COFFEE WITH ROLEEN, THURSDAY AUGUST 22ND, 2013

COFFEE WITH ROLEEN, THURSDAY AUGUST 22ND, 2013

at the TAYLOR-HOLTZ’S HOME

The Coffees with Roleen started b/c parents were hanging out talking in the Middle Courtyard and it was hard for the teachers and children to start their day.  But parents needed time to be together to share stories and there just wasn’t any space in the school.  When an hour passed and Roleen and some parents were still gathered in the alley, somebody suggested they go back to their house for coffee and the rest is history.

We talk about stages of development. . . for the kids (and us!).

Roleen says we have the answers, we just get too worked up in the moment to find them and so processing with others (and with Roleen’s facilitation), it helps us “see”.

There are no “black and white” answers and it’s important to remember that what’s right with someone’s family may not be right with other’s families.

The format is for parents to have a voice & to learn from each other’s questions and concerns.  To learn from each other in a non-judgmental way.

Today’s coffee attendees:

Matt and Nicole Rotondo (Jude & Willa)

Sara Meagher  (Riley WW)

Stephanie Taylor Holz  (Xylia EW)

Maya Davis  (Emmett EW)

Lauren Howard  (Ben EW)

Elaine Barrington (Tia WW)

Jaclyn Schatzow  (Bryce EW)

Sean Maher (Liam WW)

Karrie Choe (Olivia WW)

Jill Bryman (Riley WW)

Maya Mortimer (Fiona EW)

 

Here’s what today brought us:

Kids may be crazy at home but they are amazing at school.  They are really trying to do everything right & are a bit on-guard b/c they are not completely sure of what’s going to happen.  They are on unfamiliar territory and though they may be comfortable with their teachers (and those home visits really helped), they still have to negotiate their new world of new friends, new spaces, new rules. It’s a lot.  At home they feel safe, so they let loose.  They HAVE TO because they’ve been holding it together all day.  They need a release and they don’t know how to do it.  We exercise, meditate, etc.  Until the children know how to put this energy in a positive space that supports them, they will act out in anyway they can. It’s up to us to recognize what’s going on, validate them (“It’s not easy to learn new things”), and give them activities and a listening ear that support them.

 

Maya: Nights are difficult, and now mornings are hard, too.

Sofa cushions thrown. Some anger. Dinner is painful.

Potty talk. Little brother replicating his brother.

 

Roleen-: Children often search for a sensory release.  We know sensory is fun & good & important for development.  Research is showing us more and more of it’s importance and getting energy out before calming down is what the brain is telling us needs to happen.  That’s why even elementary schools are changing their habits and providing outside physical activity before school begins. . . .to help children settle so they can concentrate.   NSW is providing much more sensory in all the environments and that’s why we have clay, paints, woodworking, running & playing often times before settling down. It’s also important to have small spaces for calming and so the school has added hammocks as well as little cozy spots that house one or two children. So often as parents, this “wild” behavior scares us and so we stop it.  And, of course, there are times when it’s not appropriate but understanding their need has us looking at our own environments and looking to see if we have choices for them.  Look at your schedule & see if they have any “release” time and remember that the schedule that worked before might not work now.  Children go through a growing cycle every 6 months with growth spurts.  Understanding that will, hopefully, help you become more tolerant (thus, more understanding) and to be able to change with them. Report what you see & ask them to help you as a family figure out the solution. Ask if they have any ideas/solutions that may help some problems that are developing in the home.  Pull out a paper & pencil. They do it at school & they know how powerful writing out solutions can be.

 

Maya– Emmet has sensory seeking behavior so they do that already.  But the more tired he gets the more out of control he gets.  He goes & goes until he crashesl

 

Roleen:  A hammock is a sensory cocoon. Look at your environment & look for the down space.   And if you can, buy two hammocks, and if not, talk about how each child can have time alone in it.  Children don’t always have to share everything.

Kids love to be enclosed.  Tents are good.  Ask yourself if there is enough downtime in your home.  Look at your schedule & see if there are 15 minutes or more where you can reconnect with your kids before running off from school to the next thing, or picking up your sibling.

Reconnect with your spouses, too, 15 minutes  even, between work & bedtime routine helps.

