This week on the Fresh Start Family Show, Wendy interviews Christina Hidek, a self-proclaimed recovering attorney turned advocate for change via Parent Teacher Association/Organizations. She is the founder of PTO Answers, a group which helps empower parents to improve their child’s educational experience and school community through PTA/PTO involvement.
Wendy and Christina uncover the beauty of empowering kids from a young age to speak up and be the change they want to see in the world. Christina was labeled “bossy” as a kid (which is really just kids who love to be in charge!), and early on saw herself as a leader. Even if many of us don’t necessarily see ourselves as leaders, we can still find our voice and step into volunteer roles in our kids’ schools by looking for opportunities to be of service and make a difference.
The PTA/PTO of our childhood isn’t exactly how things roll these days, so stay open and curious if you think it’s not for you! The new PTO world looks like showing up for a Zoom meeting and learning about what is needed. Then we can say yes to what fits our talents and time allowances. Lots of volunteering can even happen from home! Nice, right?!
Speaking up and contributing can happen when we feel comfortable and connected at the school and begin to advocate for things & areas where we want to see change. Nothing changes when we just grumble and complain. If you’re nervous…that’s ok! On the other side of feeling scared is bravery and courage, so let this be the year that you say yes to getting involved!
Things you’ll learn in this episode:
- Why getting involved in a PTO/PTA is a good first step when you don’t know how to get started
- How advocating for your child & areas you are requesting change doesn’t have to set you up for conflict
- Why schools are better when parents are involved
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Special thanks to Parent Playbook for their support of the Fresh Start Family Show! To learn more about this incredible parent empowerment platform, click here!
Episode Highlights:
-Getting involved, regardless of whether you see yourself as a leader or not
-What volunteering and being a leader looks like in the modern PTO world
-Why our voice matters and we should use it to advocate for change
-The benefits of volunteering and making connections at your kids’ schools
Mentioned in this Episode:
Where to Find Christina:
5 Mistakes PTO Leaders Make (and how to recover if you’ve made them!) Freebie!
Join the Become a Parenting Coach Waitlist
Social Emotional Literacy in the Classroom with Sarah Wood Podcast Episode
Growth Mindset with Cori Grasley Podcast Episode
Not able to listen or want to read along with us?
Here is the episode transcript!
This episode of the Fresh Start Family Show is brought to you by our free Compassionate Discipline Learning Guide: How to Create Logical Consequences That Work with Kids of all Ages. You can grab your copy at freshstartfamilyonline.com/disciplineguide.
Wendy:
Well, hello listeners. I’m so happy you are here. I’m your host, Wendy Snyder, positive parenting educator and family life coach. And today I’m excited to bring you this episode with Christina Hidek, who is from an organization called PTO Answers, which is a group that helps empower parents to improve their child’s educational experience and school community through PTA and PTO involvement. And what I chatted with Christina about today was how we as parents can really advocate for change in schools as well as for our kids. And I thought this would be a great episode to air because most of us have just kicked off a new school year. All of us have has kicked off a new school year.
And whether you have kids at you homeschool or your kids are in public school or private school, we’re all kind of embarking on a new year, right? And so this episode is just here to inspire you and motivate you to really be an advocate for your child. And one of the best ways that I have learned from my experience, so my kids are now in Terrin’s in sixth grade and Stella’s in, she’s a freshman in high school now. But one of the ways I really advocated for change and especially bringing in more of the teachings when it came to emotional literacy and you know, things like less homework. And I don’t know, I just, we just had back to school night at our kid’s school and at both Terrence School and Stella School.
So Terrin’s still in elementary school, Stella’s in high school now, but both of their schools, I was so happy to hear that the teachers are just not giving a lot of homework because back when Stella was starting school, so kindergarten, first grade, second grade, you’ll hear me tell some stories as I chat with Christina, but there was still this concept that giving a lot of homework at night was like good for kids and it was gonna make them smarter and make them understand concepts more and do better on tests and all these things. And we were just starting to get educated and find and have research be released on how that actually is not the case, actually homework, blah, blah, blah. You’ll hear me talk about it in this episode.
So at that time, we really were given our first opportunity on how to advocate for change in the school system and how to advocate for our child. And one of the ways I did that was by actually volunteering, volunteering in the classroom, getting involved in the PTA, and it was just a way to get to know everybody and get to be able to really be someone who, you know, encouraged and advocated for change. So anyways, you’ll hear us talk all about that and Christina has a cool perspective cuz she does help so many people through her organization PTO Answers with this same concept. So she actually has a Facebook group that has almost 8,000 parents in there who are active in their school system.
And she just has a lot of cool ideas and thoughts that I think will help you just become motivated to get involved, even if it’s just a little bit. So I’ll tell you a little bit more about Christina. Christina is a recovering attorney and current professional organizer and certified PTO volunteer nerd, she, she claims – I love it – certified PTO volunteer nerd. She founded PTO answers five years ago to help empower parents to improve their child’s educational experience and school community through PTA/PTO involvement. She’s an active PTO leader for the past 12 years and host a vibrant 7,500 plus member PTO/PTA, it’s mouthful, Superstar Leaders Facebook group.
When she’s not volunteering, you can find her in her garden cheering on her boys at their hockey games or walking the family dog. So yeah, so I, I’m happy for you guys to just listen to this episode as we get kicked off with the school year. And just remember that even if you can help out a little bit, whether it’s, you know, as I, as I mentioned for years, I was the the secretary and so even if you can just be the PTO secretary or you can just bring in something to help the meetings go smoother once a month, even if you can’t stay the whole time just becoming involved at all, that often leads to doing more volunteer work in the classroom and just getting to know the teachers and the principal and the staffing better.
And I think all of that just really puts you in a position to be able to advocate, advocate for change in a greater capacity. And, and I know many of you, because we have over 200 families within our Bonfire support program, and these are families from all over the world now we have over 15 countries represented in that program, and I hear quite often how much there is in the, in their local school system that they would like to see change. Now we always here at Fresh Start Family keep a tone of mad respect for teachers and educators and we believe that we can also really raise our hand when we’re not okay with something that’s happening in the school system.
And so, yeah, it’s important that you, that you be an advocate, that you don’t stay quiet when you see things aren’t the way that you want them to be. And just know that your voice matters. This episode is actually going live the week after we got some really devastating news here in America that corporal punishment in Missouri has just become legal in the United States, our in, in that state. So the Missouri had, did not have legal corporal punishment in school systems, and now it does. And it’s just heartbreaking. It’s, it’s also heartbreaking because I don’t think people quite understand that almost, almost half of the United States has legal corporal punishment in school systems.
