In this episode, Ayelet Marinovich and Jess Burchiel discuss the importance of communicative intent and access to communication as a human right. Jess, a speech-language pathologist, shares her experiences working with children, emphasizing the value of responsive parenting and the challenges parents face in recognizing their children’s communicative actions.

We talk about:

• Communicative intent and Early Intervention

We look forward to hearing the ways in which this conversation sparked your curiosity, and what new questions arise from listening!

Learn With Less® Podcast episode: Assuming Intentionality – How to Respond to Early Communication

Connect Learn Play – Digital / Printable infant, toddler, and pre-school aged ideas to provide simple, enriching ways to support early development through play, language, music, and movement – using everyday items – helping you Learn With Less®!

The Learn With Less® Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint

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Book recommendation: How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life With Children Ages 2 – 7, by Joanna Faber

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Support Palestinian Liberation by learning more about the BDS or Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement which has strategic boycott targets for consumers

Learn more about the root causes of violence in Palestine, we recommend you watch this short history video or read The Hundreds Year War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

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Jess: Facebook / Instagram

Ayelet: Welcome to another episode of Learn With Less®. I’m here today with Jess Burchiel. Jess just told me that a great way to remember how to pronounce her last name is: it rhymes with Churchill. Hahaha. Jess, would you like to introduce folks a little bit to you & to the kind of work that you do?

Jess: I would love that. Thank you. Hi. Good afternoon from the west coast. My pronouns are she/her, I live in Bellingham, Washington, on occupied Salish and Nooksack and lami territory. I’m a speech-language pathologist here at a private clinic. I’ve been working with kids young as 2, and as old as 25, for about four years here. For years before that, I worked at a small community hospital in the county. I don’t know, I love cats, and I really like my job! I really like doing what I do, what we do, which has been so wonderful to continue to know.

Ayelet: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, I’m really happy to have you for this recorded conversation. You and I have been in touch over the last year and a half or so, mostly over social media. More recently, we’ve been in actual conversation with synchronous face to face contact, which is lovely. It’s been about a number of topics. These are including and not limited to: communicative intent, access to communication, the fact that everyone deserves access to communication, communication as a human right, human rights in general.

We’re both Jewish or Jewish adjacent, and quite outspoken within the movement for Palestinian Liberation and what is happening in Gaza and The West Bank. Really looking at how we communicate, what is being communicated, communicative intent, looking at the full spectrum of communication here, from both a political lens and a education lens. And as we all know, everything is political at the end of the day. So with that all said, let’s start there, right?

Jess: Let’s start there. I really gravitate to people who have a passion for what we do, for people who are internally curious about we do and how we do it. In particular now in the last year & a half, for people who are willing to speak up and say hard things. I think that is required of us, and I’m really excited to ask you some questions about communicative intent today. What do you think?

Ayelet: I love it. I want to start just because before we hit the record button, we were doing a nice little grounding practice. As we sit here recording, it’s spring break. I have kids at home. They’re in the other room doing “video game camp” in the living room. And it’s been a day, it’s been a week. Let’s get on the same page here. Let’s ground ourselves. And Jess, you were introducing this lovely exercise, and I was wondering if we could just start with that, as well.

Jess: A quick note, this is a grounding exercises, very new for me. It’s very much something I don’t want to do, which is why I’m trying to lean into it. I borrowed it directly from my therapist, who’s very much grounded in Buddhist teaching.

As people who’re very busy and often disconnected, one of the hardest things is just to slow down and stop. We’re going to do that by, me and you & everyone who’s listening, taking a second, truly, to put your feet on the ground. Feel your feet on the ground, and take a couple deep breaths.

Maybe I’m going to ask myself and you to identify a sensation in your body, and I’ll do the same. I will name mine as my heart is racing a little bit. I can taste the cupcake that a kid gave me this morning in the back of my mouth. Yeah. How about you?

Ayelet: I’m feeling some congestion in my nose and throat. I have celebrated a birthday of one of my children this weekend. I had a nine year old literally fall directly into my face while coughing. Oh yeah, it’s very cute. I’m just feeling some tightness in my back, looking forward to just getting to connect and talk today. So some ease in my belly and openness in my solar plexus. Jess, thank you.

So you had emailed me and you had asked about resources, thoughts, ideas around communicative intent. I’m going to open up this email, if that’s alright with you, as I read it out loud. So you had said, “I’m sure you’ve spoken about this countless times. Along with our mental health therapist, I am co-leading a support group for families with autistic kids. Something that came up last meeting was the concept that everything kids do has a communicative value. I think this is a really simple concept, but it seemed more challenging to go into depth about this with parents”. You’d said, “I’m wondering if there is a specific resource or podcast episode of yours that might help explain this concept to parents.”

I had shared with you that, yes, in fact, I do I have a podcast episode about this. It’s called Assuming Intentionality, Responding to Early Communication. And of course, so much of what I focus on here at Learn With Less® is with early intervention… Those earliest years of infancy and toddlerhood, zero to three. A lot is focused on parent education. Also educators and or therapists who are serving that population. This is both in a family centered approach or just the kids or just the parents. That was the nuts & bolts focus of that episode, but I want to hear anything that was helpful around listening.

Before we started recording, we started talking about how so much of looking at communicative intent and assuming intentionality, assuming that there is intent behind any action, essentially, is that it actually doesn’t matter what age the child is. You and I share a lot of experience, having worked with autistic kids. We’ve both worked with assistive technology, specifically augmentative & alternative communication.

Utilizing assistive technology within the realm of communication might look like a speech generating device that’s high tech. It might look like a picture based or visual communication system. You and I have both utilized things like that within our work. I want to hear what was helpful for you, specifically with your work, looking at the episode that I directed you to. Also, what else do you want to talk about?

Jess: Oh, man. Okay, so my favorite takeaway was that there is an evidence base for responsive parenting. I love being able to say, “this is what the science says” when parents are asking me questions about how to help their kids talk more. And that’s not something I’ve read into! I know that more responsive parents tend… I’ve just seen that that they tend, their children tend to communicate more.

That almost seems self evident, but to know that that is what the evidence shows was really good. I was like, Okay, I can look at this. I can be able to say that confidently, even if it seems obvious. This brings me to my questions that I want to talk about with you. Would you agree that it seems pretty obvious that responsive parents have more communication coming out of their kids? Does that seem to you an obvious thing, or was it a surprise to you? Or do you even agree with that?

Ayelet: In my own personal experiences, both as a mother & in my professional experiences as a speech language therapist. Yes, I have, I have found that to be the case. I think primarily the reason is because joint attention& and communicating for a social purpose of any kind… Turn taking begets more turn taking! Once we have that skill, we see that oh, I say something. You say something. I look at something. You look at something. I reach out for something. You name it. I hand it to you. You say, thank you.

It’s a continuous response, whether those responses are verbal or not. I think that is the piece. What I have found is that when any human feels heard, feels acknowledged and seen and supported, then they’re going to continue along that path. They’re they’re going to continue to have those attempts to to want more, because that is an innate human need.

Jess: Yeah, so here’s my question. Well, maybe it’s another question. My experience… all of that resonates with me. It feels very natural. It feels very human, like we are communicating to kids and validating what they communicate back.

What I’ve seen be a challenge is that sometimes… I feel like the challenge there is shifting the mindset of parents. And I’m wondering if my questions circle around that, specifically. What do you think gets in the way or prevents us, caregivers, parents, from recognizing that all communication has value. Recognizing that there is communicative intent happening. Like, what do you think gets in the way?

Ayelet: That is, what a great question.

Jess: Yeah, I thought, Okay, so why… that’s my pathology brain. Like, okay, we see a problem. Why?

Ayelet: Right? What is getting in the way? I love that. I think that could be the title of our episode!

Jess: Yes, what gets in the way? What prevents us from recognizing the communicative intent of children?

Ayelet: Yeah, well, many things. First of all, I think in many ways, a lot of it comes down to time, energy, effort, education, understanding. Not just about child development, but about actually sitting with and being with and recognizing, again, basic human needs. And I think that some of this is because we are very busy as humans, right?

We’re “keeping up with the Joneses,” whether or not we’ve opted out of multiple things. We are often trying to manage a home and a family. Maybe a co-parent or caregiver, and at least a job and all of the things. We want to feel like we have enough in a society that is built around needing to be more, do more, & buy more. So here’s the easy answer, we’re not going to be perfect. It’s impossible, right? This is a supremacist ideology.

I think that’s part of it. I also think a big part of it has to do with what we are told is communication. What is valid and valuable. There’s so much pressure on many parents and caregivers to be raising the best child possible. So many people in our society value academic language, politeness markers. I think that’s a big part of it, too.

So how that comes out often can be in the form of parents and caregivers sometimes sort of getting into that stuckness, of the interrogation: What’s this? What’s that, what’s this, what’s that? For the specific purpose of labeling, for this sort of performance: show me what you know. This, again, you’re not a bad parent for doing that. None of us are. I’ve done it!

Jess: I do it all the time!

Ayelet: We do it because we want our kids, our clients, to show us what they’re able to do, & to feel successful. Also, we want to make sure that we’re not just communicating for one specific purpose. We want to give our little people, or not so little people, in some cases, the opportunities to engage in communicative acts for a variety of purposes. Sometimes to protest, to request a social routine. Sometimes to greet, sometimes to acknowledge, sometimes to request an object – so many different pieces!

I think what’s really important is to recognize that all of those (and so many more!) communicative acts can be done without speaking a single actual word.

Jess: Absolutely.

Ayelet: That is an attuning, I think. For many parents & caregivers who are not thinking about how their often pre or non-speaking child is communicating. For an educator how their student, for instance, is communicating. They’re looking at a particular piece & not taking the time to ground themselves. Not taking the time to really look at all of the whole environment, themselves. At them as the respondent, what the setting is, what’s happening around them, what the child might be interested in.

I have an example, a memory that I have from when my own eldest was about a year old. I remember my mom was visiting. We had gone out to a meal, just the three of us. Myself, my child, and my mom. My kid was, at that time, very early stages, making one word utterances. He was reaching out, sort of pointing. Looking at somebody over in the restaurant. He said, “tah!” And I was like, oh, okay, yep, there’s a person over there. That’s their head, cool. And my mom, it was my mom, who realized, is he saying “hat?”

The person was not actually wearing hat, they were wearing a head scarf. It was just so interesting because, as you may know, my go to with anything is: anything can be a hat, right? So then we grab the napkin from the table. We’re putting it around our heads & saying, Oh, is this a hat? This is like a hat. It’s a scarf. And he said “tah!” again. He repeated his word! He’s switching the consonants, but he was saying it. He was saying hat.