Kids don’t know how to communicate their needs and so it’s up to us to observe and listen.

Right now not everyone is napping at school.  The children are growing & changing & teachers are still trying to figure out what they need to be able to sleep.  They’re in “research mode”. . . trying to watch and listen and really understand what the children need right now.

 

For sibling rivalry- some parents suggest a timer to give them a visual & the power to have something in their hand to put the processes into practice. Some say that doesn’t work but the idea is to remember that children need something literal to “see”.  Words are just too much noise for them during those times of chaos.  And, somehow, that’s when we talk the most!

Tell kids, “I went to Coffee with Roleen and other parents and I got some ideas for what we can try in our home”. Give them tools, not just words. They only hear “Blah blah blah blah”.  They can be more autonomous if they have the right cues.

 

Siblings don’t always have to be friends. They can be alone & should have time away for themselves.  We want for our kids to be okay on their own but when we hear them say “I’m bored” we try to fill them up with ideas.  Boredom is a gift.  It can inspire creativity.  Kids don’t fully understand the word “boredom”.  (“Sounds like you’re trying to figure out what to do next.”)  Give them the time they may need to figure that out.  So often we just tell them what to do and try “to fix” the situation. When you’re in a good place, you may want to replay the incident.  “Remember when you said you were bored and you couldn’t figure out what to do?  We could write a list of all the things that you might do when that happens again.”  And then put that list somewhere so they can refer to it when it happens again.  Have supplies ready for just those times.  “A boredom box” so to speak. The idea is to support their becoming aware that they can be apart of their own problem solving.

 

We want accountability for ourselves and each other.

Create agreements as a family to create parameters for what is feasible.

 

Lauren: Ben is destructive & makes messes and she realized she needed to find out what her tipping point was of acceptability.  What parts are okay, and what parts are not okay & agree with them.

 

Roleen:  Figure out what’s right for your family.  What’s right for you might not be right for your family.   Come up to a consensus as a family & validate where your child is and  at what stage they’re at.

 

Jaclyn: Betsy Brown Braun talks about “Breaking Up The Quadrants”.  Using a locked room to separate time with just one of the siblings rather than always working together as a family. It doesn’t have to be everyday.  It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Kids have less understanding of time so use a calendar to help them visualize the date that they get alone time without the sibling & whole family.

 

Think about “splitting the quadrant” –   separate as a family so each sibling has one on one time with one parent.  It’s helpful to give them special time without each other to give them space.  Carve out time so you can reconnect individually.

 

Work on one issue at a time.  You cannot put rules down that are not connected to an issue.  If someone is really bothered by something, you need to address it.  Write it down together to find a solution to the problem.

 

People have an innate want to make relationships.  Model empathy rather than giving them rules without giving them context.  Developmentally they are supposed to be getting their needs met.  They are not manipulative (a label we often give them), they are just searching for the answers they want to hear (so expect them to go from parent to parent to get the response they want).

 

Parents, just like teachers, have to be on the same page & the rules should be decided and conveyed with context and agreed upon as a family.

 

Maya– says she has a hard time replaying events without emotion.  It’s hard not to fix things.

 

Roleen: This is definitely not easy.  It’s really hard for us not to fix things b/c it’s hard for us to see our children struggle.   Separating “what’s ours” and “what’s theirs” can help.  They have a right to have their own experiences and by us reporting back to them what’s really happening, we can better separate the facts from the emotions.  It’s important to keep statements open ended and try to stay away from too many questions.  Giving them the opportunity to think, to process, to “be” is giving them the message that we hear them.  And isn’t that what we wish everyone would do for us?  It gives us the message that we are capable of figuring things out.

 

Maya:  It’s hard to see Fiona’s friends gravitate to Saskia (her older sister) and it upsets Fiona.  Understanding that most children have less conflicts with children who are older and children who are younger will help here.  It’s because they know their roles.  It’s much harder for them to be within their own peer group because they have to negotiate and figure out who they are in the mix.  But that’s why you’re in preschool. . . to figure all this out and, actually, it’s usually the “only child” who has to work the hardest because they’ve had less experience.  It’s very important for them to be within their own peer group. Who are they within a community?

