SYPM 015: How to support each unique child’s learning journey

Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We all want our children to lead fulfilling lives. But it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research and principles of respectful parenting. If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released and get a free guide called 13 Reasons Why Your Child Won't Listen to You and what to do about each one, just head over to YourParentingMojo.com/subscribe. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us.

Hello and welcome to the Sharing Your Parenting Mojo episode of The Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. Today we're going to hear from parent Madeline who's been working with me on learning new tools and skills to support her children's learning. You'll hear that Madeleine has been pretty driven in her life with a lot of education and a solid stream of perfectionism as well. She's pretty clear that her values involve a deep respect for her children. But it can be difficult when that interacts with her perfectionism. She knew that she wanted bedtime to be a connecting time. But when her toddler wouldn't let her read through all the pages of a book, and was more interested in turning upside down or just chewing it, there was a real internal struggle between her values, and the goal-driven part of her that couldn't bear to not finish the book–a struggle I remember having myself as well. As her son got older he started writing letters. But during the upside down, she would bring out workbooks to help him write his letters correctly. And all of a sudden, he would push back and not want to write anymore. But over time, Madeline has learned how to quiet the voices that say she isn't doing enough to teach her children. Because she sees how much they're already learning by following their interests. She's able to see when they really don't need help from her and she can step back. And when they do, how to step in a way that provides each of her children with just a little bit of help so they can take the next step by themselves. She's found a community who gets her need to ask a lot of questions to really understand a topic, and who helps her to see how to scaffold her children's learning in ways that she might not have thought to take it herself. She's also seeing so much learning where it's already happening in activities that seem so simple, like working together to put up a play tent. When I described everything that her children had learned in that simple activity, it reminded Madeline of a similar collaborative activity that she'd done in business school. She describes all three of her children as quite spirited, and she really needs to slow everything down that they do related to learning. It's not about blasting through a set of exercises on a certain day to make sure they get done. It's about creating an environment where everyone feels safe. Because if you don't feel safe, you can't really learn. Once everyone does feel safe, they can come to you with questions about things they don't understand, because they know that you won't jump down their throat or try and fix it. And then instead, you'll support them in the way that they want to be supported. They’ll discover the ways that they learn best, and they'll know how to use these from a young age to make learning interesting and exciting and fun for both of you. If you want to join Madeline and all the other parents in the Supporting Your Child's Learning membership, you can actually do that right now. Enrollment closes on Thursday, September 30. Each month you get access to a new module of content on topics like scaffolding, metacognition, and critical thinking. You'll understand how to see deep learning where it's happening even on topics that might seem more like playing than learning. And you'll be in a community of parents who are thinking deeply about their children's learning just like you are, and who want to know their children will have the skills they need to succeed in the future, where collaboration is at the top of the list. And memorization is at the very bottom. Sliding scale pricing is available for the first time in this membership. And also for the first time we're doing a two week free trial. You can join the membership during the enrollment period, and then we'll all start together on Friday, October 1st. You'll get two weeks from that date to check out the first two modules of content, join an orientation call, experience a coaching call, even join a small group for peer coaching before you pay a penny. We really want you to see all of the amazingness for yourself because we're pretty sure that once you do, you'll realize there's no other community like this available anywhere, and that you've truly found a space that supports you so you can support your child's learning. So registration is open right now through midnight Pacific on September 30. And you can find all the information you need and sign up at YourParentingMojo.com/learningmembership. So without further ado, hello and welcome Madeline. It's great to have you here.

Hi, thank you. It's good to be here.

So I wonder if you could start maybe by telling us just a little bit about who are you? Who's your family? Where are you in the world?

Yeah, my family and I, my husband and I, with our three kids, we've got a three year old today, it's his birthday, a five year old, and an almost seven year old. And we're in California, Southern California. And we love to be active, love to be outside. The kids love climbing trees, getting muddy in the mud kitchen, and playing in the sandbox. And we read lots and lots of books, lots and lots of podcasts, and being creative in one of their favorite things to do as a family it’s what we call Kid Kitchen Creations or in the kitchen and doing different ingredients where they're not following a recipe at all. And they just love to be creative. And—

What's one of the recent ones that they've done? And how did that turn out?

You know, luckily, and at first, it started with a lot of ingredients that they had, and I kind of had to put limits around it, because I realized we're doing quite a bit. And so to clean up the mess, took a lot out of me. So luckily they've kind of narrowed down their ingredients. And lately, it's just been oatmeal pieces with water and trying to make oatmeal cookies and figuring out like how that would happen with just the ingredients that they've seen when they've actually followed recipes.

Yeah, okay, so a lot of creativity there. And I think that, from what I know of, what we've–the way we've worked together, that really speaks to you and your values as a person, right, that you are very creative as a person as well. What's really important to you in your values as a person and on your parenting journey?

