Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back, everybody, to the next episode of Parenting with Impact. I am so excited to welcome Gretchen Wegner, who we've been collaborating with now for a couple of years. And what I love about her and what you're going to find out is she's all about the anti-boring approach to working with young kids, not young kids, students around whatever support they need executive function, etc. But what attracted me to Gretchen from the beginning, and you will find out in a moment, is that there is absolutely nothing boring about her. 

Diane Dempster: Nothing boring about her.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: She brings the anti-boring approach to her work and to her life. And Gretchen, thanks for being here with us. Welcome. 

Gretchen Wegner: Happy to be here. And also just want to say I think we've been in contact for about five years now. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: There you go.

Gretchen Wegner: The time collapse of COVID.

Diane Dempster: That's it.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Last two years with COVID, don't you feel like? Who knows?

Diane Dempster: Maybe they've been boring, then we would have known that it had been five years. But because it's not boring, time flies.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. Time flies when you're having fun.

Gretchen Wegner: Time flies. You got it. 

Diane Dempster: So Gretchen, why don't you start by telling our crowd a little bit about how you got into the work you're doing?

Gretchen Wegner: I worked through my entire 20s and early 30s to become a teacher. I realized later that I thought I wanted to teach. And then I got my first job in a super cushy middle school here in the Bay Area. Never had more than 16 clients. And I mean clients, I said clients now, students.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Students, right. We call them students.

Gretchen Wegner: And I was angry all the time, and I hated being a teacher. I hated forcing kids to do things I didn't want to do, and I was too chicken to quit. But the Head of School, this was a private school, decided that he didn't want to mentor. I was one of these wildly creative teachers that actually, had I been given really great mentoring in about three years, would have been probably Teacher of the Year, but I was still working it through. And so he didn't really recontact me, and I ended up getting a position called academic coaching. I remember the person who interviewed me said, do you know what executive functions are? And I said, no, but I can make up a definition. And the definition I made up was accurate. And she said, you are so hired, and go learn about executive functions. So she trained me initially as a coach. And then I went out on my own and expanded, and the rest is anti-boring history.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: You said, I thought I wanted to be a teacher. And what I would argue is you are quintessentially a teacher. 

Diane Dempster: You are essentially a teacher.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And I remember having this same epiphany like, no, I want to teach, but I never want to teach in a traditional classroom. And so there was something about you that gravitated towards the teaching that you've been able to apply. So what is that?

Gretchen Wegner: Oh my God, I've been a teacher. I remember when I was in fourth or fifth grade, walking to the school bus with a small group of students, all of whom are younger than me. And I would spend time creating curriculum for what they were going to learn on the walk that day. I have just been a teacher. And now, I do call myself a master teacher and a master coach. And I believe strongly that I am both of those things. In my very first job, I was an actor educator. I worked from an Educational Theatre Company and traveled all over Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, doing five-day residencies at schools. Interestingly, I wanted more relationships with kids, an ongoing relationship, so that's why I worked hard to transition to teaching. And I didn't know that academic coaching existed. So now I get to have these incredibly intimate relationships with young people, and I'm so grateful.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And teach and act.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, and all of those things.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And create curriculum. 

Diane Dempster: So there's part of me that wants to talk about academic coaching. But there's part of me that really wants to see if we can talk a little bit about traditional classrooms and why it's so hard for these complex kids because I think it's a great conversation to have.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And why it's so hard to take an anti-boring approach.

Diane Dempster: Yes. Does that feel like a good conversation? So what do you think?

Gretchen Wegner: Yeah. Let's do it. I mean, control, period, end of story. Move on to the next question.

Diane Dempster: Okay. That's it.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Who's in control is really the issue, right?

Gretchen Wegner: Yeah. There you are, a teacher in a classroom, where you are told you have to control these kiddos, and you're getting information from the principal or the school district or whatever. These are the things you have to do to get through by the end of the year. So someone else is controlling you telling you, the teacher, what needs to accomplish in that classroom. And then you're like, oh my god. I mean, I was a middle school teacher, so you've got all of these kids with coursing hormones, and they're new inside their bodies. And I have to do what the principal needs me to do, and so I've got to figure out how to control everyone.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And everything.

