What’s The Episode About:

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will share a talk that they recently had with their Relationship U students on what is going on in real life today behind closed doors when couples and families are stuck together because of the COVID-19 related self quarantining. Paul and Stacey have been working very hard in sharing amazing tools and strategies on what people can do to avoid kerfuffles and all sorts of negative issues in their households, but it’s very hard for anyone to really tell just how effective they are. So they decided to share the raw, vulnerable, and real-life testimonies of families that are successfully implementing those tools and strategies.

One such testimony came from Joe and Adriana, a couple that has really benefited immensely from Paul and Stacey’s programs. The two have been married for 33 years, are empty nesters, and have been navigating the quarantine together so well despite the fact that a few years ago they could not even be in the same room together for even a few minutes. They’ve been having meals together, going out for walks every day, watching shows or plays, and doing many other fun things together. They had previously been separated for a year and a half, but finding Paul and Stacey’s programs changed everything, and now they are a true testament to just how effective Paul and Stacey’s tools and strategies are.

Denise is another person who will share how the Relationship U program has changed her life in terms of teaching her to get deeper into the ownership of her happiness and knowing that no matter what happens in the world, she’s responsible for her own happiness and needs in life. There are several other people who will share how relationship development has changed their lives, especially during the current pandemic where people are stuck together in their homes with each other. Tune in to find out how you can transform your own household and navigate this quarantine time in the best way possible.

Key Points Discussed: 

• How Joe and Adriana are navigating being together in the quarantine (01:33)
• How Paul and Stacey’s programs can make people better versions of themselves (03:34)
• Working on our happiness and needs before we can work on our relationships  (04:28)
• The true power of relationship development (08:25)
• The most appropriate time to practically apply the tools and strategies (11:08)
• Becoming the change that you want to see in your relationships (15:55)
• Taking a stand for your family so you can create a better legacy (18:53)

Where Can I Learn More:

• Get access to the Relationship Breakthrough Retreat – here
• Join the 14-Day Boost – here
• Join our Relationship Development Community – here

When Did It Air:

05/07/2020

Episode Transcript:

Stacey  0:00  

Hey relationship transformers. Welcome to the Relationship Transformers podcast. Okay, on this podcast, it is part two of how to get your sanity back during quarantine, and your marriage and your parenting. If you haven’t listened to last week’s podcast, be sure to listen to that. And in today’s podcast, I’m going to talk first about what I see as some two of the most common causes for kerfuffles that are going on right now during this quarantine time and how to solve that. And also how to deal with this and how to navigate when we kind of have a lot of extra things that have just been added to our plate. And really, how to look at that in a way that’s empowering, as opposed to feeling like all of this just happened to us, so that you can navigate this from the same place, and increase the peace and harmony in your home and decrease the kerfuffles. So let’s queue up the intro and dive into part two.

Intro  1:00  

So the big question is this, how is it possible that one person alone can transform any relationship, save their marriage, create their unshakable love and unleash passion, divorce, prove their family without needing their partner to get on board and do this with them and yet still get to be happily, authentically you without compromise. That is the question and this podcast will give you the answer. We are Paul and Stacey Martino, and welcome to the Relationship Transformer podcast.

Stacey  1:34  

Now, I do want to talk about unreasonable expectations and control. And of course, I could do a three-day event all on this, and we usually often do, and I highly encourage you to check in with those, but we have to drop a lot of our levels of control right now. Because, our desire to want things to be a certain way, it just is only going to lead to misery for us and everybody else. You cannot control everybody else. You can set a few standards like, “Laundry has to be done every week. Cleaning your bathroom has to be done every week. Movement has to be done each day.” But other than that, you really need to release. And, one of those things is around screen time, and around homeschooling. So let’s just talk about those two things together, because so many people have these invisible expectations about what it should be like. And then they kind of just, take on, like, “Oh, okay. I’ll homeschool for sixth grade, fourth grade, and pre-school. Oh, sure, sure. Starting tomorrow. Yeah, I’ll do that.” What? That is a full-time job people. That is three full-time jobs for three different grades. Just saying you’re gonna homeschool because the school is closed is nuts. 