Yeah, you know, something that's so important to me is just that everyone feel valued for the uniqueness that they bring to life, for their interests, for their passions. I was very fortunate to have parents that supported my unique interests and talents; and same with the teachers in my life. And at a young age got really involved with painting, drawing, dance, math, just to name a few, even from juggling, and going to circus camp and doing a bunch of different things. And so I always had a strong intrinsic motivation for learning and love of learning, and I, just going through my adult life and seeing that I'd love for everyone to have that same kind of feeling and be valued for those unique qualities. And then in terms of parenting, you know, well, respect is really important to me to having and showing the kids respect, for they’re not only their uniqueness, but that they are just whole, and they are fine how they are. What that looks like for our family is, you know, we set boundaries, and we still do those. But we also have basic trust in our kids that they can problem solve, and they can figure things out. They've got the autonomy to do that.

Yeah, the autonomy and the skills, I think.

Yeah, giving them a lot more credit than I think sometimes we see in society with kids, but again, at the same time setting those boundaries and being there but having, you know, just knowing that they're very capable.

Yeah, absolutely. So I wonder if you can tell me maybe a little bit about how some of these values have shown up for you in the past? Because I know this has been quite a journey for you over the last couple of years, isn't it?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And so I find myself being a recovering perfectionist, so to speak. And sometimes in parenting your life, I find myself gravitating to wanting to do things the right way, or follow a step by step process to get there, which has been interesting, because I have a dichotomy of the creative side of me. But also, you know, whether it was from my love of math and getting to the right answer, or just being in a traditional school system, where we've got one shot to get the A on the paper or ace the test, I find myself going into a cycle and thoughts of hope we've got to do it just this perfect way. And that can but against my values of having respect for my kids and seeing them and having basic trust that they are very capable. And I'll give you an example of that. Just when my oldest son was one year old, we were doing the bedtime routine. And you know, we had our checklist of we brush our teeth, and we go into this bedroom and we read the story. We sing a song and we go to bed and we're on the carpet reading the book, and I'm trying to read the words on the page, and he's just flipping through the book. And then he picks it up and he puts it in his mouth and he starts chewing and I feel in my body just a tense, like, ah, we have to finish. Let's just finish the book so we can finish the routine and put him to bed. And luckily, I woke up at that moment. That you know, my goal in parenting is to have a strong connection and relationship with my kids. That's number one. It's not to follow a perfect process to get us there and which completely negates the whole bedtime routine anyways, because it's all about setting up a soothing environment, so you can have a restful place to sleep. So that was really eye opening. And again, like you said, it's been a journey. And I think over that time, and as my kids grew, I got really good at spotting and being mindful of when those moments happened. And when I felt this urge to, we got to do it the right way. We want to do it the way the scientific literature says. So I got good at spotting it, but not necessarily knowing what to do in those moments.

Yeah, it's you're recounting that story. I'm picturing myself in exactly the same situation. Yeah, I mean, what's the point of starting a short book if you're not going to finish the book, right? The point of it is to read the book until you take a step back and think, “Well, what are my values here? Why am I doing this?” Clearly the child is, you know, maybe they're taking something out of the reading of the book, but probably what they're taking is the relationship building that we're all sitting here; we're all looking at the same thing; that we're all creating this loving environment; not so much, what am I learning from the book or anything to do with reading. So? Yeah, I remember, very similar for me. And so it seems as though there was this sort of shift that was happening, and you were saying, “Okay, something needs to be different.” But the ‘what’ was going to be different. Maybe in some cases, it was clear, like in that case, it was okay, let's just back off here. But were there other cases where it really wasn't so clear what you needed to do?

Yeah, yeah, I'll give another example. I'll use my oldest again, because I've seen his journey a little bit longer than my other ones. You know, when he was showing interest in reading and writing, and writing his name, you know, he would start writing his name and you do it upside down. And I'd be observing. And in those moments, I didn't know how to engage with him. I think I tend to be a person who is good at observing and stepping back. And I think naturally coming into parenting, I was pretty good at realizing I wanted them to make their own mistakes. And once again, it's a dichotomy because I had a push-pull of wanting the right answer, but then also knowing that, you know, if I stepped back, like he could figure stuff out. But I really found myself of way, I think I should, I could be stepping in a little bit more here, I could be providing him a little bit more guidance. And those moments kept occurring more and more as he got, you know, more, just more development under his belt. And, you know, I tried experimenting with things like should I bring out some curriculum and some workbooks. And I've got three pretty spirited, strong-willed kids. And I would find that as I brought out more stuff, that he would push back on that. And again, another incident where our relationship wasn't necessarily prioritized, he could feel the frustration and knee, and so yeah. Again, there were just moments where I was noticing I was being mindful of when these things were happening, but I didn't quite know how to support him. And I didn't have the basic trust in myself and my supporting him along this learning journey, and the other two as they got older.