Gretchen Wegner: And everything. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, and all they learn. I mean, it's when you put it in that framework, how exhausting it must that be.

Gretchen Wegner: It's so exhausting. My biggest class was 16 students. So I've often said, I think to really be successful, as a teacher, you have to be so passionate about the topic you're teaching that you just believe the world is a better place when everybody knows about that topic. And so you're willing to go through all of the hoops that you have to go through to try and control the space and the kids, and you're willing to get their pushback, whether that pushback is actual pushback in behavior, or whether it's pushback because their learning style doesn't meet the way you're teaching or whatever because you think it's so important.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So here's what comes up for me is that there's this constant dance that parents have with kids about control or influence or agency or autonomy, or whatever language you want to use. And parents start off in control, feeling like that's their job because that's their job. They have to control the environment. Keep these kids safe. Help them grow. And at some point, we have to start shifting the balance of control. Who owns the power of the control, whatever, but it is a constant power dynamic. And so, let's transition from the classroom to the family dynamic because, really, I know you're not about teaching parents to control their kids. We're teaching kids to push back against parents' control. So how is it showing up for you now in your work with students?

Gretchen Wegner: Yeah, it's really about helping. It's so funny. The image that just came to me is two pieces of wood nailed together and a crowbar getting in between them and forcing them apart. And I feel like I'm, to some degree, a crowbar which actually sounds like there's a lot of control in that too. But I'm a gentle-

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: There's a force but not control. Leverage and force but not control.

Gretchen Wegner: Yeah. Instead of a crowbar, it's all at once. But it's like putting something in between those two things and wiggling and wiggling and wiggling until there's some space there and doing the emotional support that it turns out I need to do a lot of for the parents because that is so frightening to be giving over decision making. Because a lot of times I'll tell the parent what you're just what you just emailed me that's a great thing. Don't bring it up with your kid. I will.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Let's go. It's a daily exercise and letting go this thing called parenting.

Gretchen Wegner: It is. And let me say quickly, too. So my best friend just had a baby, and she's 45, actually. I don't have kids of my own. And it is fascinating. I see the seeds of what's going to be a problem for her when her kids are teenagers right now, and the kid is not even three months old. Again, me just gently like, oh, honey, here's a way of thinking about that just a little differently. Like, I know you need to be vigilant, but can you just even soften the edges of the vigilance just a little? 

Diane Dempster: Let's bottom line with some of this and what parents need to understand better about their complex kids. 

Gretchen Wegner: I think especially because of the complexity, I mean, this is true when there's no complexity, but especially because of the complexity, you're not going to be able to control every little thing. So just remember that it is so not in your control. And so where is the fun and the play and that wiggle room? The other image, I guess I'm an image queen today, that came to me as a whitewater rafting, and all that complexity is like the water and the rocks, and how can you find the fun in the ride down the river?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, whatever that is, and stay in the boat because so often parents get kicked out of the boat, and then they're behind the boat screaming after the boat, but really where you have the most influence. And I think that the counter to control is influence, where we really have the influence as if we're still in that boat playing together.

Gretchen Wegner: Yeah. And it's a deeply, deeply, deeply spiritual thing, I think, because then it's also how close can you stay without actually being on top of or without being vigilant. It's like it's a Zen koan. It's like, how do you be close and also give room at the same time? I'm also not partnered, but I'm sure it's a similar dance in a partnership.

Diane Dempster: In a partnership, and what's coming up for me, as you're saying that is that as parents, we don't we don't know what that looks like really well. The example you gave about the three-month-old is like we know how to tell our kids what to do. We know how to tell them what we've learned. We know how to be the language director. Is this sort of, we know how to direct. And when our kids are younger, they willingly cooperate with that and appreciate that at some level. But we don't know what else to do. We wait for the day that their kids are in charge and leading their lives independently. But it's that space in between where I think a lot of us struggle because we don't know how to be anything other than in charge or out of it.

Gretchen Wegner: Right. And actually, what I'm about to say is also related to my friend. She's teaching me so much right now, but she's constantly looking for the right decision. Is it right to vaccinate? Is it right not to vaccinate? Is it right to vaccinate, but to do a couple of vaccines over time with her newborn? And she's so scared of making the wrong decision. And it's like, honey, every decision in today's day and age is the wrong decision, frankly. So it's not being a mom.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or everything is right.

