PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Steve [Intro]: 00:00 Hello, and welcome to the parents as learning coaches edition of the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. Parents and caregivers play many different roles, and even sometimes conflicting roles as they support children’s development. The pandemic has shown a light on the importance of parents supporting learners. In this podcast, I’ll share my experiences as a teacher, educator, parent, grandparent, and continuous learner that can support your coaching efforts.

Steve: 00:35 Future thinking: yours and theirs. Joining us today from New Zealand, is Frances Valintine. She’s the author of a new book, “Future You” and the founder of the Mind Lab and the Technology Futures Lab and a parent. Welcome Frances.

Frances: 00:53 Great to be here, Steve. And the role as a parent is my number one role, I think always .

Steve: 00:59 So tell us a little bit about your background and the focus of your new book, “Future You.”

Frances: 01:06 I am a person who stumbled into education 25 years ago through a technology pathway. So I was curious and really following technology and then realized that actually learning is the best way to keep in touch with technology and where it was going. And in that journey, I ended up in education and I’ve now taught actually over a quarter of a million children through my programs. And so school groups in the earlier days in my career, right through to now running graduate schools for teachers and for professionals. And so my real fascination is how do people learn and how do we adapt and how do we make sure we never stop encouraging people to learn regardless of age? And I think as a parent, it’s probably one of our number one tasks that we have as a parent is to instill a love of learning and a confidence in individuals, in our children, to be confident in the way they learn and who they are. And so it’s a really big part of how I think about both being an educator, but also as a parent.

Steve: 02:10 Could you talk a little bit about the kinds of learning opportunities that you create for for school aged students?
Frances: 02:17 So earlier in my career, when the Mind Lab first started, we were really focused on schools bringing bus loads of children into our facilities, teaching them about STEM or STEM type subjects as science or technology, some coding, some robotics, some animation. And so, the schools are bringing in these children who are mostly aged between seven and 12, amazingly, these same kids now are, you know, university graduates, so they’ve all grown up, and we had a number of facilities and like I say, a quarter of a million students came through our doors and learned this way. But it was pretty soon after we started teaching these students and we realized that they have this massive capacity to learn quickly around technology and digital, that the teachers who are accompanying them, these children said, this is great. We love that you’re teaching our students, but we have no idea how to replicate this type of learning in the classroom. So within two years of starting the Mind Lab around 10 years ago, we moved and turned our focus to teach the teachers how they could teach young children from the age of five, all the way through to university, how to think about technology and science and thinking about this new world of digital. And so it was really, almost by accident that we ended up teaching teachers because we really set out to teach kids.

Steve: 03:43 So one of my roles on this podcast is that I bring a history piece to this So looking back, I know that it was at least 20 years ago, we were talking to teachers about the fact that future jobs that students were likely to have didn’t exist and so we were pondering, how are you preparing students for a future that we didn’t know what that would be? That was 20 years ago. So I’m guessing that that’s been multiplied by some number of rate of change. How does that impact parents thinking about what their kids are experiencing?

Frances: 04:32 The most common question I am asked by parents and I have a lot of sessions with parents is, what should my children study? Now, there is a very big disconnect between what parents think are still in-demand roles and actually the roles that are truly in demand or the roles that their kids want to do. And I’ll give you example. One of the ways that I showcase this is, if I have a room full of parents or teachers, I go to a job board, like a live – we have in New Zealand, you have different ones in the US. We basically go to a job board and there’s a hundred thousand jobs on this job site. And so I ask them in the room, okay, tell me, “what do you do?” And someone says, “oh, I’m a journalist.”

Frances: 05:20 And so I enter journalist and it pops up and it says there are 300 jobs for a journalist. And someone says, “well, I I’m a software developer.” They put in software developer and it says there are 35,000 jobs for a software developer. And someone said, “well, I’m a librarian.” And lawyers, there’s low number of lawyers needed, but then you put an engineer and it goes back up high again. And you have this moment where you see parents looking and realizing that their job is no longer in demand. And that goes for a lot of areas where they might be thinking, but that’s a good job but actually they’re a PR person or a marketing person. And then they enter things like, if you’ve got kids in the room as well, “so what do you wanna be?”

