KindlED
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments. Powered by Prenda, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle curiosity, motivation, and well-being in young learners. Do you have a question, topic, or story you'd like to share with us? Get in touch at podcast@prenda.com.
KindlED
Season 1 Top 10 | #6 What’s the real goal? What’s your real role?
We're continuing summer break with #6 of our Top 10 Season 1 episodes.
What would it mean for your child to be described as resilient, empathetic, and self-assured? This episode offers you a roadmap to nurturing those very qualities.
Discover the transformative power of shifting from a carpenter to a gardener mentality, among other paradigm shifts, as Kaity and Adriane revisit our second episode. They explore the real goals and roles of adults in empowering young minds, offering reflective exercises and analogies to help listeners reframe their perceptions and create environments that "kindle."
Whether you're a parent, teacher, or coach, this episode is packed with actionable insights to support the young minds you're helping to shape.
Got a story to share or question you want us to answer? Send us a message!
About the podcast:
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.
Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.
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We're all ears! If you have a question or topic you'd love our hosts to tackle, please send it to podcast@prenda.com. Let's dive into the conversation together!
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Katie, we're back for another re-release and this one is in our number six spot and this is episode number two. It was the second one we recorded. What's the real goal? What is the real role? I loved that we had like scenarios that you could answer and really get to a place of oh, this is what the real goal is. What did you like about this episode?
Speaker 2:Yeah, episode two. I want to go back and re-watch this one too, because I feel like this should be a totally different Katie and Adrian on episode two, probably feeling very nervous. But the thing I like about this episode is that we talk about something called the three shifts and we talk about going from like a carpenter mentality to a gardener mentality, and then from a train conductor mentality to a travel agent mentality, and then shifting from a manager mentality to a consultant. I think those are the three shifts, right, and I think, like those, those things all line up with one of the three basic needs, like from self-determination theory.
Speaker 2:And I don't even think, when we recorded this, that I'd like really put that together yet and then, upon listening to it, I was like, recorded this, that I'd like really put that together, yet and then, upon listening to it, I was like, oh my gosh, they match. So it's really been kind of like a foundational idea this whole last year, as we've been trying to talk more and more about these ideas externally and help more and more people understand kind of why kids aren't thriving in traditional school and even in some homeschools or, you know, with family cultures the way that they are, or just so many different factors. So I think those things, the things we teach in this episode, are just really easy to hold on to and easy to remember and kind of to help in that reframing, because it's not easy, right Not?
Speaker 1:easy at all, especially if you were not raised in this way and the goal was compliance. Now we are realizing is the goal really compliance, and what does that lead to? So let's listen to it. Episode number two what's the real goal? What's your real role?
Speaker 2:Hi and welcome to the Kindle podcast where we dig into the art and science behind kindling the motivation, curiosity and mental wellbeing of the young humans in our lives.
Speaker 1:Together, we'll discover practical tools and strategies you can use to help kids unlock their full potential and become the strongest version of their future selves. Welcome, hi, katie. How's it going so?
Speaker 2:good, how are you?
Speaker 1:Good, so how's your week going?
Speaker 2:It has been good Some wild times at the Broadbent household.
Speaker 2:My 10-year-old has really been struggling in math and not just really struggling with math concepts but really struggling with himself and his perception of himself as a learner and that has been interesting but also like really difficult to watch and it's been like surprisingly emotionally difficult for me as a mom to watch him struggle.
Speaker 2:Well, I just I don't know Like I'm getting so triggered by his struggle, like I feel like we have built this whole family culture and Prenda around this idea of growth mindset and that it's okay to have make mistakes with mindset and that it's okay to have make mistakes. And it's just like how have you been kind of like bathing in this, like this, um, this culture, and you still have a lot of reservations about yourself as a learner and you don't want it to be, you don't want to be wrong because it makes you feel stupid. And he's actually started. He's usually such a positive kid and he's really started using some negative language about himself and I just when I grew up, like I was a very negative talker about myself and so I don't want him to feel those things and to hear him say that is very like I can feel like my chest getting tight and like I have to take some deep breaths, and I'm getting really emotionally worked up when I see this. And so what are some of the things?
Speaker 1:that he's saying.
Speaker 2:Like I can't learn anything, I'm stupid, I'm bad at math, just like a lot of that negative talk. And I have to stop him and say, like think about your words. Like you're teaching your brain what to think by choosing those thoughts and we need to be careful. Like let's use different language, let's say things like this is hard for me and that's okay. Like giving him some growth mindset affirmations and but it's it's like all of the work on it hasn't settled in yet and I can tell that he'll have these like little breakthrough moments.
Speaker 2:And I kind of had this conversation with him yesterday the weather's really beautiful here right now in Arizona and we were just outside in our backyard having a little sit down chat and he kind of opened up to me a little bit about some of his feelings and I was able to be really transparent with him as a parent to say here are my hopes for you as a person. That say, like here are my hopes for you as like a person that loves you and is raising you, like I don't want you to get stuck in these feelings, like because they're not helping you move past, they're not helping you progress, right. And so we just kind of had this really good conversation and I don't think our problems are over. I think later today, when I'm like, hey, how's math? Like he's still going to be grumbly.
