Sometimes what we think is the problem is not really the problem.
A couple notes I wish I’d gotten into this recording:
1) The (wonderful) conclusion to the college chicken fingers story
Ten years or so after that vacuum cleaner situation went down, I was at a wedding party and to my surprise The Roommate was there too.
I hadn’t seen him since way back then.
I was sitting at a table with a few other people when he walks over.
The first thing he says to me: ~“Jesse, I was an ass when we were at UCLA. I’m sorry.”
He was so genuine.
I think partly because of his sincere words, any negative feelings I had about him immediately faded away.
I shared that with him, he smiled, and we got right back to good times, as he started telling me all about the cool stuff he was up to.
For instance he had become a college basketball coach, and I’ll tell you this guy looked great too!
It was a wonderful “reunion”.
Anyway, all of this to say: cheers to him and his awesome growth.
And the whole situation, looking back from college to that moment at the party, is also a great reminder of some related words of Maria Montessori: “Progress is not linear.”
2) A significant thank you
A special thanks to the late Haim Ginott and to the late Edith Packer (in addition to Maria Montessori), for without their insights I probably wouldn’t understand this stuff and I never would have integrated it into my own life with such meaningful results.
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About Jesse McCarthy
For 20 years, Jesse McCarthy has worked with thousands of children, parents, teachers and administrators — as a principal for infants to 8th graders, an executive with a nationwide group of private schools, an elementary & junior-high teacher, and a parent-and-teacher mentor.
Jesse received his B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and his Montessori teacher's diploma for ages 2.5 to 6+ from Association Montessori Internationale (AMI), the organization founded by Dr. Maria Montessori.
Jesse has spoken on early education and child development at schools around the globe, from Midwest America to the Middle East, as well as at popular organizations in and outside of the Montessori community: from AMI/USA to Twitter. Jesse now heads MontessoriEducation.com and hosts The Montessori Education Podcast.
Transcript: It’s not about the chicken fingers
The educator Dr. Maria Montessori once said, "The child developing harmoniously and the adult improving himself at his side, make a very exciting and attractive picture." Welcome to Montessori Education, with me, Jesse McCarthy, where we talk raising children and educating students, while bettering ourselves right alongside them.
So about 25 years ago, I would say at this point, um, when I was in college. I had, we lived in a very expensive area, uh, it's called Westwood. Um, and it's just super expensive. So we were sharing a two bedroom apartment. I had four other roommates. So we're five guys in a two bedroom apartment. You can imagine we're like late teens, early twenties.
And this one day we were all in the living room, except for one roommate. So in the, there was a room on one side, a room on the other, and we're in the living room. Hanging out and this other roommate was just having, I don't know what was going on in his life. There was something going on. He just, he'd sleep in till like 11 am.
m. Noon, you know, and again, we're in college So you should be going to classes around that time And anyways, we're all chilling in the living room again Except for this guy and the door opens to his bedroom. It's pitch dark like he's been sleeping And he walks out, doesn't say a word to any of us, just walks into the kitchen.
And out of nowhere, we hear this, and I should say, it's not me speaking, it's him. So there's foul language. He says, he says, whose fucking chicken fingers are these? And that's what we hear. Um, and I should say at this point, we're young guys. I don't know how many women are out there. Generally speaking, we're not the type that's going to be like, Oh, is everything okay?
You know, something wrong. That's not how we handle this. Uh, at that age, but now I handle it differently, but what we did is we started jabbing and like, Oh, what's up, something going on in there, like just talking trash, which did not help the situation and escalated the situation. Um, so he's, he's getting increasingly pissed off.
He walks back into his bedroom. We're thinking, Oh, what's this, this dude doing now, you know, walks back into his bedroom. And the next thing we know is a full size vacuuming vacuum comes flying around the corner, nearly hit one of the roommates like it could have been really, really, I don't remember what happened after that.
But you can see this was this was a serious situation. Uh, now why am I sharing this, this situation, this story with everyone out there? And this is kind of really for parents and teachers and admin and so forth. Um, and the reason I'm sharing is because I think the moral of this story, at least what I got from it, is it's not about the chicken fingers.
Like, this issue, like, yeah, in the freezer, basically, there was, somebody had bought in a Costco sized Chicken Fingers bag, and it was taking up a lot of space, and he felt that he didn't have space in the freezer, like, there's some validity there. But is this really, this rage, is this really about the Chicken Fingers?
