Positive Ways to Address Challenging Behaviors in Early Childhood Webinar

Stella: Well, good morning everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As we present Positive Ways to Address Challenging Behaviors in Early Childhood, my name is Stella Beard, I’m the Assistant Director for Kentucky SPIN. And just for a few minutes, I’d like to go over just a little bit of housekeeping, and then also tell you a little bit about Kentucky SPIN. [00:00:25] First of all, as you all know, we are working from home and you may hear my dogs bark. I try my best for that not to happen, but sometimes life just happens while we’re doing these presentations. So just be aware of that. Also throughout the presentation, you will be able to ask questions, you can do that either in the chat box feature, or also in the question box feature, which is on the right hand side with your dashboard. [00:00:52] Also, you have handouts, two handouts that are provided for you today. And there is a drop down box where you can download those handouts. One is the PowerPoint from today and also a resource sheet. But I will be following up with everyone who is on the webinar today with all of those handouts and other resource information. So I wanted to let you know that. [00:01:18] But Kentucky SPIN actually stands for Special Parent Involvement Network. We are the parent training and information center for the state of Kentucky. We are a nonprofit 501c3. And our mission is to link families and individuals with disabilities to valuable resources that will enable them to live productive, fulfilling lives. We are the statewide parent training and information project, and we are funded by the US Department of Education. And we work with all types of disabilities, children and youth, and their families birth through age 26. We do not act as attorneys, but however, we do empower families to effectively advocate for their children and we provide peer support to help families access needed information and resources. And we have been the statewide parent training and information center since 1988. [00:02:20] So we’re very excited today to have our guest speaker, Dr. Joanne Rojas. She is a Research and Development Associate at the Human Development Institute at the University of Kentucky. And she is the Associate Director for Childcare Aware of Kentucky. Her academic training is in educational psychology, and she is passionate about early childhood, early care and education, and effective family and parenting skills. She is the mother of three grown children and has become an avid gardener during quarantine. So we are very honored to have Dr. Rojas with us this morning. [00:03:01] So can you hear us? [00:03:03] Dr. Rojas: I can hear you. Can you all hear me? [00:03:06] Stella: We can. I think everything is good. So I will let you take over from here and thank you for joining us. [00:03:14] Dr. Rojas: Thank you. Perfect. Well, good morning all. I just wanted to welcome you all this morning and you’ll see on my very first slide, next to that picture of those five adorable children, I do have a question for you. And you’ll see throughout the presentation, as many questions as you have, we would love to have those in the question chat box. But my very first question is why are you interested in the topic of challenging behaviors in early childhood? I’m just curious about who’s here. So if you would not mind starting to enter that into the chat, Stella will help me to sort of compile who’s here. [00:03:55] [silence] [00:04:15] Stella: All right. We’ve got one that says I am a school-based therapist and work with children and their parents. Let’s see. One has a young daughter with emotional issues. I want to know more about how my families and clients struggle. For some reason they’re saying they can’t find the chat box so everyone can just type in the question box cause I’m seeing them through the question box. So that’s totally fine to do that. Someone is on here to helping find ways to help challenging behavior before school starts. Someone works with the drug court participants, a child case managers. An early childhood development consultant. Let me see, someone works with pediatrics and in home health care setting, service coordinator for first steps. So Joanne, we have a variety of folks on here from professionals to parents. So that’s wonderful. [00:05:31] Dr. Rojas: Perfect. It’s always nice when you have so many different perspectives, because then as you, as I go through it, and as we ask people to put more information in the question box, we’ll know that we’re getting the wide variety of experiences. So that’s terrific. [00:05:47] Okay. Well, I do want to, I was nicely introduced, but to just, continue on with who I am. I am an educational psychologist, as Stella mentioned. I’m a mother of three, they’re grown children now, but when they were born or when the three of them were born, they were shared stepchildren or up in New England where I was raising my children before we moved to Kentucky 12 years ago, they used to call them Irish twins. I don’t know if people call them that down in Kentucky, but I had three children, three and under. So I’m familiar with what it’s like to have a handful of kids under one roof. I do work in childhood at the Human Development Institute, we’re the university center for excellence and disability research at the University of Kentucky. And my focus is early childhood. I’m also the Associate Director for Childcare Aware of Kentucky. So that’s my background and a little bit about my passion. [00:06:43] This particular presentation is part of some work we’re doing with Kentucky SPIN. We have a small Association of University Centers for Disability grant called Positive Family Networks and Supports Initiatives. And, it’s funded by both the AUCD and the Centers for Disease