Kapp Educational Therapy Group

Speaker A 00:00:22

We act as if executive functioning skills are an inherent quality and they're not.

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They're a skill that can be learned.

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Educational therapy should not be a lifelong sentence.

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And so she came back to me a few weeks later, she said, you know what, Rachel?

Speaker A 00:00:40

Ever since you said that, both my husband and I are really seeing what you're talking about.

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And we do think she's missing some things.

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We end up going through the process and getting her an assessment.

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And turns out she there's an auditory processing disorder.

Speaker A 00:00:52

And I felt, I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but to catch that at four and a half for a little girl who's not behavioral, it was going to get ignored for a really long time.

Speaker A 00:01:04

Parents will bring up things with teachers for years before a teacher finally says, you know, I think you're right.

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I think oftentimes parents think they want in person because they somehow think that the connection is going to be stronger or better.

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Speaking from my experience of working with so many students virtually at this point, there's no difference that I feel in the connection that I have to an in person learner or a virtual learner.

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What we need from parents is the collaboration to have them step back so their learner can step forward.

Speaker B 00:01:44

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education on Far podcast.

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The place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world.

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Listen to teachers, parents and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all.

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Hi Rachel, thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Fire podcast.

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Great to chat to somebody who's a fellow podcaster.

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It happens every now and again and it's nice that somebody's got a bit of an insight of what that's like.

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And also I always find it great being a guest because it kind of.

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It's a different feeling, isn't it, than being a co host or.

Speaker A 00:02:22

It's so nice being a guest.

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And thank you so much for having me.

Speaker B 00:02:26

Oh, brilliant.

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I'm really looking forward to this because you're obviously helping so many different people.

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So why don't we start with educational therapy in terms of what that is and maybe how that's different from tutoring or what people's sort of preconceived conceptions may be perfect.

Speaker A 00:02:40

Thank you, Mark, for having me and for.

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For creating this platform for us to have this conversation.

Speaker A 00:02:47

So my name is Rachel Kap.

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I'm a board certified educational therapist.

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I'm based in Los Angeles, California and a little bit about educational therapy.

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So as educational therapists, we are focused on helping learners where they are, meeting them, where they are, helping them learn the skills and the strategies of studenting in order for them to become independent and autonomous.

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There's a few things that makes us really different.

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The first from a tutor, the first is we're not really interested in the content.

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We will use the content to teach them skills and strategies, but it doesn't really matter what the learner is using.

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Our primary focus is how is the learner taking in information and then how they're sharing their knowledge.

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And let's work out any inefficiencies, let's work out any sort of learning differences or medical diagnoses.

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Another thing that makes us different from a tutor is we're trying to work ourselves out of a job.

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Educational therapy should not be a lifelong sentence.

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You can always have a tutor because the subject matter is often is new, it's always novel, it's always new.

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For the learner.

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Our job is to help them figure out how to hold themselves up rather than having another adult or another teacher or another mentor helping to hold them up.

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We're often the last stop.

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Oftentimes parents will try tutors because obviously that's what everybody knows, not everybody knows about educational therapy.

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So they'll try content area tutors.

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But we, we kind of take our, our approach and to the next level.

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We often, well, not often we all have a higher ed degree in learning in special needs or a certificate of some equivalency.

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And, but educational therapy isn't everywhere, which is why, and it's a relatively new field which is why a lot of people haven't heard about it.

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So ed therapy is really located in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago and.

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But it's expanding, it's expanding and I.

Speaker B 00:05:01

Guess that probably takes us very nicely into the whole kind of idea of the virtual world in terms of like say you've got the opportunity for one on one with.

Speaker B 00:05:09

We were in obviously in a local area, but very different in this day and age with the virtual world as well.

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So take us into the kind of maybe the differences between in person and virtual and how you've kind of made that work for what you've put together.

Speaker A 00:05:22

It's a really good question.

Speaker A 00:05:24

So I can only speak to my experience and my area of expertise I'm specialized in and my business is specialized in learners who struggle with executive functioning skills challenges.

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So we focus at my practice on Learners who are 5th grade through adulthood and we do work with a lot of adults in our practice, so I always like to share that.

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But the true.

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I can only give the story of how sort of the virtual took off for our practice locally here.

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In January 2020, my practice made the decision to specialize and obviously In March of 2020, we had to go completely, virtually and candidly, that wouldn't have been the direction that I would have taken my practice in.

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I had some limiting beliefs around the virtual work and.

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And Covid obviously forced us to explore it more.

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I should also add that educational therapists don't have licensures.

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So we're not like a marriage and family therapist that's only licensed to practice in California or in New York.

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We can work with learners wherever they are.

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So the virtual work has been extremely meaningful, extremely effectual.

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And, and it's in my estimation, I mean, we made the decision last year that we're going to completely embrace virtual.

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We do not offer in person sessions anymore.

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The work is meaningful, the work is collaborative and the connection is there.

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I think oftentimes parents think they want in person because they somehow think that the connection is going to be stronger or better.

Speaker A 00:07:09

Speaking from my experience of working with so many students virtually at this point, there's no difference that I feel in the connection that I have to an in person learner or a virtual learner.

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I will say that there are certain specialties within educational therapy, people who are maybe working on helping learners to decode and learn how to read that it probably would be beneficial to be in person.

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But for the work that we do at CAP Educational Therapy Group, there's no market difference.

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So we've completely embraced the virtual world.

Speaker B 00:07:47

And it is fascinating, I think, that sort of sense of in person and virtual, because I spend a lot of my time sat here in the virtual world and I've got really, really important relationships with people that I might only see once or twice a year.

Speaker A 00:08:02

Exactly.

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We're chatting all the time, we're meeting all the time, we're kind of building businesses all the time.

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And I think it's the human to human contact, which I think, like I say there is something when you're in person, but it doesn't take away in a way as much as you would expect it to.

Speaker A 00:08:18

I agree, we.

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So I haven't mentioned this, but I also.

Speaker A 00:08:21

Well, he mentioned I also have my own podcast called Learn Smarter, the Educational Therapy Podcast.