Yeah, I can see the perfectionist in you just screaming when you see the upside down you.

Surprise, it wasn't always like that. It was just I think it was harder on myself or am I doing the right thing to support him? Yeah, I found it easier. Let him make those mistakes. Absolutely. It was the perfectionist on me doing the right thing to support him.

Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting that you brought up the workbooks. And I think a lot of parents do start with that kind of thing. And workbooks can actually be incredibly useful. For some, kids love them. Some kids go through phases of loving them. And I've definitely seen even in our own family where I would never buy a workbook, but with my daughter's grandparents have taken her to the bookstore and pointed at work where she's like, “Oh, yeah, I want to do that. And I want to do it with you.” And probably it's partly about, you know, she wants to spend time with them and have fun with them. And, she'll work through this workbook. And if the child is leading it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing a workbook. But so often, the desire to do a workbook is not coming from the child. It's coming from something in us. I wonder if you can tell us what was it that made you think, “Okay, I need to do a workbook. A workbook is the thing that's needed in this situation”?

Yeah, well, it is definitely. It's interesting, because as I started my parenting journey and realizing that, you know, our culture in the West, like we have so much pressure to move faster and get these developmental skills knocked out. I realized early on that I would need to be very mindful of the messages I was getting and how that played into our family. And so I found myself just questioning a lot like, “Should I ban workbooks altogether?” And so I mean to your question of where did I get that idea, right, you know, it's just as a parent right now and I want to and you know, I've went to UCLA for undergrad. I started off as an art major. I switched to economics and sociology. I ended up getting my master's–my MBA–you know, advanced degree. And so you know, you want to do all these right things in new research and new research. But then when it comes time, you're like, well, what is still supporting our relationship? What is supporting their intrinsic love of learning? What is supporting their development? It was just at those moments I didn't quite know what the answer. And to take a quick pause, if I can jump back to your idea, the workbook to have, I did eventually find that my oldest loved workbooks and went through phases, like you said. But then with my now five year old, seeing her, she has a completely different learning style. And she'll spend just maybe five minutes at most on a workbook. And she has again, completely different interest in not showing as much interest in doing her letters and definitely not doing it in the same way. So it's very interesting seeing the different learning styles. And then I've got my little one that'll discover his interests as well.

Yeah, yeah. And of course, before we leave workbooks behind that, I think the danger of workbooks is that it sets up this idea that this is what learning should look like. This is what learning at this stage should look like. And when a child is really interested in that, they can get really well as you’ve seen it during periods with your older child. And then with your middle child, it's like learning doesn't look like this for me. I'm learning in other ways and using other methods. And what does she really good at right now? What kinds of things does she love doing? What are her passions right now?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I'll answer that. And then I want to move back to something that you used to ask about setting up this is how learning should be. So for my daughter, it's funny. Even at three years old, I can see you're practicing your fine motor skills with scissors and liking to cut things into little, little pieces. And, of course, we had one of those moments of her cutting her hair and like, wow, this interest in scissors is really sustaining. So even now that she's five, you know, she's also showing interest in clothes and things that I was kind of surprised to see some of the interests come up. And so I got her like a paper doll set. And so she can cut out the clothes and try them and experiment with them. And so we see those interests. And then she is really interested in cooking, where my oldest has a little bit of sensory aversion with things. And so he does the kitchen creation in a much different way than her. And he'll like, “Little sister, you can crack the eggs.” She loves to get in there and get our hands dirty. So yeah, it's been cool seeing your interest, like, to go back to your point about workbooks and seeing, oh, this is how learning should play out. You know, I think, with my oldest kid has followed more the traditional path of how learning plays out. So things felt like almost a little bit more comfortable there and seeing it. And then with my daughter, I do feel times like how are we behind? Are we doing these things? And you know, not. And I think it's some of the messaging, just even opening up the workbooks and you see the age range that it's four, and you're like, well wait, she's actually not, not even there. And so yeah, it has subtle messaging, especially for someone coming from like a recovering perfectionist. It can be hard when you see those messages over and over again. And it's been nice to have the support and the gut check of we are doing the right things to support her, her learning and her interest and her love and curiosity of the world.

Yeah, okay. So at some point in this journey, I'm not sure how old your son was exactly. I guess a couple of years younger than now. You join the Supporting Your Child's Learning Membership. And you sort of started to hint at some of the things and some of the ways that it's helped you. And it seems as though one of those is that gut check. Like, are we doing what you need to do to support this child? Can you tell us a little bit about some of the ways that it's supported you?

Yeah, let me see in thinking about well, yeah. Okay, so I just in so many ways, it's supported me. And I'll kind of bucket them into three ways. The first way is just giving me a framework for learning of what science tells us, but also, how does that play out in real life. And I'm not going to remember all the points of the framework. But I think there's seven pieces where some of it includes careful observation of your child and what their true interests are; the idea of scaffolding or supporting them with maybe just a few questions or just a little next step; and letting them build the rest; the idea of connecting them to outside resources; I'm going to skip ahead like metacognition, so teaching it like helping them see the learning that they actually saw. And there's a few other pieces, but having that framework has been so helpful to me because it gives me a little bit of a safety net or it gives me guideposts. So when I'm in those moments, the kids are out playing and not doing what you would consider traditional learning, I can kind of see where we are on that continuum of learning and that framework of learning and be like, you know, at this point, I'm observing, I'm watching and I'm doing the best thing that I know how to, at this point to support their learning. And so that's one way there's– and then the two others out– it's just the resources. There's, you know, the day and age that we live in now, there's so many resources online. Think back to when I was young, and my parents were supporting me get everything up the juggling, you know. They just looked in the community paper, they're like, “Hey, there's a juggling activity at the local park.” Like, why don't we go to it? Now there's, I mean, you have so many virtual classes and ways to support. It's hard to sort through all that, so just have a community of parents to help me filter that is huge. And then the last day, of course, with the community and modeling of how other parents are using this information and getting ideas and I've actually joined the small group, the ACTion Group, which has been really nice, because sometimes online communities can be a little overwhelming for me in the the format. So we just have a weekly call, and we have parents, and I can put that out there. And I've people, you know, just I've expanded my ability to research and think about these things with some other creative people on the topic.

Yeah, I think a lot of parents are very skeptical about that. Probably particularly because I'm an introvert. And so introverts tend to want to come and work with me and they're like, “I don't want to be on a call with other parents. That sounds terrible.” And then when they get what's it like to be on that call, not so much the format, but what does it feel like to be on a call with, you know, five or six other people who are on this journey with you?

Yeah, it's funny, because I would consider myself an introvert, but also a very social introvert. So those calls tend to be a little bit more natural for me, because I've been in experiences before. And it was nice, because there were people I had interacted with online first, so I actually knew them as I joined them, and as a spy opened up in the group. But it was nice and I see our leader in the group, Nicole does a really good job at just letting people contribute at their own pace, and whether they want to message some of their feedback, or if they want to share it live. And I think she does a skillful job at meeting people's needs with that, and kind of, you know, helping them branch out when they're ready; or you know, stay a little bit more comfortable.

Yeah, yeah, we do have some awesome leaders, for sure. And so I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about some of the successes that you're seeing now that maybe look differently than the way you would have thought or are different than the way things were before you join the membership a couple of years ago?

Yeah, well, I was thinking about our successes, and there's been quite a few. I think I'm laughing because I think one of the biggest successes and takeaways is that this is easier than I thought it would be, and more fun, like–

More fun than workbooks?

Workbooks. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, again, it goes back, I've always had an intrinsic love of learning. So learning being fun is not new to me. But I also have a– you know, it's kind of our society in our culture, like things have to be hard for them to be good.

Absolutely.

And while– and so I'll use another specific example. Right after we joined the membership, it was a rainy day, and the three kids were in the house, I think. So we've got a one year old, three year old and five year old at this point, and they're out. They go wandering in the garage, which I would normally only be like, the garage was off limits. Why are they there? Luckily, they pretty quickly found something that was safe for them. They brought it inside. It was a tent–their kids’ tent– with long wooden poles and plastic connectors and the fabric. And so I took some deep breaths and said, “Okay, let's see how this plays out.” I'm not going to share my frustrations right now, let's see how this plays out. And they cut it all and bundled. And they just started working on putting it together and they said, “Where's the instructions? We don't have any instructions.” So they started putting it together. And I had just gone through the content so I knew about the idea of scaffolding. And so I tried to sit back and I sat you know, with a piece of paper, jotting down what they were doing. And I threw out the idea to them, “Well, why don't we make an instruction manual so the next time we set it up, we've got the instructions.” And so they started going with that in mind. My oldest had the idea, let's put tape on the pieces and label them A, B or C because there were three sizes of poles. So they had to count up how many poles. So I'm setting, I'm drawing a grid as they're doing it of how many do we have in each bucket. And then my three-year-old is saying, “Oh, that's the letter A, that's the first letter in my name,” and so she's recognising her letters through this process. They end up trying different configurations and I ended up sketching the different configurations that they try. And ultimately they got the frame together. And there were some dicey moments, you know, with like, especially my one year old with big poles. But I think that instance I didn't even have to get off the couch. I was just kind of watching you and question. And I think again, the biggest success and surprise was a lot of that was my nature. I was to sit back and watch, but I only added a few things that I learned from that didn't have to be this huge shift. And I could see on the learning framework where we were–where we were touching. So it just gave me a lot of confidence and intuition about where we were and how we were doing with our learning. And, again, looking back on the story, I'm like, wow, you know, I haven't done much different. Am I doing this? Right? Yeah, I guess. I mean, it doesn't have to be that hard. It's just a few subtle things that we've changed.

