Spirituality for Kids Facilitator Training

Spirituality for Kids Program Delivery Training Spirituality for Kids - tools to win the game of life I want to welcome everybody to the Spirituality for Kids Program Delivery Training. You guys are all tuning in here and being a part of this training because you want to help create a change in children's lives. So, I want to tell you a little bit about why I came to be a part of Spirituality for Kids before we start. It was about twelve years ago, when I moved to Los Angeles, and as soon as I got there, the director of the program at the time, Spirituality for Kids, at the time, came up to me and said: "We are starting this new program, it is called Spirituality for Kids and we think you would be great for it." I told her I had no background in education and I do not know how great I am with kids, so I do not know if I want to do it. And then she convinced me, that I should be a part of it. And I came back a week later and I told her, "You know what, I changed my mind, I do not want to do it anymore," and then she convinced me again. So, since then, I started volunteering with Spirituality for Kids. Now, at the time as a volunteer, much like a lot of you guys are, and at the same time I was working different jobs and the most recent job that I worked, I was working in property management. And I was doing property management in some of the most difficult areas in Los Angeles. Basically, we would go to the properties and I would see how the kids were growing up there. They were growing up, oftentimes, with just one parent, or no parents, maybe they were with an aunt, or a grandmother. They were growing up in an area where there were gangs, where there were drug dealers, drug dealers that I had to evict from the building. There was all kinds of what we are going to talk soon about, all types of risk factors that these kids were dealing with. At the same time, I was living another reality every Sunday. We would bus children in from the very same areas and teach them Spirituality for Kids, every Sunday. And so, I saw these two different aspects. I saw the difficulty that the kids are going through, in a place where I really could not help them, and I saw every Sunday how Spirituality for Kids was helping these children, they were growing, they were overcoming these challenges. So, obviously, when I was given an opportunity to work full-time in SFK, I jumped at that opportunity. That was about ten years ago. So, I have been in the program now for about ten years, I started off as a teacher and writing some of the curriculum. And I started training other teachers, using training like we are doing today. And then I moved after that to Miami. And when I moved to Miami, after a couple of years I was also Executive Director. I was in charge of expanding the program, of raising money, of getting the word out there. And three years ago, I moved back to Los Angeles. And that was to create what Spirituality for Kids looks like today, our website. I was there now as a producer. So, I had been a teacher and a trainer and an administrator, an Executive Director, now I came back to LA for the Hollywood job. I came back to produce the content of Spirituality for Kids. So I became on a team of writers and producers, and we put together what you see today as Level 1 and Level 2 of Spirituality for Kids, and that is where we are at today. Now, I have seen throughout this whole time the different incarnations SFK has gone through and every way it has had a tremendous impact. But we are very excited to have it in the way that we have today available on the internet, for free, in a way that any child, any place, anywhere in the world can be able to be a part of it. And for me, I feel it is a merit in my life to be a part of it. And I am glad that you guys are all joining and wanting to be a part of it as well. So, you are probably here today because you also want to create a change in kids' lives just like I felt that I wanted to. And the purpose of this training is to help you be a facilitator in a classroom so you can have all the tools that you need in order to deliver the program to children. It could be at home, it could be in a class, it could be in a lot of different environments. Let us go over what we are going to be talking about today. So, the first thing we are going to be talking about is some core knowledge about Spirituality for Kids and what it is that we do. Then we are going to go a little bit practical and talk about how to use the website. And then, finally we are going to go over different facilitator skills. This is the really fun part. We are going to talk about Active Listening, Levels of Learning, Questioning and Spiritual Discipline. What is the purpose of all this? The reason we are going to want to go through everything is to have very specific, desirable outcomes with our children: to help them develop self-awareness; to reflect on their purpose in life; to understand the impact of their choices and make wise decisions; to build resilience and treat challenges as opportunities; to learn behavioral tools to bring more fulfillment in their lives; to tap into their inner strengths and develop self-esteem; and to awaken the desire to make a difference in the world. Sounds like something we could all benefit from, right, even as adults. The first thing I want to talk about is risk factors, I mentioned it a little bit earlier. Risk factors are any type of challenges that children might face. And the experts put them into four categories: Individual, Family, School and Community. So, I just want to get a little bit of feedback from you guys. What types of risk factors do you think children might face? You can participate by raising your hand, like in a classroom, and then we will call on you. So, what types of risk factors do you think children might face? Divorce. Right, Absolutely. What else? Drugs in the family or in the community. Right. So divorce goes under Family. Drugs could be in Family, in School or in Community. Peer pressure. Absolutely. Physical abuse. Being from a different culture and coming to a place where it is not your culture, a lot of times that is a risk factor. Bullying. Absolutely. Financial limitations. Right. It is usually a Family-based risk factor. Very good. Let us take a look at some of the risk factors. A lot of the ones you guys said are actually up here, so, you guys have a good sense of what we are talking about. On the Individual level we might be talking about: the actual temperament that the child was born with; psychological, or learning, disorders; physical disability; any type of hyperactivity; malnutrition, if the kid is not eating right; substance abuse of the mother during pregnancy; depression of the child, any of these are Individual Risk Factors. In terms of Family, we said divorce, abuse, but it could also be neglect. It could also be a lack of education of the parents. It could also be growing up in a single-parent household; unemployment. In terms of School, you guys mentioned bullying, you guys mentioned peer pressure. It can be academic stress; a lack of guidance; standardized testing, I even might think, is a risk factor because a lot of times they are only teaching to the test. In terms of Community, it could be: poverty in the community; violence and gangs, those things that I saw, lack of health resources; drugs; unsafe living conditions; racism, prejudice; or, even a lack of opportunity to contribute into your community. Those are some of the risk factors that the kids are facing. Now, looking at all these risk factors and thinking about all the statistics that you see about high rates of teen pregnancy, high rates of substance abuse, lower rates of academic success, if you think of all these different risk factors, of all these different statistics, how can kids be successful with all these risk factors? Having somebody believe in them. Having certainty in themselves. What else? Raise your hand. Understanding the consequences of their actions. Anything else? Making good choices. Very good. Anyone else? And saying that what seems bad could be good. Connection with the tools. And that is exactly what we are doing here, that is why Spirituality for Kids exists; it is to help kids get tools so that they can become more resilient. You guys heard of the term "resilience" before? Resilience means the ability to overcome and adjust to misfortune. It is when a person is able to face challenges and still continue the way they are. So, basically, being resilient is being like a sponge. A sponge you squeeze it, you twist it, you punch it and it comes back to its shape. Or, being like an elastic band; you pull it, and it comes back to the way it is. That is the idea of building resilience, to help kids face these risk factors that they have, face misfortune and be able to balance back from it. And how do you do that? With giving them Protective Factors. Some Protective Factors are things like social skills. Social skills: like being able to put themselves in someone else's shoes, so they can be more tolerant of others; problem-solving skills, to help them understand the connection between cause and effect, so they avoid making the same mistakes over and over, again. They give self-esteem