Frances: 06:03 They’re like, “a social media influencer.” And so you put that in show that that really is a job. It may not have that many, but there is this practical way you can look at at this and just sort of understanding and real live data, like, straight from a job website. But I think the bigger thing to really focus on is our kids are going to be working for many, many different jobs over their career. If they start working, let’s say, start working around the age of 20, might be just part time where they’re studying, or they maybe have gone straight into work, they’re going to work probably through till somewhere between 17 and 18, given our life expectancy is increasing towards a hundred all the time. So they will have multiple different careers and they’ll have side hustles and they’ll have portfolio careers.

Frances: 06:49 And they’ll do things in very different ways than we did. Having a house, a job, and a car is not the ultimate aspirations of a young person today. A job for life is almost terrifying. This idea that you might become a professional and stay in the same firm for 25 years or 45 years. And so we really have to shift our perspective about what do our children really get excited about? The number one advice I could give parents about what should your children study is let them study the things they love. If you have something, a subject where a student has passion, talent or interest, they will continue to have confidence about learning. If you have a child that is actually highly creative and loves English and music and loves the arts, and you are saying no, but you have to do physics and you must do chemistry and you’ve gotta do Latin or, or French and they don’t love that, you’re immediately going to set them on a pass where learning is going to be seen as a negative view, their confidence will diminish.

Frances: 07:54 And actually, they’re not gonna love you at the end by because they might end up going into a degree program of your choosing, but they won’t stay. And so we really do have to think about, in today’s world, where there is so many levels of anxiety and confusion about jobs and the types of roles out there, the single biggest thing that I think is apparent we need to do is to keep our kids confident and excited about learning, because actually, it’s at that point, if they love learning, they’ll be lifelong learners, they will go and learn, they’ll go to university at some point, they might not finish, but they’ll go probably go back and finish, they’ll change their mind and do something else, but they’ll be on a journey for life of adaptation, the ability to learn and change and flex in this sort of squiggly line that actually is the types of careers we have today versus the very linear line – you finish school, you go to university, you become qualified and you stay there for life. And that world just does not exist anymore and we shouldn’t pretend it does.

Steve: 09:08 So knowing how to find a passion and then knowing how to learn. If I can put those two things together, I’m set.

Frances: 09:17 Yeah. And they may not be or the most difficult subjects, but if you have a child who’s not particularly academic and you try to put them into an academic program, or you say, well, you must do an IB or a Cambridge program, which is measuring academic success, they are not going to be successful. But if you put them in a program where they’re actually doing things they love and they do well and they successful and they get good grades, that it’s gonna change everything in a positive way, but it sometimes feels, it’s so much pressure for our kids to do well academically and so much pressure about our kids being better than the neighbors kids, we’ve just gotta get beyond that and this idea. In today’s world where happiness and self worth is so low, let’s just start by making sure learning is this one thing that they get excited about doing and then build that confidence and then they will keep learning and they will get to the programs, the more difficult ones. They will almost certainly end up in formal, higher education in time, but they may just do it in a slightly different older than what we as a parent may ideally like.

Steve: 10:28 You’re putting a big smile on my face. I’m the grandparent with a granddaughter heading into high school and all the pressure was on to pick a program. And I was so excited when my daughter informed me that my granddaughter’s decision was she was gonna make a program.

