Empowering kids for school success

Going back to school can be an exciting time for kids and parents. But for some kids, it can also be full of stress and uncertainty. Especially if the previous school year had its share of ups and downs. 

Maybe your child had a tough time in math class? Or maybe making friends was a challenge? Listen as host Julian Saavedra explains how parents can get kids ready for the new school year with confidence. Hear why it’s important for parents and kids to reflect on the previous year. And learn ways to help kids manage challenges in the classroom. 

We love to hear from our listeners. Email us at opportunitygap@understood.org.

Related resources

• Back-to-school making you and your child anxious? These strategies can help

• What to say when your child doesn’t want to go to school

• Julian’s book recommendation: The Magical Yet by Angela DiTerlizzi

Timestamps 

(00:47) Why is it important for parents and kids to talk about school?

(02:37) Questions to ask your child about school

(08:57) How to handle challenges in the classroom with confidence 

(12:13) The Magical Yet

Episode transcript

Julian: Going back to school can be exciting for kids and parents, but it can also be full of stress and uncertainty, especially if the previous school year had its share of challenges.

Maybe your child had a really tough time in math class. Maybe making friends was really difficult. Maybe that was a challenge. So, the question is, how can parents get kids ready to tackle this new year with confidence and resilience and overcome those school difficulties?

This is a brand new episode of "The Opportunity Gap." Welcome back OG family. Today we're talking about overcoming school difficulties.

(00:47) Why is it important for parents and kids to talk about school?

Why is it so important to sit down with your child and reflect on the school year? You know, the whole idea of reflection is something that I don't think a lot of people talk as much about with their kids, and I think they should.

You know, those of us that are in the professional world, we have a lot of opportunities to do reflection. We have one to ones where we meet with our managers and we reflect on our goals or if we're, you know, looking at our own business opportunities. We reflect on how well they did or how they didn't.

In relationships, we're always reflecting on conversations or reflecting on how things are going. And I don't think as adults we do enough modeling of that reflection with our kids, and that's what we should start doing.

All right. So, thinking about how important it is to reflect on school, it's something that you can start really early by having proactive conversations with your kids. I always talk about having a set of questions that you ask, whether it be in the car on the way home, whether it be during the summertime right before school starts, whether it be, you know, just in random conversation.

Thinking about reflection is one of the most important things you can do, not only to get some information from your kids, but also to, you know, prevent them from having negative self-talk, like having them really think deeply about what happened and what they want in their school experience, and what their perspective is, and not to blame themselves for any challenges that happen.

(02:37) Questions to ask your child about school

So, here's a couple of questions that you might be thinking about as you're having these conversations or reflection. Ask them first, "Well, tell me what did you enjoy most about school last year?" Just starting there. Like, "Tell me, what did you like? What was fun? What was a highlight?" And you'd be surprised. Like, sometimes people might think it's a field trip or it's a favorite teacher or it's a favorite class, but sometimes you'll get the most random answers that are super insightful.

Maybe your kid tells you, "Well, you know, it was really, it was really fun just playing with my fidgets during indoor recess." Or "I just really like sitting in the cafeteria with a couple of my buddies. That was just my favorite part of the whole year." And it really helps you get more of an insight as to what are they experiencing.

You know, we as parents, or caregivers or family members, we always want to make sure that they're doing great by us planning it for them. But we got to ask them questions too to see what did they experience.

On the flip side, the inverse of that is ask them "So, that's what you enjoyed. Tell me what you didn't enjoy. Tell me what you didn't like." And you're probably going to hear "I didn't like to do homework," or "I didn't like to do all the things that I had to do for my chores," or "I didn't like to get up and get on the bus."

But you might hear something different. You might really want to hear things that are not normally said in conversation. So, asking that question about what you didn't enjoy is really, really important so that you can get a sense of what's going well and what's not going well. So, those are like the broad questions. But then I always have this bank of very specific questions that I ask to really get that insightful information I'm looking for.

First question that I highly recommend you ask "Tell me, what was one person that made you really happy when you were around them in school? Why do they make you so happy?" So, specifying a person, forcing the kid to really name and narrowing it down to "All my best friends or this friend." "No, I want to hear one person. Tell me that one person that made you super happy when you were around. Why?"

And the reason why that question is so important is because it really tells you, as the parent, this is what my child values, this is how my child felt, this is what I need to help replicate if a challenge arises in the future.

And especially for our kids with learning and thinking differences, it's important for you to know who's an advocate for my kid at school? Is it an adult that they say is making them happy? Is it another child that is making them happy? Once I know that, I know who I can reach out to and I know who I can trust.

Second question: "What was one thing you needed help with? Just tell me one specific thing that you needed help with." And again, when you specify one specific thing, it really gets to the point of "What do I need to focus on?" And you're modeling reflection for your child. Now, they're not saying to themselves, "Well, I'm just never going to get math. I'm just never going to get, I'm just bad at math. I'm not going to get it." But if you can help them realize, "Well, maybe if I just got a little bit of help with decimals, then maybe I can get better."

Third question: "What's one accomplishment you're really proud of?" And this could even go for your babies for your two, three, four-year-olds. Get them used to the word accomplishment. That's a vocabulary word that everybody should know. And so, make sure you define accomplishment for you, but allow them to define it for themselves. What do they think an accomplishment is?

My son came home to me one day and said, "Dad, I finally was able to hold on to the monkey bars for 15 seconds," and he was so proud of it. For him, that was an accomplishment. My daughter said, "Dad, I was able to write my name in cursive today. I've been working really hard, but I finally did it." That's an accomplishment.

