How to Help Your Child Be Happy and Brilliant

Okay. So, so what's up with Alana this week?

Well, she finished up her preschool. She goes to a Spanish immersion preschool for 2 half days. She's done great. The teachers there are very proud of her. Alana is one of 2 students in the class, according to her teachers, that speak Spanish without any English accent.

Wow.

Doing a great job there. She's very helpful. She's sweet. She's a great person. I mean, I go on and on about her all the time, but, uh, She really is pretty remarkable and easygoing and flexible. So we're lucky.

What's the structure of this preschool? What do they actually do at the preschool?

Herd cats, from what I can tell. But so they get there and they do arts and crafts and the teachers go and help the students and they try and encourage them to use Spanish. They help them use Spanish words they're learning in the rest of the class in that free time or in that art time, snack time. They go to the bathroom together, they play, they sing songs. They had a graduation performance for us, graduation performance, and it was really cool. Alana knows the months of the year in Spanish but not in English and other things. But, you know, so Alana's takeaway from there I think is good socialization, to use that term. The students there are all pretty good. They all come from pretty good parents who have taken the time and money to invest in their children and They're all nice kids. I feel like Alana has not picked up anything but good habits there. I feel like she's learned a lot about how to play with children and get along with children and be in an environment of 20, 25 children, which doesn't really get that otherwise aside from playgrounds. Yeah.

And everything is— the adults do everything in Spanish or almost everything in Spanish?

Everything. There's 3 teachers for like 15 to 20 kids depending on who shows up. Um, Maria, Miss Leticia, and Miss Martha. And they're all first-generation immigrants and they do a great job. The kids love them. I feel like Amara really, really gets a lot out of it.

But this doesn't satisfy her need to go to school? She can't just keep going here for a little while?

It has scarcely whetted her appetite. I'm not sure if whetted is the right tense of—

Yeah, that makes sense. So can she go there next year or is next year she is eager to go to preschool?

She can. She has one more year there before she goes to quote unquote kindergarten. One year to develop alternative solutions.

Well, we discussed briefly the possibility of you kind of either creating a homeschool co-op or a little private school. What are your thoughts on that?

Full steam ahead. I want to do it. I like the part-time nature of Yak Academy. It gives some structure to Alana and gives her something to look forward to. It's something concrete to wake up early in the morning for, but not 5 days a week, not every day, not to the point where it bores her.

Yep.

There's another— so she has the option of doing 2 or 3 days a week in Spanish. We have her in 2 days right now. Maybe next year we'll do 3 days. A few other students do 2 days in Chinese and 3 days in Spanish, so they're there 5 days a week. Their parents have found that to be a preferable alternative to quote-unquote daycare, and I'm sure it would be.

There's a— here in Austin, there's a one-day school which is kind of a halfway house between a school and homeschooling, where it's one day taught by regular teachers And then, you know, they get assignments and so forth, and the students then do the homework at home. I don't know that that's the perfect model for you, but I really like sort of eliminating the— most people think either I'm homeschooling or I'm creating a school or sending my kids to a private school or whatever, but I like to think of it as a continuum where, you know, it sounds like Alana needs certain— she needs the social contact and she needs kind of the rituals or wants the rituals of school. But, you know, what does that mean exactly? You know, it could mean— I know little alternative schools with 5 kids, 10 kids, and, you know, if you and your wife can't do it, or the other parents, then it's not that expensive to hire, you know, if you find good people and, you know, it's part-time work for them, hire them to do a few hours a day or something.

No, no, that's definitely the angle we're or the path that we're trying to move down. I'm actually meeting with that guy Jordan that you connected me with today. His child is 4, so it's right about the same age as Alana. Alana has another little friend, a couple other friends that are in San Diego that just the 4 or 5 of them could be a sizable and interesting group.

Yeah, and then, you know, you probably have to check in on zoning. I know some places over a certain number of kids, then You know, you can't do childcare over a certain number of kids. You know, and if on the other hand, there are places, sometimes there are, say, churches that have a Sunday school and their facility is available during the week. I've helped create schools in strip malls next to pawn shops and martial arts centers. And, you know, so, you know, if you really want to get into this, there are all sorts of alternatives.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I love the idea of doing it next to a martial arts studio or next to or at a park or having it just be a moving, moving, moving school, mobile school. You know, at the zoo there's no shortage of vacant rooms that they have set aside for special events that almost never happen. Same thing at the Children's Museum, same thing at the Science Museum, same thing at restaurants. I mean, there's hundreds of restaurants who are closed here from night until evening, and there's no reason why students couldn't host learning sessions and Hangouts and whatnot in a restaurant. I think there's a lot of options, and we definitely want to do something in that vein.