Now, not everybody is going to agree with me, but I’m going to share my perspective with you as to what’s reasonable, and what’s not, after working with families for as many years as I have. Now, our son actually goes to online high school. That’s his regular high school. And that choice took us about five months to make. Five months of research, figuring out how he was going to do it, what the best online high school was going to be for him, how was that going to impact Paul and I, since we both work from home, how was that going to impact his sister and everybody else that’s here? What’s going to happen for him on days when we travel, or we’re not home? Like, we worked on that for five months before we were like, “Okay. This is what it is going to take for you to go through online high school. These are the requirements for you. This is what dad and I are going to be responsible for, and we’re okay with that. We’ve worked it into our schedule. We can all do this. This is how the system is going to flow.” And we worked it   he started online high school a while ago. And so, that is like an online high school. That’s not even homeschooling, which I can’t do, and would never do, because schooling is not my unique brilliance. I never in a million years want to do that, and I don’t have the bandwidth for it because I work full time. That’s just me. 

Some people wouldn’t love to homeschool their children, this is what they want to do. That’s fantastic If that’s you, but you need to actually think it through and not let a school closure make that decision for you. Because that’s a big decision. So please understand that there’s a difference between homeschooling and online schooling. And some of you are totally wired for and phenomenal at homeschooling, you have the bandwidth for it, and you’d love to do it. Great. Then make that decision and make your decision to say okay, for and I’m going to research who’s the best of the best that teaches homeschooling? How many hours a day do our kids need to school? And that’s what I’m going to do. Some of us are not wired for that would never do that and don’t have the bandwidth for it. And then we need to say Okay, is there an online education option for my kids while they’re here now some of our schools are building that God bless their heart. Some of our schools cannot because like that is a massive undertaking to build an online educational system. So I will just say that as an example, our daughter is home, her school does not yet have any online education options. And I will tell you that we didn’t start homeschooling her because the school was closed, she’s in sixth grade should be fine, we’ll figure it out. Either they’ll extend the year or we’ll make up the time like, she’ll be fine. Just because the school closed, or we kept her out of school, even before the school closed, does not mean that I’m required to figure out what sixth grade is and how to teach her that’s not relevant to me. Now, there are online services that you can use, which I highly recommend. Something like Khan Academy is a really, really good one. There are others that you can google search and find what is an online schooling. And if that’s a fit for you, by all means, do that with Something like a Khan Academy, you can sign your kid up for whatever grade they’re in. And then they start at a certain time, and they end at a certain time. And the online Academy takes them through the cadence of their day. With something like what we’ve done in our houses, our kids have a list of like museum tours, and then their shows for like, for 45 minutes, they take you through an entire country, and you get to learn what that country is about. We have ones for animals, and we have ones for nature. And so they’re doing educational programming during the day,

but it’s just like really super interesting watching the show, but they’re learning about something. We’re not trying to replace school, and that’s for our daughter, and then her school is going to start sending assignments, they said next week that they can do at home, which is great. That’s awesome. And if this ends up being a long term thing, we’re going to sign her up for something like a Khan Academy or something else where she can do on line in school where Somebody else is the educator. While she’s here, just thinking that you are going to replace a teacher and spend eight hours a day on taking your kids through a typical school day. There are entire administration’s that work on things like that. There are probably five to 10 teachers that impact your children in a day thinking that Oh, yeah, I guess if you’re home I’ll do that is an unreasonable expectation that you’re putting on yourself, that causes tremendous amounts of stress, because you can’t necessarily deliver on that real well. And you’re putting an unreasonable amount of stress on yourself at a time when we need to relax. I talked to one of the moms that was stressing about this the other day said to me, yeah, but like my kid is in ninth grade. And I have to make sure that he’s caught up because the year is about to end. And I said to her, oh, when is the school year ending and she’s like, well, his school year ends at the end of May so I don’t have much time. I sent to her school year ends at the end of May said Who? And she goes, Well, that’s what it is. That’s a school calendar. I’m like, why is the end of May so important that your child and what happens at the end of May? It’s like, well, that’s when School’s out. And I’m like,

