Hey hey!
Welcome! I’m glad you’re here. More than anything, my biggest goal is that we ENJOY parenting together, no matter the stage and season, and get the RESULTS you so desire. Because YOU can!
So, we had three goals for my kiddos first school year in a new school…
Confidence. Excellence. Beautiful Handwriting.
With the school year now over, I can confidently rate my boys (and me) a blanket 8.5 on a scale of 1-10, 10 being goals. The more amazing thing about it all being that by God’s grace, I could do all of this without the luxury and blessing of a domestic help, while also blazing and winning with my health coaching work, and absolutely no compromise of my values and convictions, including my spiritual life, nurturing my sister-friendships, eating and living healthy, producing excellent content across all my platforms, running a thriving praying group (more about The WILD here) and keeping my soul healthy and joyful.
Please forgive me if this seems like bragging, as I have no desire to do that.
As I have processed the process that led to these exceptional wins at school, it left my thoughts and literally begged me to share with my fellow GDQs especially with the Summer break on and a whole new school year getting set to launch in September. If something from my sharing blesses and equips you to win in very specific ways in your parenting, God knows that would be such a win for me.
I share my wins because they are SO POSSIBLE for you too, when you take the principles and apply within the context of your own home and season.
So here we go, those JOYFUL parenting practices that make me WIN AT HOME and SCHOOL!
Just to give more context to my sons’ wins in this school which they only just started last September.
1. My older son, who just rounded up Year 3 was among those who got ‘promoted’ to using pen from pencil right in the middle of second term as his handwriting got so much better
2. Same son, who used to be so shy and wouldn’t look at faces when speaking (among other wins) was the Class Orator at one presentation, chief debater at their debate with Year 4 which they won, and speaks a lot more confidently, looking people in their faces.
3. My second son can’t use pen yet in school since he just rounded up Year 1, but certainly uses pen at home and at church and he writes so much better now.
4. Both my sons can make their beds excellently (which was a major goal for me)
5. My second son was also the Chief debater in his class and they won
(PS My kiddos’ classes have over 15 students per class so these wins are not easy wins)
6. Their language and mindset toward excellence is so much better as you would occasionally hear one say to another ‘Is this how the Bolaji-Olojo’s do/say this?’ which was something I started to teach them, using our surname because the Bolaji-Olojo’s are excellent.
And more!
Ok, if I keep going, I’ll be bragging. Forgive me, LOL. I am just giving myself the flowers I so deserve, by God’s grace!
Oh, did I mention that the school would then officially ask me to join their PTA? Yes! Hint: It is a Redeemed school so you KNOW they don’t play!
Ok, so here are a few practices that helped me. Remember, take the principles, depending on your own goals, and then apply!
1. I clarified EXACTLY what I wanted my wins to be.
Like I said, CONFIDENCE, EXCELLENCE and BEAUTIFUL HANDWRITING.
No more or less was going to get my focus.
INDEPENDENCE is such a HUGE goal for me BUT I intentionally didn’t want to focus on it YET. I knew I would NOT win at this just yet and I didn’t want to set myself up to fail.
Every morning, I would repeat it to them our three goals and explain it, just to reinforce it into their subconscious and ultimately their conscious mind.
Everybody KNEW what the goal for the school year was… everybody. Which leads me to the second…
2. I crafted teaching moments around all 3
Gosh! In any ways I could drive home any of these points with a lesson, I did it. Every thing became a teachable moment tied to these three goals. If they did something that either was for or against, I unpacked it and either hailed or redirected them. We watched videos on confidence, held bible studies on excellence, and practiced handwriting almost daily, which brings me to point 3
3. Take daily steps towards them
This one is so huge because sometimes we craft great goals and then don’t take those daily, even baby steps to achieve them, somehow magically waiting for when we can devote 10 hours or 10days or a retreat or holiday to focus on them. Not me.
We took steps on each almost daily.
For example, for handwriting, I got them a tutor that focused on HANDWRITING and then I printed out writing papers for them which they practiced daily. I also introduced coloring and insisted they coloured within the lines as that also helps handwriting.
On excellence, we coined the mantra ‘how would a Bolaji-Olojo do this?’ and we applied it to everything. If your bed wasn’t made correctly, you would do it again, like a Bolaji-Olojo, excellently!
We coined phrases to reinforce confidence like ‘track with me’ (meaning look at my face or forehead when I am talking to you or vice-versa) and we repeated it all the time.
We had confessions and mantras (learn how to craft your own confessions in the Spoken Word Party Replay HERE) around all of these. It was REAL!