and a sense of autonomy, so that they realize they are the creators of happiness in their lives. And a sense of purpose, so they can see their potential and what they have to share with the world. So, our curriculum helps to build these Protective Factors. And how does all this come together? Basically, we have the risk factors, we have the statistics that we have all read about in the newspapers. Then, you guys, as facilitators, come in with Spirituality for Kids to help give the kids tools that they need to become more resilient. And then, once they are more resilient, some of those risk factors might go away, but most of them will still be there. We cannot take all of their challenges away for them. There are a lot of organizations that try and do that. And some are more successful than others. But our goal, since we understand there will always be risk factors, we are going to equip the kids with the tools that they need so they can overcome the challenges. We cannot save them from their challenges, but we can make them strong enough to save themselves from their challenges. And that is the purpose of what we are doing. It is like the idea of you can give a person a fish or teach them to fish. We are teaching them to fish so that they can create the reality they want for themselves and they will not be reliant on other people to solve their problems for them. I want to share with you, a quote that talks a little bit about the importance of what you guys are doing as facilitators. "Every child should have a caring adult in their lives. And that is not always a biological parent or a family member. It might be a friend or a neighbor, often times it is a teacher." - Joe Manchin So that is what you are doing, as being teachers in Spirituality for Kids, as being facilitators of our program, you are actually being caring towards a child. We are going to talk a lot more about what caring really means. But first, I want to talk about our curriculum a little bit. So I told you that so far we have created two levels of our curriculum. We have Level 1: Winning in the Game of Life. And Level 2: Exploring the Journey of Life. I want to go over a few of the things that we learn. In Level 1 we talk about life as being like a game. And like any game we have rules, we have goals, we have challenges and we have players. And we have to understand all of those different rules in order to be successful. We talk about what we really want. And we start understanding that the things that we think we want are not always what we really want. What we really want is often how those things make us feel. Maybe there is a better way for us to get those feelings. We talk about our inner Light, the goodness that we have inside of us, that spark of Light, our essence, which is pure goodness. We talk about our Opponent. This is our Challenger in the Game of Life. And we realize that we actually need the Opponent. We want to have the Opponent. Because the Opponent is what makes the game fun and interesting. And by beating the Opponent, that is how we actually win. We talk about our choices, about the two voices: the True Voice and the Opponent, and how we can make the right choice between them. We talk about effort and how choosing to make an effort can lead to long-lasting satisfaction. We talk about managing emotions. We have a very specific formula that we use. We take kids through managing their emotions and transforming reactive into proactive. We talk about how sharing can help us create more in our lives. And we talk about how we are all connected to each other and so, all the actions that we do, affect one another. And we talk about tolerance and human dignity. In Level 2 we build on all of the different things that we learned in Level 1. We talk about setting goals and how if you want to get somewhere you have to know where you are and where you are going. We talk about cause and effect, and the connection between them. And how we sometimes forget that all the effects in our lives are based on causes that we did, because there is time in between them, and how to start seeing that connection better. We talk about taking responsibilities, instead of blaming others. We talk about the ripple effect and how our actions affect not only ourselves, but our families and our communities and actually the entire world. We talk about judgement, the difference between healthy judgement and negative judgement. And how we can take three steps back to see the big picture and make better choices. We talk about resistance, one of the most powerful tools to realize that is not always what we impulsively want and how to apply that resistance, and when we apply resistance we actually get what we really want in the long-term. We talk about overcoming fears and that when we break through our fears, our insecurities and our doubts, we can actually reveal that inner goodness inside of us, or we can reveal our gifts and talents and skills that are hidden inside. We talk about the power of words and how it is important to watch what we say before we speak because we can never take them back. We talk about how appreciation can create more for us in our lives. And we talk about seeing challenges as opportunities. And sometimes the things that we think are the very worst are actually amazing for us. What I want to talk about now is something called Spiritual, Social and Emotional Learning. There is a study done that shows that the most important factor that predicts whether a child is going to be successful, or not, is not academics, is not his social or economic status, it is not where they were born. It is whether or not they have these specific tools of spiritual, social and emotional learning. We spoke them about a little bit. But according to Casel, which is an organization that categorizes these things and studies them, the Core Competences of Spiritual, Social and Emotional Learning are: Self-Awareness; Responsible Decision-Making; Relationship Skills; Social Awareness; and Self-Management. And the benefits, like I said, are better academic performance, improved attitude and behavior, fewer negative behaviors and reduced emotional distress. This is what truly predicts success, not success just in terms of career, but success in terms of what we all really want in life, which is to be happy people. So, how does what we teach fall in with what Casel says are the most important things to help predict success of children? If you will look at the chart you will see how the different topics that we teach in SFK fit perfectly in their five core competencies. For instance: Self-Awareness talks, we talk about what we really want, who we really are, overcoming fears, et cetera. Decision-Making: we talk about the two voices and our choices. When we talk about relationship skills, we talk about why to share, how we can share with others. In social awareness, the concept that we are all connected and change begins with me. And when we are talking about self-management, we talk about effort, managing our emotions, setting goals, resistance, all these different tools. Your job, being a facilitator, is to reinforce these different concepts that are taught in our video lessons. I know that, for me, personally, teaching this program for years and seeing the volunteers here, who have been facilitators of this program and the many other hundreds, and thousands, of volunteers around the world, they all come up to me and tell me, later, "This program was amazing for the kids, but it was also amazing for me. It created a change in my life." Let us talk about exactly how the curriculum works. Each class has one or more educational videos. And we designed these videos to be educational. It is also educational and also entertaining. I meant edu-tainment, right? So, when something is also fun for the kids to watch, we design it in a way the kids are going to like it, but also in a way that they are going to learn things. So, actually as a facilitator of the program, you do not need to worry about teaching the concepts, the videos do that 100%. Your job as a facilitator is to help guide the process and ask the right questions to help them understand them on a deeper level. We are going to talk about that today. The curriculum is also designed in a way, designed by a group of educators, designed in a way to cater to different levels of learning and different educational styles. Some people are auditory learners, some are visual learners, some are kinesthetic learners, they have to do things. So, the program is designed in a way to cater to all those different learners, it is already built-in. The program is also completely flexible and self-paced. We have 12 lessons. They can be done in any speed. We usually recommend doing one lesson at a time, so the kids have time to process in between and not to do two on the same day or in the same week, but they could be done, in theory. You could break them up. You can do two lessons of 45 minutes. You can do it at any rate that you want. As a parent at home or as a teacher in a classroom or as a facilitator. And each lesson is also complemented with activities to be done in the workbook, with games, with art projects and reflective journaling. So, how do we use the website? It is very simple. You go