No, I think we all get that, um, Maria Montessori said this quote that I, I share a lot and I think it's really important is she said, the real preparation for education is a study of oneself. Um, and I don't think we think about that enough. And in this case, like you shouldn't be focused on the chicken fingers and figuring out how to organize the freezer.
It's really, you should be looking within. I mean, a really clear cut example of this in, in, for everyone out there when you see is something like a road rage. It feels like when you have road rage or you see somebody that's got road, it feels like, Oh, the situation, somebody cut me off and that's wrong of them and I'm not, is it really about somebody cutting you off?
Is that how you get so enraged? You know, like, like the simple answer is you would just go, Oh yeah, some, some guy cut me off. That's a shame. I'll just continue driving and get to my place. Like, it's a pretty easy answer if you're just talking about the concrete, like with the chicken fingers. It's pretty easy.
Okay, whoever got that big size thing, let's, let's divvy it up so we don't take up so much space in the freezer next time. It's, it's simple. The hard is, why am I getting so enraged over a problem that is so simple? Seemingly simple. That's the hard stuff. You know, that's the looking within, um, in a parent, I'll give you a parent example of how I've seen.
So I was working with this one lady who basically she reached out for some consulting. How can I, how can you help me, Jesse? And one of the big issues that came out, or at least in her mind was a big issue, is that It's funny enough. It's got to do with chicken fingers. Her child would only eat chicken fingers, and I think it was like pizza, something like that.
So it's probably if you're a parent out there, you probably can relate. She was getting really angry at her kids because all they would eat what you don't want to eat the food I'm making this type of thing. And, you know, I was talking to her. She was reaching out wanting to know, like, what can I do so they don't they don't only eat chicken fingers.
Well, they will only eat pizza and now I've got answers for that. I got some concrete things I can give you really quickly. Maybe I'll hold off on a second on what I would give the lady, but I started to ask questions. That's a lot of times what I do is try to ask questions like, okay, so what's going on?
Um, what's going on otherwise? Like, are you happy with everything else that's going on with the kids and so forth? And what I came to learn was as we went back and forth over, I think a couple of sessions, that she was staying at home with two of her kids. I think they would go to school, then they'd come back, but she was at home with at least one of them full time.
While the husband was working doing a job that he really loved and this this mom It wasn't her ideal in life to be staying at home with the kids That just was not her she wanted a career too. So the husband would come home thinking like okay now I've worked So I just need to relax and he's not doing anything with the children But meanwhile, she's just basically worked the whole day with at least one of the kids and she needs a break but it was viewed as if Okay, now it's the husband's break.
So she was working all the time with kids. So she was actually very, very upset at her husband, at her, this situation. So this anger was coming out in the food situation, like the chicken fingers, as if that, or the pizza, like that was the issue. That wasn't really the issue. And again, I want to make it clear.
There's an element of it that's true. Right? How many of you, probably, I've had it before when my child was young and then we figured it out really quickly. Uh, he only wanted to eat pasta. You know, something like that. Or, again, pizza. I'll just give you a quick concrete on this. An easy solution to that is, uh, you make a dinner option.
Let's say it's dinner. You put it on the table and say, Oh yeah, this is what we have for dinner. And you explain what the things are and said, yeah, this is what we have. If you, if you don't like it, that's okay. Um, we'll try something different the next time. Yeah, of course your child's gonna flip. I don't really want this.
I want pizza. I want pasta. Um, and they might be hungry. They're gonna go hungry. A lot of parents, it's hard for you to allow your child to go hungry, right? Um, and another thing is the next day in between meals Don't give snacks because if the child has already eaten some, he's not going to be as hungry.
So if you offer some other type of food outside of pasta or pizza or chicken fingers, they're going to not eat it because they're not really hungry. So the next time the meal comes, you go, Oh, we made something different. Cause it didn't seem like you liked. X. And now the child's a lot more hungry or hungrier because they didn't have a snack, they're going to eat that food that you put there.
Assuming it's not something like, you know, child just really hates, which you learn as you go along, and they start to eat a more, a greater variety of foods. Right? So the idea is you stay strong. Here's what's for dinner. If you don't like it, that's okay. Don't worry. You don't have to eat it, but this is all we have.
