Helping Kids Manage Themselves

HR Mom Melissa Griffin is back! This time, we tackle the nitty-gritty of helping your kids learn to manage themselves and their everyday responsibilities. Don't miss another great episode loaded with great ideas.

Lucy in the Chocolate Factory

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A podcast for homeschool families brought to you by Sequoia Grove Charter Alliance. Encouragement, tips & tricks, interviews with HSTs and curriculum help.

Rebecca: Welcome to the Sequoia Breeze Podcast, a breath of fresh air for your homeschool. I'm your host, Rebecca LaSavio. I'm so glad that you've joined us today, and I can't wait to talk more with Melissa Griffin, HRmom, who is back with us today. So let's join our conversation. Welcome back, listeners. I'm so excited to be here again with HR mom, also known as Melissa Griffin. We got to talk about all kinds of great practical stuff last week and we're going to do it again today. So buckle up because we're going to cover all kinds of stuff and I'm super excited about it. Melissa, why don't you give a quick introduction of yourself again and then we will dive in.

Melissa: You got rebecca, you know, you and I realized when we spoke that we have so much in common. We have kids about the same age. I have a college student who's a sophomore. I have a high schooler who's in 10th grade, has ADHD and a daughter in third grade. So I used to work in HR for 20 years and I started saying, you know what, some of our parenting techniques are really limiting our kids and our young adults when they hit the workforce. So I started writing about it and HR mom was born and our paths crossed, you and I, a couple of years ago. So I am thrilled to be back on your podcast.

Rebecca: I really appreciate you carving out all of this time. And I personally am super excited to dive into the stuff that we are going to talk about today. So last week we talked a lot about helping our kids develop the skills that they need outside of the home, developing them sort of as they grow, but then especially once they hit the workforce, being able to function and not be a burden to their new employer. But today, let's hit more about how to handle things inside the home, how to reduce the chaos, how to take some of the pressure off of parents as they are helping their kids learn to manage themselves.

Melissa: You bet. When we talk about most of the conversation I have with other parents, especially of Tweens and teens, it's how do I get them to take ownership of these individual tasks? Why am I still reminding them of things they knew how they've been doing every day since they were five? Right? And so when I talk about these, I'm going to get really granular and we're going to get into the weeds. But first I want to talk about why it's so important that they leave their homes with our homes with some of these skills.

Rebecca: Talk some more about that because we did hit a little bit last week on some of the anxiety and stress and depression that is beginning to hit our young adults in a way that it hasn't before. And how is all of this connected to that?

Melissa: Sure, I mean, we talk about anxiety in the workforce. The numbers are unprecedented, and it's a crisis that leaders across industries are having to face. How do we handle the number of young employees that are amazing on their resumes, but they cannot handle the anxiety of day to day work. And we know that anxiety is often rooted in the unknown. So fear of what's next, fear of letting others down, being surprised and unprepared, being made to look stupid or unskilled, or just not being able to respond to what might happen, it's all the unknowns. So we know. I said, my son attends Yale, and he sees highly successful teens who are his classmates once they launch. They haven't had to manage their time, their sleep, their hygiene, their grocery shopping, let alone all of the tasks around school assignments and registration and tuition and joining clubs. And they are crippled, and some of them are leaving school after their freshman year. So when we talk about managing tasks, sometimes just getting to manage the tasks and the to dos and knowing that you can relieves anxiety because you can know what to expect, you can prepare, you can be ready when things happen. You aren't being caught or forgetting things. So it is very related to anxiety and depression when they hit adulthood and they feel like they can handle it, or they can at least almost handle it.

Rebecca: Why is it so hard to teach these skills? I mean, I think we all realize these are some basic things. We all realize these are things that will help our daily lives flow much more easily. But it's easier sometimes to just do it yourself, but eventually it's not anymore.

Melissa: It's just so abstract, right? So it's hard because there's not a lesson for this. It's so abstract. So I think one of the things that makes this so hard to teach is we don't start early enough. And I always say the best time to start these things is when they're little bitty. And the second best time to start is today, so we don't start early enough, when they're more open to our advice, when they think we still know things. And it's kind of fun to be like, OOH, I'm doing a grown up task. It's kind of fun when they're younger, the stakes are super low. It's harder to teach this when the stakes are getting kind of higher and failure is kind of more costly on their resumes, per se. And then my teenager, once I hit 12, 13, 14, they're a lot more sensitive to criticism or they feel like they don't want to look stupid. My sons are much more open in their early teen years for this kind of coaching than they are in the older years.

Rebecca: And in addition to being open, I find that by the teen years, they're just so busy. There's so many things to try to keep track of. And I think that's where I'm drowning a little bit is like, oops, I think I might have missed teaching a couple of skills along the way, but now we're not just trying to manage. Like, I have to take you to soccer practice tonight, and here's your sort of basic list of school things that we need to get done. There's so much between a heavier, between more activities or maybe even a job for teenagers and all of the different pieces that are moving, and they start not always moving in sync with me. And so trying to keep track of all of the different pieces is exhausting.

Melissa: Sure. And what we're talking about teaching our kids is skills we too struggle with, especially I have ADHD, so neurodivergent parents have that. On top of this, is it's hard to teach something that you struggle with yourself? And we all, to some degree, struggle with this, especially moms and especially caretakers, where they are the default parent or the bulk of this, especially schooling falls on them. I think another reason it's really hard is it's easy for us to overestimate how much they're picking up just watching and observing. So we think our kids are picking these things up. An example is my son. I've driven him to the same school now for three years on the same route, taking the same exit every single day. But if I said and I did, I said, pretend I don't know where I'm going. How do we get to your school? And he said, I don't know. I didn't know I was supposed to be learning. That right. But aren't you watching every day? No. If you would have told me I was going to have to do this, I might have been listening, watching, observing in a different way. So we think they're doing this every day. They see this list every day, but they're not listening and learning and observing as if it's a lesson, as if they're going to have to do it, as if there's a quiz at the end so we can't overestimate that they're picking up. Watching us have these skills, we actually have to turn their eyes to them and realize, hey, you're in learning mode, I'm in teaching mode. Let's make this more concrete.

