Ep. 99 A new way to think about homeschooling with Natalie Costa

ParentingMotherhood Toolkit
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I’ve been hearing from a lot of you over the last few weeks specifically around your concerns about home-schooling. You might be feeling worried that your children will fall behind or that they’re watching too much TV and not doing enough schoolwork.

So in this week’s episode, I’m bringing on an expert to help you with some of these challenges. I’m really excited to be speaking with Natalie Costa, who runs a business called Power Thoughts, helping children with negativity and anxiety.

Natalie is an ex-teacher – she supports children in everything from academics through to making friends and their body confidence. Natalie shares with us some easy, effective tools to help our children manage their emotions and feelings right now.

Natalie also has some amazing ideas if you are feeling the pressure around home-schooling and getting it right. In fact, she says we shouldn’t even call it home-schooling and tells us exactly why in the podcast, so do listen in.

I hope you find this week’s episode really helpful – and as always, we continue the conversation over on Instagram so do hop over and let us know what you thought.

You can download a transcript of this week’s episode here.

Key takeaways from this week’s episode:

What the Covid-19 Lockdown Brings to Our Home:

  • Humans naturally favour some sort of control and order or a semblance of these.

  • The pandemic disrupts children's routines and methods for teaching and learning.

  • The uncertainty also manifests through parents' worries on homeschooling and their children lagging in their education.

Explaining the Coronavirus Situation to Kids:

  • The first step is to allow them to feed you the information they already know.

  • Then, fill in the gaps with the short, truthful facts, removing emotion and drama from the narrative.

  • Acknowledge feelings of fear and uncertainty but recognise what you can do to take back control.

  • Make your home a space where it is safe to share their feelings.

How Showing Big Feelings Relieves Stress:

  • Parents and kids must understand big feelings like anger are not bad.

  • Sometimes children express these feelings through tantrums and meltdowns since their young brains are under development and can't show them the way adults do.

  • If they're not able to express these big feelings, they'll end up drowning in it.

Reframing and Releasing These Big Feelings:

  • There's a technique to release these emotions called the Power Zone Toolbox. Listen to the full episode to learn about the activities your kids can do to release their big feelings.

  • Breathing exercises may not work for your child. Hence, you should also consider their activity level and what works for them.

When Kids Are Heated in the Moment:

  • It is best to ride out your kids’ big feelings before interjecting your say.

  • When talking to your kids, you can use yourself as an example to illustrate your point.

  • Figure out what other techniques can help you and your kids deal with big emotions, such as using a code word for big feelings.

  • The technique should also depend on the age of the child.

Homeschooling:

  • During this pandemic, parents have no choice but to home-teach their children.

  • Other people do not want to practice home learning with their kids due to the overwhelming activities sent by schools and educators.

  • Choose what works with your family.

  • You may also reconstruct a work schedule for them.

  • If you are feeling too stressed about it, you may choose to park it on the side for now.

Our Emotional Well-Being Is Important:

  • Our screen time may have to do something with our being safe and grounded.

  • Putting pressure on ourselves as parents won't make the situation work any better.

  • Homeschooling your children doesn't need to be structured learning if you feel it is overwhelming you.

Fear of Falling Behind:

  • Some concerned parents worry about their child falling behind the school. Once the kids are back at school, educators will be filling in the gaps.

  • Our part as parents is ensuring children get enough brain activity every day.

  • Parents must also understand that everyone's on different levels of learning when they get back to school.

  • An excellent lesson to teach your kids is coping with change.

Emotional vs. Academic Intelligence:

  • Emotional intelligence is as important as academic intelligence. It helps children love themselves and deal with rejection, change and failure.

  • Power Thoughts will teach you not to believe every thought you think and not to respond to everything you feel.

Emotional Development and Awareness:

  • As parents, we need to inspire building emotional resilience within our kids.

  • Helping our children feel comfortable with uncomfortable feelings strengthens their emotional development.

  • Even if we want to protect them from getting hurt, these experiences stretch your child's emotional strength.

Zones of Comfort Exercise:

  • There are three zones of comfort: comfort zone, courage zone and panic zone.

  • We stretch their mental and emotional capacity by allowing them to learn something new and exciting, particularly when they make mistakes.

Techniques in Dealing with Big Feelings:

  • Power Breathing is taking deep belly breaths into the diaphragm for three seconds and out the nose for another three counts.

  • Children may also choose a breathing buddy, such as a stuffed toy, to take deep belly breaths.

  • We can use the Unwelcome Visitor technique to separate us from our negative thoughts. Listen to the full episode to learn how you can do it.

Adults Should've Known This:

  • As parents and adults, we should not give in to societal pressures. Instead, we should do what we feel is best for our families.

  • None of us come with a manual, and every child is different.

RESOURCES

ABOUT NATALIE

Natalie Costa took her 15 years of experience in teaching to become the founder of Power Thoughts. She aims to help children discover and manage big feelings in their own unique way. She has written manuals for improving a child's well-being. Natalie also passionately reaches out to parents through her teaching and coaching expertise.

To learn more about Power Thoughts, visit Natalie’s website. Interested parents and teachers may also get in touch with Natalie through her LinkedIn.

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