Steve: 10:51 If I want a high science class, I’m gonna take a high science class, but I’m not signing up for a program that tells me over the next three or four years, here’s the set of courses hat I have, that I have to take. And I’m really hearing that laid out here. She’s realizing her interest will emerge and she’s got the courage to follow the interest, but I think my daughter has even more courage to be the parent that supports that when a lot of the other parents are questioning my daughter as to, are you getting her in the IB program or this advanced program or pre-college program or…

Frances: 11:32 Yeah. And I’ll give you the story of my my oldest son – he’s 24. So he graduated from high school, he went to university, he started doing architecture. He did two years of architecture before he realized he didn’t enjoy it. He said, I’m over it. The things I thought architecture would be about, we are just studying theory and I don’t wanna sit there with a ruler all day and doing drafting. And so he said, my real passion is audio engineering. He loves music. So now he is studying again. And that really interesting thing for me is he’s always worked through his studies, but for the last two years of his studies, his job in the evenings is he’s a director of e-sports. So he sits in a control room with about 20 big screens, having global feeds where he is the director of the camera of people playing computer games in a stadium sometimes of 60,000 people.

Frances: 12:29 So these are people in stadiums or online watching people play computer games. If you had told me that that was a job five years ago, I would have gone completely bonkers. Now, he’s got not aspirations to be an e-sport director full time, this is what he does as a side hustle while he’s doing his audio engineering. But none of this is the path that he set out to do, but actually he couldn’t be happier. He does the things that make him happy, and he’s entering industries that I don’t fully understand, but he fully understands and he’s networked in those industries. He’s got global connections. He’s well known for what he does, both in audio now with his eSports. It is this evolution and we should be really proud of our kids. They’re prepared to kinda break through some of the status quo and just follow that passion and do things they love.

Steve: 13:22 I’m hearing happy kids make happy parents.

Frances: 13:25 I think that’s very true.

Steve: 13:30 I really appreciate your thinking and your thoughts that you’ve shared here Frances. Give us a way that parents might follow up with you and I think parents would find your book an interesting read both for themselves outside their parenting role, but in their parenting role as well.

Frances: 13:53 Yeah. The books available – so, “Future You,” I think there might be more than one Future You on the bookshelf, so look for the one by Frances Valintine and if you want to reach me, you can drop me an email. So frances.valintine@themindlab.com.

Steve: 14:08 All right. And we’ll be sure to post that. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it.
Frances: 14:13 Great chatting to you, Steve.

Steve [Outro]: 14:16 Thanks for listening in folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter at Steve Barkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs, Barkley pd.com.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTSteve [Intro]: 00:00 Hello, and welcome to the parents as learning coaches edition of the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. Parents and caregivers play many different roles, at times, even somewhat conflicting roles as they support children’s development. The pandemic has shown a light on the importance of parents supporting learners. In this podcast, I’ll look to share my experiences as a teacher, educator, parent, grandparent, and continuous learner that can support your coaching efforts.

Steve: 00:34 Youngsters knowing when and how to effort. How often are young children and teenagers told to always put forth their best effort? How often have they heard a parent or a teacher say, “had you put in a little more effort, you would’ve gotten a higher grade.” Putting in effort usually is not an automatic action. Often, effortful behaviors are helpful in the long run, but they can feel awful unpleasant in the current moment. That’s certainly illustrated in my attempts at meeting my personal walking goal each day. It often takes quite a bit of self-talk to focus on the long-term, better health over the feeling tired now, or the thinking about what else I could be doing with this time. There is a cost/benefit calculation that we go through in order to motivate and initiate effort. The more I value a desired benefit or outcome, the more I’m willing to deal with any unpleasantness of the upfront effort.

Steve: 01:57 My health at my age is pretty important and so counting the steps each day continues. The benefit appears worth the cost. How young do children begin to do cost beneft measuring? I found an interesting study from the university of Toronto on this topic. As always, the link is in the lead-in to the podcast. In this study, 18 month old children sitting on their mother’s lap, observed a demonstration conducted by the researcher who pulled on a rope that was connected to a see-through box with a toy inside it. The infants were divided into three different groups. One group observed the researcher, pulled the cord and the box easily slid over to the researcher. A second group observed the researcher pull the cord five times. Only on the fourth pull did the box slide over to the researcher. And the last group observed the researcher pull on the cord five times, but the box never moved.

