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Parents, what do you do when it’s SPRING FEVER time, the wheels are coming off, grades are suffering, and motivation goes down with the nice weather and the end of the school year?
Spring Fever can overwhelm students as they deal with makeup work, current work, end of semester projects AND less motivation because it’s spring. Don’t give up!
In this video with Debbie Steinberg-Kuntz from the Bright and Quirky summit, we dive deep into 4 big steps that will help you help your child.
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Video transcript:
well Alright how everybody? Hey guys, it’s Debbie Steinberg Kuntz and Steph Perler. And we’re just going to have a little chat because we’re hearing the same thing that the wheels are coming off the bus with grades. It is spring there’s lots of spring fever around and Seth Perler as you may know is an amazing executive function coach. She was in her bright and quirky child on my stomach and he’s got a course that talks about this exact thing. So I thought who better to ask and stuff Perler so sad hi there. Hi everybody. So what do you do when people come to you and I’m hearing from teens. Like I can’t get my head in the game. The wheels are falling off the bus the grades are in the toilet. Where do you begin? And what do you tell them specifically? Okay. So I guess it had the first thing that I think of it will force while what is spring fever, right? So and what happened to just a real basic what happens is is that basically for the students that I work with a lot of the students that you work with the students that start with. Where it doesn’t come early. Naturally. What happens is they start the semester off generally pretty strong but this in terms of the second semester, they just come up winter break their backs may be there reorganize maybe they’re restarting their planner. Maybe they’ve had some lectures from their parents about this mess is going to be different the kids like yeah, this mess was going to be different and so what happened they start off spring semester relatively well and Then about 6-8 weeks in Things Fall Apart or or parents find out that things are falling apart and grades of taking a nosedive is as much a missings incomplete slate work and things like that and pear and then the student spends the rest Messer trying to swim upstream trying to deal with the makeup work the incomplete the late work at the test corrections. And what have you also dealing with current work. So there’s two things late work current work also dealing with that what I call Pepper which is end of semester work which are long-term projects that these are the kids that on a Sunday the night before something to do on a Monday say Mom Dad. I got the giant project due tomorrow and the parent says when did you know about this and the kids as I’ve known about it for a month or the kid doesn’t usually say that in the 4th of my but that’s the stuff. They have this end of this mess with have been Peppers or things papers exams projects and large reading assignments like a novel which is often accompanied by buy a project or at or sometimes an exam but usually project are paper. So at the end of the semester last week is the last week is the final exam final project final papers and large reading assignments that are culminating in that time. It’s the perfect storm it is because so to read the repeat that you got your current work your makeup work your pepper stuff and you also have spring fever. So after spring break the kids are back in school the weather’s nice. They want to be outside motivation is even worse in the reason. This is so important for you and I to talk about two people. It’s because parents and teachers are not really can step. Rising. Perfect Storm those four things and how they combine to make a child feel who struggles with executive function how they combine to create so much overwhelmed that the resistance is just boom everything they can think of to resist mom. Leave me alone. I’ve got to get off my back. Why don’t you trust me? I’ll talk to the teacher tomorrow. The teacher just hasn’t updated the website yet. The teacher hasn’t answered my grades and I swear I turned her that. I know I turned it and I remember turning it in. Yes. I put my name on all that stuff happening in there. So resistant, I’ll do it in an hour. I’ll do them five minutes. I’ll do it tomorrow. I already did it was lying. A lot of students are literally lying. So I hear that story of us. So basically we’re at this point and I just wanted to set the stage. So that’s that’s what’s going on here with the with the spring fever Thought Justin Bieber all of these things combined. Right, right. So now we’re deep in the pressure cooker. They come to you. I’ve heard you talk about the dep this whole idea that you start off well and then things Jap and then I come to you for the Hail Mary. What are we going to do to wrap things up? And I know this is like fire course which were going to sell your dope reach out and we’re going to be watching at the dinner table as a family like 15 minutes tonight. I’m so excited but just in a nutshell, I know you’re so good at talking to kids directly about yeah. What do you say as I talk right now? So I I know whoever is watching. This is pretty much parents. There’s going to be some teachers watching this but in a moment you’ll hear me shift and I’ll sort of talked to the students so you can click