I think when people hear me advocate so strongly against corporal punishment and spanking, and you know, I teach so much here at Fresh Start Family about how to use compassionate discipline versus punishment, especially spanking to influence and teach your kids important life lessons. But I think a lot of of people are sometimes could be uncomfortable with the call out of like how there are still people who are doing that or, or believing that that is the only way to raise good kind human beings, right? And most of us fall into this category before we really understand and start studying positive parenting and then our hearts get transformed and we change everything, right?
And then we often become the painful generational cycle breakers of our family. And, but a lot of us are in that position before we find this work, right? Where it just feels like, it seems like that’s, that’s the way it always was done. That’s, that’s the way it has to be done. If you want a kid to really learn their lesson well then spanking’s a great tool. So a lot of people think, Oh, well yeah, sure, but that, that’s not what we do in our home. So that’s like an outdated, nobody does that anymore, right? I got a, a beautiful note actually from a member who shared with me how she feels uncomfortable sometimes when we speak out so much against what’s been done in the church historically to advocate for spanking or even in school systems.
And she said, Wendy, I just feel like that’s such an outdated story. Like people don’t do that anymore. That’s not the way the church teaches and that’s not the way people really do things. Like that’s was like generations and generations ago. And I hated that I had to respond and say it’s actually not true. Seven outta 10 families are still relying on spanking, as, you know, a main tool to influence and teach their kids important life lessons. And almost half of the United States is, has corporal punishment as legal in their public school system. So 19 out of 52 states in the United States, yes, I consider that almost half has legal corporal punishment.
Now of course you still have to sign a form to say it’s okay, you know, like in Missouri you have to sign a form, the parents have to sign a form to say that it’s okay, but still you guys, that’s, that is heartbreaking, right? So it’s not un unfortunately it’s not an old school story. It’s not something that just used to be done in the, in the old days and now we know better. So we do better. No, 7 outta 10 families are still hurting and harming their children inside their home. And then 19 outta 52 states school systems are still using corporal punishment and fear and force and intimidation and all of that stuff in school system. So I know I have a, one of my Become a Parenting Coach girls who’s in that mentorship program with me.
She’s in the state of Florida and her kids go to a public Christian school and there’s corporal punishment there. So if a child messes up and has misbehavior, then you know, there’s, there’s a good chance he’ll be taken into the principal’s office and paddled. And I know she is really building her advocacy skills once she becomes certified in the Fresh Start Family approach to be able to, you know, to coach parents as a parenting coach, I know she’s gonna feel even more confident and empowered to be able to walk into her school and walk into her church and confidently advocate for change. So it’s just a, an honor to support her. By the way, if you guys, if anyone is interested in learning more about that program, you can head over and join the wait list for 2023 freshstartfamilyonline.com/becomeaparentingcoach.
But the point is, is yeah, some pretty heavy news last week as this dropped and it just goes to show you that like, you know, there’s some really shady stuff going on in school system still. And we need you, we need your voice, we need your courage, we need your light. And however you can get that done, I know everyone is busy and there’s never enough hours in the day to do any – everything, but this is just a really great way to get involved in your school system and be an advocate for change. So thank you for listening. Thank you for your commitment to your family and your kids and for your willingness just to look at how you can get involved with your local school and how you can be an advocate for change and just a light spreader.
So without further ado, you guys help me welcome Christina to the show and enjoy this episode.
Stella:
Well, hey there, I’m Stella. Welcome to my mom and dad’s podcast, The Fresh Start Family Show. We’re so happy you’re here. We’re inspired by the ocean, Jesus, and rock and roll and believe deeply in the true power of love and kindness. Together we hope to inspire you to expand your heart, learn new tools, and strengthen your family. Enjoy show!
Wendy:
Well, hey there families. Welcome to a new episode of the Fresh Start Family Show. I am so happy to be here this morning with Christina Hidek from PTO Answers. Good morning and welcome to the show Christina.
Christina:
Hey Wendy, thanks for having me.
Wendy:
Yes, we are gonna have such a good conversation today around how to advocate for change in schools as well as for our kids. And I was so excited when you reached out because I know that listeners are gonna learn so much from you Christina. We have a lot of parents as they are really learning and implementing positive parenting and connected based kind of strategies into their homes and their parenting walk. And they always want to have schools that their kids are going to kind of incorporate the same ideas or teaching or emotional literacy work and, and lots of lots of stuff. But they often come to me and say, you know, my school system is doing the diff doing the opposite.
Or their teachers, you know, are not using these strategies, what do I do? And we’ve had a lot of really great conversations on the show about how to be an advocate for change in a school system, but I just love what you do because you mean you are essentially it. What I see that you’re doing is you are kind of rallying the troops to support the school system and advocate for change. So can you tell us a little bit about what you do at PTO Answers? I know I, I did your, you know, told everyone about you before we got started so they know a little bit about you. I love that you use the term you’re a recovering attorney, but would you take a little bit of time just to tell us about yourself, maybe how many kids you have, to where you live and how you got to where you are now and why you’re, you are so passionate about this, it would be great to get to know you a little bit better.
Christina:
Sure. So I live in Cleveland, Ohio in the eastern suburbs and I have two kids, a husband, I have two boys, they’re 14 and 17. So a little bit on the older side. We are starting the, well I shouldn’t say starting, we are deep into the college search process, which is overwhelming and time consuming and oh my goodness, you know, that’s where we’re at right now with him. And then my younger one will be starting high school and just a, a couple weeks now. So sad to say. Oh, so then I have a husband and we have two dogs and a cat. So that is a little bit about my family and when I am not volunteering then I also work as a professional organizer and I garden a whole lot.
And I got started in the whole, my whole PTO journey, not really accidentally, it was intentional because in Cleveland we have a lot of, we have two really fantastic medical systems and so we get a lot of residents and you know, students who are coming in for their internships or fellowships or residencies, but then they leave. And so when I had my kids, a lot of my friends were either doctors or married to doctors who were just here kind of there temporarily. So then as they moved away and got other fellowships or like the next stage of their career, I was, I didn’t really have a whole lot of friends. And so I was like, well I thought if I get involved with school then that’ll be one way to meet people.
And that was my primary motivation for getting involved. But little did I know that that would just be like the tip of the iceberg and once I saw what an impact I could have and and really what I was getting back. So yes, it is kind of altruistic and I always like to be involved, but I quickly saw that as an involved parent. I was getting stopped in the hallway and told super cute stories that about whatever my kid did or said that day that they, the teacher wouldn’t have had time to maybe type that out in an email and wasn’t gonna text me cuz we weren’t close and you know, we didn’t have a relationship like that. But because I was present they stopped me and just relayed the cute story and I was like, wow, that’s like really awesome.
