Power of Habits and Routines With Mental Math 

But if you are a busy parent you may say that you don’t have the time to develop the habits and routines. So how you do you develop these routines and where will you find the time?

We spoke to Nick  about habits and routines he developed in his children and how much the kids are on autopilot.

One of Nick Maniscalco’s daily routines is that he or his wife does mentals with their children every morning at breakfast.

“So we do mental math five minutes a day per child between 3-10 mentals every single day at breakfast,” Nick Maniscalco said.

 

He then went into discuss how his two children deal with sitting for longs periods of time, especially at breakfast.

“Math Genie helped with allowing the children with movement. My son was always able to sit for long periods of time, but my daughter was always more movement generated. Without Math Genie, I would have forced the issue by having her sit for a little bit longer, or stopped a little bit sooner, and not got as much accomplished. We can incorporate her movements into her ability to learn. We did different things like baseball mentals. We make different bases in the home in the kitchen. If she gets them correct, she gets to move to the next base. When she got around to home plate, she gets to run around twice. Instead of holding her back from being able to move, we rewarded it,” Nick Maniscalco said.

By learning and listening to the habits that were used in Math Genie, Nick was able to apply it in his home, which helped encourage his daughter’s differences.

 

 Another interesting routine that Nick uses is having his children do mentals in the evening

“In the evening, we do our homework, whether we have homework or not. It might be one line of 5-10 problems, but every single night we do homework,” Nick Maniscalco said.

Mohit mentioned to Nick how sometimes parents will binge; meaning they will try to cram homework, studying, and practicing all in one day, such as a Saturday. Nick quickly responded that he is not the type of parent who binges.

“Life is about learning every single day. It stretches your attention span over a period of time. You don’t work out once a week and expect results. You have to do it on a consistent basis. Repetition really solidifies the brain development. So having that consistently even for a short duration, 2-3 minutes, on an everyday basis is key. It is more important to have that every day basis than that one lump sum, binging on a Saturday to get the work done.” Nick Maniscalco said.

According to Nick, a short duration of two minutes of practice is better than a binge because they will feel forced and tired, thus causing slip ups and lack of want and focus.

A decent amount of parents tend to make a claim that they come home from work and are tired. Besides the parent, the child is exhausted too. Mohit asked Mr. Maniscalco how he gets his children to do the work and then reinforce it.

“It is like brushing your teeth, once you have the habit you don’t even think of it. You just know at a certain time to brush your teeth. Once you get that ball rolling in terms of repetition, habit, structure, and place in order for that to happen, there’s no struggle there’s no argument; just every single day we do this at a certain time so once you hit that threshold it’s a lot easier to not have that argument. They argue not to go to bed in order to get certain goals that they have in terms of repetition and exercises done. My son insists he has to have a complete page of homework or he won’t go to bed ,” Nick Maniscalco said.

In order to establish a well-rounded effective routine, positive reinforcement needs to be given. This does not necessarily mean you have to give your child a present every time they succeed or complete a task. Positive reinforcement can be given through love, praise, or a simple high five.

Mr. Maniscalco says how he used sticker charts in the beginning as positive reinforcement. He would let his children pick out the stickers and place it on the chart if they did their mentals in the morning and at night. Once the sticker charts were full, the children were allowed to pick what activity they wanted do on a Saturday as a family.

Mr. Maniscalco’s biggest positive reinforcement is affection.

“There are lots of hugs and kisses when they get their work done. When they make mistakes on their homework it’s never oh you did this wrong, it’s just oh I’ve noticed you have had three mix-ups, let’s go over that together, or do you want to take a look at those mix-ups and I’ll check it again. It is always about fun and learning,” Nick Maniscalco said.

Habits, routines, time, and positive reinforcements are the key to not only helping your child succeed and go after their goals, but you as well. Mr. Maniscalco told us how his children have motivated him to go after some of his goals.

“I was inspired by how hard they work and how effortless they do it without any input from us, so they’ve inspired me. I told them if they got their work done then I would get my work done. I work out six days a week because they have inspired me to take on a challenge,” Nick Maniscalco said.

The power of habits and routines can change a person or families life; all you have to do is find the time to make/create a routine with your habits, and take on the challenge of making it a priority.

“Make this a priority. Everybody has the same amount of time in a day. It doesn’t take very long. Spend a few minutes every single day and do not miss a day. It doesn’t take long to get their momentum going. But if you miss a day, get back on the horse the next day,” Nick Maniscalco said.

Watch the full interview of Mohit Jain and Nick Maniscalco below: