"We've gone down this path of expecting little humans to sit when they're not developmentally made to sit this long. Brains don't learn like this," says Prerna Richards, founder of Together We Grow.
In this episode, Prerna walks us through how to use developmentally appropriate practices to de-stress teachers and children. Prerna says early childhood education programs are seeing aggressive behaviors and shares how child care staff can use DAP to take the stress out of learning to create a better environment for children and themselves.
These tips include recognizing that attention-seeking behavior is a relationship-seeking need and how to move past just surviving.
To reach Prerna or learn more about her work, visit www.togetherwegrow.online and check out her YouTube channel for informative videos. You also can find her on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram!
"We've gone down this path of expecting little humans to sit when they're not developmentally made to sit this long. Brains don't learn like this," says Prerna Richards, founder of Together We Grow.
In this episode, Prerna walks us through how to use developmentally appropriate practices to de-stress teachers and children. Prerna says early childhood education programs are seeing aggressive behaviors and shares how child care staff can use DAP to take the stress out of learning to create a better environment for children and themselves.
These tips include recognizing that attention-seeking behavior is a relationship-seeking need and how to move past just surviving.
To reach Prerna or learn more about her work, visit www.togetherwegrow.online and check out her YouTube channel for informative videos. You also can find her on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram!
Welcome to the Childcare Business Podcast, brought to you by ProCare Solutions. This podcast is all about giving childcare , preschool, daycare, after school , and other early education professionals. A fun and upbeat way to learn about strategies and inspiration you can use to thrive. You'll hear from a variety of childcare thought leaders, including educators, owners, and industry experts on ways to innovate, to meet the needs of the children you serve. From practical tips for managing operations to uplifting stories of transformation and triumph, this podcast will be chock full of insights you can use to fully realize the potential of your childcare business. Let's jump in.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Childcare Business Podcast. And I know I say that intro every time, but , uh, you know, once again, excited about our guest today. And this is, I believe, a first on our podcast, a repeat , uh, guest. And so I'm excited to welcome back Preena Richards , uh, prea . I'm gonna actually give you a little opportunity to introduce yourself again to our audience. Uh, you know, I know that you're the CEO and founder of Together We Grow. You're extremely passionate about the ECE space and the work that you and your team are doing with, with providers and, and teachers and children across the country. Uh, I wanna welcome you back to the show and give you an opportunity to maybe reintroduce yourself to our audience. So, good morning.
Speaker 3:Good morning. Hi Ryan, and thank you for bringing me back. I didn't realize I was the first one to have a repeat , uh, visit on the podcast. How exciting is that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you feel that should make you feel really special. I mean, this is like an, an honor, and I could be wrong. We'll have to have our marketing team, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is at least one of very few repeat guests. So , um, we're excited.
Speaker 3:I am super excited and feeling quite honored and very loved and special right now. So thank you for that invite. Um, so a tiny bit about me. I won't bo too many , too much details about this, but a little bit about me. So I've been in the field of early childhood for 38 years. Love it, love it, love it. Absolutely. Super passionate about it. And , um, you are right. About six years ago, I started my own business called Together We Grow And Together We Grow, provides three services, professional development , um, behavior coaching, and any YC consulting. Um, but my, my PD space is, is a very niche space. I'd like to talk about the brain, the behaviors, play, challenging behaviors, trauma, social, emotional learning, team building. That's, that's my jam. That's what I wanna talk about and make a difference , um, in that space. Also, I'm a behavior coach, so I have a coaching membership online, but I also coach in person . And then of course, you know, programs that want to go for high quality and development appropriate practices, which happens to be our topic today.
Speaker 2:It is our topic today. And you come to this, to this role, to this industry, to the business that you started six years ago , um, from where, walk us through and just for our audience, for those of you who might not remember, if you wanna go back and listen to episode 19, back in November of 2021, we had PREA on the show and talked a little bit about her background, which it actually PREA is really interesting. I know we dove into a little bit about, you know, your early years growing up in India. Your husband, I believe, from Scotland made a really big move to a different part of the world, also spent some time in Hawaii, which is where you were really exposed to , um, ECE and following in , falling in love with, with this work. Uh, anything else you would add about your background and how you got into the work that you do right now? Wow.