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And we could talk more about that if you want.

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But likewise, we've never met our editor and he, he's done Our podcast art.

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He's done our podcast art round two because we've updated over the years and he's been in New York.

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We have a texting relationship, we have a zoom relationship.

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We talk to him all the time because we talk to him throughout the episodes as he's editing them and he responds back to us, you know, there's a delay, but this is someone that we have an extremely collaborative relationship that we know a lot about and we've never met.

Speaker A 00:09:02

We keep telling him he needs to come to Los Angeles so that we can take him to dinner and, you know, see how tall he is.

Speaker B 00:09:12

That's really true.

Speaker B 00:09:13

It's really true.

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And, and, and I completely, I completely relate.

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I mean, I've got a show called Creative Amplifiers where we're, we help people build their YouTube channels and get themselves set up online and all of that.

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And I've got two co hosts.

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One's a Brit but lives in Portugal, and the other one lives in la.

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And, and we met in person and in an in person event.

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But actually our relationship, apart from the two or three other times we've met in person, is completely virtual.

Speaker B 00:09:40

And yeah, it's a fascinating world and I think especially young people, and I.

Speaker A 00:09:43

Bet you feel connected and it's quite, I mean, when you're doing a business venture or building something with somebody, it's quite an intimate experience.

Speaker A 00:09:52

Right.

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And to not have that in person interaction, but still feel like this is a person who knows me, this is a person who understands me, this is a person who knows my strengths and weaknesses.

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I, it's, it's really.

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I'm grateful for it.

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I'm grateful for the opportunities that the Internet has provided.

Speaker B 00:10:13

Yeah.

Speaker A 00:10:13

And I embrace it.

Speaker B 00:10:14

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker B 00:10:15

And I like to say podcasting is a great example of that, isn't it?

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We're able to have conversations to share the work of people who you'd never be able to get face to face with.

Speaker B 00:10:23

And so it's absolutely fantastic, you know, let alone the fact that you're, you know, you've got people in your ears on their walk, the gym, you know, doing housework or whatever.

Speaker A 00:10:32

It's such an intimate relationship.

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And I know that I've had that because I'm a big podcast listener myself.

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And so I, that that relationship is so intimate.

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And I've had, you know, the point of my podcast wasn't to necessarily bring clients into the practice.

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It was to expand awareness and access to the work that we do.

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Deeply believe in access and equality of access.

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And so, but it's funny when you do come across those people who will ask you really specific things about your life that you don't even remember saying on the podcast.

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And.

Speaker A 00:11:09

And I had a former client was like, so what happened with the blinds at your house?

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And I went there, there.

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Yeah, we solved the problem or whatever it was.

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And I'm like, how did you know about that?

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She's like, oh, you mentioned it in this episode.

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We recorded that episode six weeks ago.

Speaker A 00:11:27

But thank you for following up.

Speaker A 00:11:30

I didn't remember saying it, and I.

Speaker B 00:11:33

Think it's a really great example of that, of the essence of what we do, because you can look at the website and the websites look fantastic and it gives you loads of information.

Speaker B 00:11:42

But even just hearing that sort of story brings the personality and the relationships to the fore, doesn't it?

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And you can't do that any other way, really.

Speaker A 00:11:50

Yeah, it's a great meet.

Speaker A 00:11:52

I love podcasts.

Speaker B 00:11:54

So in terms of how you kind of built it out, you sort of talked about how you sort of the virtual world came and covered and that kind of thing.

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But what was the sort of the.

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The essence of wanting to.

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The business in, In.

Speaker B 00:12:05

In the beginning and that sort of, sort of acorn moment before it sort of started to flourish?

Speaker A 00:12:10

Yeah, I actually want to even go back further.

Speaker A 00:12:13

I think I. I think it would be meaningful to sort of talk about my trajectory and how I found educational therapy, because I do think it's a combo of educational therapy found me and I found it.

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So after I graduated from college, I went to UC Berkeley.

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Go Bears.

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And after I graduated from college, I really didn't have a plan.

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I was a highly motivated, highly competitive student.

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And my.

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My goal was getting into college, which I know a lot of families can relate to.

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I hadn't really given a lot of time or attention or thought into what was going to happen once I graduated.

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So I end up moving back home and I. I'm just like, I gotta work.

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I. I'm a person who thrives with structure.

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I'm a person who thrives with accountability.

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I'm a person who thrives being busy.

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And I say yes to a lot of things, and I'm learning to say no, but I. I say yes to a lot of things.

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And.

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And so I actually wound up teaching preschool for about seven or eight years.

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I loved it.

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I loved being with the little kids.

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I was teaching Pre K. It's a really fun age, actually.

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My older son will be entering Pre K in the fall.

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I'm really excited because it's just such a fun age.

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They're intentionally funny.

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They are still young, and they need you.

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But there's a level of independence there that maybe is not there yet.

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At three and a half, which is how old he is now.

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And I loved the work.

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I had one student who I was doing a circle time, and I was noticing after many, many weeks, she was a little girl.

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And I was noticing she's not attending to what is being shared at circle time.

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And that's when we're giving new information.

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That's when we're teaching, we're talking about things.

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But she wasn't a behavioral problem, right?

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She was sitting there.

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She was completely looking at me and paying attention to me.

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But if you asked her what was circle time about?

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She would give a very kind of.

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It was never.

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It was never correct the answer that she would give, or she would just look at me.

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So I casually.

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And there's a science to how you talk to parents about these things.

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But I casually said to her, mom, have you noticed that when you give her verbal information, maybe she doesn't.

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You have to give it to her a second time.

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Or.

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Or she's not quite.

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She's not quite taking it in.

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And she's like, you know, we really haven't noticed, but let me pay attention.

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And so she came back to me a few weeks later.

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She said, you know what, Rachel?

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Ever since you said that, both my husband and I are really seeing what you're talking about.

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And we do think she's missing some things.

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We end up going through the process and getting her an assessment.

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And turns out she.

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There's an auditory.

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Auditory processing disorder.

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I felt.