Says who? Why is that relevant? Is that even a reasonable decision? Why not the end of June? If we miss three weeks now, can they not do that in June? Like and who cares? Who said that they need to get out of school at a certain time, who said that school needs to end at a certain time. These are imaginary deadlines. And you’re so blinded by accepting and visible expectations that I have to make sure that I create the same teaching experience and learning experience for my kid before the end of May like that is unreasonable. And you’re making yourself and everybody else miserable, for no reason. Now, maybe not everybody loves this message and doesn’t want to hear it and that’s fine. But if you needed to hear this message, giving you permission to just take a deep breath. It’s okay. Our kids are all going to be okay. They learn a ton all year. This is a temporary hiccup, and it happened on a dime. It’s going to take us some time to figure out okay, what should we do about this school year end dates are not necessarily a relevant thing right now because everything just changed. So just relax. Give yourself some time to figure it out. Whether it’s your school that’s going to provide work for home that your kids are going to do, or an online school that you can sign up for, that’s going to allow your kids to get educated or you would like to research homeschooling and you would like to be the one to be their educator from a place of really learning how to do this. Well. Any of those are wonderful and all of those take some time. So please do not have unreasonable activity. tations for like, I work nine hours a day, I also take care of the house and the meals and somehow I have to take my kids through three, four or five, six hours of school a day. In case you weren’t doing the math, there’s not that many hours in one day for anybody. So just relax, and give yourself a break. Whether it’s I’m gonna have my kids plug into online school, or I’m gonna wait to see what the school does and give them like, learn this country and do this art class and expand your mind this way and read or write or create something, whatever is a fit for your family culture, make that decision, as long as it’s reasonable that you can actually do it and use time chunks to move people through changes and energy changes and experiences all day long. 

And the other thing is about screentime so many people are like, Oh, I don’t want my kids sitting on screens all day, I don’t want my kids sitting on video games all day. I don’t want, like, and I get that. And we actually regularly have a family policy of two hours a day of screen time. 30 minute chunks. 30 minutes on 30 minutes off, no earlier than 8am no later than 6pm. That has been our family policy for 15 years. And our kids have always honored that policy. And when they haven’t, there are consequences in our house for that. So that is the way our family runs no problem. But now there needs to be a shift. Right? So when my kids do an online class, that doesn’t count for screen time, when my kids want to do the 45 minutes This is everything you wanted to learn about Greece, that is not considered screen time for them. When my kids want to do a zoom session with their friends so that they can play a game and hang out. That is not screen time for them. Alright, so connection time, learning time. Those things are not screentime when I need to do something for two hours in my work so that I can focus. And I put on a movie for the little ones so that I can focus and they can watch TV. That’s Oh, okay. See, what happens is we try to apply this like, Oh, we shouldn’t let them sit on screens all day. You know what, this is what Disney plus was made for. It’s okay. This is a temporary situation. And if one day your kids end up watching three movies, then so be it. That is what that was going to happen that day. Now, when it becomes everyday people start to get restless and the energy doesn’t isn’t good. That’s why we use time. chunking but please stop making screentime the demon here that you also have to fight screentime in addition to everything else, like it’s okay, relax. We did a virtual live event for our students last week. So many of our students were like, what am I going to do with my kids? Right? Each session is two to three hours, what am I gonna do with my children? And I’m like, well, that’s what frozen one and frozen two is for the frozen marathon and come do what’s important for you like, it’s okay. Do we live like this every single day of the year? No, we don’t.

But these are very different times. And you need to focus on what’s important. If you have little ones, like my kids are older. And so they know when mommy and daddy go to work, unless you’re bleeding, like, Don’t interrupt us. Because we’re working. We’re focused, we have to work. As a team, you guys need to allow us to work and we’ve built up that rapport. We’ve built up systems with our children.

That’s all in the relationship development parenting courses that we have, how to be able to create that kind of family culture, but even with little ones if you need to create like, okay, I do have to do work. It’s important to create these time chunks where, like for 90 minutes, they’re gonna watch a movie or do an hour projects or do something that they can do independently. And you’re going to have focus time because if they’re always constantly coming into your room or you’re constantly trying to do work while you’re sitting with them, all of this mixing, mixing leads to misery write that down. Mixing leads to misery. 