Rebecca: They might pick up stuff if they're interested in it, but not if they are perfectly happy to just sit back and think about other things. My six year old can tell us how to get places, and we'll drive on someplace we haven't been for months and be like, hey, isn't this the way to XYZ? Yes, but one of my teens is totally oblivious, not a clue. And because it doesn't matter to her, she doesn't wish she was driving giving the way the six year old does.

Melissa: That's right. My college student relies on his little sister to get him home, I'm pretty sure. I think it's hard, especially in a homeschooling environment. And this is where I want to say, I'm about to give school tips to homeschooling parents, and I've not done it myself. So I want you to take the tips that I'm giving that have helped us with our public school and our charter school experience and know that I don't really know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about homeschooling. For me, I think of homeschooling as this very flexible, self paced environment that allows you so much room for creativity and innovation and tailoring it for your kiddo. But to me, that feels like it would make it much harder to create natural consequences or to create late grades or zeros or all these opportunities to fail. The absolute joy and benefit of homeschooling, to me, seems like it would make it harder to teach these things. Does that ring true for you?

Rebecca: I've been thinking about that since you mentioned it to me when we were preparing. How do I allow my kids to if my daughter didn't do the history assignment I gave her, is she going to feel that consequence?

Melissa: Right?

Rebecca: Or do we just say, okay, we'll do it now? How do we sort of manage that? So, yeah, I think you bring up an interesting point.

Melissa: Yeah, that feels hard because I can easily say, if you don't do this, your teacher is going to give you a zero, and the teacher gets to be the brick wall or the consequence. And I get to say, well, this is your teacher's rule. This is how we respect it. This is a consequence that you have facing you, and I'm just going to coach you through the emotions of whether you do it or not. But I'm not the one having to then also be the keeper of the boundary. So I think that's an extra challenge that you guys have in place. And then I think one of the things that makes it so hard is we don't let them in on the fact that we're trying to teach it to them in the first place. That's kind of what we're going to focus on today is let's name what this is. Let's name what this managing of tasks is. Let them know that it's important. Let them know that we're trying to teach it to them, and then they're going to be open to the feedback that we're going to give them.

Rebecca: I think that one little statement of let them know that this is what we're trying to teach them sort of blows open all kinds of things. Like, now all of a sudden, it's not conflict, it's a lesson. I'm excited to talk more about that because I think that is a really crucial point.

Melissa: And parents ask me all kinds of questions, and they say, how do I teach my child to stop? It could be speaking too loudly, complaining too much. And I'll say, have you talked to your child and said, hey, this is what complaining is. This is what it does. Have you really just said to them, what I'm trying to do through all of these techniques is I'm trying to change this behavior in my child. But have you ever just turned to your child and said, here's what we're going to work on? I've thought of that a lot.

Rebecca: When I watch parents with toddlers or preschoolers and they say things like, be good or be quiet, be careful. Or be careful. Like, what exactly do you mean by being careful? What is that expectation? Or sometimes when you say, be quiet, it's like, do you realize their mouth isn't saying any noise? It's their bodies that are being noisy. So they may not recognize that their bodies being noisy is a thing. It's kind of easier to maybe identify when they're little, but when they're bigger, we still have to be intentional with letting them know, this is my goal for you.

Melissa: This is my goal for you. And here's why it's important to you. Here's why it should be important to you. So let's name it. So most of the time in this realm, we're calling it executive functioning. And we all know that we're trying to teach our kids executive functioning. But have we taught them that word? Let's teach them that word what exactly it is. Here's how we're going to break it down. Like some people say, executive functioning is the management system of the brain, okay? Because the skills that we're trying to build here are how to set goals, how to plan, and how to get things done. So no matter how smart you are, if you get into adulthood and you can't set goals, make a plan and get things done, you're not going to get that job that you love, because you won't even know how. To manage the interview or how to get to the place on time, or you won't be able to have these fun things and these experiences that you hope to have and this freedom that you hope to have, unless you can also get the things out of the way that are just adulthood. So I call it like the control panel of the brain, and then we can help our kids visualize. This is where you step back and you break down tasks into steps, and you prioritize what needs to be done next. And you predict, how long is something going to take? How important is this to me? When should I start? When should I finish? And you complete the steps and what materials am I going to need? That's called executive functioning. But until we really explain that to our kids, they just think life happens. Mom is the magic fairy that brings this. They just think things happen. They don't realize, dad earns the money and brings it home in here. And mom goes to work, and here's what that earns. And we have to make these things, concepts for them because we think that they're soaking it in and they're not.

Rebecca: Because dinner has just always appeared on the table.

Melissa: That's right. And we can say, let's talk about what happens to get dinner on the table and breaking it down into steps and backing up and planning and prioritizing those things that's executive functioning. And we go, okay. And these are skills that are directly related to managing anxiety and managing overwhelm.

Rebecca: So as we teach our kids these skills, we reduce our own mental load, but we also equip our kids to move on into adulthood with considerably less anxiety and potential for depression.

Melissa: That's right. We are saying, all right, there is a mental load that this family has to carry. And each of the members on my team we talked about last week is they are human resources, and they each have a capacity and an ability level. And we're making sure that we are always keeping their plates right at the top of that ability level. That's what they can handle. My nine year old cannot handle having to know what's for dinner and what needs to go. That's too much. But she can manage. Hey, I've got one, two pair of socks left. It's probably time for me to get that laundry going. She can start that's right. On the edge of just about what she's going to be doing next. She can start thinking about that. Right. But it's been years since I've worried about socks for my 10th grader, because that's where he is. If we think about our mental load, we should be delegating to each of these human resources until our load becomes we are management. We're project management. And they are on the front line, and they each have a different front line because they're in their own lives.

Rebecca: I love that I'm so much better at project management than I am at the details.