into the website, you click on 'Lessons', you can go to Level 1, or Level 2. And always start with the very first one which is actually the prologue. And in the prologue is just a video that gets us immersed into the story of what is happening, that introduces us to Mr. Why and Ari and to Gaby and all the different characters and how Ari gets stuck in the game. I do not want to spoil too much. But, we learn all of that in the introduction and then right from there you can go into Lesson 1. And in Lesson 1 just like in any other lesson, we start with an animation or a video to learn. And then there is some activities called "DO". These are activities that are to be done in My Light Book. And there are activities called "CREATE" which are art projects. There are activities called "JOURNAL" which is a reflective journal where kids can reflect on their learnings and write for themselves what they learned out of it. And it is something that we tell them that they can keep for themselves and they do not have to share if they are not ready for it. But when you are preparing to teach or to facilitate these lessons, it is very important to do a couple of things. Number one, you want to acquaint yourself with what you are going to be facilitating on that day. So, you yourself, should watch the video, do the activities, read through them. Maybe have prepared an art example in advance, so you have something to show the kids, an example of what you are going to do. Be familiar with the pickup points, the words to know and the rule for each classroom, before the class, so that you know more than what the kids will, not learning at the same time. And it is very important also to prepare all your materials in advance. We have a materials list for each level, per class. So you can prepare everything that you need for that classroom. And the most important thing is to lead by example. If you have gone ahead of time, and you prepare the material yourself and you do your own journaling, you have already applied the tools in your life. Kids pick up when we do not 'walk the walk', and we only tell them to do things but then we behave a different way. So, it is very important to lead by example. What I recommend for any facilitator who wants to do the program is to buy the teaching kit on-line. You can find it in our store and includes 4 things: One is the Guidebook, which is step-by-step instructions on how to deliver the program, with a lot of detail. Number 2 is the Lightbook, which goes to the student, for them to fill in all their activities. Number 3 is the Family Activities, which are optional additional activities to do at home, that I highly recommend. And the fourth one is the DVD, so that you can play it even in places where you do not have access for the Internet. Now, all these items can also be bought separately and I actually recommend that if you have more than one child that you are working with, that you buy an additional Lightbook for each one of those children. For families we do have a version that is downloadable and you can print at home. I recommend even in that case that you should still buy the Light Book. Is something more fun for the kids to have, in color and it is bound and it looks nicer and actually it is very cost effective. Now, in a moment we are going to get into all the different skills. But before that, I want to do an exercise with you guys. I want you to close your eyes for a moment. Also for everybody who is watching us online. I want you to close you eyes and think about who brought you to Spirituality for Kids. Which child was it? Not maybe someone told you directly about it, but someone that because of them you know this is something you have to be a part of. Is it your own child? Is it a child of a friend of yours that you know is going through a tough time? Is it you, when you were a child? Is it some children that you have seen on the news or read about in the newspapers that are going through tough times all around the world? I want you to take a minute and just think about this child and commit their face and their name to memory and to think about why you are here today. Take a moment. I want you to keep a picture of this child in your minds for the rest of our training today. I also want you to keep a picture of this child in your minds for the whole time you are going to be working through the different classes and facilitate those classes with the kids. You guys know why I am asking you to do this? Because, the truth is that working through these classes with the kids will bring a lot of spiritual powers into our lives. And we know every time there is a lot of Light to be gotten, the Opponent is going to want to get in the way, it is going to want to interfere. That is his job, he is doing his job. He is going to want to get in the way, He is going to make challenges. Maybe the other people we are working with, are bugging us. Maybe the children will challenge us. Maybe we will bring the wrong materials to the wrong class and we will get frustrated. Challenges are going to come. And we are going to get frustrated. But if we keep the reason that we came here in mind, we keep this child in mind, we are never going to forget why we came here and we will always be motivated to go forward through the challenges. And remember, the challenges are the opportunities. That is when we reveal the most spiritual powers in our life. I want to share with you one of my favorite quotes about caring, there is a lot you guys remind me about this quote. "Never believe that a few caring people cannot change the world. For, indeed, that is all who ever have." Margaret Mead. This is one of the most powerful quotes for me. There is so much chaos in the world and there is so much darkness, but just a few caring people, like the people in this room, like the people who are watching this training online. You guys are the people who are creating the Light into the world. You guys are the people that are creating the change in this world. Do not think that what you are doing does not make an impact. It is the biggest impact of all. The children that you are working with today are going to grow up to be the leaders of tomorrow. And with the tools that you are giving them, they are going to create a change in the world, that we were not able to do or the people before us were not able to do. That is because of you. Now we are going to an overview of all the teaching skills that we are going to be going through today. So, would you guys agree with me that as adults, we teach more by what we do than what we say? Show of hands. You guys agree? Teach more with what we do, than what we say. In that case, how we act as a Spirituality for Kids facilitator, has a lot of impact on what is going to happen. If we teach something and we are not really living it, the kids are going to pick up on it. Kids are smart. Adults do not always tell when people fake it, but the kids will know. And this is why we are going to take you through very specific set of skills in this facilitator training. In SFK we say we want to take kids from just a knowledge of the tools to an attitude of wanting to use the tools to a behavior of actually applying the tools. This is the same in every aspect of our lives. That we have to take ourselves from knowledge to attitude, to behavior. I am going to give you an example. It is unrelated to Spirituality for Kids for a moment. Who here knows, has the knowledge level idea that steamed vegetables are healthier than Krispy Kreme Doughnuts? Who knows that? Raise your hands. I see Krispy Kreme Doughnuts there, in the back of the room. Okay, who knows that? Right? Everybody is on a knowledge level of that. I do not think anyone has any doubt. Who here has the attitude that they want to live a healthy lifestyle? That you want to eat healthy food because you want to feel good, you want to look good and so you believe that eating healthier is part of your lifestyle. Who here is on that level with me? I am on that level, I feel. I was not always but I am now. I believe that. I am getting older, so I cannot eat what I want. So, I know I have the knowledge of it. I know I have the attitude of it. I told you I used to live in Miami and at the time when I would come back from the classroom on the I-95 and would drive down 163d back to our offices in North Miami Beach. There happened to be a Krispy Kreme's on the way. And the sign is flashing about half the times I pass it and for those of you who do not know that means the doughnuts are fresh. And, as my windows were rolled down, I could smell them from about three blocks away if the wind was blowing the right way. So, even though I have a knowledge the Krispy Kremes are not so healthy, even though I have an attitude I want to have a healthy living, half the time I would still pull in, pick up a dozen doughnuts and eat half of them before I even managed to get to the office. It would happen. So even though I have the knowledge and even though I have the attitude it does not mean I am always showing the right behavior. Today I am better. I saw the doughnuts in the back of the room, I did not even open the box, I reached, my hand towards it, but I stopped myself, so I am getting closer to having the right behavior, at least. And