C o c o S t a n b a c k...C o c o S t a n b a c k Three Key Strategies to End the Homework Wars Welcome to Happily Family. I'm Cecilia Hilkey and I'm Jason Hilkey. And we're delighted

Coco Stanback Three Key Strategies to End the Homework Wars

Welcome to Happily Family. I'm Cecilia Hilkey and I'm Jason Hilkey. And we're delighted today to have Coco Stanback with us. Coco is a certified ADHD coach and certified provider of Dr. Ross Greene's Collaborative and Proactive Solutions. She trained with Dr. Greene in order to improve her relationship with her two sons, who both have ADHD and are now adults. Along the way, she saw that her skills and personal experience could also help others. She has now been coaching parents of high needs Children for 10 years through her private practice at Heart 4 Kids coaching.

Welcome, Coco. It's great to have you Coco, thank you so much for having me sure excited to talk to you because we're such big fans of Dr Ross Greene. We've had him on multiple times. You've interviewed him several in several different capacities here in Happily Family in, So it's exciting to talk to you about what you do with his work as well. Yeah, and I wanted to start because there's some people that in the audience that might not be familiar with Ross Greene's work or the Explosive Child.

The book that he wrote and, um could you just briefly describe his approach for people that haven't heard of it before? Yeah, sure. So Dr Ross Greene? In a nutshell. He has it. A couple of mantras, one's kids do well, if they can, which is very different than what we typically see. We typically assume kids do well if they want to. So his focus, instead of really

trying to modify the behavior, is to look underneath and find what the unsolved problem is.

So he describes that as a result of lagging skills. So Children who have challenges are being challenging because they have some on, um, discovered or realized lagging skills that we need to uncover in order to help them solve the problem. And then the solution is to work together with them. So it's a collaborative approach, um, non punitive, non coercive approach to helping our kids solve their problems. So, in a nutshell, I would say that's kind of what his method is. Okay, so let's let's break it down into,

like, a little bit of an example. Do you have, like, an example of maybe a elementary age, kiddo, that would have some challenges that really demonstrate lagging skills just so we can put it in to a way that people might be able to, like, grab onto Sure, there's a ton of examples, um, one that's I see in my practice every single day, just about our challenges with the morning routine or the homework routine or the bedtime routine on and those are very, very common challenges for kids.

And, for example, on one little boy had a very difficult time getting up in the morning. It was just a struggle. We couldn't figure it out. And the old lens was He's being lazy. He doesn't care. He doesn't. It's not motivated. Um, when we used the CPS model to really dig deeper, this little always actually really anxious about going to school. And there was a particular difficulty he was having and one of his classes and didn't feel like he could talk to his teacher.

Happily Family Conference © 2020

So once we uncovered all of that and figured out, um, that it was, you know, this issue with this one class and this one teacher. Then we address that, and it was able to resolve that issue of him getting up in the morning. So that's one of them any examples, but that's very common. Just stuff underneath it, you know, we don't really know is going on. So what would you say? The lagging skill was in that case lagging problem. The problem that that's our unsolved problem or lagging skill. Unsolved problem was getting up in the morning the lagging skills involved for things like being able to express himself in words,

you know, being able to transition from, you know, um, sleeping to getting up in the morning. The difficulties he was having at school had to do a lot of with his executive function on skills. So things like being able to pay attention, his memory, those were all the things that were going on at school. But the biggest one was him being able to communicate his needs and words. That's one of the lagging skills on Dr Ross Greene list. And so he didn't have the capacity to express it to its parents,

um, and or to his teacher. And so that caused him to get stuck. Okay, and and we're gonna talk about homework, too. But I like this example, and it also really, it's a school, too, so I just want to go a little farther with this example in this story Because, um at the beginning of this process is empathy and really understanding what's happening for the child. How did you even go about figuring out that that was what was going on? Where do you start?

