Workshop Timestamp Index
0:00 – Introduction & Why This Workshop Exists
4:10 – PAGE 3: The Framework – Four Pillars Overview
5:29 – Pillar 1: Confidence
7:18 – Pillar 2: Resilience
9:56 – Pillar 3: Organization
11:24 – Pillar 4: Learning Skills
15:11 – PAGE 4: The Diagnostic – Where Is Your Tween Right Now?
15:59 – PAGE 5: Scoring Guide – Where to Start
21:49 – PAGE 6: Your Spring Plan – Steps 1 & 2
23:34 – PAGE 7: Brainstorming Page
27:38 – PAGE 8: Language Shifts for Organization
31:38 – Language Shifts for Learning Skills
33:53 – PAGE 9: The Scaffolding Plan
36:22 – PAGE 10: The Productive Struggle Zone
37:41 – PAGE 11: The Next Week – Your Action Plan
41:28 – PAGE 14: Three-Month Check-In
44:20 – Q&A: When to Start with Confidence vs. Organization
49:24 – Closing
Middle School Success Workshop – Full Transcript
0:00 – Introduction & Why This Workshop Exists
I am so glad you’re here and you’ve grabbed the workbook. That is great. Camera on or off. Now, let me tell you why I created this workshop.
It was several years ago now when my daughters were in middle school. I was sitting at the kitchen table with one of them. She was supposed to be doing her work. You know how it goes.
And she’s just staring at this page and I was like, “What is going on? You know this stuff. We went over it.” and she looked at me and she said,”I used to be good at school and it was true, but she was speaking in the past tense like she’d lost something and she couldn’t get it back.”
The thing is, she was good at school. She loved learning, was curious, liked asking questions. But somewhere around that sixth grade age, her confidence completely disappeared.
And I tried everything probably like you do. I tried encouraging her. We tried different curriculum, a lot of different curriculum. I tried backing off and, you know, giving her space. I tried being more involved and helpful. Nothing seemed to work.
And it wasn’t until I started studying sort of this middle school adolescent development that I figured it out. The game had changed.
Those elementary school years, they rewarded speed, accuracy, the ability to just like have somebody tell you something and you tell them back the same thing. But middle school, it rewards persistence, the struggle, the process. And those are completely different skills.
Nobody told her the new rules. She thought she was failing. I thought I was not doing a good job as a parent and as a homeschooling mom. I thought, what what is even going on? She just needed different support.
So once I understood that, and it took me way longer than it took me way too long to figure that out, which is why I’m doing this. So perhaps you can figure it out a bit sooner and help your kid.
Now, things shifted. It didn’t happen overnight. If you were hoping for a magic pill that just made everything instantly better, I’m sorry. That’s not what this is. But I do have a plan for working through it steadily so you can have a better outcome.
Here’s what changed. So, once I started doing things differently, she was able to start her work without me sitting next to her. She might get stuck, but she would try a different approach and keep going or move on to something else and wait until I could help her.
When she finished something hard, she’d show me, not because she needed the validation, but because she was proud. Hey, I did this difficult math question that I couldn’t do before.
And I stopped feeling like every day it was like, okay, how are we going to get through this? I stopped worrying that I was ruining her.
You know, sometimes during those middle school years in that age when they’re already kind of pushing back and then and then they start losing that confidence and you just feel like, am I wrecking my kid?
And there were more times that we could enjoy being around each other instead of just dreading the school time.
So that’s what we’re doing here today. We’re figuring out exactly what is happening with your kid and what support do they need so you can have these kind of shifts too.
It’s not one-sizefits-all. It’s not generic. It’s going to be real and specific practical things so that your days can change too.
4:10 – PAGE 3: The Framework – Four Pillars Overview
So have a look at your workbook. We’re going to look at page three. It says the framework. So you should see it on your screen and you can have a look there.
Um I’m not going to go through read word for word. The re the workbook is as a reference guide for you as well and so I will go through these and you can have it for reference um later on too.
So there are four pillars of middle school success. We have confidence, resilience, organization, and learning skills.
And under all of those pillars, we have connection. So, we’re not going to talk about connection today. That’s going to be the topic for the workshop next month.
