“I’ve tried lectures, reasoning, and cajoling but my child still doesn’t listen to me. There must be a better way!” Based on the wisdom from the famous book by Elaine Mazlish and Adele Faber, preschool teacher Kellie Anderson offers practical, effective techniques for helping children deal with their feelings, while engaging cooperation and encouraging autonomy.

Well, you guys, I'm so excited again that you are here.

We love just being able to give you tools for parenting.

It's a big job, and I know everyone in here can probably use just great new advice on how to talk so your kids will listen, and listen so your kids will talk.

So Kelly has been at the school for a while now.

She's both a parent at the school, and she has 6 kids, and now 5 grandkids.

She also has been, was the very first preschool teacher that we had at our school.

We started with 1 class and she was that first classroom teacher.

And so we were super excited about having Kelly on staff.

I had the privilege of teaching 1 of Kelly's daughters in first grade a long time ago, so that's really special to me too.

And I realized I didn't introduce myself, but my name is Rachel Urban, and I'm the division head here at the preschool, and I've gotten the opportunity to teach here.

I've taught sixth grade and first grade and I've taught in her preschool as well.

And so worn lots of different hats at our school and I have 2 kids at the school as well.

So without further ado though, we'll introduce Kelly Anderson, yay.

I joked with Kelly before she came up here, I was like, Kelly, we need to have confetti or have you run through a piece of paper, but we decided to tone it down for you, just a little bit.

I know my daughter, whom Rachel taught in first grade, is now

I, I usually do this when we, we've done this in the past as like a seminar and it's like a 45 minute breakout session.

And then last year they changed it to half an hour I think.

And so I'm used to just like going through this really quickly.

But I'm just going to take my time today because we have a little bit more time.

It'll also, am I standing in the wrong place?

Is it just me that, okay, okay, thank you, sorry.

Anyway, so, but hopefully there will be some time for Q&A at the end if you guys have any questions or if you have something that just kind of pops up in the middle of this that's that's fine to do that so yeah so I've been here this is our 26th year here at Bear Creek as a parent and then I guess this is our 12th year as preschool.

So I started the teaching preschool when my youngest went into kindergarten and she's a junior now.

So my last 1, all 6 kids of mine have gone here.

So it's an amazing place, as you already know.

Files gave me this cup that says, today's goal, keep the tiny humans alive.

And I can relate to that, not just as a teacher.

But I remember when I had my younger 4, I had 4 under 5, no twins.

So this was actually a goal most of my days.

My husband would come home, and I'd be like, OK, they're alive.

We're having cereal for dinner, but we're all standing.

So anyway, but what I love about this, actually, and that's the humorous side of it, obviously, but I like the human part.

And I think sometimes we forget that our kids are humans which is twofold number 1 they're made in the image of God, and we have that in common because we're human.

And so we have that in common with our kids, and I just like to kind of frame it that way to start out that they're not just I don't know little creatures that don't know anything yet I mean they kind of are but they're they're humans and they they deserve to be treated and spoken to with respect and dignity as the human, as the person that they are.

So, and you'll kind of find, that's her overarching theme through this book.

We have it in our library if you're interested in checking it out.

Adele Faber is the gal who co-wrote this.

And she came to the Paramount Theater, gosh, probably

And I got to go and see her and she was incredible and it changed the way I parented, it changed the way I taught, just to have these little pieces of information that you know just kind of different ways of phrasing things or looking at them really, really helped me a lot.

So, there's a lot here and I just chose the 4 chapters that I really resonated with are, I don't know where to point this to get it to work.

So these were the 4 that I, oh, now I did it too much, sorry, that I really resonated with.

The first 1 is helping children deal with their feelings.

Encouraging autonomy, engaging cooperation, and praise.

We have copies of it in the library if you want to check it out.

And like I said, there are some things in there that I don't really agree with, but isn't that parenting?

I used to say there's many different ways to parent as there are parents, but I think there are actually as many different ways to parent as there are kids.

Parent-child relationships, because they're all different.

I don't know if you've noticed that, but 1, something works with 1 and then you have another 1 and you're like, oh my gosh, nothing that worked with this 1 works with this 1.

And when I had 4 of them still at home, We've only got 3 at home now.

The quadrant where she has the different, the 4 quadrants.

I'm just going to pray a lot, which is really what you should be doing.

Ultimately, they are gods, and we just do the best we can while we have them and hopefully point them to him because he's not going to mess them up.

OK, so the first chapter that I like to talk about is how to help kids with their feelings.

They need to have them accepted and respected.

The other thing I love about this book is it's full of cartoons.

Sorry, There might be a couple of pauses because I, there we go.

Eric punched me, so Daddy, do you hear me?

I can listen and watch the game at the same time.

was in the Microsoft area funnily enough, but that's no diss on Microsoft.

But watching the people cross in the crosswalk in front of me, I think there was 1 person that was not looking down.

And I just thought, wow, that's dangerous in traffic.

So instead of half listening, Sorry, I don't know if this is just slow or, okay.