I would say the biggest thing is to have genuine curiosity. And to me, genuine curiosity means there's no judgment there. You know, like if you were a detective on the case and you're trying to find facts, you are not attached to the outcome. You're not attached to what you find out. You


just really want to find out what's going on. And I would say his parents, that is the number one key to use this genuine curiosity to see what is really going on. And the second I would say,

is to assume how the very best in your child that really wanted to Well, and if they're not doing well again, there's something getting in their way. So if you could use those two tools, I've seen amazing things happen. So that's kind of how you start, OK, so using that example that I could see how going into the situation on putting aside being curious about, like, Why is it my kid does not want to get up in the morning like grounded and rather than this judgment of like he's lazy,

he doesn't care. Like putting that aside and being curious, like what's going on? Like what? Why is it that this is such a challenge for him? And so is that. Is that Ah, fair? Exactly. And then the second piece was assuming that he wants to do something. He wants to figure this out, assuming that he's got the best, best intention like he wants to what, like he's doing the best he can at school or he's doing the best he can, just even starting the morning.

What would is that? Is that Ah, doing that? Yeah, exactly. Because what I've discovered with working the parents is we have a lot of stories. We tell ourselves, Um, and we have this idea that, you know, kids are quote unquote being difficult because they're being difficult. And if we can shift our lens, they're not being difficult because they want to be difficult. They're being difficult because they haven't figured out what's wrong and Sometimes they don't even know what's going on. This little boy didn't really know what was going on.


He just knew he did. I want to go to school, and so it really takes a lot of caring and compassion and patience to shift our own lenses right from that view. But so what I've seen is when they, when parents really shift from labels, So we're using labels and see Okay, Obviously, my son's having a hard time getting up in the morning. There's got to be a reason he's not being stubborn, a rebellious or defiant. There's something else going on. And if we convey voice that your Children like I believe in you,

I know you want to do your very best and something's happening here. Could you tell me what's going on? Do you know what's happening? What, Why this is so difficult for you, Um, and that's the beginning of just that collaborative piece, which is amazing. If kids feel you're on your on your their side and you trust them and you really believe that they want to do their best to,

then it opens them up and they feel safe to share with you what might be scary for them. So So while we're like,

you know, being here just among friends and being real about 30 minutes ago I was having a conversation with my daughter,

and it's We're filming this on the day that they don't have school, and but she's got a bunch of work to catch up on,

and it's like the end of the semester. And it's the difference between her getting like A or B.


or C in Math and she's a junior in high school, and I have so much compassion for, like the seven year old kid,

the 16 year old who I know has been watching videos like Binge watching. I don't have as much compassion.

My stories are so big, and then I go from like if she gets a C in Math, then she's like not gonna be able to go to college and then it's gonna she's not gonna be able to support herself.

I go like, all the way down that dark, scary road, and I know all of these things,

like I think that I need to be curious and I have a story, and she ended up telling me.

She's like, You just don't understand, huh? And then I realized afterwards like Okay, wait. Either She knows she needs to do her homework,

and she's judging herself just as much as I am, which doesn't add It's not helpful at all or,

um, or she is really having a hard time. And she's like going to, You know, this screen time as a coping mechanism,


in which case like that something may be for us to, like, talk about be curious about, um um,

but anyway, I was just listening to you talk and realizing how much it applies to my life right now.

Well, that it applies not just to young kids, but, like, I don't even know Jason Jason.

Oh, this approach works but everybody. When I first learned Ross's Greene's approach, I started using it in my marriage,

and it was awesome. He talks about something called dueling solutions, so the parent has an idea of the child has an idea.

They have their solutions, and they kind of can't budge from there. Um, and so when you drop the solutions and focus on the concerns,

then you can solve it. But when you're just like this is what we're gonna do. Know this is what we're gonna do,

You know, this is you Never You never solve it. So it works. It works great with everybody.


E think I might just use that one here. We got a little something that Cecilia I've been working and we have solutions and we're holding on doing Maybe after this,

we could have a different conversation. Let's let's go backwards to the to the homework example. Because I could understand people are listening to this conversation and the like.

Okay, great. Coco, I'm going to be curious, and I got to get rid of my story.

But there's, like, a little bit of reality to this story that grades impact college, and impact life.

So how do we, like reframe that or get a more unattached, um, at least reframe and more of a positive way.

Do you have any other ideas? So you're asking how do you reframe your own story to help you stay curious or yeah,

and stay out of judgment? Yeah. Um, still the second thing, I I see a lot working with parents.

Is that because we love our Children so much? There's a lot of fear, right? There's a lot of fear.


And when we're parenting out of fear, we cannot make good decisions. So, um, I always ask a few questions to my parents when they're going through that story in their head.

