The Hilarity of Teaching Our Kids

Podcast

“Be resourceful, because that’s modeling for your kids that one person doesn’t have all the answers.” -Debbie Sharp

“Be gentle with yourself, and make yourself a learner also. Because if you put yourself in that same spot, it puts you in a different mindset. And that’s a great benefit for your kids to see.” -Denise Powers

“If you do it right at their level, you’re always challenging them a little bit, and you’re always teaching them a little bit at the same time.” -Aditya Nagrath

You know how everyone says it’s good to have a sense of humor in times of stress? Well, this pandemic was a weird one. And it’s not even about the virulent nature of the disease — it’s about us— the parents and how we are “parenteaching” our kids in the strangest ways possible. Nothing has prepared us for this. We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into when we “agreed” to homeschooling during the pandemic. As we can imagine, with the world falling apart all around us, and our kids being cloistered in by live-in teachers, it’s a bit of a challenge to get an education going. We thought it was a breeze, but a few days later, this little exercise we’re doing in trying to educate our kids has turned out to be the most shocking demonstration of how much we really don’t know when it comes to…um…anything academic. It’s total chaos and that is why it’s hilarious! In this episode, Jay sits with Gonzo Parents, Debbie Sharp & Denise Powers. Listen in as they share their personal stories of the funniest and most adorably silly instances while homeschooling their kids during COVID. They also share how they have adapted to limited learning resources, overcame challenges, and helped their children go beyond traditional learning and explore more of who they are and what they truly want to do. Next to them is our expert guest, Aditya Nagrath, the co-founder of Elephant Learning. Dr. Nagrath discusses the challenges of being a parent teacher, how parents can guide their children to have a more positive view of their education, and how to empower children to believe in themselves and have a deeper, more meaningful motivation to learn and grow. Parents may feel helpless, but gonzo parenting is all about the trial by fire learning experience of how to become the parents we wish had. And when we’ve come out on the other side of this roller-coaster ride, maybe we can look back with a little perspective. But until then, let’s hear from our guests…

Episode Highlights:

With Our Gonzo Parents

02:24 Meet GP Debbie Sharp and GP Denise Powers
10:06 Not So Soon!
16:02 The Gap in the Education System
19:27 Parenting + Teaching
32:13 Make Yourself a Learner, Be Gentle with Yourself
38:16 You Were a Parent First
43:06 Let Them Be Kids
49:10 Transparenting

With Our Expert Guest

59:51 Empowering Your Kids
01:04:23 The Ego Trap
01:10:31 The Challenge with Being a Parent Teacher
01:16:15 Help Your Kids Develop the Right Attitude for Learning
01:20:31 Help Your Kids Build Self-Esteem
01:25:12 Help Your Kids to Want to Learn
01:27:22 Help Your Kids Believe in Themselves

Resources:

[bctt tweet=”Schools may be out, but the learning never stops. Tune in as @JayRooke, Gonzo Parents Debbie Sharp and Denise Powers, and our expert guest @ _Elephant_Head co-founder, Aditya Nagrath share their greatest humor on display on parenteaching during COVID plus tons of advice on how to be more effective as parent teachers! Click https://gonzoparenting.com/ for resources and shownotes. #JayRooke #Podcast #GonzoParenting #ModernParenting #Parentpreneurs #pandemicparents #homeschooling #homeschoolhacks #covid19pandemic #homeschoolingparents #transparenting ” username=””] Meet Our Guest:

Dr. Aditya Nagrath is a visionary leader on a mission to change the way that the world teaches mathematics. Dr. Nagrath is the co-founded Elephant Learning Math Academy which is a gamification of a proven curriculum. On average, children in Elephant Learning learn 1.5 years of mathematics in 10 weeks using the system just 30 minutes per week. Dr. Nagrath, at age 14, taught himself C++ and continued on to read books on game development and neural networks which are the basis for modern day artificial intelligence. He graduated from the University of Denver with a dual major of Mathematics and Computer Science, continuing on to graduate school while working full time as a software developer to graduate with a PhD in Mathematics & Computer Science 7 years later. After a decade in University, Dr. Nagrath graduated to found Elephant Head Software where he led a team of no more than 10 engineers to bring over 35 different product lines with over 50 different applications to market between 2009 and 2016. In 2016, Dr. Nagrath co-founded Elephant Learning with Professor Alvaro Arias from the University of Denver in order to bring transformational change to America’s education system. 3 out of 4 students are not proficient at High School Mathematics, leading to 69% of STEM majors switching majors to a major with less mathematics. Math deficiencies happen completely amongst income lines leading to a preservation of the cycle of poverty as mathematical scores often predict high school dropout and over all scores. Elephant Learning provides mathematical activities from counting to calculus that are proven to foster deep understanding in mathematics with transformational results for children through all walks of life. Empowerment is understanding the concepts that hold us back, enjoyment in the classroom setting is understanding the teacher. Dr. Nagrath is also a seasoned public speaker, software developer, social media marketer, and businessman.