But today, we’re looking at these four pillars and how do we decide which is the weakest pillar? What should we work on next? so that your kids can build confidence, resilience, organization, learning skills so that they can be successful.
5:29 – Pillar 1: Confidence
So let’s think of confidence. What does this mean? If they are confident, they believe that effort leads to improvement.
If so, we’re doing this kind of like red light, green light thing. If it’s a red light, it means they think they used to be smart, but they won’t try unless they’re guaranteed success.
So, here’s what that looks like. Red means they won’t start an assignment unless they can get it right. And I know I have had kids that this is the case and it means their confidence is really low.
They catastrophize. So, one bad grade and they think, “Oh my goodness, I’m terrible at all of this.” They give up because they think that struggling means they’re not smart, which is not true, but it’s what they believe.
And this means that you’re usually stuck at the table with them. You can’t walk away because the minute you do, they shut down.
They need these pep talks, the constant reassurance, but it doesn’t stick. So, you feel like you’re just kind of dragging them through the day.
But when that red light turns to green and they get more confidence, they start to do their work without you standing over them.
When they get stuck, they try a different approach instead of immediately calling for help. And when they get a bad grade on something, they think, “Okay, I need to review.” Instead of thinking, “Oh, that’s just proof that I’m not smart.”
And then that means that you’re not chained to the kitchen table hovering over them trying to help them. You can get your work done and they’re getting their work done and they’re building capability instead of dependence.
7:18 – Pillar 2: Resilience
Now what about resilience? What does that look like? Well, green light version of resilience, they can handle setbacks and adjust their approach.
And this is critical. This is critical. You can help build this during these middle school years and it will do that serve them well throughout their life.
Whereas a red light, one setback, boom, they shut down.
So the difference between confidence and resilience, you might say, well, aren’t they the same thing?
Confidence we’re saying is believing that you can improve. So this growth mindset idea of I’m not stuck in this one stage. I can improve.
Resilience that’s you know you get knocked up. You get knocked up. Not knocked up. You get knocked down and you stand back up. You get knocked down six times. You stand up the seventh time.
You know, so they’re doing things about when things go wrong, they do something about it.
If they’re in that red light mode where they make a mistake and they shut down and they can’t really recover without you intervening, it means you’re the crisis manager. Every setback may means that you need to intervene.
you know, they ran out of time to do something on Friday. So, you arrange rearrange the whole schedule to fix it. They bomb a test. So, you do damage control for days. It’s exhausting.
But when that red light shifts to a green light, then they can start, you know, making a mistake and saying, “Huh, okay. What should I do differently?
And that means that you’re not constantly putting out fires. They’re learning from the consequences. And instead of you having to like rescue them all of the time, they’re able to handle some of these things, which means in the future, you know, high school things pile on.
they’re able to handle it better if they go to college or they’re having a have a job or they’re in a relationship as time goes on. They can handle those things even when things go wrong.
9:56 – Pillar 3: Organization
Now, what about organization? Green light. What does that look like? Can you imagine? They create their own schedule and adjust it when needed.
Now you might think right like that’s going to happen. It is not a fantasy. However, uh over the middle school throughout these middle school years their brain is still developing these executive function skills.
So it is not realistic to think that during these middle school years they’re 100% going to always be able to create their own schedule and adjust when needed.
However, we can help them build those skills as their executive function skills are developing and it’s going to strengthen that skill. So, as their brain continues to develop, that skill is developing stronger. And you will really notice this.
Now, this is where you have to have a little bit of a long-term vision. But what I noticed is because I helped my daughters build this skill during these middle school years, by the time they hit high school and now they’re young adults, they are completely managing their schedules, adjusting as needed, and doing a good job of it.
So, it is worth it to develop this skill.
11:24 – Pillar 4: Learning Skills
Now let’s look at the fourth pillar, green light. They can transfer knowledge from practice to application.
Whereas if they’re more leaning toward the red light, they can do the worksheet. They’re really good at, you know, they can take in information um from instruction and get the answers right on the worksheet. But then when they’re asked to apply it, there’s a disconnect.
For example, say they did a grammar worksheet on compound sentences and then they were asked to write an essay, but they’re only using simple sentences because they can’t figure out how to use compound sentences in the essay even though they did the worksheet perfect.