All he does is turn around and look at his kid.

So I hit him back and then he hit me again even harder.

You know what, I'm gonna play with Danny from now on.

Sometimes, well, it probably says that here.

It can be discouraging to try to get through to someone who only gives lip service to listening.

It's much easier to tell your troubles to a parent who is really listening.

Often, a sympathetic silence is all a child needs.

Sometimes, just kind of leaving those words hanging in the air, they hear them, and they process them, and they think of their own solutions, which is a really valuable skill to have.

All right, somebody stole my new red pencil.

This is not necessarily the best way to start a conversation or to engage in it because it's kind of blaming right away.

I didn't, it was on my desk when I went to the bathroom.

Well, what do you expect if you leave your things lying around?

You've had things stolen before, you know.

I always tell you, keep your valuables in your desk.

Not really listening and blaming and accusing.

It's hard to talk to somebody when that's happening.

So instead of questions and advice, if you can call this advice.

No I just was wondering if you were because I'm not having much luck with this.

Because there's a little thing that's supposed to come up right here.

I should grab my, So we're basically listening.

I think I have another, okay, sorry, it's my fault.

I left it on my desk when I went to the bathroom and somebody took it.

That's the third time I've had my pencil ripped off.

From now on, when I leave the room, I'm gonna hide my pencils in my desk.

It's hard for a child to think clearly or constructively when someone is questioning, blaming, or advising her.

There's a lot of help to be had from a simple, oh, or I see.

Words like these, coupled with a caring attitude, are invitations to a child to explore her own thoughts and feelings and possibly come up with her own solutions.

So yeah, we're trying basically to work ourselves out of a job to help them to be able to have all these skills themselves when they go out into the big bad world someday.

And key right here is coupled with a caring attitude.

Empathy is really, really key when you're dealing with your kids and talking about their feelings.

And sometimes it's hard to drum up genuine empathy when you've told them 12 times not to run down the sidewalk, because concrete is hard.

And then they do it, and they wipe out, and they skin their knee, and they're crying.

And you're just, all you want to do is tell you if you'd have listened to me, that wouldn't have happened.

But if you instead, you can see things from their point of view, they'll learn more from that experience having done it and realized, oh mom always tells me the truth or you know dad always tells me the truth.

But if you can really just think about where they are and they just wiped out and they're feeling sad and they need someone to honestly empathize with them and just say, man, that really hurts.

And then at a later date or a later time when they're not in the emotion of the moment, when they can hear you more, the next time you go outside on that same sidewalk or something like that, Do you remember last time when you ran too fast?

And that's another thing that they talk about in here.

Did I already say just take 1 or 2 of these things and try them?

There's a lot of overwhelming, it can be overwhelming with all the different things that are suggested in here.

So, if you want to just take a couple and put a sticky note on your fridge or on your mirror

So, there are lots of things actually that I help kids deal with where they're in this emotional fight or flight amygdala part of their brain, kind of bringing them back to the frontal cortex where they can actually think about this.

Because you know if you try to address anything logically, well logic with preschoolers usually doesn't work anyway, but especially when they're in that moment.

So there are things where that counting to 10, that's a that's an executive function activity and it will take you from the, to this.

And there's also part of it, it's just, we have to be the grown-up in this situation.

And not that you're not being a grown-up by doing that, but just kind of troubleshooting and finding some ways that help you not to do that.

And maybe just stopping, taking a second, and just letting them be in the moment and sitting with them.

Instead of saying anything, don't say anything at all and then work up to, that must have really hurt or whatever.

It might work with 1 kid and not with another, so sorry.

You just keep trying and find out what works.

And then it works for a week and a half, and then it doesn't anymore, and you got to try again.

Having kids is really good for your relationship with the Lord.

All right, instead of denying the feeling, my turtle is dead.

OK, Instead of doing that, give the feeling a name.

I taught him to do tricks, that's my favorite line in this whole thing.

So a lot of times this is not our first response because we think that by going into it and talking about it we're gonna reinforce it and make it worse but actually it does the opposite bless you it does the opposite in it and it they feel heard So parents don't usually give this kind of response because they fear that by giving a name to the feeling, they'll make it worse.

The child who hears the words for what he's experiencing is deeply comforted.

Someone has acknowledged his inner experience.

I used to lead a mops group and or mops table and I was over at my girlfriend's house playing so we had 8 kids under I don't know 6 together between the 2 of us and her oldest was, bless you, her oldest was building a tower and it fell down and I said oh that looks frustrating or you look frustrated or something And she was about ready to explode.

I said, boy, that looks really frustrating.

And she just started building it up again as Stacy looked at me said What did you just do because normally she'd have been all over the place well I kind of learned this thing at a seminar and and I just tried to kind of say you know This is what I'm seeing now It's not you're not gonna tell your kid how he or she is feeling, because sometimes you don't know.

Or when you're doing this, it looks like you're really upset about something.

Or kind of, again, helping them to be in touch with themselves.

Because ultimately, they're the ones that are going to have to deal with themselves.