Connect with Elephant Learning:

Inspirational Quotes:

08:47 “So many parents found themselves realizing ‘just because I learned this does not mean I can teach it’… and then all of a sudden, realizing that it’s not working out.” -Jay Rooke 13:37 “When you’re stressed, you want to control something.” -Debbie Sharp 14:57 “None of us had been through a true pandemic before. That is triggering to a lot of people who have not healed things so they’re fighting all of that.” -Denise Powers 18:24 “For the parents who are wanting the best for their kids… it’s so painful to think about wanting to do well at your work and trying to do your best while you clearly know it’s not working.” -Jay Rooke 21:28 “Everyone has a learning curve and you don’t even know what your learning curve is until you’re smacked in the middle of it.” -Debbie Sharp 26:22 “There are five different paths to get to this answer. Arm your kids with all of this knowledge. Then they problem solve and figure out what works for them, what doesn’t, and they apply that to other areas.” -Denise Powers 28:14 “Be resourceful, because that’s modeling for your kids that one person doesn’t have all the answers.” -Debbie Sharp 29:42 “As they struggle and learn how to do whatever, we can be vulnerable and authentic with them and create that kind of safe environment and not know everything all the time or be correct all the time.” -Jay Rooke 32:49 “Be gentle with yourself, and make yourself a learner also. Because if you put yourself in that same spot, it puts you in a different mindset. And that’s a great benefit for your kids to see.” -Denise Powers 35:35 “Take an active role. Be involved… but still be the parent.” -Debbie Sharp 37:10 “For those that are in that fear-base spot… do not attach a story to that and start to catastrophize because none of us really know at all right now.” -Jay Rooke 39:36 “Even as an expert, I still had fears… I asked for help.” -Debbie Sharp 40:35 “Even if you have the skills, sometimes they don’t want to hear it from you.” -Debbie Sharp 42:18 “We’ve got our own issues and they get in the way of every single thing we do.” -Denise Powers 43:17 “Kids are amazing. They’re innocent. They don’t understand the world as we see it, because we lose that innocence when we become adults. Let them be kids.” -Denise Powers 46:11 “Let them go outside and play… Let them create the rules around it, let them create the game. You don’t even have to be there unless it’s not safe.” -Debbie Sharp 49:13 “Parents, offer up yourselves what you would have done differently during the day. That does get them thinking. Let them see you participate in that.” -Denise Powers 01:04:24 “The ego wants to move to victimhood. It wants to say I can’t.” –AdityaNagrath 01:04:56 “If you can have a healthy attitude and work towards answering incorrectly, then you can treat it more like a sport— when you shoot a basketball, if the ball doesn’t go in the hoop, try again.” -Aditya Nagrath 01:10:33 “The big challenge with being a teacher or a coach is accountability. When you’re being a parent, you’re making compromises with that.” -Aditya Nagrath 01:17:25 “If you do it right at their level, you’re always challenging them a little bit, and you’re always teaching them a little bit at the same time.” -Aditya Nagrath 01:23:28 “We have to accept where the student is, we have to plan for where they will be. And then as we accept things, the emotions around it, what feels challenging around it tends to go away. It becomes operational.” -Aditya Nagrath 01:24:50 “Let this unfold at its natural pace and be there to lovingly nudge and support, but not the strict pushing that we get later in life.” -Jay Rooke 01:25:55 “As parents, that’s what we want is we want the student to want it. If they don’t want to do it, you’re going to have a really hard time getting them to do it.” -Aditya Nagrath 01:27:02 “If they’re doing this for our approval, that’s unhealthy to begin with. And then, as soon as we stop pushing, then the motivator goes away.” -Jay Rooke 01:27:48 “If we do too much for them, then suddenly they don’t believe it themselves.” -Aditya Nagrath[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column] [/et_pb_row] [/et_pb_section]