Steve: 03:30 The children, then sitting on their mother’s lap again, were given a similar rope connected to a similar box. But unbeknownst to the children, the box this time was fixed to the table and wouldn’t move. Interestingly, the number of attempts or the effort that the child put into pulling on the rope, appeared to be influenced by what they had observed. How hard the infants pulled on the rope was related to what they watched the researcher demonstrate. The infants who saw the researcher fail to move the box, did not pull the rope as hard as the other two groups who saw the researcher succeed in moving the box. The infants who saw the researcher easily move the box, pulled the rope the hardest and the infants who saw the experimenter struggle and succeed, ramped up how hard they pulled on the rope with each attempt, suggesting that that group of infants were confident that they would be able to move the box if they increased their efforts.

Steve: 04:47 Both the group that saw the researcher easily move the box and the group that saw the researcher struggle and not be successful, did not put in the number of attempts that the children did who saw the researcher move the box after several attempts. This finding suggests that toddlers engage in a sophisticated decision making process, similar to the one that we as adults might use when we create a list of pros and cons and use it to influence our choice. The toddlers computed the utility or usefulness of trying to move the box by weighing the potential cost of what they had to lose. In other words, whether it was worth it to keep pulling the rope and what they had to gain in terms of the likelihood they could access the toy. As children mature, parents can engage in debriefing effort with students, as well as planning for future effort.

Steve: 06:06 When I’ve explored this with teachers, I suggest that they add an element of asking students when they hand in some tasks to actually put an effort score onto the assignment. In other words, if you think about a scale from one to 10, where one is a little effort and 10 is a lot of effort, ask students to to rate their effort and then, this is an important part, identify why they would give it that particular rating. So for an example, a student could hand in a math homework assignment with 10 problems, all solved correctly, and the student might assess that their effort was a three because they knew how to do the problems and the only effort necessary was taking the time to complete the assignment. While again, another student may hand in the same assignment with only two out of the 10 problems done correctly, and they might report that their effort was an 11 on a scale of one to 10, because they spent a lot of time asking their parents questions and even searched online for help, but they still couldn’t figure it out.

Steve: 07:22 This report on effort is an important piece of information for a teacher to have because in both of the examples that I just cited, the teacher might decide that the student had been given an inappropriate assignment. If a student can easily complete a task with minimal effort, it may have been a waste of the student’s time to actually do the assignment. On the other hand, a student who invest a lot of time, energy and effort into a task without seeing any result or gain from the effort they invested, may not have been given the appropriate task. As you engage with your learners in a conversation about their effort, either debriefing some task that they finished or planning for some future task, I’ll give you four elements that you can consider building into your conversation. Time, perseverance, patience, and repetition of success. Time, how much time I spent on something is often an indicator of effort. It’s rare that you can put forth high effort in a short amount of time. Perseverance, perseverance is often indicated by practice and repetition.

Steve: 08:53 A learner may need a coach or a teacher to illustrate what one needs to practice. What are the learning behaviors that would lead to future success? In other words, what should I spend my effort on? Think of a piano or a swim teacher. Then, when I know what it is I need to do repetition sets in. It often isn’t fun or rewarding to repeat that practice, but it’s a critical part of learning. Sometimes, strategies can help a youngster as well as an adult with repetitions. Can I make it a game? Can I involve a social element? I find it interesting that my duolingo account has other people that I don’t even know, send me encouraging messages from time to time about the practice time, the repetitious time that I’ve spent in learning. Patience is often another indicator of effort or a needed element for effort to occur. And patience is needed because frequently our initial effort provides no positive feedback.

Steve: 10:15 Sometimes effort is trial and error, and it requires constant do-overs. I’m reminded of a gifted student that I had early in my teaching career and almost everything that we did in the classroom engaged in learning came very quickly and easy. His name was Danny and our school had a swim program for kids as part of our physical education class and Danny avoided the water and it took quite a bit of encouragement. And Danny’s first day that he showed up with a suit and entered the pool, I saw Danny at least holding his nose and putting his face in the water. When I gave Danny feedback after our class at the pool and told him I was proud of him and what I had observed, Danny shared with me that he was disappointed.