Anyway, it just it was one of those experiences that you’re like, oh, wow, cool. This is a child who is absolutely paying attention to what’s happening. Is actually assigning a a symbolic language, a word. It’s a matter of looking at the environment, looking at the setting. Looking at what’s interesting to the child, looking at where the child is gesturing. Looking at how they’re doing it, what they might be commenting on.

Deducing, “detectiveing,” investigating what is happening here, and only then might you notice. And then we had a whole conversation about it, and we played with the napkin, and we… Yeah, it just like, what a what a lovely thing. And if my mom hadn’t been there, I would have missed it, right? So we’re never going to be able to get it all the time. That’s an important thing to say as well.

Jess: Yeah, I suppose, that perfectionism like, “Oh no, I missed it, It’s my fault.” One of my favorite books is “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk.” There’s one for littles and one for older kids. That is one of their things. The best thing about being a parent is you have a million chances to do it again. You will never run out of chances to try again and do better.

I am not a parent. Sometimes, I think that’s a good perspective to have, because it makes me have more questions about parenting. But that’s absolutely true. I think that it’s really funny, actually. We started out today by slowing down and noticing. I think that is actually what the answer to my question is, to some degree. We got there. It honestly took only about 10 minutes to get to! We all live under a supremacist capitalist system that puts pressures on us. External pressures that we are all subject to, and it is challenging.

I really want to validate that to parents. It’s challenging to slow down and notice because you don’t always know! There’s a lot of that external pressure. One thing that I’ll do with parents, that I just started doing… I will have them playing with their kid. Playing in the way that (we know that it’s so much more than that), but also just play.

And I’ll just sit them down. I’ll give them a piece of paper & say: I just want you to write down what you notice. Just as a practice. Even then, parents are like, Oh no, it’s a test. I’m like, nope, not a test. This is just practicing noticing. It is a hard thing to do.

Ayelet: So hard, especially if you are not practiced in this.

Jess: Another thing that that came up for me in my “noticing practice,” which is also very new… If it’s hard, then find the smallest step that’s easy that you can do. If noticing is hard, maybe just trying to slow down for a millisecond, that’s all you can do. That’s fine. Again. It’s not about perfection.

Ayelet: It’s such an important piece of what we do. That slowing down, having dedicated time doing being in a practice of doing these things. It might be through play, through adding more language, just verbalizing, narrating, asking questions, answering your own rhetorical questions. Through musicality, whether it’s a rhythm or a nursery rhyme or a chant. Or play, or something you’re making up on the fly. Or whether it’s through movement, practicing visual awareness, perceptual awareness, practicing gross movement. Whether it’s a child with motor challenges. Or whether it’s a teeny tiny baby who is literally just trying to figure out where their body begins & ends in space. Whether it’s anybody in between.

All of these pillars within the context of Learn With Less® of play, talk, sing, move, are, to me, those kinds of interactions that really give the opportunity for parents and caregivers. Also for educators and therapists, to do that work. To slow down, to attend, to acknowledge, to investigate, to pay attention. For instance, in a Learn With Less® class, that is the majority of what a class is, for caregivers & babies.

Whether it’s happening through a song activity, it’s literally just the activity. Often it’s, all right, here’s a tune. You may be familiar with it. Now we’re going to just input a word for what you see your child doing. Maybe what you are doing, what the object is, what’s happening. Mabye how it feels, whatever it is. Find a word that is in the context of this. Those are the words you’re going to sing on or chant on.

That is such a major part of what myself and other Learn With Less® facilitators do. It gives that dynamic opportunity for caregivers to notice. To do that work, of purposefully engaging in that way. Of course, you can do that in a therapy session. You can do that with your own child. You can do that in a educational setting, whatever it is. But yeah, just as an example having that practice of slowing down. Being intentional as a caregiver or practitioner so that a child can know that that is valued here.

Jess: The words that come out of our mouth tell our kids what is valuable to us. I often… what I think… I don’t know how much time we have, and have so much I want to say about this! But I’ll just say that I find that one of the things I say over & over & over again when I talk to parents is… I want you to be thinking about directing their attention to where their child’s attention is.

I’m often working with kids who are older, non-speaking. We’re working on the same things. Trying to engage together and validate all communication. I have to work pretty hard to sometimes get parents to attend to what their child’s attending to. To join in, rather than pull their child away to something else. I started describing it as… I want you to imagine that your kid has a minor’s headlamp and it’s on whatever they’re focusing on.

Ayelet: I love that visual!

Jess: They’re wearing that hat. And any word coming out of your mouth, it better be about what’s in that light. I want you to fill their world with words that show that you are attending to what they’re attending to. For kids when we say they don’t pay attention, or they’re not coming over to play. I’m like, okay, that’s fine. Our job right now, going back to that investigator, detective is to know what they’re focusing on. To know where their attention is. To attend to that with the phenomenal blessing that is our language skills as mature adults. I say that a lot!

I think we’re already talking about the second question. What are the challenges that we have in shifting parent perspectives on this? We’re raised as we’re raised. We have our own experiences and expectations and different pressures on us from the world. A lot of valid fear from parents that if their kid doesn’t measure up, they will be subject to discrimination, harassment, violence.