this is what we want to do with the kids. We want to take them from having the right knowledge to the right attitude, to the right behaviors. In order to do that, we have a specific set of tools that we can use. And those tools, all fall under what we call the "Caring Umbrella". Being caring is what helps make sure that our kids are going to go from developing the knowledge to the attitude, to the behavior of the tools that they need to learn. And actually, we need to develop from changing our caring from just knowledge and attitude, to having caring behavior. Who here thinks that they are a caring person? Raise your hands. Right? Or else you would not be here. But, who here sometimes their kids tell them "You do not care about me or other people I know." So, what is this discrepancy? There is actually a study done about this. The study was done by someone called Dr. James Tunney, he was a former educator and also an NFL referee. And he did a study for his doctoral dissertation about perceived levels of caring. And this is what he did. He went to the schools and first he would speak to the principal. He would ask the principal "Do you care about your teachers?" And the principal would most of the time say "Of course, I care about my teachers or else, why would I be a principal?" Then he went and spoke to the teachers. And he asked the teachers, "Do you feel that your principal cares about you?" And, oftentimes, they felt that the principal did not care about them so much, they reported low levels of caring from their principals. So, then, he asked the teachers, "Do you feel that you care about your kids?" They said, "Of course, we care about our kid, or else why would we be teachers?" And then he went to the kids. And he asked them, "Do you feel your teachers care about you?" And, oftentimes, the kids said, "You know what, I do not feel my teachers care about me." So, what is this discrepancy? Are the principals and the teachers lying? I hope not. I do not think that is true. I think that they really believe that they care and I believe that they have a caring attitude. But caring attitude does not always translate into caring behavior. Caring is not just a feeling. It is specific actions that we do. And luckily we have some quotes here from kids who told us what they think caring means to them. I am going to share them with you. One of them is "A teacher who cares does not want you to get Cs and Ds on your report cards so you do not get grounded and do not get you allowance." "A teacher that cares takes time to talk to parents and tells them what the student needs to do to succeed." "A teacher that cares does not yell at you when you are the only one who does not understand something, instead, they take you aside and help you understand." "A teacher that cares is on your back a lot, tells you what to do, tells you to straighten up, will notice when something is wrong with you." "A teacher that cares is someone like my math teacher who will always stays after school to help people on their math, because we all have trouble with it." "A teacher that cares says 'good-job' when you do well." "A teacher that cares, if you are bad in school, they call your parents because they care about you." "A teacher that cares teaches in a fun way, so that you learn more." If you look at all of these different things that the kids said what caring means, they were not just the teacher that cares, feels caring, there are also very specific actions. There is a quote that I have for that, too. "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around". Caring is a verb. Caring is actions. So, how can we show we care? If we are going to break it down, basically some big things that we can do to make sure that we show that we care is giving them respect, treating them on the same level as we treat other adults. Listening to them, like you guys said. Supporting them when they need help and not judging them. And we are going to break this down through four specific types of skills that all fall under the umbrella of caring. Which are: Active Listening, Levels of Learning, Questioning and Spiritual Discipline. These are only four skills. There is many more that we have taught and we have trained on and there is many more that exist that we have not even spoken about. There is a lot of skills that might fall under this umbrella. These are four that we are going to focus on today. They are going to help you help the children become more resilient. I want to finish off the first section that we have today before we take a quick break, with this quote: "Kindness can transform someone's dark moment with a blaze of light. You'll never know how much your caring matters". Through the different actions of caring that you do, through the skills that you are going to be learning, you are a beacon of Light in a child's life. We talked about the risk factors. We talked about all the challenges that are out there. We talked about all the things the kids face, that make it seem impossible for them to succeed. Through the Spirituality for Kids Program, through being facilitators of this program and through the caring actions that you do, you are going to bring Light into that darkness to help change kids' lives. So, were going to start with our first skill, the skill of Active Listening. You know, when you are a Spirituality for Kids facilitator in the classes with the kids, your job, part of your job, is to facilitate leading discussions with the children. How much of the time that you are having a discussion with the children, do you think you should be speaking? Half the time? No. Barely at all. We should not be speaking very much. Instead, we have to make sure of not making our discussions be more lectures. All the stuff that the kids need to learn come through the videos. We made very sure that all the information they need will come from the videos. But what you can do is to listen and encourage them to take that information into deeper levels. So we are going to use a little mnemonic device that we came up with to help us take all that information that you read about and make it a very simple way to remember everything that we should be doing when we are Active Listening. And of course, the word we are using is LISTEN. It includes Look, Inquire, Say it again, Think before you speak, Empathize and Non-judgmentally. Let us go over these step by step. L is for Look. Who here can raise their hand and tell me what is it that we are looking for? She said that they are paying attention. We can all Active Listen to each other. And also speak up. Body language. What am I doing every time you guys are... Right? My facial expression. I am nodding my head. A big part of looking is looking at their body language and looking at your body language. You know, the crossed arms usually mean defensive. Hands in pockets or underneath the table when it is not clear, usually means I am hiding something. So, if the kids are doing that, you can be aware of that. If you are doing that, that is the message you are sending to them. It is not the message we want to send. So what do we want to do? Nodding is very good. Your facial expression looks like it should be open. What else can we do? There is something called mirroring. Mirroring is one of the most powerful ways of body language that we can use. If a person in leaning back, lean back. If they are leaning forward, lean forward. If they have their leg crossed over the other leg, you do the same in a mirror. So, whenever you act like a mirror to them, it makes them feel more open to speak to you. You want, through all your body language, you should me more open to them. Make eye contact. Have your body face towards them. Have your feet face towards them. They seem like very small things. But by doing all these things, you are showing them you are more open to hear what they have to say, it is very important. I is for "Inquire". It is all about asking good questions. Not just asking yes or no questions, but asking questions that encourage discussion. I will not discuss a lot right now because you have two full exercises about that soon. S is for "Say it again". It means to paraphrase. Who thinks they know why paraphrasing is important? Who can tell me why is paraphrasing important? So, you are saying that when I repeat what the person tells me, make sure we are both on the same page and we are understanding each other. What did I just do? Exactly. How do you feel? Understood. Exactly. So, when we paraphrase it allows the other person, first of all to feel that they are being listened to, and second of all, to make corrections; you may paraphrase, and they say "Well, that is not what I meant, what I meant is..." So paraphrasing is a very important tool. Try using it in all your conversations, you will see how you will avoid all kinds of miscommunication. T is for "Think before you speak." It sounds like something very, very simple, but it is very profound. Right away when someone tells us something, our desire is to react right away with what we have to say, oftentimes we are not even listening to them, we are only thinking of what we want to say next to them. So, before you answer, and it might seem a bit weird, take a moment and think what you want to say. Oftentimes