CMASAS Blog

Public school wasn't working for my daughter. Depression, sickness, missing more school than she was attending all because of the stress of public school – these reasons were what started my search for better schooling options for my daughter.

At public school, she stayed up until 2 am to complete homework. Yes, she still got A's, but they were hard won.

Perhaps my story isn't so different from your own. I don’t know your circumstance; maybe your child was or is being bullied in public school, maybe they need a flexible schedule due to a tight demands of acting auditions, or a grueling practice schedule due to their sports goals.

Regardless, I'd like to share a few tips I learned when transitioning my daughter to CMASAS. Please consider passing these on to someone you know who could benefit from my message.

The term paper looms. Your computer sits open before you, the cursor blinking on your pristine white screen like a tiny black devil come to taunt you. On the corner of your screen, a notification pops up. Now you have a choice. You can either start writing the paper that’s due next week, or you can watch the latest YouTube video on Poodle-haircuts gone wrong.

If you choose the Poodle, you’re not alone. Tim Urban’s hilariously entertaining TED Talk entitled “Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator” has gotten over 10 million views and counting.

Urban tells us, “Both brains have a rational decision maker in them, but the procrastinator’s brain also has an instant gratification monkey! Now, what does this mean for the procrastinator? Well, it means everything’s fine until this happens: So, the rational decision maker will make the rational decision to do something productive. But the monkey doesn’t like that plan. So he actually takes the wheel, and he says: ‘Actually, let’s read the entire wikipedia page of the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding Scandal, ‘cause I just remembered that that happened!”

If you’re siding with the monkey on this little anecdote, you likely live in what Urban refers to as “The Dark Playground.” This is a place where you’re constantly distracted by what is fun and easy, but although you’re on a playground, the guilt, shame, and anxiety of not earning that playtime colors the whole experience.

Fortunately for those of you who can relate to this, there is the procrastinator’s guardian angel, which Tim Urban lovingly refers to as “The Panic Monster.” The Panic Monster shows up to scare the Monkey away when the Monkey has squandered the time away, and the deadline is immediate.

Urban recounts his thought process when he was invited to participate in a lifelong dream: to be the speaker at a TED Talk.

“But in the middle of all this excitement, the rational decision maker seemed to have something else on his mind. He said: ‘Are we clear on what we just accepted? Do we now get what’s going to be happening one day in the future? We need to sit down and work on this right now!’ And the monkey said: ‘Totally agree, but also, let’s just open Google Earth and zoom into the bottom of India, like, 200 feet above the ground, and we’re going to scroll up for two and half hours ‘til we get to the top of the country so we can get a better feel for India.’”