Especially if, I mean, I’m white. Marginalized families absolutely have more reason to be worried about what might happen. To want their child to meet certain expectations. But I’ve had success in saying, what are they looking at? Only talk about that as simple as that, that’s our practice for today.

Ayelet: Yes! Also, parents ask all the time, how do I build my child’s attention skills?

Jess: Oh, I could talk about attention for days.

Ayelet: And that is, that’s how.

Jess: Oh my gosh, that’s how. That’s how. Guess what? Sorry, you’ve got to talk about cars. Sorry, it’s boring! You want to build your child’s attention skills. Shout out to anybody out there saying that you can’t do that with anything other than attending to things that you like… Because that’s how it works. But, yeah, you gotta, maybe you gotta talk about minions forever.

That’s how you build attention skills. I would say many of, if not most of the kids that I see. From a year and a half, all the way up to the oldest that I’ve seen… Attention is a component of it. That connects everything that we’re talking about today. When we talk about slowing down and noticing we are talking about resting our attention away from the million things out in the world and putting it on ourselves.

And that’s that’s hard, that’s really hard. But when we’re supporting that with our kids, with our language, we’re helping them have the language to do that for themselves.

Ayelet: Does that feel complete, Jess? I mean, for now?

Jess: We could talk about all this stuff that I want to talk about. I feel like that’s yeah, that specific note, anyway, yeah, for sure, yeah.

Ayelet: I want to talk about the fact that every one deserves a communication as a human right. Everyone deserves access to communication… To being heard. Whether that is your literal words, whether that is your viewpoints. Whether that is your narrative, what you are experiencing in the world.

I think when we as healthcare, educational professionals are talking about the importance of this and not speaking out about those who are not receiving access to that, whose whose narratives, whose stories are not being told or are not being heard or are being gaslit, then we are doing a real disservice. You and I started to engage and interact one on one together through work around collective liberation and Palestinian human rights. I wonder, how can we connect these two things? Because they are absolutely related.

Jess: Yeah, a couple of things. A, it is our job to as as much for our patients and our clients and our families. It is our job to be informed and be able to connect the dots for them.

It is our job as people who live in the West, people who have privilege, to educate ourselves so that we can connect the dots. We have access to so much information, I believe we are required to do that. To lean in to when we notice that there’s perhaps a gap in our knowledge. Perhaps a disconnect between our values and our actions. That gets into real discomfort. I think that that’s probably something we’ve all experienced to a small degree.

But when you practice medicine, as we do… If you work in education, if you work, gosh, in so many different areas, you swear to some values in medicine. We say that those values are universal. Like you said, communication is a human right.

We have to be able to step back and be able to recognize that if we have these values and yet, we are able to look away from people whose rights are being violated in ways as horrific as genocide… We have to be able to introspect about why that is, and understand what that might tell us about us.

Not that it makes us awful, bad, nasty people. It makes us people who live in a world, and work on that. I believe that’s required of us, as well. It’s not fun. And another thing that I’ll share with you that’s just directly read from my therapy. Speaking up and doing the right things, speaking up for rights, for human rights, for communication, for health care, for access to food and water, for the right to simply tell your own story. Doing the right thing doesn’t get you claps. It doesn’t get you cookies.

Ayelet: And often comes at a cost.

Jess: It often does. I was raised in a church, Protestant. I grew up with the mythology of Jesus who did all the right things. The mythology of what happened to that person. We have a very good example here in Christian culture. I’m atheist now, but that’s something most of us know.

And yet I think that we think that it should be easy to connect the dots. To notice those uncomfortable things. To have those uncomfortable conversations, and it’s not. And that’s okay, and it’s okay, like you said, to not be perfect with it. I think that’s maybe another really important one.

Ayelet: One of the things that is just feeling very alive in me, and that’s coming up from what you’re talking about, too, that very much connects all of this, is the idea of dehumanization. The idea of all communication being valid, all bodies being valid.

When we only value certain people, certain neurotypes, certain bodies, certain lineages, certain ethnicities, certain identities, that is how we dehumanize others. And unless we understand that, in the case of a child who is either pre verbal or non speaking, that all of that is valid. There is value in all of those humans and all of those modes and modalities of communication.

When we prioritize one over another, or only value one over another, that is how we end up in hierarchy. In systematic oppression and oppressive tendencies. And so until we are doing that work of understanding that base level of, “what is the ideology? What do we believe about certain people versus certain others?” Unless we’ve done that hard work, then we’re never going to see even the level of dehumanization that’s possible.

Jess: That is a really good point, that all of these ideologies come from somewhere. None of them are natural. They’re learned. They’re all learned. And that undoing that starts with the relationships we have around each other. What more important relationship than when you have with your family and your children?

Ayelet: Yeah, your community.

Jess: It’s really hard to talk about. I find it really hard to talk about what I do and how I’m trying to help families without talking about big stuff. I think that that means that I’m doing it right. Even if it feels like I don’t quite know where it’s going. Sometimes I feel like… I don’t know if I said it already today, but that we’re pathologists for a reason.

Our job is to figure out what is the source of the problems… Rather than spot treating like what’s the root cause of what we’re seeing. And that’s a lot, and if we work on that, it’s a lot more efficient. Yes, and that applies to the culture we live in and the world we’re in.

Ayelet: Absolutely. What else would you like to talk about here today, Jess?

