How Can We Teach Our Kids to STAND UP for what they believe in with Mr. Chazz

Mr. Chazz is continuing the conversation with me.

Now that we UNDERSTAND better, how can we RAISE OUR CHILDREN with this in mind?

CHAZZ: I think that there are other ways that we can create a shock factor or bring attention to a cause and I think that as parents, as teachers, what we could do is we can actively teach our children, our classrooms how to protest, how to get creative.

• There are the old school ways of writing a letter to your senator, the protesting, the peaceful protests in the street.

• But now, I think we can be even more innovative with technology.

• We all have cell phones, we all take videos. Also, tweeting senators, also creating videos.

• You know, something that I am doing in terms of trying to making TikTok do things through social media to create awareness.

I think that if a whole generation grows up knowing and understanding different ways to make their voices heard. They grow in the art or skill of being able to do that with the combination of people, the next generation of humans, being more empathetic, and listening more because of the lessons taught by us, our generation. I think that is what going to make the world a better place. I think that is what is going to make the rights and alluding happen less likely. I think that is what it is going to make, change happen more effectively. 

Right now, it is civil rights. But there are always going to be things in this country that we are going to want to improve and change and it is important that we learn the tools and the arts and the strategies on how to do that.

LAUREN: Okay so good. Okay, so a couple of things you said that just kind of stuck out to me like we need to allow for compromise. Sometimes we need to listen to our kids. We need to teach them that they can have a different opinion than us. We cannot do that by just saying, "Oh do not backtalk me" or "Go to your room, I do not want to hear from you when you say that." You know, I hear that all the time. It is like "My kid keeps back-talking me" or "they keep saying I hate you, mom." I say, do not take it personally, they are communicating a feeling.

So maybe it is not okay to hit the mom or maybe it is not okay to break stuff when they are angry but it is okay to disagree. So you can say "it is okay to cry, it is okay to be upset." But what can we do about it? That is more productive in that feeling because nobody really wants to tear apart their favorite thing when they are angry. They are just feeling upset and that is how it comes out. So what are some other ways that can channel that emotion? 

CHAZZ: I am just going to highlight something that you said that I think was very beneficial for anyone listening. When you see a behavior, especially if it is something that is concerning to you, we can get frustrated and irritated about it. But it is going to be so much more productive if we try to understand what that behavior is trying to communicate to us and how we can teach them through the challenge that they are having as opposed to just missing it or punishing it.

So I think that is the common thread of progress, trying to teach through our challenges as opposed to punishing. Even talking about, you know, again, adults with the whole with the prison industry, rehabilitation has been proven to be a lot more effective than just punishing people who have you know broken the law. If you just focus on punishment, they are going to be more likely to do it again. But if you focus on helping them through whatever challenges that they are facing, they are going to be more likely to be a productive member of society and provide actual value to society. 

LAUREN: Yeah. Help them get the skills that they need to function as an adult. Okay. So one of the things you had asked me before this was

How would you teach your child to stand up for what they believe in?

LAUREN: That question really has been on my mind for a couple of days. Because on paper, I want to do all these awesome things. But sometimes I am like, am I allowing it in my home all the time? Like, am I allowing Charlie to say "no, I do not want to eat that" or "no, I do not want to." Sometimes they have these strong opinions and I say, "You know, what? No, we need to do this" or whatever. Sometimes it is okay as a parent to say we do need to be kind to our neighbors are we do need to include them because that is nice. But we can allow for the opinion and for if they do not like something just say I do not like it.

So one of the ways I do this in my home and I want to do better after you have brought this to my attention is I tried to teach my kids to be assertive and I have always tried to do this.

So if one of my children and another of my child are fighting, I first go to the child who is hurt and say hey, did you like that? They say "No, I do not like that." Then you need to say I do not like that. Before I deal with whatever the child did, they hit or took something, I go to the child who was the victim and say if you do not like that, you need to say, I do not like that. I have them verbally communicate that because I want them to be able to be assertive on their own on the playground, at school. So if they do not like something, I want them to say, I do not like it. So even when my husband and my son, they start wrestling and he starts getting to his breaking point, instead of crying and running away, I want him to say I do not like that. Then when he says I do not like that, my husband and I, we listen to that. We say, okay, you do not like that. That means I am going to stop. So part of it is teaching them to say and then part of them is modeling the response ourselves. Like if they do not like something, okay, I will stop and then problem solve. Like how could we do this differently, do you want to take a break, you know just different things. But that is something that I want to be better at my home. That something that I have tried to do, especially when the siblings are fighting. But I feel like I need to be better when they disagree with me. 

CHAZZ: Yeah. That can be hard and you know to point out.

• When you are teaching, you know, your child to say, "I do not like that," you are giving them power.

• You are teaching them that they do have power over their body or what they choose to do.

• That is powerful for them to learn.

That is something that they... Because they may not even recognize or realize that they cannot say that or that is what they are supposed to say in that. They can be hard as an adult because one, I think just the conditioning of how most of us were raised. I mean most of us were raised in that way and just because I said so. So what we do is to default back into how we were raised when we are trying to grow and develop our children. It is something that we do have to relearn. Then the other thing is really going to the processes. Okay, well why am I asking them to do this? Is this really a safety thing? Sometimes it takes some reflection on ourselves and not just being an on autopilot because we are so busy because we have our own need that also by the way need to be met. Maybe we are trying to cook or maybe we are trying to go to the grocery store. Maybe we are trying to tidy up and clean. There are things that we feel like we need to do too. But I always say that we are always going to be most successful when we match our needs as an adult with their needs as children. I think when they learn that their needs matter too and that they can speak up for their needs and they also learn especially as they get older, in terms of saying like articulating why they want the things that they want.