Melissa: Yes. That's why we got into management. Right. The problem is so many moms are saying, how do I teach them how to be the project manager? But I'm also the doer and the task. I'm the one actually still doing the tasks. So defining it this way is important. It helps them to go, okay. When you know where you are in time and space, you can predict and you can prepare. And this is what I mean by that. I have ADHD, and knowing where I am in time and space has always been a struggle for me. Here's what that looked like in high school. I would come to school and I'd go, Wait, what day is it? It's Tuesday. Oh, my gosh, it's volleyball game day. I don't have my jersey. How did it become Tuesday already? It would be me going, I'd walk in and everybody has these big science fair project boards, and I'd be like, that's today. How do they all know what day it is? And how do they all seem to know when everything's due? And I felt just a complete chaotic. Why am I dumb or why am I not as immature as they are? What tools do they have that I don't have? I mean, every day I'd wake up and be like, it's a whole new mystery of what today is. And I'll be honest, even today, as a degreed professional, I will be like, It's Saturday. Oh, my God. I will find myself like, where am I in time and space? And that's why I have tools. Daily check ins with my calendar to put me where I am in time and space. How close are we to Christmas shopping? Because December sneaks up on me. December sneaks up on me. Back to school sneaks up on me. Oh, my gosh, it's already time to go back to the dentist. They can sneak up on me if I don't have tools in place. And that's where anxiety it riddles neurodivergent adults, because they always have this feeling of panic, of something's going to sneak up on me. So let's just take that with kids who don't have neurodivergence, just any kids. If all of the time they're feeling like something's going to sneak up on them, that's anxiety or, oh, my gosh, I'm out of groceries. Oh, my gosh, I missed the deadline for the tuition. Oh, my all this feeling of always being I call it the Lucy and the Chocolate Factory. If you haven't shown your kids that, it's a really good clip. Where the conveyor belt's? Just bringing task after task, and finally they're just piling up, and she's stuffing them in her shirt, and they're falling. That's the feeling of not learning how to handle tasks, because the tasks just keep coming.

Rebecca: Do you think that it's also I personally feel that it's worse now in the digital age because it's all this nebulous. It's out there somewhere. Like it's not on paper.

Melissa: There's so much worse.

Rebecca: Where did I see that? Was it in my email? Was it in a text? Was it on a messaging app? Where was that? And just trying to figure out how to keep track of things that are not actually in front of me, I think is harder with all of the digital stuff, instead of having I mean, while it's nice to not have a bunch of paper all over the place, that was really concrete.

Melissa: It was very concrete. We had one flow of information. Most of it was verbal. When I was in school, the teacher out loud said something or handed me a written piece of paper, and then I wrote it into one place. My assignment notebook, my paper calendar. There was one flow of input, and then I anchored it into one place, right. My one organizer. And now we've got ten different flows of input, and we don't have, as a teenager, a place to anchor those things. So I like to use the word anchor, because if my fiance says, oh, we're almost out of chai, I'll say, that is like writing it in sand on a windy day. Yes, in this brain. We don't write phone numbers down in sand. Right. Because the wind is very windy in this brain of mine. So I'll say, you got to put that on the shopping list, the Alexa shopping list. I have to anchor that thought. So when we say to our kids, hey, can you go do this? And don't forget, on Tuesday, I have to do this. And do they have a tool to anchor these floating thoughts and these floating statements? If not, that's the kind of skill that we're about to teach. I'm about to show you how to teach them.

Rebecca: Let's do it. I'm super excited to hear about that.

Melissa: Let's do it. Well, when we're connecting, just one more thing. When we're defining why this is important to our kids, what we don't want them to think is so that I can get these things off my plate. That's not going to motivate them. That's not going to motivate them. That's going to motivate us. We want them to say, this is so that you can avoid that feeling of being unprepared, so that you can get enough sleep, but really so that you have the time to say yes when your friends invite you to coffee. You have the time to play basketball, to get your exercise, to do the things you want, to paint, to be creative. Whatever it is that motivates your child is, if you can get on top of these tasks, your brain and body can feel free to do the things you love. And that's what we make a life out of. What I don't want to say is, this will help you get a high paying job. No, that's not what we make a life out of. This will help you get into that college. Yes, those things are true. But really, to get the life that you want to feel in control of your body, of your nervous system, and to get everything out of this life that you're hoping for, you got to be able to manage the drudgery of the tasks. And I'm going to show you how to do that.

Rebecca: I know we're going to talk about lots and lots of details, and I'm excited about that, so I'm anxious to.

Melissa: Hear yeah, the details are executive functioning. While it's so more expansive than just schoolwork, that's where it really first manifests. Like, let's talk about it as schoolwork. Okay. So first things I would think, again, I'm totally speculating of the homeschooling parents mind, but you are not going to be able to replicate public school at home, and that obviously has never been the goal, and it shouldn't be the goal. There are going to be skills that my public school kids have that your kids will not have when they graduate, but there are so many skills that your kids will have that my kids won't. So whatever you do is we're not trying to replicate late grades and zeros and consequences like they would get in public school. I just want to say that that should never be the goal, okay. Because something I never hear anybody say out loud is the way that you're because my really good friend that's a very successful homeschooling parent, she said, it's so hard for me to assign something and put a deadline on it and then let him miss the deadline and lose track of it. That's very hard for us because I have my curriculum planned out for a long period of time. It's printed, and he can look at it anytime he wants. That is how college works. The way the homeschooling curriculum is laid out is how a college syllabus is laid out. So I'm so frustrated by the public school where a teacher can say on Monday, okay, we're going to do this thing on Thursday. She may or may not follow through. It's not printed in any kind of syllabus. It's a loose verbal command that my son has to write down. If you're giving your child an outline from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year, these are the math lessons you're going to have to do. These are the modules you're going to complete. And this is where the tests are that is very much more closely aligned to how college is going to work. So don't feel like you need to back away from that. I just wanted to say that it's so much more realistic. But what we're going to do is we're going to build this executive functioning training into your curriculum. Okay? So cut off the defensiveness upfront so this doesn't sound like rebecca, you telling your high schooler, how come you're forgetting this and you didn't write this down? And how many times have I had to remind no, no, you're going to tell them upfront. Here's a critical life skill we're going to learn. It's going to be hard to teach. We're going to attach it to a vision they care about. And here's what we're going to do. We're going to have a weekly check in every Monday morning or every Friday we're going to see and maybe it's Friday, because that might be easier, but let them know I'm going to provide feedback, and I want to hear from you what's working and what's not working. And that way when you are giving them advice or you're giving them feedback, they're not like, she's criticizing me again.

Rebecca: Yeah. I will say we've worked through that some last year as a freshman, that was a piece of like, no, I'm not mad at you. We need to figure out how to solve this problem. And so this year, I've checked in a couple of times. You know I'm not upset with you, right? Yeah, I do. I'm like, okay, but we do have to solve this and figure out what we're going to do now. And so that's been sort of a win for us. We're still working out details, but at the same time I think we've been able to remove some of the emotion from it and just see it as we're working on this.

Melissa: That's excellent. We're going to say we're going to try different tools and some of them are going to work and some of them aren't, but they're all going to work differently for everyone's brain, you have to figure out what works for you. And that's what I think is hard for parents because the system that my son has, you would die. All of you listening would die. It's terrible, but it works for him. It works for him and it's one piece of cardboard and it has all of his classes and all of his assignments and everything on the front just in like random jotting down from top to bottom. There's no calendar, there's no dates. It works for him. And I would post it online, but people would say, this is terrible. He's getting A's at a very hard charter school. It's working for him. So we've got to say this is going to be student led trial and error.

Rebecca: And what works for this student might not be what would work for me. And I have to let that go.

Melissa: That's very hard. Yes, you have to let that go. And what works for them now may not work for them in high school, may not work for them once they start driving and have a job. He's going to have to start using a calendar at some point, but it is not right now because it's working. And the more we say that's not going to work, you have to push and use this other tool. We're just diminishing their trust in themselves and we're diminishing how in control they feel. He's got to feel like you own and you're in control of your assignments. And when it comes to the end of the semester and he hasn't done something, I can't say, see, it's that piece of cardstock. No, I say, tell me what you think worked. Tell me what you didn't. This is student led trial and error. While the stakes are low.

Rebecca: That's what I was going to say is I've heard you either ask questions or open a conversation to allow them to evaluate and solve the problem over and over and over and yes, despite all of the other details, and hints and ideas and lessons you're going to give us today. I feel like that might be the key to how you do this.

Melissa: Excellent. It's good to know that that's helpful because I say anything that they came out of their mouths as their idea, we have just way bigger chance of them buying in. So even though what I want him to say is I should probably highlight the tests or write them in red or somehow tests should look different. Than quizzes. Right. Should look different than assignments. But if I were to say, why don't you do the tests in red? Why don't you highlight the projects in yellow? All of a sudden, he feels like that's a demand. So I would say, what do you think went wrong? Where do you think the ball was dropped? Do you think it would be helpful to be able to differentiate these assignments? No. Okay. We just wait, and we just okay. Something that's worked for me in the past is something to consider. Take it or leave it. I do a lot of take it or leave it. So here's what I would say. The lessons themselves need to look like executive functioning, quote unquote lessons. Don't overthink this at all. But what we have done, and we did it in a family meeting. We have lots of family meetings, but is to make a list, practical list, of family tasks that are managed daily. So if you have younger kids, you might put this on a poster board. If you have older kids, they may just list it on a piece of paper. But what are tasks that are managed every single day? Feeding the dog and let them write them out. Maybe we're going to go for 60 seconds, as many as you can get. Brushing teeth, showering. Every day, someone in this family has to what? And then you can say, all right, now let's write out tasks that are weekly. So, Rebecca, let's do this activity together. So what are some family tasks that you have that are weekly?

Rebecca: Probably mopping the kitchen floor, getting the laundry.

Melissa: Yep.

Rebecca: Taking the garbage out, trash.

Melissa: And recycling. Exactly. It really does make you go, okay, weekly. Let my child think what is every week. Okay. Once a week. Okay. Yeah. Once a week, I have to maybe you have a math module that's Monday through Friday. And once a week, you have to turn in your reading log or your trumpet practice log or refill your medicine container. Right.

Rebecca: Writing program goes in a week, so they kind of start a lesson on Monday, and it's due by Friday, and it's a very weekly cycle.

Melissa: That's perfect. And it might be soccer practice. Right. Okay. Now let's take a list of tasks that are monthly.

Rebecca: Cleaning the refrigerator.

Melissa: Yes. We're refilling prescriptions monthly.

Rebecca: Cleaning out the chicken coop.

Melissa: Okay. Yes. Perfect. And this is what you're going to do. You're going to let your child go. What else do we do it once a month, because they probably have never, ever thought of tasks divided this way. And then we go quarterly. Okay. What's a quarter? What is even a quarter? But every quarter, we have to go in for our Adderall assessment. And once a quarter, we have to maybe oil changes, biannually, or start thinking about quarterly. And then what tasks that are annually?

Rebecca: Well, so every six months would be dentist.

Melissa: Yes.

Rebecca: Annual. I'm not very good at.

Melissa: We're going to put them there. Oh, annually, we do our physical, our well checkups. Annually, we do vaccines, and then annually we do back to school shopping. Oh, we do Christmas shopping, halloween costume. When they see that every year I have to plan three birthdays, and every year I have to plan three eye checkups and three well checkups and three physicals for sports. And when they see this list and they see it written down, they go, this is what we call the mental load. So do you see why we can't just rely on our brains to remember all of these things? And this will help them to appreciate what it takes to run a family, right? Do you see what would happen when these pile up? What happens if we forget? And we haven't done dentist appointments in six months. We haven't done six years. We don't renew our vehicle registration. It's like even every four years is voting. I mean, there are tasks that are on all of these staggered timelines. And do you see why mom gets so strict about certain deadlines? You think it's random, but do you see what would happen if these just piled up? Do you see why it's important for me to check it off? Like, when I assign it to you and check it off, it's because I have all of these other tasks. We're just bringing the abstract to make.

Rebecca: It visual, helping them see the whole big picture. Not just, I have to do my chore this morning, right?