Jess: I’ve got one more metaphor for you, if you want it, that I use a lot. Let’s see, the questions that I wrote down, we pretty much covered.

In shifting parents framework, another thing that has been helpful is to talk about what speech therapy for articulation is, which is what we often people think of as speech therapy. Get them to say it right, which is a thing that I do and do quite well.

But that’s quite different than communication therapy, if you want to call it that. And I describe them as different in that working on sounds is like kind of being a car mechanic. They got some… not broken pieces, but pieces that aren’t working quite right and need a little jiggle, tinkering. With the right approach, I can reach in and just fix it, six months or so.

I can do that versus supporting a child’s language development, which is a wholly different thing. And I describe that as gardening, because can you pull a plant out of the ground? Can you force it to grow? No, you have plants, and maybe a certain plant is struggling. If you want it to grow, you have to make that ground be as fertile as humanly possible.

Ayelet: You have to shift the environment. Tend to the environment. Make sure it’s in the right setting. Look at the context for everything. Give it the right amount of attention for it to thrive. And you are good with these metaphors!

Jess: Another thing I was going to ask you about. So we’re talking about recognizing communicative intent and all of this stuff that ties back into like culture and expectations. I lived in the Pacific Northwest for my whole life. White English speaking, European ancestors. Very much like a monoculture here.

I had a parent tell me when I was talking about some of this. Talking about descriptive language or something like that, parallel narrative talk and all that stuff. And she was like, Oh yeah, that’s what we do all the time. We’re Japanese. And I realized, I don’t know how much of this is just particular to my culture! I’m wondering if there are cultural differences, or, I mean, cultures that do this differently or better, or maybe we don’t know at all.

Ayelet: I mean, I think what I tend to look at, or what I’ve noticed the most, are different kinds of patterns more around… Well, okay, a couple things. One is, I look a lot around at what kinds of caregiver relationships there are available to a child. Whether it’s just a nuclear family, or an extended family where you have lots of different adult and child or peer relationships. That’s something that I think you find often with more immigrant experiences. Or folks who are closer to an immigrant experience, regardless of, for instance, where family is from.

And then another piece is looking at trauma! What is available to a caregiver in terms of how much of themselves can be present and attentive. I mean, that is a huge piece. It can come out in some moments and not others. But definitely is connected to the ways that we watch family dynamics play out.

Jess: That’s actually, it’s maybe that’s a nice button. That’s making me think of the reason that I reached out to you about communicative intent. It’s what you just said about trauma, because my clinic, we’re very small, but we got a grant. We’re able to pay ourselves and some childcare folks to do a support group for families of autistic kids. They can come and bring their kids. We put them in one corner of the building. Everybody else hangs out.

We turn the lights off when everybody gets to sit on the squishy pillows. It’s great, and it’s led by a mental health therapist. I wasn’t quite sure what it was going to look like. It is basically an hour of stress management techniques, just basics.

Ayelet: That’s great.

Jess: It is. And I’m thinking about what you just said about trauma and again, root causes. If we’re trying to work on what’s the root cause of difficulty, being able to slow it down or having the time to notice that’s a huge part. Not everybody has access to the support for that. But that is why we’re talking today.

Ayelet: Yeah. And that absolutely is something that, number one can get in the way. It has the potential to get in the way of that connection, of seeing the communication in of itself. Also just gets in the way in general, between humans. When we don’t have access to the tools to reconcile, repair, heal, face traumatic experiences in our own lives… We are essentially bound to either get into similar experiences. We are bound to repeat them on ourselves, or enact them on others. Heavy stuff, heavy stuff, the stuff of life.

Jess: The stuff of life. It is the human experience.

Ayelet: Thanks so much. Jess, what a great conversation. I can’t wait to hear what other folks are taking away from this.

Jess: Oh my gosh, this is like giving me so many other good questions and food for thought, too. Thank you.

Ayelet: I love connecting with other professionals and listening to how they explain similar concepts! There’s always another little key ingredient that we can take away from each other. There’s so much value in having that sort of network of support listening to each other.

Jess: We get so siloed, it’s the classic speech pathologist thing. I really appreciate this. This has been wonderful!

Ayelet: Thank you for sharing so much of yourself here.

Jess: You too!

Ayelet: Yeah, thanks. All right, let’s leave it there.

The post What Gets In The Way of Recognizing That All Communication Has Value? An episode with Jess Burchiel, M.A., CCC-SLP appeared first on Learn With Less.

Are you constantly wondering if you’re doing enough as a parent? Do you feel pressure to “get it right” when it comes to your baby or toddler’s development? In this episode, In this co-produced episode, of the “Play On Words” podcast and the Learn With Less®” podcast, Ayelet Marinovich of  Learn With Less® joins host Beth Gaskill of Big City Readers.

Ayelet Marinovich is a pediatric speech-language pathologist, parent educator, & founder of Learn With Less®.

She’s the author of Understanding Your Baby & Understanding Your Toddler, 2 incredible resources that remind parents: you don’t need fancy toys or complicated activities—your everyday interactions are already powerful learning moments.

