Communicating With Children: a workshop for families, teachers and caregivers

I am a professor at Bank Street College of Education, and I prepare both teachers and child life specialists at the graduate level who are getting ready to work with children in schools and early childhood settings. And I teach a course on play. And what we have learned over the years is that some of the techniques you used by child centered play therapists are actually very easy to translate for teachers and parents and can really, I guess, add to your parental repertoire. So I'm just assuming that each of you has your own culture of parenting and what works for you. And some of you may be still figuring it out if you have very young kids, but. But you probably have a way of interacting with your children that you find works for you and maybe sometimes you think it would work a little better. I am not here to change your parenting style. What I'm here to do, hopefully, and what we'll do, working together over time, is to add a tool to your toolkit. And that tool is child centered. So it is based on eight principles that I'm going to review. But child centered play starts with unconditional positive regard. It's kind of an easy place to start for most parents who adore their kids. But in this relationship, in this way of being with children and playing with children, kids learn to self regulate, build self confidence and feel empowered, Process their inner experiences so that emotional processing that's so important to working through challenges, feel mastery and control, and build rapport and emotional connection with a caring adult. Now, you already have that beautiful attachment with your child, and if you're a teacher, you're building that with the kids that you're working with. But this strengthens that body, and that's something that we're going to be focusing on. Like I said, it's based on eight principles, and Virginia Axline is the person who came up with them. But it's all based on the humanistic work of Carl Rogers, who is kind of like the first psychotherapist to really go off from how Freud did things, which was he would sit there and while the client talked and talked and talked, it'd kind of be a blank slate. Not responding, just listening. And Carl Rogers said, you know what? Healing happens in relationship. That's the deal. So Virginia Axline, who was a student of anaphroids, took this humanistic approach and came up with some ways to interact with kids. And. And part of before we even get to those principles is thinking about play space. That's inviting. And I know everybody has different abilities to have space in their home. I know in New York We've been seeing how hard it is for parents who are working from home now to share the play space and school space with their children. But when we can be mindful thinking about what makes inviting space and the toys and materials that they, that encourage children to express themselves, we're thinking about things that are culturally relevant and where kids can see themselves in the toys. Toys that encourage exploration like building. And these are all toys for young kids. But we know that school age kids and even teenagers play too, just in different ways, and that there are materials that can invite them into play too. The eight principles of the child centered approach are that play occurs within a warm, caring relationship. The adult accepts the children exactly as they are, and a lot easier said than done. Children are encouraged to express all feelings. So there are a lot, you know, kids, oh boy, are they full of feelings. And I think during this pandemic we've seen feelings being ramped up. And a lot of us are kind of okay with the certain repertoire of feelings, but sometimes the uncomfortable ones, like rage or sadness can be hard for us to help a child sit with. The adult reflects back the feelings to the child, names them. The adult respects the child's ability to make choices and problem solve. And this is something that when we start seeing, seeing what that looks like for parents and teachers, what does your role become? If we want kids to be able to solve some of their problems, well, our role becomes a witness and a scaffolder. So there are ways that we can step in and support kids, yet still encourage them to be able to be problem solving by themselves and feel a sense of efficacy. Adults don't direct actions or conversation. Well, this is not the way we are with kids. We're always directing them, right? If we're a teacher, we're telling them, okay, this is what we're doing next. And if we're a parent, we're parenting. And that often means that we're directing actions in conversation. But this when we are being child centered and we're weaving it into our way of being with kids, maybe there is 10 or 15 minutes once a week or twice a week where you're not doing this and you kind of flip our way of being with kids and let children enjoy our company without being the one, without the adult being the one in charge with the child. Leading adults don't rush the child's process. Child centered play and being with a child in a child centered way is actually the whole feeling behind it is to support a child's development. So we don't worry too much. And even if a child needs a little bit more help, we understand that growth and development happens in time, that things don't happen all at once. Here's one thing. Adults set few limits and do so with empathy and clarity and empowerment through choice. And in child centered play, we call it act three point limit setting where we acknowledge the feeling, we set the limit and we target an alternative. And this is something we're going to hopefully over the next months be practicing together because this is an extraordinary tool to help support you when there are maybe some power struggles or some things that you know, your child doesn't want to do and you're trying to figure out, or there are things that your child is doing and you're trying to think, should I be stopping this behavior? Anyway, so we're going to be looking in depth in that. So I want to stop here because I really wanted to just give you a brief introduction. I think that there is plenty of time for us to talk about the specific skills involved and go into this in more depth. But I wanted to introduce it to you and I know that Manisha had some thoughts as well.