So that not being able to transfer knowledge um that is where these learning skills would be considered a red light. So this means that you might be explaining the same concept over and over and over.
Remember what a compound sentence is. Okay, you know what it is. Now how do we put it in here? And they just can’t get it.
Now, to be fair, if your kid has discalcula or some other learning challenge where they legitimately cannot remember one thing from one day to the next, it’s a real thing. That’s not what I’m talking about here.
That’s a whole different That’s a whole different thing. And we need to have grace and patience uh for that because it’s very frustrating for them when they are taking in the information, they learn it and then it disappears from their brain.
So that’s not what we’re talking about here, just so you know.
15:11 – PAGE 4: The Diagnostic – Where Is Your Tween Right Now?
So I want you to have a look at the diagnostic. Look where it says page four and it says diagnostic. Where is your tween right now?
So, I want you just to take a minute and glance through those and check off the ones that are leaning more towards red than green. So, go ahead and do that now.
So, when you’ve got things checked off, go ahead and count the checks for each section and just write the number of checks in uh beside each of the items here at the bottom where it says count your checks in each section.
15:59 – PAGE 5: Scoring Guide – Where to Start
Now, here comes the fun part. So, now we get to make a plan and see how do we actually work on these things.
So, we’re going to go over to the next page where it says scoring guide, where to start. Um, now don’t worry about reading all of the stuff. I will go through that. Um, but this is just for your reference for later as well.
So, here’s the thing. If you have three check marks in confidence, you’re going to want to start there.
Here’s the thing. You might think, “Oh my goodness, I have four check marks in learning skills. I have to start there.” That’s actually backwards. And I’ll show you why.
Uh because the pillars build on each other in a specific order. So we have to have confidence before we can build resilience. And confidence and resilience is going to help with organization.
And all three of those are going to help with building learning skills. But as you build them out, the subsequent pillar is going to get slightly easier to manage.
Does that kind of make sense? Give me a thumbs up in the chat if that makes sense that we’re starting with confidence and then needing to build up from there.
Okay. Excellent. So, you might have um three check marks in confidence and then we’re going to start with that confidence pillar because until they believe that they can improve, it doesn’t matter what you say to them.
It doesn’t matter that you’re trying to get them to, you know, stand up one more time and be resilient. It doesn’t matter that you’re trying to get them organized so they don’t always lose their schoolwork if confidence is a struggle.
But if confidence just has two check marks or one check mark, um but resilience has several, you might need to start with resilience because once they have um a little bit of confidence at least and they believe, okay, well maybe my effort does matter, then they can learn to handle setbacks.
Be and until they can handle setbacks, you’re going to be the crisis manager. you’re gonna have to intervene all the the time because they don’t know how to handle things.
But once you can build resilience, then they can start handling their own problems.
Now, if confidence has two or or less checks, resilience has two or fewer checks, but organization, maybe you’ve got three check marks in there and you’re like, we need to work on organization. Yes.
Once they can believe that they can make uh that what they do matters, confidence, they can start handling setbacks, then they can start to manage their own work because they’re going to have to believe that they can change things and they’re going to have to keep standing up because when they’re organizing, they’re going to screw up their schedule.
They’re going to have to get up and try again. So they need that confidence and resilience in order to build out organization and until they do you might feel like their personal assistant where you know you are their brain.
You have to tell them what to do and where are their things and and all of that. But when organization starts to kick in then you can leave the house. work gets done and it feels good for them and it feels good for you.
Now, if confidence, uh, resilience, organization each have two or less check marks, but learning skills, we got a few checks there. This is the most complex skill and it it requires those other three skills as well because until they can actually apply what they’re learning, you’re going to be reting things.
Once it clicks and they start retaining things, you can move forward. They can start becoming this dream that we all have of raising independent learners.
And then they can start learning things on their own. Not just the things that are curriculum based, but they have things that they want to learn and they will be able to take initiative and learn those things because they have the confidence.
Meaning they think that they can change and the resilience if things don’t go well when they’re trying to learn the thing, they’re going to keep trying. and they’re organized enough to go, okay, step one, I do this, step two, I do this. That is what we’re going for.
So, at the bottom where it says the starting point, what pillar are you focusing on first with your tween? So, go ahead, write it in your uh workbook.