Control. So the basis for the evidence based resources that I’m sharing primarily is from those two sources, especially the CDC. We are an innovative community of practice on parenting behavioral concerns and strategy. And we have two sister communities, one in Alaska, and one in Kentucky who are working on similar grants at this time. And we meet once a month, to talk about our multiple projects. [00:07:36] The resources, one of the first steps of our grant for the resources that we’re sharing, is going to be something called the Family Interaction Training, and it’s primarily for early care and education providers, ECE providers, and other professionals who work with families with young children with behavioral concerns. This is a three module, free training, that is going to become available to the general public in the middle of July. And you can keep your eye on hdilearning.org, that’s in the resource list that we’re including, for when that launches. And that would be free for anyone who would like to take it. There are three, one hour modules. [00:08:19] And part of what we’re doing in this grant is we’re making it available to childcare providers and making it available for the credit they’re required to take, for the quality systems across the state of Kentucky. So it’s a way of incentivizing it, not only is it free, not only is it evidence-based, they’ll be able to get credits, that they have to get. [00:08:41] And so as we w that’s the first part of our grant, the second part of our grant is embedding this learning and other resources into practice with the providers, our for childcare where, Kentucky we have coaches across the state who work with childcare providers to help them work towards quality practices. And once our coaches have taken these trainings, they will have additional resources to embed that. Kentucky SPIN is able to embed some of these resources. And we’re looking forward to families just using this kind of information to have more positive impact on their families. [00:09:18] So moving on one of the best, best, best CDC resources that is out there. And I bet that many of you already know about this, is Learn the Signs, Act Early. This is critical because one of the most important parts of addressing challenging behaviors in early childhood, is understanding the developmental needs of the child. [00:09:44] There is an app, the CDC free milestone tracker app. You can download to your phone to Android, iPhones, doesn’t matter. And you can put in your child’s birth date, you can put in a little bit of information about them. And then on an ongoing basis, this app will ask you if the child is reaching particular developmental milestones. This helps you to get a sense of what kind of, what kind of a path your child is on. And, it also is an opportunity for you to track those milestones for when you visit your pediatrician as well. It’s a fantastic state-of-the-art app, completely free. I don’t think I ever have a conversation with a young family without encouraging them to go ahead and share this particular, to download this app. [00:10:33] In early in the ECE world, the early care and education world, we are always focused on developmentally appropriate practice, DAP, developmentally appropriate practice. And by looking at the developmental level of your child, you can do developmentally appropriate parenting, which is maybe not a thing, but I sort of made it up on the fly. And also on the website, the CDC Learn the Signs, Act Early website you can just go there to click on milestone checklists that you could print out. So some of you professionals who are working in the field, you may already do this, but there are some checklists that you can leave with families, CDC, checklists about what’s appropriate at three months, six months, nine months, 12 months, and on from there. So I just, I can’t start talking about CDC milestones or CDC resources where I’ve talking about Learn the Signs, Act Early, it’s sort of a rule at HDI. [chuckles] [00:11:30] Okay. Moving on. I would like you to use the question box. I know it says chat box, but I don’t want to confuse anybody, use the question box so that Stella can see your responses. What one word or phrase describes what it’s really like raising small children? What one word or phrase describes what it is really like raising small children? [00:11:59] Stella: We have [inaubible], for that’s popped up the very first thing [inaubible]. [00:12:07] Dr. Rojas: I’m sorry Stella, what was that word? I couldn’t hear you. [00:12:13] Stella: Okay. Sorry about that. The first word I saw pop up was exhausting. I see stressful. I see hectic, unpredictable. These are good ones. [00:12:31] Dr. Rojas: Oh yeah. People with experience on this call for sure. [00:12:34] Stella: Absolutely. That’s all that’s popping up right now. [00:12:44] Dr. Rojas: That’s good. That’s good. I think we, those of us who have small children or work with families with small children can relate to exhausted, unpredictable, tiring, all of those things. I do think all of this is really brought up to an even higher level, certainly during our current circumstances during quarantine. So if it’s exhausting to raise a child during regular times, when you can easily run to the playground or you can easily go drop them off at childcare or mother’s day out when you can easily send them to the grandparents’ house. When you can easily do a variety of things, send them to Sunday school, all of those things that many of which are not accessible to our children at this moment, or are just now becoming open again. It really heightens all of that. And so in addition, on the resource, one of the resource handouts we have, there are some additional resources for health and wellness with small children during the pandemic and other disaster situations. Definitely all of