448. Beyond chores: How to teach kids to notice what needs to be done and share the mental load with Sam Kelly

Sam Kelly (00:00):

It is just as important for kids to learn this skill as it is for them to learn how to read because when I think about the experience that I’ve had personally of being on the short end of the stick in terms of an inequitable partnership, that is like the loneliness, the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the resentment, the pain, the fact that it almost completely destroyed our marriage, that is the very, very last thing in the world that I want for my daughters and for my son.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:31):

Have you ever looked around your house and wondered why you seem to be the only person who notices what needs to be done? And even when your kids have chores, you may still be the only one noticing, remembering, assigning, and reminding them to actually do those chores. Hi, welcome to Securely Attached. I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, a clinical psychologist and mom of two. In this podcast, I’ve taken all of my clinical experience, current research on brain science and child psychology, and the insights I’ve gained on my own parenting journey and distilled everything down into easy to understand and actionable parenting insights so you can tune out the noise and tune into your own authentic parenting voice with confidence and calm. And today I’m joined by Sam Kelly, a mom of three and the author of the book Notice and Do. Sam’s work focuses on helping families shift from what she calls the quote one mom show to a whole family team by teaching kids not just how to help, but how to actually notice what needs to be done in the first place.

(01:35):

And that distinction is really at the heart of our conversation because when we tell our child to clear the table or clean their room, they may learn how to complete a task, but we’re still doing an important part of the work for them. We are noticing what needs attention and telling them what comes next. And Sam explains why noticing in and of itself is a skill that can be taught and why learning it can help kids develop independence, initiative, executive functioning, and a greater awareness of the invisible work that goes into caring for a home and the people in it. And we talk about how to start teaching this in really concrete practical ways, including what to do when kids push back and also how to scaffold these skills for children, all children, but also children with ADHD or really strong-willed kids or kids who need more support with executive functioning.

(02:26):

And at the heart of this conversation is something much bigger than just getting your kids to help out without being reminded. Though don’t worry, we give you lots of practical strategies to do that too, but it’s about raising kids who learn to see what other people are carrying and understand how they can contribute with the goal of eventually becoming adults who know how to share the mental load. That feels really important. So let’s get on with the conversation.

(03:01):

Hello, Sam. Welcome to the podcast.

Sam Kelly (03:03):

Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:06):

I’m really excited. Congratulations, first of all, on your book, Notice and Do. How’s it been going? I’m very excited about this.

Sam Kelly (03:14):

I’m just so excited it’s finally out and in the hands of the women and families who need it most and who have been waiting. I mean, if you’re in my community, I have been talking about this book since the moment I signed with my literary agent. So it’s been almost like three years at this point. So we are ready to find all this.

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:32):

The anticipation has been rising. That’s amazing. I mean, you’ve been doing this work for a while. This book is a piece on the top, but there’s a big journey to get to this synthesis. Can you talk a little bit, if people aren’t familiar with the work you’ve been doing, how you got into addressing burnout and parenthood and how you’ve kind of connected with, oh, this actually might solve a piece of that in a meaningful way.

Sam Kelly (03:58):

Yeah. So the origin story basically starts in the summer of 2022, and that’s when I hit a wall with my husband in terms of the then inequity in our relationship. We had been married at that point for 12 years. We had a 10-year-old, an eight-year-old, and a five-year-old. And I just was like, I can’t keep doing this. I am being completely crushed by the mental load, holding everything for everyone twenty four seven, and there need to be some real changes. So we start having the hard necessary conversations and we spend the next year laser focused on basically having my husband Chaz be able to see for himself what needs to be done and not rely on me to point it out or ask him or make him to-do lists or just cruise by a laundry basket because shrugs, someone else will do it. And I just want to say, side note, the fact that we even have to ever teach an adult man how to do these basic life skills is another symptom of the overall problem and we shouldn’t have to do that.

(05:05):

But that was my reality. We made a ton of progress in that year. So fast forward, it’s June of 2023. It’s a Friday night. I’m making a Saturday morning to-do list for my kids. And I just have this really big light bulb moment where I kind of freeze and I drop the red magic marker to the ground. I’m like, “Hold on, what am I doing? What am I doing? I just spent the last year of my life teaching an adult man how to not rely on me and my brain to notice everything, anticipate everything, point everything out. Why am I, however unintentionally, teaching my kids to rely on me and my brain to do all the noticing work for them and make a list of what needs to happen and tell them what needs to happen in order for things to may or may not actually happen.” And in that moment I was like, “I’m not perpetuating the cycle anymore. This ends here with me because kids can learn how to notice just like adults can learn how to notice.” And that’s when notice and do was born.

Dr. Sarah Bren (06:10):

Oh my God, I love that. I mean, I want to get really into the kids stuff because I know that the people who are listening are like, “Oh yeah, I have kids that do not notice or do, and I would like to change that.” But I think you bring up a really important meta problem first, which is one, I think it’s very relatable to have a partner to have an unequal kind of balance in the workload of the home. And I think that a lot of times… I talk to a lot of people in therapy, all the individual therapy with usually moms, but I also have it with dads too, but a mom who’s like, “Not only do I see what has to be fixed, but like you were saying, I’m resentful of the fact that I have to be the one, not only am I doing all of the load, but I have to then do the emotional load to change that pattern and that doesn’t feel fair.” And I like that you mentioned this sort of radical acceptance of you’re right, it doesn’t feel fair, it’s not fair.

(07:21):

And it could be pretty momentum ending if you get stuck in that non-acceptance of that piece. It isn’t fair and it’s still, if you have the skillset to see the changes that need to be made and the partner doesn’t, it’s like you kind of have to sort of do it to get it to get better. It’s like a tricky paradox, right?

Sam Kelly (07:51):

Yeah. And I think the really, really unfortunate reality is, is that you can’t control your partner. And if you happen to be married to somebody who is open and is willing and is able to do the work and the self-development to move past their own defenses, which again, shouldn’t be your responsibility to navigate expertly as a quote unquote therapist their defenses, that should be on them to do for themselves. And I talk about in the book, there’s a whole husband chapter and we address that. And at the same time, there’s so many women who have tried again and again and again with their partner and it just keeps feeling like hitting up against a brick wall and progress isn’t being made and it’s incredibly frustrating and disheartening and I mean like ragey to put it bluntly. And I think that is why notice and do feels like hope for the first time for so many women because I think so many women haven’t even realized they’ve lost hope because the journey with equity between you and a partner is going to be completely different and separate from teaching your kids.

(09:14):

And just because if you happen to be married to someone who’s like, I have so many women in my DMs who are like, I have tried and I’ve kind of just thrown in the towel in that situation because I can’t control them and it shouldn’t be my responsibility to gentle parent them. But now that I have this, it gives me hope and empowerment because I sure as hell can control what I choose to teach my kids and I’m going to set them up with something different and something better so they’re not in the same situation as I am in the future, both my sons and my daughters because inequity sucks for everyone.

Dr. Sarah Bren (09:54):

Right. It’s true. And I think it’s important if you have a partner who isn’t able to see any of these things, not even the part about being open to seeing it, right? The openness to seeing it, that’s a whole different skill set and that’s where the work can be done. But the just not noticing, the basically being desensitized to notice these things because someone has always noticed it for them, probably stemming back to their childhood, that’s the cycle breaking I think you talk about, right? It’s like they were a child probably who didn’t learn to notice and do, right? And so sometimes it’s also just about having empathy for what’s causing the oblivion or the lack of in the entrenchment in the status quo. It’s also, I feel like I talk to a lot of couples and I’ve heard some research on this too that gender roles are often like the thing we talk about, but it tends to actually be, regardless of whether it’s the male or the female or what role we are, it’s the person who wants the status quo to change that usually has the most distress in the relationship.

(11:14):

And it’s the person who the status quo works for them and isn’t causing a grading experience. They tend not to have a lot of awareness or motivation to change. And so that’s where I think the big friction in the relationship comes in. So if we’re talking about the mental load of parenthood or other things that women tend to take on more, they’re the ones that want the status quo to shift. They have the most distress in the current distribution of labor. And then it’s the more uphill battle to shift it. It’s really hard to shift it. And so we could talk a whole episode just about that and probably maybe we will one day, but I appreciate that yes, that is worth working on and there are lots of things you can do to improve that. And you can bypass it entirely if it’s exhausting and not changing and work on the rest of the family system, which is awesome that you empower people to think, just shift the orientation of where your gaze is. Where do you have control? What do you have agency for? And I’m excited to hear how you approach doing this with kids.