I just told you, there aren't any in the house.

Instead of explanation and logic, when has that ever worked for anybody?

We talk about this at our parent program.

It's okay to have fun with your kids and to do some things that you wouldn't normally think were good parenting things to do, but just it's okay to have some fun I want my toasty crunchies.

I want them I hear how much you want them.

I wish I had them now I wish I had the magic power to make a giant box appear.

Well, maybe I'll have some nifty crunchies, okay.

My husband does this and it works for me too.

When children want something they can't have, adults usually respond with logical explanations as to why they can't have it.

Often the harder we explain, the harder they protest.

Sometimes just having someone understand how much you want something makes reality easier to bear.

I was playing with my granddaughter a couple weeks ago, and her mom had taken away all of her magic markers, for a reason you can imagine.

And she was complaining about it and kind of wanted me to get her some magic markers.

And I said, wouldn't it just be cool if we like, if you could order a dump truck full of magic markers and just back it up to your front yard, beep, beep, beep, and dump it into the front.

And you could just like, you could walk in magic markers.

And just that picture, like she knew she wasn't going to get the magic markers.

She knew I wasn't going to give them to her and they'd been taken away.

But just to have that imagination and just go, yeah, that's really hard.

I had a student yesterday, we were in the middle of doing something that was hard, which is writing, practicing letter formation.

And halfway through the time, he goes, this is really hard.

That's all I said, and he just kept on going.

So we want to listen quietly and attentively, acknowledge their feelings with a word, give the feeling a name, give the child his wishes and fantasy, all feelings can be accepted, certain actions must be limited.

So this doesn't mean, oh, you're feeling angry, you can slug your brother.

We set boundaries, we give consequences for bad behavior.

But It's really, it's good to give them good vocabulary, even at a very young age.

I remember my son, I don't know, he couldn't have been more than 2.

This doesn't have any electrical zapping on it, does it?

But he said something to me and he said, I was going to do this, but I didn't think it was appropriate.

And I said, you're right, it wouldn't have been appropriate.

He doesn't, if you asked him what does appropriate mean, he wouldn't have known what it meant, but he used it appropriately.

And he had heard it in context enough that you can, you'd be amazed at the, I mean, you'd be amazed at the words we teach our preschoolers here.

You know, and the things that they really can get.

They love understanding things like that.

So if you can connect them with things that are happening with them, you know, I'm building a tower and it just fell down.

And another part of this, well, actually I think it's later.

So okay, so this is the second chapter that I really love called engaging cooperation.

I don't think I've ever done that with my kids before because it just feels so yucky, but I know sometimes that happens.

If you do that 1 more time, and that's my threatening voice, I need you to go 1 more time.

Sometimes you use their middle name in there too.

Lecture, okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

My kids used to kind of make a joke about, they'd hold up,

Or comparing, You know, your older sister never did that.

How many times do I have to tell you turn off the light after you use it?

Instead of doing that, how about the lights on in the bathroom?

Now the caveat to this is make sure they have the information first that they know what they're supposed to do so that they don't kind of try to figure out what it is they're supposed to do by by what you're telling them.

That was kind of the way it was in my house growing up, not to turn this into a therapy session, but my mom came down, she got her doctorate in early childhood education also, and I mean I don't have my doctorate, but anyway.

And she was very into positive reinforcement.

So she would just wait for us to do something the right way and then reinforce it.

And so we just kind of were like trying to figure out what it was we were

came downstairs 1 day and she said, thank you.

Thank you, whoever put the toilet paper on in the green bathroom did it correctly.

My first thought is, I've been doing it wrong for 14 years or whatever.

My second thought is if you really had a way to do it, you've been holding onto that for 16 years.

But then also, I went upstairs to see how you do it.

And just to me it would have been simple to say we want it to go this way because we don't have a cat or this way because we do have a cat.

I don't care how you put it on as long as it's there when you need it.

So I mean my expectations are even lower.

But just when you're describing things, make sure they understand what the expectations are ahead of time.

It's hard to do what needs to be done when people are telling you what's wrong with you.

It's easier to concentrate on the problem when someone just describes it to you.

When grownups describe the problem, it gives children a chance to tell themselves what to do.

If I catch you writing on the walls 1 more time, you're going to get a spanking.

Walls aren't for writing on, papers for writing on.

And again, they need to know what's right and wrong ahead of time.

It's usually more effective to tell them these things when we're not in the moment of this.

This is our quote at our house still to this day.

Who drank milk and left the bottle standing out?

Instead of that, kids, milk turns sour when it isn't refrigerated.

Whenever anything is left out, someone will chime in in a perfectly mocking voice of this parent.

So and so, the milk goes bad if you don't put it in the fridge.

Information is a lot easier to take than accusation.

When children are given information, they can usually figure out for themselves what needs to be done.

So people talk about how we try to say, it's all different kinds of information, and then they keep writing on the wall, you just keep this.

So if you gave the information they have, what would you be doing?

I would try something different if giving them information didn't work.

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Tools for Success: How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk