Scott Schimmel 0:20
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The YouSchool podcast. And I don't know if you've ever been, I don't know if you've ever been in a situation like this if you're a parent, or if you take care of a bunch of kids like a teacher, or a coach, but sometimes, I've found that we get into these relatively extreme moments that lasts longer than a moment. They become like the season, and maybe it goes on for a few days or a few weeks. Sometimes even a few months, where we live at such a kind of a fast, hectic pace, there's maybe extraordinary things going on, and we just have to continue to operate as normal, until something breaks. Now what does it look like for us to lead our families well, or our kids well, so that things don't break. What we're going to talk about today is this concept calling circled the wagons. So it's a parent principle, it's an it's a principle that you can, you can use if you work with a group of kids. And I know right now, it's like AP season for teachers, high school teachers, this would be perfectly applied. To get into this. I just want to you know, the phrase itself, maybe you knew this, I did not, it comes from somewhere. And I'm a total fan, addict of everything on Paramount Plus in the past couple of years, Yellowstone, all the spin off-. 1923, 1883- I love westerns. I love Kevin Costner. And I love Harrison Ford, I just I love these like soap opera, Western shows that are done really well. And there was an episode of the show 1883, which is about the original Dutton family, traveling from the East Coast out West, and they have to go through the Great Plains. As they go through the Great Plains, it's this kind of no man's land, where things get dangerous, and there's marauders, there's people that will attack them, steal from them, steal their supplies, shoot them. That, this is the drama of the show. There's one particular episode, where they understand that there's an attack coming from this band of bandits. And what do they do, they literally they say "Time to circle the wagons." And what they mean by that is they have to take this long line of these wagons and horseback, and then put them into a circle formation. And in a circle formation, they can protect and defend from an attack. It's also what they do every single night. It's the same thing every single night, when they set up camp, they would circle the wagons so that they had a line of defense. Now this is the same exact concept that we're applying for families. When we find ourselves in crisis moments, it's time to circle the wagons. Also, there is the end of seasons, and I'm talking right now- it's May 15 as I record this- May, for most families who have kids in school is a particularly difficult, stressful month. It's kind of like the first month of school when everything starts up. And every single day on the calendar, there's something or multiple things we have to turn in. In May, we added we have to turn in all these forms, make sure that we're RSVP'ed to all the proper events. We have to set up school for next year. We got to set up the plans for the summer. We've got kids that are maxed out. And it's time, getting close to time, to circle the wagons. Every summer for the past, I'd say probably 10 years, the the day or two after school is out for our kids, which is typically early June, we go away for a family vacation. And the first three or four days typically aren't awesome, to say the least. We're irritable. We're irritating. Every single person in our family is irritating to each other. We're picking on each other poking at each other. It doesn't feel like vacation. And probably every single time we've ever done this. My wife or I or both will say we should just go home. This is just horrible. Then we're like, kids are horrible, this vacation sucks. We're spending this money. But we've never done it. We've always stayed, and every single time, 100% of time the last couple days of that trip becomes what we need. It's finally like we've resettled. We're no longer irritating. All the kind of angst and energy and unresolved stuff from the previous six weeks or two months, is finally kind of resolved. And we're finally able to rest. We're finally able to enjoy each other's presence without being irritated about how they each other breathe, or chews, or sleeps or whatever. And those are the moments that our memories are made for the rest of the year. Those are the moments when I look back on those trips, I think so fondly of those trips. But in reality, like 75% of those trips are kind of awful. That's us, circling the wagons, bringing our family together close, protecting ourselves in some ways from the outside external world. It's where we become stronger together. And there are three particular benefits for actually, that I'm going to share real quickly of circling the wagons, and we've had to do this. At other points, kids have broken arms. It's something that we all experience. Every family in the world pretty much experienced circling the wagons three years ago, with the shutdown. The three core benefits from our kids perspective, when we choose to circle the wagons, which could be for a weekend, could be for a night, could be for a week, could be for even longer, where it's just us, we're turning off the phones, we're saying no to the social events, or canceling the plans. We're skipping the tournament this weekend, whatever version of that looks like for you, and it's just going to be us. Three things. Homebase. It provides for our kids a sense of safety and security, that they have a place to return to. A homebase where they get to lick their wounds, let down their hair, not have to impress, not have to be on all the time, they are accepted for who they are- homebase. It's when we circle the wagons that we reconnect the relationships, we remember that we enjoy each other and love each other. And if we do this and stay committed to it as a pattern for our families, we are able to set culture and culture is how things happen here. How we do things here. It's what we do subconsciously, culture. I want my kids when they get older, to recognize when they're in a stressful moment, a crisis moment or a stressful season- it's time to circle the wagons. It's time to pull together the people that you love the most and love you the most and get what you need. The most important thing, I think, is that in the circling the wagons, the home base, the reconnection, and the culture is what creates for our kids a strong foundation of resilience, to go out and go back into a complex world that's challenging, and intense, which is school, work life. The world. So having a regular rhythm, and this could be we circle the wagons every Sunday night for family dinner. We every single holiday break, we go away to a quiet cabin. It's every single Fourth of July, we go to the beach for two straight days, just us. Whatever version of it looks like for you the regular rhythms of circling the wagons will provide for your kids a stronger foundation, because when they know that they come from somewhere and will return to somewhere, it means they belong to people. And belonging to people is the key pillar to resilience out in the world. This is an incredible gift we can give to our kids. So what does it look like? Now we're in the middle of May as you're listening. And if you're a teacher or coach, what is circling the wagons look like? Movie time. Play games. Don't do the drills, skip the practice. Let's go to the pool together. If you're a coach, let's just hang out and talk and connect, and tell jokes and that's circling the wagons. Every kid needs it. Every family, every committed group of people needs that as well. So what does it look like in your life? We'll see. Love to hear from you, and how this applies to your life. Thanks for joining with another episode of The YouSchool podcast. Hey, thanks for joining in on The YouSchool podcast. We'd love to share with you the resources available on our website at theyouschool.com. Not just articles, ebooks, worksheets and other podcast episodes, but specifically you should know about a free course we have available called The Real Me course. It's digital, it's interactive, and it'll guide you to get clear about who you are and the great story you can tell with your life. So go register for free account and get started on The Real Me course today at theyouschool.com That's the you school dot com.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
