Our Virtual School Experience So Far

During this whole crazy COVID time, we decided to keep our kids in virtual public school instead of homeschooling them.  I’m grateful to say that my kids have adjusted very well to virtual school.  They are engaged and participate in class.  They show up on time, for the most part.

Surprisingly, Emily’s Kindergarten class has much more homework than Alex’s 2nd grade class.  I really like that Emily’s class allows parents to differentiate students based on the academic level.  There is more work on the parent’s part to make sure that all the work is completed, but her teacher offers plenty of optional and challenge homework that she can do.  They also require her to write at least 3 times a week.  I’ve seen tremendous improvement in her writing since the start of the school year.  For her, she is being challenged and stretched, which is what I would expect from school.

On the other hand, I’ve been more disappointed with Alex’s class.  I know Alex’s teacher is doing the best job she can, given the fact that she also has 3 kids of her own, so I don’t blame her for any of this.  She’s making the best of a bad situation and I suspect it would be the same situation even if it was a different teacher.  With that said, however, Alex’s class about 15 minutes max of homework due and there is no attempt to help more advanced students.  He has a small group meeting with the teacher once a week for about 15-20 minutes, but that is it.  I wish there were more optional or challenge activities offered so we could help him.

Why I’m Embracing My Inner Tiger Mom

I knew at some point I would become a tiger mom, but I think with the stress of running a real estate business and COVID, I was wishfully thinking that the public school would figure out a way to push Alex academically. One of the key themes of Raising The Best is the idea that you have to surround yourself with the best.  Thinking back, Alex has always been at the top of his class, giving me a false feeling that he is on track.  I’m sure according to average academic standards, he is doing more than fine.  But the real question is, is Alex being pushed to his best ability? Unfortunately, the answer was clearly “no” this year. So it was time to bring on the tiger mom…

So I began researching gifted and talented programs and came across the John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY).  In order to even take some of their classes, your child needs to be two grade levels ahead in math and reading.  I had Alex take a practice SCAT exam to see where he was.  He got about 50% right in both the math and verbal sections.  Although it isn’t a great score, I just see it as a data point and evidence that he has room for improvement.

The elementary SCAT exam consists of a verbal analogies section and a math section that covers 4th and 5th grade math.  To tackle the analogies section, I researched and downloaded a huge analogies bundle from Teachers Pay Teachers. I’ve been relying on TpT a lot to supplement academic work for the kids.  I like the idea that other teachers are creating and using the materials.

To tackle the math section, I’m also using TpT to go through 3rd and 4th grade math.  I’m glad there are Math Common Core standards, so I know exactly what I need to cover with him.  In looking at the practice test, I’m going to focus on teaching him multiplication, division and fractions.

My Own Tiger Mom Experience

When I was growing up, my mom was a tiger mom.  While I probably didn’t understand or appreciate it at the time, I’m really grateful that my mom had such high standards for me.  Just like in Amy Chua’s book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, I always felt my mom pushed me because she believed in me.  Somehow, I think that helped me develop a strong sense of internal motivation to always push myself.  Although my mom had high standards, I don’t remember ever feeling stressed about it.

I had a friend in high school that also had a tiger mom but her experience was completely different.  Her parents kept pushing her too hard and she was so stressed out at school.  Although subtle, there is a difference between pushing someone to do their best and pushing someone beyond their abilities.  It’s like if I were to keep yelling at one of my kids to play Beethoven’s 5th when they’ve only been playing the piano for a week.  It hurts more than it helps.

Finding My Own Tiger Mom Voice

It’s been about a week since I started working with Alex on his analogies and multiplication tables.  It’s definitely been a learning experience for both Alex and me.  I struggle with balancing how much to push Alex.  On one hand, Alex is learning there is a “new standard” at home now.  Since he’s been slacking off for a year, there has been a lot of whining, but he’s getting used to it.  On the other hand, I can tell his is very hard on himself when he gets answers wrong, so I don’t want to push him too hard to where he doesn’t enjoy learning or has low self-esteem.  I’ve been reinforcing a growth mindset with him and telling him that mistakes are proof that we are trying and it is perfectly fine to make mistakes! Is there such a thing as a growth mindset tiger mom?  I think that’s will be my new superhero mom power!

I’ve been focused on my real estate business lately, so that’s why I’ve been MIA from Raising the Best. But several recent events in my life compelled me to write this post today.

• First, I reached out to one of my neighbors that I hadn’t talked to in awhile and learned that her husband passed away just a few months prior at the age of 49.
• Then, I found out one of my past clients had passed away in November last year. What was shocking to me is that, only 10 days prior, he was texting me about finding him another investment property to work on!
• Finally, I recently found out one of the moms in my local moms group just found out she has Stage IV cancer. She has 4 kids, including a 5 month old.

All of these events made me realize that we have NO IDEA how much time is left for us in this world. But even more importantly, what should I do about it?

See, it’s a delicate balance between living life in the moment (e.g., letting my daughter snuggle in bed with me in the middle of the night) and planning for the future (e.g., taking her back to her own bed so she can learn to sleep on her own). It is something that I struggle with everyday, especially the balance between spending quality time with my kids NOW and building a business that will give them an even better life in the FUTURE.