The child will naturally be hungry. Then in between meal, whether in between lunch and dinner, don't give a lot of snacks because then they will actually be hungry when dinner comes. Right? And over time again, you should really be thinking about, does my child actually like this food? Because most of the food they will enjoy.
There's some foods that, listen, as an adult, I don't wanna eat. And you'll see that with your chop, right? But the range will start to grow. There'll be more than pasta and pizza and chicken fingers. That's just a con, but that's a concrete, simple solution. So somebody might call you and, no, no, that's not, that won't work.
Bring it. Okay. It, it'll work if, if you really are consistent with it. But it's just, that's an easy solution. If you're feeling that you're enraged or flipping out, I can't figure this out and it's just all these emotions, you could just find an answer to that one. So it's not really about that issue. And let's say you did solve that problem, but you didn't deal with why was I so angry about it.
It's just going to pop up in some other problem. It's going to be an issue with when the child's dressing. If an older child is going out with friends, you don't want them to go out with them. Um, it would come up in a million different ways, and it would be anger or upset, and it would just come to the surface, just like my roommate who flipped out over the chicken fingers.
So, um, what I'm getting at is there are real issues that arise, you know, child doesn't want to eat what you want to eat, there's not enough room in the freezer. Um, your child, if you're going to traditional school, their grades are low. If they're in Montessori school, um, they're biting somebody. If they're, there's all sorts of different issues that pop up.
There are answers to the concrete, but I'm saying underlying is what we really need to jump into. And it's, it's this sense of digging deeper. Digging deeper into the, the specific problems we think are the problem. Um, and so I'll give you another really strong example of this. So I was giving a talk at, um, AMI USA, which is this organization.
If you don't know if it's a big organization, Montessori years ago, I was giving this talk, um, there's huge, huge, there's like 300 people. And what I do is I started asking everybody in the audience. I'd go have questions. We'd go back and forth. And what I said was, is there anything that really upset you recently?
As teacher raises her hand and she says, well, this dad came in the classroom and he forced his son to wear this dinosaur sweater. I think it was a toddler that he didn't want to wear. And I'm in the back going, Oh God, this dad is like. He made this child wear this sweater, and then the child's sitting on the ground crying, I don't want to wear this sweater, and the dad's gone, you know, he just dropped them off.
And this teacher just said, I said, well, how'd that make you feel? Yeah, I was upset with the dad. And I thought to myself, like, you could just see this, this, this teacher and something inside of her was much stronger than I'm upset. So this was an instance of whether it's in public or something. She, she couldn't get the real how she was feeling out.
Like that mom who, who talked to me about the chicken fingers. Oh, she, she was pretty explicit. She knew I'm angry. She didn't know why she was angry. She thought it was about the food, but at least she was getting her emotions out. This woman, this teacher, she was kind of, um, I don't want to say meek, but the emotion wasn't really what I was seeing.
Like, what she was saying Didn't really line up. So I said, well, what would that emotion say? If it could speak, like when she saw this dad who she increasingly talked about and said, like he was doing things where he's pushing his child to do stuff. He wasn't offering a lot of freedom within limits. He was just like, you do this.
So it really upset her. So I said, what, what did it make you feel? I said, well, I was angry and I was like, okay, let's, let's keep it going. If that emotion could talk, which I think is a very big tip on getting to the source of these, any issue with ourselves. What, what would it say? Well, you know, I'm, I, I, I'm angry with that.
Then I said, well, keep it going. You know, is that, is that what it would really say? Like, what would it say? And she just kind of looked away. I was like, I want to kill him. Yeah. Now, she doesn't really want to kill the dad, but that's what the emotion would say. So a big thing for me has been very helpful for me and then people I work with and just seeing teachers and parents and just human beings generally.
If you're alone and you're feeling a strong emotion, let it speak. What would it actually say? So in that case, it said, I want to kill this dad, you know? And that's kind of like a level. It's almost like you're peeling back the onion of what's going on. So dad made the child in her classroom, where this sweater child's crying.
It really upset this teacher. She says, I want to kill that. And then you just keep digging. Is it really about the dad? Because it's really about this dad. You could just have a conversation with him. You could solve that problem. So you start digging, you start peeling back that onion. And one of the things that might come out is I'm scared to confront this dad.