One of the beauties of having time chunk is to give yourself the gift of focus, so that you can really be effective and fill up from what you’re working on. And they’re happy to focus on a movie so please use that if that’s the only tool that works right now. Please utilize that to allow them to play a video game or watch a movie if that’s what needs to be hop on a zoom with their friends and sit for an hour and a half talking to their friends and hanging out if that’s what needs to be and then you use that time effectively be like okay, they started on their focus and focus get Your stuff done during that time chunk, and then go back and say, Okay, now it’s time for I’m gonna like put lunch together for all of us. Let’s hang out for an hour. And then I’m back to focusing, you’re on to the next thing. And use that predictable pattern to give yourself some peace and some focus and some effectiveness. And allow them to have that time, whatever it is, and if they are doing online schooling, allow that to be time chunks as well, whatever it is, but give yourself a break on how to navigate this time. 

This has never happened before. But it’s a fantastic learning experience that we can’t just live a life in reaction to every other human that lives in our home. We need to create some structure and some process. Now I know there’s going to be lots and lots and lots of questions around this and feel free to post them below. Paul and I are working on filming actually a training costs for you that we can give away for free About how to implement stuff like this, and how to navigate marriage and parenting during a quarantine time like this when you’re stuck together, and the tools and strategies for that. And we’re working on some of that, as well to try to give you some more tools and tips that you can start using. And certainly, of course, the biggest one is get into one of our programs right now. Like make that one of your time sounds like, man, I need some solutions, like solutions, like I just showed you right now, but much deeper. And for marriage specific interactions and parenting specific interactions with each child, there are solutions that you can use to lower the kerfuffles and raise the harmony. So these were just some to give you some sanity and predictability in your day. I hope this serves you. Please post in the comments below what you got from this and how you’re going to use that and if you have any questions, be sure to post them to maybe we’ll answer Through that in one of our next videos, if you want to get into one of our programs, you can start the 14 day boost that’s coming up at 14 day boost comm if you want to start the Quickstart program, you can email us at support at relationship development. org If you want to enroll in relationship view, we have a link that we can give you for that to get into the relationship Transformers Official Facebook group, the links are all there and we can help you understand the different programs. If you have not started listening to our podcast, the relationship Transformers podcast, please listen to that there’s like 40 something episodes that are available you can put them in and listen to it every single day. But this is the time to get the tools and strategies for your marriage and family. Now more than ever before, it’s so important to do that. I hope that this training has served you and until I see you again sending love everybody. Bye bye. Okay, I hope you got so much from this two part training. Remember, go back and listen to part one. One. If you miss that, you might want to listen to these again, right part one and part two. And the key is don’t just listen. start implementing take action, start being intentional about what you can take on what you will take on what’s best for your family, instead of being reactive, or using invisible assumptions and feeling like you just need to do everything. be intentional about it. Start using time chunks. Really start applying this in your regular day start showing up differently, so that you can navigate this time with increased level of sanity, but certainly increased level of peace and harmony and decreasing those kerfuffle and frustrations. Again, if we can help you with the tools and strategies to implement this and take a deeper dive. Whether you want to get into the next 14 day boost. You want to start the Quickstart program right now today. You want to enroll in relationship you and get one on one support and coaching. You want to get your ticket for relationship, breakthrough retreat, live event, whatever it is for you, like just get into our programs in our events. That’s where the tools and strategies are taught so you can take the action and until we see you again, sending love everyone.

Outro  19:17  

Are you ready to catapult your relationship to the next level? Would you love to do that in just three days? Well, Relationship Breakthrough Retreat tickets are open. This is our live three-day event. We only do this event once a year. It’s a three-day live immersion experience with me and Paul, where you get to have your relationship breakthrough within those three days. This is not a couple’s event. Your partner does not need to come to this event. There are no couples work going on. It’s a fun, high energy, life changing, impactful immersion experience, where your relationships will catapult forward within those three days. It is not to be missed. Check out RelationshipBreakthroughRetreat.com for information and tickets