School Struggles with Transitions, Impulse Control, Following Directions, Social Skills? #506

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2:08So do you have a child who struggles with behavior in school with impulse control? Are you tired of constantly getting emails and calls from the school and having to go into parent-teacher meetings and not knowing what to say? I want to give you some very practical and powerful tools so we can make this next school year better than last year. So that is what we're going to discuss on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm, you can find us. And we have extended the Christmas and July sale into August. Why? Because people asked for it because a lot of people get paid at the beginning of the month and they wanted to be able to take advantage of this, go a little bit deeper and change their families.

2:50And that's what we're about. So we're doing it. So just check that out at CelebrateCalm.com. So I want to encourage you as we head back to school, schedule some time apart from back to school night at your school to talk to your child's teachers because back to school night is filled with hundreds of anxious parents and teachers getting ready for this new school year and I want to take a collaborative approach look back in the day we would just kind of take in uh 40 pages of testing and say well our son has ADHD and ODD and sensory processing issues. Good luck. And that's not fair to do, and that doesn't work that well.

3:30So what I'd encourage you to do is actually create kind of a one-page or maybe a two-page back-and-front sheet and called, I'm just going to say the child's name is Dylan, call it Dylan's Story. And here's why I like to do it, because teachers are overwhelmed. Back in the day, teachers, when we used to do a lot of teacher training, it was like, okay, there's three, four, five kids in class who are really struggling. Now it's like 12 or 15 kids. It's a lot and they don't have time to read through 40 pages of testing. And so I like this to be very, very specific. And the reason I like a one-pager is because it's easily digestible.

4:09The teacher can keep this in his or her desk and refer to it throughout the year. And I partly want teachers to get a true sense of what your child is really like? Because if you just hand over a report or diagnosis, human nature says their first internal response is going to be like, oh boy, he's going to be a handful this year. And out of a defensive reaction, you will have inadvertently defined your child by their weaknesses or diagnosis if there is one. So I want to create a one pager. And let's say we're going to divide this into three sections. Section one at the top. What are your child's passions and interests in life?

4:51What does your child love doing? What excites and motivates them? You can even put pictures there. Describe what you see in your child. Do they love a sports team, dinosaur, Star Wars, collecting rocks? Are they fascinated by history, great at chess, an amazing inventor? Show pictures of that Lego rocket ship that they built. You're giving the teacher some ways to immediately connect with your child on the first day in a personal way. Because when that teacher asks about their favorite Star Wars character or what Lego project they're building on at home, well now instantly your child feels connected to that teacher, might feel liked, a little bit more understood, and that relieves their anxiety.

5:43And you just gave the teacher information. So if they have to do a special project of some kind or a writing assignment, maybe they can ask your child to do their writing assignment on dinosaurs or something they're interested in. Section number two, what are your child's strengths and great character attributes? You get to describe your child. Hey, my child is funny. He's got a really quick wit. asks lots of questions he's very curious oh she likes looking at the world in very different ways oh very good at adding numbers in his head she likes to help adults and does best when she's given very specific directions oh my child has a great imagination loves creating stories you could say something like hey i admire our child because they have a tenacious spirit we we adopted our child after he was abandoned.

6:39He had to have heart surgery as an infant. My daughter battles eczema and allergies every day, but never complains. See, this makes your child more than just a student or a number or someone who's difficult. It's a child you're dealing with, and you're giving the teacher a fuller perspective. It's not about making excuses at all. You're just defining your child by their strengths. Now section number three is where we say, okay, what are your child's struggles and what has helped in the past? And I like this to be concise. Let's get a couple wins here with the new teacher. So after laying the foundation, I might list out three, maybe four or five very specific struggles your child will have in class, but don't stop there.

7:32For each struggle, give specific concrete strategies you and past teachers have used with success. Hey, Dylan struggles with anxiety, but when teachers give him very specific jobs to do right after lunch, oh, it calms him and he loves to help. Dylan is a slow processor. Last year, Mrs. Henderson allowed him to sit on the floor to complete writing assignments. He was much more successful that way. See, you aren't just dumping problems on the teacher. You are giving the teacher ways to help that are very concrete. You also can let the teacher know all the ways you are helping your child with tutoring, with occupational therapy, with working on impulse control at home.