Speaker 2:And you know, actually even even after this conversation, I was cooking and I'm like Everett, come help me do these. Like you know, I was tripling a recipe or something, so it was like adding fractions and stuff and that's what he's doing math. So I invited him to come help me and he was just, he was like did not want to do it at all. So it's just this, like you know, fits and starts, like I can see the understandings there. I'm aware in those moments when I'm feeling super like tense about it, that that is not maybe the right time to engage, because we're just I'm just going to transfer a lot of that.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's exactly what we're going to dive in today, so I'm so happy that you brought that story up and just made it real, because you know, the two of us listen and read all these things that we have all the head knowledge. But we're so human too. So, I can't wait yes, I cannot wait to dive in to just taking a bird's eye view and trying to really look at what the goal is here. What is the goal of our role as adults in our kids' lives?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, that's totally such a good question. I think that it's hard because life goes so fast, right? We're so distracted, there's so many things that we're paying attention to and it's really hard to just find some time to pause and reflect on what your real goal is and what your real role is. Right, and that even rhymes, so that's fantastic. I don't know why. I like the word rhyme so much. It's like something weird about my brain.
Speaker 1:But mnemonic, yeah, it helps, it stick, yeah, it does, it does.
Speaker 2:Okay. So what we'd like to do today is actually help you, our listeners, find this little bubble of time to reflect on what your real goal is, and this might be your goal as a parent, your goal as a classroom teacher, your goal as an administrator, your goal as a soccer coach any way that you interact with young kids. Anything that we're saying today, just totally take it and put it in your perspective and your situation. All right. So we're going to start this kind of reflective process. So, if you are listening, you might want to go grab a piece of paper and jot your thoughts down as we do this, and jot your thoughts down as we do this, and I would invite you to really take the next few minutes very seriously. The more you dig in here, the more transformative this whole Kindle process will be, and you are going to find such an amazing power in yourself to be consistent and steady and to really become the kind of person that all of the young people in your lives desperately need you to be.
Speaker 1:And if you don't have a piece of paper because you might be on a treadmill, you might be for a walk you'll pull your phone out and just open up notes. This is a really awesome exercise to really write it down and reflect exercise to really write it down and reflect.
Speaker 2:I love that. That's such a good idea. Okay, so whenever someone asks me in, like a weird thing to like close my eyes. I never do it, and then so I feel weird about everyone, like inviting everyone to close their eyes. But imagine with me, eyes open, eyes closed, do not close your eyes if you're driving or something.
Speaker 2:Imagine that it's like 30 years into the future or 20 years in the future and you are visiting. Could be your child, could be a student of yours, could be any child that is important in your life, and you're visiting them and you're walking up to their house they have their own adult life, right and you run into their neighbor and you say, hey, I'm so-and-so's mom or teacher or anything whatever you are to them and this neighbor says, oh wow, nice to meet you, I'm so happy that I get to live next door to whoever the child is. And then they're going to say some things to you and this is where you get to use your imagination. You're going to create this future, this goal, what this person is going to tell you about this child or this learner. They're going to say something like I'm so glad that I live next door to this person because they're always so. Then you're going to fill in some adjectives how would you want them to describe this child in their adult life? What are they like?
Speaker 2:So pause the video and think about that, if you want to, or you can just kind of keep listening. Then they say I can tell that your child really cares about. And then they're going to tell you what that child really cares about. And then they're going to tell you what that child really cares about. And then they're going to say I can always count on them to fill in the blank Okay, so adjectives, what they care and what they can be counted on for. Those are your three categories. And Adrienne and I, while you think about that, adrienne and I are just going to answer this for ourselves. And, adrienne, can you do it from the perspective of a parent and I'll do it from the perspective of an educator.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Okay. So if I complete that phrase, I would say this would be my son's neighbor. I would love for them to say so. I'm so glad I live next door to your son. He's always respectful, willing to help, he's kind, he's super fun to to and I can tell that he really cares about people. I can always count on him to be there for me if I need anything.
Speaker 2:I love that. Really cool adjectives. I love that you pulled out like responsibility and fun. Right, it wasn't just like he is a Nobel peace prize winner, or you know he right. It's like you really have to participate. He got straight A's in school, right, yeah, exactly, okay. So here's mine is from the perspective of an educator. I'm so glad that I live next door to your student. We'll call them Jake. They're always so interesting and compassionate and like.
Speaker 2:I guess this isn't really an adjective, but like that they're a very good listener and question asker. We need to invent adjectives that mean those things. I'll put that on my screen Curious, yeah, curious. But what I'm trying to get at is that, like when they talk to this neighbor maybe open-minded, maybe that's what I'm trying to get at is that like when they talk to this neighbor?
Speaker 1:maybe open-minded Maybe that's what I'm going for or inquisitive, yeah inquisitive, like they're really interested in that other person's perspective, right.
Speaker 2:Okay, so if we keep going, I can tell that they really care about their community and our country and about the work that they do every day. And the reason that I put that in there is because I think that as an educator, one of my main roles is to help equip them to be a successful, contributing member of society, and that's going to probably entail some sort of skill, and I want all of my students to have identified a skill, a way that they're going to participate in the world that is super meaningful to them, right? So that they're going to fall in love with a problem in the world and that they're going to dedicate their lives to increasing their skill and intellect and knowledge around that thing so that they can solve that problem in the world.
Speaker 1:Can you be my child educator? I love that so much. Oh, this reflective time is so good, so I hope that you took some time to fill that out and then we're going to move on to another exercise. So here's the next one. So think of a person in your life. This could be a teacher, a family member, an author, someone from history that has been the most positive or influential person in your life. Okay, you got that person in mind. This is the person who put you on the path towards where you are now as an adult. That's a good question who?