We talk about:
🧠 Why you don’t need more stuff to help your child learn
✨ How to feel confident that you’re doing “enough”
👶 The surprising ways babies and toddlers learn best
📚 Simple, evidence-based ways to support early development
🎵 Why everyday routines (yes, even diaper changes!) are packed with learning opportunities

If you’ve ever doubted yourself as a parent, this episode is your reminder: you are enough. 💛

The Learn With Less® Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint

Ayelet’s books: Understanding Your Baby & Understanding Your Toddler

Connect Learn Play – Digital / Printable infant, toddler, and pre-school aged ideas to provide simple, enriching ways to support early development through play, language, music, and movement – using everyday items – helping you Learn With Less®!

Learn With Less® Fundamentals Course

Big City Readers Courses

Ayelet’s Musical Album, Strength In Words: Music For Families

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Beth: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Beth: Welcome back to the Play On Words podcast. I am so excited and a little bit nervous today to have Ayelet Marinovich here from Learn With Less® to talk about: Do kids really need toys to learn and thrive? If you don’t know Ayelet, she is a child development guru, parent, play based learning specialist, and speech therapist too, right? So many things, I’ll let you introduce yourself, but this is an episode (I already know) is going to be so great. So welcome to the show.

Ayelet:
Thank you so much for having me. Beth. It’s great to be here. Yay.

Beth:
Okay, so tell us a little bit about you and Learn With Less® for the people who might not know you!

Ayelet: Sure. So again, I’m Ayelet. I have been a speech and language therapist since, gosh, 2009 / 2010. When I became a mom in 2014, I was far from where I grew up, which was here in California. My partner and I had moved to London, and so I was pregnant and had my first child there, across the pond. I was really looking for, number one, community. Number two, a way to utilize the knowledge that I have in my professional arena, and connect that with creating connection points with other new families. So I started leading caregiver and baby classes with my own child, just in my community, out of our home.

I loved it so much because it was an opportunity to connect, to bring people together and, again, to share information that at least I knew. Obviously, the overwhelm of early parenthood is intense, and this was a place that I could feel confident. I could feel at least a little bit less vulnerable and and really share that information with other new parents and caregivers who I knew were feeling the same way. I just started leading these groups, and really facilitating these groups and utilizing that knowledge, and just expanding on the kinds of questions that I was getting and asking myself. What can I do to support and connect with this teeny, tiny human in my world? And yeah, that’s, that’s how it came to be.

Beth: Wow. And so now, are you still leading them, or are you mostly training and coaching other people to lead them?

Ayelet: Yeah, primarily I license and support other educator and therapist types to utilize the curriculum that I developed, to use in their own communities. This is amazing because it expands the impact that I can have exponentially, and really allows me to feel like I’m putting something into the world that is healing and helpful.

Beth: It is. I even like the song on your podcast. Is that in – do you sing that in the class? Hello, everybody, I get it stuck in my head when I’m listening. I love singing it in my own house, like when I’m making dinner. So, okay, do you do miss teaching the in-person or the actual “caregiver & me” classes? Now that’s my growing pain, too: You want to have a bigger reach, but you kind of have to give a little!

Ayelet: Yeah, and I do from time to time, often offer them virtually! I mean, it’s funny, right? Because when I started the licensing program, it was February of 2020, so there was, of course, a big switch to, I now need to ensure that other folks also are able to lead these virtually. I had actually been doing this since 2017 myself, for a variety of reasons. There has always been a need for virtual connection, and always will be. So I do still lead classes from time to time, especially when I’m getting that itch.

Beth: Oh good, that’s kind of how I do it, too. I was just talking with someone yesterday, and they said, so you don’t get to be with kids anymore? I answered, No, I still do. I do, say, a once a month meetup, but it’s so hard because you think to yourself, I want to reach every kid and family! I think we align a lot on that – that is my big focus: community for families, whether they’re in school or in the baby stage.

Originally I started because I saw so many parents having struggles with knowing how to advocate for their child in an IEP meeting, or like things like that. There needs to be a bridge between school and home: how to find your community, asked the right resources… and then my work expanded to people who don’t need IEPs! Yeah, it’s such a need. Community is such an important part of being a parent!

Ayelet: Yes, especially in these uncertain times.

Beth: I know! Every post I do, I ask myself, does this matter? The world is on fire!

I know you are a big advocate of using what you have. I mean, your literal company is called Learn With Less®, right? I once posted something many years ago, and I still think about it, because I kind of got in trouble, but I posted something that a popular toy subscription company had sent me – this little toy that was a box and it had tissues in it, and you pull them out. I was like, so cute. And I made a post that said, and also, this actual box of tissues does the exact same thing. There’s no need to buy this.

Ayelet: I literally have one sitting behind me, yes!

Beth: The reason I got in trouble is because a toy store owner said, I’m so mad at you! but I said, I’m sorry, there’s enough for people that want to buy toys and people to know that they don’t need, too. So can you talk a little bit about what role toys actually play in child development?

Ayelet: I mean, first of all, I like to say this whole the baby industry is sort of a “The Emperor has no toys” situation, right? I am not anti toy. My children have always had toys, either that I have bought or that other family members or people in our community have given them. But my my kids also have always known that the wooden spoon and the paper towel roll are equally as entertaining and an equally valid developmental tool.

The power of any tool or toy is not inherently on the box that says “this is an educational toy.” Anyone can put that tag on, say, cupcake liner and say “educational toy.” It’s the actual interaction with that toy and with others that makes the difference. I think it also really comes down to the power of connection! And at Learn With Less®, we have four pillars that we want to define around creating more connection, more opportunities for interaction, more vocabulary, more modeling, more reciprocity. So those are, as I define them here at Learn With Less®, play, talk, sing and move. And I’m happy to go into that, if you’d like.