Melissa: Not waking up and saying, life comes to me. It comes to me by way of my mom reminding me. It comes to me by way of it's due today. That's really my daughter's life. She wakes up, I tell her what we're going to do for today, and things happen to her. She's never being proactive or planning ahead because she's nine, but little by little, we're going, okay. She has to do her laundry on Mondays. So every Monday, I'm like, what's on your calendar for today? She knows Thursday is therapies what's on your calendar for today, right? So now we have a visual. We got to make it anchored. Let's anchor some of these things so you can get a calendar cheap, cheap calendar that you print off of word documents, right, and say, let's have them write in the items that are set in stone to write out soccer practice. Write out soccer practice. If your kids are older, have them put these in the Google shared calendar, whatever your family's digital calendar is, have them enter those things for school tasks. Have them enter in their due dates and when they can start seeing how a calendar fills itself in. Oh, every Thursday is trash day chores. When is my one laundry day? We each have our own laundry day. So from midnight to midnight, the washer and dryer are yours. You got to get yours moved through both of them by the time you go to bed, and nothing will be in there because it's your day, but after that, it's not yours. Right. It took a while for them to realize, how am I going to remember that this is my day? How am I going to remember to put it in? Then? How am I going to remember to move it to the dryer? Like, where are points of breakdown here? Week after week of checking in until they learned this. That's the pattern we're going to get. Like, when is trash and recycle day? When do I need a reminder? And the only way they're going to realize what works and doesn't work is by missing trash and recycling every once in a while. And you saying on the next day, hey, buddy, trash and recycling didn't get taken out. What happened with your system? Where did it break down?

Rebecca: So we have to allow failure.

Melissa: Absolutely allow failure. We'll talk about exactly how that feels, because what we don't want to do is we don't want to allow failure. So we go, don't forget the trash. Don't forget the trash. And what we're doing is we're letting them know, you don't really own trash day. I own it.

Rebecca: You just have to do it.

Melissa: And again, life happens to them. And so this is when you're going to have to say, okay, let's make it theirs. We have to delegate. You are going to own this. You are now in charge of remembering this. How do you plan to remind yourself? When do you think the best time to remind you is? How do you want to start with this reminder?

Rebecca: Do you have some ideas for that? What could a kid do to help them remember to switch the laundry to the dryer? How do you help them own feeding the dog without the dog suffering?

Melissa: That's right. You have to give them things that you're okay with them failing at. So for me to feed the dog, to be responsible for feeding them the dog, I'm really not going to allow them to fail because the dog would suffer. I'm going to say, you're responsible for feeding the dog, and I'm going to check on it. At this time, I have to have a backup built in until they're good at it. Right now, what we might say is if you do not regularly feed this dog, or if we find out that there's any more this many days, wherever you are in the learning process and I find that you haven't done it, there may be some kind of consequence. I don't know what that would look like in your house or here's a reward. When we feed the dog five days in a row, it's harder to let them fail at something like that.

Rebecca: Right. Well, I think it seems reasonable to me that a child suffers a consequence, not the dog.

Melissa: That's right.

Rebecca: If you don't feed the dog, the dog will suffer. So for you to understand.

Melissa: And no one likes to use food as rewards, but if Toby doesn't get food, you don't get dessert. So it would be, oh, man, I don't get okay, okay, I'm going to feed Toby tomorrow. What can you do to make sure that happens? It did not take us very long for him to become super good at feeding the dog because it was he doesn't eat, you don't eat. Obviously my son's going to get dinner, but he doesn't get dessert. And it did not take long because that kid loves dessert and it's a very relatable consequence, right? Yes. So I do think we've got to give our kids very immediate consequences. For me to say to my son seven days in a row is a very long winning streak to expect at the beginning. That's a big long winning streak for a kid with ADHD, especially if the pet is new. So we have to think about we got to make it theirs. Here's some strategies. We say, what about a sticky note? This is what they'll say. I'm going to put up a sign by the trash can that says trash day Tuesday. And as soon as they suggest it, I'm thinking it won't be long before you don't notice that sign. But if I say that, I've taken the power and the control away from them. So what I have to say is let's try it. And they go and they make their sign and they're so excited about their own plan. And then when the sign fails, we say, oh, that sign has blended into the environment. That's pretty common. What's another strategy you could use? They know that they've tried the sign and the sign doesn't work versus you saying a sign is not going to work because they'll finally give up and they'll say, then just tell me what to do. Just tell me what you want. Just tell me what you want. And that's not what this is. This is not you saying, write it on your assignment notebook on this day at this time and I'm going to tell you what works for you. Okay. We're going to say let them choose the strategy.

Rebecca: Okay.

Melissa: And then we're going to have a let's say you talked to me about a home school strategy. Common is to have a weekly plan or a weekly agenda that you've written out or a daily agenda. Maybe you have them start writing that weekly plan. Have them start writing that weekly agenda or that daily agenda. So they construct it and they have to do that by looking back at their notes, looking at their different subjects. They have to construct the agenda for the week, which helps them to feel where are we in time and space? What week are we on? What lesson are we on? Versus them just showing up and the to dos are given to them and.

Rebecca: Again, that makes me go back to thinking about the calendar that you already suggested that they're helping to fill in. And I'm seeing so many different applications to that, the grounding into time and space, but also understanding the big picture of the family. I already thought maybe we need a big calendar. Everybody has a different color marker. They fill in their things. But now this child understands, I don't have time for that on this day because of what's happening with the rest of the family. So you aren't the only person on that calendar.

Melissa: That's right.

Rebecca: And same with then thinking through their assignments. You know what else is coming up this week. So when do you have time to work on this project? Because you're telling me you're not going to do it today. Let's look at the calendar and think about that.

Melissa: Right. This is how we prioritize and plan. And we're narrating because we have to narrate to them. What else do you have going on on Saturday? Hadn't you mentioned that your friends were going to play outside and go swimming on Saturday? What would you have to do to be able to do that with them? And we're narrating. We're narrating and helping them to think through how a calendar works. That looks like a very busy day. Do you think you could do that homework while you're sitting in the bleachers at your brother's soccer practice? Does that sound realistic? Right. In that way, they are coming up with the ideas, and they're learning how to analyze a calendar.