Speaker 1:Okay, so I have a few, yeah, I have a few that I can think of like immediately. And then we're going to ask how did this person make you feel and what did they do for you? So that feeling that as soon as I asked that question, you're going to have this feeling attached to that. So name of what that feeling is. You can even like hop over to another tab on your phone and look up a feelings wheel or something to to find a very specific feeling that comes to mind, and then you're going to try to focus so much on that feeling that you can actually feel it in your body. So connect where that feeling is. It could be in your chest, your arms, your hands, your face your legs.
Speaker 2:I love this invitation so much because it's it's incredibly important that we stop to feel our feelings and it's there's a few different reasons for this. But imagine you get like a cut on your finger and you're feeling pain. Right, that's information from your nervous system going to your brain that there's a problem and what your brain wants is for you to take care of that finger. It wants a bandaid, it wants you to know that there's something wrong down here and if you just ignore it, then it will get worse. Your body will turn up that pain, the pain signal, until you pay attention to it. And our feelings aren't the same way. And when we don't stop to feel our feelings and bring attention to them, it's kind of like we're telling our brain I know this feeling is it's like we're ignoring the information that we could be receiving fully. And then, when we feel it in our body, that's a way that we can let our brain knows that we've really internalized that there was some information there for us.
Speaker 1:And I know too they've shown like functional MRIs, where different parts of the brain literally light up when you're moving your body. So there's such a brain body connection that's really important, versus just saying, oh, I'm feeling this way, but to really feel in your body where that is super important, absolutely Okay. So do you have a person in mind, katie?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally do. Mine's an author, um, he wrote a book called man search for meaning. His name is Victor Frankel and he was a Holocaust survivor in his and he was also a psychologist. But in the book he talks about how, when he was in concentration camps, he really figured out how to hold onto hope and how to choose his attitude and his response, regardless of his situation. And I just remember reading this as like a 20 something year old and it was such a different message than I was getting anywhere else and it gave me this feeling of like profound responsibility and ownership for my own brain and my own feelings and my own thoughts and my own actions for my own brain and my own feelings and my own thoughts and my own actions. And so I guess I would label that as determined. I just felt this determination to be super responsible for my own perspective on my life, and when I feel that determination again, I really feel it in my chest and it's a very motivating kind of exciting feeling, like there's a lot of energy behind it.
Speaker 1:That's incredible. So I kept thinking of a few people and I feel like it was during like my middle school age. It was pretty pivotal time in my life and it's really a family. My best friend her name happened to be the same name that I have and we even spelled our names the same way and we were Adrian squared and her whole family just took us in and her sister was really impactful and influential because I wanted to be like her. She was just cool and creative and popular and just made me feel really special and her parents just had this incredible ability to help me feel included and part of their family, even though I wasn't born and raised in their family. So when I think of the feeling attached to that, I'm trying to think respected, probably, and thankful, extremely thankful that they allowed me into their home and into their family and a lot of their family values. I see that I carry them on as an adult today. Okay, no-transcript, and then we're going to come back to that feeling later.
Speaker 2:So now we're going to imagine someone in our life who has made you feel judged or criticized, not good enough. Anytime they walk into the room, you kind of or like you get a text from them. You kind of get a pit in your stomach. It's not a good feeling. Okay, and Adrian and I will just keep our people in our heads. We don't need to publicly identify who they are or anything but you can imagine someone um past or present and hold onto that kind of do the same thing.
Speaker 2:Bring some awareness to your body, really think about how this person affects you, take a picture with your mind camera of that feeling.
Speaker 2:You can label it Okay, put that on the shelf.
Speaker 2:And now we're going to juxtapose that by imagining that you're now at a party where you feel relaxed and calm, you're with all your favorite people. You're with all your favorite people, you're eating all your favorite food, you're laughing, you're bringing up funny memories, you love what you're wearing, you feel really confident and happy. And then suddenly the judgmental person that you just imagined a minute ago shows up to this party and I want you to feel the shift between the relaxed kind of comfortable feeling and then just the presence of that person, evoking that pit in your stomach kind of feeling. And it's interesting, if you can really do that in your mind how the environment you're still at the party, you're still with your friends, there's still all of those good things that one relationship being in that picture now really takes over how you're feeling in your body and it just shifts you into a different state and it just shifts you into a different state. So, adrienne, what's happening here when we go from this calm to this kind of more alerted or agitated, nervous state?
Speaker 1:Well, it shows how important it is for us to connect our feelings to our bodies, right? Because especially if you're really visualizing this and you could physically feel the shift in your body, that's good. That means you have aware, you have this mind body connection, which is what we want to get to. So what's basically happening is we have this beautiful thing called a nervous system and it runs all throughout our body. We have this vagus nerve that looks like a tree. It runs from our brainstem all the way down to extremities, to our heart, to all of the different organs in our body, and we have different pathways, I guess you can call them. So we have a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system, so our sympathetic is mobilized. That is the activate. That's what.
Speaker 1:If you feel this shift in your body and feel anxious or angry or more intense feeling, you're probably shifting into the sympathetic and we also have this parasympathetic, so that's the rest and digest system. So we're in the social engagement system, we're feeling good in our bodies, and then that person walks in and we shift. We shift into that sympathetic or we could shift into that freeze mode, but that is basically our stress response and that is our brain telling us, trying to keep us safe, and it's telling us, okay, we're in danger. And even though you may not even be in danger, that person may not even come over to you, may not talk to you, may not do anything, but your brain is telling you that you are in danger.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting and that's what our brains are designed to do, right. They're designed to protect us. They developed based on our need for survival, right. So if we, if we, encounter anything that is alarming to us, it's going to put us on the defensive right. And something that I think is not well known is that, like everyone's heard of fight or flight mode and usually the experiences or the examples that are used when we're talking about fight or flight is like if there's a mountain lion in the room or something really terrible happens to you.
