Talking to Kids About Stress and Focus

Elliott (01:01)
Ladies and gentlemen, what a special we have tonight. We have three guests We have with us, Annali, Faye and Charlie. We're going to talk fidgets I got to tell you, I'm an old man. I don't know that I understand it,

I'm really eager to learn, hear about what the benefits of fidgets are. You know I'm a wellness guy, so this is very important to me. all right, Charlie, what are we going to talk about fidgets? So like we're going to talk about like, so what fidgets are.

we're going to talk about needoh's, squishy, slime, stuff like that. a lot of like maybe poppets, Tabba. we have like putty, slime.

Faye, do you have something to add? Yeah, we're also going to talk a lot about Neato's, And my favorite is like Neato ice cubes. Needoh ice cubes. Okay. Annalee, can you tell me what is a fidget and why would I want a fidget?

They help you focus and fidgets are squishy toys or poppets that you can play with and they really help you focus. Okay, so using a fidget helps you to listen better or what do mean by focus? Well, it gives you something to play with and...

If you're at school and not just playing your desk, you can hold it while you listen. Okay, when I was in school, I used to draw a lot. And I think maybe when I was drawing, my mind would go to drawing as opposed to listening to the teacher, which probably wasn't the right thing. maybe if I had a fidget, it would have helped. Charlie, did you have something? So for fidgets, you can play with them like at your house. You could be a fidget collector. you could have...

water fidgets, Tabba. What is that Tabba? Tabba squishies, okay. Tabba squishies, they're very, very sticky squishies they can come in a lot of different designs.

They can come in like paws or that's the most common one. flowers, pigs, little swirly lines. And they're also to help you focus or just kind of squeeze? Yeah, any fidget, can be for any use. Unless you're like, well actually, if you want to just like buy it to like cut it open, okay.

What buy something to break it? I don't know. That's okay. Yeah, some people just like make these weird videos where they literally buy squishies and then cut it open

Yeah, that's kind of strange. When you're like in school, fidgets can help you a lot and they're just satisfying to play with. You can make squishies very easily and different types of fidgets.

Okay, and Ali, I see your hand up. Tabas squishies are slime, but when you play with it, it doesn't like break into chunks or fall apart or stick. and they're basically like squishies, but in like slimy.

I heard a story recently that, Needoh's. Are they causing trouble in school? Yes.

Everyone wants to trade them and one of my friend's classes somebody has been stealing me. my what? That's my class. Faye you got something? Yeah, me and Charlie our class actually a lot of people just think I really want that and then they just take it like some people tell me it was just in my bag and now it's gone.

some people must be looking through bags, looking through desks and stealing them and it's in our class happening. People are losing them. I don't like the sounds of that, especially if people use them truly to focus. Charlie? Some people don't use them to focus at school. I've seen people take them and now, needles, you just shouldn't bring them to school because like if it's something that's popular, you don't want to bring it to school if you have it.

You wanna desire it, you wanna keep it, you wanna have a good spot for it. You don't want it to get taken at school. So now is it considered kind of like a toy? Yeah, it's very much. Annaleigh? There are scams of Neato's. So if you order them like online, some of them are scams and they just have a paper over them that say Neato.

And a lot of people want them at school, but nobody brings them anymore. So they're kind of rare now. Scams are tough. You know, one day, a long, long, long time ago, my dad tried to buy a TV in a parking lot. It turned out to be a box of rocks. my God. Yeah, So scams have been around forever. That's a real story. Faye?

Yeah, like people just sneak them to school and like teachers are like like if you're going to assembly or something or gym class They're just like make sure that you're not bringing anything But people will like bring purses and stuff just to sneak it in there. So so basic face So basically what started off as something used to focus has now become a total distraction. Am I right? Unbelievable. how do you think that happened?

Probably because people just like are showing other people and then they're playing with it when they really didn't ask the teacher if they needed to use it to focus if they couldn't focus in class. Yeah. Charlie? I think this is how it happened. it was normal. There was just like a normal thing. Normal. There's like neatos like.

You can't see, but I'm holding a heart needle. Like a cool new thing. A cool thing. I mean, it was not popular at the start. Just like a normal little thing. If someone had one, someone had one. Then they became very, very popular. pop-ular. Okay. everyone's trying to get them. They're sold out almost everywhere and almost everybody has one.

they keep them in their desks. Then what happens is they start trading. can I trade this one for yours? Ooh, let's trade these. You want to trade squishies with me? OMG. Then everyone wants their needle back. Then this notorious needle thief comes in, stealing everyone's NeeDoh

Someone took my NeeDoh Someone took my neato. OMG, someone took my NeeDoh Yeah, okay. I don't like the sounds of that. Faye, you had something to add? Yeah, these things got way overpriced. Like, they used to be only a few dollars and then once they started getting really popular, it started getting really expensive. Like, they only used to be a few dollars, and now they're like $10 for one. Yeah.

what Annali was saying, there's lots of scams. people just probably steal them because they're like, I want that. I don't want to buy it because they're way too expensive. Annali? Well, there's still fun things to collect. But if you want to show someone, probably just send a picture. And also, if you're going to steal a Needoh,

Don't. That's really good advice. Charlie, Slimes and putties, they're another great fidget, another great fidget toy. Now, is our slimes and putties something that you can use during school?

