Here's one thing I wanna begin with.
I think a lot of us worry that our kids' bad behavior anywhere and especially heightened at school is some reflection of our parenting.
And then when our kid struggles behaviorally, emotionally, academically, to some degree, we're not even responding to their struggle as much as to our need to feel like a good parent through them having better behavior.
And then whatever they're struggling with kind of becomes a pawn in our game that we want to prove to everyone we're amazing parents and so we need them to act better on the playground or learn how to read or figure out some peer dynamic in a group situation.
I think today is going to give you insight on all of that and you'll learn a little bit more about how things played out in my tricky parent teacher conference.
I'm Doctor Becky, and this is Good Inside.
We'll be back right after this.
You know that feeling when you're going a million miles an hour, jumping from one thing to the next, you're trying to finish an email, and then you remember the laundry's still wet?
And then your kid is shouting about needing poster board for the project due tomorrow, your phone won't stop buzzing, and oh great.
you forgot that tonight is parent -teacher conferences.
Sometimes life is just a lot.
Stress doesn't have an on -off switch and we can support our body's natural response to it.
This is why I love Rituals Stress Relief featuring BioSeries technology.
It's designed to work with your body to help manage everyday stress.
It contains Ashwagandha L -theanin and Saffron which combined can help us feel calmer, happier, and less overwhelmed by everyday stress.
Ritual uses clinically studied traceable ingredients so you know exactly where they come from.
Plus as a B Corp they're committed to both people and the planet.
If you feel like daily stress is taking a toll on your body and mind you might want to give them a try.
Get Ritual Stress Relief and save 25 % on your first month at ritual .com good inside.
My younger son came home and ended up sharing a ton of bad behavior he had at school, and I'm going to tell you, it was legitimately bad behavior.
Here's what I want to do, I want to walk through everything that happened between us while it's still fresh in my mind, because I think a lot of us have this model of kind of coming down harshly on our kids or we have to punish them in order to get better behavior, but Now that I'm just a few days out, I see how this whole arc made such a big difference and I want to talk through every part where I'm gonna end up giving you stuff that's gonna make you laugh, is gonna really relate to the day -to -day in your home, and might give you permission to kind of interact with your kid in just a way that feels
slightly better to both of you and ends up being more effective.
Okay, let me jump in.
So last week at the beginning of the week, I said to two of my kids, You know, parent teacher conferences are coming up, so curious, but I'm gonna hear from your teacher.
Honestly, I didn't even think much about it.
Generally, to be honest, my kids have very good parent teacher conferences.
Well, I guess that stuck with my younger one in his head.
I think that was on a Monday.
It was on a Thursday.
I get home from work, right away, my son pulls me into his room.
Now this is a kid, who fashions himself.
Very independent, very strong.
I come home from work and he's like, whatever, I don't care, he really loves to think about himself as capable.
And he's not kind of so comfortable with his vulnerability and kind of maybe needing help from other people.
Okay, that's a little bit of backstory.
He pulls me in and I can tell he's really upset.
He even starts crying, again with this type of kid, very rare.
We sit in his bed and this is what he says.
Mom, okay? Did he talk to you?
I think I've been so excited about vacation coming up.
This point I'm like, oh boy.
I've had some bad behavior in school.
And I need your help.
Okay, just pause and let's take a moment together to almost imagine your kid saying, and what I want you to do in the mental image with your kids, I want you to pause the moment and remind yourself something like, Say less.
I have time. Go slow.
Between us, as we pause this movie, the thing that really did strike me, and maybe I've trained myself to think this way, I just, I can't remember the last time this kid came to me saying he needed my help...
it's always, like, he'd avoid a story, or he would say something in a funny way, he was really vulnerable, he was clearly desperate for my I mean, he dragged me into his room.
I also just happen to love that I'm excited for vacation, like he was already kind of coming up with a narrative to explain all this bad behavior.
I thought, very creative, A -plus on that.
Now, what did I have the urge to say before anything else?
I don't know, some version of a lecture.
Bad behavior in school, what's wrong with you?
Well, tell me, what have you been doing?
Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, am I gonna hear it from your teacher?
So either come down harshly, kind of add my own anxiety to clearly his state of discomfort, or just rush past any of the details and jump right into a solution.
I was on my game. Not always the case, but I was on my game and I used what is truly one of my favorite lines to say to anybody when they come to you in a state of distress.
Okay, I'm going to do this a lot.
I'm going to pause and share my thought process and then get back into the story.
So my son's seven. Here's what I know about all kids and I can promise you, definitely my seven -year -old because he is - you know, he's got that rebellious streak.
Whatever happened in school, like that is going to be way less serious than the kind of stuff this child is going to get into in his teenage years.
I just know it. Not because I wish for him awful behavior.
No, but he's not such a people pleaser.
He's a third kid. He loves to kind of try things.
He doesn't have a lot of fear.
And either way, even if he was a kind of more people pleasing kid, all kids can do all things.
And what I really care about with my kids is that their body encodes.
When something bad happens, I can go to my mom, not when something bad happens, I want to run away from my mom, hide it from my mom.
I want them to know my mom is the first person I want to talk to for help, not my mom is the last person I hope finds out about this because I'm gonna be in trouble.
Now, we confuse that with permissiveness.
If one day my kid, I don't know, is like drinking at a young age I'm not going to be like, high five, I'm so glad you came to talk to me, let's take shots to celebrate!
Zero! Okay? But if my kid is drinking at an early age you better bet I think I'm going to be more helpful in figuring out what's going on and helping them have better behavior than their like, I don't know, totally irresponsible 16 -year -old friend who I'm guessing has zero bits of helpful advice to help my child get out of a struggle.
So that's my goal. It really is and I know it has a long -term view and it's so different but our kids are encoding patterns of how things feel with us and those patterns and feelings will have more of an impact on what they do when they're older than what we say to them.
You can talk to me about anything.
Their body's like, oh, I remember a lot of things that ended up feeling worse.
I'm not talking to my parent.
I'm not going to go against my body's lessons.
Okay. That line. I'm so glad you're talking to me about this.
I really believe it's just one of those lines we need to like put in our back pocket and practice, practice to the mirror even when your kid's not there.
So you have a greater likelihood of saying it.
I'm so glad you're talking to me about this.
Now I'm going to walk through it.
After that, I just really liked hugged him.
He was really, I think he was looking at me like this.
like kind of like am I gonna get a hug or am I gonna get a lecture?
I I think we can all think about those moments in our childhood we're like what's coming?
Did something bad am I gonna get a hug or am I gonna get a lecture and so I didn't really say too many other things I did I just gave him a hug.
I'm so glad you're talking to me about this look we're gonna hear the details he was kind of like hyperventilating like it's okay I'm here we have time you know just say anything just let me give you a hug.
I wanted his body our body encodes movements like I'm so upset I'm nervous I have this thing and what I wanted his body to remember is there is a possibility of like connection and relative safety in that moment.
Kind of calmed down.
Then he started telling me more.
This is what he said.
He kind of spelled it all out.
He's like, okay, well, and really talking to my friends on the rug, my teacher hates when I do that.
I've been talking to my friends on the rug.
Okay. I've been calling out in class and he goes, and I've been rushing all of my, he goes, I've been rushing my work.
He's in first grade, so I'm like dying to know what he's been rushing.
I said it like reading, writing, math, then he just goes, all of it, all of it mom.
Okay, so I just kind of mirrored back, okay.
So it sounds like you've been talking to your friends on the rug, you've been calling out in class, and you've been rushing like all of your work.
Sounds like a lot of stuff.
Then he added this kicker, end today.
My teacher hates when we run in from recess to try to be first, but I just really wanted to be first. I ended up kind of pushing and elbowing this other kid who also wants to be first. That also happened today.
Okay, so here's all the information.
Now, here's what I did, again.
What did I want to say?
That better all stop tomorrow.
That better all stop tomorrow, but one of the things I realized is how much when we set up our kid to go from here to here with anything, our kid just gets stuck.
Because I know for me if I went to someone I was like, I can't speak any Spanish.
And they were like, well, you should be fluent tomorrow.