Speaker 1:Right right, right.
Speaker 2:It's like this big thing, but actually they've shown that this stress response is activated, like a lot, by pretty subtle things, like you can. You can activate the stress response by just something being new or novel, if something's unpredictable, if you feel like you don't have control over something, or if your social competence is being called into question or you feel judged or like a relationship might be disconnected or someone might be mad at you, right, all of those things. It's not a saber-toothed lion, it's not like child abuse, it's not this extreme thing, but it is still triggering the same stress response which does a variety of things in our brains which we're going to talk about more later. We're not going to go into all the details now, but stay tuned for more information on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I did mention the word trauma, so I wanted to define that a little bit. So trauma really is just neurological stress. It is stress to the brain and the cortisol is produced and it inhibits your brain's ability to be able to regulate and access higher levels of brain development. So basically it's decreasing the internal safety. And so if you're constantly in this state of fight or flight or say that you're a parent and you have a toddler that has lots of tantrums, or you have a school-age child that you're homeschooling and they're not doing what you want, then you constantly are in this fight or flight or these power struggles with the child. You're getting stuck in that sympathetic nervous system and which can cause trauma to the brain.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, absolutely so. We need to just be more and more aware of our own kind of internal states if we're going to become a very effective role model or mentor or example, a support really to young people who don't have fully developed neurological systems and prefrontal cortex is prefrontal cortex eye, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure, I don't know, not like the prefrontal cortex, so funny, um, okay.
Speaker 2:So that was like a lot of like brain stuff we're going to dig into that. That was just kind of like a preview of all of this good learning we're going to dig into. But just the main take home is you have two systems a parasympathetic, which calms you down, and a sympathetic nervous system that activates you. And it doesn't take much to activate that stress response causing chemical changes in the brain that are really hard to work through.
Speaker 1:And what's incredible is all we need to have, the first stepping stone to help us with this regulation process and help our kids with this regulation process, is self-awareness, which is what you're doing right now, just learning about these things Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Okay. So we're ready for our last reflective practice, can't wait.
Speaker 2:Okay. So think about a time in your life when you loved learning, or a time that you felt like a really effective learner or really satisfied with your learning. So totally focus this next few minutes on learning education. It might not be in a formal setting, it might just be something informal, something that happened outside of school that was really effective. So find that memory in your mind and then you're going to ask yourself a few questions. What were the conditions that allowed that to happen? Okay, adrienne, do you have any thoughts about this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I always loved learning and I loved school. I was definitely a people pleaser teachers pets not to put labels on myself, but I really, really got a lot of attention and love and connection, and that is what I think is the big piece of why was it so effective and why was I so satisfied. Because I had these really incredible relationships not only with my teachers but also with my peers.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, so you felt like that was a really healthy environment for you.
Speaker 1:Yes, what about you? Do you have something in mind? Yeah, so I have Tell me your life what you love learning.
Speaker 2:Um, so I am not an artist by any means. Like my art skills, like we're capped in, like the third grade, I think. I don't think you can tell much of a difference. I mean, that's a very fixed mindset thing to say. I'll, maybe I'll. I'll reframe that to say I have not chosen to focus on developing my art skills since about third grade.
Speaker 1:I used to say the same thing. I used to say that my art skills stopped at fifth grade. So that's so funny. You said that Go ahead, sorry.
Speaker 2:So it's funny that, like this experience was in an art class and I had this teacher who was, just when he walked into the room, like you could just tell that he thought well of every single one of those kids in his class, like everyone was his favorite person. He was so kind and you could just tell that he trusted everyone to be on just to do their best right and to be on their best behavior. He gave us a ton of autonomy. Do you want to sit on that desk? Yeah, I'm going to sit on the desk. Okay, here you know, if you're like handling yourself well, if you're showing me that you can handle that level of autonomy, like why not?
Speaker 2:You know, maybe it came kind of with the territory of being an art teacher, being really comfortable with creativity and, you know, having more than one right way to be, but I just felt like his confidence in everyone made it. So I felt confident in myself and in art I did not feel confident in myself at all. So having that um as a support, as a mentor, like really helped me instead of like in in a normal art class. Without that I would have just been like, oh, I'm not even going to try. I can't even put pencil to paper, you know, but he always saw the good in what I was doing, even though clearly it probably was not very good. Um, he was so encouraging and that, um, that just really helped me have a good experience in that class and I was able to kind of take that into other, um, other areas of my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that reminds me what is that book about the dot. The dot and the new.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's called the dot, like you draw a dot and then it kind of like expands yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it reminds me of that, though, like how you can start out, cause you said, even though my work wasn't great, but to him it was, because that's what art is Right, right, that's super powerful in an art class where there weren't really strict regulations or standards.
Speaker 2:That had to be. It wasn't like math or reading. There was no standardized test for art Because of the environment around. Art allowed him to say yes, that's great, and not sit there and say, actually, your line needs to be like this in order to hit the standard Right, because there is that flexibility, and so I think that's part of what enabled that learning experience to be so healthy for me.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if this is for you, but I'm brought back to our classes and we didn't even have like desks. And we didn't even have like desks. I mean, we did have chairs, but it's big tables and natural light and just the environment of the art room was very different than the traditional classroom as well. I know that's not for everyone, but for me I was like oh yeah, I definitely have some incredible learning experiences in art class because of the physical environment as well.