Yeah, I think that's such a profound example. And actually, I remember you telling that story. When you first told in the group, and it wasn't one– it wasn't a three year old, then, three year old standing on a chair and trying to get the thing on the top. And, yeah, there was so much collaboration going on there, between these three children that you were like, ah, it's a rainy day. And this whole day can make kind of a disaster and it's– it really sort of appends what we think about as learning that, yes, we could have been sitting down at a desk practicing our letters in that time. But instead, they were learning very valuable skills, some of which were related to learning letters, but collaboration and communication and cooperation, you know, all of that stuff was happening throughout and you were just sort of gently providing just enough support to help each child get something unique out of it. Without it being a you know, you're standing over them saying, “Well, you do it this way. And you do it that way. And you do this part over here.” They sorted it out for themselves. And so that's one reason that story is really stuck with me as well, because it really doesn't have to involve you learning some, you know, massive new methodology and making sure you check off exactly the right box at the right time. But it can just be like seeing learning where it happens, and having the confidence to know, okay, I can support a little bit here. And now I see how they're able to move that up to the next level. It's such an awesome example. I love that story so much.

I know, it's been cool. And we've had quite a few more of those moments, having three and having them close together and young, you know, we have quite a few moments where we have to work on the big, big emotions and supporting those throughout the day, too. So it's been balanced. And also a good reminder that when we don't see moments like that, and things are chaotic, because there's big emotions, there's tears, there's heading, whatever it might be, we're still doing, learning. They are learning. And I, constantly my husband and I talked about, like, you know, having social, emotional, psychological health is the number one important to us. Yeah, more than their learning, like, curiosity. And it's– that's all coming as long as they can be stable and be able to ride those big emotions. And yeah–

Yeah, that's absolutely as important. And learning how to do that in you know, just to continue with that example, you know, they have an end goal in mind that they want to work towards. And maybe they see it differently in different ways. And they have to negotiate that they have to work together to make a plan, they have to communicate that plan to each other. They have to be able to envision where they're going. Since they don't know what the tent looks like, maybe it's going to look like this or like this or like this. And we have to agree on that. What's going to happen if we fail, if this pole doesn't fit here, and this pole now won't reach over to here? What does that mean? We have to regroup and try again. I mean, all of those skills are absolutely critical to succeeding in life. And then the workplace when they get to that point, it's not gonna matter if they can recite the capitals of all 50 states or every country in the world or all of the memorization stuff, but that the skills that they learn through that little thing that you've been building on ever since then are what is going to hold them in in good stead in this kind.

I'm laughing because as you were kind of replaying that example, back going through business school and an orientation. We've worked in small groups in a very similar way, you know, the get-together activities; we're building stuff; and we've got a problem to solve. And it's just, it's so funny thinking that I had to wait until business school to get that kind of collaboration. So it's funny, but again, I also realized that I've seen this. I've seen where it feels really good. And I can see it now with the kids.

Yeah. Okay. And just a minute ago, you flashed the corner of a sheet of paper. And I didn't see what was on it, but I think it might have been a page of our learning journal. Is there something there that you wanted to share?

Yeah, let me see. So it will, with us, we've been going through the process, having three kids and things being very busy realizing the importance to document what the kids are learning. So I realized that but I also realized how I am going to keep track of this, like write things quickly can be very hard when the three kids are going and wanting to come in. And so I was actually taking some courses where there's some visual facilitation and doodling along like whiteboarding, and in different things along. And I started, I'm like, “Oh, we, I did that back in work.” And I started doing that with the kids. And actually, this is one roof. You can see our kid's kitchen creation when they wanted to.

And you're not the only person who has been drawing on that?

Oh no. Not at all. Oh, yeah, I had one for my older son and one for my daughter. Yeah. And let me see this one was, they wanted to do something with crescent dough because they had seen the recipe. So we got the crescent dough and I tried to just draw how– I mean, they're really messy drawings, but they're ones that can communicate to the kids of about what's going on: brown, the brown sugar, they need the honey, flour. And then I have were the options, where do they want to do A or B and I just tried to document what was going on. And as you can see, they added their own touches to it. And my hope is that we can look back through some of these and it will spark some things for them. And also I'll recognise, okay, how long have we been doing this Kid Kitchen Creations? It's been a long time. It's been a sustaining interest for them.

Yeah, and it's so easy to miss those patterns if you don't document them, because you know, things come and go. And they just kind of get lost and forgotten in the realities of living every day. But if you are able to take a few minutes to jot it down, and you actually shared with us this drawing method inside the membership, and so there's a little lesson on how to do the drawings that you shared with these sort of stick figures. And I am the finest of the stick figure artists, I have to say, and I even, even I am capable of documenting using that method.