play on the it after you’re done watching this if you want to show it to your student. We speak to the students, so So what happens is is that I get parents were hiring meets work with a student. Technically. I’m of service to the student first. That’s the way that I look at it parents second for the parents. Obviously the ones that hire me now student. Hey, what’s up? My name is Seth and if you are going through this to the Deb urine spring fever, you have a bunch of makeup work, but the light works you got a bunch of big stuff coming up exams and projects and stop coming up and so students I’m talking to you right now. I got two types of students out there. I have all students that I work with are resistant to all students. I work with don’t feel like it they’ve got excuses get off my back. Leave me alone, Mom and Dad. I’ve got this blah blah blah all my students are resistant. They procrastinate they put off doing their work and their their swimming Upstream trying to finish the school year trying to pass everything. Okay, all my students are resistant. So you listening to me right now are resistant. That’s fine. Now of my resistance to do. Do students. Listen to me right now of my resistance students. There are two types. I have the resistance students that really want it and really are willing to be honest with their parents. Even if they plied their willing to be honest about that. They’re willing to work hard. Even if it’s the struggle they’re willing to do the struggle. They really want finish the semester well, and then I’ve got the student that really doesn’t and really isn’t ready. I’m really isn’t willing to overcome stuff so I can’t help that students who is really stuck is really resisting. Who’s that went right? But if you are a student who wants to end school you’re on a better note, then you can do that. Now Debbie and I are talking about here is what can you do what specific things so I work with students day in and day out who struggle with these things. I was the student start with d How do I get the resistant kid who does want to end on a better note, how do I get them to end the school year on a better? So I’m going to tell you specifically how I would do that and it’s some variation of this first thing to do if you want to end on a better note is get crystal clear on what the heck is going on because the students that I work with are foggy day. What do you have for homework tonight that I really don’t know you have any tests this week? I can’t remember. I know I have something in this one’s so you need to get clarity number one. How do you get clarity there? A few ways one you rely on your mind. That is the worst way to get clarity but it is an important part of clarity and sometimes it works. It’s just not the most reliable way to get to if you have syllabi her syllabus prove different classes you examine the syllabi to see any big do dates or any big things coming out? Sometimes you’ll have that more. College students some high school students have it not many middle school students have a very good at syllabus it all online portal schoology Infinite Campus things like that. Now I know students is extraordinary really annoying frustrating and complicated to find me information that you need to find on these portals. Skip multiple teachers with multiple different sites, and I know it’s confusing. So that’s one way to get clarity when it comes to getting Clarity online that way will you want to do if your parents are willing to help you with this or you have a teacher and Mentor tutor or someone is going to help you with this have them help you get the clarity and what are you getting with Clarity with any of these things? What you’re trying to do is we’re trying to make a master list of all the things you need to be responsible. So that next one is you’re going to be looking online. The next one is you’re going to ask the teachers. There are two ways to Ask them online or in person if you ask them in person the problem is is that my students will say yes. I’ll talk to my teacher tomorrow next day, Did you talk to your teacher know I forgot. So how do we deal with accountability? I have my students email to teacher. Hey, I’m going to talk to you tomorrow during office hours or lunch or after school help or whatever. You have a couple minutes so we can chat and I can get clarity and that worm to say over whenever you need Clarity Clarity on what I need to do to end the year on a better note. So like it’s in the way they forget and they don’t know yet. What a lot of us know is do it while you’re thinking about it. If you do it when you think about it and email them then that sets up the conversation for the next day. It’s supposed you up for Success. Yeah, and people don’t want to email the teacher because they don’t want to stay there. It’s we just don’t want to take the energy to do it, you know will resist it. Now. Remember well, you know what be honest with yourself that’s another part of this process is the honesty with ourselves to say, hey know what I’m not great at remembering details, and I’m okay with myself and I’m not I don’t care if people say me in the world. I’m not shaving myself. I’m cool with it. I need to write stuff down. I need to take notes. I need to whatever but yeah, like you said yeah here it bright and quirky we call that being a scientist just know that your brain works that way, you know, can you try it one way that didn’t work. Let’s experiment try to