I'm like, well, I'm not even going to start learning Spanish.
Like that's impossible.
That's so far from where I am, right?
Plus, I know my kid.
He likes to feel in control, right.
And I know if I was like, well, you better be better tomorrow.
I just know he's gonna hear that voice tomorrow and he's like well how can I feel independent?
I know I can continue doing all those things like just totally backfires.
So here's what I said both because I know my kid likes to feel in control but also because I want to set him up for success.
And I really did mean this.
I said look first of all again I really think I can help you with this and we're not gonna work on all of it at once.
We're just not because we can't go from here to here and it's just too many things so I want you to pick one thing.
Talking on the rug, calling out your work, recess behavior, I want one thing to work on.
That's it." And I really sold it.
He goes, I want to work on all the things.
And this was like a little more.
I was like, no, I just think that's like really too many, sweetie, I don't want you to have like all the things.
One thing is like okay I want three things.
I go, what things? You know it goes, I want talking on the work, right?
Now, here's what's so interesting.
When we say to our kids, here's what you have to do.
We separate the conflict, we own the part of them that wants to get better.
And guess what they have to own the other part, which is I kind of just want to keep doing what I want to do.
And I don't care if I get in trouble.
What's really interesting in this conversation, as I look back on it, is I owned, let's just make really slow progress.
Now let's just do like one tiny thing.
Again, when you split the conflict and you own that part, it almost made sense that my son was like, no, I want to improve across the board, and I'm almost like, oh, fine.
Right? Totally shift it.
So we started with talking on the rug.
Now, me being me, I still just, I always get caught because I feel like I have really good ideas.
Like, I really feel like I have really good ideas.
I just want to share them with my kid, even though again, then there's almost a bad split.
I have the ideas and he has to own the rejection of the ideas, but I started with saying, I have a good idea.
Why don't you just kind of turn your body away from your two really good friends in the class?
To which he said, mom, we sit in a circle, like I can't just turn my back away, which is interesting.
I don't even know that.
So I just had to, oh, I didn't even know when you're describing where people were sitting that you sit in a circle.
Thank you for telling me that.
I didn't even know that.
What do you think? So again, I'm giving him ownership.
And he's like, wow.
My teacher, during quiet time, when we're doing quiet reading, there's always kids saying my teacher's name, trying to get her attention.
And my teacher does this sign, and then he showed me the sign.
It was something like this.
Like, I think pointer and pinky up and thumb was holding the other two fingers, and the sign was going back and forth.
He said, maybe I should give that sign to my friends.
Small win, big win, first of all.
What a small win. he has something to do.
Big win, I said to him, oh, you're really thinking about to solve that problem.
Why is that a big win?
I would love my kid when they're older and they're struggling to have the self -talk of I'm someone who can really think of solutions to my own problems. That's way better than thinking my mom always has the best ideas, so he said okay.
And then he said, oh, and I've been calling out a lot.
And I said, I wonder what would help you in that moment not call out.
Now, I'm a big fan of mantras, right?
Mantras take a moment where something's hard, and they just give us one specific thing to focus on.
Now, this is really interesting, OK, because I said to him, I know kind of a mantra that would help me, OK, and he said, well, what would help you?
And I said, waiting is hard and I can do it.
Waiting is hard and I can do it.
And he just said, I don't think that's it for me, but OK.
And then what's really, really nuts is he said something to me that I think I shared with him over a year ago and I haven't repeated since.
It goes back to those moments when you think you're delivering a gym and then you think, ugh, that didn't land, because my kid asked for pretzels.
But they do take it in and service it a year later.
Because I have a theory about why kids call out, at least sometimes.
And I had shared it with him, I think, when he was struggling a little bit a year ago.
And he said, I think what I need to say to myself is, I know the answer and it's okay if my friends don't know that I know.
See, we have a sidebar.
I think that, when a kid knows the answer to a question, some kids love everyone else to know, oh, Alex knows the answer.
Alex is so smart. And if I call out, everyone knows that I know the answer.
And if I don't call out, people don't know that I know the answer.
There's almost like an insecurity there.