Steve: 11:17 And when I had ask of why he told me he had read the night before how to swim, and he had tried it today and it didn’t work. That was a shocker for Danny because he wasn’t used to having to put the kind of effort into learning something new, having so many experiences in my classroom where learning came rather easy to him. And the last element is one that we often overlook. And it is that one of the indicators of effort is continual practice even after success. You see, that continuous successful practicem now solidifies the learning. Consider the videos you’ve observed of skateboarders who fall countless times, and then suddenly success. Immediately after that success, they’re back up and rehearsing and practicing the same stunt over and over because that repeated practice solidifies what it is that they figured out and learned. As with many of the skills I’ve shared in these parent podcasts, modeling and sharing your experiences is an important part of the parenting strategy. Talk about your investment and effort. When do you invest minimal effort because the task is easy or the outcome isn’t that important or critical? When does making dinner get a ton of effort and when is making dinner simply heating something up? What influences that decision? Feel free to drop me a thought or a question at barkleypd.com. I’d be happy to follow up with you and address anything you raise in a in a future podcast. Thanks for listening. May your efforts be rewarded.

Steve [Outro]: 13:24 Thanks for listening in folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on twitter @stevebarkley or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTSteve [Intro]: 00:00 Hello, and welcome to the parents as learning coaches edition of the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. Parents and caregivers play many different roles, at times, even somewhat conflicting roles as they support children’s development. The pandemic has shown a light on the importance of parents supporting learners. In this podcast, I’ll look to share my experiences as a teacher, educator, parent, grandparent, and continuous learner that can support your coaching efforts.

Steve: 00:32 Parents supporting play today. We are joined by Madeleine Rogin, a parent of two, a kindergarten and dance teacher in El Cerito, California. I contacted her after reading a piece that she had written about the importance of play during the time of of distance learning. Welcome Madeleine.

Madeleine: 00:59 Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Steve: 01:01 The very opening of your article, you described how you miss watching your students play during the quarantine and I wonder if you’d just start by sharing a little bit of that with parents.

Madeleine: 01:14 Oh my goodness. I mean, we, so like, so many of us went into this distance learning experience, very abruptly at my school, and didn’t really – weren’t really prepared for it. One day we were just told we’re taking it all home, grab your stuff, go home, teach online. And I had so many questions about how to do that with little kids, but I just found myself missing the experience of being with children in the classroom and what I was really missing was what we call “choice time” in kindergarten. So the time of day where students are just playing. We put out lots of open-ended materials, blocks and watercolors and lots of different things and they are completely immersed in a way that they aren’t in any other part of the day at school. It’s all self-driven. They are so excited about being together in this playful way and sharing the things that they’re creating and their ideas of each other.

Madeleine: 02:12 They have such thoughtful ideas during play, and I missed hearing their dialogue, you know, when they would just create
worlds. And I just sit there and listen to, you know, how the bears are going to guard the castle. And now here comes a big dragon! And you know, all of this imaginary play that was so beautiful to listen to and in the way that they would solve problems too, you know, when things would happen and they’d be the ones to say, “well, if there’s only one purple block, then we shouldn’t have a purple block, because then it’s not fair for everybody.” So they would get rid of the purple blocks on their own so that everybody could have the other blocks and no one felt bad. So seeing them working out like, they’re just growing ideas around empathy and fairness and all of it coming from them, I just really, I miss that a lot.

Steve: 03:03 Well, I thought of you this week when I stopped at the at the grocery store and here in Switzerland with all the produce, they have scales that that print the price. So you pick up your produce and you put it on the scale and press the button that tells the scale what it is that you bought and it prints off the little sticker to put on it. And as I was approaching the scale, this little lad, somewhere between two and three came up to the scale and he was carrying a can, which I don’t know where he got, but he reached up, it was like up over the top of his head. He plopped it on the scale, but then realized he couldn’t reach any of the buttons to push them. So I was watching for a while. So he looked around and he found a sticker that somebody didn’t use and he picked it up and put the sticker on and headed off over to the to the shopping cart. And I was just laughing the whole time I was watching him. It was so much fun.

