Ch. Master Greg Moody, Ph.D.

The Podcast:

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (19:41):
Yeah. Cleaning the room might be, if they clean their room, there might be something related to cleaning their room. What’s a consequence of cleaning the room that they I’m trying to think of something that would have a consequence of food.
Sr. Master Laura Sanborn (19:54):
Well, possibly if you clean your room and have a place for everything, maybe you can get a new toy that will fit in the room. But if the room’s not clean, you can’t get a new toy because nothing else fits in there.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (20:06):
If that makes sense. Right. So if it makes sense, if it’s just arbitrary and capricious, then it wouldn’t matter. But yeah, I mean you, you want to have a TV in your room. You’re maybe you’re 14 or 15 years old. You wanna have a TV in your room so you can play video games in your room. I’m not sure you that’s a great idea, but if let’s say that was okay with you as a parent and well, there’s no space on your wall and we’re gonna genuinely trip over stuff and break the TV. And so you would need to maintain your wall, your TV. Another one would be pets. That’s a common one. They say, oh, well we’re gonna feed the dog. I wanna get a dog. Well, we’re gonna feed the dog. But truthfully the parents end up feeding the dog. You know that one’s a little hard to test ahead of time. You can’t really get a dog for six months and then get rid of it if they don’t feed the dog. But the idea would be that there’s a responsibility goes along with the benefit to connect those two things. You know? That’s a tricky one with the dog. Cause well
Sr. Master Laura Sanborn (21:08):
That one, you see a lot where they’re like, okay, well you have this responsibility. If you can’t handle this responsibility, then you can’t get a dog because you can’t do this. You can’t clean your room for a month.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (21:20):
Yeah. But those are disconnected though. I don’t, I don’t know. Now see, that’s a good example of one that would probably be administered wrong because cleaning your room probably doesn’t predict that you’ll be able to, that you actually would clean the poop from the yard when the dog comes in. Right. So that’s where I think we make a big mistake as parents. You know, now if the, if your child is really good at cleaning the room, managing stuff, managing certain discipline things, maybe you could try us that you could get a dog. I would probably expect that that may or may not actually work that the, the child would clean their or clean up after the dog. But if that’s a, if that’s an, a chore that would be assigned to the child, the, the next thing we’ll talk about and we need to make a note here to talk about is how to create new behaviors in terms of consistency.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (22:10):
So anyway, but this would be how to connect. We’re gonna talk about control and then we’ll talk about consistency next, but this would be a way to connect these activities together. This would be, this is my best example with ho homework and video games. Time’s a good way to connect it. I time to do my reward activity because I did the chore activity and those two things fit in the same space on a regular basis. So anyway let’s go, let’s go to something, something next, the next one would be C control and it doesn’t matter how old the child is. They could be three years old. I don’t under three years old. If you look at PGA and developmental psychology, there’s a little bit of different developmental development going on at that age. So I wouldn’t say this applies under generally three years old.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (23:07):
Every kid’s a little different at every age, but above three years old is when they may not be choosing to do something. And it may be a control thing. It may not be about value. It may not be because I don’t really C I don’t really care about cleaning my room. I don’t really care about doing the homework. I don’t care about doing my brushing my teeth or anything. It’s that there’s a, a fun function of, I don’t want to do it because you told me I don’t want to do it. So there’s a control issue. And for anybody listening to this, if you’ve ever I’m sure everybody here is that’s listening to this is, has worked and dealt with people at work and you’ve asked people to do stuff and they’ve argued just for no reason. These are control issues, right? People don’t like to have be told what to do or there’s there’s issues with control.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (23:59):
And it, it starts at a young age. And as we said earlier, we do want kids to learn to be independent, but we also want them to have the reality in their head that they have to, they have to participate as, as kids in your household, not as the boss of the household. So you guys are the boss of the household that has to be established pretty early of about what’s going on. So, so how do we do that? If it’s a control issue, first thing you gotta do is figure out whether it is a control issue or not. Are they not behaving? Cause what you’re asking to do is so painful or to them, or there’s some issue why they really, really don’t want to do it for some reason that is, it needs to be investigated. You know, if they don’t want to clean the room, cuz for some reason, that’s just, you know, they feel like it’s difficult for ’em.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (24:51):