8:16So that way the teacher knows you're engaged, you're invested, you're not expecting the teacher to work miracles. And throughout the school year, you can refer back to this cheat sheet and say, hey, have you tried this like I mentioned? And you can update the sheet with new strategies you've learned. And if you do go through our programs, the ADHD University and the Brain Boosters program, and you can share this. If you get the programs, you can share it with your child's teachers. We'll send it directly to them. We go through dozens of very specific things that help in the classroom and I'm going to include more of those at the end of these for teachers to implement.

8:56But there's so many special different things like just with meeting sensory needs and doing chair push-ups in class that are extremely helpful. The other thing this does is it gives a very practical constructive way to create successes for your kids because it's nearly impossible to rebuild a kid's confidence once it's been destroyed or once they've internalized failure. You've heard your kids, I'm stupid, I'm a bad kid. So you have an opportunity at the beginning of the school year to prevent some of the battles and the tears and the kind of the wounded little souls. So here's another way you can address this.

9:38So the school year is underway and you can send a note in and say, hey, Mrs. Henderson, I appreciate how challenging it can be to teach and parent kids like ours, right? You and I share the same goal to ensure, I'll just make it about us, ensure that Casey is a curious kid who loves to learn. And we've discovered Casey doesn't respond that well to consequences or timeouts, tends to shut down when he's overwhelmed or things get negative and he's struggling with feeling like no one likes him. And our typical discipline tools at home aren't working either. So could we try something different for the next two weeks and see if we can make progress?

10:21I like framing it that way. You're not asking the teacher to change their entire curriculum and how they teach. You're just saying, hey, and I do this a lot with spouses. Hey, look, we've been doing your way for the first six, seven, 12, 15 years of our child's life. For the next two weeks, could we try doing it differently and see if we make progress? Because that's a defined time limit. We're going for progress. So could we give Casey tools to succeed, affirm for positive choices, and build his confidence? Mrs. Henderson, here are some examples of tools that we think will help. Give Casey a job every morning doing something he's good at doing.

11:04That helps makes him feel helpful and needed. It builds confidence. It helps with anxiety. Just saying, hey, Casey, I could really use your help moving those heavy books from the back of the room to my desk. That's really helpful. Make things a challenge for Casey. He tends to like that. Hey, Casey, the other kids are adding two digit numbers. Think you could add three digit numbers. You know what, Case? Bet you can't do X. A lot of our kids like that. And by the way, you could send in worksheets that you created that have triple digit additions, so you're not requiring the teacher to do all that extra work.

11:42And then the third thing, Mr. and Mrs. Teacher, is for the next two weeks, can you just affirm, Casey, for every good choice he makes to counterbalance the negatives because look as an aside I know how this works our kids they're impulsive and they don't always sit they don't always follow directions so there's just going to be all these negatives and I'm not asking them to overlook that I'm saying hey why don't we put more energy into affirming the positives because our kids are very much like that they respond to that catch your kids doing well hey you know what that was a good choice Casey I'm proud of you It's like sowing lots of little seeds, short and sweet.

12:20And then you can say, we're going to begin doing this at home. We're going to have clearer boundaries. We're going to say no and stick to it. We're not going to try to get, we're not going to give in all the time. We're going to work on impulse control in the morning. We're going to give Casey a sensory exercise. When he, so when he shows up in your classroom, he will have already gotten some exercise. And then you can just reiterate. let's try this for two weeks and see if we can make progress. We appreciate all that you do. That's a nice way to frame this discussion so that you're both working on things.

12:57Now, what are some different tools we can use in the classroom that you can apply to home to help with different behavior issues?

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13:46Kirk Martin:I think your kids will love the Cure flavors and you'll feel good giving them something healthy. And exciting news now, you can get Cure Hydration at your local Target or get 20 % off at curehydration.com with code CALM. That's curehydration.com, code CALM for 20 % off your first order. So this is cool. I go to hungeroot.com slash CALM. I click our food preferences, Carb conscious, less sugar, high protein, anti-inflammatory. And I immediately get 10 plus options. So I choose the Tzatziki chicken bowl with quinoa with 47 grams of protein. It takes five minutes to prepare. It's delicious. No wasted ingredients.

14:30Kirk Martin:No stress battling traffic and grocery store lines. Hungry Root is like having your own personal shopper and nutritionist wrapped into one. They recommend healthy groceries and meals tailored to your family's tastes. and they have amazing kids options. Make Hunger Root part of your back-to-school routine to de-stress mealtime this school year. You're going to love Hunger Root as much as we do. For a limited time, get 40 % off your first order. Plus, get a free item in every box for life. Go to hungreroot.com slash calm and use code calm. That's hungreroot.com slash calm, code calm to get 40 % off your first box and a free item of your choice for life.