And his self -talk was literally a reflection of something I said to him a year ago.
But he surfaced it.
So we then did a mini role play.
We really did. I'm gonna tell you the whole story.
I said, okay, I have an idea.
How about I'm you, and you're the teacher, and you ask a question.
And I am gonna kind of like say the mantra to myself.
I'm gonna try my mantra, your mantra, see what works better for me.
He said, okay. So he said to me, who knows what one plus one is.
And I went like this, oh, oh, oh, oh.
And then I said, waiting is hard, and I can do it.
And of course he yelled at me, you don't say it out loud mom, you're saying it out loud.
And I said, oh, you're right, okay, I'm gonna say it to myself, right?
And I said it to myself, and I said, say it again, but I'm gonna try your mantra.
And then I said, I actually liked the waiting is hard one, personally.
And then he said, oh, how about now you're the teacher, and I'm the student.
Kids will actually engage in this kind of role play, if you often reverse it first. Because now it's not something I'm making my kid do, it's kind of play.
So I said, okay. So I said something like, again two plus two is blank.
And he raised his hand and he unlike me didn't say it out loud and he said after I don't like the waiting one and maybe really he really does know himself that it's not about waiting for him, it's about him needing to build enough confidence to know that it's okay if other people don't know that he knows the answer to everything, so we did that.
And then we got to rushing and rushing through his work.
And this was a really fun one together.
So we were talking like what would help you and he wasn't sure and I just said to him, do you remember the tortoise and the hare?
Do you remember the tortoise in the hare?
And he goes yeah because I know he knows that story.
I said what is the thing that's kind of the lesson at the end that everyone talks about.
And he's like oh right they say something and I was like yeah what is it?
He's like I don't remember I don't remember.
I said okay, I could give you a clue.
I'm gonna give you acronym.
And I said to him S -A -S -W -T -R made it kind of gives me a what is that Stan.
Come again I said do you want me to give you the first word because yeah.
They said S -A -S -W -T -R first S is slow many lights oh so instead he wins the race right?
But then it became this kind of inside joke where we were saying to each other.
SASWTR. He's like, yeah, I'm going to say that to myself.
I'm doing my work. Okay.
I have this whole conversation.
I gave him a hug. I actually just ended how we began and said again, I'm just so glad we're talking about this.
I'm so glad you came to me.
Next morning, I kid you not, before we get on the bus, he says to me, mom, SASWTR today, right?
and his sister goes, what?
And he just goes, nothing, nothing.
I think it felt all of a sudden kind of like this inside special connection between us and it was.
It's almost like through that acronym, he was saying this was actually a moment of learning.
That felt good to me.
I think the word that comes to mind the most to summarize this whole intervention, I'm gonna pause cause I want you to think, if I had one word to summarize this way of intervening, which Becky even herself will not do all the time.
We all get reactive, we all need a do over, but if there's one word, what would it be?
And there's no right answer, okay, no quiz, but I'm gonna share it with you, the one word that comes to mind for me.
Trust. Trust that I have a good kid under a whole range of bad behavior.
trust in myself that I could help figure this out?
I think one of the biggest things we lose access to when we're in a moment of panic and parenting is trust in time.
I don't need to react a certain way, like, well, you're getting your iPad taken away, and the mic goes, no. And then in some ways I'm like, I trust that this is gonna change because my kids screamed in reaction to my random punishment.
Like we almost trust our kid's immediate reaction about a consequence more than we trust how something feels or ourselves or a process or time.
I have time to figure this out with him.
I trust that. I have skills that I could teach him.
I trust that. I have my own experiences where I know I have some bad days and weeks and then can get back on track.
I trust that. And maybe at the core of everything we do here is just, I have a good kid who's having a hard time.
I trust that. I think sometimes we need permission to lead with trust instead of control.
And it feels bold and uncomfortable because most of us in our hard times, people led with control, not trust. And I think we remember it feeling awful and not helping, but it's seared in our body as what's familiar.
And it's always hard to go against what's familiar.