 

Maya: Saskia’s hampster died yesterday. It’d be so easy to just buy another one.  How long should we allow the grieving process?

 

Roleen: Grieving is important and it doesn’t have a designated time factor. You can’t rush it.  But it’s important to understand the developmental stages of how children process death.  There is a lot on the blog about grieving in the Articles section.  Death scares us b/c a lot of us were never given the tools to process it in our own experiences.  Read up on it, think about it.  What do you believe?

 

Lauren:  Ben talks about the dog dying so he can get a cat.
Roleen:  That may scare us & we talk about how sad & emotional things will be when the dog dies. But really, I’m thinking Ben is just wondering what it’ll be like to have a cat.  It’s okay to explore that.

 

Sean:  Brene Brown is someone to get to know.  Her Parenting Manifesto is, “I will want to take away your pain, but instead I will sit with you and teach you how to feel it.”  She is a doctor who studied shame and vulnerability for 12 years and through her data she concluded that vulnerability was essential in the path to wholehearted living.

1. TRUST- they must first trust us.

That’s why NSW does home visits, family books, playdates with parents and takes a          lot of time to get to know the family so at school they can ease into transition between appointments, learning to make friends, understanding the rules of the school, etc.  With a strong sense of trust (without this they have Mistrust) they can then successfully move onto. . .

1. AUTONOMY – They know they can try new things, make mistakes, explore their new world safely.  Our responses/reactions are crucial in this positive development because it is here they could struggle with doubt and/or shame.  Ex:  If they are pouring the milk into the glass and it overflows, our response must be that we understand they haven’t yet mastered “conservation” and they actually don’t know how to stop when the glass is full.   So we don’t yell or shame them in their mistake, we provide them with a towel for mopping up and prepare to give them more experiences to “practice pouring” with success.  Once successful in this stage, they can move onto. . .
2. INITIATiVE –  During the initiative versus guilt stage, children begin to assert their power and control over the world through directing play and other social interaction.

Children need to begin asserting control and power over the environment by taking  initiative by planning activities, accomplishing tasks and facing challenges. Encouraging exploration and helping children make appropriate choices is important and we have to be careful about not being judgmental or dismissive with their efforts of discovery. Success in this stage leads to a sense of purpose, while failure results in a sense of guilt.

Roleen shared an example of a child who pushed another out of his way and the child got hurt.  Saying, “You didn’t mean to push him” to try to help him not to feel bad doesn’t solve the problem and actually could cause some sense of guilt because, really, he DID mean to push him.  He didn’t know he would get hurt, however.  He didn’t want to hurt him, he just wanted him out of the way.  Saying, “You wanted him to move and so you pushed him and he got hurt” is more clear (a statement rather than a judgment).  “Let’s make sure he’s ok.” is the important follow up.

Roleen also reminds us not to ask a question if you already know the answer.  It sets them up to “lie”.  Remember, your child’s job is to get his/her needs met and so they will say whatever they can to “save face”.  Report what you saw & let them process it.  Don’t power over them. Give them to power to figure out the next steps.

 

You can’t teach sharing.  If you try to tell them to take turns, they will hold onto the object.  If you say, “Jay would like to play with that toy. When will you be done using it?”, you are acknowledging that they aren’t done yet and you are helping them be aware that others are wanting a turn by saying, “Tell him you are still using it.  You will give it to him when you are done.”

Then say to the waiting child “It’s very hard to wait.  He’s going to give it to you when he’s done.  What do you want to do while you wait?”

Kids aren’t always sure when it will be their turn to play with things and it’s up to us to support their voice.  Children feel calm when they trust that their turn will come eventually. They are learning about that now at school.  They don’t know yet that they will have a turn.  The teachers are providing these words to support their trust but they feel unsure until they are sure and that takes living through experiences.

 

The people who are most generous are the ones who have been given time.  Time to love.  Time to be loved.  Time to speak.  Time to be heard.  Time.  If you’re constantly having things taken away from you, you will have to “fill up” somewhere to fill the holes.

 

Sit down & let kids argue for a while & let them figure it out.

We can be there to give support, but give them power to make decisions and not depend on us to solve their problems.