Sam Kelly (12:32):

Yeah. So the easiest way to get started, I would say in very, very concrete practical terms, I have an entire framework that’s very doable, very simple. There’s three steps to it, but if you’re going to take just the smallest piece right now, teaching them how to notice, start there. And you can do that in like 10 to 15 minutes. So in 10 to 15 minutes, take your kids and do what I call a noticing walk and walk around the house with them, focus on the main areas of the home. So like kitchen, living room, bathrooms, dining room, if you have one, and be very, very specific on giving them examples on what they can notice. There’s going to be so many things that you’re going to feel like this is just common sense. They should just notice. The fact that I even have to point this out to them ever feels crazy, but kids don’t know what they don’t know.

(13:25):

And when we have been the ones that have been doing all of the noticing work for everyone else, they haven’t been given a chance to see what it takes cognitively to notice things, anticipate needs. So here’s what it can sound like. If you are, for example, in the kitchen, you could say, “Okay, so I’m noticing there’s a bunch of cereal boxes left over from breakfast. We’re going to take all the cereal boxes. This is how you close it up so it doesn’t spill. We’re going to put it here in the cupboard. This is where it goes.” Then all the dirty dishes, take the dirty dishes. If there’s too much cereal left over, you can dump it in the trash so it doesn’t clog the drain, whatever. You’re going to rinse it out so it doesn’t get stuck like cement when it dries. Then let’s notice all the garbage, gather up the garbage.

(14:12):

Again, you’re going to sound unhinged, but be very, very specific and don’t assume that they know. When you’ve done that with every room, then you’ll tell them, “Okay, every day now you get to choose one notice and do of your choice. When you have done it, come tell me what you’ve done.” So you’re reinforcing good communication, that teamwork mentality gives them a chance for you to praise them. And then after you’ve done your notice and do, then you can have access to your everyday stuff. I call it preexisting motivators, like screens, your phone, hanging out with friends, going to sports practice, whatever it is. So you’re teaching them how to prioritize the family work so it actually gets done without you needing to follow them around and give them a million reminders or do the thing where it’s like, “Oh, nevermind. I’ll just do it myself.

(15:01):

It’s not happening.” And I will say for a lot of kids, you may not need to use the preexisting motivators. They might just be like, “Oh, okay,” and do it. My family is all diagnosed with ADHD, so that would never work for our family. We would have really good intentions, right? But when push came to shove, it just wouldn’t happen and it would fall between the cracks. So just like you would say, okay, if you’re going to learn how to play an instrument, you are going to practice that instrument for X amount of time every day and that’s actually how you grow the skill and the ability to play the instrument. We say, okay, noticing and this basic life skill is just as important, if not more, in my opinion. So we are going to make sure that the daily practice happens and you practice every day by picking one notice and do, and then you can have access to your everyday stuff. It’s just kind of like a basic order of operations.

Dr. Sarah Bren (15:54):

So you have them do it. I’m thinking about in terms of timing, right? Is it something that you would start the day off with or is it a certain time of day?

Sam Kelly (16:07):

No, not necessarily. No, I think doing it in the very first of the day, getting us out the door is a whole other thing in and of itself. So it’s really just whenever they choose to. So you’re giving them that freedom and ownership and you kind of just get to step back and be like, okay, this is the expectation and this is the rule, the this before that rule in the same way that you have to put on pants before you leave the house, you do your notice and do before you do the preexisting motivators. You get to choose when you want to do it. But if they’re like, “Hey mom, I’m going to go hang out with da, da, da.” You’re like, “Cool. Have you done your notice and do?” Or, “I’m going to have screen time right now. Okay. I’ll give you the remote. Have you done your notice and do?” And then that’s when you start doing it like that every day and just holding that line, then they understand that’s what is expected and they just do it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (16:54):

Got it. I like that. I like that it reminds me a little bit of what we would maybe refer to as scaffolding and a little executive functioning practices.