And so I found myself as the PTA president the April of my son’s, my oldest kindergarten year. So I hadn’t even been involved in the PTA for very long at all. But they needed a leader and I’ve always kind of been a leader in every group that I’ve been involved with. So that’s how I got started with volunteering and in that leadership position. And then as I kept going I, I noticed that there was a lot of, there weren’t a lot of resources out there for to kinda support me. Like there was, there was information but it wasn’t the right kind of information and it took a lot of synthesizing to put it into something that would actually help me and that I could use in my role, if that makes sense.
Yeah. If there was kind of more old school advice, like, you know, just try and get every, just, everyone will get along and it’s like, well that’s not true in any group there’s conflict and so you have to, you know, sometimes you have to fire volunteers and it’s not like you’re rude and you don’t say get out. You have a conversation with people, you figure out what’s going on, you give them an easy out, you get an opportunity, but at the end of the day you’re still kind of firing cuz you’re letting them know they’re not, you know, up for the job. So anyways, that’s how I kind of came to form PTO Answers cuz I really saw a void in the support system for PTA and PTO volunteers. Like, it just, there was advice, it just wasn’t the right advice. So I have a lot of opinions in my superintendent, well last I, you know, I always share that with her.
I’m like, you know, I have a lot of opinions Dr. Reid and she just laughs at me and she’s like, I know, but I have the best intention. That really like loops into our conversation about advocating. Cuz I think that can be such like a big thing. Like what does advocating for change mean? Like what does that actually mean? Yeah, sounds super overwhelming and it sounds like it’s gonna be a huge process. It sounds like it’s gonna be adversarial. Doesn’t have to be, shouldn’t be. You do it the right way. It shouldn’t be.
Wendy:
Yes, I agree. I love that. And there’s so many elements on on why, like, why it’s so important and wonderful and, and fantastic to get involved with PTO/PTA. So just in case maybe we have some international listeners or people who are like, what, what the heck is PTO/PTA, parent, teacher, It’s funny organization here in southern California, it’s all PTA association, right? But I guess other places it’s organization.
Christina:
Well, it’s, so PTO is like the generic, so I, and PTA is like the brand name. So if you think about Kleenex versus facial tissue, PTO is the generic. So all all parent groups are parent teacher organizations, right? But then they’re not all PTAs. PTAs like the brand name. So there’s national PTA, so all all PTAs or PTOs, but not all PTOs or PTAs if that makes any sense. So
Wendy:
Yeah, that does make sense.
Christina:
Like you have facial tissue, you could have puffs, Scotty’s, Kleenex, you know, so that, that’s the difference. So a lot of people think they’re different, but they’re, they’re not. They’re, you can use them interchangeably for the most part. Yeah,
Wendy:
I love it. And what a cool, what a cool story about just being present at the school and hearing these cute stories about your kids. Cuz I do, I remember that aspect. So my story is the, so the first few years my kids were in kind in elementary school. So my daughter is now headed in to be a freshman in high school. Sounds like our, we have similar age kiddos and then my little guy is going into sixth grade and here in southern California that is still elementary school. So we’re still, it’s our last year in the elementary school system. And I was telling him and a few friends at that school, I said, You know what, thank god now that my business is really established, I mean whew, it’s been an intense four years and I just kind of like bounced out of the, the PTA for a while.
But the first few years when Stella was in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, I was involved and it was wonderful and I loved being around the school and volunteering in the classroom and, and just having that presence, right, to be, to have a deeper level of connection with the principal, with the, with the teachers, with the assistants, all the things. And I told Terrin this year, I’m like, you know what? I think I’m ready that maybe I can be a class aid or be involved again in, in the PTA and I’m really looking forward to it. So I know this conversation is really gonna inspire me. I figure, yeah, I figure it’s his last year in elementary school and he’s my kiddo that is like, Yes mom, come, come be here. I think by, if I look back at Stella at that age, she was already like, Mom don’t!
Like stay at home. You know, like
Christina:
Yeah,
Wendy:
She’s like, Mom, you just drop me off, drop me off at the corner and I’ll pretend that I’m like a full blown adult and I don’t have a parent. But Terrin’s like, Yes mom, why don’t you come, come be in the classroom, come on the field trip. You know? And I, yeah and I’m looking forward to it.
Christina:
Yeah. When my oldest was going to the high school, I said, I asked him, I said, What are you most looking forward to about, you know, about going to high school? And he goes, Wow. He named a couple other things first, but then he said, And no one’s gonna know you mom. And I said, Well they have some bad news for you. I served on the strategic planning committee for the district and I know like a couple principals. He goes, Oh man. So I’ve been involved like at every single elementary or every single elementary, every single PTA of my children’s schooling. So this next year I’m gonna be president at the high school, which will be the last, not even the trifecta, it’ll be the fifth unit that I, I will be a fifth unit cause I did PTA council too.
Wendy:
Cool.
Christina:
Yeah. Super nerd, super nerd Wendy.
Wendy:
I love it. I love super nerds. Well it’s so awesome too, once you get to that level, Christina, because I mean, parents continue to drop off, right? Like it’s, it’s when, when our kids are in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, I feel like that’s the rush when you’re most likely to be involved. Cuz if you’re able to, cuz you’re like, this is so cute and you know, you wanna be around and then they do start to need you less and less and less, right? So by the time you get to high school, I assume that it’s pretty, it’s it’s a little bit tougher to find volunteers to be part of that organization, right?
Christina:
No, well in some ways yes, in some ways, no. There’s a lot of fun stuff going on at the high school. Like for example, my son is gonna be a senior and so we have prom, we have af like the PTA plans after prom. So we need parents do that. And now coming outta the pandemic, you know, we’re not out of there yet, but a lot of parents want to kind of make up for the fact that kids lost things. Cause there were, there was a lot of loss of fun activities and community building and friendship building. And so I have heard from parents who said, you know, I haven’t gotten involved, I haven’t been involved in the, in the past, but I want to kind of make it up to my kids so I wanna do what I can do.
So, and there’s a different PTA and being involved in your, your child’s PTO doesn’t look the same from elementary school to middle school to high school. It’s different. You’re, the needs are different. But as your kids get older and they don’t maybe talk to you as much, it’s a good way to kinda figure out what’s going on and you, you’ll, you’ll just have a better insight into your child and their educational experience that you won’t get if you’re not involved. So it’s, it’s, I feel like it’s necessary. There was a time we have lower elementaries, upper elementaries, junior highs and then, then high school in, in my school district.
And so the very last PTA meeting of this, the school year at the upper elementary school, the principal kind of dropped a bomb that they were gonna be changing the encore or specials. So like music, STEM, library, art, I’m sure I’m forgetting another one. Anyway, that the like extra classes that aren’t really extra they were gonna be doing. So they were gonna be changing the schedule so the kids would, instead of rotating through the five classes, they would just have one per semester. And my head snapped and I was like, wait, what? You’re gonna stick a kid who hates art in art the entire semester? Or a kid who only goes to school because they love PE they’re only gonna get that once in their like three years here.