Beth: Oh, please!

Ayelet: Yeah! So around play, we want to define that with attention to the following principles. First, open ended play, meaning we want to encourage caregivers to really engage in the exploration of the environment and everyday objects. Also, being playful can simply mean exploring, experimenting, offering varied environments and varying objects! Most importantly, we want to actually help the adults in the room see that being playful is a different way of looking at what we as grown ups come to define as play. Many adults in the room come into the idea of playing with their child as following set of rules. For instance, we hit the ball, we run, we score. Or it can be thought of as a procedural exercise: we open the book, we read the page, we turn the page, repeat.

Encouraging caregivers to play with no specific end goal in mind can really require them to reframe their entire thinking. I think a lot of your audience are educators or therapists, as well. So in a therapeutic context, you’re going to want to weave whatever skill you’re working on into the play. For instance, it might be that a professional is working on turn taking, eye gaze, joint attention, imitation, first words, or gesture use. We want to encourage and create an environment where that caregiver is encouraged to be flexible and accepting of what is happening, what might happen next, and what their child is doing. Finally, within that play, we want to ensure safety with a variety of materials.

Beth: Yeah. So, okay, I’m imagining. I always try to work on remembering that not everyone has all of the information. If I’m the furthest point out, I’m imagining that I’m a parent. So how do I play with my kid? Say, I’m sitting in my living room and we have I’m drinking my coffee, and he likes the plastic lid that I took off from the coffee shop we stopped at this morning. How do we play with that? I think a lot of parents also think that play means I have to “be silly,” which I think maybe we can correct that. I think people want a specific goal. So if they’re asking, so what do, how do I pick what topic I want to do with this lid? And, you know, then they just get stuck. Do I just say, the lid is on my head?

Ayelet: Well, actually, yeah, I mean, my default is always… everything is a hat!

Beth: Okay, so that is a good move.

Ayelet: It’s a great method, yeah! I mean, it’s really about following the child’s lead. If your child is interested in that plastic lid, then, yeah, what are they doing with it? All you need to do is talk about what they’re doing, how are they engaging with it? Oh, it’s light! Yep, you can pick it up. I wonder if there’s something heavy over here? Just speak about what they are doing with it, or how it feels, or what it looks like. Engage with that. Of course, we can always expand, meaning take what they are doing and add more language. I can imagine say, pushing a finger down and sort of popping it up. There’s so much that we can either lead with and model, or simply just follow what our child is doing and how they are interested in it.

Beth: I love it. Okay, that’s easy. Do you have a time frame around that? I know we would say, no, just follow their lead. But so many people ask, how long do I sit? Should I introduce something else? I think we’ve over analyzed things so much as a society that people feel like they’re not doing anything right. When actually, you’re worrying about it is the only problem!

Ayelet: I think parenting is such a practice of of being able to sit with. I will be the first person to say that I absolutely still struggle with that. My kids are eight and 11 now. But I think it’s about paying attention to what’s happening in the environment. It’s looking at, is the child still engaged? Great. Continue to reinforce that engagement. Are they finding that they’re done? Great. We’re all done with this. We can move on to the next thing. And like you said, it’s very hard, I think, for families to trust themselves. So much about of what this is all about, what I try to achieve at Learn With Less®, is fostering confidence and competence. It’s about helping families feel confident and competent that they can be with, and facilitate, and engage in play.

The means to do that are often through these four pillars of play, talk, sing, move, which are again, just an open ended opportunity to enjoy your child for a few minutes. I think another thing is, like you said, people think that play is “I have to be silly. I have to do pretend play. I’m not good at that. I don’t want to do that. Or I don’t even have more than 10 minutes a day to dedicate to sitting and totally being present.” But I think the example you gave,Beth, is so good. Because it’s literally: Okay. I’ve sat down with this maybe lukewarm cup of coffee. I’m finally getting a few minutes to sit with it and with my child. So much can happen within those in between times.

A lot of what I talk about at Learn With Less® is utilizing those everyday routines and tiny rituals of the day. That’s your gold! We don’t need to necessarily dedicate 20 minutes a day just sitting with our child. We are literally doing it during a diaper change, when you’re putting your child’s shoes on or sweater on, when you are going out to get the mail. All of those little things are the opportunities!

Beth: Those tiny moments are often the times we’re rushing through to get to the next part – but that’s when everything’s happening! I also when you were just talking, I thought, okay, I went from asking, people are going to ask, “what do I do?” Okay, so say they want to play with this lid, and can we give them play? And then when you renamed the pillars again, play, talk, sing and move, then, I got to thinking about what happens next! So maybe you’re pushing the lid, and then you’re going to chase it. Then you get it, and then you are popping the thing, and you’re going, “pop, pop, pop, pop goes the top,” and just those little moments. So maybe walk us through, let’s keep this as the example, and through the rest of the pillars.

Ayelet:
Okay, so we’ve started with play, so then we can discuss talk. Like you said, “pop, pop, pop, pop goes the top.” That’s both talk and sing! You’re saying vocabulary and you’re making it into some rhyming scheme, you’re giving it a rhythm or a melody. So for talk, we want to remember that caregivers – just by having discussions with their potentially pre verbal baby or toddler, just by making those observations alongside their child, they’re creating a language rich environment.