Rebecca: Well, I also discovered this really recently. We sat down instead of leaving a lot of chores for Saturday, we sat down and talked about, okay, how about let's break these out into the week. Each day has its chore that we all kind of work together on as a family, like a different room in the house or whatever, so that Saturday is more free and so that we're more consistent. And my son said, yes, please, I don't want to do stuff on Saturday. I would rather do it during the week. I want to be free to go find friends, to go do whatever. And so the idea of seeing what their priorities were was interesting, but at the same time, my girls were like, okay, but can we not have to do it at the same time as the rest of the family? Can we know what we have to do and then we can work it into our schedule for the day? And so there was this shuffling and this give and take of balancing concerns and priorities of each kid as we were trying to sort through. And now we're in the practical stage of, like, how do we actually make sure this is working and how do we the conversation was super fascinating as far as what it revealed for each child.

Melissa: Yes. The big win that I hear from that story, just my immediate response is you spoke and we listened, so your voice matters. In this family, everyone has different preferences, and they can all be accommodated if we work as a team. Right? It really matters. I know that you don't want to do none of us want to do these chores, but it does matter that it's as enjoyable as possible or it's as convenient as possible, because your time matters, your Saturdays matter, your leisure matters, your desires matter, and you have control of this. When kids, especially teens, are so thirsty for control and we don't give it to them in these small areas, they start craving it and demanding it in other areas. I think it reduces conflict in totally unrelated areas, like what clothes you're going to wear and how late you're going to stay up. And a lot of those are diminished because they've got control in all these other areas. So I love that. And then you just want to make it gradual. These are one to two items you're going to be in charge of remembering. That way they can feel success and start building some momentum. This is just one thing we're going to do that is yours, that I'm not going to remind you here's something that works for me, is to just add tasks that they have to manage weekly that don't matter, that are fun. So here's an example. I have a bag of Blow Pops. Blow Pops are available every Tuesday at 02:00 p.m., but only if you ask me before 02:15 P.m. On Tuesdays. And that gives them, like, okay, Tuesday at 02:00 P.m., there's a 15 minutes window where a Blow Pop is available. How am I going to remember that? How can I remember that? It's Tuesday at 02:00. Could I set a timer? Could I set an alarm? Let's try it. The only consequence is that they don't get a Blow Pop, right? So dang it. Or it's a sticker, a Pokemon sticker. So we have to wait till next week. Okay, what didn't work? What are you going to change? And that just gives them a reason to care what day it is and to care what time it is and.

Rebecca: To deal with disappointment.

Melissa: And to deal with disappointment and to go, the only one who can control whether I get this lollipop is me. Okay, so what tools are going to work, what's not going to work? And that's a good way to get them used to the idea versus something undesirable, like remembering the recycling and remembering a Blow Pop are two different motivations. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Blow Pop.

Rebecca: Will work for all ages, too.

Melissa: That's why I use it. It's perfect. And it keeps you quiet. Right? That's what I always do with my talkers. Blow Pops. Okay. And then we want to make it matter. Okay? So here's why it matters. If something is not on the calendar, my kids don't have a ride to it. The end, like, you don't have a ride if it's not on the calendar. Now, if they all of a sudden go, Mom, I forgot there's a trampoline park thing today at 03:00. Can you take me? And I happen to be available. I will consider it. But if I'm not, I only plan for things that are on the calendar, and you have to let them feel the sting. My time and my money and my energy are finite and limited, and I plan them out using these skills. I cannot guarantee that you have a ride to things that you don't put on the shared calendar. That includes your weekly practices, your piano lessons. They have to be on the calendar. The same goes with our grocery list. I only buy things that are on the Alexa shopping list, so when they run out of shampoo or they run out of toothpaste or they run out of their favorite cheese or they run out of their lunchable stuff and they don't tell Alexa, I don't buy it. And that sounds hardcore, because it is.

Rebecca: But it's not true suffering.

Melissa: It's not true suffering.

Rebecca: It's just uncomfortable.

Melissa: It's discomfort. And they go, oh, I have to use my sister's strawberry shortcake shampoo until I put it on the list. And so they'll say, oh, Mom, I'm out of and I say, I don't keep track of the list. That's writing in sand. Remember, I will not take on the grocery list in my mental load. Now, Rebecca, will I buy milk no matter what? Yes, but I'm talking about their special treats, their special snacks, their personal toothpaste, their personal face wash. And my kids were squeezing toothpaste out of the travel sample size for, like, four days before they put it on Alexa, and I knew it, and I saw it, and I said, I'm going shopping. If there's anything you're missing, I want you to put on the list. Because if I say, do you guys need toothpaste? It reminds them that I am actually the owner of this, not them. Yeah. So once we got older, we attach it to screen time. We attach it to weekend leisure, attach it to grades, payment for chores. As they get older, you have to really make these consequences matter. You can charge your kids for a ride. And I know that sounds intense, but just enough of a sting for them to go, I've got to put it on the calendar. How am I going to remember this? I'm not paying $5 for a ride to my basketball practice again. How am I going to remember this?

Rebecca: And, I mean, here in California, gallon gas is over $5 right now, not nothing.

Melissa: That's right. And it really is going to cost them in the long run when they have to pay late fees and when they have to reorder things and they miss deadlines and they can't because they don't have these skills. So it's good for them to feel the sting when it's really low. Like this?

Rebecca: Yeah.

Melissa: So here are some setbacks. I'm acting like this is going to go great, but some setbacks I would expect with teens. And Tweens is defensiveness saying, you're criticizing me or you're babying me? I've got this. I don't need your help. I don't need your tips. Or insisting that they've already tried things but they don't. Like, I've already tried lists and they don't work. Or I don't like checklists. And I'll say, that's cool. What would you like to use instead? I don't like Alexa reminder. She's so annoying. Okay, what are you going to use instead? Because what is not going to happen is I'm not taking this back on. So what else do you want to try? My son has hung things from the ceiling. He has hung things from the doorknob. He's done all kinds of things. And then he finally realized, you know, what works is adding it to the Google calendar. He's like, I'm going to tie it to the bell of my trumpet. So at band practice, I'll be reminded to put my Spanish book in my locker and that'll work one or two times. But that's not sustainable.

Rebecca: No.