My biggest fear is that I spend all this time building a business, making money, and getting financially free, only to realize that it wasn’t worth the sacrifice to my kids. So everyday, it is a balance between spending quality time with the kids and getting all my work done quickly and efficiently.

Here are some things I learned along the way:

1. Time block like a boss – Time blocking is the only way to balance everything. There is no such thing as multi-tasking. You are just task switching, which has been found to be even less productive.
2. Spend your time on things that matter – By knowing what matters, you can make decisions around how you want to spend your time. For me, my family matters, so making sure I spend quality time with them is very important to me.
3. Live with Purpose – For me, a lack of clarity is the number on reason I get side tracked and have shiny object syndrome. By getting clear on your purpose, you are able to better prioritize what is the most important to you.

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Affirmations are a habit in my household for everyone in the family, including my husband and me.  I first heard of affirmations from The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod and began doing it for myself in the morning.  Overtime, I found myself repeating them during the day if I was in a difficult situation and giving myself a positive energy boost.  So I figured, why not have my kids do this also?

This is a long post on everything you need to get started with affirmations and answers the most frequent questions about creating a habit of affirmations.  At the end you’ll find a searchable database of over 200 affirmations for kids.  I am constantly adding to the list, so please bookmark this site and come back often!

Why Are Affirmations Important?

Affirmations are important because they help to program your mindset and your unconscious mind.

• Kids, in particular, are learning habits and mindset from parents, teachers, classmates, etc.  The are bound to pick up some bad habits that seem to have come out of nowhere.  For example, when my son moved into a different (older) classroom of pre-school kids, he suddenly became much more aggressive and played rougher than my sweet 3-year old.  Affirmations were a way to remind him to be kind and that not everyone (especially mom) wants to play rough.
• Affirmations help to set their minds up for positivity and success throughout their entire life.  Kids can easily get frustrated when they are learning new things and skills.  By instilling a growth mindset with affirmations, they can more easily overcome obstacles instead of giving up.

When Should You Do Affirmations With Your Kids?

I like to do affirmations with my kids in the morning in the car on the way to school.  As a busy mom, I like to multi-task as much as possible!  When both kids were in daycare, I say the affirmations with them as we were walking into the classroom.

The beauty of affirmations, though, is that you can do them anytime!  If my kids are having a hard time with something, I’ll do a “time out” with them to let them calm down, reset, and say an affirmation to help them get back on track.  I even do this for myself during the day if I need it!

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How Many Affirmations Should I Do With My Kids?

I think the key here is consistency and quality over quantity.  We have our base affirmation that we do as a family every morning, which is a chant: Good, Better, Best!  Never let it rest until our good is our better and our better is our best! Some days that is all we have time to do.

On other days, I’ll add in 1-2 affirmations in the morning depending on what is happening with the kids.  For example, when my daughter was going to a new classroom at the daycare, I knew she was going to be scared going into a new situation.  So during the days surrounding the transition, I had her say “I am brave.  I like to try new things,” which helped her through the transition.

For my son, I would have him say “I listen to my teachers and share with my friends” every school day.  There was one day when his teacher told me he wasn’t behaving during the entire day, and I realized that we had skipped doing affirmations that day!  I’m sure that wasn’t the only reason he misbehaved, but even small things like affirmations can have a big impact on their behavior.

Which Affirmations Should I Do With My Kids?

It’s a very personal decision on which affirmations you want to do with your kids.  I would say, just try them out and see which ones resonate with you and your kids.  Think about what kind of behavior or mindset you want your kids to have (or what they are struggling with) and find affirmations to help them.

One of the reasons I categorized the affirmations is because I’m often searching for an affirmation to help with a specific situation.  Like the example above with my daughter, I specifically picked affirmations about overcoming fear and new situations.

Right now, I’m focused on instill a growth mindset in the kids, so we are doing more of those affirmations.  Feel free to experiment and change over time!  You don’t need to do the same affirmation if it doesn’t apply to you anymore or it isn’t exciting anymore.  Change it up!

Can I Modify These Affirmations or Should I Use it Word for Word?

Yes, feel free to change the words to make them your own!  As I was researching affirmations for this post, I noticed there were several variations that you can make for any of these affirmations.

• Combine 2-3 related behaviors or emotions.  For example, you could combine kind, caring and loving to create one affirmation: I am kind, caring, and loving towards my friends.
• Test out different sentence structures.  For example, the affirmation “I am kind” could be adjusted to “You are kind.” or “I enjoy being kind.” or “Kindness comes easy to me.”

The Ultimate Searchable List of 200+ Affirmations for Kids

I put together this list of affirmations from my own set that I use with my kids as well as several other online resources.  Check out my Pinterest board on Affirmations for Kids for a lot more resources.  I am constantly adding to this list, so come back often if you need to pick different ones.  If you’d like them all at once in a PDF file, click here to download The Ultimate List of 200+ Affirmations for Kids.

The Ultimate List of Affirmations for Kids

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