Speaker 3:Wow. Yeah . That's amazing. That's impressive because I don't know what I said yesterday. You remember what I said in 21 ? <laugh> <laugh> . I'm guessing you reheard it, but No, that is all true. We were in Hawaii and then we've been in Texas now for 25 plus years. Um, this really was not my plan. My, my education in India was in interior design, and then we had our daughters and we were in Scotland, and I wanted to be a big part of , uh, you know, their early childhood. And so this kind of found me. And so I would like to say that this was more of a divine plan than pre not plan. And I'm in this field knowing that now this is my calling and that this is where I'm supposed to make a difference in. And really, I think what happened is education in India is super dry, super boring, super non brain engaging. And so I hated education when I was growing up. It was so drill and kill and sit and get. But when I , of early childhood for my undergrad, I had found like, wow, I can't stop learning about the brain. I can't stop learning about the kids. Right? It's, it's just because the content and the delivery resonated with me coming from education background that I didn't like, get me out of here. I don't learn anything in school. <laugh>.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so you gravitated toward , and it's probably a good segue, you know, in terms of some of the content and what we want to talk about today. 'cause I, I, I know you've talked a lot about the importance of brain development in these first five years, and we talked about it the last time you were on the show. I think a lot of our audience is familiar with the , the importance of birth through five and the amount of brain development that goes into it. I believe last time we spoke, you had the quote that was 90% of of a child's brain is developed by the time they're five years old. And, and that, that kind of weaves in with the topic today of talking about developmentally appropriate practices. Can you define what that is and why you're passionate about it?
Speaker 3:That's a great place to start this conversation. Yes. So 90% of the brain development is happening, birth to five . And what does that mean if we just unpack this research, right? This research is coming out that the early years are impactful. They can absolutely lay the foundation for the rest of our life. So I like to think of it, what happens early in life lasts a lifetime. That's another way of thinking of 90% brain development. What happens early in life lasts a lifetime. If you are a grownup struggling with, you know, life issues and you're in therapy, my heart goes out to you because it , you know, and I'm grateful for therapists, don't get me wrong, but it's so much more expensive and harder to fix something than raise it right? And we can get away with what happens to us in our early years. It just becomes part of our life story, life history. And so keeping that in mind, the programs that we are serving through ProCare is exactly that space. Early childhood and developmentally appropriate practice has become like a hot potato right now. Some people love it, some people hate it. There's a new reaction to it. There's, people have an opinion about this. And so I wanna start off the conversation by explaining where I'm coming from and what I think of developing the appropriate practice means to me, developing the appropriate practice has two parts, as far as I'm concerned. It is age appropriate, but also it has to be individual appropriate. So what can that three-year-old do? But then what does this little human being in front of me, this little Sophie, this little Alex, what does that little human know and do and can , can show us? What , what do they need from us? So developmentally appropriate is just that, you know, NAYC , most of us are familiar with national association education of young children. This is the o this is the National Association in America, I do not believe is international yet, as far as I know, it's national. In America , they came up with this phrase developmentally appropriate and best practices. So I've been part of NAYC now for the past 30 years. And what I like about NCI is that it's based on research. So it's not just randomly somebody sitting in a room and just saying, Hmm , let's do this to children. You know, there's actual brain research going on. Their standards align with what's best for children. So NACI had this tagline, developing the appropriate practices are best practices. In 2021, they did a play summit, DAP Equity Summit, and maybe somebody in your audience was attending that. I had the pleasure of attending it. They have now changed the phrase. So instead of saying dap, I'm just gonna call it dap, but that's okay. Developing the appropriate practice is a mouthful.
Speaker 2:You get, you get to call it whatever you want. You're the star of the show. So I like it. We'll call it dap,
Speaker 3:Just call it dap, just to keep it tight, right? So they first said DAP was best practices. Now they're saying it's not best for everybody, so we gotta go with high quality. So DAP becomes high quality, but it's not one thing. It's a way of thinking. And we can unpack that more. So that's what it means to me, that it's age appropriate, it's individual appropriate. We are stretching the rubber band for children. We are not making it so challenging or so easy that they get frustrated or they get over challenged and give up it . It's meeting them where they're at.
Speaker 2:Do you , where did this, where did the focus on this come from? I'm curious. Meaning is it the research that you referenced earlier, is it actually looking at out elementary school and middle school, high school, even college, and then enter the workforce and doing studies and research about, you know, what their education or lack of education looked like from zero to five, and then trying to reverse engineer that? Or I'm curious, what type of research went into establishing these practices?