And so that was a time that I immediately called some other people because I didn’t have a lot of knowledge or I’m not a formal educator, so I have some friends who are parents themselves of course, and then also teachers so they can speak to about the disadvantages of that kind of a system. So I called them up and I was like, here’s the plan. And so we were, the PTA really was able to mobilize the parents to get that plan to change. Cuz that would’ve been, that was a plan that would’ve worked really well for the teachers but not for the kids. And I, if, if I had not been at that meeting, if we had not had that meeting, we would not have known about it until the plan was already in action.
So that was revealed during, like I said, the last PTA meeting of the year, which it was about three weeks before, Yeah, three-ish weeks before school ended. So we were able to halt that plan and come up like have the district come up with a different plan that was more acceptable. So
Wendy:
That was, yeah, I love that. That
Christina:
Was key. That was key
Wendy:
With respect. I can hear that. I can hear that level of respect, right? I feel like so many people like get super, like, you know, I see South Park like rabble, rabble, rabble, rabble on South Park where like they’re in town and they’re going around and they’re like, rabble, rabble, rabble, rabble. But then they’re not doing anything. They’re not in, they’re not at the meetings, they’re not volunteering, they’re not helping, they’re not using their voice respectfully to say, Hey, we actually disagree. I’m gonna, like you said, mobilize a unit who is able to speak to why this isn’t gonna work for them. Right? But like, just rabble, rabbling is not gonna do anything to change and it’s just gonna add toxicity and, and your kids also see that, right?
Like you’re just complaining about stuff if, if you have an opinion and you, it’s like be become someone who advocates for change, not just like rah rah.
Christina:
Right. And I think being involved in the school what, what’s different and why? I can get a lot, I can get a lot, I can get away with expressing my opinions freely. Like I have this sort of relationship with our, the superintendent of the district. She drives down my street to, to go to work and if I’m out there, she will stop roll down the window and we will have a conversation. Sure. Now I’m not an a school district employee, but that is the relationship that I’ve developed with her. And so when I have a problem, I am always, I always have a solution because I hate, absolutely hate people who rabble, rabble, rabble and don’t have a solution. So if I’m gonna complain about something, I am sure is heck gonna have some ideas about what we could do instead or what what could be an alternative.
Because I think just sitting around and complaining is just like a waste of time. I’m, I’m very action oriented and problem solver. So it’s like, yes, give me something and I’m gonna go to work on it. And so it, it’s, it really makes me happy that I have that relationship with her. But that has all been, I forget how many years I think she’s been with the school district for eight years now. I’m really bad with numbers. So I can never remember like time and everything. But I have been involved with, like I said, the strategic planning committee, not once but twice cuz I enjoyed the first time and then went back through. And so I kind of, you know, people say like, put up or shut up, I put up so that when, so that I don’t have to shut up and I, and I do make opinion, do express my opinions in a constructive criticism sort of way.
Not a, yeah, this isn’t gonna work for me, but hey what about this and have you considered this? And so in that one particular example of where we had the curriculum change, you know, I did some quick research and found, I forget the, the specifics of it, but there were several reasons why they wanted to do it. I think the, the school building Yeah,
Wendy:
There always is, right? There’s a reason why it’s not like they just sit around and like, this would be great. Yeah,
Christina:
Yeah. It wasn’t like that but it was like, okay, we didn’t, there wasn’t, you didn’t let the parents know. Like that was a huge change that you just can’t, like in the end it turned out the principal wasn’t even supposed to say anything. And I said, well thank goodness she did man. Cuz that would’ve been really bad if they already had the school year in, in process. So it turned out for the best. And so we got more parents involved and it was good to hear their voices and they ended up having meetings to bring everybody in where some did robble robble robble, but a lot came up with alternatives. So we worked together to, to resolve that. But yeah, like there was another time when like this, I think part of the issue for me is that the, the purpose, not the purpose, but the, what schools are expected to do now has kind of changed.
Like when you and I were growing up, it was way different. I just think there’s a whole other set of expectations and hoops for school districts to jump through. Especially if they are public districts or public schools in a diverse area where you’re fighting people pulling their kids out to send them to private schools because they don’t wanna
Wendy:
Yeah.
Christina:
You know, like diversity, they don’t like they’re, and my neighborhood is like that where we have two different communities that come together to do schools. One is pretty diverse, not very economically enriched. And then you have another, the other district is predominantly white and wealthier and they come together and one district’s like, well I don’t wanna send my kids to school with the poor kids. And it’s like, okay, that’s just silly. But like the additional work of the school district then becomes having to market themselves where I don’t think that was a thing like when we were growing up, schools didn’t have to say why you should come to the public school.
We just, for the most part
Wendy:
Yeah,
Christina:
People went to schools, You didn’t have charter schools 40 years ago or as many here in Ohio we have like a very large percentage of charter schools. So that advocacy piece, I guess is just way more important now than it, than it probably ever has been.
Well hey there families! I am pausing this episode to invite you to a free one hour workshop that I am hosting this month all about disciplining with compassion, connection and firm kindness. if you want to save your seat you can head to the website freshstartfamilyonline.com/discipline. You can save your seat there, but in this free one hour workshop I will teach you three steps to building a strong, compassionate, firm and kind tool kit that works with kids of all ages. You guys this is one of my favorite subjects to teach on besides power struggles – I love that one too – but oh my goodness you guys empowering you to embrace a compassionate discipline mindset and to let go of a punishment-based mindset is my jam and I cannot wait to support yourself head on over freshstartfamilyonline.com/discipline to check out the dates and the times that I’m offering this completely free one hour workshop and I cannot wait to see you at class.
Wendy:
Yeah. Because it is so true. Like the state funding and everything the public schools have to go through, they’re doing what they can do to get the funding, be able to pay their teachers, have all the programs and I can imagine it’s freaking hard. Like they’re up against a lot. They, they need all the help that they can get. So I I, it’s so funny listening to you Christina, I’m cracking up because obviously as a parenting educator I can just sense like, you know, you’re power personality or your desire to lead, this is an example of how this is like so clearly such an asset to the world. So obviously it’s the perfect representation of how I’m sure your attorney background has helped you in this position to help other parents.