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I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but to catch that at four and a half for a little girl who's not behavioral, it was going to get ignored for a really long time.

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And the.

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And the gap would.

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The learning gap and the achievement gap would have been really big for her by the time it was caught.

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And so I started exploring how kids learn more.

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And I knew that I was coming to the end of my time teaching preschool.

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I had done everything that I could do at that point.

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I was a mentor teacher.

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It had really given me a foundation.

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Foundation in explicit instruction, which segued perfectly into educational therapy.

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And I found my master's program and I started going.

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And three years later, I graduated.

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Because I was working many jobs full time.

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I was still tutoring.

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I'd been tutoring since high school, and I was 27 at the time.

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I was already Dating my now husband.

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But our lives weren't completely merged yet.

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And I knew it was the time I knew that I wanted to be in business for myself.

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I wanted to work for myself and have that sort of flexibility.

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I come from a family of entrepreneurs, and so it wasn't such a big leap, but it was scary.

Speaker A 00:16:27

It was scary.

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And then I started the practice in January of 2016.

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By 2017, I was accepted, expanding, and by 2018, I was starting the podcast.

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And it sort of just has grown from there.

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And I'm grateful for my business because it provides me the kind of flexibility that I really want in my life now with my two little boys, while also mentoring a team.

Speaker A 00:16:53

And it has allowed me to expand my impact.

Speaker B 00:16:58

And I think that's key.

Speaker B 00:16:59

I mean, as a freelance myself, you know, I'm a musician, so I get to perform.

Speaker B 00:17:02

I still get to do some teaching and give back, like you say, in terms of that sort of being able to share my passion of music as well.

Speaker B 00:17:09

And then, yeah, the online world of podcasting and streaming and all of that kind of thing.

Speaker B 00:17:12

But what's your.

Speaker A 00:17:14

What's your instrument, Mark?

Speaker B 00:17:15

So I'm drums and percussion.

Speaker A 00:17:17

So do you know that I knew you were going to say drums before you said it?

Speaker A 00:17:21

I said, I bet he's drums.

Speaker A 00:17:23

Okay.

Speaker B 00:17:23

But I'm on.

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I'm on the more classical side.

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So I do sort of orchestras, opera, ballet, music, theater is kind of where my kind of sort of more sort of love that middle ground is.

Speaker B 00:17:33

So to say you're not going to see me necessarily on a big rock stage anytime soon.

Speaker B 00:17:37

I think probably at my age, that's probably not going to happen either.

Speaker B 00:17:39

But you never know.

Speaker A 00:17:40

It's never too late.

Speaker B 00:17:41

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker B 00:17:44

But I think having that, like I say that that ability to create the life that you want in a way that you can for the support of your children.

Speaker B 00:17:50

That's why we decided to work in that way, make sure one of us was always going to be at home for the kids and that kind of thing.

Speaker B 00:17:55

And, you know, my kids are sort of almost come through.

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Our youngest is just about to go to uni later in the year.

Speaker B 00:18:02

And you just think all those times that you're able to spend, you can't get that back.

Speaker B 00:18:06

And I'm very grateful for the opportunity to do in that.

Speaker B 00:18:09

And like I say, the life that you create as well as what you're given in order to sort of make that work, you mentioned about, about that little girl, in terms of picking those issues up early enough to Help get that support.

Speaker B 00:18:22

How does that work generally?

Speaker B 00:18:24

Because I know you've got lots of people that are offering that now.

Speaker B 00:18:28

When either a teacher or someone thinks there's something, what is that sort of next step?

Speaker B 00:18:34

Is there a traditional route or route where they can come to you more directly and then kind of take that into what that process then looks like for someone who may then get involved with what you're providing?

Speaker A 00:18:46

Yeah, it's a great question.

Speaker A 00:18:47

So there's a lot of different ways that can happen.

Speaker A 00:18:51

I can only speak to sort of what happens in the United States, so at least locally to here, to me here in LA and California.

Speaker A 00:19:02

But really this is the trajectory and it depends on what is sort of going on for the learners.

Speaker A 00:19:09

So I'll just start there.

Speaker A 00:19:11

But there's a lot of different ways that a learner can find their way into educational therapy.

Speaker A 00:19:16

Usually it's identified.

Speaker A 00:19:17

And I will say that there is usually a parent and usually it's the mom who has a strong mom gut of something's going on.

Speaker A 00:19:30

They are, but they may not know what.

Speaker A 00:19:32

And oftentimes parents will bring up things with teachers for years before a teacher finally says, you know, I think you're right, let's look into this.

Speaker A 00:19:43

And there's a lot of different reasons for that.

Speaker A 00:19:46

Sometimes it can come directly from the teacher, sometimes it can come from the pediatrician, because obviously a medical diagnosis or traumatic brain injury will.

Speaker A 00:19:56

Can end up with a learner.

Speaker A 00:19:57

In educational therapy, there's a lot of different paths to getting a diagnosis.

Speaker A 00:20:02

You can do a independent assessment which is privately paid, usually not within insurance.

Speaker A 00:20:10

The school system will do their own assessment, but it depends on where you live, sort of what tests are allowed to be given.

Speaker A 00:20:17

For example, in Los Angeles, in our public school system, you are not allowed to give an IQ test for sort of obvious reasons.

Speaker A 00:20:25

They're inherently biased and, and so it just sort of, and.

Speaker A 00:20:30

But even in a public school assessment, things can go missed if it's extremely nuanced.

Speaker A 00:20:38

You do not have to have an assessment or a diagnosis to be a good candidate for educational therapy, at least at my practice.

Speaker A 00:20:47

Different educational therapists may have different ideas about it.

Speaker A 00:20:50

Also, educational therapists can administer, sorry, some assessment tools and assessment tests.

Speaker A 00:21:00

I personally do not do that because there's really good, much better qualified people to do that sort of deep retrospective work and introspective work.

Speaker A 00:21:12

And so there's a lot of different ways that a learner can go about the figuring out who they are as a learner.

Speaker A 00:21:19

And so there's not one path.

