Rebecca Rolland
Appearances
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
All right. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
What we're really talking about here is having authentic relationships and actually learning from kids because kids, for the most part, are so authentic that they can teach us about having authentic relationships if we take the time to listen and learn from them as well.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Yeah, so we really want to get away from this typical dynamic, which is the adult is the expert and the child is someone who needs to learn something. So the child is the subject or the person we're going to question or the person who has to answer the question. We want to flip the dynamic and have it be much more back and forth. So the child is able to ask questions just as much.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
The child is able to stoke our curiosity as much as we're stoking their curiosity. So we often don't think about that back and forth as actually teaching the adults and teaching the children simultaneously. We often think that we're the ones who are the repositories of knowledge and kids are the ones who need to learn things.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
But actually the insights that children have, the ways they think about things can actually help us be more creative, can help us be more playful if we're able to actually take the time and have those back and forth conversations.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Yeah, so one time I was with my daughter in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and we were looking at the mummy exhibits. And we were staring at them for a while, and she asked me, well, where did the mummies go? And I said to her, well, they're right here. They're right in front of us. And she said, no, I don't mean that. I mean kind of where they went, kind of their souls or their spirits.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
She didn't use that word. And I said that I didn't know, and I asked her, what did you think? And she was wondering, well, where did they go before they were born? That was her next question. And then she wondered, well, where were you before you were born? So she had a series of these questions that made me actually reflect and say, I'm actually not sure about that.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
I've never thought about where I was or who I was before I was myself. And I asked her, I turned it around and said, what do you think? And she said, I still remember this. She said, well, I was an old man and I got sick of being so old. And so I turned into a baby again. And I thought that was so interesting and philosophical.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
She just said it completely with a straight face and really made me reflect on, well, how much children often think about things in quite different ways than we do and in ways that are really profound if we can take the time to listen.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Yeah, so oftentimes we come in with very much with our own agendas and the child comes with their own agenda. And often the two of us never actually meet. So one example of this would be a child comes and says, look at my toy robot. He's running out of batteries. And we say, OK, it's time to go to soccer practice or it's time to go see your grandmother.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
And the child says, but look, it can go upside down. And we say, OK, where are your shoes? So you can see this dynamic playing out, especially with children, but really you can think about this also as playing out sometimes with adults. When we have these two differing agendas, it might sound as if we're being heard.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
It might sound as if we're having a conversation, but really we're having two one-way monologues. And over time, if we continue to do this, both of us end up feeling not very heard and not very seen and not very appreciated. So a lot of the goals of what I do and what I think about is how to actually have more fulfilling and meaningful conversations.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
So I really think about what I call the ABCs of rich conversations with kids or more meaningful conversations. And the A just stands for adaptive, meaning that you really want to focus on knowing the child in front of you. So adapting to their mood, to their temperament, to their age and their stage, and even their interest. The B stands for back and forth.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
So thinking rather than talking at kids, really talking with them. So actually balancing that back and forth between you and a child. And the C stands for child driven. So actually focusing by starting on what's on a child's mind. And that might be positive, what the child's excited about or wants to tell you about, or even neutral or negative if the child is worried about something.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
So by actually combining those three ABCs, you're much more likely to have a meaningful conversation.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Yes, definitely. And I've been there. I'm also a mom myself of two kids. And so I'm not saying, for example, that we never have these logistical conversations. Sometimes we need to. But what I would like to think about is how can we not have these mostly?
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
How can we make sure at least a couple of times a day that whatever child is in your life, you take the time to move away from that type of logistical conversation and really have more of this back and forth?
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Definitely. Yeah. So that's what I've seen as well. And I think that what's so interesting is actually it's not just at school that kids are learning. So we actually know that kids, they did a study that kids are only in school about 15 percent of their waking hours. And so actually kids are learning from each other, from us, from these conversations all the time.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
So we actually have the chance to move beyond what's really in the here and now, to do a lot more of this imaginative work, to think about predicting the future, talking about the past. And these are actually so important for children's wellbeing, as well as for their school success.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Yes, there's a ton of research. Um, and a lot of this goes into many different areas of children's development. Um, just as one example, there's something called emotional reminiscing, which is where you talk in pretty detailed, um, and using a lot of emotional words to children about their past experiences.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
So things like if you, they went to the doctor, you know, you're going to ask them to talk about it in a detailed way. What did it look like? How did it feel? and talk about how they tried to cope. For example, what did you do when the doctor gave you a shot? That kind of thing. And research has found that this kind of talk actually really helps children be less anxious and less depressed
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
and even changes their experiences of painful memories. So we actually know that talking about memories and especially focusing on coping strategies supports children in coping better and actually feeling better about what happened in the past.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Yes, I think a lot of times there's so much of a push in our society to think about sort of academics first or knowledge of colors, of numbers, of facts that we forget that even if kids don't know those particular things right now, they're often thinking about other very interesting things.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
And we can think back often as kids, you could spend hours, you know, staring at water dripping, you know, and looking at wondering questions like, I wonder how long it's going to drip for, or I wonder what happens at the end, or how much, you know, it could go on until it overflows.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
So actually helping realize just how curious kids are, even at older ages and younger ages, can help us get away from some of those more rote questioning strategies, like how many are there or what color is this? Those kinds of things.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Yeah, so a lot of times I think about a couple of different factors as changing. The first is how concrete you are. So as kids get older, you can tend to focus less on what you hear and see right in front of you, and you can talk about things more abstractly. That changes as kids develop and as they're able to think more in the abstract.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
And younger children, you can also think abstractly, but oftentimes you want to start from something that you see right in front of you, just like I was talking about the mummies in the past. Similarly, you can also do more predicting and going back into the past, remembering, especially with older children. So you can go kind of further and further out into the future and the past.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Whereas with younger children, you tend to stick more to things that were more immediate, because they're more in their closer memories. But at the same time, you can always think about trying to stretch a child to see how they react. And if they seem like this is out of their comprehension or too difficult, you can always cut it down.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
But I think I always try to think first about stretching a child.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Yes, I've noticed that as well in my work. And I think there's a couple of things going on. One is that when kids are with their friends or even with siblings, there is this sense of either competition or wanting to impress or even being embarrassed to share things that they don't feel embarrassed to share with an adult.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
So I do think it can be so important to have one-on-one time with a child, even if you have multiple children, not necessarily every day if it's not possible, but at least once in a while to really get a sense of what's on their mind, what they might not want to tell other kids or might not feel comfortable sharing.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Yes, I think one thing that I see a lot and what I think can be damaging over time is really this projecting of what we want our children to be or who we wanted to be as a child onto our children.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
So for example, a child really doesn't want to continue playing this sport, or they really aren't a person who's very energetic in the morning, or they really aren't someone who needs to have a lot of friends to be happy.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
And just recognizing that sometimes we can take our own desires that went unfulfilled or our wishes or hopes for ourselves and put those on to our children and sort of be disappointed if they're not that way or if they didn't turn out the way we would have wanted them to turn out. And I think that kind of unfulfilled desire or disappointment can be very hard and damaging for a child.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Definitely. So obviously kids do need praise and encouragement and they get a lot out of that, but there's also a way in which we can take it too far. So some researchers have created what's called the praise paradox, which is they found that especially for children who have low self-esteem to start,
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
over praising a child can really further lower their self-esteem and make it so they often don't want to try again and this over praising really means things like when a child brings to you a simple drawing or something maybe they don't feel that great about you say things like oh that's so amazing or that's so fabulous or i've never seen anything that amazing things like that
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
And the reason is because children often can sniff out false praise. They can sense if we're not being authentic and if we're overdoing it. And this can further lower their self-esteem.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Criticism obviously is important as well. And what I think we really want to get to is to helping children through criticism and critique to be their own judges of their performance. So this doesn't mean this happens all at once, but we want to support children in becoming self-reflective.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
So rather than criticizing them, for example, oh, this part of your drawing isn't good, or your math test, you got a bad grade on it. it can be much more helpful to really point out, first, things that were going well, and second, help them analyze what didn't go so well, and even take that step of, well, why didn't it go so well?
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
And when children are able to do this on their own, they're much more likely to be more independent going forward in actually analyzing their own performance, and that's what we want over the long term.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
To some extent, yes. I think when you picture especially a young child, and especially if they're in a heightened state of excitement or frustration or upset, and they're staring at your legs or you're staring down at them, it can feel very frustrating for a child, and they can feel as if you're much more distant.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
So getting down on a child's level can really support them in looking into your face, in seeing your expression. and in getting comfort or understanding or whatever they need from you at that point. Talking at their level, I would say, is slightly different. So you do want to support a child in understanding what you're saying and not using too difficult vocabulary or too long sentences.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
But we know that children can understand a lot more than they're able to express as they develop. So oftentimes understanding of language comes first and expression lags a bit behind. So I wouldn't feel as if you really need to mimic a child's speech patterns in your own speech, but you can always see how far you can stretch your own language before a child doesn't understand you.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Exactly. Yes. And we know that baby talk with actual babies can be very helpful because it does actually, the intonation helps the child listen for specific words and make sense of this world around them. But definitely as they grow out of babyhood, our baby talk should grow out of us as well.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
I think that oftentimes kids really are longing to have someone to talk to. So oftentimes we don't see it or there may be a veneer of coolness or of I'm not interested or apathy. But I think if you peel that layer back and especially if you present yourself at least once in a while as the person who has something to learn, if you ask the child to teach you something,
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
I think you'll find that many children are very excited to engage in conversations.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
Awesome. Thank you.
Something You Should Know
Fascinating Stories of Christmas Customs & The Art of Talking with Children - SYSK Choice
So we really want to get away from this typical dynamic, which is the adult is the expert, and the child is someone who needs to learn something. But actually, the insights that children have, the ways they think about things, can actually help us be more creative, can help us be more playful.