Speaker 3:Um , great question. Wonderful question. So I think it's a bit of both. So Head Start has done a lot of research. Uh , education agencies have done a lot of research. And NACI happens to be where the research birth to five , uh, birth to eight, NACI has extended it. Now birth to eight , um, is focused knowing that how can children be successful in elementary and beyond ? Which is your question, how did we end up here? And I think what ended up happening is they learned more about child growth and development, which of course, you know, our college courses and people learn this as a study and they get bachelor's and masters and PhDs in it. And what they're realizing is brain development, child growth and development has some components that sets you up for success. So, you know, head Start , I've worked with Head Start and their goal is to get families off of Head Start so that the cycle is not repeated for the next generation. And they rely heavily on the research that NACE is doing to say, how can we give all children the best start in life so that they break the cycle of poverty? Head Start is an amazing program. I'm so grateful it exists. But the point of that is to give you skills, life skills so that you can be successful and be thriving versus repeating the cycle of poverty that your previous generations had. Right? So to answer your question, yes, it was a combination of understanding child growth and brain development, understanding how some things that become part of who we are as part of brain development goes, sets up us for success. Like executive function skills, right? Executive function skills happen to be problem solving, critical thinking , um, creative thinking , uh, regulation, core regulat , these are life skills that we know we are gonna need.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. And I, that's what I was going to get to is, you know, at a macro level talking about what DAP is and the concept of it. But I think what would be helpful is just on a micro level , tactically in a classroom, what does that look like? Because you're talking about appropriate activities, it's developmentally appropriate for the age of the child and the individual. And I'm sure that's difficult if I'm a teacher that has a classroom with a range of , uh mm-hmm , <affirmative> , you know , maybe development levels, even personalities. And like you said, there's a lot of other factors outside of the classroom that impact that student. What's going on at home and what happened in their first three years of life. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> . So I guess my question is, if I'm a teacher, mm-hmm , <affirmative> , and you can take this wherever you wanna take it , uh, prea , but I would ask, what does it look like to practice DAP in my classroom? And what does it look like if I'm not maybe is a question that I have? What's the difference?
Speaker 3:Love it. Love it, love it. Let's go there. Let's give practical strategies. What does this theory look like now that we understand the importance of it? How do I show up and do this in my everyday classroom and everyday program? So two parts. One thing is to remember that DAP is not a specific activity because people ask me all the time, is this a DAP activity for infants and toddlers or preschool? So DAP is not an activity, DAP is a way of thinking. So my mindset changes when I look at developmentally appropriate from a child's perspective. So they, so we emphasize being responsive, responsive sounds and feels and looks different than being unresponsive. So responsive doesn't mean I'm on top of the kids hovering them. I'm right there. I'm not giving them space. Responsive means I am present, I'm being paying, I am paying attention to when the children need scaffolding and when do I need to back off. So DAP is a way of thinking. It's approaching teaching, recognizing brain development, recognizing that how does a child's brain get wired? How do the neurons make a connection? It has three components. So the two parts are be responsive and make it with equity. So before I go down the three parts to it, the mindset is I am being responsive, I'm being present, I'm being available, I am meeting the needs in the present moment. Equity means that I'm personalizing it. So with equity, the way I like to think of equity is it's a fertilizer. When we bring the angle of equity, it changes the way I'm going to personalize the teaching. That doesn't mean I have to have different lesson plans for my 14 children. What that means is that you can do this on your own and you need a little bit more time to explore it and understand it before you do it. So allowing them the space and doing it. And it doesn't mean that I have to create many different lesson plans. What it means is as I bring the appropriate practices to the classroom, so let's stick with a three year , 4-year-old classroom, preschool, pre-K classroom, just for our conversation's sake, right now, what we know about DAP is that we need to have these components in our, in our teaching strategy, something where the children have choices. So choices engages the brain, because I also like to say choices equals voices. How many opportunities are you giving children during the day to make a choice? Can they choose the toy? Can they choose the play? Can they choose the friend? Can they choose where to sit? Can they choose the song? Can they choose the book? Like the , these are areas I can give them choices that doesn't affect my lesson plan. I can weave that in, right? That's my way of thinking. I'm thinking in a way that I wanna give you a voice. So I'm gonna throughout my day, make you inclusive. So the teacher's not the sage on the stage, the teacher is part of