if you take that moment to think and you apply resistance, which is one of the tools we teach in Spirituality for Kids, when you take that time, you apply the resistance, new information will come to you and you will probably give them better advice and say something more important than what you were planning to say in the first place. E is for "Empathize". Does anyone know the difference between empathy and sympathy? What is the difference between empathy and sympathy? Okay, so, we are close on the right track. Empathy is imagining how that other person might feel and sympathy is actually putting yourself into the feeling and thinking when you felt that way and bringing yourself into it. So what is more important? The empathy and imagine how they feel? Or sympathy and actually feel it with them? Which is more important? Who says sympathy? Raise your hand. Who says empathy? Raise your hand. It is very difficult, right? Just the fact we have some people some say empathy, some say sympathy, we do not always even know what the right thing is. It is more important to have empathy than sympathy. What does sympathy do? It turns a discussion towards you. So, when someone says, when one of the kids says, "Aw, my sister bothers me all the time, it drives me crazy." And then you, being sympathetic, say, "Oh I know what you are talking about, my sister is exactly the same way, I was always like that when I was a kid." The whole conversation just became about you instead of staying about them. So, it is more important to be empathetic than sympathetic. And a metaphor that I like to use that helps me remember it, is if someone is drowning in quicksand and you want to be sympathetic, what you do? You jump in with them so you guys can feel it together, and suffer together and drown. If you are being empathetic, you are thinking about what they need in their situation and then you just throw them a rope. That is the difference between empathy and sympathy. And finally, the most important thing is to Listen Non-Judgmentally . Who thinks they know why it is important to Listen Non-Judgmentally? Think so? Okay. Now, how does that make you feel when I respond to you like that? Pretty horrible right? Yeah. I did not mean it. You are actually absolutely right. But I did it to demonstrate, and I apologize for that. I did it to demonstrate the idea of what is like when you are being listened to, with judgement. It is you facial expression, is the words that you say. When someone feels judged, he is never going to open up to you again. Especially if it is a new kid that you are dealing for the first time, so it is very important that when you listen, to listen completely free of judgement. If we are judging them, we do not have the time to love them and to help them. Okay, so, now what we are going to do? First of all I am going to recommend you guys to practice these skills at home. Every time I have done this training, we used to do it in several parts, so when people came to the second set of trainings, the Active Listening was in the first part, they would come back and say: "Oh my God, I used this with my wife, with my husband, with my girlfriend, my boyfriend, my kid and my life is changed. Thank you so much." Yes. But also use it in the class with kids. Okay, so, I want you guys to practice Active Listening in your lives from now on with your family, with your friends, and see the miracles that are going to start happening to you as you use it. We have three more skills to go over. And the next skill that we are going to be talking about is Levels of Learning. Out of all the skills that we are learning today, this one is the most technical. This is something that we usually, it is usually taught to people who are becoming educators, becoming teachers. We are not going to go into all of depth of it but I want to give you guys a bit of an overview of what it is all about, because it is definitely a very helpful tool that we have. I want to start with a quote from Socrates. He said "I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think." Do you guys agree? Exactly. So, we are not here to be teachers but we need to make them think about what they are learning. I know that no matter how many times you see it or how many times you try and learn about it, whether online or in a class, you can not really do it until you get in there. And like I said, I was living in Miami, all my examples are from Miami. And I always really liked Spanish music and I like Salsa and I would watch people dance and I would listen to it. Yeah, you guys are fans? So then, one day I started taking Salsa classes and I realized, you know, on the first dance that it is not enough to just watch, apparently. Not so good. But I took classes for a few months and eventually I became lower intermediate. So, that is about where I am now. But, you know, you have to sometimes do something in order to learn it. So, there is a gentleman by the name of Benjamin Bloom. He created something called the Bloom's Taxonomy. He was an American educational psychologist and he used Bloom's Taxonomy to categorize educational goals and objectives. And then it was modified a couple of times. And this is what it looks like more or less right now. So, there are six different levels of learning and the lowest one, of course, is on the bottom. We are going to go through them now. Different levels of learning and I will give you a bit of an explanation on each one. So, the lowest level is Remembering. Remembering is when you can actually just spit out what you have been taught. And we talked a bit earlier about standardized testing. A lot of times the learning for a standardized test is only done in this lowest level of Remembering. The kids get all the information so they can put it on the test and the next week they do not even know it anymore. Why do not they not retain the information? Because they never went above the lowest level, which is Remembering. One step above that, is Understanding. This is much you can say something in your own words, and it is not just something you are repeating, that is the level of Understanding. Now, most schooling, unfortunately, in most subjects is only on these two levels: Remembering and Understanding, unless they are going to a very good school. So, a lot of times, schools get stuck on these two levels. Just Remembering and Understanding. One level above that is Applying. Applying is when you can take the information you used, and use it in a real world setting. Now, in school you do this when you take math or science courses, because you do problems and you do experiments. So you take the information that you learn and you apply it in your life to problem solving, but in a lot of other subjects, they do not go, even to this level. That is Application. The next level is Analyzing. What does Analyzing mean? Well, if you take the word "analysis", analyzing, and we break it up into its parts, we see the word "lysis" inside of it. Lysis comes from the word to break apart into pieces. So, analyzing means to break something apart into pieces so you can understand it better. So, what did I just do with the word analyzing? I analyzed it. We took it into pieces. We say that lysis was a part of it, means to break apart. So analysis is when you take something. And I keep coming back to the smartphone. We are all on a level of Application, if we are going to have applications on the phone, and we are using, we are applying what we know about phones to use it. But are we on a level of Analysis? Analysis is if I took the phone apart and I saw all the pieces inside of it. I do not recommend it. If I saw all the pieces inside of it and then I know what each piece does, that is a deeper level of Understanding for my phone, it is Analysis. But Analysis is something that is objective. You just gets facts. The level above that is Evaluating. Evaluating goes from being objective to being subjective, you add value, you add judgement to what you say. So, then I have my phone and I say, well it has got so and so as processor speed, how much memory it does, this phone could work underwater and then I have another phone that does different things and I can compare the different things and I can say "Well, I am going to choose this one because I think it is better for these reasons." That is Evaluation. That is an Evaluation level of learning. And the highest level of learning is Creation. When you can take everything that you learned and just create something out of it. Do something in your own way, in this case it would be maybe inventing the phone. Which is a very high level for phones. But in terms of learning, you can take something to Creation, and that is the highest level. So, in a second we are going to apply it to things in Spirituality for Kids. But first, let us use a simpler example. Apples and oranges. They say do not compare apples and oranges. I am going to ask you guys a question. I am not looking for the answer. What I want to know is which Level of Learning we are at. So, here is your test. I am going to ask you a question and you tell me what level it is on. What color is the apple? What is it? Remembering. Very good. What shape is the orange? Remembering. I think that is something that just comes like