Right. But I gotta know, were you, so growing up, were you a kid that like, loved to lead or have an opinion or like what did, what did it look like for you growing up? Because we always, so I, I’m like, one of my favorite things to do is to support parents who have strong-willed kids. I was blessed with a very strong-willed little girl. She’s the one that’s almost 15 now and we always joke that she would make a great attorney. We have one of our, one of our really good friends over in New York City in Brooklyn is just like a high level attorney and does like amazing work for like the underdog like that that’s been harmed by like these big pharmaceuticals. And she’s just a powerhouse.
I just am so inspired by her. We always joke that Stella would make a great attorney, but tell me like, what were you like as a kid? Did you, could you sense this? Like, hey, move to the side I, I wanna lead type in you?
Christina:
For sure. For sure. And I don’t, I I know that, yeah, I usually do take charge and then even as like a young adult, any group I’m in, I usually end up being a leader.
Wendy:
Right.
Christina:
Almost instantly. Just because I guess that’s, I, I do have such strong problem solving skills and I do see like opportunities, it’s not a problem. It’s like, well I can make this better. I know I can make this better and if I can’t I can find someone to make this better. So yeah, usually it doesn’t take long before I’m heading up a group. It’s kind of funny, I don’t even like set out to do it. It just kind of happens. Once you get known for that, then people come to you. Like in the school district, people will come to me. Like when it was time for, there was a levy on a ballot, they came to me to do some of the like marketing messaging and stuff. Cause I was like, let’s do videos.
And they’re like, okay great, do one. And I was like, okay. So yeah.
Wendy:
Was that like middle school, high school that you started to be like, okay, I I am I, am I thrive or I feel good if I’m like head of the yearbook committee? Or was it just like with your siblings or like, like how early did that, do you feel like that came out for you? Like do you remember with high school in college?
Christina:
Yeah, probably high school. Most definitely in college I was in a, well I am in a sorority. I joined a sorority in, in college and I’m continued to be active now. But I guess it really, it was that the sorority experience that kind of fostered the love for leadership and giving back. Cause that’s one of the core tenets of like the group is to give graciously. And I definitely live into that. So
Wendy:
That’s cool.
Christina:
So yeah, so it’s, it’s been really nice though to kind of wrap up my passion, right? Which is getting involved, making a difference, helping cuz at the core I wanna make things better. I’m not trying to make like the superintendent’s life miserable. Yeah. So she stops on my street cuz she knows it’s gonna be a nice conversation. I’m not gonna complain to her about anything. And I must always get, you know, news that I can use,
Wendy:
New that I can use!
Christina:
Yeah. And just to say it’s good to know who people are in the district and who’s coming and who’s going and, and all that. Yeah. It’s always good to know cuz if you have something that needs to get done for the PTA, it’s good to know who to talk to. But it’s good. It’s been really nice to like wrap that up and have that be a business where I can help support other people in the same way and learn. Because it can be overwhelming cuz people, I have a a good business friend who’s like, Christina, you are a force. You are a force. And I’m like, Alright Joanne, I I get that. And she’s like, do people tell you that? I’m like, not really. I guess probably behind my back they say, Oh my gosh, Christine is a lot. But I mean, well, but having other people step up can be, it can seem overwhelming.
They’re like, Oh, I could never do that. And I’m like, yeah, you can, You don’t give yourself enough credit. You know, too many people have negative self talk about what they can do or what they can’t do. And they have limiting beliefs since like, no, If, if you see a problem and you generally, if if the motivation is to improve the situation generally help, then your contributions are gonna be a positive addition.
Wendy:
Absolutely. Gosh. I mean, don’t we have negative self talk about everything? Whether you’re like, hey, I’m not, I’m not like, I’m not a leader, I’m in an introvert, I can’t do that. Or if many of us who do have this type of personality where we’re like the go getter, the leader like, hey, I’ll take care of it. Like, it’s easier for us to drive than a sit passenger. We also have negative self talk. Like, Oh, are we too much? Are they talking behind our back? Are they saying, you know what I mean? Like it’s, there’s so much negative self talk in our world. But yeah. I One more question about childhood and then we’ll we’ll get back to you. So do you ever remember being called Bossy as a kid?
Christina:
Oh heck yeah.
Wendy:
Yeah, yeah.
Christina:
Heck yeah.
Wendy:
So there’s a, I I actually haven’t read this book and it’s interesting now that she’s left Facebook. I, I do, I really do still wanna read this book just cuz I admire her as a leader. There’s a book that Cheryl Sandberg wrote called Lean In. Have you ever read that book or heard about it? But she was a present or CEO of Facebook for, you know, the last decade or something, obviously gigantic position. Whether you love or hate Facebook. I mean that’s a giant role, right? And she, I just think she’s a fascinating person. But she said she had a beautiful quote that if every little girl who was told she’s bossy when she was six years old was instead taught how to lead the world would be a different place. And I just love that because there’s many of us, and again we’re gonna get into to some discussion around how you don’t have to be blessed with this personality to get into the position to help in your school system.
And it’s just an example of what is so wonderful that if you do have this, I think it’s like this beautiful God-given design, like this desire to lead. That’s what makes power kids what they are. This is just an example of how it can result in a position or a way to change the world and be, have the courage to advocate or speak up or raise your hand and just like you said, be able to address something that you disagree with, with respect and actually create positive change in the world. I think you’re a great example of that, Christina. I love highlighting like, you know, we all, when when our kids are toddlers in an elementary school or whatever, we’re like, you know, stop wanting to be in charge all the time.
Like it’s, it’s the nightmare if you have a kid that wants to be in charge, right? Whether it’s putting on their shoes, eating their dinner, whatever. But then everyone wants the kid that has the courage to speak out or advocate for change or say no in a situation where they need to walk away or not get into a car where someone’s been drinking and driving when they’re in high school and college. But it doesn’t like, it doesn’t work like that, right?
Christina:
It’s two sides of the same, of the same coin. Yeah, Yeah. Both sides.
Wendy:
Like we need to have connected, we need to be supporting the kids along the way.
Christina:
To that point, I’ve always, like I do have a pretty strong-willed child. He’s a mini me, which is why we butt had so yeah, so much.
Wendy:
Yep, same here.
Christina:
I always just tried to make everything into a game. Like I don’t, I don’t know where I thought of that, but it’s like, okay, you don’t wanna come to the room, fine, pick an animal, you’re gonna be a bunny. Okay, great. How many bunny hops will it take you to come to me? Oh you don’t wanna tell me? That’s fine. You’re gonna think about it in your head and then you’re gonna tell me later and then sure enough that’s what would happen. You know, just like
Wendy:
That’s a good positive parenting strategy. That is good. I like it. So good. Okay, well so, okay, talk to us about, give us some inspiration with, I think a lot of people are listening and they’re, they are probably like, look I don’t have that personality, I don’t have that. Like hey, I’m just gonna raise my hand and be like, excuse me, I, you know, like I can see you and I doing in a group, so, so let’s talk to the someone who’s like, hey I am a little bit of an introvert and I like here, so here in Encinitas, California, Southern California, we are so lucky, I don’t know if you have this in Cleveland Christina, but we have a full blown emotional literacy growth mindset.