this is only more heightened at this time. [00:13:48] So moving on one of the things that you have to think about when you’re going to be positive, raising young children, consulting with families who have young children, is helping people or helping yourself to manage your expectations. It’s very difficult to work with small children if your expectations are at the wrong level. You need to, first of all, understand what’s developmentally appropriate for their age and stage. That’s basic number one. Also understanding that there are a variety of reasons why a child might be a little bit behind or a little bit ahead of their peers and in consultation with additional resources you have in the community, with your pediatrician, you can keep a good track of where your child is and what your expectations should be for them developmentally. [00:14:36] Every child’s path is different and we’re not expecting every child to rigidly go along the same timeline. They’re just milestones that people reach. It’s also important to educate yourself about any additional differences that can affect their growth and behavior. This can include disability status. Disabilities that are diagnosed or undiagnosed, disabilities that are visible or invisible. Those can have a very big impact on what you can expect from your child. There is health status and child is medically fragile, if a child has a chronic disease that is going to affect their behavior. However, even if a child is just coming down with an ear infection, you’re going to have one cranky child on your hands, and all of these should affect the expectations that you have. [00:15:29] Another important factor for managing your expectations are ACEs. Again, many of you may be familiar with these, who work with families in the field, particular families who are on the call, parents on the call, grandparents on the call might or might not know this term. An ACE is an adverse childhood experience. And the more ACEs that you have, the higher the levels of toxic stress that you have. And with higher levels of toxic stress, it can affect your regular normal, typical development as well as longterm outcomes. And these can also be passed down generationally. Adverse childhood experiences include abuse, physical, emotional, sexual abuse. Neglect, family dysfunctions or family experiences such as mental illness, incarceration of a relative, substance abuse, observing domestic abuse, divorce, any number of things can be an adverse childhood experience. [00:16:31]If you have a child that is adopted or a foster child, they are very apt to come with their own trauma, their own ACEs as well. If you are working with a child or have a child who’s experiencing systemic racism, that will have an effect on their development. A child who come from immigrant and refugee statuses, all of those children have different experiences that may affect they’re typical levels of development. So manage your expectations. [00:17:04] Okay. This next slide is something that I remember reading as a young mom, and it’s a famous joke by Phyllis Diller, cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stopped snowing. And I can’t hear if anybody’s laughing because everybody’s on mute, to me, that always gives me a chuckle. And the main reason is because I think in that humor, it’s a reminder to me that I must not only address my expectations about my child, but I must address my expectations as an adult caregiver. Whether I’m a parent, the guardian, a childcare provider, a teacher, I always need to think about the context. [00:17:51] Okay. I’m from the North originally. So I grew up with lots of snow storms and lots of shoveling sidewalks. If it is snowing hard, you might need to shovel the sidewalk for safety sake so that somebody can get to your front door, so that the mail can get delivered. But don’t think that you’ve shoveled it once and it’s taken care of, keep in mind, you will need to shovel again very, very soon. And just like shoveling snow during a snow storm is like cleaning your house when your kids are young, so is raising kids. And it’s an ongoing process. It is very important to be gentle with yourself and be gentle with the little ones in your care. It’s not going to stop snowing anytime soon. [00:18:41] Okay. So here are some practical overview strategies for addressing challenging behaviors. There’s three basic areas, and we’ll go a little bit more in depth to these. But first of all, is relationships strengthening the parent caregiver, child relationship. Everything is based on relationship, relationship, relationship. So important, so, so important. Attachment, trust, all of that needs to be developed in order for a child to develop to their fullest potential. You need to also structure the environment to prevent misbehaviors. Environment can help you to avoid the misbehaviors altogether sometimes, by giving a child a sense of safety and security. And then finally positively come up with techniques to address the behaviors. Rather than thinking of punishment or catching a child doing something wrong, you need to think about positive ways to help them get through a negative behavior and get onto a positive behavior. [00:19:47] In this cute picture of what looks like a mother and child, there are quite a few things that I see that help me to remember what it takes to address the challenging behavior. I’d like you to, in the question box, I’d like people to put in some things that you notice from this picture that might be helpful for addressing a challenging behavior. Anything that you notice. Particularly things that point to relationship, environment, positivity, but there may be other things that you see as well. [00:20:25] Stella: Okay. Some of them are saying, she is at his level, they are eye to eye, face to face, respectful body language, comfortable