Sam Kelly (17:07):

Huge executive functioning.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:08):

Yeah. Like, okay, I’m going to first just break something abstract, clean the kitchen, put away the cereal. We might think that put away the cereal is concrete, but actually, like you just described, it can be a relatively abstract construct for young kids or neurodiverse kids in the sense that it’s like, well, it’s actually a multi-step process. It’s actually, I have to first notice that the cereal is on the counter. I also then have to put the bag away, seal the box, take it to where it belongs. It is a multi-step process. And then when you actually take the time to really break it down with them, because then there’s that accompaniment and that it’s not a do this directive. It’s a, let me show you. We could do it together so that sort of accompaniment piece. And then, I don’t know, and then you slowly peel away the support.

Sam Kelly (18:12):

Slowly fade back. Yeah. It’s like teaching a kid to read in the same way that you wouldn’t hand a two-year-old crime and punishment and be like, “What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you read this? Nevermind. I’ll just do it myself.” Or like, “It’s fine. You don’t have to learn how to do this because it takes too long and it’s too hard and I’ll just read to you forever.” It’s like, “Okay, these are the letters. These are the sounds the letters make. Then we’re going to blend them. This is how you blend them.” And in my mind, it is just as important for kids to learn this skill as it is for them to learn how to read. Because when I think about the experience that I’ve had personally of being on the short end of the stick in terms of an inequitable partnership, that is the loneliness, the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the resentment, the pain, the fact that it almost completely destroyed our marriage, that is the very, very last thing in the world that I want for my daughters and for my son.

(19:04):

And if I have an opportunity to teach them, however, gradually, like you said, scaffolding, I call it get them on the learning ladder, then I have an opportunity to help them rewrite the story, to carve a different path so they don’t slip into this default that society and our culture expects them to.

Dr. Sarah Bren (19:26):

I also love that it’s for both girls and boys, right? Let’s be honest, your daughter’s going to get a lot of implicit teaching around how to anticipate other people’s needs and how to practice noticing because we have a gender biased world that we live in. We don’t even notice that we’re doing it, but it’s still this is a family systems practice, right? Everyone in the family system practices it and we do it equally. We do it out loud. We’re pulling back the veil of some of the automatic thinking that I do. I’m teaching you. I’m saying it out loud instead of… It’s like when I’m helping parents teach their kids emotion regulation skills, for example, one of the things I will always say to them is narrate your coping strategies. When you get frustrated, say it out loud, say what you’re doing internally to shift your thinking or calm your nervous system down, narrate it because you do it automatically, you do it invisibly and they don’t know that it’s happening.

(20:29):

And so it’s like modeling the noticing, modeling the making the plan, organizing the steps, slowly executing them one by one. And then I think we take for granted that that’s not intuitive for young kids or older kids who haven’t been taught these home skills in this way.

Sam Kelly (20:53):

Exactly. And I’m so glad you brought up the piece of the invisible cultural expectations for girls versus boys because that’s a huge piece of this actually, where I have a whole chapter where we talk about what I call the cycle breaking scripts. So giving kids words that are age appropriate, simple, so they can understand in ways that click and stick for them concepts like societal expectations for men and women and families, burnout, what the mental load means, what being a cycle breaker means, the ripple effect of this work for them because it’s not enough just to model it for them and teach them how we want to do that because there’s a difference between knowing how to clean a bathroom, let’s say, and knowing how to clean a bathroom, knowing how to notice when the bathroom needs to be cleaned for yourself, and knowing why it’s important for you to be able to do that on your own versus relying on a woman or mom to point it out for you.

(21:57):

And when all three of those pieces are clicked into place, that’s when the whole narrative shifts.

Dr. Sarah Bren (22:04):

Yes, yes. I love that. That is so valuable because you’re really taking it beyond a life skill to a relational skill.

Sam Kelly (22:12):

Yes. Yeah. Giving some words and the language around these concepts. So because like we were talking about the cultural default, the cultural expectations are so, so loud. And I actually grew up in a home where I had equity modeled kind of perfectly. My parents would take turns supporting each other in their work, in their careers. And sometimes my dad was the stay at home breadwinner or stay at home parent and my mom was the breadwinner and vice versa. But I still fell into this trap and it was because I didn’t have the words and language around these concepts and I didn’t understand that as a girl and eventually woman and mom, I would just be by default expected to do all the noticing work. So when kids have the language and they know what mental load means, they know how to use it in a sentence, they know how to take initiative and they know why it’s important, then it’s like, okay, then we’re actually changing things.