Like we have two full time instructors and positions at our elementary school. We’ve had them both on the podcast Ms. Sarah Wood and Miss Cori Grasley. If you guys love this conversation and wanna hear more about that, make sure you go find those episodes. You can just Google it Fresh Start Family Show Cori Grasley for Start Family Show. Sarah Wood with their positions are absolutely incredible for implementing and bringing in social emotional literacy and peaceful conflict resolution growth mindset. Like all the things that we basically teach here at Fresh Start Family, they are implementing into our school system and it’s just an absolute delight.
Like it is, we just feel so lucky to have our children growing up in that environment. So we know, I know from working with families from all over the world that there are so many people who would love to have this in their school system too. And I mean heck one of my positive parenting educators, one of my girls in my certification program Become a Parenting Coach. She was just saying they were laying out their visions for what they wanna do once they get their certifications. And she was saying she really wants to be an advocate in their school system to end fricking corporal punishment is still a thing in their private school system in Florida. Like this is a thing, right? Like there are so many school systems that people, whether it’s private or public or whatever, I know PTO is, I think public, but that’s not true.
There’s gotta be PTOs for private too. But anyways,
Christina:
Yeah there are,
Wendy:
Yeah but I mean we need everybody to be advocating for change, right? Like as like especially encouraging the school systems to bring in this work and in those, in those podcast interviews that I mentioned, we give ideas on like, hey one of the best ways to do that is actually get yourself into the classroom and volunteer. So what you’re learning here at Fresh Start Family in our coursework, in our programs, you don’t have to be a certified educator or certified coach in the fresh start family approach to get in and volunteer to teach children of how to take a deep breath before they react to someone who says they’re ugly or they’re stupid, right? Like you can, you can start to volunteer but we know a big part of that is also getting involved in the PTO or PTA.
So talk to us though, like if you don’t have that personality and maybe you don’t have a lot of time cuz maybe you got four kids you’re working a ton. Like just give us some inspiration on why, how it’s still possible. Like the positions that don’t necessarily, you need to be like up on the stage, like to being the one who raises the hand and you don’t have to be there 10 hours a week. You get what I’m going at Christina, so give us some inspiration on that.
Christina:
Absolutely. I think that the type of PTO that you outlined is very much our mother’s PTO and not our PTO, like the current PTOs and PTAs that I see. And I have a group of almost 8,000 different PTA and PTO leaders. So I get to see and they’re all over the place and we, there are even international PTA, PTAs and PTOs. Like I’ve, I have numbers from England and Ireland and
Wendy:
Good cause we have a lot of Ireland, we have a lot of
Christina:
even in Thailand. There was like, yeah, like all over the place. So it’s, it’s always super fun. But you know, it makes sense because moms we want for our kids, we want better for our kids and so of course they’re gonna get involved. So the new PTO then is not, there’s gonna be an opportunity for whatever you have to give and it doesn’t have to look like, hey I am going to advocate or I am gonna raise my hand. Like you can’t. So it, the easiest way to get involved is just ask where help is needed and then see how you can help. There’s gonna be a connection and you can say to someone if you have a PTO that is well run.
Now there are some that are not well run. There are some that are run by Debbie do everything or or Connie the control freak. Those are gonna be harder to be involved with. But with healthy groups they will recognize that you wanna get involved and celebrate that fact and give you something to do that you have time for that you will enjoy that’ll, that you will feel like you are meaningfully contributing to the whole system. So you just have to go and look for, go to a meeting and if you can’t go to a meeting, a lot of groups, I think one of the blessings of the pandemic has been that we, all of the PTAs and PTOs, we’ve had to figure out how to do it without being in person.
Which is a huge change. Like the old school PTO was that you had to come on Tuesday at 7:00 PM into the library in person for a meeting. The new PTO is you hop on Zoom or you hop on some other, you know, video conferencing system and you can mute and if the kids are screaming in the background, no worries because nobody can hear you. You don’t have to figure out childcare. So I would say just, just go and see what interests you. There might be like a lot of teachers will have work that they can send home with you cuz you can also help the teacher in addition to the PTO. Sometimes the PTO has like a strong room parent program where they will be coordinating all of the classroom work through one person so that the teacher isn’t fielding requests for multiple teachers.
You know, it, it every PTO is set up differently every just like schools are set up differently and just speak about your emotional learning. That is so awesome that you have that. In my district we have they’re implementing the conscious parenting program.
Wendy:
Oh good.
Christina:
But at the same time they’re also using an incentive based program. So it just, it depends on who is implementing it. And I’m, I’ve gone through the Conscious Discipline program twice that’s offered here by our local pediatrician. It’s a really great program.
Wendy:
Cool.
Christina:
So it’s like I, I can see the conflict but you know, they can’t, can’t always get everybody on board. So.
Wendy:
Yeah, I have a dream that we will, we will do one day because we like, I just have those, those two teachers that we’ve become good friends with. My, my kids both had the opportunity to have them as teachers. Like the one, two years in a row was like the best blessing ever. But we wanna create here at Fresh Start Family, we wanna create some type of program that will teach teachers or educators how to bring this into the school system. So we’re already like talking about how are we gonna do these? And both those teachers are like, Yes Wendy, let’s do it. So maybe, I don’t know, 2024 we’ll have that ready and maybe we’ll have to hook up because to be able to get it, like to get it into all these school systems to get it exposed to the school systems introduced because so many times I’m sure it’s like where, where do you start?
Right? It’s like, so here’s a program that’ll teach teachers how to implement some of these strategies into the classroom. But then of course you have to get the districts involved in the funding and all these things. So it’s gonna be an interesting journey, but it is on our radar.
Christina:
You get the parents asking for it and then it’s gonna happen. So…
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Wendy:
Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so I love that. So just being willing to contact your schools PTO and just say, Hey, I might not have a ton of time, but here’s what I can do. I do wanna get involved. Back when I was involved with the PTO, what, because I was just starting my business at the time, so I was, I wasn’t quite as, as intense as things got over the last few years as I was building Fresh Start Family, but I was still building the business so I was a secretary, like, and it was the easiest thing ever. You just show up and you literally just take notes, right? Like so that’s a great position that of course you have to be at the meetings, but you’re just, you just have to be a fast typer and then you have to be able to organize the notes and send them out. But yeah, there are just so many positions, right?