the school family community. And it's an approach, it's a thinking. So choices, how many opportunities am I giving children to have choices? The second one is wonder and experience. How many ways am I going to bring something in my room that makes them have the sense of wonder that makes them have the sense of discovery that makes them want to experience and explore? Right? And the third part is, what am I doing in my classroom that is bringing joy and delight? Because we know the emotion of joy is the emotion of learning. When my brain is joyful, when my brain is excited, my brain is going to learn. Because that's when the brain neurons are just like, oh my God, tell me more . Oh my God, that's so cool, right? That brain gets excited for learning. So if I'm in my preschool classroom, surely I can include choice in my circle time. Surely I can include choice in my transitions. Surely I can u bring them choices in the type of movement they want to have. And the type of, I'll give you an example. Maybe examples are really helpful. I had a teacher who said to me, you know, my classroom is a hot mess and, and the behaviors are off the charts right now, which is not unusual. And she's a really good teacher. She really wants to do the right thing, but she just can't get through to the kids because she is, the behaviors are over here. And one of the things I said to her was this, for this week, I was coaching her and I said, for this week, your homework is to give them choices, as many choices as you can throughout the day. And she said , what does that mean? I said, every time you are gonna make a decision about reading a book, singing a song, doing anything, I want you to ask the kids what would you like to do? This one or this one, this one or this one. I just want you to start doing this. And she said, so I met her the week, the next week after, and I said, how is it going? And she said , Trina , my classroom is different. We've had no, no fighting, no crying, no pushbacks . And I said, what happened? What did you change? And she said, every day I would go to school and I would say, I have to give the children choices. That was my mantra for the day. And she said, every day I give , kept giving them little by little. And what I realized was I didn't realize how much control I was doing when I started releasing the choices. She had an aha moment that said, oh my God, I was so controlling. And guess what? The behaviors were coming because she was controlling.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I was just gonna ask you to elaborate on that, which is what you just did, which is, I, I think a lot of teachers likely are scared to allow that many choices because the fear of losing control, like it's gonna be chaos and kids are gonna be, you know, bouncing off the walls. But I think what I'm hearing you say is by providing opportunities for children to make choices, it's going to encourage and foster that environment where they're learning what they need to be learning.
Speaker 3:And also the brain is excited and they're having fun, right? So this teacher, she, the last day when I spoke to her, I just wanna finish her story because she gave me such a clear example. She said, I normally would not have brought out the rhythm sticks and the scarves, like the control goes to that level. She said, normally I would not have bought that out because the classroom would've become a chaotic hot mess and I would not have been able to deal with it. Because she had built the ramp of giving them choices on Friday. They said, can we have the scarves? And she said , sure, why not? She gave them clear guidelines. She said, don't throw, don't hit, don't scream. If any of this happens. We put the scarfs away. And I asked her , I said, what happened? She said, guess what? I didn't have to correct their behaviors. They were so happy, they were so excited, they were so enjoying it that we just went with the flow. And I am a different teacher now. I am going to seriously not be as controlling as I was before. But you know, you brought up something really important and I wanna go forward with that right now. Behaviors are off the charts. Stress is
Speaker 2:When , when you say, when you say off the charts, define what you mean by that. When you say behaviors are off the charts.
Speaker 3:Extreme, extreme aggression, extreme anger, extreme meltdowns, extreme pushbacks, defiance, rudeness, you name it, it's happening in our programs. The behaviors are off the charts, but also the stress is off the charts. And here's my analogy that I just literally came up with it this morning. It is that early childhood right now is in the emergency room. We have reached the emergency room. And as a behavior specialist, I'm getting called in, but our teachers are on the gurney, our children are on the gurney, and I'm expected to do triage. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . We are doing a triage. And you know, definition of triage is quick assessment. What do we need to do to help this situation, which is life and death. Early childhood right now is in the emergency room. The behaviors are telling us that the stress is way up there, which is really good job security as a behavior coach. But we cannot continue like this and we cannot raise the next generation with this much stress.
Speaker 2:Can I ask your opinion on why that's the case? You've been in the industry for a long time, and what I'm hearing you say is, when I walk into a classroom environment today, Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> , it's different than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago when I started. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . In your opinion and experience, why is that?