Thank you so much, Deb. That was a wonderful overview of the child centered approach. And I think that all of the parents who are here today and the tutors really share that belief that they want to bring unconditional love and acceptance to their child. And that's easier said than done. You know, just last night I was reading to our 3 year old and he basically just kept kicking me and turning off the book light. And I felt that kind of frustration mount in me and was not really in a spirit where I could kind of do my Zen meditation first, which is that if you kick me one more time, we are not reading this book book anymore, which I think was fine. But just all that to say there's always, you know, frustration that arises on a daily basis. I guess I'm curious to know, you know, when you talk about accepting a child exactly as they are, what does that mean in the context of, for example, if you're trying to teach your child not to interrupt others and, and your child is in a conversation and they keep interrupting and you really want to encourage them to express themselves, but that behavior is making it hard to have a conversation.

So unconditional positive regard and accepting the child exactly as they are is about accepting all feelings that are expressed. It's not about permitting all behavior. And I think that that is a really important distinction to make that I think children know when somebody disapproves of them as a person, as opposed to an adult who is setting limits about what behavior is okay or isn't. And I guess I'm thinking, you know, maybe it might help to share one more slide about this. Hold on one second. Let me go back and let me go to. Hold on a second. Just gotta move my screen a little bit so I can find the right slide. So we're talking about trusting the child's. Trusting the child that given the right supports, the child is going to come to a place where they are part of society. Right. But trusting that the child will make good choices, accepting their play choices and their expressed emotions. So when I think about this, I think about some children who may have a medical experience and take a doll and poke it in the eye with a syringe. And a lot of the non acceptance is when adults are feeling, oh no, this play is too aggressive. When in reality this child is working out something. And parents don't always need to step in to redirect a child. And when we're talking about the child centered approach, we are talking about a child at play. We're not talking about the child every second of the day being able to do whatever they want. But it's about when they're at play, trying not to fix, change, critique their play, their language or feelings or actions. So when we learn how to do this in a 10 minute minute play session with a child, then we begin to think about what happens when the child is doing something that, like you said, interrupting, that we want to influence, but we are empathizing. The acceptance of the child is that part where we say you're so excited that you want to keep talking. And then you might scaffold by setting the limit and say everybody needs a chance to talk. So you're going to get two times to talk, talk and then we're going to make sure that there's room for everybody else. So that is a way of accepting the child rather than just kind of responding to the behavior solely with a correction. It's that empathic piece that starts, I don't know if that makes sense to you.

I think that's a really great response. And obviously there's a lot of, of more techniques we can go into regarding how to help set boundaries for children. It's a very big topic. I guess I kind of wanted, I'm curious to make a clarification. You know, the topic of the workshop is on communication with children. And when I hear you say the word play in my mind, I kind of extend that to all communication with children, whether you're doing homework with them or. Or whether you're having a conversation at the dinner table. I kind of see clay as engagement. Is that, am I taking it too far or is that how you see the work play as well?

I don't think you are. Because actually Gary Landreth was a student of Virginia Axline and he wrote a book called Play the Art of Relationship. And what he postulates is that a child centered approach isn't really just a way to have a play therapy session with a child. It's about how to be with a child. So when you start understanding how a child thinks and start making empathy, your leading go to whether you're at the dinner table or the child is online in a learning group or playing with friends. Empathy is a way to say to a child, I see you, I see you. And all kids want to be seen. I mean, when they're four years old, how many times are they saying, look at me, mom, watch dad, look, look. They need to be seen.

Wonderful. That's actually a great segue into my next question, which is, let's imagine we have the same child who's interrupting a lot. Perhaps it's more interrupting than usual. And I, as the parent or the teacher actually don't see them. I don't understand why they're interrupting more or being mean or not paying attention. And I don't know if it's actually that they're more excited or they're frustrated or perhaps they are just testing me to see if I'm going to pick a big boundary or if something happened yesterday that I have no idea about. And often my response is the teacher is saying, what's going on? You seem a little bit off today. And the kid might say, I'm fine, you know. So do you have any strategies you use to really try to deeply understand what's going on with the child when they might not even be able to understand or express it themselves?