They feel like there’s a problem with it. They’re scared of something. There’s a lot of reasons why you ask kids to do something that they may think is hard. They’re afraid of. They’re scared to do it. They don’t want to do it. Cuz they used to quitting. That’s a common, that’s a common refrain for kids. So let’s say those things are not true. And you just have, are having a lot of trouble with control. So how do we, how do we manage that? One way we manage that is by monitoring or doing it with them. So Monitoring or doing it kind of, I would call apprenticing with them. So doing it with them,
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (25:37):
It doesn’t matter if it’s two or three years old, so they’re three or four or five years old. Doesn’t matter what age they’re supposed to brush their teeth. We have to be there and brush, brush their teeth and where we’re gonna talk about consistency in a minute, but it kind of leads into this where let’s say you need them to brush your teeth. You need to brush your teeth every day. They’re refusing to brush your teeth. They’re not wanting to brush your teeth. You want ’em to do it consistently without your monitoring, without your intervention. Well, it may be that you have to do it with them for two or three or four weeks before they will start doing it without your intervention. Most of the time when we have problems with this and by the way, this is the same with adult training. When we’re doing business consulting and business training that I do I’ll hear, I’ll hear a common refrain that they’ll say, well, yeah, I told ’em how to do it.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (26:30):
I told ’em what I wanted, told him to do it. I showed him how to do it. Okay. How many times did you show him? Well I walked him through it. I showed him how to do it. I showed him ’em how it was written down. This would be for an adult and okay. How many times you do that? Well, I did it once. Okay. Well then yeah. Why, why do you think they’re still not, not learning it? The general rule for anybody and this is for adults and kids. So I’m telling you the adult number, cuz we have better data on this cuz it’s more consistent. Adults are more consistent than kids, kids. It probably is more is 27 times.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (27:13):
So the general rule is 27 times. The rule is you need. And where that comes from is you need nine repetitions for somebody to learn something. And now some people tell you it’s 10,000 times. There’s like an, an old ad. You gotta do something 10,000 times. But it’s probably not that many but nine times, but they probably only understand one out of three. This is a general guideline. So the guideline I’d give you is if I haven’t walked you through it and taught you to do it 27 times, it’s my fault. Not yours semester Sam, when I got a lot of work to do, no, I probably taught you stuff 27 times. So, so, but if I haven’t taught you 27 times, then it’s me not you so control now that’s not the issue. The issue isn’t you haven’t taught them to do it or they don’t know how to brush their teeth.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (28:16):
The, I get it that that’s not what we’re talking about here. However, this amount of frequency that we would work with them on tends to dampen the control issue. So in other words, they don’t wanna, they don’t wanna clean their room. Okay, well we’re gonna do it together. Now built into that is the value thing. That there’s a consequence if they don’t. But regardless of whether there’s a consequence, they still won’t clean their room. That’s that’s where we’re at right now. The consequences don’t seem to work. The benefits don’t seem to work. There’s no, there’s no tie together benefits for doing it. There’s and by benefits, remember we’re talking about the actual benefits for cleaning the room. Not that they’re going to the park, not the disconnected benefits, but the benefits for cleaning the room, the actual benefits of the activity. They don’t care about that.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (29:06):
So there’s a consequence because if they don’t clean the room, you know, you guys aren’t happy. The family’s unhappy they’re or the room’s a mess or you know, so there’s a, the, the natural consequences of not cleaning the room don’t work. So you have to do it with them. So you have to do it with them. And the general rule is 27 times. Now for most parents on the call, you’re thinking that’s a lot of times, but most of the time you, or let me say most of the time, a lot of times you don’t have to do it this much, but you have to do it this much as a general rule for control issues. If they don’t want to do it with you, okay, we’re gonna do it together 27 times. Now here’s another rule that you’ll get from the 1, 2, 3 magic book that we love. I’ll I’ll bring it a little bit from our discipline podcast from 1, 2, 3 magic By Thomas Fallon,
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (30:11):
Thomas Fallon’s the author 1, 2, 3, magic’s the book highly recommended book for everybody on our call in one, two, three magic. They have a rule that says when you’re having an issue like this, somebody’s behaving poor. And by the way, I recommend this for adults too, in terms of using this same rule, it’s less talk. I’m gonna write this down here and less emotion, maybe a very emotional situation. When a child isn’t behaving, they’re not doing what you want ’em to do. There’s a control issue. So we bring the talk down, emotion down and all we do is if it’s cleaning the room, we go clean the room. If they’re not brushing your teeth, their teeth, we go in there 27 times, follow that rule and monitor them, brushing their teeth. We don’t brush their teeth for ’em. We monitor them, brushing their teeth. The only talk is gonna be, oh, you gotta make sure you get the uppers and the lowers and the back and tell ’em what to do.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (31:17):