And I know for me at various points in my life, the thing that's helped me shift to something that's unfamiliar and, therefore, uncomfortable, but a little bit more in line with my values is honestly just having someone model it for me, seeing it, oh, people do that?
Oh, that's a possibility.
And so there's no major lesson here.
There's nothing you have to do.
there's no homework.
I guess my wish for you is just to kind of take in this story, not as a sign of how you have to parent.
Trust me, if my son would have caught me on another day, it would have been lectures and screaming and power struggles.
And just I would have been telling you a different story just happened to be one of those moments.
But what I want you to take in is the possibility of one day doing it a different way.
I want you to take in that you when you were younger, deserve to have moments more filled with trust and control.
And I want you to take in that if this feels right and good to you, I trust that you'll get there.
So one last note. Parent -teacher conferences are coming up, yes, Yes, my son is working on a bunch of stuff.
And yes, there will be moments that I anticipate a parent -teacher conference will be messy and imperfect.
And the teacher will share some of these behaviors.
Recently, I've been on the road, spreading the word about my new children's book, That's My Truck, a Good Inside story about hitting.
I'm so grateful and excited to be on this book tour, connecting with our community in person.
And it's also true that being away from home can feel hard. This is why I love Airbnb.
I can find and book a place that feels a little bit more like home away from home, somewhere I can come back to at the end of the day and just recharge.
Something else I love about Airbnb is that you can become a host while you're away by offering your home to someone traveling to your town.
Your home might be worth more than you think.
Find Find out how much at Airbnb .com slash host. Then we had the conference.
And here's one of the things I've really given myself permission to do over the years.
And I'd say looking back on earlier parent teacher conferences, I think I didn't do it.
I think I had some type of like faking good like I need to prove to this teacher that that my kid is perfect and that I'm a really good parent.
And I kind of did that by trying to kind of conceal certain things or kind of cross my fingers.
Like I hope they don't bring it up.
But I think the thing that shifted and relates to my mindset of I have a good kid who's in a hard stage, or I have a good kid who has tricky moments, or I have a good kid who's not a perfect kid is if I really embrace that, then I want to unearth some stuff in the parent -teacher conference Because if I look at the teacher like another coach, and we're both kind of coaching the same kid, well, we wanna have the same information.
And I wanna know the things that they're working on with my kids so I can be aware of how that might show up at home.
And they have to know the stuff I'm aware of with my kid at home so they have a filter on when it might come up at school.
And so I think I just went in with that kind of, let's just have it all out.
And honestly, the first question I got at the parent -teacher conference was some version of, hey, just want to check in with you first, how are things going, what do you notice?
And then they actually said, anything you've been hearing about related to school?
My husband and I kind of looked at each other and we kind of had the car ride to talk about our approach, and we just put it all out there.
And we actually put it all out there, not in a panicked way, but kind of with the same love for my good kid, as I had when he told me all of his kind of transgressions, kind of said, look, we'll start out by saying we have heard that it's been like an especially tricky week, we know this, here's how we heard about it.
And actually this conference, it couldn't have been better timing because we wanna share some of what we see at home and how we approach it there.
We'd love to hear a little bit more detail around some of these stories at school and hear what's going on from your perspective and what a great time to come together and brainstorm about how we can all help my son.
And I think that kind of set the tone for a lot of what came next because it was clear we were teammates, it was clear there was no kind of avoiding the truth, there was no desire from our part, we kind of named this intention, this intention to work together and unearth things and think about some concrete strategies that we could kind of both do at home and at school to help my son with kind of the core struggle he was having.
And then we got into a lot of it.
And I think, the other thing that happened in the conference that really stood out, which was so helpful for me to hear, my son has these wonderful teachers, is they really did say to us like these are moments.
Like these are moments we see these kind of difficult behaviors this is not who your son is.
And maybe you know I had you know in my presence two teachers who were also able to separate identity from behavior but I think because we started out as teammates and we reduced defensiveness and I was so open about what I already knew was happening in terms of my kids struggle.
They didn't have to escalate anything in terms of, oh, well this is how he always is and you have to take things seriously.
No one had to establish that because I wasn't trying to hide something, I wasn't trying to fake good, I wasn't trying to paint my kid as perfect.