15:13Okay, in general, here are two different ways to handle misbehavior. The typical way we do it is, hey, you either cut that out or else you lose your screens, go to your room at school, it's you're going to miss recess or go to the principal's office. But that tends not to work very well at all with strong-willed kids, and it's just not an effective tool. So the other way is this. instead of punishing a child for failing, why don't we proactively give kids tools to succeed? See, I want to meet internal needs. I'll give you a couple of quick examples. Like even at home, like if you've got young kids and late in the afternoon, they're acting up and you say, hey, quit doing that.

15:57You guys need to behave. Nothing changes. But if you give them a snack and you feed them, the behavior changes. You didn't change their behavior. You met an internal need. It's like getting kids or yourself some sleep. Your behavior changes. Or kids with sensory needs. If you don't meet those sensory needs, your kids are going to rumble. They may come into a class and start wrestling with other kids. Well, does that mean they have impulse control and behavior issues? No, it probably just means they have sensory issues. But if you had them, got up in the morning and you have a little obstacle course in the backyard or the basement and they have to climb through, crawl over, push, pull things early in the morning or during the day to meet those needs, then they don't feel as much of a need to do all those other things.

16:46It's kind of like acting silly in class. Hey, stop acting silly in class or I'm going to send you to the principal's office. And you know what your child's thinking? Well, the reason I'm acting silly in class is one, I'm bored. And two, I kind of naturally struggled. I connected with kids my own age. So I figured if I act silly, the other kids might like me. And by the way, if your kids struggle with that, go back a couple of weeks, listen to the podcast we did on, I believe it was 12 ways to help kids with social skills. See, just sending them to the principal's office, you know what your child's going to be like, wait, so I'm going to act silly, which meets a couple needs of mine to overcome boredom and have kids like me.

17:29And now you're going to send me to the office of the CEO or the president of the school, where I'm going to have an amazing conversation with that adult. And I get to skip out of your boring class and walk through the halls. Oh, I'm doing that all day long. See, that's the fallacy of thinking that consequences really work. So we have to meet the internal needs. So let me give you a couple examples of things that teachers could do in the classroom. And I encourage you, if this resonates with you, you could share this podcast with your child's teacher and hopefully they'll find it helpful. If you do have or get our programs, just email Casey and we'll send the ADHD University and Brain Booster School Program to your child's teacher and they'll have dozens of tools to help your child.

18:18So let me give you a quick one. So many of you have kids who struggle with transitions. And let's say they're out at recess or at lunch, which is often a chaotic time. It's difficult for your kids to manage. And then they have to come back into class. Well, everybody's coming back into class and it's a little bit chaotic and disorderly. And the teacher's going to be like, hey, I need you to be on your best behavior. And your stronghold child is like, this is my best behavior. And so instead, I go to that child and say, hey, I can really use your help. When we come back in from recess, I need you to picture these three things in your brain.

18:55One water bottle, three paper towels, the front row of desks in my class. And the child knows what the teacher wants him to do, which is come in and clean the front row of desks in the class. The reason I do it this way is there's a lot of research that says kids, especially those with focus issues, a lot of ADHD kids can actually remember things when they visualize it. And so it was very specific. I'm giving the child a specific concrete mission. And I said, one water bottle, three paper towels, not the whole roll. So when that child comes back into my classroom, he's got a mission. And our kids tend to do very well when given specific missions.

19:36And he comes in and he's spraying down the desks instead of other children because I made it specific. And he's wiping the desk clean. You know what else that does? Remember Karate Kid? Wax on, wax off. While you're scrubbing the desk, you're crossing the midline of the brain and the body, and it helps both hemispheres of the brain work together. That helps with focus, attention, helps with behavior issues. He's also getting some sensory pressure. So instead of pressing down on other students and classmates, he's pressing down on the desk in the class. It only takes about 45 seconds. I created a success and now I get to tell that child, hey, really good job cleaning.

