day being about everybody else managing my emotions for me and managing my anxiety, and a lot of married couples, you know what I mean by this.

A lot of moms, you know what I mean. When your husband comes home and the kids have stuff all over, some of the moms out there have been managing their husband's emotions for years and sometimes decades, and they'll wear you down, right? And that was when I finally made the change, and we go through this. This is the 30 Days to Calm program if you go through, because we identify your triggers and learn how to calm yourself, your anxiety down. Unfortunately, what I did to my family was I put them in position of having to manage my emotions for me because I couldn't do it myself. And they had to walk on eggshells and not say the wrong thing and say just the right thing and tiptoe around things because we don't want to make dad upset.

And guess what's happening? Your kids don't want to do that, right? You know what they're thinking? We don't want mom to get upset because once mom gets upset, then the whole day kind of, there's a tailspin. And so the reason I take care of myself is so that I can look out and see clearly so I can meet other people's needs and that you can listen to your kids and solve their anxiety, right? I hope that makes sense. So let's work on that. I believe that this year, and I want to give you some perspective, is a huge opportunity. Now, it's going to be very, very challenging, but it's a huge opportunity, and here's why. Many of us for many years have said, oh, I wish the schools would just allow my kids to move a little bit and learn in different ways because my child is an alternative learner and so rigid at school. Well, now you have an opportunity

when your kids are learning at home to work with the way that their brains work, right? To work with their natural learning style. And you can start to do things like use movement, right? Nothing that says that your child has to sit perfectly still looking at a screen with a Zoom class. He can sit on an exercise ball. We can incorporate movement, meet some sensory needs, right? Your kids, this is what we're going through in a virtual learning bootcamp. And if you go to website, celebrateclumb.com, it's a bootcamp there. And I'm doing that because I want to walk you through this all through this this fall we want to get success in school and I'm going to give you some really killer awesome ideas to help your kids learn get organized where

how to set up their own classroom so they learn best and how to use their brains how to jump start their brains so when they want to shut down or school work gets hard and they want to shut down, how do you work through that? How do you get them to write well? Because most of your kids don't write all that well. It's a hard process and they want to shut down and crumple up a paper. And we go through all of that. So if you're interested, reach out to Casey, look on our website. Awesome, awesome. Really excited about this opportunity. So this is an opportunity to actually use your kids' traits, natural traits, the way they're made to their advantage. Because usually in the school system, they're a disadvantage, right? Because what do we end up doing? We tell our kids, hey, in order to be successful in life, you have to get, have good grades and good behavior. That's what we judge their entire childhood is based on good

grades and good behavior. And many of your kids, though they're very, very bright and have big hearts, they're often 0 for 2 on that score. And so they end up giving up and shutting down. And so this is an opportunity to actually build their confidence now because we can actually, we now, as the parents, you are in control of your child's education. It's not the school, the teacher, the district, it's no one. It's you. You get to decide how your child learns when he's at home. And I want to begin to build your child's confidence and show him he's not dumb and he's not stupid. And even though he gets in trouble at school a lot him he's not dumb and he's not stupid. And even though he gets in trouble at school a lot because he's impulsive and all these other things, he's a

really bright kid who actually has advantages other kids don't have. Right? So I encourage you, one of our favorite ideas that we've used through the years is giving kids a report card. Let me do it really quickly. The regular school report card is fine. What it tells you is how are they doing against all of the skills that are necessary to do well in school. Do you sit still well? Do you listen to the teacher telling you things? And then do you memorize that information for a time test? Do you follow directions? And there are a lot of arbitrary things on there as well. How do you get along with other kids? Do you participate? Do you collaborate? How do you do with your behavior? Right? And all, can you sit still? All of these things,

and for many of your kids, they're not that great at that. And so what they internalize is, I'm a dumb kid. I'm stupid. How am I going to be successful? So why would I even try? So I want you to have, you know, the school report card is fine. It tells you how they're doing in certain subjects. And I want to know how they're doing in math and with writing and reading, but I can kind of tell that myself. But what I really want you to do is fill out, make a different report card for your child. And I want you to really think about this at the beginning of the school year, write down all of the traits necessary, not to be successful in school, but to be successful in real life.