Dr. Sarah Bren (23:13):

Yeah. Yeah. It locates it in a story, in a narrative, right? It’s yes, you need to know how to put the cereal away or clean the bathroom because it helps you as a functioning adult or just a functioning person, but it has greater meaning than that because it’s about how we show one another that we care for one another and that’s how we help participate in our family system.

Sam Kelly (23:38):

Right. The deeper why.

Dr. Sarah Bren (23:41):

I feel like that it’s not always going to, I would imagine, immediately be like, “Oh, well, in that case, I’m always going to do this.”

Sam Kelly (23:48):

Oh no, absolutely.

Dr. Sarah Bren (23:49):

Even if it clicks.

Sam Kelly (23:49):

Yeah, no. My kids, I mean, my now nine year old, he’s almost nine, he can use mental load in a sentence ever since he was like five years old. But just because he has an awareness around what it means doesn’t mean he’s like, “I’m so excited I can go do my laundry now because I finally understand that I’m breaking generational cycles. It all makes sense. Yay.” It’s not about that. We’re not delusional that way.

Dr. Sarah Bren (24:15):

It doesn’t translate into delighted cooperation all the time.

Sam Kelly (24:20):

And that’s fine, but they still understand. They still get it. They don’t have to love it, but there’s still that basic awareness and understanding. I’m thinking about a story that comes to mind just to kind of illustrate this concept. A mom DM’d me and told me about her son in sixth grade, and he had come home from school with a little award slip. In library, I guess he had seen that the tables were all dirty or cluttered or something. So he just took it upon himself and took initiative and cleaned up the library tables in the library and was obviously blown away by this, wrote him up a little good job, thank you award certificate. So his mom was talking to him about it at home and he was like, “Wow, bud, this is…” Or she said, “This is so amazing. Can you tell me about this?” And he was just so nonchalant, she said, and just shrugged and was like, “Mom, it’s just doing the mental load.

(25:17):

No big deal.” I have so many stories from so many different families of kids all ages all around the world who are like, “Yeah, the mental load is just a fact of life in the same way that the sky is blue and the grass is green because they’ve been taught and they’ve been given the language and they get it.”

Dr. Sarah Bren (25:37):

Yeah. And kids do, they really do get it. I also could see a scenario where if you’re a parent of even a teenager, or I’m sure this works for them too, or like a middle childhood, a kid who’s not a little kid, right? Yeah, but like a pre-teen. I think we all accept that we have to really break things down for young kids and we have a lot of empathy for how it could be repetitive for us and confusing for them in a befuddling way because we can repeat it a million times before they get it. We have empathy for that. But I think a lot of parents very understandably are like, “I should not have to explain this to my sixth grader.” They should really get it. I think it’s helpful to remind ourselves that we can get, what’s the word I’m looking for?

(26:27):

Desensitized. We start to prune away awareness of things that we aren’t oriented to. Where our attention goes tends to be where all of our neural connections really get strong and we get sort of inadvertently and explicitly trained to notice certain things. Usually what our parents tend to notice, what we notice, our kids notice, or what we put our attention on, our kids put their attention on. When we are default kind of autopilot doing all the load, the mental load, the work of childcare and home care, and we’re not practicing this intentional, explicit, “Ah, look at all these cereal boxes on the counter,” or, “Oh, look at this sink full of dishes. What comes next?” It’s proposing the question before answering it, and that helps orient attention. There’s a cognitive thing that’s happening here, like a learning thing where it’s like if we put attention on a problem, not the solution, but the problem, it helps our kids start to pay attention to the problem.

(27:48):

But a lot of times we just jump to the solution. We’re like, “Clean your room, clear the table.” We are actually telling them what to do. When we tell a kid what to do, or we give them a chore to do, it’s usually in the form of the solution, not posing the question of what’s not being done or what’s next, what’s needed. So I also really like that that’s a small tweak to something that might feel really kind of they’re the same thing. What’s the difference between saying clean the table versus, “Oh, look at this table. What’s the next thing we need to do?” It’s like that’s the scaffolding piece of like, “I take you all the way to the finish line, but I don’t cross it for you. I just let you do the crossing.” And that’s, I think, a big part of how we teach to notice, which I think we don’t realize to do that often.