Speaker 2:So, if you're listening to this, your example and the conditions that enabled your learning are going to be totally different, and the goal here is just to kind of collect these conditions so that we can, when we move forward to choosing a school for our child or creating a homeschool plan or organizing a culture in a classroom, where we can kind of have these conditions at the ready. So, whatever we create, we can check against these conditions that we know to be effective. Okay, so we've spent some good time reflecting on these buckets of feelings and thoughts and memories, and so I'm going to just kind of sum that up for us. So right now, we should have a picture of the kind of person we want the young people in our lives to become. We should have a picture of who you want to be and who you don't want to be. Right, you want to be a person that helps encourage kids to stay in their parasympathetic nervous system and not cause that stress response, and we're going to talk about that so much more later, but that's just something we kind of touched on today. And then the conditions which supported you in your most successful learning experience. So the reason that we did all of this again is to help us reset our sights. Our goal it's so easy to think my role as a parent is to make sure that my kids get into college or that they bring home straight A's or that they, you know, become a classical music aficionado or pianist or something like that. We get really focused on our role as kind of an enforcer right. And we do that out of love, we do that out of good intention, because we want our kids to be successful. But without kind of stepping back and really evaluating what successful looks like, we're going to end up making some decisions here in the short term that might not actually support that end goal. So you heard Adrian and I kind of joking about how the neighbor is not going to say that they always got straight A's right or I really like that your son went to Yale or anything like that. They're really going to be focused on who that person is.
Speaker 2:So just even going back to the story about my son, when I am getting so worried about his fourth grade math performance and I'm feeling this I'm definitely in my sympathetic nervous system right. I'm agitated, my chest is tight, I'm feeling very concerned that I can think wait, I have this vision and I have this picture of what success looks like. And it does not actually require him, as a 10 year old, to have all of his math facts memorized. Now, right, if that happened in six months or in a year? Like we haven't let go of that future vision? Right, that future vision is not in danger and that helps me, as a parent, calm my nervous system down and to be able to interact with him in a way that more closely approximates the way that my art teacher interacted with me. Right, with a deep sense of confidence and encouragement instead of scarcity or fear. Right, he didn't.
Speaker 2:My art teacher was never saying oh, you know, I'm really worried, you're not going to get this shading technique down by third quarter and we've really got to make sure you have that skill or else you'll never develop it in your life. And I'm very concerned, right, that would feel weird if an art teacher came to you and said that, but that's essentially what we're doing to a lot of kids. We're really worried that you don't have this skill, because we really need you to do X, y and Z in the future. And we feel like, if you don't hit this now, that that's at risk.
Speaker 2:And that puts us into this cycle, this nervous system cycle, where we're stressed, our stress response is activated, that activates the child's stress response, and we just kind of go around and around in these yucky circles that disconnect us and don't make it possible for us to provide the learning conditions that we've identified as beneficial. So all of these things, all of these little pictures that we've identified, kind of collapse in on each other into this big environment. Really that's full of requirements. What are the requirements for learning? What are the methods for learning? What are the expectations? What is the relationship that I'm bringing into this environment? And if we think about all those things intentionally, the likelihood that we'll be able to create empowering learning environments and I'm going to include relationships in that word environment goes way high, right, it gets way better if we're coming at this from a powerful encouraging way.
Speaker 1:So it's basically to help the young people in our life become who we described, you know, in question number one, and so we need to stop and go. Okay, how do we do this? Most likely, we need to create the same conditions, environment and culture that helped us become who we are like in question two, or who we want to be, and that means that you need to become the kind of person that inspired you or changed your life trajectory, because you can do that for the children in your life.
Speaker 2:Totally. And something that's important to note here is that if these exercises were really hard for you, if you don't have a person right, If you didn't have a successful, motivating, encouraging learning experience anywhere, think about what you would have wanted. What did you want the adults in your life to be for you? What kind of a learning experience would have helped you? And you can just create that in the theoretical.
Speaker 1:That's really good. You can use that as a guide, definitely.
Speaker 2:So what do you think? I mean we've kind of touched on this, but Adrienne, what do you think? I mean we've kind of touched on this, but adrian, what do you think is really getting in our way? What's stopping us from creating these relationships and environments?
Speaker 1:I don't think it's just one thing. Obviously it's going to be different for each unique person, but honestly, I really think it's ignorance, not being aware of these types of things or being aware that we're treating kids in these ways that we wouldn't want to be treated. Fear, comparison to others.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, social media is the best place to go whenever you want to feel good about yourself. Expectations there's this expectation gap of not realizing that kids are not little adults and they don't have little adult brains, but they are growing and learning as they become older, and societal norms I think is a really big part of that too is just culturally, because if you go into some of these other cultures and I recently read a book about hunting and gathering cultures it's incredible because a lot of these things that we're talking about and we want to get to, they're just baked into their cultures already and so somewhere along the lines I don't know if it's industrialism or what somewhere along the lines in our society we've kind of gotten away from these environments and relationships that really step into this new role of being an inspiring, caring relationship.
Speaker 2:Because, like you think about a teacher, teachers have curriculum schedules and they have to do grades and their standards and they have to stick to all this stuff, which makes it almost impossible to step in, unless you're an art teacher maybe.