And we made these practices something we did daily, which brings me to the NEXT point…
4. Trackers! Trackers!! Trackers!!!
Oh my gosh, tracking and any (self) monitoring process is so so key if behavior change is going to be sustained. There is something about seeing yourself tick off boxes as you engage in something daily, and if possible go for streaks. We are a TRACKING family and so my kiddos already know that once the tracker is out, we mean serious business.
Tracking is just you grabbing a cardboard or any kind of paper, and making a calender of sorts of the habits that you truly want to imbibe, and then every day you do it, you tick it, and when you miss, you put an X. its such a fun way to get things done with kids because they would not wanna be getting X’s. Try to stick to 3 habits per time or max 5 so you are not overwhelmed.
And speaking of overwhelmed, my point 5 will help you so…
5. Get Help
Oh my gosh! Sometimes, the things we have to do are just so much and almost wanna avalanche us, so I find that going to someone with wisdom and track record helps a lot. When I decided to pay even more attention to my kiddos academics, I went to my friend, Amaka Odunowo. Not only does she home-school her girls, she helps parents disciple their kiddos and she has such solid wins from that. I kept on harassing her for wisdom and tips, and she would also send me tests to do and all, so when I was done processing all I learned from her, I decided that what I would do with my kiddos is ‘progressive homeschooling’ which was a term I coined on my own from all my research, and that simplified stuff for me, showed me where to focus AND yet get so much results without expending any sideways energy!
Win! Win! Win!
So please get help. If not from someone personally, go online and research. Read books too, subscribe to family and parenting channels on social media and please use your data wisely!
Btw, teachers are also a major major source of HELP for parents. Please don’t be shy or proud to ask them for solid tips that you can use on your child at home because they are professionals and have so much wisdom you can drink from.
6. Progressive Reading/Homeschooling
Ok, just to put more light on progressive homeschooling and reading without too much detail, I basically would take whatever was taught them in school, and then move it from black and white to coloured. I make it come alive even more to them. I go online and show them pictures and videos. I coin stories around it, and ask them even deeper Q’s around it to get them to think deeper. I get on home schooling blogs and websites and see if there is another way I can present it to them. We carry dictionary to get even deeper understanding. I even had the same textbooks at home that they used in school and got even more suggestions from the teachers on what to buy and also do!
Of course I don’t do this for every subject, I just pick out a few strategic learnings and focus on it.
Listen Moms, the (behavioral) spillover effect is REAL!
Just doing it daily or as frequently as you can for even 30mins will expand their brains and then they can apply that intelligence to other areas
Same with progressive reading… when we read a book/novel, I tell them to retell and rewrite it for me in their own words (another way to practice handwriting while reading progressively). Gosh, this practice is such a winner! Their minds and brains literally expand. So don’t just stop at reading to them or telling them to read without having serious conversations, questionings and retellings around it.
This in particular was building both academic excellence and confidence in them! And their results progressively got better from first term to third term! Makes me so proud of my effort and ridiculously grateful to God.
I want that desperately for you too!
Gosh there is so much more I want to say but I think these ones will do for now. Like I said, if you start this summer to prepare for the new school year and apply what I shared, of course with even more leading from the Holy Spirit, you too will have an even more amazing academic year next year!
Ok, one more thing from Progressive Homeschooling; there were subjects I didn’t really pay much mind to, because I don’t consider them priority and then I also didn’t like the way they taught it in their school. Subjects like music theory, and diction, so I hardly even looked at it progressively but the spillover effect from the rest affected those subjects and they did well there too.
Will try and do the part 2 of this sometime in the coming months, so look out for that. If you have any Q’s on this, drop in the comments and I will do my best to respond if its not too winding.
P.S
Hello Queens, it’s Holly from CoachE’ here
You’ll find this videos helpful on Queen E’s YouTube channel as the summer holidays are upon us –
Incorporating Quiet Time for your kids here,
Automating core values in your kids here
Feed to Win this holiday here.
Remember to subscribe too. Thanks!
On E’Zivah reader app you’ll access resources that’ll benefit your health and family. Boys Olorun – the one year devotional for kids who love Jesus and are well behaved is a bestseller, check it out.
Download the app here for android users and here for iOS users
Make the summer holidays count for your precious kiddos with the following blog posts on
Ditching summer holiday anxiety here,
and
Breaking phone/gadget addiction in kids here
I saved the best for last! Come August/ September Queen E’ will be hosting a FREE webinar on Child Nutrition. Will send details as time draws closer so look out for that.
Enjoy the long break and make beautiful memories with your kiddos! Cheers.