Speaker A 00:21:22

But I always say, at least in my practice, if you have a learner who's not meeting expectations, who is habitually not prepared for their day, who is shocked on Sunday night at 11 o' clock that there's an essay due the next day, who does the assignment but doesn't turn in the assignment, who's taking too long on minor homework, that should just be like a give me assignment, but they're spending hours in it and they can't differentiate what's important and what's not important, that's a good candidate for educational therapy.

Speaker A 00:21:59

If you have 200,000 emails that you've never read, that's a good candidate for educational therapy.

Speaker A 00:22:05

At least a CAP at therapy group.

Speaker A 00:22:07

Those are sort of our, those are our peeps.

Speaker B 00:22:11

So when someone then comes to you, take us through the process of what they would expect in terms of like say that first meeting and then, and then sort of the process through.

Speaker B 00:22:19

Because I guess each session is going to be different, bearing in mind everyone's individual and that's kind of what you're trying to produce.

Speaker A 00:22:27

Great question.

Speaker A 00:22:28

So we've already had the conversation and we've determined that they're a good fit, that we're a mutual good fit.

Speaker A 00:22:34

There are three phases to how our process works.

Speaker A 00:22:38

At my practice.

Speaker A 00:22:40

The first phase is we are building out their foundational system.

Speaker A 00:22:44

So a system for managing their time, a system for managing themselves physically and a system for managing themselves digitally.

Speaker A 00:22:50

We are very upfront and clear with parents in those first four successions that it takes to create those foundational systems that we're not dealing with late homework, we're not studying for tasks.

Speaker A 00:23:04

You have to have those systems in place to have a strategy for dealing with that late homework and preparing properly for that test.

Speaker A 00:23:13

So those are the foundational systems that need to be in place.

Speaker A 00:23:16

Then they move into the second phase of our work which we are teaching them to maintain those systems.

Speaker A 00:23:23

This is something that our population that we work with at CAP educational therapy is very, very, we call it internally, they're famous for this.

Speaker A 00:23:32

Learners who struggle with executive functioning skills challenges are kind of similar in this way in that they are always seeking out and looking for novelty.

Speaker A 00:23:41

So this is a population that will find a new app and they'll be like, this is the app that's going to solve all my problems.

Speaker A 00:23:49

Or the, their, their parents are going to Staples, Amazon and buying all the organizational things.

Speaker A 00:23:56

Right.

Speaker A 00:23:57

But their kids aren't using them and their kids aren't maintaining them.

Speaker A 00:24:00

So we are teaching them in the first five to ten minutes of every session how to maintain those executive functioning systems because they are not going to do it independently without accountability.

Speaker A 00:24:11

And then we spend the remainder of our time focused on what we call the nitty gritty of our learning.

Speaker A 00:24:16

So things that are tricky for our learners are things such as written expression, reading comprehension on non preferred literature, struggles with task initiation.

Speaker A 00:24:27

That's a nice way of saying procrastination issues with understanding the assignments and understanding what's asked of them.

Speaker A 00:24:36

Focusing on substance over style.

Speaker A 00:24:38

This is a population that loves to focus on the style over substance.

Speaker A 00:24:41

So if a teacher gives them an opportunity to create like a PowerPoint slide, for example, they're going to spend, they're going to start and spend 80% of their time making sure the slides look beautiful, but they have not spent any time thinking about what they're going to put on the slide.

Speaker A 00:25:00

We are going to focus on study skills, we are going to focus on self advocacy and then they will gradually move into the third and final phase of our work together, which we're looking for five things internally at the practice.

Speaker A 00:25:14

And this is how we know when we can graduate a learner out.

Speaker A 00:25:16

So we want them to do five things.

Speaker A 00:25:17

We want them able to independently maintain their systems without coaching from us.

Speaker A 00:25:22

We want them to be able to predict what is challenging and why, meaning we really want them to have a sense of who they are as a learner.

Speaker A 00:25:30

We want them to be able then to self select the appropriate strategy for that challenge.

Speaker A 00:25:35

We want them to be able to advocate appropriately with the adults in their lives.

Speaker A 00:25:39

And we want them to know what to do when they don't know what to do.

Speaker A 00:25:42

And that's when we start to have the conversation as they're approaching mastery on some of those skills, if not all of those skills.

Speaker A 00:25:48

That's when we start to have the conversation about scaling back the amount of sessions per week and giving them a little bit more of an opportunity to be independent.

Speaker A 00:25:57

Families never want to scale back sessions.

Speaker A 00:25:59

Why?

Speaker A 00:26:00

Because good intervention from our practice means that family and home life has improved.

Speaker A 00:26:05

So they're scared to pull back on those sessions.

Speaker A 00:26:07

But the reality is the sessions have been effective and they've learned what they've needed to learn and then we let them flourish and go.

Speaker B 00:26:16

Amazing.

Speaker B 00:26:17

And I think that's such a well encapsulated picture there of how that works and you can see how supportive, how supportive it is.

Speaker B 00:26:25

But I think like you said, I can sort of identify with what you said about the kind of letting go at the end because you get comfortable again, don't you?

Speaker B 00:26:32

You think everything's working.

Speaker B 00:26:33

Everyone's.

Speaker B 00:26:34

Everyone's gained the skills that they want and what they're trying to do.

Speaker B 00:26:37

But of course, the reality is, is we're trying to make everybody as supportive of themselves, whatever their age.

Speaker B 00:26:42

And like I say, supportive going into their adult life as well or certainly next phage or how they're doing that.

Speaker B 00:26:48

And there's one of the sorts of sort of conversations that sort of help that, you know, if there's a parent that's sort of talking to their child, what's maybe a conversation that they had when they were really struggling before they understood some of this stuff compared to the sorts of conversation maybe they'll have like, say as they're about to sort of leave and, and take their own sort of steps.

Speaker A 00:27:12

So this I thank you for asking the question.

Speaker A 00:27:14

It's such a smart question because yes, we're working with the learner themselves, but we're working with the whole family system.

Speaker A 00:27:22

And the goal of intervention should be that family and home life improves, but really that the parent and child relationship improves.