Madeleine: 04:10 Oh, that’s great. It’s so funny, I see my kids doing things like that in the classroom a lot. We have fake – not fake, we have scales that they can use to, you know, take different little toys or stuffed animals and practice weighing them. And it’s really fun to see how serious they are about their experiments that they’re creating, you know?

Steve: 04:30 Yeah. Just terrific. So I’m wondering if you could talk about the the importance of play and the impact that it has on physical, mental, social-emotional wellbeing. How does it plug in there?

Madeleine: 04:48 I think it’s so important. I know that social-emotional learning is becoming more and more valued and, you know, adopted by so many schools like, really great robust programs. We have one that we use called the toolbox, which is about giving kids these different tools that they have, you know, whether it’s like the empathy tool or the listening tool, and then they practice using their tools in different ways. And I love the fact that schools are adopting this because it’s so essential to this, you know, whole child, the wellbeing of students that we really pay attention to what’s happening emotionally, and that they start to name their feelings and recognize feelings in others. And I have to say, you know, I worry sometimes just like in all aspects of teaching that when it’s too top down, when it’s too much about, here’s the curriculum, and here’s what you need to know, that if we don’t balance that with giving kids the opportunity to practice and have a lot of time with each other in play, especially young children, but I think children of all ages need these opportunities to experience conflict, to experience a problem.

Madeleine: 06:04 You know, when kids are playing, they are so self-directed and so motivated to solve their own problems in a way that they’re not at other times of the day, because they have these goals that they’ve set for themselves. You know, whether it’s, I really want – we have these beautiful tools in our class called Magna-Tiles, that they all fit together in these different ways and they’re very colorful and they’re very popular. And so often, there’s conflict around them and the students have to file these conflicts with each other and through play, they’re able to discover new ways of communicating with each other, and they’re able to practice using language around this is how I feel. We teach in our class something called “i-messages,” which is when you’re having an emotion, it’s difficult and you’re angry at somebody to say, instead of saying, “stop it” or “why did you do that?” To say, “I feel sad when I don’t have what I need when I’m playing.” And, “I would like to have some more blocks,” or “I feel sad when you walked away from me.” So really practicing, locating the feeling and communicating it to their friends and that all happens during play naturally. So I think that’s really important – all these skills that they’re working on through play just socially-emotionally are so important.

Steve: 07:25 As I was listening to you, I’m thinking of watching kids play in the yard or on a playground with other kids or playing at home alone. What’s the role that a parent – I was going to ask what the role is, but I guess I’m better asking, what’s the thinking that that would be doing as they’re watching kids?

Madeleine: 07:51 I love that question. So often, I think we can, I’ve done it as a parent, we want to direct, and we want things to go a certain way. I think it happens because we have ideas about how things should be, whether it’s that, you know, we should always be nice to each other, lids should never fight or if they do fight, it should look a certain way or, you know, it makes us uncomfortable. I know for me, I don’t like it when my kids fight. And I remember my mom, when I would fight with my sister, my mom would always say, “birds in their little nest agree.” And that didn’t really work, but we, you know, I understand that feeling to want to kind of direct and then have things look a certain way, but what really is powerful for kids – when parents are present, when they’re near, when they’re as much as he can be, you know, like, I’m imagining play outside in the backyard or play somewhere where you are sort of near what’s happening to be able to listen in and notice when they might need some support or guidance that isn’t necessarily telling them, here’s what you need to do, here’s what you need to say, but saying, have you – first of all, asking questions.

Madeleine: 08:55 Like, “how are you feeling?” Or noticing – giving kids, you know, recognizing that you see what’s happening for them. So rather than saying, “why are you doing that?” Saying, “I’m noticing that you seem frustrated, are you feeling frustrated?” And allowing kids to name their emotions before they get to the next step, which is what they need to happen or what they want to be different. So a lot of listening and watching and observing, and then giving them guidance, you know, whether it’s have you tried telling your sister, “I really am sad because I really wanted to play this game with you” and allowing the other child to also communicate their feelings and needs. Another thing that parents can do that can be really fun is just taking notes on what your children are saying and doing when they’re playing.