Certain putties can be approved if they're small little putties. slime isn't. What's the approval process? It has, like the teacher has to agree with it. The teacher can't say no. If the teacher says no, the teacher's rules go. Gotcha. you can bring, I think they're a lot funner.

at home. Putties are very good. Like if there's like a counselor at your school, most likely they have like a putty or like some kind of like slimy putty-ish stuff. I go to like extra math. They have putty, no slime there,

I don't really know why, it's a very good like toy. Do you think it's because used properly and helps you focus? Yes. Okay. All right. Properly. Thank you. Okay. Faye. Yeah. if you use it to focus, it's totally okay. some people just buy them and just like are playing with it and it's helped the exact opposite from focusing when they're just like,

playing with it and not even listening at school anymore. maybe all this is happening because a teacher doesn't allow it and maybe a teacher's taking all of them or maybe it's just the students. Because they don't want it at school and the teachers want them to be a consequence maybe. But I actually, but I also don't think that a teacher would do that. Okay, okay. Annali? Yeah, I don't think a teacher would do that either.

because it could have been a lot of money, it could be special, and why would they take it? Also, slimes are different for different people. Like, if you're playing with slime, like during learning, when you're not supposed to, you could literally just be like playing with that the whole time and not focusing. But some people are actually focusing while they're playing, which is hard for me to do when I have slime. But in my class, during snack time, you can take out any toys you have.

So a lot of people bring like slime, but I don't think I should bring any because it's gonna get stuck to my clothes and it could get in like small corners of like the desks and things, so yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. You gotta really think it through, right? See if slime works for you. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe some other type of... Tabas squishy. See? Those are like slime. so good work on thinking that through. Faye, you have something to add? Yeah.

Like some people don't know what to do with their hands when they're focusing and they're just playing with it, but other people are just like looking at it, playing with it, and it's a distraction.

But you don't want to take it out while you're learning and bring it home because some people just leave it at school and then that's how it gets stolen. OK, all right. Yeah. Good, good, good advice. Annaleigh.

teacher last year actually, she played with like a pencil and like paper clips and things, but I was actually gonna get her squishy that needles weren't really popular. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Did you say teachers? Yeah. Are playing with pencils? Shouldn't they be teaching? Well, she can, well she like...

plays around with her hand. So she just flips a pencil around in her hand. OK, got it. That's like at work sometimes I click a pen. Yeah, that's what she does. And I actually sometimes I play with needles while I learn. OK, Charlie. I think I found out who the needle thief could be. I don't know if we should go there in this podcast.

I mean, maybe that could be another investigative podcast. you at the end. Yeah, off the air. Tell me who you think end of it.

I think I know how it started because somebody one time a classmate she lost a Needoh ice cube squishy on April Fool's Day and then they started getting stolen from then so maybe somebody wanted to just do a prank then carried it on for a lot longer okay well yeah okay that could be yeah

And maybe they went too far, right? It got too deep and they didn't know how to, I like that. Annaleigh? There could be a group of friends that is stealing more. I hope not.

Let's stop that conversation. Thank you very much. In fact, we've come to beyond 15 minutes here. So I'd like to wrap this up and I want to thank you, each one of you. But I also want to give you a couple of minutes to maybe say some closing remarks.

And I will start with Annali. I think fidgets are very fun toys to collect. But maybe don't bring your most favorites to school All right.

Face and some closing remarks. Yeah

think fidgets are great and also what the teachers say, don't bring something to school that you'd be upset with losing.

any other thoughts Yeah, never steal squishies ever, ever again. If you do, give everybody their squishy back because they're losing stuff that they paid for.

but also don't bring stuff to school that you would care if it got lost. That's very, very good advice.

Closing remarks for you, Charlie? Okay, so... I just say maybe bring like a paperclip or something and then like untwist it. You know what I mean? For like a fidget. Okay. Because then you can just do that. Yeah. To needle thieves or any squishy thieves, please...

Stop stealing squishies. I mean, I understand you want squishies, You shouldn't steal other people's things. Their parents or them, they paid for that with their money to get their squishy or their fidget.

I want to say thank you to the three of you to do this. I didn't realize that this was going to go from a fidget conversation to... Needle thief. Yeah. Me neither. Neither did I. actually had no clue.

Well, this is gonna be very interesting. And we were actually talking about slimes and then that came up. Slime. Little teeth. Charlie. Well, thank you. So, Ready,