So it is— I have known kids that just love the idea of school, and I don't know if it's temporary or long-term for Alana, but to what extent do you— I mean, I'm thinking if she really needs it, you can have tests or, you know, How do you think just if she was hanging out with older kids, it would, or more kids, it would satisfy her? What will it take to satisfy Alana's need for school?

Well, that's a good question. I think one is friends and one is children. The other is she seems to like the structure. I think, you know, she's seen some movies, seen some TV shows. She knows that it's like normal to go to school or that's what people do and you have to bring a backpack and little things like that really, really tickle her. I think 5 days a week, a couple of bullies, and realizing that she's way ahead of the pack and not learning anything could take the shine off real quick. But at the same time, that hasn't happened with your Spanish school, so—

Right. Well, and there are some kids who really do just plain love school, and I describe it as loving the ritual of school. I've known adults, you know, I hated school, but I've known adults who loved going to school and things like the lockers and the backpack, and it's a ritual, and there's some people love the ritual. So, you know, the other thing is you can kind of create a little bit of ritual. I don't know what it would be, but I would say, yeah, maybe try to figure out what Alana needs. Does she feel somewhat satisfied by the Spanish immersion? Quasi?

She likes it. She's learned a ton. Her Spanish vocabulary and grasp of Spanish has just grown in leaps and bounds this school year. I'd say that's due to both her teachers who are outstanding and really take the time to give Alana a little extra special attention because she's so good at Spanish and wants to learn. Also watching, she watches a lot of TV shows and whatnot in Spanish. We don't let her watch anything in English. She has to watch it in Spanish.

Excellent. You know, just it occurs to me that right now, you know, she's just learning to read, but I suspect she will develop very rapidly as a reader in the next year and also, you know, rudimentary mathematics. And so one of the things that could satisfy her quite a lot is A year from now, if you were to identify— there's, there are all kinds of sort of grade level, you know, kind of curricula. And without doing the kind of mind-numbing curricula, it could be very satisfying with her, for her, if she was able to do something online that said, oh, now I'm doing first grade material, now I'm doing second grade. And I think very rapidly she could be doing third, fourth, fifth grade material.

Definitely.

And then if she realizes, oh, you mean You know, in Daddy's school I get to do 5th grade material, but at home, or if I went to school, I'd have to do 1st grade or kindergarten material? I don't want to be a baby. You know, that kind of, you know, I would say shameless validation. Yeah, could go a long way.

Not above shameless validation, believe me. Yeah, I think she would do that. Alana's reading, I mean, every week we talk about it, but it's just getting better and faster. She reads words faster, she builds them faster. She sounded out local the other night, but she pronounced it lo-cal, which I think is the Spanish coming in. And so she's doing great. She sounded out the 8-letter word Jennifer last week.

Wow.

To the point now where it's like a party trick. I mean, we're at a coffee shop hanging out with a friend of mine, and I just handed her a piece of paper or a book or something that had a lot of words on it. I said, just read words. And she'd sound them out and blurt them out and interrupt our conversation letting us know all the words she was reading. It really is just blowing my mind.

It's what it is. And part of this is, I know she's, you know, naturally brilliant, but the verbal intensity and sophistication with which you interact with her, I see that as kind of laying this foundation on which, you know, as she gets the, you know, symbolic letter, you know, sort of thing going, I think she's just going to take off like a reader. She's just been so intensely verbal already.

Yeah, my wife and I try really hard, and we have since day one, to give her a verbal assault or barrage of whatever, 30,000 words, we're trying to do 90, right?

There you go, exactly. You know, there are those little children's books that have, you know, one word. Are there little books, you know, one word on every page or two or three words on every page? Has she had the satisfying experience of reading all the way through books on her own yet?