So, thinking about for them "What did they value?" And by asking that question it really helps specify for them what are they proud of and what do they believe are accomplishments. That's a way for you to get more information about where can they strive to and where can they think back to when the struggle starts.

And the last thing I would say, the last question: "What are a few ways that you think your teachers would describe you as? Or how would your teacher describe you?" That's a tricky one, right? Because your children, they'll have to really think "How do people think about me?" And sometimes kids might say "They think I mean," or "They think I'm not smart." And that gives you great information.

But hopefully, your kid says "They think I work hard. They think I'm nice. They think I'm caring." And that tells you you have an advocate at school and you didn't even realize it. So, asking that question of how do you think your teachers would describe you? It's so instrumental in helping you navigate those challenges with your children by giving you the information you need to support your kid.

So, how do you help, right? How do these difficulties come about where there's so many things that can happen in a school day, there's so many things that can happen across school experience where it can get really difficult. It can get really hard. It can be really challenging. Lots of phone calls, lots of write-ups, lots of... Who knows what can happen?

(08:57) How to handle challenges in the classroom with confidence

How do you prepare to handle these with confidence ahead of the new school year?

Here's a couple of tips for how to deal with that. Number one, I love doing these with my classes when I was a teacher. I do these with my own children now, but incorporate daily affirmations. "I know I can do this. I know I can do this" or "I'm really smart. I'm really confident. I'm really caring." Or "I have the Mamba mentality today. I'm going to do it. The way I know how to do it." Whatever you decide, whatever affirmations you choose, model it with your children. Work on it.

It sounds simple, but repeating a mantra, or repeating an affirmation every single day, it allows you to really focus in and hone in on your specific goal for that day, and the mentality that it takes to have an affirmation like that will really start to help your children be prepared to handle any difficulty that might come their way.

Second thing, and this is an obvious one: Practice the skills that they're going to have trouble with. If you have a child who has ADHD and they're hyperactive, then I guarantee they're going to be troubling, they're going to have struggles with organization, right? They're going to struggle to stay organized.

So, that means you should practice organization before they get to school. Or practice different scenarios that might happen before they get to school. "Hey, what happens if your friend says they don't want to play with you, even though you're super excited to play that game? What are you going to say? Let's pretend. Let's practice." So, really practicing these skills that you know might be a challenge in the future, or anticipating what's going to be a challenge could really be helpful.

Third tip: Show them how to be kind to themselves and give themselves grace. Go back to the way that you have them describe how they believe their teachers think about them. Remind them of that when they start thinking about challenges, have them focus on the positive. I always like the 3 to 1 rule. Don't tell me one thing negative without telling me three positive things.

So, one thing that we love to do in our household is a compliment circle, where we'll sit at the table and we'll go around and just give each other compliments and we'll just keep going. Compliment after compliment after compliment after compliment. And it's a way for your family to really focus on supporting each other.

Last two tips: Encourage a growth mindset. We've talked a lot about this on the podcast in earlier episodes. But really focusing on the fact that nobody is a finished product, that we all can grow no matter how old we are, no matter how much we think we know, we can all get better.

(12:13) The Magical Yet

One of my favorite books is called "The Magical Yet" and my children's third-grade teacher — Mrs. De Batista, shout-out to her —she read the book "The Magical Yet" to both of their classrooms. And basically the story is about how you can do anything. You just haven't done it yet. And so, any time you feel like "I can't do this," I remember The Magical Yet will remind me "I can't do it, yet. I haven't mastered math, yet. I don't understand how to do times tables, yet. I can't sit in my seat, yet."

The magical yet, it really helps you understand that there's possibility at all times, and was really cool because the third-grade teacher, she had our kids create their own little magical yets out of clay. And they kept those magical sets on their desk. And any time, times tables or reading passages would get really difficult, that magical yet would be sitting there reminding them they might not get it now, and they might not get it yet, but they will get it.

Last really, really good thing to do, make sure you set SMART goals. SMART goals model. How does that go? How do you set a goal that's very specific. It's measurable. It's achievable. It's relevant. It's time-bound. A goal that can happen. By the end of September, I'm going to play with both of my friends at every recess and listen to my teachers. Whatever you decide.

Set a SMART goal with your children so that they learn the process of setting goals that are achievable and short. Like not these large giant goals. Maybe a daily goal. Maybe a classroom goal. Maybe a morning goal. Whatever you decide. Setting SMART goals is a really great way to prepare for potential difficulties before they happen.

All right, parents, y'all feel ready to welcome the new school year? Y'all feeling ready? You ready? I hope the answer is yes. I think I'm ready. But before you go, you know we're family, right? I need to hear from you. I need to hear from more of you. So, please let me know in the comments what tips you try from today's show. Let me know. Hit us up. Put it in the comments. I want to hear more from you.

Be sure to check out some additional resources linked in the show notes. One, in particular, is a super helpful article from Understood about strategies that can help with back-to-school anxiety. Until next time OG family, talk to y'all soon.

Thanks so much for listening today. We love hearing from our listeners. So, if you have any thoughts about today's episode, you can email us at OpportunityGap@understood.org. And be sure to check out the show notes for links and resources to anything we mentioned in the episode. This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. Learn more at Understood.org.

"The Opportunity Gap" is produced by Tara Drinks and edited by Daniela Tello-Garzon. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Ilana Millner is our supervising producer. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. Our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cochiere, and Seth Melnick. Thanks again for listening.