And so that makes someone else a lot less likely to say, yeah your kids having all these issues and your kid's the problem kid because we kind of started out in the same page mentality.
And so the conference was a fruitful one.
It was really a great conference.
Now does that mean it was great?
As in, oh my goodness, I have a perfect kid?
No. Was it great in terms of, oh my goodness, that was definitely the easiest conference of the day?
Probably not. But I guess how we feel and how we name our feelings, has a lot more to do with how we unconsciously define those feelings than we realize.
And I think to me, when my kids are young, I try to define great as holding my kid's identity who they are separate from what they do.
And then actually almost wanting to hear about some of the things my kids struggle with when they're younger, so I have an opportunity to work on things before the stakes are a lot higher.
And so, by that definition, the conference was great.
Although not without its moments that I had to kind of take a deep breath, remind myself of that kind of mindset.
I have a good kid, I was going through a hard stage, and not without some kind of tricky feelings because of course, me too.
It's just easier to hear your kid is perfect, my favorite kid in the class, they never do anything wrong, and that is definitely not what the conference was all about.
Okay, let's be honest, the kids for whom parent teacher conferences are most challenging are kids prone to defiance, stubbornness, and kids in general who are just super strong -willed.
Yes, this is my child I told the story about.
This is probably why I'm so excited to do a brand new workshop on defiance.
To give us a reframe about what's really going on, and to come up with a plan for how to move forward in a way that's effective and actually feels better for everyone.
More about this in the show notes or at good inside .com.
So here's a question I get all the time from parents.
How honest should I be with my kids teacher about the challenges I see at home?
I think the first thing before answering this is just figuring out what is my goal of my conversation with my kid's teacher?
I think we could answer this.
Is my goal to help the teacher understand my kid and almost have like a leg up?
Like if my teacher can know things that I already know about my kid and I can share things that maybe have worked or haven't worked or even places we're stuck, I'm kind of giving the teacher like a fast forward in terms of knowledge.
Is my goal something very different?
If my goal and this is why it's helpful to name it cause I think when we say it, it sounds ridiculous even if it is our unconscious goal, is my goal for the teacher to think I have a perfect kid and a perfect family where nothing ever goes wrong?
Well, then you have an answer to your question, how honest should I be?
Probably not very honest because if you're honest, then your kid like any other kid is gonna look like a normal kid who has stuff that they're great at and stuff that they're really working on.
I guess I would ask you to try on and maybe it's just for a month.
I always love the idea of trying to commit to something for a very short term.
You don't have to try on for your kid's whole academic career or being honest with the teacher.
No, no, no. That's a huge commitment.
I wouldn't ask you to do that.
But if you tried it on for a month, or a week, or a day, or a single meeting, and if you were able to say to yourself the fears I have that this is going to make the teacher look at my kid in an even more negative way?
What if I just recognize those fears and I kind of put them on a shelf, you know, right behind they can sit on that shelf and we'll keep them there for you.
You can take them back if they're useful but for now just put them to the side because too often when we don't put our fears to the side they dictate what we do instead of allowing ourselves kind of the freedom to experiment.
And so, what would it look like to be really honest, right?
First of all, you can name that this is new for you.
I would actually do that to a teacher.
Hey, in the past I haven't always been honest with teachers about everything my kid is struggling with at home.
I think I've been nervous about that.
I'm really trying to do something new this year because I'm guessing in your seat, having more information just helps you show up in a way that's more supportive.
And I know we're all on team Ryan, whatever your kid's name is.
So I would name that.
Naming, in any situation that you're nervous about doing something new, helps the other person understand your stumbles, right?
Or sometimes you might have a new tone if you're trying out something new, and now they can say, oh, this is the first time Becky has been honest with the teacher, so no wonder it's all awkward, and it almost holds you responsible to do the thing.
You're going to be a lot more honest in a conversation if you've started the conversation telling someone you're trying to be honest, than if you just try to do it, and then you might notice a teacher's gaze or something in their face, and you might overinterpret it as, oh, this teacher all of a sudden hates me or hate my kid, and then all of a sudden, you might go back in the direction again of those fears, but if you've named it upfront, that's a lot less likely to happen.
So I guess my answer is, instead of just how honest should I be, I would say, well, what am I trying to accomplish?
What have I tended to do?
Is that working in terms of that goal?
And if it's not, what would it be like to experiment, just one day, just one meeting, with pushing myself in the direction of honesty and sharing information?
Here's another question that is really, really poignant.
But what do I do if I disagree with the teacher's assessment of my child?
This is so important and I guess it's gonna happen, like often.
So number one, let's just start with a framework.
Again, the glasses we wear, And you might be thinking, I don't wear glasses, but we all kind of wear glasses.
We all have glasses that are on at all times, and they basically kind of dictate how we interpret things that are ambiguous.
Most things are ambiguous, right?
And so, let's just notice those glasses.
One set of glasses that a lot of us tend to wear, we can get into it maybe later, so something that I would need more time, but it kind of comes from a place where that used to be adaptive in our early years, and maybe no longer is.
And that set of classes is some version of, people are kind of out to get me, or people think negatively about me and my family.
And if you even have that set of glasses on, you're more likely to interpret a teacher's negative comments about your child as, oh my goodness, this teacher hates my child, or, oh my goodness, my kid's gonna get kicked out of school.
I've had this conversation with so many parents.
Oh my goodness, the teacher is telling me that basically my son, my daughter doesn't get along with peers and there's no way they're gonna get to first grade.
Oh my goodness my kid is behind in reading I think they're gonna get kicked out of the school.
Oh my goodness my kid is having a behavioral issue and they're gonna set get sent to detention for the rest of the year.
And I'll ask questions and those bigger themes weren't said but our mind goes there so quickly.
If you assumed that teachers feedback about your kid was not about who your kid is or whether they belong in class or whether they're smart or whether they're nice.
If you just assume that is not what a teacher ever means, just as an assumption.
And instead a teacher is trying to give me very specific advice so we can problem solve together.
Number one, you're just gonna be less likely to interpret a teacher's comments as meaning anything so big and global about your kid.
And number two, you're going to feel more grounded.
Okay, so that's number one is just your mindset.
assume your teammates.
Step two. If you notice that the teacher is talking to you in a way that provokes your own defensiveness.
In a way this is a shift. We're not saying, the teacher is talking to me in a way that is mean about my kid.
We're actually saying the teacher is talking to me in a way where I notice I'm getting defensive.
I just want to tell you the difference.
In the first First we're really focused on the other person.
On the second, I'm actually really focused on noticing my response.
Because now from that place, you're going to be able to communicate a lot more effectively.
If I interpret the teacher's words as a sign of the teacher just doesn't like my kids, I'm probably going to respond like this.
That doesn't happen at home at all.
I don't really know what you're talking about.
There's really like a distance.
There's kind of an unconscious way of saying, we're not in the same team, you don't get my kid, you don't get me.
I don't really like you very much, and all of a sudden it gets adversarial.
If instead I'm aware of, whoa, I'm noticing I'm getting defensive, I'll probably say something like this, hey, I know we're on the same team here and can you just say that in a different way?
Cause I'm noticing I'm trying to kind of justify the behavior in my head and I know that's not gonna be productive.
Or you could just say, hey, I notice I'm kind of feeling defensive about my kid as we're talking, that's not gonna be productive.
So could you say that in another way so we can have just a more effective conversation?
I know we're both on the same team here and we wanna proceed along that way.
I'm only able to say that because I'm noticing my urge to be defensive which won't happen if we're obsessed with noticing all the different kind of things that are wrong about a teacher and how they communicated.
Now the last thing I wanna say here is it's amazing how conversations with the teacher can go if you really set the stage of being teammates right at the beginning honestly think about it in a workplace it's very very similar right think about if you're having a little bit of a heated conversation with a manager but from the start one of you says hey before we even start this conversation I just want to establish something we're on the same team we both want the best for and I would name your you know child's name when you start That way, it's much harder to get to a place where things feel incendiary,
and it's much easier to get to a place where you actually get to the heart of the issue and actually do work together.