Speaker A 00:27:29

There can be a lot of tension around learning and there can be a lot of misunderstanding around learning.

Speaker A 00:27:34

So we have a fundamental belief in the practice that.

Speaker A 00:27:39

And we ask parents to join us in this belief and understanding, which is tricky and can take some time.

Speaker A 00:27:46

But our belief is that when learners can do something, they will.

Speaker A 00:27:50

And when they're not meeting expectations, they're not doing what you think they should be doing.

Speaker A 00:27:56

They're procrastinating or it's a no, no word in our practice.

Speaker A 00:28:01

But parents will often say their learner is lazy.

Speaker A 00:28:03

No, they're not.

Speaker A 00:28:04

If they could do it, they would.

Speaker A 00:28:06

Because all learners, we are born wanting to please the adults in our life.

Speaker A 00:28:11

We want to please our parents, we want to please our teachers.

Speaker A 00:28:14

And if we're not and we're not meeting expectations, there is a reason and the reasoning is usually is that it's hard.

Speaker A 00:28:22

So we ask parents to sort of shift their understanding of their learner into if they could, they would.

Speaker A 00:28:30

And if they're not, let's get curious and not punitive.

Speaker A 00:28:34

So we really do have to have a highly skilled conversation with the parents.

Speaker A 00:28:38

And we set this all up in our getting started session with families, which is the very first session you're going to have with your clinician.

Speaker A 00:28:45

And we sort of set up, these are the questions you're allowed to ask your learner.

Speaker A 00:28:49

What we need from parents is the collaboration to have them Step back so their learner can step forward.

Speaker A 00:28:58

And there has to be sort of.

Speaker A 00:29:01

It's a fine line.

Speaker A 00:29:02

It's a tricky dance that we're doing with these families.

Speaker A 00:29:06

But what that means is the parent has to be comfortable that there might be some failure in that, but that their learner will learn.

Speaker A 00:29:13

And there might need to be some boundaries in that.

Speaker A 00:29:16

But we only encourage parents to ask their learner three questions every day, which is, are your systems updated?

Speaker A 00:29:25

What do you need to accomplish, and what's your plan for that?

Speaker A 00:29:28

Meaning I don't really want our parents going into the portal, online portal system and sort of navigating that on their own and then going to their kid and saying, this is what you have to do.

Speaker A 00:29:40

Have you done this?

Speaker A 00:29:41

Like, this is what your teacher.

Speaker A 00:29:42

You're missing this.

Speaker A 00:29:42

Have you asked your teacher about.

Speaker A 00:29:44

So sometimes we have to do things like, and this is rare, but sometimes we have to do things like change the password on the families so that they can stop.

Speaker A 00:29:53

Because it can be a little bit of an addiction of, of sort of monitoring.

Speaker A 00:29:58

Look, the portals are never going away, but they have to be used as a tool that they are, and not as a tool for damaging your relationship with your child.

Speaker A 00:30:11

It's really hard because at least in our population of learners that we work with, they struggle with executive functioning skills.

Speaker A 00:30:17

So if you see your learner struggling with executive functioning skills, you as a parent will start to do the executive functioning for your kid.

Speaker A 00:30:26

And that's normal and totally understandable, but it does create conflict.

Speaker A 00:30:31

Most learners don't want their parents operating that way, and most parents don't want to be operating that way either.

Speaker A 00:30:36

And that's what we tell the kid is like.

Speaker A 00:30:38

No, they, they've graduated from school.

Speaker A 00:30:41

They don't want to be doing this again.

Speaker A 00:30:43

They want to be your parent.

Speaker A 00:30:44

And if you're in those final years before you go to college, you.

Speaker A 00:30:48

They don't want their relationship with you to look like that either.

Speaker A 00:30:52

So we work on sort of helping the whole family adjust under our guidance.

Speaker B 00:30:59

And I think the, the simplicity of that in the complexity is really fascinating.

Speaker B 00:31:05

And, and, and I think that sort of having that bird's eye view, be able to step back and understand it in its most fundamental way, like you say, just by offering two or three things to be aware of.

Speaker B 00:31:18

And then you don't need to get into the weeds.

Speaker B 00:31:20

And like you say all the things that come from that as well.

Speaker B 00:31:22

And, and I think that applies to everybody as well.

Speaker B 00:31:24

It's very easy.

Speaker B 00:31:25

And like you said, As a parent wanting to help life be easier for your child and so it's easier to do it for them.

Speaker B 00:31:31

But they don't learn.

Speaker B 00:31:32

And that's.

Speaker A 00:31:33

But they don't learn.

Speaker A 00:31:34

And also these are parents that deeply identify with their child's learning experience.

Speaker A 00:31:40

So we always say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Speaker A 00:31:43

Oftentimes one or both of the parents can relate to these challenges.

Speaker A 00:31:47

Or this is honestly more common, depending on which parent we collaborate with.

Speaker A 00:31:53

More they accuse their partner.

Speaker A 00:31:56

This is my partner and I already have to do this for my partner.

Speaker A 00:31:59

And I want my, I don't want this for my child and they don't want it for them.

Speaker A 00:32:02

And, and I'm highly organized and I'm highly structured.

Speaker A 00:32:06

But they're, but there's a reason your partner partnered up with you if your strengths are different than theirs.

Speaker A 00:32:13

And so parents will have one of two reactions to sort of their kids studenting, which is, I figured it out so they don't need extra help, like just let them figure it out.

Speaker A 00:32:26

Or I wish I had had this kind of support.

Speaker A 00:32:28

I wish this had been something that was available to me because they got the message.

Speaker A 00:32:33

Because when you don't know better, you can't do better.

Speaker A 00:32:35

They got the message as adults that they were lazy, that they weren't smart, that they, they didn't care about school.

Speaker A 00:32:43

And the truth is, is none of that is likely true.

Speaker A 00:32:47

It's just these executive functioning skills challenges were getting, getting in the way of accomplishing and achieving what they wanted to.

Speaker B 00:32:57

And do you also think that the modern system as it is, with the testing and all the kind of, the under the microscope kind of thing, also isn't helping either?