 

Review times that are positive, too. Talk about what worked well.

Use a tone of voice that they will hear better.

Or tell them what tone of voice you can hear better than others. “I can’t hear you well when you’re whining”.  “If you change the way you say that, I will respond.”  And then be quiet.  If you keep talking, you are engaging them and what you’ve just said doesn’t make sense.
If they want your attention, they will search for attention in the only way they know for sure and that’s usually in a negative way.

 

Conflict resolution:  stop things before they escalate. Facilitate things so they don’t escalate.  Being intuitive to when things are going in a bad way.  Set them up for success. Accept who our kids are & figure out how we can support that.    Giving up on the fantasy & accepting the reality of our kids & supporting them in being the way they need to be supported.

 

Read the book “QUIET” about introverts.

It’s easy to use labels like “shy” and it can be perceived negatively when, really, “shy” people are often the most observant and intuitive.

Our society often doesn’t accept certain personalities & creates a picture of “normal”.
Re: the “Victim”.

Give them experiences to be proactive to speak up and advocate for him or herself.

If they’re afraid of dogs, give them experiences that builds trust.  Don’t let them first pet a huge dog. Start with a stuffed animal, and then let them feel things bigger and bigger with experience. Protecting them from difficult situations is not helpful.

 

Book:  “The Sensitive Child”.  Temperaments are different and they are real.
Children have a right to be taught social cues.  Tell them what social norms are and explain to them what is needed.”  Reflect what happened & also model what is acceptable.

 

With a child who doesn’t want to participate when arriving somewhere, be “their eyes” & report what’s happening rather than pushing them out to participate. EX:  Expect that children may not want to “jump right in” when going to a birthday party or a picnic at the park.  They have an expectation in their head of what it will look like and often it looks very different.  That throws them off a bit.  Give them time to adjust instead of pushing them.  “It looks like you need a little to time ‘see’ what’s going on.  Who’s here.’”

 

When we use terminology “He doesn’t have any confidence”.  Add, “He doesn’t have any confidence YET” so you can support him.  We are all always learning and at different levels.  We add judgement & then we get panicked.  If we set kids up to be labeled, we can shift it away from that label by simply adding one word.

 

The teachers are preparing for our first parent-teacher conferences for the school year.  We are looking at the development of the Whole Child and giving the children experiences in social, emotional, physical, cognitive, and creative arenas.  Self-esteem is about confidences and knowing that, we are aware of the importance of giving children experiences in areas that may not be comfortable in the beginning.  Working on the parts that need development & nurturing and supporting their needs is our goal.  Teachers notice where the kids are strong & confident and then support through experiences the places where they are less confident.  Taking them out of what’s safe & comfortable.  Taking them out of routine is scary.

 

So often we protect our children from struggles and emotions that are hard.  Disappointment is one of those that we tend to glaze over.  We don’t give them the right to know what disappointment feels like.  We like to move them through it by giving them something else.  We try to fill holes.  We don’t just sit with it with them.

 

Book by Wendy Mogul, “Blessings of a Skinned Knee” speaks of this. “I want your kids to know disappointment”.  We try to fill the holes b/c we can’t handle seeing them in pain.

 

Listen. Be supportive. Validate.

Be the holder of information. Let them ask or give the information they want/need.
Be a good listener.

EX:  “Today was another day of school.  A lot must have gone on.” And then leave it.

 

Remember, asking questions may just frustrate you.  In this Pre-Operational Stage of development (preschool ‘til around 6 years old), children are still very tied to you and they think you know everything that they do.  It’s impossible for them to remember all that goes on in the day.  Check out the blog.  Read it with them.  Don’t ask questions.  Let them offer information.

 

Understand that our emotional components are different from our child because of our own experiences.  They respond to our cues.  It’s okay to say, “I don’t know all the answers. We have a lot of questions, too.”

 

Whew!  And there it is.  It was a filled morning and I hope the notes brought you all in though there’s always so much more.  Thanks to Xylia’s parents for hosting this first Coffee. The next one will be on Wednesday, October 23rd.  Let Stephanie (Xylia’s mom) know if you’re up for hosting.

 

Notes taken by Jill (Riley WW) and edited by Roleen