Diane Dempster: Or everything is right.

Diane Dempster: Or everything is right. There's not a wrong decision feels different. Somebody said that to me recently. There's not a wrong decision here. There may be decisions that end the way that you thought they would or decisions that end up completely the opposite of what you thought they would, but it doesn't make them necessarily right or wrong.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That's the whole thing of parenting is, as soon as the journey starts for you, wherever and whenever that is, and for some people, it's with pregnancy, or adoption, or whatever. As soon as it starts, all of those notions you have of what it's going to look like, you throw it out the window because this being is already an independent being who's going to influence, and your job is to meet them where they are and danced with it instead of guiding them to what your vision was. And that's hard to let go up too.

Diane Dempster: The thing that makes it hard. I was on the phone with a mom this morning who's got a 22-year-old, who this time of year, she's like, it's so terrible. Everybody's kids going back to school, and they all have smiles on their face. And they're moving them into their dorm rooms, and she's not in that situation. This kid is struggling with what's coming after high school, and it's just so hard because you compare yourself to that picture-perfect reality that others show on social media.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: On social media, right.

Diane Dempster: And it's hard. 

Gretchen Wegner: I guarantee you those smiling pictures that was the one smile you got.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Before all chaos reigns. So make it real. What is the primary focus when you work with kids, and then you have some influence and conversations with their parents? What's the message you want the parents to get most of all?

Diane Dempster: It's funny because I'm just going to sound like you guys here. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: You know we're preaching to the choir, but that's okay.

Gretchen Wegner: The coach approach. Learn how to coach alongside your students. Learn how to really help them not just have agency because I have that already but help them know that you see and appreciate their agency.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: But say that again because that's brilliant. It's not just that they have agency.

Gretchen Wegner: Yes. But they need to know that you know that you see and appreciate their agency. And also you, the parent, guess what? It's not just a kid to have agency. You do have agency too, and you are a human being too. And especially as kids get older to be able to see your humanity and your agency, like one of my favorite things to say to a resistant student sometimes when I'm working with them, like especially, let's say, planners. I mean, very few kids really want to use a planner. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And who can blame them, really? 

Gretchen Wegner: Yeah, And I'm in year five with one kiddo. She's a junior in high school now, and it needs to be the last year I see her even though her parents are going to want me to see her next year, but I'm going to say no because she needs one year without outside support before she goes to college. Finally, I just looked at her and said, honey, this year is going to be the year of you using a calendar. And you've heard me talk about it. I've worked with you. You've got the system that you like, and it's really working, but I would not feel like I am in integrity as an academic coach if I let you get to college without practicing how to use a calendar. And you don't have to use it ever again in your life. But I'm just going to tell you this year, that's the one thing I'm going to require of us. And we'll do everything else you need to, but I won't feel good about myself if I don't do this with you.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I remember the first time one of my kids put something on a calendar; I actually cried. No joke, because they put it on themselves, and it had been probably four years in the making, and it was dramatic because they realized it was a tool that served them. And it wasn't me forcing the tool. It was them saying, oh, I need this. And that's the shift we're looking for whatever stage and all the different ways.

Diane Dempster: And then they get snarky because, like mine the other day, they asked her where she's going. She's like, didn't you look at my calendar?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I got an email from the kid this summer. She's like, could you put your flights on the calendar, please? It's on there, honey. We just have to invite you to it.

Gretchen Wegner: And speaking of invitations, I even just thought about this just this morning. It would be easier for me in my business to send my students invitations for all of our sessions. That would be easier for me, and I know a lot of people do that. And I'm resistant to it. And I'm resistant to it because then they don't have to put it on their own calendar. And I would rather catch like you showed up late again, or you didn't show it up at all? Why? What's the problem?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: What's going on? How can we work with this?

Gretchen Wegner: But it makes my life harder to do that.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: But that's what it is with parents. It's like so often we do things for our kids because it's easier than the painstaking process of helping them do it themselves. And that's what this whole coach approach, whatever you want to call it anti-boring, gradually transitioning agency from us to them. And it's hard.