I think that is really powerful and I think another thing that can be challenging to do, also when in school, like

What do you do when you know an administrator or a teacher of your child says your child is not listening. “I am trying to teach a lesson and he keeps on asking questions?” How do we allow advocacy when there is a third party?

Lauren: Well, I think that is hard because a lot of times if teachers bringing that up then they have their own opinion on how it should be going. Like if a teacher is not responsive to that kind of questioning, that it is going to be hard to change their mind, you know what I mean?

So here is an example. There is a child who was getting into trouble all the time in their classroom. Like I do not know, third grade and he was getting in trouble for talking and he was being to social. The teacher said he is just too social in my classroom. I cannot have him being this social in my classroom. I told them, Well, is he doing anything wrong? She is just like no. I am like, so is he clingy? She is like he is just too friendly and I do not know how to control it. I am like, well, here is the thing like that is a great skill for him to have.

So as the teacher, instead of punishing him for being social and friendly, how about she uses that in her classroom as a way to have him like usual skills in a way that is productive to her teaching.  Instead of saying okay, I will talk to him about it at home so he would not be friends with people. But what this is doing is saying you cannot be friends with people or you going to be isolated in a corner and classroom or something.

So instead I said, okay, why don’t you have him pass out the papers or have him be the door greeter whenever everyone comes in from recess, or have like 20 minutes where everybody can just chat or something. So I was like, how can we take that “negative behavior” and turn it into something that can be useful in the classroom. So in the example that you gave where the teacher does not like the questioning or whatever. Say a teacher told a parent that as a parent I would say, “I encourage questioning on my home, I encourage them to disagree and I think it is really helpful. Is there a way you can incorporate some time for a debate or discussion in your classroom in addition to what you are teaching?”

I do agree that they need to respect the teacher but is there a way that we can bring a productive conversation in the classroom so the other voices can be heard. 

CHAZZ: Mhm. Yeah. That is powerful and I love that too. Especially the example of the social child. That might be that child's superpower. That might be the child who just loves being so social and might be really, especially for teaching and we are honing kind of that skill. That might be the child who organizes the protest peacefully and gets all the right people in the room that really does create progress. But I think the other part of the conversation is that that teacher has needs too where they may be feeling a need of not quite feeling secure in their position because they may be getting pressure from outside forces that kids have to have this score, this score, this certain amount of my numbers on test scores or they have to know this specific information. So it may make them, the teacher feels like, okay, well I just need to get through this, which I think is a whole another conversation. Maybe we can do another podcast on that one day. 

I think my main thing and my main goal at least right now is to help people understand each other's perspectives. I just did my most recent, I think was one of my recent TikTok was on just saying that. It is okay because I have been seeing a lot of people on social media, almost feel like we understand again. I understand the sentiment that it is coming from. People do not think, I see like you are silent in the face of this atrocity, but what is going on right now? Like we hear you loud and clear. I think that some people just may not know exactly what to say, they might still be processing or learning themselves. I think that it is okay and I think that we need to allow people the time to process and learn and ask questions and understand what is going on. Not just pressure people to judge it. Just go out and speak. There is a lot of different ways and this is what I am talking about in terms of like know the art of the protest. There is a lot of different ways that you can support a movement and it is not necessarily your fault that you do not fully understand systemic racism or the way other people are feeling. lIt is okay.

One of the things that I pointed out is that, and America, we are largely taught from a Eurocentric point of view that being we were taught from the perspective of Europeans and that is not wrong but that is why diversity, in general, is important.

How do I teach my children to be accepting of other races and not reinforces stereotypes?

• I think one part of it is being aware of the media they are consuming.

• Maybe sometimes asking them questions and maybe helping them process.

• But another thing is I think sometimes if you have never met a Native American or African American or a Spanish person and your only interaction is through things that you see in media. We are in a world where a lot of times the media has a tendency to reinforce negative stereotypes. That is what you are going, that is where your opinion is probably going to be. If you have friends of varying cultures, go over to their house and eat their food and kind of learn about their culture. Then invite them over to your house because you have an important culture too.

We can all be better from learning a little bit more about each other and I think that increases the empathy that we can have for each other and understanding that we can have for each other.

I think that only makes these conversations stronger and more powerful.

Lauren: Behavior is communication and behavior is kind of a symptom of what is happening inside our hearts, our needs that are not being met. If we can recognize that behavior that's happening, looting, rioting, angry voices, people stealing. All of these things, related to this, not really do this. All of these things are communicating an unmet need, anger. You know something that is happening in the heart. So if we can understand people from that perspective and say, you know, what behaviors communication, they are trying to communicate this is obviously, if you know not as effective, but as you said, if the rioting was not happening, a lot of us probably wouldn't be still talking about this. 

So sometimes that behavior does need to escalate that level. It is like when you are in the classroom and a kid just starts like punching all the kids, if he was just like sneakily doing some behaviors, we would not have noticed it. But now he is punching all the kids, now we got to figure out what he is communicating. Anyways, that is how I feel. Is there anything you want to end with? Summary? 

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