Well, kids, young kids won't express it. They don't have the language. Play is their language. That's how they show you. And through their behaviors, they can't articulate what they're feeling. But when adults start making it a practice, and it takes time to name feelings, even when you think you might not get it right. Like Manisha just mentioned a whole bunch of things that it could be, a child could be frustrated, a child could, could be bored, A child could be upset about something. But if you have a sense you know, you know your kid better than anybody. But even teachers can have some guesses when they think about children in general. Right? You have an understanding of what children of a certain age might be feeling and you take a risk and you name it. And the great thing about kids is they're going to tell you if you're wrong. And I don't think they can always answer a question of what's going on with you. But I think that even if you don't know the motivation, like the child kicking you when you're reading a book, say you really have the wigglies tonight, you do not want to keep your feet still. We don't have to know and interpret the reason behind it. But just naming, that is often the empathic place to start.

I love that, Deb. And I think that's such a great observation to talk about what you literally see as opposed to jumping right away to a judgment about the behavior. I found that children love more than anything to be truly heard. And if all you can hear is you are kicking me right now, that's not what you usually do or I don't like that. I'm curious about what's happening with you. That alone can make a child feel really supported. But if I just jump to, you're really angry. Why are you angry? That might not be the emotion that the child is experiencing and it might kind of exacerbate the situation even further.

You make me want to give an example. One that really stood stands out in my mind. I was visiting my friend. This was years ago when my godson was very young and he was three and his baby brother was a baby and we had been home all day having a nice day. And then his dad came home from work and because he's a great husband, he went to the baby and took him and took him upstairs to give him a bath, which was greatly appreciated by his wife. And then a half an hour later we're sitting at dinner and the older brother just seemingly out of nowhere says, when I go upstairs later, I'm going to kick Alec. The baby. And his mother's response, which is very understandable, was immediate, saying, oh no you're not, and don't do that. Why would you, you know? And she was very upset. An empathic, child centered response would be to be able to take a step back and maybe you all listening to this story know exactly what he was feeling and say to him at the dinner table. When daddy came home and went straight to the baby and took him up for bath Time you felt so jealous you wanted daddy to play with you first. That's all you gotta say. That's all you have to say. You don't have to tell him he can't kick his brother. He knows he shouldn't kick his brother and he knows that you, if you can do anything in your power to stop it, you will. But that empathy of what was underlying that sibling hostility, which is so common and so developmentally appropriate in some ways, I don't know that that's a great example.

And the students in our program are all the way from four years old to teen, but I think that this, as long as you speak, speak to a teen as your peer and with respect, these principles resonate as well with our 3 year old. Also, the other day he was going too close to the road. I was on a conference call and he was kind of spraying the hose and I just simply said, you cannot go close to the road. And he threw a temper tantrum. And rather than try to make him feel better, I just kept on saying, you're really angry. I see that you're really upset about that. And you know, within three minutes he was just off to watering the next thing. But it felt really good for me to just allow that space for his temper tantrum and for him to feel his frustration and accept his frustration, even though that wasn't going to change my approach. And I think that felt really supportive to him as well.

And you're laying the ground for what a three point limit setting would look like. You gave, you were able to empathize with him after he kind of flipped his lid, so to speak. But sometimes, not all the time. This stuff isn't magic. We can avoid a child having a temper tantrum by coming over and saying, you are having so much fun watering the flowers. The road is not safe, so you can do it over here or we can do it over here. And when the empathy of, you know, seeing you're having so much fun and then the limit that we have to keep you safe and then the choice and kids sometimes can't make that choice, but giving them an opportunity to make it. And with older kids, sometimes they can come up with their own choices. If that was a slightly older child, you might have said, I wonder where on the lawn you can water and still be safe. I don't know, maybe your three year old could figure out that.

Yeah, for sure. And it kind of makes me think of another example we encountered recently of a child making just a huge racket in their room while Their parent was trying to work above and they're kind of supposed to be in class. You know, an approach could be, wow, you're making a lot of noise. It looks like you're having a lot of fun throwing things around your room. Perhaps take it a step further. Say this impacts me because it's hard for me to work when you're doing this. And I guess the second point would be to say to give the child a choice. I feel like I'm missing a step. So first, first time empathizing. And then I'm saying what was there another way that you can have fun that would be more quiet and keep.

It quiet a little bit. And the hardest part about this skill, well, besides knowing when to do it and always starting with empathy, is to do it with few enough words that the kid doesn't tune you out.

That's super important.

By the time you get to the limit, if you're, if you use too many words, kids just, they're gone. They, you know, they, they can't listen. So. But this is something in the future we can practice together.

