ISACS Parent Series Recap

Last month, ISACS hosted Lisa Damour - an author and creator of the Ask Lisa Podcast as part of their webinar parent series. Lisa presented on School Skills: Setting Kids Up for Success and it was full of valuable information, tips, and tricks on how to support your child in their educational journey. While I still highly recommend accessing the recording of this session (if it is available to you), here are my take-aways from Lisa’s presentation and how you can implement them in your family. 

Ms. Damour focused on 3 major ideas when it comes to school skills: 

1. School is supposed to be stressful + the importance of recovery
2. Our children must learn adaptability 
3. Our children must develop emotional durability - building 

The first point is self explanatory… School is meant to be stressful. Lisa compares school to weight lifting in the gym. If you want to gain muscle, you have to pick up weights that are stressful to pick up. For our child to improve their ability to do work, they have to learn to do things that are stressful and that seem like a lot… and they need to be able to do this even when it doesn’t feel good. Your job as a parent, and our job as educators, is to teach them that even though it’s hard and uncomfortable, it does not mean it’s bad. There is value in accepting that school is stressful. Kids are going to get stressed, so when your child is struggling through an assignment and says, “This is hard!”? Your response can help teach them that not all stress is inherently bad. Your response can be as straightforward as,  “Good, that’s what we are looking for.”, and explain to them why. Use the weight lifting example with your child and give them this visual tool to reframe their idea of school and its purpose. Stress is what we feel when we are adapting to new things and that’s okay. 

Now, while there is a focus on the importance of working on your “stress muscles” in school, there is also a critical component of recovery that your child needs after working hard all day. To many, recovery means sleep, which is true. Our kids need their sleep. But recovery also means allowing your child to have down time before jumping into homework in the evenings or starting all over again the next day. However, knowing how your child “recovers” is important. This could be anything from sports and exercise to needing 30 minutes of laying on the couch. For some kids, this could mean a distraction with technology like watching funny videos or playing the daily Wordle or Connections. Technology as a distraction, however, is NOT scrolling through social media or “doom scrolling” on TikTok. There is a difference between helpful and harmful distraction, so if you are allowing this as a recovery period, set that expectation with your child from the get-go. 

The next major point focuses on the importance of adaptability. The necessity of this skill is no surprise for parents. We need our children to be flexible for lots of reasons, and school is an amazing place to practice becoming adaptable. Lisa Damour states that we must give our child work that they don’t like, put them with peers that they don’t like, and expect them to work hard for teachers/adults that they don’t like. Damour compares school to a buffet - there are tons of different food options and we expect our child to get a little bit of everything and try it. While they won’t like everything on their plate, they do have to try it. Our role as a parent/educator is to recognize which of these areas our child enjoys and does well in, and celebrate that. But even more importantly, in the areas that they do not enjoy or do well in, teach them to do their best and celebrate that more! Our kids care about what we praise, so show them that you are happy when they do well, but you are proud when they do good work in classes and for people that aren’t their cup of tea. This is how we “future proof” our kids! 

Finally, building emotional durability in a time when mental health struggles are impacting youth at tremendous rates can be extremely challenging. Parents and caregivers are tasked with finding a balance between teaching life skills, but also protecting their child from developing anxiety and depression, shielding them from the internet, and more. However, as a society, this has shifted more towards avoiding any discomfort for our children. We now have a misunderstanding of what it means to be mentally unhealthy. Damour explains that being mentally healthy does not mean we walk around 24/7 feeling calm and stress free. That’s impossible. Lisa states, “Distress is a Wednesday”. A simple phrase to remind us that just because you are having a bad day, does not mean you are mentally unwell, and we need our children to understand this. Mental Health is feeling the emotions that fit the context and managing them appropriately. For example, anxiety over doing poorly in a hard class fits the context in regards to worrying. Healthy coping skills to manage this anxiety could be, working on time management skills, taking breaks to reset, having an emotional response to frustration, etc. It becomes unhealthy when coping skills are, refusal to work, shutting down, or retreating because you think you can’t do it. Helping your child learn to identify what an appropriate response to stress is important. Ms. Damour offered a simple tip. Ask your child, “Is this uncomfortable or unmanageable?" If it’s uncomfortable then that’s a good sign. They are gaining “muscle”. When your child indicates that it’s unmanageable is when you need to step in and get them support. 

Having a positive relationship with your child that fosters safe, open communication is the key to ensuring their success academically, but also in life. Lisa stated, “School gets the best of them and we get the rest of them.” So whether you feel that your child has every emotion on the spectrum, or shares minimal information with you about their day, find the sweet spot between wanting/sharing too much information and receiving none. When your child gets in the car after school and dumps 500 stories and 501 emotions on you, let them. They accumulate quite a bit of emotional garbage during the day - take what you hear, and let it go. But when your child does the opposite and shares nothing, that’s your sign to start their recovery period as soon as they buckle that seat belt. Imagine someone asking you to share about every meeting and interaction that you had throughout your work day, every single day… if this sounds unappealing to you, your child probably feels that same way! When your child doesn’t want to talk about school at 4pm, they might at 9pm. Let them set their own time and agenda for the meeting. 

No one knows their child better than you, so work with them to find solutions when they do feel stress. And when you feel like you aren't sure how to support your child, we are here to help! We believe strongly in our partnership with you to ensure your child’s success. This summary of Lisa Damour’s presentation is part of our partnership with you to help make this “school season” the best it can be. Lisa Damour and the upcoming presenters in the series are worth a listen, so please register for the upcoming parent webinars that ISACS offers! 

The next session of the series is tonight (10/28) titled, How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Impacted Everything + What We Can Do About It, presented by Jonathan Haidt, Author & Social Psychologist. While I believe the registration period for this session is closed, if this is one you are hiping to catch, I will provide a summary of the webinar in the Acorn that follows. However, make sure you don’t miss out on the January webinar by visiting the ISACS website (you can google “ISACS Parent Series” and it will take you to the correct webpage) and register! If you were excited about what you learned or have questions, I am happy to discuss the content with you afterwards! 
 

Mrs. P