Speaker B 00:33:08

Because you, you have to be a certain way, you have to achieve this by this way.

Speaker B 00:33:12

You have to do it in this particular way, which we know makes no sense for so many people.

Speaker B 00:33:18

So the understanding who you are and what you're trying to do within the system, let alone doing it in terms of life to help you outside of that system.

Speaker B 00:33:27

And seeing how those two things kind of, they do a merry dance even in the world that we're in now, that must be a really beneficial thing just to open that door like say, and that conversation.

Speaker A 00:33:37

I mean, you're absolutely right.

Speaker A 00:33:40

The way that we, the way that we have structured learning and then we have structured demonstrating your knowledge is really, really tricky.

Speaker A 00:33:51

We talk about all the time that we just have to get this kid through, frankly to college.

Speaker A 00:33:57

And if we can get them through, then they can start taking Classes on what they like.

Speaker A 00:34:02

They can start taking classes at a time of day that is more beneficial to them.

Speaker A 00:34:06

And now they can go really, really deep into their zone of comfort and into their zone of interest.

Speaker A 00:34:13

And so, yes, the world is not set up.

Speaker A 00:34:15

And there's also frankly no good way to assess a learner's knowledge or have the learner have the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge without executive functioning skills sort of interfering.

Speaker A 00:34:27

So we always say knowledge is one really, really, really small component of what's being assessed.

Speaker A 00:34:34

It's, can you answer all the questions?

Speaker A 00:34:36

Can you manage your time properly?

Speaker A 00:34:38

Did you have your notes in the right place?

Speaker A 00:34:41

Were they organized and structured the way the teacher said they wanted them?

Speaker A 00:34:45

Can you recall information at the right moment, at the right time?

Speaker A 00:34:52

All those.

Speaker A 00:34:52

I have this great, I do a lot of presentations on a lot of speaking and I have this great slide where it's like, okay, this is the execration, this is the grades equation, right?

Speaker A 00:35:01

And knowledge plus executive functioning skills equals the grade.

Speaker A 00:35:06

And here's knowledge, that one small thing and then all these other things fly into the screen of what is actually impacting the grade.

Speaker A 00:35:14

Does your learner show up to class on time?

Speaker A 00:35:17

Right.

Speaker A 00:35:18

Like that can be a time management issue.

Speaker A 00:35:20

They don't know how long it's going to take for them to go to their locker, get the information they need.

Speaker A 00:35:24

Get what?

Speaker A 00:35:25

No, make the right selection at their locker and then walk across campus to get to class on time.

Speaker A 00:35:30

Well, now your grades impacted.

Speaker A 00:35:32

That's an executive functioning skill that has nothing to do with knowledge.

Speaker A 00:35:36

And then parents get frustrated, right?

Speaker A 00:35:37

Because those are the easy points to get.

Speaker A 00:35:40

I'm like, easy is not so easy for this population.

Speaker A 00:35:43

So.

Speaker B 00:35:44

Absolutely.

Speaker B 00:35:45

And, and I think that's really in, in the wider scope of this conversation, it's about teaching individually to the child, isn't it?

Speaker B 00:35:54

Like you say, and, and on one end it can be a myriad of things, and then the other side of it it can just be one or two little things that make all the difference.

Speaker B 00:36:02

And I think understanding that personalized learning, which is what I love about what you're doing, but also being able to do it on scale as well with having multiple people that can help people across the board means that so many more people are able to one like say, start with these conversations, but also get the, the support that they need to help them going forward.

Speaker B 00:36:20

And I love the fact as well that it's not just the, the pupil or the person that you're dealing with, it's also the family and how it affects everybody.

Speaker B 00:36:28

I. I think it's a really, really important thing.

Speaker B 00:36:30

And, yeah, I'm really grateful that you've been able to explain it in such a way that makes it so clear.

Speaker A 00:36:36

Thank you.

Speaker B 00:36:38

So I'm always interested, especially people who've been involved in education as well.

Speaker B 00:36:42

Is there a particular education experience or teacher that you remember that had an influence?

Speaker B 00:36:47

Good, bad, depending on how you look at it, sort of influenced, or do you sort of think about that in terms of what you're now doing?

Speaker A 00:36:56

I love this question, so I'll just share.

Speaker A 00:36:58

I come from a family of teachers.

Speaker A 00:37:00

I know I said I come from a family of entrepreneurs.

Speaker A 00:37:02

The other half are teachers.

Speaker A 00:37:04

And so educators and teachers were revered in my home.

Speaker A 00:37:11

And oftentimes that meant I wasn't allowed to criticize the teacher or if I had a challenge.

Speaker A 00:37:18

It was very rare that I would have a challenge with the teacher, but my mom, in particular would usually tell me the teacher's perspective of a conversation.

Speaker A 00:37:27

But I was really fortunate I grew up.

Speaker A 00:37:30

I know everybody's so afraid of the public school system in Los Angeles, but I had the most incredible public school experience.

Speaker A 00:37:40

I really had remarkable teachers all the way through who wanted to be there, who were lit up by us, and who.

Speaker A 00:37:49

Who loved being around us as students.

Speaker A 00:37:52

So, in particular, I went to a middle school and high school that at the time was the number one in the state and number 10 in the nation, and it was a college prep magnet.

Speaker A 00:38:01

And I was there from 6th to 12th grade, which was amazing because you got this, really, for the teachers, looking back, how wonderful you get to watch these sixth graders grow up and go off to college.

Speaker A 00:38:11

It's really a lovely experience as a teacher, but I think we all go into education sort of hoping that we're going to have the Mr. Holland's Opus moment, which is what we often talk about on the podcast.

Speaker A 00:38:24

It's oftentimes why you want to be that teacher, who you had, who.

Speaker A 00:38:30

Who had that impact.

Speaker A 00:38:31

And for me, that was a T. And me and probably hundreds of other students was a teacher named Mr. Rutchman.

Speaker A 00:38:40

He.

Speaker A 00:38:40

I had him in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade.