Speaker 3:I think it's a very societal thing that's happening right now. We're all living under a lot of divisions, stress, anxiety, reactions, and families are under more stress. Parents are more under distress . They don't have the time for the kids. The kids come to the program already not having their emotional needs met. And the the staff is the same reflection of what's happening because they're getting stressed out and they're going home. And so I have , um, this is my , uh, my taking, I had to write this down because I was just like, oh my God, this makes so much sense to me. So as a triage doctor, here's my thinking, here's the cause. T-C-C-L-I love acronyms, Ryan , I think you know this about me because that's the only way I can remember anything in my braint. CCL is the cause. This is my diagnosis that what is happening. The first one is there's triggered educators, I might even say adults in general, parents, teachers just triggered, just stressed out. The second thing that's happening for the sea is a lot of command and demand is happening. We are putting a lot of emphasis on compliance. And that shows up in SOS sit down, be obedient, and be silent. Mm . So, because we don't know what else to do, we are trying to control them. Right? And that becomes a third. The second C, the TCC. So the second C is controlling adults. It shows up in controlling play movement, toys. And it's not developmentally appropriate because their brain is not being engaged and they're reacting. And the last l, the TCCL is, this is leading to extremely frustrated children. So their behaviors are happening, which is challenging the grownups, right? It's all connected. You are trying to control me. You stressed out, you don't listen to me, you don't understand me. So I react. You react, we all react and the cycle continues. So this is my diagnose as the specialist. This is my diagnose why you're in the emergency, right? If you go to emergency, you're gonna have a doctor triage or cause Okay, what's the cause what's this , what's the remedy ? So here's my remedy. The remedy comes in. Well, D, SD right? Do something different. That's, that's like what's working, what we are doing right now, we gotta change. We got a D, s, D , right? That's the , that's where I'm starting this. And the solution is SEP,
Speaker 2:We are, we are gonna do acronyms today on, on every Totally . Totally . I like it. So we've got T, C , C , L . Yep . Then we need D, S , D . Yes . And now we're gonna SEP, let's hear. That's
Speaker 3:Explanation . That's your medicine. Okay . So I'm , I'm giving a medicine. So, but first, you know, before we, right, if you go to an emergency, the doctor's gonna diagnose what's the problem, right ? Before we get on the solution. That's the, so does does the cause make sense to you before I go forward with the solution? Does that cause make sense?
Speaker 2:It does make sense. And I think what I'm hearing you say also is the behaviors we see might be symptoms of what's actually happening deep within a child's brain or their emotion. And same thing when you go to a , you know, an er, they're gonna see your symptoms, but your issue isn't, you know, a a , a headache. There's something else going on that's causing that. And so it makes total sense.
Speaker 3:I you are spot on. Ryan. Behavior is a form of communication. What we are seeing on the outside, these extreme behaviors that we are seeing on the outside from the grownups and the children, let me just emphasize that behaviors are not just coming from the children. Behaviors are also coming from the grownups because they're controlling, because they want them to sit and listen and be obedient. And they don't give them the freedom because they're scared that they'll get the hot chaos. But there's backfiring. So, SEP, what does that stand for? Sort, emphasize and prioritize. So first of all, we have to sort out the brain states. And we have to understand that when I'm in my scared brain, the behavior looks different. When I'm in my emotional brain, the behavior looks different, then I need to figure out the responses. So we gotta sort out the brain states . We also gotta sort out what is triggering me. So for example, I can't stand it when kids don't listen. I have four grandchildren, but people not listening is a big trigger to me. Like, come on, I've already said it like five times, like, why do I have to repeat myself? But I've come up with a solution for that, right? I, I'm not telling them I'm feeling ignored. Ignoring is not a good emotion. So I gotta go with it. I gotta sort out my brain state that I'm getting emotional about it, I'm getting frustrated. Then I have to have a plan with my triggers. Also, recognizing that a lot of the behaviors that are happening are attention seeking . So when children's emotional brain is empty, when their buckets are empty, they're gonna act out. I was coaching a school yesterday and she said to me, she said, the teacher is so fed up and tired and exhausted, and she's checked out because the kids are hitting her, ignoring her, yelling at her. And she's just had it up to here. And so they were out in the playground and the boys in the pre-K classroom were peeing on
Speaker 2:Each other . Okay, sounds like a fun day.