It's funny, I was talking with my ACTion group, and they're like, oh, you know, like, that's helped us so much. And it's almost silly that I share that process, because it's so simple and neat and nice and lightweight. Why didn't they do this before? Because they're working on reading and understanding language within a picture help. And so it's been, it's been really eye opening. And I want to touch back on what you said about the importance of just making quick notes and looking back at what their interest has been, again, going back to my five year old and her cutting interest. You know, sometimes I forget, oh, yeah, that has been an interest of ours for a long time and cutting things into really tiny pieces. It took me a long time to get to the point, hey, maybe she would like paper dolls with this. Why didn't I introduce that before? And then someone in my action group suggested maybe she likes changing of shapes and changing of forms. And you know, she might be able to do this activity of turning salts into a liquid and back to a solid, like, oh, okay, that would be interesting. In that can kind of explore like, is it just the cutting and the fine motor? Or is it something else about that? And that was a really cool example. And we've yet to do that. But I have a feeling for my daughter, it's both of those things, could be.

What a great suggestion. And yeah, it can be sometimes hard to see those kinds of examples in our own families when you know, we're living it every day. What is the pattern here? What is the underlying interest here? Sometimes that extra set of eyes can be really helpful. But yeah, that is absolutely one thing that we spend a lot of our time thinking about is not just what is the activity that we're doing. But what does that really mean? What is the child really trying to understand? If they're asking about dinosaurs, are they really asking about dinosaurs? Or they're asking about, sort of deeper questions about, well, if the dinosaurs went extinct, does that mean we could go extinct? And are there fears related to that or other things about our place in the world and where we're going as the world. And when we take the time to truly listen to our children and go that one step below that sort of surface level interest that we see, we can help them in such a more profound way. And it really doesn't require any special equipment. You don't have to go out and buy anything. It's really just learning to listen and having that other person, other people to bounce these ideas off and say, “Hey, this is what I'm seeing.” And then just say, “Oh, well, yeah, we went through that, too.” And we realized it was this, or have you thought about that? It could be this? And I'm like, no, I hadn't thought about that. So there's a lovely illustration of how the group can help. And also just the fact that an interest in cutting paper isn't necessarily about the cutting of the paper, it may be about this deeper thing that you're about to explore. It may not be but you'll find out and have some fun along the way, probably.

Yes. And one thing I want to point out and I think has been at times, you know, again, going back to that recovering perfectionist model. sometimes I feel like I've got to be doing these all the time and I can see the light. And I'll just use my daughter's as an example again on a five year old because I feel like for my son it comes a little bit more naturally again because he follows a more traditional path I think that you see in school. Actually school where he is in school, he did kindergarten, and will be going into first grade. And it worked beautifully for him. He's kind of more that traditional. He loves the structure of it. He's quiet. It just worked out really well, for him. But for my daughter, I don't always see that light in her eye quite as much. And so it's been I know, she's getting at an age where I can hopefully see it a little bit more. So we're not always doing activities like this, you know. I think I sometimes put that pressure on me, like, every single day, I want to see that interest come out in her and you know, it's one just not possible, but also not necessary.

Or desirable.

Yeah. Does that. Yeah, you know, especially with like three like it's you know, we're learning so much. And not always going to be into the thing that lights them up all day long. Sometimes I put a little bit of that pressure on myself and my life.

It's okay. And so it seems as though when we think about sort of how it feels to have these kinds of resources available to you, a lot of it is just sort of a feeling of exhaling, is that right? What else is there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, feeling of support. And I think, again, being someone who's naturally curious, ask a lot of questions, I could find myself like, “I've got all these questions about these experiences.” But it's interesting, I find myself able to release some of those questions and just go more into the hands on with them in the learning and trusting my instincts with it because I know I have a safety net. And if we were to come run across a bigger roadblock, like, you know, like, with my daughter, when I'm like, wait, where's the next place, where we haven't seen those moments of learning and interest in spark in her for a while. I don't really know where to go, if there's something big like that, I have a place I can bring my questions. And that has allowed me to have more confidence with the day to day. And as you've seen I've kind of ebbed and flowed in the group, mostly because it's like I got the information I need. I could put it to hands on from our family, and then come back out a piece that feels right for us. And having that confidence and instinct with it has been really nice.

Yeah. And I know, you're also actually in the Parenting Membership as well. And one of the reasons I started the learning membership, I had the Parenting Membership first, and I saw that it was helping parents to support their children's development. And there was this whole other side of learning that really wasn't being addressed. And I wasn't seeing it being addressed anywhere else out there in the world. And so I started it really for the two together to form this sort of complete package of support for the child's development that's sort of typically seen as the parents purview the stuff that normally happens at home, and learning, which is sort of often seen as the teachers purview stuff that happens at school. And it's not required to be in both memberships and some parents just decide they don't need to be in both. They don't want to be in both. But as somebody who is in both, I wonder if you can speak to your experience about how they support each other, how they work together with each other.