(28:42):

I want to take a quick pause here to share a resource that I think you may find helpful. Parenting can be challenging. Maybe your child is struggling with big emotions, behavioral challenges, or difficult diagnosis. Maybe you’re finding yourself caught in power struggles, feeling overwhelmed, or simply wondering if you’re responding in the ways that you hope to. My group practice, Upshur Bren Psychology Group, offers virtual parent coaching worldwide to help support you through all of these different stages of parenting, so you don’t have to figure it out alone. So whether you’re looking for help with a specific challenge or you simply want to feel more confident in your parenting, we’re here to help. We offer a wide range of support designed to meet you wherever you are. That might mean a one-time session to walk through a specific challenge and come away with a clearer plan.

(29:33):

It might mean a handful of sessions while you work through a particularly difficult phase, or it might mean ongoing support from someone who can really get to know your family and help you navigate the challenges that come up along the way. If you’d like to learn more, you could schedule a free 30-minute consult by visiting upshurbren.com. That’s U-P-S-H-U-R-B-R-E-N.com. Okay, let’s get back to Sam.

Sam Kelly (30:05):

I have a lot of different really simple low lift phrases that you can use to help continually teach in very easy ways for you. And just like you were saying, if you are in a room like, “Oh, hey, before you head out, I’m noticing three things. I’m noticing three things. Can you notice the same three things I’m noticing? Or can you notice just three things, whatever they are? Or there is something in this room,” say it’s like an overflowing garbage can. “There is something in this room that really needs to be noticed. Do you think you can see it? What can you see? “So there’s very, very simple things or even just like,” Hold on, before you leave the table, notice and do. “And it just feels so much easier and so much better. And you’re reinforcing the fact that in order for anything to get done in the home, somebody has to first notice it.

(31:04):

So even more than the actual doing, you can also focus your praise when they do it on the noticing like,” Hey, “instead of thanks for taking out the trash. “Hey, you noticed that that garbage was overflowing. Thanks so much for noticing that. You’re so great at noticing.” Or even just like, “Hey, thanks for carrying the mental load on that.”

Dr. Sarah Bren (31:23):

Yeah. Because that really is the distinction, I think, between what we’re trying to teach in this moment to reduce the cycle of perpetuating this oblivion. It’s not doing. The doing is a byproduct of noticing. Yes. It’s the noticing. That’s the thing. I’m thinking of a client that I was just talking to who was like, “I want so desperately. I know it’s not realistic. I know it’s always going to happen, but my wish is for all of my needs to be anticipated by my partner.” I don’t even care if they do them. I just want them to say, “I noticed you needed that.” You want to be seen. Or I’m holding you in my mind. And that’s the thing we’re teaching. We’re teaching them how to be more aware of the environment, of what another person is carrying, how they can participate. The actual doing is a byproduct.

(32:22):

We don’t actually have to teach the doing. I think this is really an underrated strategy. I’m like, “Ha, I’m really glad you wrote a book about this. I think this could be really useful.”

Sam Kelly (32:35):

Yeah. And I’m glad that you brought up the noticing people aspect of it too, because that’s a whole part of it that we go into as well. Can you notice people? What is that like? What does it mean to actually see someone? And I even give a script in the book of how to teach this concept of instead of just saying, “Hey, thank you,” you can say, “Hey, thanks for seeing me.” And when you start saying stuff like that to your kids, the first time they reflect that back to you, the first time your kids say, “Hey mom, thanks for everything you did today. I see you. I see you.” And hearing that from your child is like, it’s really, really everything. And so there’s just so many different ramifications that I call it the dandelion effect. So when you’re blowing a dandelion and the seeds just go everywhere and they even fly past the four walls of your home, they’re going to start affecting how your kid shows up, like I talked about at school or in their relationships, in their friendships, at their friends’ houses.