And if you’d like, let me know in the chat which one do you need to start focusing on first with your tween.
21:49 – PAGE 6: Your Spring Plan – Steps 1 & 2
All right. So, here’s how we’re going to do that. Let’s start creating a plan.
So, on page six, it says your spring plan, steps one and two. You said you’re focusing on, let’s go with this example of organization.
So, go ahead and think, what is the current reality? What does this look like in your house right now? What does it look like right now?
So instead of just thinking, “Oh, my kid is just disorganized.” What does disorganized look like? What does it feel like? What are the actions that are happening that make you feel like, “Oh my goodness, my kid is so disorganized.”
Now, Paige, it says, “Pick one subject to start.” Okay, I want you to think about that scenario that you’ve got in your head about when they are disorganized.
And then I want you to think about a subject that they are currently struggling with and we’re going to apply uh organization, learning organization onto that subject.
And we’re only going to pick one area because otherwise you will be overwhelmed, they will be overwhelmed, and it will not go well. So, we’re just going to pick one thing at a time.
So perhaps they need to be more organized in uh math, science, writing, pick an area, piano lessons, like what is it that they need to be um organized on and that’s the thing that you’re going to use as your practice zone.
23:34 – PAGE 7: Brainstorming Page
All right. Now, page seven has a brainstorming page, and this is something that you can uh work on over the next little while, adding ideas.
But just we just want to start thinking about these things. Uh and then as you go about your day, you’re going to be thinking about more of these things. Uh and refining how you’re going to apply this.
So, what are you noticing right now? That’s where we were just talking about like what does this disorganization look like now?
What have you already tried? What have you already tried? Let me know in the chat. What have you tried?
I know when I was trying to get my kids organized before I realized these pillars, I was trying to push organization when they still needed some confidence and I still needed to work on resilience a bit.
And I thought, okay, well, if I have a spot where everything goes and if they put it back every time and if we have these checklists and like all of these things, but I was missing some of the pillars. But if you’ve got those pillars, then some of these things are going to work.
Asking them what they need to work on first. Lovely. Helping them plan their schedule, an example for them to work from. Nice.
Okay. So, we’re we’re trying things out and sometimes we think, “Okay, I’ve tried these things. If I try something different, what’s going to happen? Is it going to be worth the effort?”
Uh, I know sometimes when I try new things, the first couple of times it’s exciting because you think, “Oh, yeah. This is great. I get to try this new thing.” And then after a while you think, is this going to be worth the time and effort?
But here’s the question. So on page seven on that brainstorming page, what could happen if it does work?
So just in your brain, think about, okay, what maybe haven’t you tried that maybe you’re thinking about trying? What if it did work?
What if your kids did do math without a battle? What if uh they did do a schedule on their own and it worked? What if they did put their things away and then they didn’t spend 15 minutes trying to look for stuff every time they had to do it? What if it works?
I know sometimes for me that was scary because then I thought, “Oh, then I have to change because I’m I’m used to how things are.
I’m used to like it’s kind of if like if you watch a show, you watch a say like a TV show and you’re used to how the TV show runs. you know, this character does this and then this happens and then this and then this and then this and you’re used to that and then they change it up and you go, I’m not sure. I’m not sure that I like this.
Here’s what to remember when things get hard. This is building independence and it’s also building freedom for you because the goal is we want to and it’s not just the goal.
This is the order of things that they separate and become independent thinkers and doers. They become their own person. Um but that also involves us changing.
27:38 – PAGE 8: Language Shifts for Organization
All right. So let’s look at what that looks like. Um and let’s look at confidence. Sorry, organization because Tina, you were saying organization. So, let’s have a look at that.
If you have a Monday morning planning session, Shelley, you were talking about uh organization too with their schedules.
So, the old response is like maybe you hand them a schedule or you say, “Okay, what do you need to work on?” And then you hand hand them or you hand them the schedule and say, “Well, what do you need to work on?”
Instead, what if you say, “Okay, we need to get science done this week.” So, what do you think your days could look like?
The first time you do that, that might be scary. Shelley was saying you have an example for them to work from. Yes. And then the tough part is letting them try that schedule knowing that they might fail.
But uh if you’ve ever gone bowling, have you ever gone bowling? Let me know in the chat. Maybe this feels kind of random. There is a point.
