Perfect Planning

The five P’s!

Perfect planning prevents poor performance.

Yes, we see summer ebbing in a blink, and parents are now in back-to-school mode. Local stores are pushing school clothes and supplies to help you prepare your kids for the shift from summer to fall. Here, I will present a few tips to help you “pre-frame” this transition from summer fun to a back-to-school focus.

Number one: Gradually shift kids to a fall sleep schedule. New bedtime and wake-up times are needed to adjust kids' bodies to the earlier day. Fatigued kids will be tired and cranky when it comes time to get ready for school, and exhausted kids don't learn well.

Number two: create a school mindset.

Tuning your kids into the school year starting will help them in the fall. Lay the groundwork for a positive year. Teach your kids that it will be another year of fun learning, seeing their friends, and meeting new kids, which will make for some great experiences.

Number three: prepping. 

Getting kids to rehearse is a great idea. One of our granddaughters loves to play “teacher.” At age seven, she has learned how to coach her students (Grampy and Mimi) to better performance, positively impact her 'kids' (her dolls), and deal with a sometimes unruly student(Grampy). It's a fun game as she teaches us how to pack our backpacks, keep our hands to ourselves, and learn our school work. Did I mention she is a very demanding teacher!

Number four: Set goals

I am a firm believer in the concept that " the goals you set are the goals you get.” As a parent, you can tell your kids to have a great school year, study hard, and do well, or you could further detail what that means. If you set a goal to achieve, like having a child on the honor roll, you could highlight how excellent grades affect their future. Kids with great grades have more opportunities, better job choices, and career opportunities, and they build strong self-esteem through their accomplishments. 

Setting goals to get A’s and B’s in school is a reasonable expectation. When a grade is not an A or B, students should review what they got wrong and determine why they did not perform better. 

I believe it is important to fan the flame of “excellence” in school. My first suggestion here is praise. When we are with our grandkids, I always give them positive feedback when they are working on an activity: “You are so strong,” “You are so brave,” or “Great try.” You might not be able to praise the outcome, but you can surely praise the effort. Kids can learn that perseverance and effort can lead to success. 

Everyone can learn to embrace mistakes as learning opportunities. Ask them, "What did you learn from your mistake?" One martial arts champion I know would always return to the locker room after a match to perfect his performance, even after winning! 

If a child is struggling, I recommend getting extra help from a teacher. As a college freshman, I worked full-time and did not study enough. I had a very dry and uninteresting course on Western civilizations and was emotionally devastated when I got an F on my midterm. I learned my lesson, got additional help from the teacher, and got an A on the final. Teachers always want to help students who show a desire to learn.

Number five: Talk about your feelings

Yes, kids get anxiety, too. My family moved to a new town as I was preparing to enter middle school. I had great anxiety with not knowing any of the kids in a new school, and the silly fear of the school year that I manufactured in my head. I had bad dreams and sleepless nights in anticipation of my new journey. It took a little time to fit in, but in time, I had a great experience and made many new friends.

Number six: Think positively with key steps

As a kid, my Mother was famous for saying, “Think Positive.” I loved the saying so much that I even had shirts embossed with it when I owned my gym in town. The problem is that it took me a long time to craft the steps I needed to follow this motto. I suggest these steps to teach children to overcome anxiety.

1. Reframe the idea that scary things are challenges, not problems.

2. Use positive Language and Vocabulary

Teaching children to swap negative words for positive or neutral ones is called transformational reframing. For example, instead of saying, “I can’t,” encourage, “I’ll try,” or “I’m learning.” This simple shift in language helps build a more optimistic mindset.

3. Break a problem into bite-sized solutions. If I told you becoming a black belt was a gigantic task, you may be overwhelmed with the prospect. But, if I broke it down to small hour-by-hour and week-by-week pieces, you could manage the journey without problem. 

My last tip is here- How do you eat an elephant? Simple, one bite at a time.

Mike Bogdanski

Mike is a martial arts Grandmaster and Anti-bully activist