interaction. She is down with him, physical contact, getting to the child’s level. And smiling. I liked that one. [00:20:44] Dr. Rojas: Yeah, me too. [00:20:53] Stella: That’s, that’s pretty much all of them right there. [00:20:56] Dr. Rojas: Yeah. Those are fantastic. And I had all of those written down on my own personal notes as well. Another one, another thing that I noticed looking at this picture again, is you can almost see the love in the picture. You can, you can really almost see the love between the mother and child here because of the mirroring. Not only is she at his level, but their heads are tilted slightly the same way, their eyes are connected. She’s got her hands on his hands and you can see the way she’s got his hands, is in a loving connecting sort of a way. [00:21:28] It’s not in a punitive way, sometimes if a child is doing something too disruptive, you may hold onto his hands to keep from hurting another person. But that’s not the kind of, that’s not the kind of handholding that’s going on here. What’s going on here as a loving kind of like I’m here with you. And, I think that love is something that you can’t legislate, but it is something that you could engage in as a parent, as a family member, as someone who has a passion for helping families to be more effective. As a childcare provider, I think many, many of us have this passionate care and love for children. [00:22:05] Okay. Moving on. The first one was the parenting and with parenting and caregiving with sensitivity and responsiveness. There are five P’s of these kinds of relationships. First is, as we said, the parenting, the love, the caregiving, the affection that is present. And the fact that you’re going to listen to the child. Respond to the child’s needs. Not necessarily your agenda, not necessarily your timetable, but the child’s timetable. You’re going to intentionally provide positive attention to the child. For a child all attention is good attention. And you often will see a child acting out just to get attention, even if it’s negative because the child just wants to connect to the important adults in their lives. So you need to intentionally provide positive attention. You want to intentionally provide praise. [00:23:03] You want to play with the child, give the opportunity for the child to play independently. Play is such an important part of normal and healthy development. And finally, you want to give predictability, you want to have a day to day experience for the child that does not feel chaotic. It feels like they have a sense of where they’re going and what is going to happen. [00:23:31] Okay. A little bit more in depth on this. For parenting in a sensitive and responsive way, you really need to be an active listener. It starts from infancy, many of you may be familiar with the idea of serve and return with small babies. A small baby babbles to you, and then you babble back to the child. If a child offers you any kind of verbal interaction, any kind of attention you want to respond in the same way. When a child makes a face, you make a face back. Until the child, this is the early development of language skills for infants. And as the child grows older, you will respond more and more in conversational ways that are verbal, as opposed to just battling. It’s very important to be responsive and to listen. [00:24:27] Reflecting with the child about what’s going on at this particular, actually really from infancy. I am changing your diaper now and we’re changing your diaper, so you’ll feel better. To the point where you’re working with a two year old or you’re parenting a three year old or four year old, and you reflecting to them what’s going on and what the expected behavior is and why you’re going, where you’re going and giving them sort of an ongoing narration, that helps them to understand, but also builds those really valuable verbal skills, language skills, verbal skills. Their word bank that is so important. It’s also very important to help children label their emotions. I know that myself as a grownup, sometimes my emotions get very big. And when I slow down enough to say, Oh, I’m feeling very angry right now. Why am I feeling angry? And then I can backtrack. And I can kind of think that it, I don’t feel so out of control. Children also need that help, to label emotions, to label the emotions that they are feeling, to the label the emotions that their friends or their playmates or siblings might be feeling. [00:25:37] Other ways to be sensitive and responsive, include gestures, physicality. Big smiles, big hands, big expression, big hugs, all of those kinds of things. And showing them with your face, with your body, with your eyes, that you love them, that you’re there to respond to that, and you are a safe place for them. So that’s a little bit more about that first piece parenting, which is sensitivity and responsiveness. [00:26:06]And the next slide is something that, somebody found on Twitter, which is, hi, my daughter will be late to school because she can zip up her jacket by herself. I think most of us may have had this experience, a little one who must complete their task. And sometimes frankly, you should just go with it. Let them finish their task, even if it will take about 10 minutes to zip up their jacket, and it would only take you 10 seconds. Sometimes a way to handle this is to know, okay, if my child, my little girl here, is working on zipping her jacket and working on that self care skill. And I know it’s going to take her 10 minutes. I’m going to give her a 10 minute warning before we leave so that she has sufficient time to do this because I need to be out of the door. [00:27:01] Or sometimes you just need to be flexible with the timeline. If you actually don’t have a real deadline so that the child can build that self efficacy. They can build that