Okay, you’ve been bowling sometimes. So you can easily get a gutter ball. you know, you you throw the ball and uh you’ve gotten lots of gutter balls. Maybe you have had that experience, too.
But sometimes they put these guards on the side so you can’t get a gutter ball. I know they did that for my nephew when he was playing or when he was in a bowling league. And that’s kind of what we’re doing with our kids.
So, if they’re making their own schedule, we’re saying, “Hey, you need to get the science done this week. what’s your schedule going to look like? Then we put up those bumpers so it reduces the chance of them epically failing, but they’re still making the schedule.
Another way to think about it is scaffolding. If you’ve driven downtown in anywhere and you’ve seen them building highrises and they have a bunch of scaffolding there while they’re putting the walls up so that, you know, so things don’t fall down. And then once the building’s up, the scaffolding goes down.
Same deal. So we want to put that scaffolding up, but it’s different than a crutch. So crutches, you know, we’re we’re leaning on them. We’re using you can’t take them away because you just like fall on your face. So we want to use scaffolding or bumpers, not uh crutches.
So here’s the language shift. And you’ll see this in your workbook there. So, Monday morning, what needs to happen in science? When do you want to schedule it?
When they forget, we’re not going to rescue them. They’re going to the outcome will happen and then you can debrief, which is kind of scary because you think really my kid’s going to fail. But if you look at it as an experiment.
So we tried this schedule and our hypothesis. So just like they would do a set up a science experiment. They think if I work on science on Tuesday and Thursday I will get done. That’s their hypothesis.
Okay. Schedule it in. Try it. Then you debrief and you say, “Okay, I worked on science Tuesday and Thursday and didn’t get done. So, what needs to happen next time?” And that’s how they learn. That is how they learn.
31:38 – Language Shifts for Learning Skills
And then let’s think about um let’s just go for learning skills because it seems like confidence, resilience, those are leaning towards green.
Once we’ve got organization, I just want to think about this for a minute because over the next couple of months, maybe you can move some of those organization red lights shift start shifting them to green and then start working on these learning skills.
So, if your kid asks for help, the old way is for you to jump in and explain. And I know I did this because I was like, “Oh, okay. I’m feeling useful. I get to explain this to my kid and I like explaining things.”
And so I would jump in with a big explanation and it wasn’t actually helpful. It took me way too long to figure that out.
Uh so bite your tongue and instead say, “Show me what you’ve tried first.” And the first time you do that, they might be like, “Well, just tell me like how how do I do this?”
You say, “No, show me what you’ve done first.” So then they’ll get used to, “Okay, I have to show her first.”
A couple of things happen when you do that. First of all, you start being able to think how or hear how they’re thinking.
So you can pinpoint what is kind of holding them up or causing the the problem and then you can address that one thing.
And secondly, they start to realize, huh, okay, I I did try this thing. And you know when sometimes you talk things through, you figure stuff out. Same for your kid. So that gives them a chance to talk it out.
33:53 – PAGE 9: The Scaffolding Plan
All right, let’s move on and look at page nine where it says the scaffolding plan. And we’re going to go in here and see what are you specifically going to work on.
So go ahead. Confidence, resilience, organization, learning skills, which one of these? And again, let’s jump down to organization for our example.
So this week, don’t hand them the daily schedule. Say, “We need to get whatever it is done. What do you think your days could look like?”
And it sounds like you might be starting to do some of that, asking them what they need to work on first. um that is definitely a step in this in the direction and then you might want to take it a step further.
So if they say science then you could say okay so what do you need to work on in science? What needs to be completed this week? So, you’re trying to clarify what needs to get done and then say, “Okay, how long do you think it’ll take for you to get that done?”
And they might say, “I don’t know.” And they might not actually know. So, you might have to time how long things take.
But maybe, you know, last week it was like, “Good grief, they took six hours because they were kind of lolly gagging about and doing this and that.”
Okay. So then you say, “Well, last week it took you six hours, so budget that in. When can you do that?” And then you might have to say, “What else do we have going on?”
So maybe they have a sport on Tuesday nights, so they’re not going to have time then. You know, they have an outing on Thursday, they’re not going to be able to do that. They’re busy on the weekend. So that starts to limit their time.