Speaker 2:Um, to step in and really be this, it seems like becoming this person has it requires a little bit of flexibility, right? Because if you are not fitting into the box, what you need is someone to say and that's okay, and here's how we can move you forward, and that path might look different, but that's really hard to do within our traditional education system currently. And then I think about this from the parental standpoint and, again, like parents are very focused on you have to be kind of where you feel like you have to be. There's this pressure to feel like you have to make sure your kids are getting good grades and that they're getting into college and that you're keeping them safe physically, and that makes it hard to be a person who is able to give more autonomy and to design help to help learners develop more than one path. It's like it's just the definition of the hat that we all wear is not actually getting us to the goal that I think most of us just defined in those exercises.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it really boils down to this need to have control, to not realizing where that's coming from, and that's coming from a state of internal unsafety or not feeling safe in your brain.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, adrienne, what are some helpful frameworks that we can give to listeners to help make the shift between, like this, more control based role towards a more support, mentorship, relationship driven role?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's some really great analogies that hone in on this so that you can really understand what we're talking about here. So the first one is a gardener versus the carpenter. So think of a carpenter. The carpenter has all of its tools and supplies and they're trying to frame this house to look a very specific way, and so a carpenter parent thinks that a child can be molded right, and then we have the gardener. The gardener plants the seeds and gives the soil nutrients and waters the seeds and really just helps them grow to whatever that flower is going to look like or that vegetable or whatever you're growing. So the gardener is less concerned about who the child will become and instead provides a protected space to really explore within boundaries. Because I think sometimes when people hear about this role as a parent, oh do I just let my child do whatever they want, or giving them autonomy?
Speaker 1:No, there's still boundaries in place. There's still a framework. One of my favorite analogies is kind of going off a little bit, but is think of a puzzle. When you start a puzzle, you usually start with the edges right and do all the flat sides and then inside. Sometimes you'll put all the pieces around and just start like putting the pieces together. So it's the same kind of concept is we want to put that border around, but then the children, the kids in our lives, get to move those pieces around um inside and and make their own choices and their decisions of what their path is going to look like.
Speaker 2:Yes, to add to that, if you think about a different kind of seed, the gardener doesn't get to decide what the plant grows, right? You plant a tomato seed, that's going to become a tomato. If you plant an orange tree, it's going to become an orange. The amazing work that happens to take that seed from seed to fruit. The gardener's really just providing that environment. But depending on what the seed is, it might need more support, right? If you think about a pea seed that needs to grow on a lattice to be successful, the gardener's going to provide that lattice, that structure, in order for that seed, that specific seed, to be able to flourish. Does that mean that every seed in the garden needs a lattice? No, right, it depends on that individual, what they need, and so the gardener's there to really hone in on what that individual seed needs.
Speaker 2:And when you think of the carpenter, it's like the carpenter is deciding what the thing is going to become. It's a house, it's a table, it's a chair. The wood that they're carving something out of doesn't have any choices. There's no life in it, right? So I love this analogy because there is life in our kids, there's life in our students. They have a unique individual passions that are going to drive them throughout their life, and it's really on us to create that environment for them to grow into that, rather than to define it for them.
Speaker 1:Yes, so can you think of any other frameworks?
Speaker 2:Yes, Okay. So this is one of my favorite ones. Think of yourself going from being like a train conductor keeping everybody on track and making sure we're hitting all of this, the right schedules to being a tour guide. Right? If you're a tour guide, you have a client and they are wanting to go a specific place and your job is to help them get there. And that might look different for every one of your clients, right? You're not going to put them all on a train. You're not going to put them all on an airplane. Some of them are going to take boats, Some of them are going to walk, Some of them you're going to be renting mopeds for them. Right? The way to get there and the way they want to experience that learning is. There's a high degree of variability and your job is not to make everyone the same. Your job is to help everyone get where they need to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. It's just kind of like the consultant versus the manager too. I really liked that one.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, talk about that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know the manager is responsible for controlling the activities, dealings and all that they're doing for that other person, but consultant provides expert advice and guidance. So, yes, we're still there to support our childs, but we're also helping them increase their stress tolerance by giving them the space to be able, going back to the gardening, like to bloom and to be able to be who they want to be and who they are created to be, and it really helps us help them access their full potential. That's what all of this is about.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely so. Speaking of the consultant role, that idea comes from a book called the Self-Driven Child and, spoiler alert we will be interviewing the authors of the Self-Driven Child in a coming episode. So exciting. We're really excited to learn from them. That book is like my favorite.
Speaker 1:Yes, super excited to have them on and they actually play a pretty big role in how and why my kids are educated the way they are now.
Speaker 1:So, okay, so we're going to wrap up today. We covered so much and went really deep. I would encourage you to go back, re-listen to the prompts, write them down if you didn't have a chance to, or stepping back and just looking at our role in our children's lives. Now it's time for our question segment. So we had a listener write in this question. This is from Becky. It seems like it takes my daughter forever to do a day's assignment. She takes many brain breaks. How can I motivate her to go along and get it done?
Speaker 2:situation, and so I think that, no matter where you are, you're going to be able to learn from Becky's question here. So the first thing I do whenever I'm in a situation like this is, just like we practiced today I'm going to turn inward and really focus on how I'm feeling in my body, Right? So if, if this situation and Becky, it's tricky because you're not here If you were here, we'd really dig into how you're feeling, like your authentic feelings. So we have to kind of invent how you might be feeling. So we might be wrong, but if I was in this situation or something similar, I would probably feel a little frustrated, a little impatient. I could feel myself getting like a little just to the end of my rope.