And, and the goal is you, you get your, your foot in the door, you start to make the relationships and then when you do have something that you’d like to raise your hand on, maybe it’s not like in a way that’s like, Hey excuse me. It’s like, hey, I’m gonna send an email. I’m just gonna let you know that this is something that I would like to request or ask that we consider trying to do some fundraising around. Or would we, we’d be willing to have a speaker come in or you know, I don’t know exactly how it looks. We’re gonna find that out when we create this course together with those, those amazing teachers. But you just start to be able to have a voice and be able to have context to start to be able to bring in the idea of more social emotional literacy programs for the kids.
Christina:
Sure, sure. And I think the, the other thing is if you see something that is missing in the school, you could also say, Hey, I noticed that the Facebook page isn’t updated very much. Can I, can I help with that? Like how easy is that? You can schedule the posts. Like it doesn’t have to be time consuming at all. You know, that, that was one world that we did not have at my first PTA that we ended up creating was a vice president of communications because I thought it’s all falling on me as president’s way too much to do. So we ended up creating that position and they still have that, they do the newsletter and then they do social media because it’s one thing as president, you’re supposed to be delegating and, and keeping tabs on everything that’s happening.
But that doesn’t mean that you’re supposed to be doing everything. That was one piece that, like I said, I, we identified that we had a huge need for it. But if, if a person who’s interested in getting involved, one of your listeners sees something and they’re like, I don’t, it can just be anything. Like I always had, one of regrets I have about the lower elementary schools is I always wanted to have a Pirates and Pixies dance. Do not ask me why Wendy. I just thought like it was a super fun theme and I never pulled it off just because the stars did not align. But we did start doing dances where boys could bring a special person and girls could bring a special person and it wasn’t, it was just split just because of volume.
Like we couldn’t fit all of the kids in the gym plus their person at the same time. It would’ve been crazy. So that’s why we split it by gender. But yeah, like if somebody else wanted to do like a butterfly ball dance or something, like you can take that idea to the group and be like, I want to see this happen. Can I help do it? That that’s a great way. Cuz then you get something you want, you’re getting involved with the PTO but you’re doing something that you wanna do and you’re not just throwing ideas out there and being like, Why don’t you do that? Like, that’s, that’s the worst thing. I had someone come to me at the very first event of the year. One time someone came out to me and she’s like, Are you the president of the PTA? And I was like, Yep, I am. Hi, nice to meet you.
And she started rattling off everything she thought the PTA should do and I said, Those are fantastic ideas. Our first meeting is next Thursday at seven. I would love to see you there. And she said, Well I can’t go, I work. And I said, that is okay, We all work too and we make it happen. Cause I said it’s, you know, it comes down to priorities. Like if it’s truly important to you, you will make time for it. If it is truly important, you will, you will carve out the time because yes, the first time you do it, it’s gonna take you a little bit longer, but then the subsequent times you do it, it takes exponentially less time. Like I’m sure you thought being secretary was gonna take a lot more time than actually did.
Wendy:
Yeah, yeah. And it’s, it’s just such a wonderful way to get to know people too, right? Like it’s, it’s, it’s important to advocate for and help contribute to create the positive change that you wanna see in your school system. And it’s so cool years later, right, to see, like I know that when my kids started at Parkdale Lane, there was not a social emotional literacy program, right? And I did some volunteer work and Stella’blws classroom and little things that I’m sure helped contribute, right? To like the idea that like, this is something we wanna do. And now here we are, however many years later, seeing that it like actually happened and came to fruition is a great, is a great feeling. But also just getting to know the people who are with your kids all day.
I think there’s so much rabble rabble especially like around like teachers. Like, I don’t know here at the beginning of the year sometimes back when my kids were little, they’d be like, Oh, who’d you get? Who’d you get? Who’d you get for first, second, third grade? And then there’d be people who were like, Oh my gosh, I heard like I’m, I’m terrified that my kid got this person cuz I heard they’re a yeller and they, this person had an awful experience with them. And then it always, like, I, I would always say to these people, or even if my kids were like super sad that they didn’t get a teacher that they wanted, I would always say like, trust me, once you get to know that person, you’re gonna find great things about them.
And you just like, you gotta, you gotta work with what you have. And every single time my kids thought, Oh my gosh, I didn’t get, like this teacher I heard is whatever I, I I always knew like, trust me, this is gonna be a great year. We’re gonna learn to love this teacher, we’re gonna support them. And it always worked out to be some of the great greatest teachers ever. But I, I just think you don’t, you cannot do that unless you’re actually like, in like involved somehow. So I think when, when you talk about the, like what are your priorities, right? Like it’s kind of, it reminds me of like pain thresholds for like athletes when, I don’t know, I’m not even going into that. But anyways, there’s a pain threshold.
So if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna talk negatively about anybody, then you gotta get involved. Like that is your threshold to say like, hey, or not even that you have to talk negatively, but if you’re thinking something needs to change, you’re not really okay with the way it is, you see the stuff missing and you are vocalizing on, you’re thinking about it. Like that to me is like a sign that it’s time to get involved. If you’re like, Hey, I see that there’s something missing, but it’s not, it’s not a concern to me. I feel like my kids are happy, the school’s great, then I get it. It’s like your, your priorities aren’t there, but like don’t let anything come outta your mouth negative about a school system if you are not volunteeringIf that makes sense.
Wendy:
Oh that’s, I was trying to get to
Christina:
You know what, and a lot of like we’ve had the whole concentration of effort on the CRT issues of the last year. You know, and like people were assuming CRT
Wendy:
Is that critical, critical race theory. Okay, got it. Yeah. Critical. Cause I’m not in this world. Yeah.
Christina:
Oh, okay. So
Wendy:
Yeah, I know what, I know what it means now. CRT. Yeah. Right. You have, oh gosh, so much rabble, rabble.
Christina:
But they had influx of parents who had not been previously involved coming in to protest the teaching of CRT, which actually wasn’t happening. Which they would have known. See that’s the thing, it goes back to being involved in knowing what’s going on. Yeah. And so if they had been involved, they would have had the relationships to be like, Hey, I’ve heard this is a thing. Like is this being taught or have a discussion rather than it turning into the ugly school board meetings that we’ve seen featured on the news. And so that’s one point cuz if you’re involved, you’ll know what’s going on. Yeah. And then the second point about meeting people and being able to develop relationships with them.
My, all my besties I met through PTO and PTA stuff.
Wendy:
Mm, that’s cool.
Christina:
Here locally. And then in my group, like I’ve connected with people with leaders in other states cuz we had some commonalities. So like I went to the University of Kentucky for undergraduate and I met someone who lives in Lexington and I’m like oh my gosh, that’s awesome. And we have like all this stuff in common and we met just through, she got one of my resources and and like loved it and I was like, Oh you’re awesome. And we just started talking and it’s been, I finally met her in person after like four, I think it was four or five years. Four years. Yeah. We finally, cuz I, we went on a college tour down in the University of Kentucky. So I got to, I got to meet her. That was really awesome. In addition to being able to see positive change or being able to support your child and make your school community a better place, there’s also a lot of personal rewards that come from it.