(33:39):

I actually had an experience with my daughter. This was two years ago. She was 12, I think at the time. And she went to a Christmas party at her friend’s house and she came home and told me this story about how her mom, this girl’s mom had cut out these really big, 12 inch, really intricate snowflakes. And each snowflake had a pair and she had scattered them all around the living room floor. And she told the girls, okay, the game is to see how many matches you can find the quickest. And my daughter was like, hold on, hold on. Who made all of these snowflakes? These are amazing. These are so beautiful. This must have taken so much time. And everyone was kind of quiet looking at each other and without missing a beat, she stood up and started slow clapping and said, I said, this Katherine’s mom did this.

(34:34):

Round of applause for Katherine’s mom. This is incredible. And she wasn’t telling me, look like a person I am. It was just understanding that invisible labor is real work and it deserves to be seen and recognized. And when kids understand it, they can appreciate it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (34:54):

That’s it. It’s not even that you’ve taught her it needs to be praised. It needs to be valued.

Sam Kelly (35:01):

Like make sure to say thank you to Katherine’s mom for, which I mean, I do say obviously, but it’s right. She wasn’t doing it to check a box.

Dr. Sarah Bren (35:08):

But the skill she was exercising that led to the appreciation was being able to notice more than what was the subtle things. All the behind the scenes. Yes, the behind the scenes. Oh, someone must have made this. That’s a learned observation that comes from us explaining that.

Sam Kelly (35:35):

Yeah. And them being able and given the chance to participate in the work of carrying that mental load in age appropriate ways because we want our kids to say, thank you so much for all you’re doing every day for me. But also how can we expect them to know what we’re doing every day for them if they’ve never been given the opportunity to participate in the work of what we are doing for them? And when they participate in the work, they start to see what goes into it and then they can appreciate it and express that appreciation on a much deeper level because they have that understanding and awareness.

Dr. Sarah Bren (36:10):

Yeah. I’m curious, do you have examples of things that either you’ve practiced or you’ve talked to people who have practiced to help their kids notice and do that surprised you or areas where it was like, man, that one really needed to get, we had to troubleshoot that one for a while. What were some of the low hanging fruit and what were the real challenging things to start to learn to notice and do?

Sam Kelly (36:37):

Yeah. A low hanging fruit makes me think of a story where a mom just like a couple weeks ago DM’d me and she sent me a picture of her bathroom toilet. And there was a full toilet paper roll sitting on the back of the toilet and she explained this is like the tiniest thing ever. But the fact that my kids saw that the toilet paper roll was getting empty, it wasn’t empty yet, but it was getting low and they anticipated that there was going to need to be a refill and they just handled that. They put it there. When I walked in and saw that, it was like, oh my gosh, I’m not the only one that’s seeing these things. And because the mental load is made up of a million tiny little pieces, we don’t realize how much we’ve been carrying until even the smallest bits start getting lifted.

(37:25):

So I would say don’t underestimate the power of the small pieces. And then also she knew with time, the noticing would get more and bigger and more frequently, but even those smallest pieces count and move the needle and made a difference. And then in terms of struggle or pushback, that’s 100% normal. If you talk to your kids about this, set the expectation, you’re raising the bar on what’s required for them and they grumble or roll their eyes or bro, this is so stupid. It doesn’t mean it’s not working. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It just means congrats you have normal human kids.

(38:05):

Me too. Yay. Resistance is normal. Pushback is normal. Don’t let it mean anything. It is temporary and just keep going. And I give a lot of strategies for how to address resistance and pushback in the easiest way for you. Because again, my kids all have ADHD. I have one kid who is incredibly strong-willed, highly resistant. They have thrown everything that could possibly be thrown at me in the years that we’ve been doing this. So if this only worked for compliant, mild, relatively easy, obedient kids, I would 100% not be here. I would actually be listening to this and be like, wow, that is so cute. I love that that works for you and your kids.

(38:55):

My kids would never, my kids would never. So I have all the empathy in the world for that and I would be feeling that exact same way. And I’m here to tell you that it was tailor made with not only exhausted busy moms in mind because that’s who I was when I created it, but also for the outside the box kids who need specific strategies that work with their unique wiring so we can support them as well in a way that doesn’t make us want to scream into the pillow forever.

Dr. Sarah Bren (39:25):

I deeply appreciate that because that is also in my house.

Sam Kelly (39:29):

I got you. I got you. Yeah.

Dr. Sarah Bren (39:33):

We are kids outside the middle of the bell curve family and that’s who I work with too. If this cookie cutter strategy has worked for the kids on the tail end of the bell curve, then it wouldn’t be so frustrating.