Speaker 3:No, but this is like extreme attention seeking , right? These boys are so hungry for attention that they're willing to do that. They're four years old, they know better, but they're trying to get connected to somebody. I'm gonna do this. Even if you look at me, just call me. That's what I'm doing right now. I'm doing attention seeking to that level. Yeah. Does that make sense? We are in the emergency room doing stuff like this right now. We can't do this anymore. 90% of the brain is getting wired. We are wasting these years. And so that's the s we gotta sort out the brain, sort out the triggers. And then e is, we gotta emphasize on relationships. We gotta go back to the basics. We gotta commit, connect with our hearts. And it has to be a connection between the administrators, the coaches, the teachers, the children. We have got to understand each other from our heart connection, not the head connection. We gotta teach to the heart first before we teach to the head. And that's also D right? I'm individualizing it. Some days are learning days and some days are loving days. You just need to be hugged today. Okay? Forget that. And you know, when I was explaining earlier with making it choices and wonder and delight paper, like did sheets won't do that to the brain. That's just boring. You are wasting paper making hundreds of copies. It doesn't engage the brain, right? The sense of wonder has to come with what new thing do you have in my room? So I hope you're understanding that this is not a one and thing. It's a , it's a mindset. We look at the whole thing and then we connect with the children. And the piece stands for prioritizing connect before you Correct. Connect before you, correct. The more we connect with someone, the less we'll correct. So for example, what does that sound like, look like? If the , if these were preschool boys that I was dealing with and they were doing this behavior on the playground, instead of just correcting them and saying, stop doing that, and that's inappropriate. That's not what you do. This is not bathroom, blah, blah, blah. I would've gone up to them and said , what happened? How come you're doing that? What is this about? What's going on? What are you feeling? Right? So connect before you, correct. Sounds like ask and then tell. But we are so programmed to jumping into telling that we forget to ask. There's a reason why the kids are doing this. Ask them at two, they could tell you at three, they could tell you they know what's happening, but nobody's asking them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's interesting. You know, observations, because you obviously talk to a lot of teachers and, and when you talk about the behaviors that they're seeing in the classrooms with these students, the reality is the teachers also are dealing classroom that they're bringing into the classroom. And so I, I love what I'm hearing and, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, but a lot of what we need to do to help these kids and maybe change the narrative of what you just described, kids being in the er so to speak as an analogy, is we gotta help the teachers first and the teachers als need to understand what's happening in their classroom is a symptom. And we have to go tr treat the root cause, which is mm-hmm , <affirmative> the things that you're just talking about caring for that . I think
Speaker 3:We need to do a webinar on this because we , we can't just do it in a ta little nuggets on the top. Like, we gotta go deep with this content because I really feel this is, this is important. We can do better when we know better. But so many grownups don't know anything about the brain. I'm shocked, I'm surprised as I talk to teachers, they're like, I had no idea. I had no idea. I'm like, you need to know this. Yeah , you're developing the brain. How do you not know this? But you can't give what you don't have a stressed out teacher teaches stress. A joyful teacher teaches joy. We cannot do dap unless we are taking care of the grownups. The equity has to go with the grownups too. We're expecting teachers to do so much, but we are not giving them the tools of the brain development. We are not giving them the tools of social emotional , right? So how many of us know about the vocabulary of co-regulation and compliance and self-regulation? So many of us don't know about this. If the grownup is dysregulated, how are they gonna co-regulate the little humans?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes total sense. And is this getting back, I'm curious from your perspective, are the things that you're talking about now, the developmentally appropriate practices, the caring, the bringing joy into the classroom, bringing wonder, bringing choices. Is this new methodology or is this just getting back to the way it used to be? And we've kind of deviated over time and it's more of, hey, there's, this isn't new, this is just getting back to the core.