Speaker 2:I'll say and so I can feel that in my body and in this moment, when I'm sitting there and I can see that she's taking more brain breaks or she's not getting something done, and I feel like I just wish this, could you know, we could just get this over with. I'm going to just stop and feel that in my body and I'm actually I like to do something where I thank my nervous system for helping protect me. So if I'm feeling frustrated or impatient. I'm going to focus on that feeling. I'm going to find it in my body, I'm going to take some deep breaths and I'm going to say thanks for helping me stay safe. Thanks frustration, Thanks impatience. I see that you're trying to protect me and just doing that is going to help me get out of my sympathetic nervous system back into a calm state where I can interact with my child in a way that's not going to trigger their stress response. So it always starts with you. What would you do next?
Speaker 1:Adrienne, yes, yeah. So what I would do next? So find that calm in your body, and if you can't, maybe don't do it right away. Just take a little time, give yourself the time. And a really great way to find calm in your body, too, is to move it. As we were saying, movement really sparks and lights up different parts of the brain, and then we can access our frontal lobe and really start asking these reflective questions and ask yourself how am I seeing my child? What am I believing about my child in this moment? Because your interpretation of events basically cause your feelings.
Speaker 1:And so another example, if I like, apply this to my child. I do him, educate him. We use private teachers, but sometimes I get to be the teacher, to be the winner, and same thing happens He'll just walk away, just walk right away from the table. So I start to feel it in my body. Okay, this is feeling anxious. Why am I anxious? Because I'm working and I only have so much time and I can't sit here all day long while he takes all these brain breaks, and I start to realize all these thoughts and things that I have and I start believing these things about him. Oh, he is.
Speaker 2:I try not to apply labels, but I'm sure somewhere deep in my subconscious, If you're not managing this, you're definitely going to be like oh, you're disrespectful, like I can't believe you did that or I can't believe you know. There's going to be a lot of labeling that comes up that may or may not be true and may or may not be helpful.
Speaker 1:Right, like manipulative or whatever these other mindsets about my child that have probably been developed from childhood or other situations in my life that I start feeling and believing about him. So I just stop and go. Okay, what am I believing about him in this moment? And then you want to get to a place where you just feel neutral. So I then will. If I cannot get myself to calm down, I will take deep breaths, I'll go over to the sink, I'll try to trigger that vagus nerve you know, get into that sympathetic. I'll put cold water on my hands or I will involve him as well. We'll grab a ball and we'll just throw it at each other. I take the brain breaks with him and then we can co-regulate our nervous systems together, and sometimes that's all it takes to get them back to the table. So just having this awareness and thoughts, being aware of what I'm thinking about and believing about him in that situation, helps me regulate.
Speaker 2:So much I love that.
Speaker 2:And just to add quickly when kids are in this kind of distracted state, one of the main functions of your prefrontal cortex which is the front part of your brain here, the part your thinking brain, the part that the part of your brain that actually enables you to pay attention and to stay goal directed that it's become disconnected and so perhaps something in the course of your day has caused that a little bit of disconnection.
Speaker 2:And so taking that brain break with your child and really focusing on connection can actually help reconnect their brain to the prefrontal cortex. It's going to help them stay engaged and focused. And sometimes when our kids are avoiding things, it's they're really looking for connection and maybe there's something that she's getting out. Maybe she's getting a little connection from you when you are redirecting her and trying to help her stay focused. And so if instead we just took that brain break and dove really deep into the connection, the brain's need for that would be satiated and we could prolong that focus a lot more yeah, and I definitely see that, and also because my child is gifted in neurodivergent.
Speaker 1:he has asynchronous development in the brain, so there's parts of his brain that are way more developed than other kids his age, and then there's parts of his brain that are underdeveloped, so executive function is one of those. So just being mindful of your individual child's unique development, not just based on what other kids her age could be or should be doing at that time.
Speaker 2:Right, we get into those like you should be able to traps when clearly like the behavior is demonstrating the development. So if she's needing all of these brain breaks, that's not necessarily a problem. She's just showing you where she's at developmentally and the right thing to do there is to, instead of kind of sitting in judgment or saying like this is a problem, we can just accept that, that that's where we're at on the journey and that's the and that's really hard to do.
Speaker 1:It's really hard to get to that acceptance. Yes, it's totally and you might even be feeling, as we're saying that, like just as Katie was saying that, I was thinking, but what if I don't want to accept? But this is part of a journey, you know, it takes a while to get to that point.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely Okay. So the next thing so we've done how am I doing inside with my nervous system? And then the second thing we're going to look at is how, um, how you're seeing your child. That's the second step. And then the third question you're going to ask yourself is what is my child needing, right? So, going back to our analogies, our gardening analogies, if you are a gardener and you walk by a plant and you see that its leaves are yellowed or like crunchy, you're not going to get mad at the plant, right, you don't label the plant as lazy or making your life difficult or anything like that. We just don't do that with plants, right, but we do do that with our kids, interestingly enough. So, realizing that all behavior and all behavior is information, so get curious about why she needs these brain breaks and trying to figure out what is the root cause of that behavior, what is being communicated, that's kind of the third step to this process. Anything to add there, adrienne?