Sam Kelly (39:50):

Right, right. The chapter on ADHD will feel like a godsend, honestly, to any parent with neurodivergent kid.

Dr. Sarah Bren (39:58):

So preview it a tiny bit. I’m curious. Is it that you are modifying it for kids who are a little bit less more rigid or more reactive or more resistant or demand avoidant, whatever? Are you creating a modification for that or are you just explaining how the system still works because it addresses something different and you’re teaching it in a different way always?

Sam Kelly (40:23):

Two pieces. One is understanding that there’s boundaries that we’re going to hold as the parent leader/teacher for them. A few of those boundaries are, I’m not going to fight with you about it. I’m not going to get pulled into an argument with you about it. I call it not showing up to the fight. Another one is really holding the boundary on the preexisting motivator piece, on that order of operations, this before that. And then the third boundary is trying to be as consistent as you can for them because these kids really, really need to see that you are like the sturdy trellis that they can count on to guide their growth upwards. If they’re like the vine and we’re trying to help the climbing plant grow up, if you are not the sturdy trellis for them, they’re going to be growing all over the ground and taking over everything around them.

(41:12):

So being that person for them, again, it doesn’t have to be perfectly consistent, but the more consistent you are with the expectations for them, the easier it is for both of you. And then the other piece of that is giving them ownership. So being able to say, “Hey bud, you got this. Here’s how you can do it. This is the expectation. You can do whenever you want to do it. You can do it whatever way you want to do it, but I know you can do this.” And then we’ll teach them like scaffold with very specific strategies that will help support their brain. Things like body doubling. Something I did with my son was counting out loud for him slowly while he did something and that helped him maintain his focus while he completed multiple tasks in a row and now he doesn’t need that anymore.

(41:59):

So just different tools like that, that are like, in reality, this is actually really easy for you to do. How hard is it for me to sit with my daughter and hang out with her while she tidies her room and we listen to music together? And I did that for a few months and now she doesn’t need to. And now she’ll be sometimes like, “Hey mom, I chose to tidy my room or reset my room.” We call it reset for my daily notice and do. And she’s not doing it because I’m policing her. She’s not doing it because I’m micromanaging it or forcing her. She’s doing it because she knows how, which makes it so much less overwhelming. And eventually it was like the fade back thing, right? I call it letting go of the bike seat. When you’re teaching a kid how to ride a bike and you’re holding onto the bike seat, you’re running behind them the whole time, we’re going to eventually let go so they can ride on their own.

Dr. Sarah Bren (42:44):

Yeah. But I think that’s so important. Sometimes we skip those sometimes many intermediary steps that require our accompaniment or even our active participation initially and we want them to just do. I know. And then it’s hard to tolerate the not doing. And so we end up kind of doing the all or nothing where it’s like, I want you to do it or I’m going to do it versus being willing to double duty for a while where you’re like, I’m going to do and you’re going to do. And I might do that a lot for a while initially.

Sam Kelly (43:20):

Exactly. And if we want to shift our family from the one mom show, I call it, to a whole family team, we have to be willing as our kids are learning to team up with them when they need it most. And just always bring it back to teaching your kids to tie their shoes, teaching your kids to read. Just let them practice. Let them stumble. Let them figure it out because you know they will get it. And in the same way you wouldn’t be like, “My kids are never going to learn how to tie their shoes. This is hopeless.” They will get it and it will click, but you need to allow the process to be a process.

Dr. Sarah Bren (43:57):

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love this. I’m actually really excited about this. I think this is going to be a fantastic resource for families. If people are like, “Okay, I would really like this for my… My kids need this. I need them to need this.” How can people connect with you and learn more about this? Where can they get your book notice and do?

Sam Kelly (44:17):

Yes. Okay. So the easiest way would just be to follow me on Instagram, @samkelly_world. I have a lot of resources there. And then the book is available anywhere where you buy books.

Dr. Sarah Bren (44:28):

Amazing. Well, we’ll put links to your Instagram and the book in the show notes and thank you so much for coming on.This was really fun.

Sam Kelly (44:36):

Hey, thanks for having me. This has been great.

Dr. Sarah Bren (44:44):

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