confidence that they’re able to care for themselves. So I do encourage you to sometimes just leave a little wiggle room, so they have time to do it themselves. Even though it’s easier when you do it for them. [00:27:25] Okay. The third P is positive attention. We talked a little bit about this earlier, but the thing about being intentional with your positive attention is that children are built to hunger for attention of anything. They need attention. They live on attention without attention they cannot thrive from infancy to 102, everybody hungers for attention. So you need to be strategic as a parent, as a caregiver, as someone who comes alongside families, you need to be strategic in what you pay attention to. Catch them doing something that you like, wow. I love the way you shared with your brother. Just now. That was great. That was very helpful. I appreciate that. Thank you. [00:28:16] Be strategic, catch them doing something right. Catch them, accomplishing a small step of a big task. Going back to the example of the coat of a child, trying to zip her coat up. This very same child, at the beginning, you might do say, Oh, good job. You’ve got the zipper on. Okay. Now it’s time to pull it up. Great. You got it halfway up. Do you need help getting it all the way? Oh, okay. And then you let them finish and pay attention to the little successes, the little steps that they’re accomplishing. [00:28:51]Another thing that you want to do, it sounds like the opposite, but it’s actually not, is actively ignoring. Them when they are behaving in ways that are challenging when they’re behaving in ways that are less than optimal, and they are safe and the people around them are safe, ignore the bad behavior. Very often when a child is throwing a fit about something in the house. I remember this being a young mom, a child would be upset wanting something that they could not have, I would pretend that I didn’t hear them and I would leave the room. They would pick themselves up, follow me to the other room and sit down on the floor again, throwing their little fit and I would ignore it. And then finally they’d be like, Oh, this is not the way to get what I want. That’s not the way it works. And so not only is strategic attention important, so is active ignoring. [00:29:46] Okay. Moving on to the, to the wonderful sage, Mr. Rogers, we know that feeling good about ourselves is essential in our being able to love others. So, building a healthy sense of self in our children is critical to their longterm success as human beings. And so part of that is approaching all of their behavior with as positive a lens as is possible. Allowing them to learn to do things on their own, allowing them to build those skills up, that they will need to be independent little humans before you know. Believe me, if any of you are home with young children during quarantine, I know that your patience level may be low, but also believe me before you know it, you’re going to have three in college, like I do. It goes by in a heartbeat surprisingly quickly. [00:30:41] So what you want to do along the way is built into your child, the ability to feel good about themselves. One of the ways you do that is with praise. Now, praise is a very effective way to build the behavior. Because ordinary, everyday tasks are always around you. You have constant learning opportunities. So you can teach a child to be successful by giving them the tasks, giving them the steps they need to zip up their coat. Giving them the steps they need to mix some pancake batter. Helping them with the steps to helping set the table. All of those ordinary, everyday tasks. I’m in a classroom every day, giving them the steps they need to help put the blocks away to help animals away, the toys, all of those kinds of things. [00:31:36] And what you do that is by being very specific in your praise about what they’re doing. You want to focus on their efforts. Focus on the process. Don’t focus on the product, focus on the effort and the process because you want to build in them the understanding for the importance of the small steps and the importance of hard work. And you also want to praise right away, right away. You want to praise immediately to build their confidence of all of these little steps along the way. [00:32:07] When you are praising effort, you are going to praise them for things like, you worked so hard. I like the way you paid attention. I Like the way you spun the batter around in the bowl, I liked the way you picked up the forks to put them on the table, very specific and intentional, not general. You’re the best. You’re the best helper. [00:32:33] Often in an unintentional way of building a child’s self esteem we give them these generalities. We give them these you’re the best helper. You’re my favorite helper that doesn’t really tell them what they’ve done right. It doesn’t really tell them what you want them to repeat. How do I be the best? How do I always rise to this expectation. Instead, if you can affirm them in their process. Affirm them even in their imperfection, then they will have more of a forgiving attitude towards themselves. They are less likely to get frustrated with themselves. And frankly, I don’t know about you, but I have not, as a grownup, achieved perfection, have you? I haven’t. So I don’t want to set perfection as my developmental milestone for my kids. So that way I’ll be specific about really good job, you really worked hard. I liked the way you paid attention. I liked the way you did that. I liked all the little steps you took to do what you needed to do. So praise is that’s what’s the next step in that. [00:33:41] After praise, we’re going to get into play and I’m once again, quoting the inestimable, Mr. Rogers, who all early childhood people adore. Play is often talked about his full quote is actually