Right? So things like, how is this helping you right now? You know, is this helping you with a relationship in helping you?

connect? Um because a lot of times we kind of need a little help realizing we're stuck in fear.

We don't even know it. That's what I've seen. So I think asking yourself the question of how is this helping me solve it right now,

you know, is this giving my child the best assumption of where she's at? Things like that Help kind of bring you back down to Okay,

This is not helping. So the catastrophizing you mentioned. Have you heard that word before? Okay,

that catastrophizing, so common with parents, right? We go to the end of the world and it's over like a kid can't get to be,

so they're ruined. And so even that being aware that that's kind of where we go and then bringing yourself back to today too.


Right now to this moment, like even with Dr Ross Greene when I talked to parents about their concerns sometimes will say things like that like so the unsolved problem is turning in the homework,

for example, which is a big one with kids with ADHD. And so they're missing a bunch of assignments.

And the parents just so sure that this child is gonna end up on their couch for the rest of their lives and never find a job.

Right? So, um, understanding, being aware of staying in the moment. So when we identify a concern,

we don't say things like and I've had parents say this so that if they don't turn in their homework,

they're never going to get into college, and then they're never gonna get a job there trying to share that with this teenager.

It doesn't work. So are concerns have to come down to today, right? Like Okay, if you're not turning in your homework,

then that can affect your grade, and you know, you might have to take it over the summer,


and that would be a bummer. But let's focus you today, So those two things help being aware,

asking yourself, How is this helping? And then bringing it to the president instead of future focused like I left a laugh when he asked about catastropheizing just cause that's that's my middle name.

Okay, so the other thing that I thought of that I wanted to bring into this conversation is having self compassion.

Like, of course, I'm, like, freaking out a little bit, you know, that Got a junior in high school who's,

like, just a tiny bit floundering. Um and and of course, that would, like, make sense that I would be concerned because I love her.

And I wanted to do it really well in life. And, like, maybe I haven't had a full night of sleep right now.

And maybe you were getting ready for this big online event or, you know, whatever people are dealing with in their life,

they they're gonna have a different story and they can have some self compassion. Is that also something that that you help parents like that brings it right back around to curiosity.


So being curious just even with yourself. Okay. What's going on for me? Why am I freaking out right?

Like, why am I way out here? And then, like you said, then you practice self compassion?

Well, I didn't get much sleep, Haven't had lot. You know all those things and say, OK,

I can bring it back. Um, so I mean, my go to is genuine curiosity, because it really if you really practice it,

if you really are genuinely curious, it works for yourself. It works for your spouse that works for your kids just because there's no judgment,

even with yourself. Or like you're saying self compassion when you're curious, you're you don't judge yourself. You don't criticize yourself.

You don't you know, because sometimes we blow it. Sometimes we yell, and sometimes we get frustrated and and,

um, it's gonna happen. So having that self compassion and being able to ask yourself How did I get here without judgment is huge,


because that again builds awareness and you can start making the change Is it you want to make? And I could also imagine that's what I want my kids to be doing for themselves,

right? Like I'm on my kids down self compassion to be curious about themselves. So I guess I should role model that,

if anything, that's a nice reminder for me to be doing and practicing what I want my kids to be also practicing in doing.

So that's that's kind of the harsh reality I have to face. Right? Sometimes, uh, I wanted to talk about Well,

in this conversation, we've been talking kind of about some relearning that maybe we have to do his parents because,

um, I know a little bit of about your background and part of your your journey was tuning in to your own intuition and your own inner wisdom.

Even though you were getting a lot of external voices saying, You know, kids should behave and you should have control of them and all this stuff How did you start turning off those external voices turning down the volume on those and turning up the volume on your own wisdom?


Inside, I think the biggest step for me was I was losing the connection with my child, and I just knew that wasn't okay.

So no matter what all the experts were telling me out here and my own wonderful living, you know,

family and friends who had their, um, opinions. But to me. It was about connecting with my child,

and I was losing that. And so that brought me back to you know, what do I want for this relationship?

And to me, that was the most important thing is that I have a loving, connected relationship with my child.

And so, um, I always ask parents, you know, to lead with connection first in compassion.

I'm sure you've heard, you know, connection before correction and, you know, rules without relationship lead to rebellion.