20:19I appreciate that. Now throw away the paper towel, sit down. That's a great transition back into class. Now what this happens a lot with our kids. So I'm a teacher. I'm in math class and the child is reading a book. Now, one of two ways to handle it. Look, most of us are going to be like, hey, this is not reading class. This is not English. Look, this is math class. You need to put your book away. And sometimes we'll get kind of a snotty tone and we will kind of be very negative with this child. You know, I don't know how many times I have to tell you that you don't read your book in math class.

20:59Well, I can just tell you if you use that kind of negative tone or condescending tone with a strong-willed child, you're basically going to get kind of the FU response and they will get back at you and they'll misbehave on purpose because what's the downside? What are you going to send me to the principal's office? Like, I don't care. Oh, I miss recess. Well, I'm not really good at playing with other kids anyway. So I also, though, don't want to go to that other end of the spectrum of like, well, buddy, you know what? It's math class and we don't read in math class. Well, that sounds condescending and patronizing.

21:35So here's what I would say instead. You know, one of my favorite qualities about you is that you're curious, and that's why you love to read. Really bright people, oh, they love reading. Listen, it's math class, so you need to put away the book. But after recess or lunch, if you want to, I'd love for you to share with the other kids in class what you're reading and why you're so excited about it, because I wish everybody were as curious as you are. See, I didn't let them get away with it, but notice the tone. Hey, it's math class. You need to put away the book. It's kind of that assumed close, business-like matter of fact.

22:07I didn't attach any snottiness to it, any negativity to it. It's just this is how I roll in my class. And I won't use that in your home. Hey, this is just how I roll in my home. I'm not going to beg you. I'm not going to talk like this, but I'm not going to scream and yell. And then I affirmed the child in this and said, oh, I know the reason you like to read is because you're curious and I'd like you to share that with others. See, I still got him to put the book away or her, but I was able to build confidence and connection. That is what we are after. Let me do one more. So you have kids who sometimes struggle with social skills, and I mentioned they may struggle at recess.

22:46So let's say the teacher were to pull your child aside and say, oh man, I have noticed something. You are really amazing at drawing. I have seen your graffiti in the boy's bathroom. Really inappropriate, but actually very good. I'm kidding. Because sometimes with your kids, they're great traits, right there their ability to argue like an attorney well we tend to only see the negative side like oh he's a little attorney never stops well we miss the the good part of that which is oh great critical thinking skills they're listening to you they're coming up with overcoming your objections they're using strategic thinking see we've got to pull out those positive sides of it so hey next week we're starting a new unit on reptiles you're really good at drawing And so I'm wondering if you and Jimmy at recess, if I pulled out under the back of the classroom some poster board, could you guys draw some different reptiles for me?

23:40I'll hang those up on the whiteboard. So next week, we've got nice visuals. That'll really help me teach. So next week. So now think about this. So I just created a success during that time when that child is usually stealing the ball or not getting along well with the other kids during recess. I just teamed that child with another kid who may share a similar interest in drawing and dinosaurs. And I created a success. So next week when I put the poster board up on the whiteboard, the other kids in class get to see, oh, yeah, that kid. Yeah, sometimes he gets in trouble. But man, that kid can draw.

24:20And so, again, what am I doing? I'm trying to get to the root needs here. I'm trying to go a few steps beyond. Hey, cut that out. Stop that. And I like making it very specific and concrete. Things that kids are good at doing. So I encourage you, as you begin this school year, think about that one pager. If you need it, it could be the front and back of a sheet. But it makes it very convenient for the teacher to pull that out and say, okay. because my experience with teachers, and again, we've had really bad experiences with teachers and had to pull Casey out of school before, so I understand that.

25:00But I've trained a lot of teachers. They really want to help. They just don't always know exactly how to. And so you're giving them a cheat sheet to say, oh, yeah, because we used to tell Casey's second grade teacher, oh, just ask him about his hockey game. Every Monday morning, ask, and you will own Casey. He sleeps with his hockey stick at night. And so if you want them to do anything, write a paper on hockey. Tell me what you need to do in order to be a better skater. Break down three different reasons why. You're giving them tools to help your child with tools. I hope you found this helpful.

25:34I'll do more on this if you want. Again, if you have our programs or if you don't, take advantage of the Christmas in July, even though it's August sale. and email Casey and tell him and we can send your teacher those specific programs that will really help them. If you need anything, just reach out. Casey, C-A-E-S-C-Y at celebratecom.com. Proud of you. We're going to make this school a good one this year. And I'm excited about that. All right. Love you all. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.