Diane Dempster: But what you said, it's like, it's easier for us because they can't do it. Again, we're waiting for that day when they can do it completely independently instead of going, oh, wait, I have to teach my kid how to use the calendar. I need to help my kid remember to use their calendar. I need to use the calendar with my kid. It's a sort of in-between stuff again, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, it's so true. 

Gretchen Wegner: And I'll just say to sort of wrap up this calendar piece that one of my biggest learnings, once I started academic coaching, I had no idea so much goes into making a to-do list and writing in a calendar. And when you break down all of the attentional tasks that are needed-

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It's outrageous.

Diane Dempster: The amount of executive function.

Gretchen Wegner: -maybe a maximum of 20, depending on the kid, to be able to actually put something on the calendar and then follow up with it later. And so I have much humility now around how many skills they have to learn.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And I have to say, see, Diane? It's not just me.

Diane Dempster: No. It's not just you. No, it's not.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Calendars the bane of my existence. I can manage a lot of things. I can write books. I can create curricula. And putting something on the calendar is it's just still super hard for me. And so one of the things, when you have executive function issues, is to play to your strengths and outsource your challenges. And so now I'm a grown-up. I can outsource that.

Diane Dempster: And I can put stuff on her calendar.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. We're going to start bringing this fabulous conversation to start the wrap. And we're going to start by asking Gretchen tell us a little bit about anti-boring and how can people find you.

Gretchen Wegner: Yeah. I have a toolkit of study strategies and executive function strategies, and that's what the anti-boring approach is this toolkit. So there is a course directed for parents and students called the anti-boring approach to powerful studying. And then there's a course for educators that teach you how to teach those tools, and that's called the art of inspiring students. And then I also train folks how to start their business. So there are many people, often so many parents, who've nurtured their own complex kid through the process, and then their kid goes to college, and then they're like, all this hard work. I think I want to start my own business.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I think I'm good at this. 

Diane Dempster: I'm good at this.

Gretchen Wegner: So I have both a course for that. And then I also have community monthly calls where we troubleshoot and connect with each other. We just had one this morning where it was so nice. Oh my god, how was your summer? What are you noticing as we go into this school year? 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And being part of community is so important.

Gretchen Wegner: So important.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We do not have to be isolated and alone out here in the wilderness. There are others who are going through what you're going through, whoever is listening at this moment.

Diane Dempster: I'm going to say that's true of your professional, like all of us, or if you're a parent and you're struggling with your kiddo too. [inaudible]

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: This is an interesting conversation. We may have to have another one in the future with you because it's really interesting that the path is very similar. We start off serving the community that needs to be served. And then we move into serving the professionals who will serve in that community, which is what we've done with our certification program. There's something about how hard it is for the professionals, the teachers, either the therapist to get this information and to know how to dance in this realm. Really interesting.

Gretchen Wegner: Absolutely.

Diane Dempster: You talked about the program. How do they find you? 

Gretchen Wegner: My website is gretchenwegner.com for right now. But I will say also as a result of this conversation, people might be interested in my three-step communication model that Diane just learned about yesterday called the consent burger, and you can sign up for that. I have a free two-pager about it at gretchenwegner.com/consent. So that a way you can have something [inaudible]

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So Gretchen Wegner. That's w-e-g-n-e-r dotcom slash consent.

Gretchen Wegner: Yes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Got it. Excellent. So we have a few more minutes. 

Diane Dempster: Yeah. As we start to wrap up, is there anything else you want to talk about or share with our listeners that they might want to take away from our conversation?

Gretchen Wegner: I think I'm just moved to say because I've been chewing on it after my call with, we call them the anti-boring crew, like the people that are getting my world for a while. And one of them was just concerned about school year. It is a concerning school year that we have coming up. And it's concerning, of course, for a number of reasons. But as we know, just mental health of ourselves and our students is just going to- say again.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It's going to need a lot of attention.