this, play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood. [00:34:11] Play is really the work of childhood and playing is how children learn. It’s how they build their brains. It’s how they practice grownups skills, they try on different identities. They build their social skills, their social interaction skills. Play lowers their stress. Play is so, so, so important to normal development. [00:34:37] I recently was listening to some experts who worked with refugee communities internationally, and set up childcare centers, in refugee camps. And their number one priority for these refugee children was finding them ways to play. Because when these young refugee children who had, who had gone through unbelievable struggles, when these refugee children were able to play together, they felt safe. They felt like children. Their brains started connecting again. It was the most important thing. They weren’t as concerned about oh, let’s do a literacy activity. Oh, let’s do some numeracy activities. Their focus was not on that kind of learning. Unless you are able to play and feel safe and make connections, it’s going to be very difficult to learn any of the other skills that you have, especially in a high stress environment. [00:35:33] So here are some practical tips for playing. There are three core principles to play and some of this is a repeat and that’s because this is also important. But relationship, relationship, relationship. You need to support responsive relationships in order for parents or adults and children to be able to play, and to feel safe, to play. [00:36:01] You need to strengthen their core life skills with this play. Not only if they’re acting out kitchen skills like that parent with a child in the kitchen, learning how to cook, which is an important core life skill. But just things taking turns, communicating back and forth. These are core life skills that every child needs. Attachment, trust, brain building. All of those things are so important. [00:36:27] And finally play reduces sources of stress in children. So I know that with a lot of the parents I know who have young children, who were going through non traditional instruction the last couple of months, one of the things that they were finding a real challenge was to get through the required work and then leave enough time to play, so that the child could reduce their stress and could enjoy just being a kid. Particularly when they were picking up at their normal social interaction of classroom settings. [00:37:01] Additional how tos on playing. You want to schedule playtime. You want to schedule your playtime in a classroom. You also might want to schedule your playtime in your house. As you go through your regular routine, and again, hard during quarantine, because you need to be careful about your little circle of social influences. But children who have, children who have siblings this makes it sometimes a little bit easier. Children on zoom interaction, a little bit more challenging in early childhood. But you do want to schedule playtime. And mom or dad or what ever other grownups are in the house, can be really good playmates if you allow the child to take the lead. [00:37:45] You want to make sure that you have some toys at your disposal that are developmentally appropriate and safe, but you want to follow their interests. As you have this regular playtime, even if it’s only half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon with the adult, if they have a limited social interaction, as you have this playtime with a child, it helps to foster their resilience to hardship. It helps them to develop these complex interactions that build their brains, you know. Simple physics when they’re playing with cars on ramps, simple social interactions when they’re playing house or playing castle, like these little children are in this picture. These are all important and complex interests that will help them to be the best that they can be. [00:38:33] And then the final P, is predictable. Predictable, predictable, predictable. Predictable environments that prevents misbehavior. So if you’re in a home, if you’re in a childcare center or a classroom, routines are the key. Now I myself am a bit of a creative person and so I sometimes push against rigid routines. And so my first caveat is you don’t have to micromanage every second of every day. But you do need something that’s predictable. So I like to think about a routine, and this is perhaps my personality showing through, but I like to think about a routine more as a rhythm. It’s a rhythm of life that works for you and the child and the family, or you and the classroom. But the child knows what to expect in the mornings. This is what I expect, and then I’ll get a snack and then I’ll have this. And a rhythm that is very easy, so they don’t feel like they’re in chaos. It doesn’t have to be every second of every day in order to be predictable. [00:39:39] You also, as you plan ahead for problems, think about what’s going to happen if we’ve spent the morning in the backyard chasing butterflies, and the sun is rather hot when they come down, they may need some downtime. They may need a snack. They may need to hydrate. Do they need structured relaxation time. [00:39:59] If you have to do some kind of errands with your child, when you come back, will they need a storytime? Will, they need a nap? What will they need? So plan ahead for the problems, plan ahead for when your child’s frustration might be higher or their exhaustion might be higher. [00:40:15] And as you go along, always remember to help the children by practice naming emotions. Oh, you look sad. I know it’s hard to leave visiting with auntie, but it’s time to go. And so we’re going to go now and we’ll be able to see her again tomorrow, or, you know, whatever it is to help the child to get through