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Individual Success for Every Student

I am Jessica I’m Parker’s mom. Parker is my 12-year-old boy and our little karate guy. And this is Sebastian, my husband Parker.

And so like we talked about, you guys were one of the first ones to jump in on the milestones. What was it that you saw as the value to add that into Parker’s training?

So when we first signed up for karate, really what excited us about the program in the first place was really old and non-karate benefits. So we joined a leadership class right upfront. We wanted Parker to be active. Karate was a great way to do that. At the same time, we wanted Parker to develop those skills, you know, to become a leader and, and, um, become just a better version of himself. So we were very excited about that. We, so when we joined the leadership team, I think we learned a lot about ourselves as parents, number one. Uh, and we started understanding, okay, how do we need to interact with Parker to have results? It’s not just saying and asking Parker to do something, but it is sending up goals, measuring those goals, following up it’s every day, um, everyday work that we needed to work on.

And I think, uh, working with, with prestige helped us, um, guide ourselves. Okay, how do we, what do we address? Uh, so when we joined the milestones program, it’s great because now we can actually focus. And in order to me if I’m wrong or, uh, but we want it to focus on certain aspects of Parker that, that we saw needed improvement. One of them was accountability and we decided to focus. We had quite a few milestones, but, uh, the first one that we decided to go with was waking up in the morning. So I think Jessica and related, she was the person that would wake Parker up. We didn’t ask Parker to get up on his own. So

I never asked Parker to get up on his own until we started the milestone program. Um, I’d wake him up every morning and kinda set bad tunes for the rest of the day or at least the rest of the morning, because it was really difficult to get them up. I don’t like waking up either. So, um, it was, yeah, it was difficult to wake him up. So right off the bat, we would already start running late for the rest of the morning, um, up until we were scrambling to get to school on time. So then it was causing tensions and arguments in the morning that were just unnecessary and just not a good way to start the day.

And so now just to, to jump over so we can come back. So the milestones of getting up has reduced or eliminated that stress.

So, well, let’s go over maybe what we set in place. Okay. And then we can go into the results that we’ve seen so far. So it’s been two months. Um, so we set w what we wanted to do, and what we learned with, with prestige is when you set a goal, it has to be very specific. It has to be measurable. It has to be smart. As Parker said, you know, achievable, realistic, and then there has to be a time factor so we can understand what we expect them, expect them to do. So we did that. So we told him the time he was supposed to get up, you were supposed to get up on his own. So set up his own alarm, um, and how we would measure it, and also the consequences. So there were, there was an incentive, uh, that if he woke up every day for two months without being late, uh, there was an incentive, uh, but it was also a consequence. So if, if he wasn’t able to get up on time, then, uh, um, there was a consequence to do that. And he understood that from the beginning. And, um, so I think so far, we’ve seen a very positive results. We’re not where we want to be yet. Um, but Parker has definitely taken it upon himself to set up his alarm, um, and getting up in the morning, we need to change the alarm sound. He doesn’t really like it.

That’s kind of the point of the alarm. You’re not supposed to like it.

And, and Parker’s response to that. That was my response. And his response to the alarm is not good. Well, it makes me want to turn it off and not hearing right away. So we’ll see how it works when we change it, but it’s been working well. So

90% of the time. Yep. So it’s just not all the time, which is what we’re aiming for. But I mean, 90% of the time is a huge improvement from

80% better than it was. Yes, yes, yes, yes. All perspective,

Baby steps, baby steps. And so Parker wakes up on his own in the morning, makes his bed go through his morning routine, um, cleans all your boxes, go take a shower on his own. We don’t interact. We don’t have to tell him what to do. He knows what to do until he’s done. And then we get to have breakfast and get ready for school. So I think,

And we’re on time every day. We’re not arguing in the morning, which is huge.

And so everybody’s happier. He’s happier. He’s not getting yelled at. You’re happier that you don’t have to yell. Everybody’s stress goes down, makes for a completely different day. Very good. And then the other one that you, uh, that we talked about was video games.

Yes. So, um, that’s part of the consequence do, uh, for not waking up on time, losing some video game time. Uh, but with, with video games, we parked, there was allowed to have an hour of doing school days. Um, and for quite quite a bit of time, proper was going over the hour. So it wasn’t timing himself. So we worked on that and now Parker times himself to make sure that it’s an hour. So we don’t have to ask, we know that he’s doing it. And he’s being, that’s been a hundred percent every time he’s played, he’s stayed within his a lot of time. And

Now tell everybody why what’s the consequences we put in place. So

See, I have been following this rule so much that I actually forgot what the consequences were.

So, uh, I, the first time that he would miss would be, uh, one day a video game, and one day a phone, the second time would be three days. The third time would be five days, a fourth time, seven days, the fifth time, two weeks and the sixth and the seventh time, the game would be given to charity.

And so that’s where again, we bounced back and forth because mom wasn’t necessarily on board with that. Where are you right away?

[inaudible]

Because we haven’t had to worry about it because you never got there.

Never had to worry about,

But that’s one of the things that we had talked about back and forth in the emails was if the penalty isn’t stiff enough, now the child tries to decide, well, if I’m just going to lose it for a day, that’s okay, because I’m going to get an extra 30 minutes now by stacking it with the eventual consequence being it’s donated, right. It puts a whole different spin on it. But as we said, you didn’t have to worry about it because he’s been greatly accountable for what he does.

Yep. Exactly. And we, we don’t, we try to stay away from negative, uh, consequences, but don’t, we all, you know, yes, yes we do. But it’s necessary. I mean, to, until the habit, it becomes a habit and we’re going to continue doing it. So we did it for the first two months. We can have, uh, continue that as, uh, as we add more milestones. So this is just a step stepping stone to other milestones. And until it becomes a habit, and then we can just forget about it, you know, parking will be used to do it, and I’m sure it’ll be slip-ups, just like anyone. Um, but at least there’ll be a habit. Um, so,

And that’s what we look at is that there’s nothing wrong with a rare mistake and it’s never going to be done. Right. So as mom was saying, well, we’re not where we were not at the end yet. Well, the end is when we’re buried in the ground because all you’re going to do is once he masters something, you can take it off the list and you replace it with something else now. Right. And it’s just an ongoing process. And that’s how we continually make ourselves better. And yes, we’re human. So you’re going to mess up. But it’s an incredibly rare instance, not anywhere near the norm.

Right. And then for the next milestones, we still have to talk about what we were wanting to work on with Parker, but we also want to focus not just on behavior, but also on things he wants to do. So he wants, he loves art. You know, I think this weekend, he told us that he would love to go to art school, you know, later on in life. So we’re going to discuss, okay, what do we need to work on now? And that’s something we’ve learned, you know, through the leadership bias and what can we work on now to help us get there. So we’re going to start talking about that and see little things that we can do today to, to help with that. So, so it’s not just behavior and things like that. It’s also skill.

Fantastic. Let’s help out some of the families, since you guys, I said, we’re one of the pioneers. How long did it take you to kind of get the foundation in place for this? Was it weeks? Was it days, hours?

It was weeks. Um, I think it’s, it’s work on the parents at first, really need to understand what needs to be done. And also not only that also become the example, like go through our lives and make sure that we do things that we ask Parker to do. Um, so I think it took us. How long would you say a month? I think to understand what needed to be done and work through each. I didn’t feel like it took that long, but maybe I’m wrong. Right. So I got most of mine at the most.

And now again, just for that, that time reference, cause I’m sure you’re going to freak some parents out. When you say, you know, two weeks to a month, that’s not 24 seven. It was you guys bouncing back for maybe half hour or so, and then thinking for a bit and then coming back. So you took your time to really build it slowly so that it was what you wanted it to be, which is why it took a little bit longer.

Absolutely. You could, you could start right away with, and that’s what we would recommend. Start small, find something that you can improve on right away. Um, and you could do this very quickly. And we did a few of those very quickly, but we realized, okay, our goals wasn’t specific enough, you know, little things like that. So you improve upon, okay. So now when we give a goal and an expectation to Parker, we need to make sure that we cover all bases and that it’s specific and measurable. That’s the hardest part for me. Like how do you make something measurable that you can actually, you know, I created spreadsheets, you know, to track and to make sure that when we have a discussion with marker, well, here’s the information. This is what’s happened. Or Parker checking off when he does a little bit, little boxes, for example, he checks it off on the board. So we know that, okay, it’s been done. If it’s not checked, you say you’ve done it. But if it’s not checked, we don’t know if it’s done or not. So little things like that. And that’s, that’s what I mean by two weeks to a month. Sure. Getting to that point where we can actually measure it.

And that’s, again, math is our friend. Right. That’s what we had talked about when you guys had first started is it’s all about the data, right? Well, he does, he plays video games for too long. Well, how often a lot. Well, we can’t really do anything with that. Right. So being able to, like you said, to make it specific so that we can track. Exactly. Okay. Well, five out of seven days, he overextends his time. Okay. Well, let’s go to four. Let’s go to two now. Let’s you know, and as you said, he did a great job of getting it all the way down to zero. So definite round of applause for Parker, for being accountable for those great, great things. So helping a family out, I guess. So the benefits that you found with the milestones if I understood what you’ve said so far is less stress, right?

You’re not fighting in the morning or afternoon or whatever the issue timeframe is yours is morning because one of the issues was getting up. Mom gets to actually sleep in now because somebody is being responsible and accountable for himself. So then mom’s not as crappy cause she’s getting more sleep or better sleep. Okay. Parker, would you say that the structure has, has helped you be happier that mom and dad aren’t yelling all of the time at you? Okay. No, that’s, that’s what we’re trying to get at is this is a win-win-win for the household. It’s not a chores list, like what we had in our generation, right. You’re going to do your chores or we’re going to take y’all back to the shed and smack ya. Right. That was the old school. Now it’s more of a, this is for the household. This is how we’re going to function as a family. And like we talked about my favorite part is that it’s personal. You were able to pick exactly what you wanted him to work on first. And now that you have that foundation, it’s just, you know, plug and play, take this one out, but this one in and be able to go back and forth. So definite round of applause for you guys, any final words that you would give any families that are on the fence about trying it, should they, shouldn’t they, what do you think?

A hundred percent they should, they will, they will discover so much about how to improve. Just a way to family. Not only communicates interacts with each other, but also starting to understand what their children want, because now you communicating now you understand, okay, what are your goals? And then when you start talking about that, I think the kids are going to start thinking about it, and then you can have a discussion on, well, this is something I would like to do. And then you can start, I think, setting up a path, you know, to work on some skills. And, um, so I think for me, that’s my opinion, a hundred percent, I don’t know about you. I absolutely think that, uh, all the parents and, uh, attending the Academy should do the milestones. Um, I think that they should start small and gradually work their way up to bigger milestones rather than just dive in. Um, I think it would be more beneficial for them and the children if they just kind of took baby steps.

Fantastic. And that’s exactly it. It’s kind of funny because what we started now is I do discovery calls. When somebody joins the school, we’ll do a zoom call like this, where, well, what is it that you’re looking for? What type of milestone can we create? And I’ll hear parents of a four or five-year-old well, I want them to be able to stand at attention for 30 minutes and watch your class. So when you talked about, you know, don’t make big milestones, that’s like Mount Olympus. So that definitely is one of the huge keys is just, you know, small successes to keep it, keep it small, keep it going. And it’s definitely going to be a benefit for everybody. So, well, I appreciate your guys’ time. I’m going to let you go so you can get back to your stuff. Parker. Awesome. Awesome job. I look forward to seeing you at belt testing tomorrow night and you are going to do spectacularly. All right. Thank you. Bye-bye.