obvious, right? Remembering. Which piece of fruit is packed with Vitamin C? It could be on a couple of different levels. It could be just Understanding if it is something that you know. But let us say you got a new fruit and that it was also a citrus fruit and looks like an orange, and it looks like a grapefruit and then you say well, that should also have vitamin C, maybe it is based on Analysis, at that point. But for an orange, I think we are on a level of Understanding. Next question. Think of a way to peel the orange without getting your fingers sticky. Applying, right? You take what you already know about it, and use it. What are the similarities and the differences between the apple and the orange? Who says Analysis? Analyzing? Who says Evaluating? OK. Let us Analyze both of these, and then we are going to Evaluate them to see which one is right. So, for the people who said Analyzing, why is it Analyzing and not Evaluating? Raise your hand. You are comparing and contrasting. To the people who say Evaluating, why do you think it is Evaluating? Sir. Raise your hand so I can hear you one at a time. What? Are we developing an opinion on them? Right now we are making a chart and we are developing the differences but we are not saying which one should I eat. In fact, that is the next question. Which food is better for you and why? That is Evaluation. Now did you notice that you have to Analyze in order to Evaluate? So the levels build on each other, you have to develop knowledge first. Then, you have to have Remembering and then Understanding and then Applying and then you can go to Analysis and then you can go to Evaluation. Evaluating and Creating can go back and forth, sometimes you create something and then you have to reevaluate it so that you can create something new. That goes back and forth, but for the most part, you have to build on the lower levels. So, first, we Analyze and then we Evaluate. Last question. If we were to create a hybrid of the two fruits, what would it taste like? I did not hear. What did everyone say? Creating? Everyone agrees it is Creating? Anyone think of something else? Now, we are not actually creating it, we are just trying to figure out what it tastes like. But the fact that we create it in our minds, it means it is on the level of Creating. Absolutely. All right. So, now we are going to apply it to a very specific SFK situation. Now, you guys all watched both levels of Spirituality for Kids? Who did watch it? Who have watched the videos? Who have watched some videos? Who have watched no videos? All right. I am glad that most of you have watched at least some. We are going to take the concept of the True Voice and the Opponent. OK. So, we are going to do this one together and then you are going to do one on your own, after. The True Voice and the Opponent. So, if I ask: What is the definition of The True Voice and the Opponent? That is level of Remembering. You just have to remember the definition. If I say, in your own words tell me about what the True Voice and the Opponent tell you to do, what types of things. That is level of Understanding. True Voice whereas remembering would be to get the exact definition of True Voice encourages me to share with myself and others and always put an effort. The Opponent challenge me to think only of myself and take the easy way out. That is Remembering. Once you can say in your own words about how you heard the True Voice and the Opponent's are, then it is already Understanding. And then, the activity that I had you do a little while ago, Active Listening, to share time and listen to your Opponent, that is an example of Applying. Even though we are not applying something in the moment, we are relating it back to something in our life. If I ask the kid, who is now in the middle of a challenge and maybe, misbehaving, and I say: "What is your Opponent's voice telling you to do right now?" Then, you are taking them to the level of Application, and you want to use the tools and you want to use the language while you have the misbehavior. So, the first thing I would do, assuming they already know and understand, everyone is on that level, have them apply it on the spot. What is the Opponent's Voice telling you to do right now?" We are going to take it to the next level. Analyze. And I would say "Well, what is going to happen if you choose to listen to your Opponent versus what would happen if you choose to listen to your True Voice?" So now, they are taking it already to the next level in their mind and you are making a teachable moment out of it, you are guiding them to figuring out "Well, when I listen to my Opponent's Voice I might get what I want temporarily but it is not going to serve me in the long run. If I listen to the True Voice, it is going actually help me to get where I really want in the long run." And go very specific for this situation. And then you can take them to the next level. Evaluating. So, based on what you said about the True Voice and The Opponent, which voice do you think you want to listen to, right now? And then they are going to make the decision. If they want the long term or the short term. And hopefully, they will want to listen to their True Voice. So, you see how applying these tools, during the moment where you need it, when the kids are misbehaving, and it is helping them to understand it on a deeper level. They actually will understand more in these teachable moments than when you teach it when everything is going well. These are the greatest moments. And the highest level is Creating. That is, in the same class, we have the kids make puppets of the True Voice and The Opponent, little hand puppets. So if you have them, to create a puppet show that makes the puppets talk to each other about the True Voice and The Opponent and what they tell you to do, and they can already teach that to another kid, maybe another sibling or a friend, they are on the highest level. So, we want to encourage that. Now, a lot of us like I said, has already built into our curriculum, but we want to encourage our kids to always challenge them to go to higher levels of learning so they incorporate what they learned. So, just for fun, try and pay attention to the questions the people ask, the questions that you hear on TV shows, and movies and stuff like that. And see which different levels of learning they are on, it is a good exercise to sort of keep up. Like I said, this is a very difficult skill, the more difficult skill in terms of its technicality and you guys really did a great job with it. So you deserve a round of applause. Also, raise your right hand, put it on the back of the person to your right, lift your left hand, put it in the back of the person to your left and give yourselves a pat on the back. You guys ready for our next skill? Yes. So, the next skill is Questioning. You say, "But Mr. Why, isn't that what we are doing that right now?" So, whereas when we learned about Levels of Learning was, what you should ask, what we are going to talk about now is how you should ask it. Because a lot of times we might have the right questions. Actually, if you are using the Teacher's Guidebook that we sell on our website, then you are given the right questions to ask a lot of times that will take kids to higher Levels of Learning. But sometimes it is not enough to ask the right question, it is important to know how to ask that question. We are going to talk about the different types of questions you can ask and the different techniques you can use to ask those questions. So, the first type of question you can ask is called Focusing Questions. Focusing Questions, if you noticed, I have been asking them all night. Every time we come into a new subject. When we talked about Active Listening, one of the first things I said was... You guys remember? I said, "When you are having a discussion with the children, how much of the time should you spend talking? Half the time?" You guys remember that? Why did I ask that question? Also, because it is like maybe I wanted to get in and find out about you guys. But really, it is more likely that I wanted to get you guys focused on what we were going to be talking about. So, Focusing Question is a question that opens up a discussion. Then there is Prompting Questions. And I used Prompting Questions a lot in the last activity. A Prompting Question is, sometimes when we are not getting the right answer and you want to push it in the right direction, you might ask another question to get closer to the right answer, okay. Probing Questions is the questions that we use to discover what Level of Learning children are on. When you ask a Probing Question, you might ask something in the level of Understanding and if they understood it, maybe you want to go higher, to Applying it or to Analyzing. If you see it is too much, you might want to step back. Maybe you have to go back to Remembering. So, a Probing Question is to see what level the child is on, so that you know what to ask next. And there are Rhetorical Questions. Does anyone not know what a Rhetorical Question is? There is no reason to answer those questions, they are just questions that help to get the interest and just find out what we are talking about. And then there is the difference between Convergent and