another way and like you said set yourself up for success and I like the word scientist because it’s subjective. There’s no shame. There’s no I’m bad or there’s something wrong with me or I’m stupid or I can’t do a tour. So we need Clarity we can either go to the teacher in person or we can email them to tell them where we’re going to go in person or we can email them. They just say it in the email. Hey, I need 30. What do I need to be to be successful now some of you students are watching this right now and you’re thinking well, my teachers don’t want to hear from me that usually is not true. So you can let that one go but some of you were saying well, I don’t like my teacher. My teacher hates me or I feel like my teacher doesn’t like me. Sometimes that maybe true you may really feel like your teacher doesn’t like you made me really feel like you’re not connected to them and that the hard case but you want to Advocate anyway and say hey dude. Hey teacher whatever their name is I want to do. Well, please give me some clarity. I need to know what I need to do. So the whole point of what I just said was there all these different ways. I may bless them out. But basically the point is you step one is you have got to get Are on what you have to do to climb that Giant mountain of stuff that you need to do to address pepper current work and late work master-list. I love it. Now. You got a master list now similar to whatever was saying before with the scientist thing. You have to be honest with yourself that you’re not going to do it. If you’re more perfectionistic, you’re not going to do everything perfectly. You probably won’t even do it all so don’t worry about getting AIDS because what happens with my students as they want to do a perfectly and they end up not turning anything in at all sometimes so you don’t want to get caught in trap that I’ve just be like, hey, I’m going to eat soap Step2. I guess we’ll be the mindset having a mindset up. Look I’m going to do my best. I’m going to be strategic. I’m going to try to do everything. I’m going to try to get enough done. I’m going to try to do an enough makeup work enough current work enough the projects and maybe I missed a couple things, but I’m just going to do my best. Set up compassion to yourself. Look just doing my best every day. I’m going to chip away at it. I’m going to do a little bit. I talked about the 1% rule, but you just do 1% more. Why because when we say we’re going to 100% more I’m going to get an A+ whatever we set ourselves up for failure. We have to learn to take baby steps. Just can I do a little bit more today? Can I do one more problem? And I study for one more minute. Can I do one more thing on the study guide? Can I study? Can I revise this thing one more time? Can I add one more detailed sentence, you know, whatever. Can I just do it’s all about a little bit more so that I am not. Okay and I am out. Don’t you have your master list? They want to prioritize it we want to see what to do with the sooner things first. Exactly. So now we have this giant list and it is going to feel overwhelming. You can break it down into smaller list if you want. It doesn’t matter how you do it, but do it somehow but yes now we have to really get more clarity on it. So what I recommend my students do with a list of things is first to estimate how long it will take. So let’s say that tonight. I have met a math assignment to do I have to write a draft and I have to check my online grades. I have to reorganize my backpack let there were things to do we organize in my backpack might be 15 minutes check. My online grades might be 5 minutes doing the math might be 30 minutes whatever now am I going to be wrong in the estimation? Yes, because we are timeline. We don’t we aren’t realistic about how long things take but at least we’re getting some idea of how long it takes on your master list put a little circle next to each thing and write about how long you think it’ll take Why because that Juju concrete a concrete idea of the energy in the time that you’re going to need to devote to whatever the thing is and then you’re going to write what order you want to do things in and you want to be strategic like if you can do several small assignments that will take you 5 minutes each and you can get let’s say 200 points for that or you could do an assignment that’s good take you two hours and only get 30 points for you know, prioritize the one that makes more sense to prioritize knock out a bunch of anyhow, I asked this question Debbie when people are prioritizing I say, what do you want to do for the most important is the most important first the shortest first the longest verse the easiest first or the hardest person because people have different preferences now night. I want to honor their preferences, but sometimes I find that I’m pushing a student to do the easiest first because for two reasons one is that helps get the train rolling and the self starting forecast. The nation motivation getting started is one of the hardest things right to just getting the train going. Once you give the Penguins bodies are just starting to starting with the easier. First. A lot of times has the grey strategy the other good thing about doing the easiest first is that you can cross more things off the list. So I have some students and I’ll push them not to do this. I some students who will do the hardest first or the longest first or the most important first and it’s like a two or three-hour thing and then they don’t even finish that in a night and it feels like it got nothing done. A lot of times I’ll push but anyhow, you can do what you want. The point is I don’t really care what order students you going. I don’t really care just shoes in order choose how long you think they’ll take prioritize things? Look what you need to be doing and just do your best. You don’t have to follow the order but think of the order first think it through but you don’t even have to follow it. Now the next thing that I want to recommend which is related to the prioritization the next thing that I want to make So it’s so we have sort of the clarity that we have the mindset and now we have prioritizing herself is I asked units on any given day. What is your number? One priority is today. What is the most important thing? You need to get them today? If you got nothing else done tonight? What is the most important thing you need to get that now? It may not be the shortest thing. But we I do ask my students that every single day because it’s a very good clarifying questions to help you figure. It may not be the first thing you do is but it’s really important to know what’s the most important thing on any given day. So at least if you get nothing else when you get that today so everyday when I sit down at my desk and write down my Big 3, I want to accomplish and a big one. I mean, that would be great for the first one to really clear that that one is absolutely going to get that. I wonder if I have any of these planning sheets around that I used but yeah, so does that sort of its own and we have sort of the clarity on what we need to do to climb them? We have a good mind that the hay I can do this. I’ll just do my best and I’m not going to get myself up and then we have I’m now it’s prioritize electric I would order now we have the execution phase and I think this is a good place for us to wrap up. Debbie is on this execution face. So now we have this mountain to climb. How are we going to ask you. How are we going to do the things we have to do but don’t feel like doing we are resisting doing them where procrastinating we’re putting it off. We’re not realistic about it or lying about it. We’re making excuses for how do we do the things you don’t want to do that from dying to know? So what we need there’s a few things we need to do one is we need to have a an area to focus that doesn’t have distractions turn off the phone get realistic with yourself. You can stay off Snapchat for 5 minutes. You will not die like get honest with yourself like put the phone in the other room turn it off completely. So it’s annoying to turn it back on set a timer for 40 minutes and don’t check your phone at all for 40 minutes or 5 minutes. Whatever it is. I mean what you have to do so the idea for how the main overarching idea for how to do the stuff you don’t want to do is chunky and I’ll get to that in a minute. But like I said first we got to have the environment we have to have a place that’s why we have to put the dog outside. If the dog is annoying we have to let you know if it if it’s in the kitchen and people are cooking we probably and that’s distracting. We probably should move somewhere where there’s not distracted but not probably not in the bedroom on a computer with a bunch of tabs open that are distracting. Get real with yourself like so the first thing you have to do is have an environment where you can focus one on the other side of the focus is remove distractions. So wherever you want to study you should have to be optimized for Focus minimize for distractions optimized for Focus minimize the distractions. The number one you you want to do that and number two for sale start when you want to talk. So how do you eat an elephant Debbie Journey Of A Thousand Miles begins with a single step. Do not write an entire essay when you sit down right the draft write the outline write a paragraph our minds that I have to do this giant thing. So what’s the word for the phase inside right now? Hunky chunky chunky when can eat an entire alphabet. Do you eat at 1 by the time I know that’s a gruesome metaphor best. I like your motion Library like it’s just a bite like it has to be bite-size. So you have to jump down. So you had like Debbie was saying her list of three. I recommend that students only write three to five things down a day that they’re going to do why it’s not realistic to do more than that. So stop over 103 things and you’ll probably get more done thinking of day that do three then having a list of 20, you know, so just pick a few things chunk it down per day whatever you’re going to do that night and chunk down what you’re going to do and you really want to think through what you need to do. Now. I’m going to talk about some specific strategies with pepper that I recommend. So when you are writing papers, I recommend that you block out you chunk and this may sound counter-intuitive to what I just said, but I recommend that you junk a 325 hour block when you’re going to work on a paper. Why because if you think you’re going to sit down and work on your paper York. Page essay or something like that and you think you’re going to sit down for 30 minutes and get anything done. You’re wrong. You’re feeling yourself. I I’m wrong in thinking that about myself Debbie’s or anything about her that her so it takes us a half hour to even get started. If you’re like me. What’s that part of homework? If you set aside three to five