Madeleine: 09:51 I mean, it’s really fun to have that just for your own memories and to talk about later when your kids are older, but also because you’re learning all of these new and different things about your kids when they’re playing, because they’re creating these worlds often, especially in imaginary play. And just to notice what’s happening and what they’re interested in and what kinds of characters they develop and how these characters that they develop in play can influence them in non play times. You know, like you can bring that back to your child and say, I remember when you were the queen of the world. You remember that feeling when you were the queen of the world and what you, and how you were so powerful and all these beautiful things that happened when you were playing that game. I think for kids, they feel really valued and seen in a different way when the adults around them pay attention to the way that they play.

Madeleine: 10:40 I think it makes them feel like, really important in a really nice way. And it’s kind of, again, this is coming from them. So it’s a way that you can honor who your child is. And, you know, that’s very child centered. It’s not so much about, you know, what have you achieved or how are you doing your chores, or, you know, how are you doing in school, but more just being present for this other part of their creativity.

Steve: 11:11 One of the one of the sites that you recommended in an article that that I followed up on, I found this quote, it’s really connecting to what you’re saying now and as a parent and grandparent, I’m going to hang on to this quote. It said, “memories of joyful and meaningful play experiences, help bind families together emotionally, even long after children are grown.” Can you speak to that a little?

Madeleine: 11:46 Well, when we’re playing, adults too, because I know when I play, mostly it’s with, because I’m a teacher, it’s more – it’s rare to have experiences with other adults when you’re actually playing in the way that kids play. But it happened. I remember when my school did I get an intentional play bonding activity and all the teachers went to this place called adventure playground and we all played together for a couple hours. And to that quote, I remember that forever because I saw things in my colleagues I’d never seen before. Like the kind of silliness and joy and the way that there were these zip lines at the playground and I saw teachers on those ziplines that I never would have expected would do something like that. And we had challenges we had to complete. You know, I think so you’re learning new things about each other in play and it can be surprising.

Madeleine: 12:39 And I think those moments, it feels like time stops and it’s very rich in a different way than other other times of the day when things are again, more kind of goal oriented and in different way, or you have tasks that you need to accomplish. I mean, this is a time when it’s almost like being in the theater. You know, that feeling of being in the theater where it’s kind of magical, anything could happen, everybody’s an actor and we don’t get those experiences a lot outside of play and especially as adults. So doing that with kids, I mean, those are the things I think your children remember too, when you’re able to enter into that world. And whether it’s a game that you all play together or some experiencing nature where you’re just kind of, you know, children love to go into nature and like make forts anywhere, especially young kids, like in the house, anywhere. And if you enter into that with them, like go into the fort with them and even just read in there or allow them to tell you their ideas about their building. Yeah, I think it does have a magical quality that creates these really beautiful memories.

Steve: 13:49 You’re spinning me back to one with my grandkids. And they’re separated by by five years, but we spent the day picnicking on the side of a creek, pretty big creek, but we went in and built a hot tub by piling the rocks up and sitting in the tub as the water – and that was probably five years ago and it’s not uncommon if we’re anywhere near a creek or reexamining a spot that we’re at, they’ll go back to that story and say something about the hot tub or something that happened that day. So it really did sink in our memories.

Madeleine: 14:38 Right. And for them to see you as a participant in that play, you know, that I think is so meaningful for kids to know that their family members, the adults around them want to go there them, you know, I think it means a lot.

Steve: 14:55 My 13 year old grandchild is a swimmer and just loves the water. I mean, constant water. And they just last week, took two days off to sneak to the shore for some fresh air out of the quarantine. But the picture that I got sent was my daughter going into the water that was way too cold, but she had to go in because her 13 year old daughter was shaming her into play.

Madeleine: 15:32 [laughter] The things we

Steve: 15:32 And I know that that’s a precious moment that they’ll hang on to.