Divergent questions. And I spoke a little bit about that earlier. Where a Convergent Question is a question that has maybe just one answer. What color of shirt am I wearing? There is only one answer. Or answers that are yes or no answers. Those are okay questions. But better questions are Divergent Questions. Questions that could have a lot and open up to more discussion. So if you see a kid and they are in a bad mood, you can ask "Oh, why are you so sad?" Which we do so often. Why are you telling them already why they are sad? So they are sad. Ask them instead "How are you feeling?" "Why are you so sad?" You are not going to get so much out of it, or "Are you sad?" even worse. If you ask "How are you feeling?" then it opens up to discussion. "Why do you feel that way?" You can go from there. More important than the types are the techniques of how you actually ask the questions. So, while asking a question, what can a teacher do to make sure that everybody is understanding? What I was using, that was Halting Time. I did not ask the question all at once. I did not say, "When asking a question, what can a teacher do to make sure that everybody is understanding?" That is a lot of information that all hits you at once, especially if you are a kid. When asking a question, pause. Everybody knows I am asking about asking the question. What can a teacher or a facilitator do... pause... Now I know that I am answering this from the perspective of a facilitator. To make sure students are understanding... Now we broke the question into three parts. So, just by taking time as you ask your questions, by speaking slowly, but putting in those breaks, it helps the children absorb more of your question. The thing is that so much of learning is geared towards auditory learners. People who learn through hearing. And that is only a small percentage. It is just about 20% of people. Most people either learn also through seeing, visual learners or kinesthetic learners that learn through doing. So when you ask a question too quickly, all your auditory learners will get it, but if you ask it and brake it up, you start evening the playing-field and letting everybody get it. Now, after asking a question, and you guys can raise your hands to answer, please. After asking a question, what should a teacher do? Wait. Exactly. What happens when I wait? If you guys were all following instructions and raising hands? What would happen is that more hands come up. Because, again, the auditory learners are going to shoot their hands up right away. And, actually, I noticed myself doing it wrong all day. There are some people, I think, you are an auditory learner. Because every question I asked, you raised your hand right away. And I should not have picked on you, other people got involved but if I waited another second, I would get someone from here, and someone from there and someone from there. And that is called Waiting Time. When you wait after you ask a question, before you get the answer, more kids start raising up their hands, because it takes some time for people who learn in a different way, in order to process the answer that they want to give. Now, Listening is the next one. We did a whole lecture on Listening. Who can raise their hands and tell me why Listening is important? I am waiting. I am waiting but it is still good. Go ahead. (Audience speaking) And how does that help? (Audience speaking) Good. So, you see, by Listening and applying the Active Listening Skills, instead of just right away replying to what the person is saying, which again, I did not do a perfect job all night long, but when you do that, what you are giving is giving more opportunity to get more information. And even in that moment, when I paused, and I did not respond right away. Did that feel a bit awkward? Yes. It was meant to. Because naturally, in conversation, we respond within less of a second to the other person. As soon as you pause a little bit more and you give that space, sometimes the other person is going to already want to say more, without even saying anything. If it is not enough, it only takes one question, one word, like "And?" And as more information comes out. "And why is that important?" And more information comes out. So, by Listening and applying the Active Listening skills, you are actually improving your questioning as well, all goes hand in hand. And finally, we talked about Redirecting. Does anyone what Redirecting is? Based on what you read on the worksheet. What is Redirecting? Okay, we did also talk about Refocusing, which is another skill. But also we talked about Redirecting. Does anyone know a little bit more about Redirecting? It might be something like, remember, someone does not give a perfect answer, then what can you do to redirect? Ask different questions. Ask in a different way. Give a bit more information. You guys noticed I redirected? That question? So, it is, again, it is about using everything that we are learning. So, you gave an answer, even if it was not exactly what I was looking for... In SFK we use no "buts". We do not say "No, no, no. You are wrong, This is the actual answer." Because a lot of teachers do that. We do "Yes, ands..." "Yes, we also spoke about Focusing. And that is also an important point, and now we are also talking about Redirecting". And then I give a bit more information, and then more people started answering. So you can get more information when you give a little bit more information and you probe in the right direction, you can get more out of the kids. So, all of these techniques, in order to help you get more out of the kids. It is a very short activity that we did for that. But, I want you guys to practice using these different techniques as you are using your questioning in higher Levels of Learning. And we are ready for our fourth skill. Spiritual Discipline. This is fun, you know why? I never taught this one before. Spiritual discipline, I will tell you in a second... So, did you guys know that most teachers say they spend, one of their biggest challenges is actually behavior management. And that they spend more time managing behavior than actually teaching the class. You know, a lot of teachers report that. So, there can be a lot of different types of classroom management. And every parent has their own way of disciplining at home, and every teacher has their own way of disciplining in the class. And a lot of those ways, if they are good ways, they might fall under the Umbrella of Caring that we spoke about. But this fourth skill that we are talking about today, called Spiritual Discipline, was actually developed by Michal Berg, who is the director of Spirituality for Kids. It is our first time teaching it, in public, to a group, so it is pretty amazing. So, Spiritual Discipline is something that we recommend that you layer over your current discipline method, whatever it is. Whichever method that you use, it is something that can compliment it and make it stronger. Now, there is two ways to manage challenging behavior. You can deal with it after it happens or you can try and prevent it. What Spiritual Discipline tries to do is to take care of the behavior to prevent it from getting worse. And it boils down to two truths when we talk about Spiritual Discipline. It is true about all kids and actually about all people. That their essence is goodness and that their natural desire is to be successful. Or if you say it in SFK terms, that everyone has a spark of Light inside of them and that we all want to win the Game of Life. This is true about every single person. Now, if it is true about every single person, so, how come, sometimes children misbehave? And how come, sometimes it does not seem like they want to succeed, if we are claiming that these are true about them? The thing is that sometimes children will stop believing that their essence is goodness based on negative feedback that they got. So often adults will tell children "You are being bad," we say it naturally, "You are a bad kid." And we tell kids all day long about what they are doing wrong. So, every time you tell them that they are being bad, you are actually making them start believing it and then they start saying it about themselves. And then they start saying, "Well, if I am so bad I might as well act bad." And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and goes into a negative spiral, where they start believing less and less in their goodness and start actually believing that they are not good at all. And what about succeeding? How come sometimes children, feels like they just want to give up, if everyone of us really wants to succeed in life? The only time where a child gives up on themselves is when they think that they do not have the tools to succeed. We know in Spirituality for Kids that we are never given anything that we cannot overcome. We learned that in our class about challenges are opportunities. We are not given anything that we cannot overcome. The tools are around us. We are teaching them the tools through the Spirituality for Kids Course. So, by reinforcing the tools, we actually help them realize they can succeed. But when they do not think they have the tools, then they give up, they stop putting forth effort. They stop putting forth effort, they stop