hours of work on a paper. Imagine the first half hours just you getting the train boy. Like it’s been getting your stuff organized you cleaning your area you eating a snack you you know, texting someone to ask him about a detail on it. Whatever it’s going to take awhile just to get a tranquil and thought you want a large block because what you want to do is immerse yourself in it. Now, is it a stressful but no, you don’t want too stressful large walk. If you have 5 hours and you say Sunday night from 4 to 9 to stay per night. All I’m going to do is worry about this paper. If you’re doing that then then you’re going to eat dinner in between it. So during that 5 hours, you’ll take it at 45 minutes or an hour for dinner. You will get on social media. You’ll get distracted several times. You will grab a snack you will, you know, go do some jumping jacks or you’ll daydreaming totally forget what you’re doing for 50 minutes ago. I told you no account for that like it’s okay, but get a big block or so. So that’s papers the next one pepr papers. Damn, when you are studying for exams, you don’t want a 325 hour block studying for exams and you certainly don’t want to just wait till the night before and only study. Will you want us to call is called? Sorry everybody. I’m really tired. It’s been a long day. I’m about you want repetition. You you you want to repeat setting. So if you have a test in two weeks, I would rather see you study. Even though 15 minutes doesn’t sound like anything and what I said before for 15 minutes getting ready with a study guide or something or no cards or and I’m not a fan of flashcards the way they’re usually done but that’s another story. But what does study guide or something or study partner? Someone is testing you if they tested you 15 minutes a day for 14 days for 2 weeks before the thing and it was only 15 minutes you are going to get so much more out of that then if you studied all that, however much time that was collected Lee the night before so it’s called spaced repetition. You can Google spaced repetition if you care to but imagine You wanted to 3,000 pushups in a month and you wait 30 days and one day you do 3000 pushups. You’re just going to be so sore won’t be able to move the next day. You’re going to hate push-up. But if you did a hundred today in those 30 days, you would actually see that your musculature was more toned. They would become very easy. You do them more quickly you’d be stronger you feel stronger. So that’s the same type of concept you’re doing a little bit everyday with the stomach. Now the night before should you still study a lot? Of course not thing only study 15 minutes a night before the exam and on some nights. Can you study 2 hours and have a study group? Of course that you get a point that I’m just giving you a basic strategy on pepper because these I want you guys to think about these as you approach this as Hail Mary Time of the Year this spring fever time of the year. Then you have your projects projects are like papers. You want to devote a large 325 hour block want to chill you can put music on for a lot of projects new writing paper you off and don’t Music on cuz you use that type of thinking you need for writing papers different than for most projects, but if you’re glowing stuff together and you know, it’s it’s more or you’re making PowerPoint you’re doing the design party music on it sucks when you’re doing the research or do you really have to think you’re going to want to be able to focus but but you want large blocks for a project and then for the AR reading assignment now, this is something Debbie that you and I have both seen a lot where kids are in elementary school. They’re told you need to be 10 minutes tonight or 20 minutes tonight and that is not reality that is not what gets people to fall in love with reading that is having to jump through hoops to do a reading checklist or a reading log like things kids. Absolutely hate. That’s not what we want to do. We won’t you actually want to enjoy your week. So if you have a large reading assignments, like a novel that they have a 300-page novel, you’re going to write a paper on order project on you do not want to read 30 minutes a night. That is not it if you want to read you want to read groups of chapters. Maybe you read three chapters a night 7 chapters the night, you know how you want to read chapters chapters contain entire ideas that go together you want to end at at at at the end of a chapter not the middle of a chapter and you want to be immersed in the book. So when you’re reading a book and you’re reading 325 chapters, let’s say you can get pretty immersed in the story. I see a lot of students will read like the first chapter be like, I don’t like this book you really that’s not enough time to really even see if you like it. So we’ve kind of lost the art of reading that’s one of those magical things in the world. So just trust me on this guy’s try it out to an experiment with it, but forget about the CliffsNotes and forget about the SparkNotes and forget about you. Actually you can enjoy reading light give it a chance if you’re one of those students who like, you know, you’re you’re just you want to just listen to the audio. Look try it if you’re awake mad, and I know I have a lot of students who still are deeply in love with reading but I get a lot who also have lost their love of reading but large blocks guys and you can’t do it all in one night. You can’t do a night. We’re