And you’re, this is kind of like you putting the bumpers or that scaffold where you’re helping them think about what they need to think about in order to plan their day.
So, go ahead and jot on page nine your scaffolding plan. Just jot a note or two about what you’re going to do differently to help them build that organization skill this week.
36:22 – PAGE 10: The Productive Struggle Zone
uh page 10 you can I’m just going to give you a brief uh summary there and then this is something that you can think about as you are helping your kid uh it’s a little bit like the story of the three bears you know too hot too cold just right uh when we’re thinking about the subjects that they’re doing
so if your kid is struggling you know you’re asking them to get organized and do their stuff but they’re struggling with getting it done in the time allotted or with getting started and you’re like, “What is even going on?” That’s when we want to look at this productive struggle zone.
It could be that they’re bored. It’s too easy. And when you do stuff that’s too easy, it’s not motivating. So, it just seems to take forever.
um or it’s too hard where they don’t have the actual skills they need to do the work and so they just push it off and they’re not sure how to schedule it because they don’t even know what the work is because they don’t understand it
or just right. So they have a little bit of challenge but they have some capability as well.
37:41 – PAGE 11: The Next Week – Your Action Plan
All right, the next week. What can you do this coming week to move one step forward in building this middle school success?
So, here’s what I’m proposing. Monday, Tuesday, just observe. So, we’ve talked about a lot of things today.
So Monday and Tuesday, just have those things kind of swirling around in your brain and you’re watching your interaction.
So it’s kind of like I was going to say you’re kind of like you’re standing on the outside watching yourself. Um, and how are you interacting with your kid? How are they interacting with you? What are those conversations that are happening?
Uh, what are the hot buttons that are being pushed? because we all have hot buttons, right? Um what is that dance? Because because it is kind of like a dance, right?
And then Wednesday to Friday, we’re going to start implementing some of these things. So if you had organization as the pillar that you’re working on and math as the subject that you’re going to use to help them build this skill
Wednesday to Friday, that’s why when you are deliberately trying to implement uh the things that we talked about up here in your scaffolding plan
and then Saturday you’re reflecting like okay so How did it work?
Now, what I found is that anytime I changed the dance, it took a couple of weeks. So, this first week is going to be a little iffy. And you might think, “Oh my goodness, this is never going to work.”
But it’s kind of like if you were dancing a waltz before and now you’re changing to a twostep, but your kid is still dancing the walts. Uh, somebody’s going to get their toes stepped on and it’s going to feel awkward
and it’s going to feel like contrived as you say new phrases like, “What do you think your schedule should look like?” Maybe you’re not used to saying that.
Maybe it is like, well, how long did it take you last week? How can we figure that out? You know, those probing kind of questions. Maybe you’re not used to that. Your kid’s not used to that, so it’s going to feel a little awkward.
And that’s normal. And that’s okay because then you’re going to do it again the next week and the next week until slowly those things that were red that you checked off as red, they start inching towards the green.
Who will you tell about your plan? Maybe you have a friend who also has kids your age and you’re like, “Okay, I’m going to try this new thing.”
Uh because it’s good to talk get somebody else who is also doing this or who understands what you’re trying to do so that you can hold yourself accountable.
They’re not holding you accountable. You’re just telling them like, “My intention is to try this.” Sometimes we need to tell people that
like I said change uh does not happen in in a week. It’s not a sprint. It is kind of like a marathon. But we want to celebrate the small wins along the way. It’s about changing the direction and moving forward.
41:28 – PAGE 14: Three-Month Check-In
Now, here’s the cool thing. Keep going to page 14 and in three months check again. Go through the diagnostic again.
So that’s like April 22nd and there is another diagnostic on here. So you can go through it again and then compare. So where were they today and then three months from now check again.
Sometimes when you are living it is really hard to see the progress. And so by doing a checkup in three months and you’ll see oh okay these were like red red and now they’re closer to green.
And we want to celebrate those wins every time. every time.
Um, as the reds start turning to green, hopefully you’ll feel less exhausted, less like you’re trying to drag them through the day, trying to manage everything.
Uh, your relationship will start to change, they’re going to start, as they develop even more organization skills, more learning skills. That’s going to also boost their confidence because every time they succeed at something, their brain says, “Hey, I succeeded uh and they become more confident in what they’re doing.”