succeeding. And again, it goes into a negative spiral. So what Spiritual Discipline does, it helps to discover why a child misbehaves in the first place, and going to the root cause of the problem, instead of dealing with actual misbehavior, which seems weird. So, if a child misbehaves I am not going to deal with their misbehaving, I am going to try to find the root of it, which is a very spiritual concept. Because what happens when I want to deal with a misbehavior directly? When I confront it? For the parents, what happens when your kid is misbehaving and you confront them about their misbehavior? They suddenly listen to you and everything is good? No. They fight back. They argue more. Then they get grounded. They get sent to their room. They lose their allowance. And that is how they are supposed to learn. What happens when you do that with them? They feel bad about themselves. Because they say, "Oh, I have been so bad." They are going to want to misbehave more. It does not solve problems. So, we are going to use the Spirituality for Kids tools to help us solve the problem. And the first rule we are going to use is the Four Step System. Stop before you react. Chill out. Ask your True Voice to guide you. And Share. But many of you might think, that I am going to tell you guys "OK, now remind the kids about the Four Step System and use it with them." That is not what I am saying. It is for you. Exactly. So you have to use it for yourself. Because what happens when a child misbehaves? You feel reactive, so the first thing you do: Stop your Reactive Behavior. Go back to Lesson 8 of Level 1, watch the video, whatever it takes, stop your reactive behavior. Calm down. Chill out. Do whatever it takes for you to chill-out in the moment. When you do that and you ask the True Voice to guide you, you are already going to shift your perception naturally from trying to deal with the issue to trying to find the cause of the misbehavior. And actually, you are going to see it as an opportunity. I spoke about teachable moments earlier, you are going to start seeing every challenge as an exciting moment. When a child misbehaves, that means "Nice, now I can help to finally help them understand the tools that we have been talking about." Because you have to apply it in the moment. That is an opportunity for Application, taking it to that next level, beyond just Understanding it. So, when a child misbehaves, and you take yourself from this, you will change from being reactive to being excited. "Great! Now I am going to help them learn something that is not just they are going to behave now but it is going to help them change their whole lives." Of course you are going to be more excited about it. This is the best time to influence their behavior, when they are misbehaving. Then, we have another tool from Level 2. It talks about judgement. It is called The 3 Steps Back. Stop judging. Realize we do not have all the information and we do not see the bigger picture. So, as soon as you do that and you take your first step back, you realize that "maybe there is something that I am missing here, maybe I do not know why my child is misbehaving, maybe I do not have all the answers", which is step 2. Let Go of the idea that we know it all and that our point of view is the only one that matters. Once we do these two things, and we let go of our preconceptions of why our child is misbehaving, then we can do the third step and seek out more information. Use the tools of questioning that we talked about. Use the Active Listening and discover what it is that is bothering your child. Why are they behaving this way. A lot of times, they are misbehaving at home because of something that happened at school. Or they misbehave at school because of something that happened at home. And it is completely unrelated. So, if you see two of your kids fight, and you are focusing on the fight, it is going to continue being a fight. But if you see two of your kids fight, and one of them punch the other one, and you, instead of saying, "Why did you punch her?" right away, and you take it back and you ask them about their day in school, first of all, you are going to throw them for a loop because they are going to be very confused why they are not in trouble and it is going to immediately defuse the situation. Right? You have to separate the cause of misbehavior and behavior itself. And then you are going to help them to meet their needs. What happened at school today? "Oh, your teacher," something like that, "You got sent to the principal's office, why did that happen?" Oh, maybe they did not have their lunch. They dropped their lunch and they could not eat, so they are hungry and they are grumpy. "Hangry," as you know, it happens, and that is why they are misbehaving. You are trying to help them meet their needs. After you help them meet their needs, then you can go back and talk about the misbehavior they did in the moment. But first help them meet their needs. And then when you actually help them and you talk about the misbehavior, go back to the tools. Remember how we used the True Voice and the Opponent and we went through the different Levels of Learning to go to higher levels? Ask them, which voice are you listening to? What will happen if you keep listening to that voice? Do you still want to keep listening to the voice of the Opponent? And then, going through those different steps, you are going to help them discover for themselves, using the tools that you taught them, to behave better. And then, on the other side when they are behaving well, something that is very important to do is to reinforce the essence of your child, not just their accomplishments. For example, instead of saying "I like how you shared," which is an action that they did, say "I respect you for being sharing and caring." It is a small difference, but first of all using the word "respect" is so powerful. And second, when you tell them that they are sharing and caring, you are dealing back with that problem, that they constantly had this negative feedback of telling themselves how they are bad. Instead, you are reinforcing the goodness inside of them. So, instead of saying "I noticed you studying hard for the test," say "I respect you for your tenacity, for your hard work, you are a hard-working person." And when you keep reinforcing with them that their qualities are good, it is not just that their actions are good. Because one day I am good, and the next day I will be bad, so then you are going to tell them that they are bad. But if you keep reinforcing that their actions are goodness, they are going to believe in their goodness and they will want to behave better. That is how we are reinforcing it. And the key is to always show respect. No matter what. No matter how your child behaves, there is no reason to lose respect. Remember, we are teaching by example. You continue teaching them with respect, the way you would respect, better than you would respect, another adult human being. Yes? So, by doing these two things, by reinforcing the tools, we are showing them that they have everything that they need to succeed. And by reinforcing their essence, we are showing them that their essence is goodness. And as those two things are completed again the way that they were, from the beginning, before they were corrupted, then they will start behaving better. And you are not just changing behavior in a temporary way, you are changing it for the long-term. Kids see what we do and they behave that way. So, what is the most important thing for us to do as facilitators of the program? Be a role model. Lead by example. Is it the same thing? More than what we say, and I have said it five times today, more than what we say, it is what we do that the kids watch. And I seem to remember we used to teach one of the classes here in Miami, and I remember one of the teachers, who was teaching them during the school, you know, she was starting to get into it and liking what we were learning, then I would see her shout at the kids later. And I said, you know what? Instead of shouting at them, try and ask them which voice they are listening to? And maybe that will help. So, the next time I saw one of the kids misbehaving, she turns and says "Which voice are you listening to?" So, it was not like what I was looking for. It is not just about applying it, the tools towards them, but it is applying it in your life. That is why we had you guys, when you do the discipline, you take yourself through the different steps in order to prepare yourself first, so that when you come to your kids, you come with the energy that you are already using it, and then they are going to use it. And that is how the video ended in a positive way, we saw that negativity, but in the end, kid who saw the parent helping the woman who had dropped the stuff, he helped also. So that is the beauty, the power, that you know, whether for the negative or for the positive, kids do what they see us do. So, I want to thank you guys for coming today. I want to thank all of you for tuning in over the internet, for choosing to be a facilitator, for choosing to use our program. It is one of the most important things that you can do in your volunteer work. Spirituality for Kids. Tools to win the game of life.