spending five hours on a project and reading 3 chapters and spend three hours on a lake be realistic the mountain you have to climb is big. I know it says it more than you can probably handle probably realistically. Yeah, so you just do your best and you just do the things you can you know, and if you think oh, I’ll do three hours and you only get 45 minutes then you still got 45 minutes then which is way more than Which is what a lot of resisting kids get stuck in is this pattern of doing nothing and procrastinating so much that they get nothing that’s so Debbie that that is kind of slow here where we look at, you know, we got this pattern with spring fever and it can really cause some severe consequences for us. We want to get Saturday you want to have a good mindset. We want to prioritize how we’re going to get up the mountain and then we want to be able to execute and do the things that need to be done in and just do our best to keep checking way to 1% more do the next day delivery. There’s going to be days when you guys aren’t going to want to do anything and you’re just like Mom Dad just just let me just not do anything today and depending on your relationship with your parents. Hopefully there is some days when they can be like, okay, I can tell you really do need a day off. I’m going to come back in an hour and push you anyhow, and see if we can get started but take some time, you know, take some space but then get back on the neck. Stay and get back to it. You know that you we all are adults to Debbie and I both we have days. I know I have probably two to three days the month Debbie that are like a washed I get depressed. I don’t even have a reason for it. I’m just I can’t rally I can’t and we’ll be human do you get those Debbie? Play absolutely and then you get to the point. Why am I even trying? Call ya if if you guys are having trouble with homework trouble with grades know that you’re not alone. And what’s up talking about. I mean, he’s just laid out a really awesome plan and appearance. I would encourage you to watch this with your kids, you know, pull that flew out the laptop after dinner, you know, just watch it for a few minutes and have a great discussion about what sort of plan you can put together after this just for the Post-it note and putting everything on it and prioritizing and it’s a really good plan. So you’re not alone. And what’s us talking about our life skills that are going to serve you for a very long time to come so stuffed can’t thank you enough and real quick before we wrap up tell us a little bit about your course if you want them deeper and I like literally this world has a lot of problems and when you get older you’re going to build a career on solving problems. All careers are designed to solve some problem. I am in a problem solving. Debbie is But I see that you because we need you we need kids with outside the box brains. We need kids who think differently and learn differently in processed differently. We literally the world literally need you to develop your strengths. So and I say this because I know that you’re resisting I know that you don’t feel like doing the stuff and sometimes you feel like what’s the point of all this. Why do I have to do this homework up when I’m ever going to use that. So the point is that developing a lot of these skills. It’s not going to always feel like you’re going to need them but they will develop you they will help you grow as a human being they will help you become more determined to more motivated than more so that you will have the skills to really pursue your passions and what matters to you and and even if you don’t know what that is now it these you are planting seeds for your future. Even if it doesn’t feel like it you are planting seeds. We need you. I need you the world needs you and I Really say too sincerely. We need you. So thank U students parents as far as the course. I have a semester-long course, it’s called you g y g upgrade your grades and although I one way I don’t even believe in grades on the other and it’s a necessary evil. How do we develop was called the executive function? How do we develop the skills? I have this quirky weird. Awesome big core that guide you through all of these steps to help your student and help you. There’s a student section. That’s about 35 super in-depth. I’m lessons why really break down how he coached students and then I have about 20 really in-depth parent lessons where I really exhausted. We break down all kinds of things so that you can better help your kid be successful in school, but not so that they just get good grades. Not so that they just take a test scores so that they can plant seeds to have a great present as good of quality of life. Now in in in a great future as all about quality of life is not about Conformity and jumping through hoops and just doing what they’re told and it’s about really helping them develop their best selves so you can click on it and find it there and Seth as always such a pleasure and for anyone who and for anyone who has the all access pass from the Brighton Court Summit. We’ve got talk from Seth in 2019. I believe we did the Sunday night overhaul and in the 2018 Summit we did a few part executive function master class, which was just so awesome so stuff you’re a fan of your friend and I just always love talking with you. Thanks so much for the opportunity. Good luck ever. Okay. Take care.
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