You know all those things, but that that is kind of my my mantra. And so whatever I do,


I really ask myself, Is this helping with the connection? So when I am catastrophizing or when I am stressed out or when I am worried for them,

right, it actually doesn't help because it it It builds this barrier between us. Because now my fears and my anxieties,

you're getting in the way of really connecting. Because what happens then is then my catastrophizing and my expectations go through the roof and then we can do what Ross Greene says.

We can kind of go back to planning and demanding and, um, ordering or, you know, having this firm approach.

You got to do it this way because now I'm so anxious. And if you don't do it this way,

you're not gonna go to college kind of thing. So I always leave the connection and always go back to that.

You know, how is this helping me connect with my child? And that again brings me back to awareness and helps me kind of step back and say,

Okay, now what do I need to do in order to get back there? And the biggest thing is,


is me regulating myself, You know, it's I've got to mirror for my child, what I want and so on.

If I'm not calm, I need to get there first. You know, if if, um so that's kind of what helps is always remembering that the connection is the most important thing.

That's what helped me kind of in my journey, and it was hard to turn off those voices because I was talking to professionals,

you know, And, um, it was really hard to, but I knew that the most important thing was that and that's what I wanted.

And it is, too. Uh, to have that connected relationship with my child, and I was I do anything to make that right.

So, yeah, um, because we both we all believe here that relationship in that connection is so important.

Yeah, I want to dress something that people might be thinking. They might be thinking well, but it's not my job to be my child's best friend.

I want them also to, like, have the skills to succeed in the world. To which I would counter by saying,


Well, you're probably gonna be able to maintain your influence with them if you're connected. Ah, lot better than you can if you're not connected.

Would you agree to that, or do you have a different way of looking at you? I kind of said it better.

That's exactly right. Yeah, and it's on in your child's best friend. It's about being that collaborative partner in their life.

It's about building that relationship so that when big things do happen or they are really struggling, they'll stay.

Feel safe to come to you. Amazing that what we want with our kids, like we want it.

We want a lifelong relationship. We don't want to just get them through high school, right? We want a be close to them for the rest of their lives.

And if there's not that trusting connection, then it won't happen. So, yeah, I love how you said that.

Yeah, Yeah, And I I love the perspective of looking that at this over the lifetime. Some of the things that we say in our parenting class is that really,


like the intense part of parenting is like, I don't know, maybe, like, 15 18 years or so,

which, if you think the life span, our life's furnace gonna be 80 years, that's only like,

1/4 of our life that we're gonna be really intensely parenting. And like, there's another whole chunk of our life,

like maybe another half of our life that we're gonna be with our kids and they're gonna be adults. Yeah,

and that we're still gonna wanna have that relationship. So it's It's like a huge period of time, even though that afterwards,

after we you know, our kids have moved out of the house and everything that's really important. Even though the intense period that 15 or 20 years feels sometimes it feels like it last a really long time.

Uh, yeah. No. Um, yeah, it is tough, but it is so rewarding to have adult Children who call you and just say,

Hey, Mom, this is going on. What do you think? You know, when you're like,


how he values my opinion, which is so awesome he bothers to call me, which is the awesome,

and he wants to connect. And you have adult kids coming back home, you know, over the weekend.

It's just it's awesome. It's awesome to have that. And, um, I just I really believed it down.

All parents who were listening want that. I mean, that's you know what? You what you guys provide,

um, for all of these families is that is that you can connect and have a relationship, because that's what matters.

So, yeah, one of things we've talked about with other experts is that how valuable that connection is to start building early on,

because as they get older, we want them to be coming to us. You know, we want them to be turning to us rather than their friends for the really tough decisions as they hit the teenage years,

teenagers could be a tough time to start developing the relationship. But if we have a strong foundation, I wonder if you could say something about that or talk about like,


what does that look like? What does it look like to be developing a relationship with kids at different ages as they're growing up?

Um, I mean, like like you were saying a different ages. There's different needs and I think the challenge with the teenage years is that our brains to develop,

to separate right to to become independent. So a lot of the driving force in the teenage years is to separate and say,

I got this, I can do this And I think if we can acknowledge that and we can em very sad instead of fight against it,

um, the connection is greater cause you understand that they are trying to become independent and that's a good thing.