Speaker A 00:38:43

He taught AP Euro, AP US leadership, which was student government, which I also participated in, and AP Psychology.

Speaker A 00:38:53

And he was that teacher.

Speaker A 00:38:55

And he did have that Mr. Holland's opus moment, because after a couple years after I graduated, he was retiring and leaving that school, and people came back from 30, 40 years to send him off.

Speaker A 00:39:09

And it was an incredible, incredible, incredible achievement.

Speaker A 00:39:13

And in fact, it's so funny because My brother, he's quite politically active and he was just posting on social media and he texted me, he said, did you see that?

Speaker A 00:39:21

Mr. Richmond commented My post.

Speaker A 00:39:23

He's still that guy, you know, he's still that guy for us.

Speaker A 00:39:27

And he has spawned a generation of teachers and he saw us, he commanded respect.

Speaker A 00:39:35

He understood inherently family dynamics.

Speaker A 00:39:40

He made history and psychology so interesting and so alive through storytelling.

Speaker A 00:39:48

And he also turned me into an incredible writer.

Speaker A 00:39:52

He had incredibly high standards and you've never met a more hardworking individual.

Speaker A 00:39:57

He would get to the school because he lived quite far away.

Speaker A 00:40:00

He would get there by 6am and he'd be grading for two hours and then he would be teaching all day and then he'd be going home and being a dad.

Speaker A 00:40:07

And he was just a remarkable, remarkable man.

Speaker A 00:40:12

Amazing is a remarkable man.

Speaker B 00:40:13

Yeah.

Speaker B 00:40:14

And it's so great to hear that.

Speaker B 00:40:15

And, and I love the themes that run through the podcast because that theme about being seen, about being heard and like, say, the storytelling and the understanding, you know, it's never about.

Speaker B 00:40:26

They got me to do this one particular way of learning and that kind of thing because everyone's different.

Speaker B 00:40:31

And like you say in your experience, you're working with people in a certain way to help them.

Speaker B 00:40:35

It's always about the essence of what we're doing and who we are and how we do that.

Speaker B 00:40:39

So, yeah, it's fascinating and brilliant to be able to hear that.

Speaker B 00:40:42

Is there a great piece of advice you've been given or indeed a piece of advice you might give your younger self now, looking back, that would be helpful for people.

Speaker A 00:40:53

I love this question and thank you for asking.

Speaker A 00:40:56

I think I would tell my younger self to relax and have a little more fun.

Speaker A 00:41:04

I was like, I, I shared.

Speaker A 00:41:07

I was a high achieving, highly motivated student.

Speaker A 00:41:12

And that was the design of the middle school and high school that I went to.

Speaker A 00:41:16

It was a college prep magnet.

Speaker A 00:41:18

It was to get us in and get us in it did.

Speaker A 00:41:22

But I. I didn't spend a lot of time or energy thinking beyond of what I wanted the rest of my life to look like.

Speaker A 00:41:32

I really only had my life planned up till 22.

Speaker A 00:41:35

And that's a scary thing.

Speaker A 00:41:37

And I.

Speaker A 00:41:38

It was, it was a lot of hard work in my 20s of sort of figuring out who I wanted to be when I grow up.

Speaker A 00:41:43

I still don't know who I want to be when I grow up, but I know that I really like where I am now.

Speaker A 00:41:49

But I wish I had had more fun.

Speaker A 00:41:52

I did have fun in college, everybody, but I wish I had.

Speaker A 00:41:55

Had.

Speaker A 00:41:56

I wish I could have relaxed a little bit because at the end of the day, frankly, nobody cares.

Speaker A 00:42:03

When I went to college, it's never mattered.

Speaker B 00:42:08

And I think, and I think that having fun's really interesting because you can get to a point where you think having fun takes away from the work that you're doing and all of that, but of course it doesn't.

Speaker B 00:42:18

But I think you'd like to say you get into this cycle of it needs to look like this, and it's kind of working for me, so I'm going to keep doing that.

Speaker B 00:42:24

And I think, I think, like you.

Speaker A 00:42:26

Say, a lot of the steam out of it.

Speaker A 00:42:28

Mark.

Speaker B 00:42:28

Yeah, yeah, I have.

Speaker A 00:42:29

I, you know, I don't want to deter from the fact that I. I was extreme and am extremely proud of where I went to school, and I'm extremely grateful to have had that experience at Berkeley, because if there's nothing like being taught by the person that created it.

Speaker A 00:42:44

Right.

Speaker A 00:42:45

Like, there's nothing like that.

Speaker A 00:42:47

And.

Speaker A 00:42:48

And I had some wonderful, wonderful professors and experiences and classes, and.

Speaker A 00:42:54

And it was.

Speaker A 00:42:56

It was truly a remarkable place to be.

Speaker A 00:42:58

But I somehow figured out in college how to have fun while doing all that.

Speaker A 00:43:04

And I could have done that in high school, too.

Speaker B 00:43:07

Brilliant.

Speaker B 00:43:08

Now, is there a resource you'd like to share?

Speaker B 00:43:09

And this can be professional or personal or anything from a video, song, podcast, film, book, but something you'd like to share.

Speaker A 00:43:16

So something that had a tremendous impact on me, and I will preface this by saying that there, this is a problematic book and looking back on it through the lens of who we are in 2025.

Speaker A 00:43:28

And I'm not even sure what year it came out, but I would guess it was around 2015 that this book came out.

Speaker A 00:43:33

But Lean in by Sheryl Sandberg had an incredible impact on me.

Speaker A 00:43:38

I read that book and then six months later quit my job and started my business.

Speaker A 00:43:42

And I'm like, I'm gonna lean in because of all the research that she shared in this book.

Speaker A 00:43:47

And look, this book is written by a woman, a white woman of privilege.

Speaker A 00:43:50

And there's a lot of problematic aspects.

Speaker A 00:43:54

And if you go back and look at it.

Speaker A 00:43:55

But at the core, what it really talked about was the way women show up at meetings, the way women apply for jobs, the way women negotiate their salaries.

Speaker A 00:44:07

And this is something that has been deeply mission driven for me.