Melissa: Right. And they're going to be frustration when they can't figure out what's wrong with their system. What is wrong? Why is this not know for us? We use Alexa. I have an entire class you can purchase of how to use Alexa for reminders and mean it's how we run this house. I call her my wife, and I don't know how I ever lived without her. And we've had so much trial and error with how to use her features. And then she gives a reminder, but they're outside. Okay, we got to troubleshoot that. She gives a reminder, but it's in the middle of dinner, so they forget by the time the dinner is over. So we got to remove that. That's the trial and error. You've got years to practice these things.

Rebecca: And I would imagine too, if you have an older kid and you've been carrying their mental load, you can't dump everything on them at once.

Melissa: That's right.

Rebecca: I would imagine that this needs to like, let's choose one thing that one I think they can manage. And maybe two I'd really love to have out of my own brain. And we're going to think about that. But then you do still have to take on a different mental load for a little while while they're learning to take it over.

Melissa: That's right. We're in the manager advisor. I like to call it an apprenticeship. So he's my apprentice. I'm not letting him loose with the customers. Right. He's working under my wing. He's an apprentice. And I'm watching him, and I'm correcting him if he needs correction, I'm reminding him or I'm saying, have you checked this, have you checked that? Don't forget. Is everything caught up on your list? I'm prompting him to go back to the list. Have you checked the calendar? What do you have on your calendar for today? People would say, well, you're still reminding him, but there's a big difference between it's trash day, did you take it out? And have you done everything on your list? So I'm not going to make them prompt dependent, but I am going to remind them about their tools.

Rebecca: That actually reminds me when my girls were little, they had a morning list, and I wrote it on a list for them, but then pretty soon they had it memorized. And so I would say, have you finished your morning list? And it was, I think, get dressed, brush teeth, brush hair. There's something else on there. Maybe eat breakfast and kiss mom and just for fun. But it was one for each finger, and they could just rip right through that. And I've never done that with my boys for some reason. And so guess what? Have you brushed your teeth yet? Have you done this? It's right time to go back to a list, because it was effective in that way, right.

Melissa: I have a very gifted 15 year old son who's doing very well and gets straight A's, and he has a list, and it's like, pack your trumpet, take your medicine, charge your tablet. He has a list that he looks at every day because sometimes you wake up and the amount of things you have to do is so overwhelming you can't break it down in your brain. The list helps. The list helps. And right before we leave, out the door we go, did you look down your list? You got everything. It's so different than did you get your trumpet? Did you get your shoes? Because again, that allows them to sit there and wait for commands to happen.

Rebecca: I first found you the very first post of yours that I ever read was about helping a student think through from receiving an assignment to completing it and turning it in and all of the different steps that were involved. And you were specifically talking about a kid that was in school, but it really helped my daughter and I think through, where is our breakdown? And so the teacher says it, the child writes it down, puts the assignment notebook in their book, goes through what, takes it to the locker, gets what they need, takes it all home, takes it out of their backpack, does the assignment, puts it back in their backpack, takes it back to school, and then remembers to turn it in. Or something along those lines.

Melissa: That's right.

Rebecca: And it was really fascinating to me for to think through each little detail of like, okay, so where is our breakdown?

Melissa: Where's the breakdown? That's right. Because what parents will say is, my son doesn't turn in his homework. And that's hard to troubleshoot. Is it that he doesn't understand the math or is it that he loses time when he's trying to put it back in his backpack and he doesn't remember where he put his backpack, is it that when it's time to turn it in, he's talking to his budy who sits next to him? Because all of these require very different solutions. So one of the things we can do is separate a task or a task that they have to complete into steps is where is the step for us? My son doesn't get his folder signed because mom doesn't have a pin in the car. We need a pin in the car. We need a pin tied to the cup holder in the car. That's where our point of breakdown is for his trumpet log that gets him a B in band. It's like, where is our breakdown? And so we can teach our kids to go, where is this breaking down for me? And then when they become adults, they can do that for themselves. Why am I running out of gas on my way to work? Or why am I whatever it is, why am I running out of money before the end of the month? Let's break it down into steps.

Rebecca: I also like how you said the problem was getting or the solution was getting a pen into the car. You didn't try to make it something that wouldn't work for you, which is like, well, let's sign it at dinner the night before because I'm assuming you both knew that wasn't going to happen. It's going to get signed in the car, right? We've tried that, yeah, because I think, like that, too. There are things like, the more organized way isn't going to happen, so I need the kind of emergency backup way.

Melissa: Right. I'm like, I'm sorry, if you had a neurotypical mom, you'd probably get home and there would be this time where she signs everybody's folders that would make the most sense, but that's not our life. So we're going to have a reminder that pops up while we're driving because we always know we will be in the car, and we always know you will be sitting with your backpack. And so, boom, the reminder comes up on my Apple Watch and we sign it. That's what we've discovered. Is that something I would have designed? No, but he designed it, and it works. It works that it's always while we're driving that this reminder pops up on both of our watches. That's what I mean, is help your kids figure out what works for them, as crazy as it might sound, and let them control this. We've named it, we've defined it. We've given them control of it. Now we're just going to be an advisor and a coach that watches them trial and error through the process.

Rebecca: I think, too, like, a couple of things that in that category. Home school problems can be, where do the kids keep their books? So are they in a place where mom can find. Them when she needs to figure out what's going on. Or are you doing a lot of schooling in the car? You're maybe working on a workbook in the car on the way to someplace else, and now the book is in the car, and you're ready to work on it in the house, and it's not making it back in some of those disorganized pieces. My daughter prefers to work in the bedroom. So where are her books? Like, are they in a way that I can find them when I need them to kind of see what's happening next? And what do I need to be doing? Just piles of paper. I mean, this is true for anybody. But if you don't have a place where kids give you the finished work, how do you know where it is? How do you make sure that you have time to check it over and you can find it when it's time to do that? So do you have a place for them to turn something in, or do they have a specific place they put it back? So you know how can go and find it? Right now we're working on their notebooks where their assignments get written out each day. I just had to those stay in that basket. This system doesn't work. If they wander around the house, you can come and look at it, check something off, put it back in that basket. If it's not there, you can't find it. I can't find it. The system is completely broken. So they have in the basket.

Melissa: That's funny because that's how we are in our house, and we're going to tie it to the basket. The number of things that are tied down in our house is ridiculous.

Rebecca: Because.