You know, probably not, and it's our fault. We have those books probably put away somewhere that we need to dig out for Logan. Because we're at the point now where we read Alana relatively sophisticated books. In fact, we get a little frustrated when she pulls one of her favorite little kiddie books off the shelf. We're like, come on.

Yeah, although it's different if she's reading entirely on her own.

It's true.

And so yeah, I think it's great you guys are reading sophisticated things, but I bet she could just start racing through you know, first super easy ones and, you know, then ever, ever more sophisticated books on her own.

Right. What do you think about setting up an incentive program for her? She doesn't appear to need it. She's self-motivated. But I feel like you read 5 books, I'm gonna give you a treat. Is that necessary?

I would refrain from it simply because, you know, there are a lot of people especially in alternative ed and unschooling that are intensely against that. And I would say I'm not intensely against that, but I would say you've been so successful at getting her to be motivated, you know, out of curiosity, love of learning, no doubt the eagerness to please mom and dad, um, that I would say yeah. Because once— the danger is once you get them motivated by incentives, then if for whatever reason you take the incentives away or she's in a situation where she doesn't have the incentives then, you know, she's kind of messed up and won't keep going. So I would say I see that sort of thing as kind of a backup, but I think, I think if you don't need it, don't go there.

Okay, that's a good point, then we won't. I will say also she's a great big sister, man. She is just— I couldn't imagine a child be more helpful with a little baby than Alana.

I think a lot of kids naturally want to please. They want to provide value. You know, it's funny, we talk about entrepreneurs and employees providing value, but I think they want to provide value in the household. They want to be useful and valuable, and it's a healthy natural instinct.

Yeah.

No, for sure.

And you're talking about math. We have, or thanks to my wife, Alana's got a rudimentary grasp of adding and subtracting. So she has vitamins that she takes, these little gummies, vitamin, that has a little sugar on it. And in order for her to get her vitamins, she has to do 5 or 6 math problems with Marlon and I.

What's 2 2?

3 3? What's up her fingers, count some. Now she's at the point where she's memorized some of the easy ones like 2 2, 3 3, 1 1. And I don't think she's really grasped why math is important, like how we use it.

No problem. Again, she's really young. She's really young, she's doing great. And a lot of this is keep it fun and natural.

Yeah, yeah, we try and keep it fun. I mean, I don't make a, make a big deal of it or anything. And she's willing to do it, she looks forward to doing it, she remembers that we all do it. She goes, "Hey, I want my vitamins, so let's do some mathematics." Excellent.

Any more playing around with Set?

We didn't play Set since we spoke last week. We played a few other games. I actually misplaced it for about 4 days and I didn't find it until Friday evening when I was headed to a coffee shop with a friend. So that's really what kind of delayed Set. We're going to do what we talked about last week, which is simplify it, try and find sets that have just 2 pairs of characteristics rather than 4. Yeah, because that's a little bit beyond her. But we'll see, Alana's checker game gets better every time we play. Something that's changed in the last 3 or 4 months is that she now understands the concept of losing, whether that's from school, whether that's from media or what have you. I win, you lose, vice versa. Yep. So, go ahead.

Oh, I was going to say, maybe premature, but with my son, I played chess a lot with my son, and I didn't like the idea of deliberately throwing games, you know, and I didn't want to beat him all the time. So what I did, I would start with severe handicaps, you know, even when he was young, I think I started with a king and one pawn. And then of course, he would beat me with a king and when he had a full set and I had a king and one pawn. And then every time he beat me, I would get to add a piece. And then every time I beat him, I would lose a piece. And so that way, you know, I could do my best. What can you do with a king and a pawn? But, you know, I could really do my best. And there was this sort of dynamic, you know, growth and challenge.

Right. That's a good idea. I'll do that with checkers. I think Alana's not quite there yet for chess.

Too many Sure, sure. But yeah, I suspect you can do exactly the same thing with checkers. And again, kids do like to win. And if you start with small enough numbers, she's going to beat you. Yeah.

I'll just have a single row of checkers. I bet she will beat me too.

There we go.

She'll be so proud. Because I think she does suspect that sometimes I throw games, and I do.

I love it. Yeah. Well, we should keep it short. So say hi to Jordan for me. And, um, look forward to touching base next week.

Sounds good. Thanks, Michael.

Take care.