Yeah, I think, you know, it's funny, they're just so intermix for me, I think especially because we're a family with lots of big emotions, very spirited, strong-willed three kids that again, we go through, sometimes a week where it's just big emotions and meltdowns, and where we can't get to those learning moments that we've seen. But again, recognising that learning is still happening. And so I just constantly ebbing and flowing between the different skill sets of problem solving and having those conversations with the kids. So I think that's where, just for me, it's like they're one in the same almost and like if I wanted to, and sometimes I do think about this, like in my learning journal and documenting, like all the emotional skills that we've learned in other time to because, you know, you don't traditionally see that in the classroom. But that's I mean, that's happening. And like you said about the group work and collaboration and different things, skill sets for jobs, we know that those are so critical. Yeah, I know, they just really for our family are just constantly in our mix, the skill set. So again, it's another safety net of knowing I have resources to go to that supporting them, supporting our relationship when I get into something that's been a little bit more challenging for a while for us.

Yeah. And what is your child learning in these periods of time when you aren't focused on sort of what we call learning explorations in the learning membership. We know they're learning that when they have big feelings that it's safe to express them. They're learning that you will hear them and not feel, you know, hurt and wounded by them. But you will hold them as it were, hold those feelings with care and curiosity and kindness and help the child to navigate those feelings, and yes, you're having your own feelings too. But those are sort of separate from that. And your child knows that you can hold space for those big feelings, and that you will unconditionally accept them for who they are. I mean, if we think about how many of us grew up, many of us didn't grow up with the luxury of knowing that we were unconditionally accepted, no matter what we said, no matter what we did, to our parents, to our sibling, you know that whatever happened, that our parent was going to be there for us unconditionally. And so I think that you're by focusing on the emotional learning as learning, as seeing it as learning is such a critical piece. And I think that absolutely speaks to why this fits together. Because when your child trusts that they can bring anything to you, that helps you not just in sort of the traditional development, you know, what happens at home space, but also, you know, I'm struggling with school or with this interaction that's happening at school; or you know this difficult situation that I don't know how to handle and they know that you will not kind of jump down the throat and give them the answer and tell them how to handle it. But you're gonna support them in finding their own answer, because that's just how you handle problems at your house. It's through the things you've learned about scaffolding. So yeah, it's again it's so critical to their well being as whole people, as well as the learning they're taking forward into the rest of their lives.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And so I wonder if, as we wrap up, if you have any advice for parents who are thinking that, you know, maybe I want to do a little bit more than I'm doing right now to support my child's learning, I was thinking about workbooks. And if my child is into workbooks, then great, I'm gonna do workbooks. But maybe my child's not going to be into workbooks. And I don't want to be the person who has to stand there over them and say, you know, “Do problems one through 20, and then you can go out to play.” If a parent's in that kind of situation, they want to do a little bit more. They're not sure what to do. What kind of advice would you have for them in terms of things to do but also things to just kind of think about and sit with?

Yeah, yeah, I started this off by saying, you know, with my parenting values of respect for the children and their respect and belief that they're competent, basically, it boils down to having a basic trust in them. And so to tie it all back, it's a basic, have a basic trust in yourself as well, that you've got the skill set and just doing what seemingly and can appear like nothing, just observing, you're taking those steps–those huge steps that will pay off later down the road. And so having that basic trust would be one basic, trusting yourself would be one. And then another one is that this actually doesn't have to be hard. And it can be fun. And there's probably only just a few small things that you can do to take it to the next level. It doesn't have to be this major shift to feel like I'm doing what I need to do for my child's learning and supporting them. It doesn't have to be a huge thing for it.

Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And I think you're absolutely right that parents do know their children better than anybody else knows them, that whatever parent or caregiver is spending the most time with the child knows that child better than any teacher ever will. And that means that you have knowledge about your child that nobody else is going to have. And maybe until they get into an intimate relationship later in their life, and somebody else maybe comes to know them potentially even better than you do. But right now you know your child best. And that really means that you're uniquely equipped to give your child things that nobody else is capable of giving them. And anything your second point about, it doesn't have to be, you know, like getting another master's degree. It can be like that if you want to go that deep but it doesn't have to be. It can be very simple, very much kind of a stepping back and seeing what's already here, and then stepping forward a little bit as it makes sense for you.

And actually, I'll add one more, as you said, that's a tie it off in the next three, that you don't have to do it alone. I think that's where I still sometimes get caught up of well I've got all the skills. I should be able to do this. And again, for us the right choice with and we're very fortunate to find a good school that we do have teachers supporting their learning and we can talk to each other. And so I can say I'd seen this at home and I'm seeing this at school and you know, for parents who are unschooling, homeschooling, you might be working with different groups or different classes. So you're not always the one to teach them everything. I constantly kind of reminded of that as well because there's yeah, we sometimes they get information from different people.