Melissa: We don't realize we're holding it. We don't realize we're washing off. It's funny, right? The solution can be as simple as when he gets assigned math homework. He takes a picture of the page and leaves the math book at school. And this can work for him. It's like, okay, now I've got a picture of the page on my phone. Because he would always forget to take the math book back to class.

Rebecca: Back to school.

Melissa: It's just little things, like in his English class, we ordered two copies of the book. He has one book he reads at home and one book he keeps at school. Getting that book back and forth was killing him on his participation grades. And why don't we just buy a second copy? So let's be creative and show them this is what life is. You're never going to finish executive functioning. You're never going to go. Now I function. It's trial and error. And then you start a new school, and then trial and error. And then you have another baby. Trial and error. And there's a different job. Trial and error. Now we have a two story house, and everything has to change.

Rebecca: Trial and error. Now they're not toddlers anymore. That's right. Just phases of life.

Melissa: Right? And that's life. That's what life is. It's a series of collections of tasks. And how we manage them is how we have time left over for our faith, for our exercise, for our joy, for our hobbies. All of this life is a collection of tasks. Right. And we're going to find joy in between them because these are not going to cripple us. These are not going to give us anxiety. We're going to learn how to trial and error through managing tasks. And that's how we build a life. That's how you're going to build your life.

Rebecca: And we talked about before when we were kind of brainstorming ideas, one of the things we talked about was that in homeschooling, we have the benefit of, we can almost make executive functioning a subject.

Melissa: Yes.

Rebecca: Not only do we tell them specifically, hey, we're working on this skill, but we can evaluate it on a regular basis. We don't have to give it grades, but we can take the time to say, hey, we need to spend some time thinking through how things are functioning, what's working, what's not, how are we going to fix it. And that's worth the effort. It's worth as much effort as another subject to it is spend the time. Okay, let's create a system. If we need some baskets that are labeled, let's do that. But spending that time is not wasteful. It's not interrupting everything else. It is a goal.

Melissa: Right? I call it points of friction. In a family, we're identifying points of friction. You know where there's friction in my house is, where are my soccer cleats on the day of soccer practice? That's a point of friction for us. It's a point of frustration, relationally. It makes us late to practice. There's a friction point in our family. Let's find those, identify those, and fix those. Because what a better partner your kid will be if they partner up? That they recognize points of friction and they try to solve them, they go, you know what? This is always a problem. Maybe I should figure this out. And so, hey, guys, what's the point of friction? It seems like we're always arguing about this or there's always some tension here. And it's just a maturity and a relational skill that will always, always serve them well. And it starts with who keeps track of your math homework? Right?

Rebecca: And actually, as you said, that, it makes me think, wouldn't it be nice if they were able to turn that into, like, from, okay, our family is functioning the stuff Mom's keeping her eye on. But now I'm going to turn that in. Hey, there's this point of friction with my brother.

Melissa: That's right.

Rebecca: Let's see if I can solve that. How sweet could it be for them to get to a point of, is there something that's causing this?

Melissa: Let's get to the root of this and that's why my son does his morning routine strategically, so that he doesn't have to hear his sister slurping her cereal in the morning. It's like, you stay downstairs, I'll be upstairs. That's how offensive your cereal eating is. And they reduced that point of friction between the two of them. And he will call down, Are you done? And she says yes. And then he can come downstairs. That sounds bizarre, but that is them sibling problem solving. Right.

Rebecca: And if she's not offended and he moves on, good.

Melissa: That's right. He's not criticizing me. He's not making fun of my eating. He's not making my breakfast. Stressful. That's what we want. We want them to be relational problem solvers with things that they're in charge of.

Rebecca: So what's the end of this process?

Melissa: The end of this process? So we say when I have a Saturday to myself, like, say I have 2 hours of my free time, I'll say to my kids, I am so excited about floating in this pool by myself right now. It's only possible because you guys help me so much around here. I say, you guys, I got these new shoes. Do you know why I was able to afford these? Because I don't have to pay someone to clean the house. Because we're a team. I just can't tell you how much I appreciate what you handle for this family. If we can bring it home to the fact that you manage your schoolwork means that during the day I get to plan super fun outings or I sure do love getting together with my other moms. And I can do that because I can trust that you're going to get your work done without me having to remind you. This family is such a win because of what you contribute. That is such a fulfilling sense of belonging, sense of I'm a part of something. I matter, I belong here. And that's life saving for teenagers. I belong, I matter, I'm a part of a team. This family would be terrible without me. They wouldn't work and function as well as they would without me. I'm needed. Those are life saving truths. Yes, those are life saving truths. In this especially tenuous age, I'd say they're on their own path. They have their own problems to solve. We're there to coach them. We can do it. And they can do so much more than we think they can.

Rebecca: Melissa, thank you so much for giving us your time, your wisdom, and your experience. And I'm really excited to put a lot of these ideas into practice and I think that our listeners are really going to benefit from them. So I really appreciate that you have joined us today.

Melissa: You bet. And if you guys want to be in community with other parents, they're on the same journey, just check out the HR mom community. We are always talking about how to streamline our family processes. I'd love to see you over there. Thank you, Rebecca.

Rebecca: Yeah, I will put a link to that Facebook page in the show notes so families, you can find it there if you are looking for it. Along with I'll even look for a link to the clip of the I Love Lucy chocolate that you were referencing of how not to manage your right.

Melissa: That's right. All right, thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon.

Rebecca: Bye bye.

Melissa: Bye bye.

Rebecca: Well, listeners, as soon as Melissa and I finished our conversation, I went out and made that list for my boys that I referenced, that morning list of what do you need to do to be ready for your day? And it's posted on the wall, and it's already so much easier. My six year old just gets it. He knows that he needs to go looking for that list and see if he's done, and it just made our mornings a lot smoother. Would you tell me what you have done since listening to HR mom or what you plan to do? I'd really love to hear what you've been inspired by, challenged by things you want to change or things that you realize you were already doing. And it just really felt good to have that validated. Please go to your school's website, go to the resources page and the podcast and find the button to send me a message because I'd really love to hear from you. This is Rebecca LaSavio with the Sequoia Breeze Podcast, a breath of fresh air for your home school.