So now all of a sudden it starts to look with it. It's not, it's not really about the dad. It's about my fear that I can't confront this dad. And then maybe it's, I don't know how to communicate with parents. more generally. You know, in Montessori education, a lot of times teachers are very good with children, but you've got this amazing philosophy, this amazing approach with children that works.
And then you've got a parent who comes in and doesn't yet know it. And they're doing all sorts of things that you think are horrible or harmful for the children. And you don't know how to communicate it. So it becomes like the teacher work when we're just complaining about the parents. Oh, this parent doesn't know that.
And when you dig, you peel back that onion and get away from thinking it's about the parent, it sometimes can be about, I don't know how to communicate. I feel. Incompetent. That type of thing. So you're just digging. You're peeling back that onion. So that's, that's one thing. Um, that's been very helpful for me.
I mean, there's a whole bunch of tactics and tips on how to look within, how to get it, understand your emotions and how to get better at this. But that's one tip that's been very helpful. Um, that I've seen is just let the emotion out and keep asking that question. What would it say? What would it say?
Okay. And is that it? And you just keep digging and digging. Um, there's a quote I really like. Let me see where I put it that's related to this. Okay. So it's by this guy, Xunzi, who is a student of Confucius actually. So old school quote, and I kind of adapted it. So if you think this is the exact quote, it's not the exact, I adopted it for myself, but, um, "When you see good, collect yourself and absorb what you've witnessed. When you see what is ungood, allow yourself to feel the upset and then look within." So basically we want to, if we see good stuff going on, you see somebody doing something really well. It's like, wow, that person, that woman, that man did something really cool. Let me figure out how I can absorb some of that.
Uh, when you see something that's not good, allow yourself to feel it. So you've got to allow that emotion now, of course, not, you know, you don't gotta start screaming at your neighbor, but I'm up to yourself. What do I feel and keep going? And then you look within, you know? Then you look within, is there something that I can work on?
Versus kind of blaming the other person. Been super helpful for me. Um, again, I want to make this clear. The chicken fingers, the um, the dad with the sweatshirt, the mom with her chicken fingers or pizza, the concrete issue does matter. Like we need to figure out again, how do we get room in the freezer? Um, how do I help my child so that they eat different things?
Uh, how do I communicate with this dad in the classroom? All I'm saying is there's something deeper going on if we have crazy strong emotions about this. Because otherwise it's like, you know what? I got a flat tire. What do I do? You fix it. But if you get a flat tire, it's like, Oh my God, my whole face ruined and you're flipping out.
That's not about the flat tire. Make sense? That's all I'm getting at. Um, and all of this, I got to say, sometimes this could be heavy stuff because it's a lot of work to kind of get to the core. I mean, I'm just giving one little tip. This, this is ongoing work. It realistically never ends. We're always working on ourselves.
Um, but again, it can be heavy, but this is really, in my view, this is about enjoyment of life, more enjoyment of life. I've worked with people, and I know I recently talked with a dad actually that reminded me of this. He just said, I'm just enjoying myself so much more with my daughter, with my family because of this development.
It doesn't mean that everything's solved now. Like, oh, now that I named the emotion, now I know myself completely. Everything's solved. No, but what it means that I'm enjoying myself so much more in, in these steps along the way, um, so basically, I mean, you know, there's that Montessori quote that this podcast opens with, and I don't get it exactly, the child developing harmoniously and the adult improving himself at a side.
Make a very exciting and attractive picture. And I think that's what it's all about. Us enjoying ourselves right alongside the children. And the only way I think we can really do that is to keep in mind at all times, whether a parent at home, child just throwing toys around, um, or won't get to sleep on time, or you're a teacher in the classroom and the children aren't working, um, somebody's nagging you by tapping on the shoulder all the time.
If we're getting really riled up it's not about the chicken fingers Um, okay. I think that is it. That's all I wanted to get through something really quick today. So thank you for being on board Uh with the show here. It's always fun to be here Again, i'm, jesse mccarthy. You don't already know that Please reach out.
I'd love to hear your feedback on the comments, if your section, if you're on YouTube, um, in a review on one of the podcast players, you can write me personally. Um, you can just go to MontessoriEducation.com and you can contact me there. If this helped in any way, you think it's useful, please share it with somebody else that might also find it useful.
And, uh, I think that's it. Um, take care everyone and I'll see you next time. Adios.