Speaker 1:An analogy that I use in my parent coaching is root to bloom. So think about those roots beneath the surface, and what are they needing in order for the flower to be able to bloom. So, figuring out what's happening beneath the surface. I was just talking to a mom this morning, though, and she's very insightful, knows that she wants to figure out what's happening beneath the surface. She's not just trying to stop the behaviors, but she's just like I can't figure out what is happening, but she's just like I can't figure out what is happening. So, maybe just trying to have some conversations whenever the child is calm and has that social engagement system that we talked about, that's online and, just, you know, asking questions, when you can do it through play you can do it with stuffed animals, uh, role playing and just really try to get to the root cause of those behaviors. So then you can water that soil and give the soil the nutrients that it needs in order to bloom.
Speaker 2:I love that. Okay, so the fourth step in this process is something we call collaborative problem solving. So it would be easy to kind of draw a lot of conclusions based on what we're seeing, but we really want to engage the child in solving this problem. So this framework comes from a book called Raising Human Beings. It's by Ross Green. Highly recommend it If I were going to.
Speaker 2:If I get to my calm, neutral state and I'm seeing my child with curiosity and I've like kind of worked through those labels and I've done some time thinking about what the root cause might be. You know I have some ideas, but now we're going to go check that. Those are kind of hypothesis hypotheses and we're going to go check those now with the child. So I would say something like hey, child, I noticed that that's like your intro phrase, it's not judgmental, it's curious and it's very neutral. So I noticed that when we're working you're taking a lot of brain breaks and it's taking us a long time to get through our work. What's going on for you is your next question. So I noticed that describe what you're seeing in a nonjudgmental way and then what's going on for you? Right, invite them to tell you oh, I need those brain breaks because I just feel you know they're going to give you all of this information about what's going on with them and if they're little, if they're really little, you can give them some ideas and they can pick one.
Speaker 1:Essentially, you like turn it into a multiple choice instead of and what we do sometimes is we'll grab the whiteboard and just pull that out and they'll throw out ideas and I just jot them down on the whiteboard and if it is a younger child you could always do pictures or something like that, so they can still feel in control of those choices and options.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. So, after they've kind of expressed their needs, you're going to share your own needs, like, oh, that is, thank you for sharing that with me. That's really helpful for me to know. Here's the thing I only have. Like, going back to Adrian's example, I only have this hour to be with you because I have these other things to do or whatever your whatever your need is, why is it that you can't take all day to do the work? Or it could be something super positive, like I want to go play and I so I would like to get the work done. Like how can we make a plan together to get both of our needs met? Right, they have these needs that they've just described. You have a valid adult need or kind of a constraint or something that needs to happen, and both of these things are very valid. Everybody has needs and everyone's needs are valid and important.
Speaker 2:And when we come at situations in a more judgmental way, what we're essentially saying is my adult need trumps your kid need and that's not empowering to the child. It's almost like it's disrespectful, honestly. Like you would never do that to like your best friend, right, you would always want both sides of the conversation or like both people's perspectives on the table. So we try to do that with kids, even if they're little. It's just the most respectful thing you can do, which is really hard because as an adult it's really easy to do that you do control the schedule, you control all the things, and there are lots of things that we can do to motivate or control or like subtly manipulate kids to doing what we want, because we're bigger than them and we control everything. Right, and it's just. It's so.
Speaker 1:We may have been manipulated in this way as a child.
Speaker 2:Yes so, but how powerful to the child to know, like, wow, my, my parent or my teacher is really interested in what's going on for me and they want to listen to me and they want to understand me right, and then I'm going to be a powerful part of this plan to solve this problem in our community or in our family, and that's super empowering for them. So you make a plan and then, as part of that plan, you're going to make a plan to check in on the plan. It's like a meta plan. It's like, okay, this is our plan and how will we know if it's working right? Well, we're going to have this little conversation in a week to see if it's going well, and if it's not going well, you can make a new plan. And it's just kind of this continuous collaborative problem solving process that is is respectful and engaging and empowering to everyone.
Speaker 1:Yes, and both of your needs are met. That is really empowering, and then we can stay out of that sympathetic nervous system that we keep talking about. Another really practical tip or tool is tap into play. That's always my tool that I pull out of my toolbox is play, and depending on the age.
Speaker 1:I mean just recently I couldn't get my six-year-old into the bath and so I started speaking in this scientist voice and really tapping into this playful character and saying funny things and things that mom wouldn't normally say, and my 13-year-old 13, he even was so excited and he was kind of like getting into it too. So play really can work for all ages, especially if it becomes a norm in your, your family. So if she's starting to get to the point where she doesn't want to do the work anymore, or maybe your brain's just getting tired because our brains can get tired every like 18 to 20 some minutes that we really should be taking breaks, it's just our culture that's not something that we typically do, especially in the American culture is take these breaks and give her and listen to our brains and our bodies so we can tap into play Even when you're doing the lessons that can make it more fun and really help strengthen that connection and that bond that you have as well.
Speaker 2:I love it? Yep, okay. Well, thanks for that question, becky. We hope that we were helpful. That love it? Yep, okay. Well, thanks for that question, Becky. We hope that we were helpful.
Speaker 1:That's it for today. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Kindle podcast. If this episode was helpful to you, please like, subscribe and follow us on social at Prenda Learn. If you have a question that you would like to ask us, we will address it on the podcast. All you need to do is email us at podcast at prendacom. You can also join our Facebook group called the Kindled Collective and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, the Sunday.
Speaker 2:Spark. The Kindle podcast is brought to you by Prenda. Prenda makes it easy for you to start and run an amazing micro school based on all of the ideas that we talk about here on the Kindled podcast. If you want more information about becoming a Prenda guide, just go to Prandacom. Thanks for listening and remember to keep kindling.