Absolutely. And I kind of, I just want to add too, I think that often when children are acting out in this way, it's because they haven't been getting enough one on one time with their parent. Which is, it's just so important to have those moments. Even it should be more than 20 minutes. But even if it's 20 minutes of just really quality time with you and your child and even, especially for siblings to have time that's one on one time with the child is so critical that sometimes just resolves the problem altogether.

It does. Kids ache for this time with you. And it's so hard. I mean Covid has just. I think it makes us feel like the things we need to do and the hours that we have to do with them have been shortened. The hours are shortened and the list is longer. But I think this is one of those investments that if you are doing child centered play for 15 minutes, it does an enormous amount of building of that strong bond with you and your child and then feeling seen and valued.

For sure. And then I guess I would just add another thing. I don't know where you fit this in your framework, but I found it valuable to really give children as many concrete details as possible about why I'm requesting that they choose a different behavior. We really, it's just helpful so much to give them the benefit of the doubt and explain things in a way that makes sense to them, how their actions are impacting others and themselves.

I think so too. And I think there's a time and a place for everything. If the child is escalating, added explanation doesn't always work. You kind of make a motion with my hand of a child flipping their lid. And you all know where that edge is for your child or the children that you're teaching is that I always use the hand brain model where this is a spinal cord, this is the brain stem and the limbic system, and this is where all that flight, freeze or fight happens. And this is our cortex that when everything is in order, we are operating from our executive functioning right here. And we're kind of balanced and put together. But, you know, this is really still developing for young kids. It's not in place yet, and they have a harder time kind of keeping calm and rational. And then something upsets them and pow, all of a sudden they're in fight or flight or freeze here. And what we can do in explaining things to children in gentle ways at the right time, when they're receptive, is to help them build that executive functioning by having context, you know, and knowledge about why a rule is important. Is. Is important. But you, you know those kids that you say, well, you can't just touch the stove because it's hot. And they're always going to be those kids who have to go over and touch it, and they have to make sure. So they are little scientists, and they don't always take your word for things. But when a child is in that tantrum state, explanations actually escalate behavior. So empathy is what helps, helps bring it back down.

Wonderful. And it's such a good reminder to us all. I think as adults, we can definitely relate. If I'm in a bad mood and about to flip, the last thing I need is for someone to try to make me feel better. I just want someone to say, you're grumpy. That sucks. I'm here for you. So that's. I think using empathy is a really good emergency tool and tool to carry around always with us. So I just wanted to ask one more question before we open it up to parents. We are all very interested in how to support our children's learning. And one thing many families have told me with children both in elementary and middle school age is that they are having a lot of trouble encouraging their children to do writing. I think a lot of children felt really criticized in school about writing, and now that they have more freedom because they're learning from home, they just simply don't want to write. And parent and parent after parent has told me they just can't get their kids to do writing. Would you have any suggestions to a parent who's eager to encourage their, their child to, to write more?

Well, again, empathy only gets you so far when it comes to, when it comes to getting a child excited about something. I, I do believe that when learning is fun, when it is a game or a contest of some sort, that can sometimes motivate kids to be part of it. I also think that, you know, it's okay as parents to say there are some things that are not going to be fun and it's really important to do them anyway. And sometimes the more you do it, the easier it gets and the more fun it can be. I do think it's important to give children that context, but I also think that you can think about the environment. Are we talking about the kids sitting at a desk or a table with writing utensils and you know those old fashioned lines where you have to practice your letters and write within the lines? Can they, can you put chart paper up on a wall? Can you give them different mediums besides a pen or a pencil? Can they use markers? Can they use type? Yeah. How much choice can you give? So the empathy is. You really don't enjoy this. The limit is, this is something that is expected. Actually, I feel like I don't like those words. I just, because I was trying to stop myself from saying this is something you need to do. Because I hate that saying. It's like, I don't need this, you need me to do this. And that's really the truth. You want to be very transparent with children and say school is your job. So that's writing is your job. And I think that's a way of stating in a positive way and then saying, so today are we going to sit at the table or stand at the table? Do you want to work on the wall or do you want to work on the floor? What color do you want to use? Those are the choices you have. So the limit is to let the child know it's not a choice whether or not you write, it's a choice how you do it. And as you begin to use this way of approaching the must do's that your child must do, they're going to learn this too. And they're going to begin to learn where those limits are. And it's their job to push the limits and it's your job to kind of hold them to it.