What are those traits that you really want to build into your kids and you want to cultivate, right? Good, good, um, critical thinking skills, the ability to ask good questions, being a good thinker, right? Uh, challenging people, right? Challenging their assumptions. Now we will call it arguing because that's what they do to you, but they're basically challenging your assumptions. And one of the reasons it's irritating to you is because half the time they're right. Being persuasive, thinking creatively, being a leader. See, leadership doesn't always get rewarded in school, right? But it gets rewarded in real life. Having a lot of energy. I want that in my company. I want people with a lot of energy in the classroom. Not so much. The ability to hyper

focus, right? The ability to focus on something and go after it relentlessly, even if it's a very narrow field. That is a huge advantage that your kids have, but they don't get to usually use it in school. Some of your kids don't take no for an answer. You know what? That's a fantastic quality. It's irritating when you're your kids, but it's fantastic quality. So I want you to step back and think, what are all of those qualities that you want to develop in your child and focus on those. And let's use this odd, weird pandemic schooling that we're doing to our advantage instead of being afraid of it. See, I want to give you confidence. I want to give you confidence to be able to say, hey, I know what's best for this individual child. And so I'm going to tailor

his education for this school year to meet his particular needs, to suit his particular learning style so that he actually learns more than he usually does, so that I raise a curious child who loves to learn and who grows in confidence because a lot of your kids during the school year, their confidence and their spirit gets crushed, right? They feel less than everybody else and I want your kids to know, you know, you guys, you have, you have advantages that other people don't have. And so I want to dispel this anxiety, right? I want to work on your anxiety. You know why? Because if you stay anxious and you're always kind of scared, not know what's going to happen, and I'm afraid of the future, and I'm going to project out,

watch what ends up happening. When we get anxious about our child's future, we tend to lecture them a lot. And we get on them and we get on them. And we point out everything that they're doing wrong. And we micromanage them. And nobody likes that. And what it really tells them is, you're not really capable of being successful unless I'm here to point out all the things that you're doing wrong and to show you the exact way that I want you to do it, right? And they begin to internalize that there's something wrong with them. And watch what else. The other reason I want you to be able to control your own anxiety is this. They're going to internalize. If you're all nervous and anxious about this school year,

they're going to pick up on that. They're going to think, uh-oh, all these changes and the way we're doing this, this is going to affect my future. And the fact is, it's not. It's not going to affect their future, how this school year goes. It's just not. And you have the chance to make it actually a better school year than it usually is. But I don't want them walking around feeling like, uh, we're getting behind. This is bad because they're going to hear you talking to your friends about it. And I want you to, I encourage you, change some of your language that you're using with all of your friends from like, oh, the school district's such a mess and the Zoom didn't work and I don't know what we're going to do to, no, I know who my child is. I know what my child is curious about. I know what my child loves learning about. I know my child's unique learning style and I know that I know how

his or her brain works. And that's partly why I want you to listen to the ADHD University and the Strong Willed Child Program. And we've got a sale on that. When I call them parenting package or the get everything package, you get all of it. Okay. I want you to listen so that you feel confident. You're like, no, I know how my son's brain works best. And this is an opportunity for me to let him sit on an exercise ball. And while he's doing schoolwork and classwork, he can actually listen to music and chew on things. And we're going to do homework and schoolwork in different places in different ways because I know how he learns best. And now you imbue and fuse your kids with confidence because they're hearing like, my parents know what's going on. Your kids need reassurance. They need to know that the adults and adults in their life and in their lives know what's going on. And the school

districts, unfortunately, it's really hard because teachers weren't trained to do all of this Zoom kind of classrooms. So you've got to step up. And I want you to reassure your kids, I've got this. We've got this as a family. This is an opportunity because we've got time now to explore all those interests and passions and things that you were curious about before, but we didn't have time for because you were at school for seven hours a day. And then we had to run after school to appointments

and extracurriculars and do all of this homework and all of this other stuff that we had to do. And then when I had to feed you and get you in bed and the whole school year was a blur and we didn't really learn a whole lot. All we did is get you through that school year. Let's make it different this time. Let's teach them the way they're made and let's feed that curiosity so we come out of this year with kids who are confident and curious and love to learn because that's a really cool thing. All they need is some tools and we're going to take, we take you through that. Tools to be successful in class and to use their brains. And my final warning to you is this,

not final warning, but I'm going to end on, I won't end on a warning, but it's this. If you just get on your kids all the time, right? All it's going to do is one, it's not going to motivate them and it's just going to ruin your relationship with them. And I encourage you to change that because if you have a child, especially an older child who's kind of shut down now, all he thinks inside is my parents don't really believe in me. Right. And I want you to look at your kids and say, of course, you're going to struggle with that. But I believe that you're capable of overcoming that. And I want you to give them confidence and restore that relationship. you control your own anxiety, what you're able to do is look outward, listen to your kids and what they're going through, and then give them confidence about the future. Your anxiety ruins confidence

because it says, I don't really think you can be successful. But when you control that and you start speaking positively and you know how their brains work, we can turn this into one of the best school years you have ever had. I promise you. So if we can help you with that, let's do it. Reach out. Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, celebrate calm.com. We've got sales on everything. We've got half price on the bootcamp for the next week where you can ask me questions. I will mentor you through this. Let us know how we can help you because that's what we live to do. Love you all. Bye.