They may not have all the skills in place. They think they have right, so that's where we commit to to actually fully become independent.

But I had three sons. They were all fiercely independent and I gave them a lot of room to experiment and explorer and make it okay for them to make mistakes,


you know, and learn because I think we don't do this consciously. But I think his parents, we we really are afraid they're going to make these horrific mistakes.

And so we're trying to prevent them from, um, going there. But But if we allow them at a young age to,

you know, work with their independence and their ability to make decisions um, it really helps someone. They're older and it helps us to let go cause there's this weird thing that happens when they're teenagers and they're getting ready to get out.

highschool and go to college. It's It's almost like we have to, like, hold on for dear life,

this last little bit because now we know they're gonna leave in its I see it so much with with my the families I work with.

It's like this tough age, the right. They really want to be independent. But part of us really doesn't want to let go,

and so it gets harder. I wanted to come back to some of the work that Dr Ross Greene's done,


and you know, there's a lot of people that have done some really great work with parenting and Dr Ross bring being one of them.

But if how would you suggest someone to know when to turn to Dr Ross Greene for his work rather than following?

You know, all these other people that are after me, His work applies, you know, for a number of reasons.

But what what's like the indicator for a parent to know? Like, you know what? This is a time when I would like to go and look into what Dr Ross Greene has to say.

Is there Is there some kind of indication? We've talked a little bit about lagging skills, and we've talked about,

you know, in the beginning, we talked a little about problem and unsolve problems. Could you could you kind of help direct a parent or now help them navigate when it is?

Ah, good time to be looking at Dr Ross Greene's work. Besides always but all right. Yeah,

maybe what drove drew you to it in the first place? Yeah, and like you said, always is a good time.


But, um, for parents who have Children who are really challenging and you're trying really trying to figure it out and and um,

help them through it and it's not working. You know, that's what took me there. Like, I,

um I was trying. I was trying really hard to be the best parent I could be and to meet his needs.

But it just wasn't working. And it was very, very frustrating and demoralizing because you're you're doing what experts are telling you to do and what all the traditional parenting,

you know, advice is. And it just wasn't working. So I think a lot of parents, um,

can find themselves in that situation whether they are trying and it's still not working. So I would say that if you have a,

you know, a challenging child and you really, really are working really hard and it's still not, I'm helping you connect or solve these difficulties or having absolutely go to his website,


learn about his, you know, methodology. And like I've shared with you, it works in all kinds of areas,

not just for kids, but I guess that was what I would say. You're really struggling and you're just not finding,

um, the rights, you know, help or support or answers. Definitely great. That's helpful. And so Coco, as we're wrapping up here.

You have any final words or a big ask for the people here in the conference? Okay, I guess my big ask would be to believe your child is doing the best they can,

um, to believe that they really want to meet the expectations that people are putting on them. They just if they're not able to,

um, it's because they have something else going on. And, um, and to stay curious. That's what I would say.

I like that. Like that a lot. Um, how can people find out more about you? What you offer online,

what's the best thing for them? They can find me at heart4kidscoaching.com its heart,


and then the number four kids coaching dot com. And I have a handout they can download about, you know,

solving homework challenges. And I believe you said you'd have a link for them, so we'll put a link to that.

You're you know, we talked about that, and I think there's a number of parents who are looking for support in that area,

so we'll include a link to that. In the speaker notes encourage people to check out Coco's work.

It's fantastic. Just embodies Dr Ross. Greene's work as well, so thanks for being here Coco. And especially if you have a child with ADHD.

Because that is like your your niche with your personal experience. Um, so I wanted to offer that people,

Thanks Coco. Thanks for being here with us. Thanks for sharing with the audience here, and we'll be talking to you again soon.

We just wrapped up the interview with Coco here, and we realized that she didn't get to say something to our Spanish audience,


So we wanted to give her a chance to let them know that she has Resource is in Spanish. So she's gonna say in Spanish because I don't speak Spanish.

Gracias! Awesome. Thank you, Coco. Thanks, everyone!


Documents

C o c o S t a n b a c k...C o c o S t a n b a c k Three Key Strategies to End the Homework Wars Welcome to Happily Family. I'm Cecilia Hilkey and I'm Jason Hilkey. And we're delighted