And they can be grumpy about it. If they want, they can be complaining about it. If they want, they can be emotional about it. If they want doesn’t matter, you won’t solve control issues by escalating emotion. You’ll only solve these issues by having less talking about it. The only thing you’re gonna talk about is the actual issue. You’re not gonna say, Hey, if you keep getting grumpy, I’m gonna do something. No, it doesn’t matter. At this point. It’s very much like if you read the book and it’s not our topic for today, it’s just like, as if you got to a three or there’s a consequence or less talk, less emotion, it’s just about you monitoring the activity. So 27 times, if it gets there earlier, great. If it takes a little longer, that’s okay too. But that’s the general rule. Nine times to get something it takes about three times for three repetitions of each time to understand it. So nine times three is 27. So there’s the rule. Any questions about the master Sam? Or did that make some sense?
Sr. Master Laura Sanborn (32:19):
No, that one makes sense. The less talk and less emotion. I can see how that would bring things down into a more manageable happening.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (32:30):
Yeah. When you’re having issues and when parents are, are dealing with this stuff. One thing that’s really important is not to mix the things up here either. So if somebody isn’t in the room and they’re not brushing into their teeth and they’re not clean up the dog poop and they’re not feeding the birds and they’re not, don’t know, I do bunch of pet things here and they’re not putting their socks on. Right. And they’re one thing at a time manage one thing at a time. Preferably just fix that one thing at a time. Because when you fix, when you fix, let’s say the brush and the teeth thing, then the control piece will go down in the other areas. If they know they can’t control one area, if they know that it’s, you are gonna operate consistently, which is what we’ll talk about a little bit next.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (33:23):
Well, this is all kind of covered in that, but if they know you’re gonna operate consistently, then they will not be as likely to try to push you in other areas. All of these things I’ve mentioned again, and again are the same way we would manage adults as well in a work environment. So in a work environment, I know that they’re not kids, but it’s very, very similar to how you not the same, but very similar to how you’d wanna manage an adult. If they’re very emotional and the emotion escalates. If you escalate emotion, what’s gonna happen, they’re gonna then pile more emotion on and pile more emotion on a pile more. And pretty soon you’re very upset when it that doesn’t, isn’t very helpful. It’s not very helpful. If you’re trying to get the kid to clean their room. If everybody starts a big fight, the objective was to clean the room and then do it consistently. And then eventually get to the point where you’re not even having to ask the kid to clean the room. It just happens on a whatever regular basis that you need. So anything else to add there? Ma’am
Sr. Master Laura Sanborn (34:25):
It actually sounds very similar to relationships where you don’t bring in old events to when you’re having an argument with somebody.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (34:39):
Well, yeah, and I think, I think what happens in relationships now we get a little bit on a tangent, but on the relationships, what happens is the old events don’t get solved. And so then what happens is the emotion escalates real quickly because there’s still emotion out there on the old, old ones. So just like this, if somebody didn’t clean the room and there was a big fight or somebody was really mad about it, but it didn’t get resolved. Maybe the room didn’t get cleaned. Now the parents gonna ask, okay, you know, Sally, would you, you know, would you clean the room? Finally, Sally now she’s really upset and she really wants control. And now mom is gonna be more mad really quickly. And now it escalates really fast and everybody’s mad. Okay. And look even the best behaved kid and the best manage the best parents get into this from time to time.
Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor (35:30):
And what challenges a lot of parents is one kid operates really well. I shouldn’t say it like that. One kid operates one way and another of their children operate a different way. And, and so, so then we end up with this situation where, well, but you know, child number one, op you know, Billy operated this way, why isn’t Sally operating this way? And I’m now Sally looks, you know, she feels like a jerk in the family. And then, well, you know, why aren’t you more like Billy? And it causes all these problems. And really it’s, it’s something that we, as parents can manage, but, but we’re upset too. Hey, look, it’s understandable as parents to be upset and be emotional about it because we’re so frustrated because you know, you you’re, you’re pulling your hair out more than me, you know? I mean, but you know, I don’t have any hair left, but but you’re pulling your hair out because you’re ha you’re struggling with how to manage these issues in, in your own family.

Stay tuned for Part 4 In our Blog!

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About Dr. Greg Moody:  Greg is an eighth-degree black belt and chief master instructor.  He has a Ph.D. in Special Education from Arizona State University (along with a Master’s Degree in Counseling and a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering – he actually is a rocket scientist). He has been teaching martial arts for over 25 years and has owned eight martial arts schools in Arizona and California. Chief Master Moody is a motivational speaker and educator and teaches seminars in bullying, business, and martial arts training, around the world. See more at DrGregMoody.com.

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