that particular transition. So you want to be predictable. You want to plan ahead and you to help them name those emotions. [00:40:48] Okay. You do need to positively address misbehavior. There are many, many reasons for misbehavior; hunger, exhaustion, unrealistic expectations, frustration, chaos, fear, any number of reasons for misbehaviors. You need to have a plan for them. They are going to happen. You want to help manage future behaviors by being consistent, on a regular basis. So that, you have that predictability built in, but even with the best laid plans, sometimes a child is just going to melt down. And depending upon their unique temperaments, their unique other issues, they may melt down more frequently. And so you want to try to plan an environment where there’s a little bit of margin around them so that they do not feel so out of control. [00:41:44] So you want to make sure that you’re looking ahead. Ultimately though you do need to also maintain your own wellbeing. And just as you’re managing your child, you also need to manage yourself. Okay some of the most basic ways of addressing misbehaviors have to do with logical consequences. Rather than thinking about punishment, think about logical consequences. [00:42:13] And this is very important, I think, for parents to learn, if they weren’t raised in this way. We tend to parent in the way that we were parented and not every behavior that we remember was a positive one, and parenting or family behavior. And so as we reflect on our own parenting that we received, as we help parents to reflect them their own parenting, what are the patterns that they remember? Are they punishment patterns, and don’t do that? And you’re going to get it, if I have to tell you one more time? That kind of reprimand is not super positive. It’s also not very productive longterm. If you instead work with logical consequences, it’s a much more effective way, and it also keeps the emotional level a little bit lower for you, which is very important, to keep a handle on the situation. [00:43:11] So, first of all, you want to keep the rules simple. Make your expectations clear, and you give a warning. So when we go to the playground, for example, we do not throw sand at the other children in the playground. That’s the expectation. When the child starts throwing sand at the other children in the playground, we let them know, no, that is not what we do. We do not throw sand on the playground. As they continue the behavior, give a second explanation, no throwing sand, it can hurt people’s eyes. If that continues the logical consequences, we’re done. You scoop the child up, you lead them away from the sandbox. Without anger, without roughness, and you take them home. That logical consequence is the best way to reinforce the positive behavior that you looking for and to starve the negative behavior. By not overreacting to their misbehavior, by letting the consequences take care of it you are instead taking charge of the situation. [00:44:25] Okay. Almost at the end of the presentation. I have one more question for you, in the question box and we’ll take, I’ll take general questions at the end as we have time, but I’m wondering. Many of you work with families. Many of you are families. Many of you are both people who work with families and have your own children. I’d like to know what is the most encouraging thing that someone has shared with you about raising young children? [00:44:53] It can be a word, a phrase. Share in the question box, something encouraging either that you’ve heard or that you have shared with others about raising young children? [00:45:09] Stella: Someone just typed, this too shall pass. Get on a schedule. [00:45:17] Dr. Rojas: Mmmhmmm [00:45:19] Stella: Just hearing that I’m doing a good job. [00:45:22] Dr. Rojas: Yeah. [00:45:24] Stella: Being consistent. You play too. [00:45:30] Dr. Rojas: That’s a good one. I like that. [00:45:33] Stella: Consistency again. That’s about it. [00:45:42] Dr. Rojas: I remember when my children were very young, they said sleep when your baby sleeps. And I tried that the best I, even, if I didn’t actually take a full nap, I would try, could put my feet up and rest when my baby was sleeping rather than, Oh, let me do the dishes. Let me start the laundry. Let me… because the exhaustion level was so high in order to keep myself, a little more positive relationally. I would rest as much as I could. Cause when you’re on a deficit, it is hard, hard, hard. [00:46:09] Okay. That I’ve had… [00:46:11] Stella: That’s a great one. [00:46:14] Dr. Rojas: Yeah, yeah. I want to do that, now when my college kids sleep, I try to sleep, but then I’d be sleeping all the time. [laughs] [00:46:21] Stella: And one more just came in. It says every child is different. [00:46:27] Dr. Rojas: Oh my goodness. It is so true. And that’s, and it’s also very encouraging because you don’t think, Oh my gosh, I thought I had this figured out, but this kid is completely different. Thatn every child, and that’s part of the responsive part, is my child has a different personality than my child’s sibling, than my neighbor’s child, then my sister’s child. And so I need to react in a different way. Good. [00:46:49] So you might’ve noticed that I like humor quite a lot and I have a lot of jokes. You may find them cheesy, but the next one is Jerry Seinfeld and he’s very popular, very, and I think he’s very funny and he says a two year old is kind of like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for it. [00:47:07] And I find that very true personally. The energy of a two year old is the greatest joy, I think, but sometimes it’s the greatest challenge. Like everything in life, it’s all about your perspective. Expect a two year old to act like a two year old. Expect a two year old to develop at her own pace in her own time. Know