Speaker 3:This is it. We are doing basics. Yeah . We have gone down this path of pushing curriculum down, which is not appropriate. We've gone down this path of expecting little humans to sit when they're not developmentally made to sit this long. Brains don't learn like this. And this is the result why we are in the emergency right now. Because we have gone so far from what is how children learn. Children learn through play, children make sense of play, they make the world make sense through play. And we are shutting down play. We are controlling play, we are hijacking play. We are not allowing them the freedom to play. And normal. When you and I were growing up, I'm probably older than you, much older than you, but when we were growing up, we had unstructured playtime. That's when we were regulating our bodies. We were out in nature. Nature has a capacity to regulate us. Now. We are not now we've taken that away. And post covid , I hate to bring this word up, but post covid , we have not been able , some people have not been able to shake the effects of covid on their brains yet. And so we are living with the stress brain. We are living in the survival brain. And it shows up when we can't connect to the little humans. The little humans need connection and they're not getting it. So we act out the , you know, think about it. When you are three years old, you've been on this planet earth for a thousand days. In those thousand days, you have learned how to get your needs met appropriate, not appropriate, good, bad, doesn't matter. I need it, I'm gonna get it. But now we have a point . Now we've reached emergency, we gotta do the triage and we gotta turn this around . And the good news is, the schools that I've coached and I've helped, I have seen the staff changing. I have seen their mindsets changing. And even I was coaching a person the other day and she said, our school age room is so , uh, so stressful. There's a child who just comes in aggressive with an attitude. She doesn't know what to do, and the teacher just shuts down. She becomes reactive. And I said, what do you know about this child? She said, well, I don't know much, but what should I find out? And I said, go spend some time with this child and find out what this child likes to do and come to find out of the sports. And I said, your job is to connect with her every single time she comes. What's your favorite team? What , what sports do you like to do? Just that one-on-one, one-on-one. Just give her that attention. And she said, don't you think it's bad to give attention when they're doing negative behavior? And I said, yeah, but you also recognize that attention seeking is a relationship seeking need. Mm-Hmm . So give her the relationship and see if the behavior changes within a week. The child is not acting up anymore because she's feeling seen and heard and understood. And it wasn't a rocket science thing I said. So what I'm sharing today is not rocket science. You don't have to go by a new curriculum. You just have to become more human.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Which is amazing. Which is amazing principle that, you know , resonates I think with so much of our audience. I think when I hear you talk prea and I hear you kind of lay out some of these, you know what I would say, a lot of acronyms, a lot of modern, you know, kind of like what we're seeing in the classroom, but also just getting back to the basics of being a human being and actually having compassion and empathy and letting kids be kids. And I also think when I hear you talk, that that will end up also solving some of the other challenge we see in our industry, which is teachers burning out. Because if a classroom is not a place of, of joy, of wonder, of looking forward to showing up and seeing those kids every day , you're gonna burn out. And I think that's one of the, the symptoms that we're seeing in the industry right now.
Speaker 3:So , you know, the def Yeah. You know, the You're spot on. You're spot on. Right , exactly. That is, we just need to go back to basics, connections with the heart being human, being available, being compassionate, being understanding. We are not machines and we can become machines. But you know, the definition of burnout, you ,
Speaker 2:You <crosstalk> I dunno if I do, I don't , I don't think I do. Let's hear it. <laugh> .
Speaker 3:So , so this is my, my understanding of definition, I i i of burnout, I saw it somewhere . I'm just like, oh my god, that resonates with me. Burnout is when you put out more and what you get back is not in proportion. So that's what happens to a burnout. I'm putting out more and I'm not getting the return back. So if I'm putting out 120% and I only get 40% out back, I'm gonna probably get burnt out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You're not refueling your , you're , you're , you're gonna be empty and don't have anything more to give. And that's gonna create some of the challenges you're describing .
Speaker 3:So it could be, I put , I put 120 in my job. I don't get it back. I put it in my employees. I don't get it back. I do put it in my coworkers . I don't get it back. I put it for children. I don't get it back. Whatever is not coming back to you where you feel, where your brain feels I'm doing more than I'm getting back. That's when the burnout starts. And if you're not careful, the burnout leads to a full burn up . Like you would burn up . Like, you know, I'm traveling a lot for work right now , and I'm meeting so many Uber drivers and they used to be teachers.
Speaker 2:Wow .
Speaker 3:And they can't do it anymore. They , our , our industry has such a mass exit and they've gone to Ubering , uh, and this is what happened. They ended up in the emergency and they said, no more. I can't do this life anymore.
Speaker 2:And it becomes systematic too, because I also have a lot of friends that are educators in , in higher grades as well. Mm-Hmm . And I think there's a lot of these same issues because it starts at zero to five and these kids are struggling in the classroom, teachers are struggling, and then it just perpetuates itself. So it really does in a lot of ways start Yeah . With our industry. And, you know, our share ,
Speaker 3:We did a full circle. We just did a full circle. We were trying to figure out why it has to be early because we are laying the foundation. And really why I'm am really more concerned, and this analogy of the emergency is really resonating with my brain right now is because we can't fail the next generation. The children who are under five right now, think about it. In 20 years they'll be running this country. Yeah. They'll be in 2030 space. Uh , do they have the life skills? Do they have resiliency? Do they have persistence? Do they have grit? Do they have tenacity? Are they problem solving all children through developmentally appropriate play, learn these skills. But if I'm not allowing you to play, if I'm controlling play, and I control you where you can play, who you can play with, what you can move, I'm not giving you the opportunity to flex your muscles. So I won't have the skills.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then it's gonna just continue to follow you, you know, through life. That, that's one of the things that always strikes me, which I know it's true. And you talked about this even a few years ago, but how much of that brain development that happens by the time you go into kindergarten at five years old, 90%. And that can be an amazing thing because it , for a student or a child that grows up in a loving, nurturing environment that allows play, allows them to be them and encourages that, that can actually, you know, be the foundation that launches them into life. But you know, the opposite can happen too. And that's why you know, the work you're doing, and a lot of these topics are so important. How can people find you? I know we're gonna put this in the show notes, and I know that you're out , um, really being an evangelist, so to speak for this topic. And you know, you can influence and help so many people, but I also know there's other great , uh, you know, coaches and consultants that are doing some of this work as well. But for you personally, preena , how can our audience find you if they wanna learn more about some of these, these topics?