Because I really do believe all parents and all teachers, they really do internally want what's best for a kid.
And as long as we can kind of set up a moment in a way that feels kind of on the same team, the conversation will probably proceed along that route.
Next question. What do I do when I keep hearing from the school that my kid is not on task?
What exactly does that mean and how can I talk to a teacher about it?
Okay, this is a term that I have to be honest. There's something about the term that doesn't quite resonate with me.
So that's maybe what's going on for you.
And at the same time, I know this is a very popular kind of school term.
So let's break it down.
I think when school says a kid is not on task, they're kind of saying a kid is not going through the flow of activities and all the transitions along the lines of kind of our expectations.
So for example, let's talk about younger kids.
Being on task might mean being able to sit in a circle and not always poke the kid next to you.
Being on task for a slightly older kid might mean my kid is not able to wait in line and they struggle with any place in line except if they are the line leader.
Older, my kid is not on task might mean, oh, when we ask a kid to be quiet and do some in class work, they tend to get distracted or they don't finish the kind of homework sheet in the allotted time.
So on task I think kind of means there's a gap between our expectations of where we want the kid to be and the behavior a child is actually showing.
Now, why don't I love this term?
Well, I think in general, I probably don't love things that judge a kid by an overt behavior because I personally am a lot more interested in, okay, what is the behavior telling us?
What is the story underneath?
What is as a lot of you know, one of my most favorite questions?
What is the MGI? What is the most generous interpretation?
What is the most generous interpretation of a kid poking a classmate at circle time or not waiting in line unless there's a line leader or not kind of showing that they're capable of getting through an in -class assignment in a quiet way.
In all of those kind of explorations, I wouldn't personally want to talk to a parent about whether a kid is on task or not, but I might say, hey, I'm observing this, right?
So, I'm making this up.
I'm observing that Tarin is having a hard time sitting quietly in the rug.
One of the things we'd really love to work with Tarin on is figuring out how to kind of regulate his desire to be silly and move around and how can we work with him to get that done.
Here's something we're working on at school and hey, it would be great to jump on the phone for five to ten minutes because we wonder if this is showing up at home as well and we have some ideas of how you might practice some of this at home.
That really resonates with me.
I think what happens for a lot of parents is they get an email just saying Tarin isn't on task during library time because he's always poking the other students, and then a parent is kind of left spiraling like oh my goodness I have a bad kid and my kid who can't be quiet during library time is never gonna learn how to xyz and then oh my kid is gonna get kicked out of school and then they see the teacher and they're kind of waiting like this, waiting to hear oh sorry your kid can't go to the school anymore when really it's a smaller thing.
It hopefully doesn't become a bigger thing if we actually get to the root of and help kids build the skills that they're missing.
So I guess my one way of moving this forward is if you've received that message, we can help get to the root of it by just leading with curiosity instead of defensiveness.
How does that sound?
Well, it might be writing back, hey, it sounds like circle time's a problem.
It would be great to get on the phone for 10 minutes and figure out what's really happening.
We both know Tarin is a good kid who must be having a hard time, and I'm looking forward to talking this through so we could figure out what we could do at home and at school to help him out, right?
Same thing with work, right?
Oh, it seems like Taran is having a hard time focusing on math for that eight -minute, in -class, silent math work project.
Hmm, I wonder what's getting on his way?
I hear it's been hard. Would you be able to set up a brief meeting or can we dig into this more over email together to figure out what's going on?
Is it really the math?
Is it the focusing?
Is it not getting attention from other kids?
Is it struggling and not knowing how to ask for help?
Let's talk that through together because I feel like if we get to the root of the issue both at home and at school we can work on things to help Tarin do better in that moment in the classroom.
So I think that phrase on task we can really break down what is actually going on and if you don't know that's okay.
Activate your curiosity.
Remember, you have a good kid who's having a hard time and you and the school can really work together as teammates to figure it out.
Do you want to learn more about how we're celebrating being an inconvenient woman at Good Inside?
Tap the link in show notes or head to goodinside .com for more.
Today's episode is in partnership with Airbnb and Ritual.