Like I said, you do have the friendships, you do have the support as your kids get older, life gets a lot busier and it’s hard to keep track of all of the changes because when you get to high school, you don’t just have one teacher or three teachers, you have eight. That is a lot to keep track of. And so it can help to have a tribe to be like, Hey, I heard about this or did you hear we’re not having French next year? Or did you hear that you know, they have to buy or have to buy, have to hire a new music teacher or all of that stuff. Or did you hear about this deadline or whatever. It’s easier when you have a group of people kind of to look out at all the details so that you don’t have to pay attention to everything.
So that’s just the side benefit that I don’t think people realize that when you have other friends that are involved, they kind of know stuff too. And so you don’t have to, can kind of ease up a little bit, I guess is what I’m saying as far as like try and keep track of everything. You will have friends that will do it for you and yes. That’s awesome. Yeah.
Wendy:
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So good. Christina, well I feel like we covered so, so many things. I hope everyone is feeling inspired to support, get involved with Be a Light in your local PTO PTA community. And why don’t you, you end a soft Christina, which is telling us a little bit more about your group and what it looks like to get involved with PTO answers. It’s a, it’s a Facebook group, right?
Christina:
I do have a Facebook group. So PTO Answers offers support, guidance and resources for the leaders. And then I established a home, if I can talk today I established a home base in a Facebook group group is called the PTA/PTO Superstar Leaders. Cuz we all wanna be superstars really. Molly Shannon is from Shaker Heights and I’m, that’s a suburb close to me and correct me up, do you remember Super Star? Do you remember Mary, Mary Catherine Gallagher, The
Wendy:
Yes! The armpit sniffing?
Christina:
Yes. And I just think that is hilarious. I, I generally try to make things fun and I think sometimes people think that PTO and PTA volunteering and involvement can is not fun. And I think it’s opposite. I think it’s super fun and so that it’s kind of a joke. It’s an inside joke with me about the name of the group. So yeah, PTA/PTO Superstar leaders, there’s about 8,000 group members and it is such a wonderful community because we do not have fighting. Like I’ve seen that happen in other PTO groups where people get like super sassy and they’re very unsupportive of each other.
We have the exact opposite because I don’t allow any of that nonsense. So it is a really nice resource if someone is looking for information on how to get started, if they already have stepped up, if they want information on whether they’re crazy about stepping up into a leadership role or volunteering. They’re just the creativity and I don’t know, just the general wonderfulness of the members is really awesome and people are just so inspiring. It’s like, you don’t know these people, they’re with 8,000 people. You don’t, you can’t possibly know people. Yeah, that’s can’t know everybody. It is a very large group, but the support is just crazy good. Like, you’ll go in there and just be like, I feel like a failure.
And everyone’s like, No, you’re not. Take a deep breath, you’ll be fine.
Wendy:
Aw, that’s cool.
Christina:
It’s just really, it’s like a love fest. So it’s, it’s a wonder I’m really, really happy. Yeah. So that is a frequency they can join.
Wendy:
So PTO Answers is the organization and that’s, is that a paid membership type of thing? Or…
No, so I have resources to support individual leaders and then I also have like teacher appreciation, volunteer appreciation resources. So the main resource that I I developed over the years was, it’s called the PTA/PTO success kit. So it has resources for every single leader in your group, from president to room, parent, everything in between. I recently developed a binder kit for principals to keep them organized and teacher teacher reps too. Cuz those are a lot of groups don’t have teacher reps. I’m like, No, no, no, you need to have somebody else other than your administrator because sometimes the administration’s goals and the teacher goals are not always aligned.
And so PTOs can help kinda shows that, massage that together and everybody can work together. So that’s, that’s what I do. So I offer the, the guidance and the resources. So they’re digital kits that people can turn either use digitally or turn into physical binders. Because what I found was that the information often gets trapped in the volunteer’s brains. Like we can’t like just stick it in the USB and download it. So the binder kits that you can make with the resources are helps you download that information so that you can pass it onto the next person. But it gives everybody like a toolkit with forms and templates that they’ll need in their role. So it’s all done for them.
So if you’re like brand new, you don’t know what to do, you don’t know how to be a secretary, you can go and get the kit and it’ll give you everything, give you everything you need pretty much.
Wendy:
Nice.
Christina:
You just add you. Yeah.
Wendy:
And so this is just a great resource to introduce if you’re, if you’re not the, if you’re not the president of your organization, but you wanna introduce your PTO to your group, that would be a great way to support too. Just saying like, Hey, I heard this podcast interview. There’s a wonderful group that exists to support groups like ours. Like that would just be a wonderful introduction to do that.
Christina:
Absolutely, Yeah.
Wendy:
Good. Oh, Christina, thank you so much for spending time with us today. I just, I love your passion. I love what you’re doing with that God given leadership design that is so beautiful. And just thank you for, for being a light in the world and for helping parents to advocate for their kids and the school systems. Both my kids, you know, I know have been tremendously blessed by our school’s, PTO and PTA, and I am so thankful for every single person who has served and will continue to serve. So just thanks to everyone who is considering getting involved, and I know Christina is a really great resource for you guys to reach out to and get to know her work.
So thanks again for being here, Christina.
Christina:
Oh,Wendy, thank you so much. I’m so glad that we connected.
All right families, that’s a wrap. I hope you love today’s episode as much as I loved recording it for you, and if you’d love to get supported more on the compassionate discipline front, remember we are teaching and just focusing a lot on compassionate discipline this month here at Fresh Start Family. Then I want to come over and grab that free learning guide we have where we’ll help you build logical consequences that work with kids of all ages, and/or if you want to join us for our free workshop: Three Steps to Building a Strong, Compassionate, Kind and Firm Discipline Tool Kit, I’d love to have you join me for that also! So take your pick– choose one, choose both, but I really wanna support you further on the discipline front. I know many of you are really struggling and just feeling really disconnected and hating when you have to discipline your kids, and I can help change that for you. So the discipline guide is over at freshstartfamilyonline.com/disciplineguide and then to learn about the dates and the times that I am teaching the free discipline workshop, you can save your seat there over at freshstartfamilyonline.com/disciplineclass. All right families thanks for listening and can’t wait to see you inside of the learning guide and at the Discipline Class very soon.
Wendy:
For links and more info about everything we talked about in today’s episode, head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/140.
Stella:
For more information, go to freshstartfamilyonline.com. Thanks for listening, families, have a great day.