Speaker A 00:44:14

And when I see my team show up as women, frankly, and not ask for the raise and not lean in because they're going to get married two years from now, and so that means they're going to have a baby three or four years from now.

Speaker A 00:44:31

So I'm not going to do that, take that opportunity.

Speaker A 00:44:33

Now, I will go against my own self interest as the business owner and email them after, like their annual review and say, you really should have done this.

Speaker A 00:44:44

And if you want to practice with me, I'm inviting that conversation, but you have to do it a month from now when you get a little scared.

Speaker A 00:44:52

And so because I want, I.

Speaker A 00:44:56

There's a reason there's a pay gap.

Speaker A 00:44:59

And part of it is the way we show up.

Speaker A 00:45:02

So, you know, women won't apply.

Speaker A 00:45:04

There's some statistics that women won't apply for a job unless they have 80% of the qualifications or something insanely high like that.

Speaker A 00:45:11

Men don't operate like that.

Speaker A 00:45:12

They figure I have 20% of what they're looking for and I'll learn on the job.

Speaker A 00:45:17

And so that book had a tremendous impact.

Speaker A 00:45:19

If you can sort of look through it through the lens of, oh, this could.

Speaker A 00:45:23

This is problematic, and here's why.

Speaker A 00:45:25

And I think Sheryl Sandberg has been quite clear that she understands the weaknesses of the book as well.

Speaker A 00:45:31

But overall, that book had.

Speaker A 00:45:33

That was a transitional book for me.

Speaker B 00:45:35

Yeah, I love that.

Speaker B 00:45:36

And we'll have links to these things in the show notes as well for people who want to go through.

Speaker B 00:45:40

Check it out.

Speaker B 00:45:41

And so as we start to wrap up, obviously the acronym FIRE is really important to us here on the show.

Speaker B 00:45:47

And by that we mean feedback, inspiration, resilience, and empowerment.

Speaker B 00:45:52

What is it that strikes are either one word or collectively?

Speaker A 00:45:57

For me, it's the resilience piece of the population that we get to work with.

Speaker A 00:46:02

Look, these have kids.

Speaker A 00:46:04

The learners and adults that we work with are people who have gotten a lot of really negative messages about how they show up in the world.

Speaker A 00:46:12

And I'm often asked, does my kid have to want this?

Speaker A 00:46:16

Do they have to be motivated to be a part of this process for it to be effective?

Speaker A 00:46:19

And I always say no, they have to like who they're working with, but they don't have to be motivated around this.

Speaker A 00:46:25

And let's not even have that be an expectation.

Speaker A 00:46:28

Because if I worked, let's say a learner is coming in in eighth grade, and if I worked for nine years of school and had consistently gotten the message that you're not good at this, you're not trying hard enough, you're lazy, which again, is a word we don't use in the practice, the only way I could have internalized that, if I didn't understand my larger learning profile is that I'm somehow not intelligent.

Speaker A 00:46:56

I wouldn't try either.

Speaker A 00:46:58

That's the point is that that is actually to sort of like disconnect from their learning is actually a sign of healthy self esteem.

Speaker A 00:47:07

And I'm not, I'm not good at this.

Speaker A 00:47:08

I'm not going to get my esteem from this.

Speaker A 00:47:10

Let me go find it somewhere else.

Speaker A 00:47:12

And so what we can do through good intervention and frankly through really, really strong relationship with the clinician that they're working with is we can sort of peel that back a little bit, work with them, start to give them little micro successes and though that success will beget more successful.

Speaker A 00:47:31

And this is an extremely resilient population, this is an extremely strategic population.

Speaker A 00:47:41

And I always tell families this is a population that tends to be extremely hireable and likable and or will work for themselves.

Speaker A 00:47:54

And so there's not enough good things I could say about those who struggle with executive functioning skills because they are a skill that can be learned.

Speaker A 00:48:05

We act as if executive functioning skills are an inherent quality and they're not.

Speaker A 00:48:13

They're a skill that can be learned.

Speaker B 00:48:15

And I think that's a great message to end on because I think people listening will then if they haven't thought about it in those ways before or come across it in a way that we've been able to chat about today, it's going to really give something for people to think about and I think be supportive as well, especially if people are struggling.

Speaker B 00:48:32

So, Rachel, thank you so much for being here.

Speaker B 00:48:35

Thank you for sharing all of that wisdom.

Speaker B 00:48:37

Tell people where they can find out more about you and indeed the podcast and all the great work that you're doing, great.

Speaker A 00:48:42

Thank you.

Speaker A 00:48:43

So if you want to connect with me and learn more about the work that we do, the best way to do that is via our website.

Speaker A 00:48:50

So Our website is www.capedtherapy.com K A P P E D therapy dot com.

Speaker A 00:48:57

You can sign up phone call to chat with me there.

Speaker A 00:49:00

And also there's links to all the other things that we sort of talked about today, including Learn Smarter, the educational therapy podcast that's available wherever you listen to podcasts and you do not have to listen in order go to the episode that connects with you.

Speaker A 00:49:18

We also have really, really wonderful conversations with former learners and former clients who've worked with us who sort of speak to their own journey throughout the process.

Speaker A 00:49:26

So if you want to hear about that and then we give it all away for free on the podcast, Mark, because I'm.

Speaker A 00:49:32

We're so deeply aligned with equality of access and, you know, the understanding that not everybody is going to be able to have access to educational therapy.

Speaker A 00:49:44

So go to the podcast and learn and enjoy Me and Steph talking about our blinds.

Speaker B 00:49:52

Amazing.

Speaker B 00:49:53

Yes.

Speaker B 00:49:55

Fantastic.

Speaker B 00:49:55

Rachel, thank you so much.

Speaker B 00:49:56

It's been a wonderful conversation.

Speaker B 00:49:57

I've got a lot out of it, and I'm sure I've.

Speaker B 00:49:59

Everyone listening will live the same.

Speaker B 00:50:00

So, yeah, keep up the great work.

Speaker B 00:50:01

And, yeah, thanks once again.

Speaker A 00:50:03

Thank you so much.