Gretchen Wegner: Need a lot of attention, yes. And so I really want to urge everyone to really enter the school year with a lot of grace. The world is changing. I really don't think there's such a thing as all the developmental hoops and all those school hoops that we need to jump through anymore really. What we need to be focusing on is that we're doing our best to be, I can't say happy, but in the vicinity of healthy, and that we're supporting our kids to really understand how to take care of themselves because the world we're moving into is going to require that more than require people who understand history and math and all of that algebra. Obviously, that's important, too, but just it's not the most important thing. [inaudible] really not.

Diane Dempster: What I was talking to someone about yesterday is the fact that this is the vision I want to hold. It's this could be the catalyst that helps the school system to make another shift that can be in the favor of these quirky learners who just don't fit the mold because we are having to be more flexible and allow for more independence where it lives, then stand closer where it's not. There's this flex we're having to do right now that I think could really set ourselves up if we don't just go back to the way it was. But we say, how can we build on what we learned with these years of struggle with learning?

Gretchen Wegner: Right. And so I think also having grace with the teachers and learning how to, like, if you're noticing something isn't feeling, really bring it up. But again, bring it up with grace, remembering their agency and our own agency. And we're all in this together. We were joking before we hit record about building the plane while flying it. And that's really what's happening as a culture more than I think it's perhaps happened in recent times. I'm not sure.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And more than is comfortable for a lot of people. And so, really, this issue, Diane, you and I are with you on this again. This issue of we actually do know what to expect in the coming months, and that's really what we want to prepare for is how to dance with the transitions that are coming because we know they're coming. And we can do that. 

Gretchen Wegner: Yep. So let's get that Tango music turned on and-

Diane Dempster: Start dancing.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And let's start dancing. So we have a fun wrap-up. We'd like to close the show with a request if you have a favorite quote or motto you'd like to share with our listeners.

Gretchen Wegner: I'll say two. They're both quick. I mean, one is just funny, and I brought it up in another interview.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Don't rush. It's okay.

Gretchen Wegner: The song Staying Alive is not necessarily a favorite song of mine. But for years now, whenever I'm in transition, like I finished a project, or I finished washing the dishes, and I'm moving on to something else, and often when I bend over, I hear in my head, staying alive, staying alive. I think that is the most bizarre thing. I do not know why that particular phrase is the most thought phrase in my mind.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: In the last couple of years, it's been on a lot of people's minds.

Diane Dempster: But it ties for me into the anti-boring thing. So staying alive can be like, oh, I'm still alive, or it can be like I am alive. I am moving. I am grooving.

Gretchen Wegner: Love those reframe. I am staying alive. Culture has given me I'm going to be alive and not numbed.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: There you go.

Gretchen Wegner: The other phrase or motto that I hear myself set saying, more than anything, welcome to the FedEx trucks coming by in Oakland is when in doubt, reach out, and never, never more important than now. And one of the problems with that motto is people often don't know they're in doubt. And so you have to know you're in doubt in order to reach out, but it's especially important to notice and reach out. When you're in doubt, sometimes you don't even know what you need. And so many people don't reach out because they think they have to decide exactly what they need and what they should first before they reach out. And I'm a big believer, parents, students, educators, business builders, when in doubt, like literally to reach out to somebody saying, I'm typing with my hands right now like hey, I'm feeling some doubt. I don't know where to go from here. I'm reaching out. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I love this, Gretchen. When I first did a year-long intensive leadership program. It's a development program. And the first assignment they gave us was ask for help. And all of us went, wait, what? Huh? About what? And we were trying to hone in on specifically what do you want us to do. And it was really just ask for help. And it was so open that it turned into these fabulous conversations about what does it mean to ask for help and when do you ask, and what help are you looking for? Or what if you don't know and just being open to that is such a transformative place for a lot of people? So I love that when in doubt, reach out.

Gretchen Wegner: Reach out.

Diane Dempster: Gretchen, it's been so fun having you here. This has been an awesome conversation. Appreciate you and appreciate what you're doing in the world for parents. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Absolutely. And everybody, thank you for being here. Anything else, Di, before I wrap us? 

Diane Dempster: No. All good.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Our guest is Gretchen Wagner. She is the quintessential anti-boring queen coach and non-traditional educator extraordinary. And Gretch, we're really thrilled that you've been with us. And just to those of you listening, thanks for all you're doing for yourself, for your kids. At the end of the day, you are making a difference. Have a great day, everyone.