Madeleine: 15:38 And that’s interesting is there always is risk I think involved, especially for adults, it’s not necessarily always about getting into cold water, but the risk of seeming childlike or the risk of losing authority in some way.

Steve: 15:52 Trust me, I’ve been the dragon underneath the sliding board, trying to grab a leg of the of the person going down the board and having to growl from under there and hope that there weren’t other adults who saw me hiding there. But you’re right, those moments, they do stick with us forever. I’m wondering if there’s any last words of encouragement you’d like to leave for parents here?

Madeleine: 16:20 Well, I just keep thinking about – I know like I’m a single parent and time can be full and there’s lots of can constraints
in there’s stress and so I’m just thinking about like empathizing with parents who, you know, may be thinking, well, this sounds great, but we’re busy and you know, how can we actually make play happen at home? And I guess I would just say, you know, thinking back to my own childhood what really works for me as a child with my mom, especially who’s an artist and a playwright, was when I always wanted her to kind of just be present for me. And when she would do that and allow us to write plays together or act out scenes, or, you know, just kind of enter into play in this theatrical way, I always felt so loved. And so I guess I would just say for parents, it really is pretty simple to create an environment where children are showing you how they play.

Madeleine: 17:17 And it really is just about being present and maybe taking a moment, like an hour or a half hour to just kind of sit with your kids and ask them questions. Like, what are you interested in right now? What are you doing when you play? And watching, especially with young kids, it’s a lot of observing, but with older kids, it’s conversation about their curiosity and what they’re really interested in. And play looks different at different ages. And sometimes it is just dialogue. Sometimes it’s just, you know, that. But just for parents to know it’s complicated and I think it can really, it can relieve stress when you slow down a little bit, especially now with everything being so kind of at our fingertips. And sometimes it involves like leaving the house and going into the yard away from distractions, but just that simplicity of being present for your kids, I think is what I’d say.

Steve: 18:10 Thank you. It’s a great connect. I just recorded a podcast this week with a school counselor focusing on middle school kids. And her advice for parents was that conversation was that was that critical spot and play, it actually creates an easier time with older students to have that conversation during a playful moment, rather than an investigatory parent question.

Madeleine: 18:44 Exactly. Yes. And also that reminds me too, as the importance of older kids as being really – and they don’t love this all the time. I have two teenagers who are like mom, stop telling us about your childhood, but I still do it because I want them to know stories from my own life. So I feel like for parents of older kids, to be able to just relay times that you felt really excited about your own creativity or playing or learning, whatever that moment is that you want to connect around with your kids to be able to share your own experiences I think is really important too.

Steve: 19:21 Thank you. Thank you. Madeleine, we’ll put your we’ll put your email address into the lead-in to this podcast along with links to that that article that I mentioned, you want to go ahead and go and share your your email address so that people who are listening can grab onto it too?

Madeleine: 19:42 Yes. So it’s my full name, which is madeleinerogin@gmail.com. A lot of the writing that I’ve done is on Medium. So you can
find that at medium.com and just search under my name and a lot of the blogs that I’ve written are on there. Yeah, and I’m coming out with a book.

Steve: 20:05 Oh, terrific.

Madeleine: 20:05 Yes, it’s called “Early and Often: An Educator’s Guide to Conversations About Race and Racism With Young Children” and actually meeting you has inspired me to propose a book about play.

Steve: 20:21 Alright!

Madeleine: 20:21 So I just put that into the company I work with and then hopefully we’ll get this into, I keep thinking about it beause I
really appreciate these conversations. I think it’s so important to talk about play right now.

Steve: 20:34 Well let me know when your new book comes out and we’ll have you back on the podcast around that book.

Madeleine: 20:40 Yay!

Steve: 20:41 Alright, thank you.

Madeleine: 20:41 Thank you.

Steve [Outro]: 20:44 Thank you for listening. You can subscribe to Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud on iTunes and Podbean. And please remember to rate and review us on iTunes. I also want to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter @stevebarkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.