what’s typical and adjust your care, adjust your expectations. Use developmental checklists to stay on top of what’s typical. And if there’s something a little different going on, seek help, seek resources, set up routines, model appropriate behavior, build that relationship. So important. [00:47:49]Couple, a couple of things towards the end here that I want to hit on lightly is mindfulness and modeling self care. Again, this think is a little bit more relevant even now with all of the additional stress we have going on globally and nationally, we need to build those muscles. We need to take that first step to take care of ourselves. Do mindfulness, do deep breathing. By focusing on being mentally and emotionally healthy ourselves we’re better able to work with our kids, to work with our families. If our stress level is through the roof, if we’re not eating well, if we’re not paying attention to how much caffeine we’re drinking, if we’re not getting physical exercise, we’re not going to be able to model that kind of healthy behavior for our kids. [00:48:39] So it’s very important to create your own routine. And the thing about these routines is it’s not about perfection, just like when you’re working with your kids, it’s about process, not perfection. It’s more about consistency than it is quantity of time. Some mornings you might only have three minutes to sit and take a deep breath and enjoy the fresh air and look at the sun before your chaos starts. And some mornings you might have 30 minutes, you can sit on your back deck. You can sit on your front porch, you can sit in your car and just get a little bit of fresh air, or a little bit of fresh, deep breath, and some ability to get perspective on what’s going on. [00:49:22] Okay. I said that Jerry Seinfeld was the last joke. I have another joke and I’m sorry about that. But Erma Bombeck famously said, when my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. And when they’re finished, I climb out. I don’t, I never actually sat in a playpen when my kids were running around the room, I’ve never actually been in a classroom where the provider was sitting in a playpen while the kids ran wild, but I can relate to the sentiment. I do remember, enjoying oing alone into the bathroom. When my children were young. I do remember occasionally, putting all three children in their car seat safely and driving through Dunkin Donuts so I could get an ice coffee and they could fall off into a nap because it had been a long day. [00:50:10]And I think all of us who are parents have similar stories. But that’s why it’s important to take care of ourselves mentally and emotionally and physically. There are a few things you can do with kids, to help them also to connect to some of these mindful behaviors. You can put, for example, to teach a child deep breathing, you can have them lying on their backs and put their favorite stuffed animal on their stomach. And ask them to rock that little animal to sleep with their gentle breaths. And it’s a good way to have your child practice deep breathing by having a beloved toy with them. [00:50:48] You could also with a child, maybe, it would need to be probably three or four or five year old child, you could give them a common object and have them hold it behind their back and ask them to notice and describe how it feels. It could be a toy, it could be a book. It could be a household implements, something like that. Another important thing, another good technique for helping a child to be mindful is when a child feels sad, you can ask them, where do you feel sad? In your eyes, in your throat, in your chest? Where is it that you hurt? And that helps them, just like you help them to label their emotions you help them to label the feelings in their body. When they’re having those big emotions and that can help them to cope. [00:51:37] The final slide is something that you can refer to later. It’s a simple grounding exercise, five, four, three, two, one. Many of you may be familiar with this. But this is something you can do for yourself. And you can adapt for your child to help you feel centered when the world feels a little bit chaotic. And you’ll get this as a copy of your slides. [00:51:59] That is my presentation. If you have any final questions, I know we’re getting close to the end of our time, because I know we’ll finish at noon, but if you have any questions, please feel free to put them in the question box and Stella will share those with us. [00:52:15]But I have very much appreciated your time. And, even though I wish I could see all your faces, like we would in a regular presentation, I very much appreciate your attention and I could tell that you were paying attention to your interaction in the question box. So thank you so much. If you have any questions, please share those. [00:52:37] Stella: Thank you [inaudible], so much Joanne, for some of the comments have just been thank you for your time, very informative. So we really, really appreciate it. And I love the interaction with everyone. I thought that was, that was great. [00:52:54] I do want everyone to know that, as I said earlier, you will get all of the handouts that I will be emailing to you, along with, some other links and information from our website. At the end, when you click out of the presentation today, you’ll be prompted to do an evaluation. If you could please take just a few minutes, and fill out that evaluation for us, it really helps us plan for future webinars. You will also be getting a copy of, we have just scheduled webinars through the month of July now and August. So we will be sending that flyer out, along with all of the handouts from today. [00:53:35] And we just thank you so much, Joanne, for being with us. Thank you everyone for participating. And we hope everyone has a great day. [00:53:46] Dr. Rojas: Thank you.