And every time they make a schedule and realize, “I should have done it different.” And they try again, that is strengthening their resilience. So these pillars really uh work together and the more you that’s why you can focus on one and it helps build these others as well.
So this isn’t just about academics. It’s about building a kid who can handle life without completely falling apart.
And as a parent, it is about I was going to say getting your life back. That’s not quite what I mean. But as your kid becomes more independent, you have a chance to rediscover who you are in this phase of life. And that’s kind of exciting, too.
Them building capability gives you both freedom in new ways, and it’s pretty exciting.
Next month’s workshop, we’re going to talk about connection. I mentioned that earlier because that’s what all these pillars stand on. So watch your emails in the coming weeks for the invitation to that workshop.
And now if you have any questions, please feel free to pop them in the chat and we will talk about them.
44:20 – Q&A: When to Start with Confidence vs. Organization
Okay. I’m not sure if I should start on confidence. There are a couple check marks there, but they need strong organizational needs. Great question. Thank you. Yes.
So if you have several check marks in confidence, I would say go with confidence because if they are not super confident and you’re trying to build organization, it’s going to be more difficult than it needs to be.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you’re not helping your kid become organized. It just means that the lens you’re using is more confidence focused.
So, let’s just go back over here just for a second to help answer this question. So, when we’re talking about confidence, we are trying to help our kid realize that effort leads to improvement and it’s building this um growth mindset.
And if we look at here, so if we’re looking at page eight, um, instead of saying like, “Oh, you’re smart. You can do this.” Because even if your kid is smart, they might not think they can do that.
And so you might have been saying, “You’re smart. You can do this.” And they’re like, “Yeah, I don’t believe it.”
So even if we just have a little shift to that conversation and say, “This is tricky.” So, you’re acknowledging that because that’s what they believe anyway. So, you’re meeting them where they’re at.
And then you say, “What have you tried so far?” and getting them to think about it. And then, uh, you’ll see the language shift there on page eight.
So, they’re struggling. You’re saying, “Yes, this is hard. What’s one thing you can try?” So you’re building confidence by getting them to name something they can try.
Then you say, “Okay, so let’s try that.” And try to make that thing that they’re trying like the smallest step forward.
Sometimes what I do with that um and even this is something you can do with yourself. I know I still use this uh is what is the very next thing they have to do on this path to succeeding? Get them to write it down.
Even if it is like, you know, they’re working on their science and they you say, “What’s the very next thing?” Well, I need to do page 17. Okay, so on page 17, what is the very first thing you need to do?
They might say, “Well, I need to do question one.” And so then you break it down. So in question one, what is the very first thing you need to do?
And so it’s training their brain to succeed in doing the small task and then doing another small task. And every time they successfully achieve one of those small tasks, it helps to build their confidence when they succeed.
And you’ll see again on page uh eight, you can say, “Okay, so they did the thing on page 17 and they tried the first thing for the first question.”
And you might say, “Hey, I noticed that it took a couple tries to get that going and you did it.” Like, that’s great. So, you’re acknowledging that the the work that they put in uh and focusing on that
And when they say, “Oh, I’m not so smart yet.” We say, “You’re not there yet.” Because maybe they’re not there yet. Maybe maybe they don’t understand things yet, and that’s okay.
And then you can say, “Well, what would help get you closer? What do you think?”
I know math is particularly tricky. Uh I know we went through this with my daughters. I was like, This is really tricky right now. And as your brain develops, you’re going to be able to understand things better.
So maybe we don’t understand this yet, but what can we do now and then continue to move forward?
So should you start on confidence? Because there were a couple of check marks there. I would say if you’re asking that question, yes, start with confidence.
get it so that you know most of the things in the confident level are leaning towards green or getting towards green and then um continue.
You don’t have to wait till you have like four green on confidence before you move on to resilience and organization and so on. It’s sort of like everything is going to keep leveling up.
49:24 – Closing
We are going to wrap up and I want to say a big thank you for joining me today. I hope it was helpful and I’ll be sending out the replay.
Re replay is available till Sunday night if you want to rewatch. The workbook is yours because you showed up live. So, thank you for that. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your day!