And that's okay.

Can I tell one more. Yeah, You're saying about you knowing your child best like, so again, with my almost seven year old, I think he was very similar to me. So he's picked up on the doodling very much. But he's a very auditory learner so like he loves podcasts, loves being read to. And so as he's developed his math skills. He can do math problems in his head, and he'll come and try to explain to me, he knows I like visuals. So he'll draw out like numbers as he's adding up large sums and then I'll cross them out. And it's just been so fascinating to see how he works. And maybe a year ago, he said, “Mommy, I just see like pages in my head and for how the numbers come.” And that has been a theme that's carried him forward like for him and he just sees the information in his head once he hears it and he does not need to write it down, does not but at the same time, then he's teaching and realizing I'm someone that needs it visually. And so it's just– I can really see him understanding how he learns already, which is gonna serve him really well. And I hope that with younger too I'm able to give them that and we can figure it out together. And I know, I know, we will.

Yeah. Wow, you just gave me the chills and immediately take me back to a conversation that we had with Dr. Todd Rose a couple of years ago now where in his book, he describes that he I think he needed to pass. I think it might have been the SAT. It was a test again.

I actually just listened to that episode. I love that episode, too.

Yeah, yes, yeah. And he was trying to learn how to do math problems a certain way. And he got a teacher who was teaching him how to do a certain way. And he just couldn't get his head around it. And his dad walks past one day and says, “Well, why are you trying to do it like that? Your brain works this way, this other way of doing. It would be so much easier for you.” And of course, his dad has no expertise in math,or in passing this test in particular or in tutoring. He just understands how his son's mind works and is able to propose a suggestion. And of course if Dr. Rose had had different experiences as he was growing up maybe he would have known that about himself all along. And so what you're saying is that your child is already seeing patterns in how he learns most effectively. And that's not to say that he can't learn any other way because he can but that when he's presented with an array of information, and there are lots of different potential ways of doing it. He can try to shape that into a way that makes most sense for him and makes it efficient and effective for him to learn. And to know that at age seven rather than when you're trying and tearing your hair out to study for an exam to get into college is I mean it's such an advantage to know that about yourself. And to know that not just in how you learn, but also in how you handle things emotionally which is what so much of your learning with him entails. It's going to be incredibly profound for him to understand, okay, yeah, when I'm in these kinds of situations I struggle emotionally. When I see that when this kind of thing happens, this is often how I react. And I also know that I get to choose, am I going to react in this way or am I going to respond, you know, these are all skills that are going to come with time. And just that core idea of I understand how I learn. And it is just I mean, it's awesome.

Actually ends up as I was kind of thinking about that example and with my five year old I haven't quite tapped in because again my almost seven year old learns very similar to I do other than being able to pick up information in his head. With my daughter, she's showing interest in letters again and sounds. But she hasn't wanted to trace the letters. She hasn't wanted to do kind of the typical things that I've maybe, I was like what if they ever cut out letter she was cutting? So I haven't tried it yet to report back. But you know, just the ideas of like, okay, how can we visit him? She's showing interest but these typical ways have not resonated with her so we just haven't found it yet.

Yeah, yeah and when you follow, I don't want to give parents the idea that I'm ragging on workbooks but it's just sort of an example of a way that learning can become very regimented. The workbook says, “This is how you're going to do it.” And there's nothing in the workbook about cutting and cutting up letters. So why would you think to do that? But when you have this sort of additional view on how your children learn, you can apply that in different ways and see, okay, yeah, this is how my son is taking this information and learning it. And I can see that my daughter is really different. And she has this interest. And she's also interested in this and how can we marry those two and support her in this? And not that there's a huge rush to learn letters and numbers and writing and all the rest of it but if she is expressing this interest, and also we know she loves cutting things out, yeah, I mean, I could imagine her really going for that and learning about how the shapes work through doing that; and then maybe she wants to draw them so that she can cut them out. Yeah,

Yeah, yeah, we don't know where it's gonna take. As you're talking one last thing you talked about advice for parents, I think one thing that seeing the two and then we'll see what my third that falls out. Even for parents doing this sort of learning and supporting their kids in this learning they might run into areas where they feel frustrated like she's not coming together. And I think with my son, it was just so easy. And like this stuff was so natural again because we had similar learning styles. And he's probably more traditional with the resources out there just working for him naturally. And then with my daughter it's taken some time. And so sometimes it's been nice because I have the tool to kind of balance each other out. And I can see, well, it's not that I'm doing the process wrong. I'm not connecting wrong. It's just she has a different style of learning than me. She may be a little bit more like my husband and so it's going to take some more careful observation. And that careful observation is still on the learning framework. I'm still within, I'm still doing the best thing I can for her.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to share with us this journey that you've been on. I'm so grateful for being able to work with you and then see this process.

Yes, for everyone in the group too, yeah.

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