Speaker 3:Fabulous. So together we grow online is the website , um, on Instagram's , uh, Facebook, LinkedIn. I also have a YouTube channel together we grow 108, which has got five, seven minutes brain videos. But on my website, there's tons of, tons of resources you can download for free. I'm also offering a behavior intervention specialist certification. Now we are wrapping up the first cohort , uh, which finishes in beginning of June, but the second cohort will start in October because I want to really, what I've realized is that this methodology is working and it has transformed so many programs. So I wanna help more people become certified so they can help more teachers and , um, you know , um, we have to do this together. We, we cannot ignore where we are right now. We just can't turn our face the other way. We just can't.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm glad there's people like you that are, you know, fighting the good fight to go make an impact here. And I think if I heard you right on that behavioral training you were just talking about , that's more of train the trainer. So even though it's
Speaker 3:Training the coaches, it coaches , coaches, it's training the coaches , coaches , it's training the coaches. I , I have a hundred coaches right now in the first cohort. It just launched in May. I was blown away with the interest and there's a wait list already started for the next one. So I know there's a need and we are coaching the coaches who can then support the teachers because when we know better, we do better. And the coaching certification has got a foundational framework. It's all brain research, it's all based on best high quality practices, but it starts with us knowing our mind inside out. So you can't just fix the behavior outside. It has to change with inside out .
Speaker 2:Yeah. Super important topic, and I really appreciate you taking more time with us. I know you're extremely busy and , and in high demand. So the fact that you take time to be on our podcast, and I like your idea too about a webinar at some point. I think these are the things, you know, obviously from ProCare's perspective, we're so involved in the business side of ECE and obviously trying to enable our customers to be able to build and run sustainable businesses, but at the end of the day, the focus for everyone is these kids. Like the how do we put these kids in an environment that's gonna allow them to thrive? Because that whole full circle conversation that you brought up earlier about they're gonna move into the next grade and then into the workforce. And it's important that we, you know, all
Speaker 3:Support. So, so Ryan, you brought up something really important. ProCare is supporting early childhood in such an important way. And I appreciate you guys so much. You're doing an amazing, amazing work and you're such an amazing resource. And you said you're focused on business, but guess what? Every time you lose staff, that's your bottom line. That's your financial bottom line. And I don't know if people know this, but every time you lose a staff is 3,500 down the drain, you just lose 3,500 every single time you have a staff turnover because, you know, and it, it goes to everywhere. Dissatisfied staff that leads to children, the families, it's your business. You , you can't separate the two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's important. I like how you put an actual numeric value on the cost of turnover because, you know, you invest in training, you invest in recruiting, you find that teacher, that assistant teacher, that you know, employee, and then you have to start fresh. There's a huge impact to the business for sure. And and it impacts the kids too, because when there's constant turnover, those relationships that you talked about earlier are impacted. So I, I think you're right. It's all connected. Um, and I'll tell you what, I I really appreciate the conversation, prea , you're always , um, you know, full of great content ideas and, and experience. So , uh, if you guys are interested, anybody listening to this podcast, check out the show notes. You can find pre at the different places she indicated earlier. And , um, you know, maybe we will , uh, we'll see again in the future. prea , thanks again. Thank
Speaker 3:You Ryan, for this opportunity and thank you for creating a space where we can have this important conversation .
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Childcare Business Podcast. To get more insights on ways to succeed in your childcare business, make sure to hit subscribe in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. And if you want even more childcare , business tips, tricks, and strategies, head over to our resource center@procaresoftware.com. Until next time.