Let’s think about this idea of “repetition with variation” as the gold standard. That’s about helping them see the value in all those everyday experiences, like the diaper change or popping the lid of the coffee topper. These are all these are opportunities for repetition, because maybe you do go get a cup of coffee every morning. And tiny variations that you can make with a change of pace, with a change of attention, with the addition of a choice making opportunity, with a little song, like “pop, pop, pop goes the top” and so on. That’s it!

We also want to help caregivers remember that the drill and kill kind of “what’s this? What’s this?” labeling that many parents sort of get stuck in, because they want their child to show them how much they know… This is just one of the many reasons we communicate! Labeling is just one way we can talk about things, but so is asking questions, making requests, greeting… You could hold up that lid and say hello, and then move the little topper that goes in and out and that can be its mouth. Suddenly you have a puppet! Oh my goodness, how cute!

So many other parts of joint intentional acts, socially interactive acts, and behavioral regulation acts are all talk, creating that language rich environment. We all communicate using a variety of means and modes, not just with words! Remember alll those precursors to language, all those additional ways, like eye gaze, facial expressions, gestures, moving closer to an object. So maybe your child is pre verbal, and they’re not going to say something, but you might move that funny little top that’s become a puppet closer to their face, and they might move towards it too. Then all of a sudden, when they’re not expecting it, BOO!

There’s so much that we can infuse with these silly little objects that often end up in our recycling containers, that are opportunities for engagement and modeling our own curiosity, talking about our own feelings, imitating their vocalizations, verbalizations, and movements. These are all supporting various areas of communication. And caregivers are the primary language models. They are the ones modeling what they want their child to then imitate. So we want to help them model a wonderful variation of vocabulary, and formation of sentences, etc. We also want them to model positive behavior of positive communication styles. We want them to talk to their children, around their children in the ways that you know they want them eventually to do the same to them. So that is how I sort of define talk.

And then we have sing. Often, this is the one people have the most difficulty gathering the resources and just doing. I want to really encourage people to remember that this pillar of sing doesn’t necessarily mean singing a specific song with specific vocabulary, singing every day or in every way with their child. There’s so many ways to be musical, just like “pop, pop, pop, pop goes the top,” because music is so powerful. Giving caregivers ways to feel at ease, trying things out, and giving children ways to trying things to try things out, by modeling our own imperfection, and using music to add a silly element to a simple routine. This coffee lid being a wonderful example. Another one might be the diaper change. STINKY DIAPER! It’s time for a new one! Or my personal favorite, that came out of a moment of brilliance. “Is there a poopoo in there / Is there a poopoo in there / Was it only air / Or is there poopoo in there?

Beth: Oh my gosh. I love that. I think parents and caregivers need this permission that being silly actually is helpful!

Ayelet: Yeah, right, when you have the capacity!

Beth: Yes, yes. So I just thought about when you were using talk and sing to model both communication and stuff that you want them to do. I thought of the little tiny Tim song, the froggy. I had a little froggy / his name is Tiny Tim. I always do at the burp, he had a bubble in his throat, and we do a big burp, and then I always go, “and what should he say? Excuse me!” In those moments, because yeah, it can be fun to do Tiny Tim and there’s a lot of language benefits and literacy benefits and all of the things and that. But also, you can add in manners!

There’s so much, I think, that people often also get lost in that questioning, what does a dog say? What does a cow say? I like to remind grown ups to try to think about yourself in conversations. Are you just asking questions? That’s not a good conversation! If you’re just asking a dozen questions at someone, that’s gonna get really boring for the other person! You have to leave that space for the dialog. I think that’s a good reminder.

Ayelet: Sometimes just pausing at the end, towards the end of a sentence or a poem or a chant or a melody of a song is such an effective thing! And that’s actually, there’s a name for that. It’s called the cloze procedure, where you’re pausing and what do we do next? We… buckle our seat belt, or whatever it is. When you have that sort of repetition and routine, you you allow them to know, number one, what’s coming next, and number two, offer an opportunity for them to either verbally or gesturally, take the next step and fill in that gap.

Beth: I love it. That is great. I also love to do that when I’m talking about teaching rhyming. I’m sure you know the book, Little Blue Truck. I could read it in my sleep. My examples always go, horn went beep / Engine purred / friendliest sound you ever…. And I always am coaching parents and teachers and caregivers that even if they’re not gonna know the rhyme yet, or even if they don’t, just leave a little bit of time, and then if the child is not saying it, then just fill it in. But giving that amount of time is going to help them start to realize, Oh, those two words are rhyming words. Oh, there’s a word that goes there. Oh, that’s not just one sentence, those are separate words…

Ayelet: Yes! I mean, I’m just imagining this whole thing, and visually, I’m seeing myself cupping my hand against my ear. “Friendliest sound you ever…” put the hand against the ear, and that’s a gestural opportunity for someone, for a child who’s maybe non verbal, pre verbal, to to give that that gesture of “heard.”

Beth: I love that. Okay, amazing. So then move is next, yeah, great. Tell us about move.

Ayelet: Number one, movement is life. Their child learns about everything by learning how their body moves, where it is in space, by solving that problem of how to balance and lift, and figuring out elements of force & gravity, and of becoming the scientists that they are through movement. So we want to help caregivers remember that even with a tiny baby or a child with motor challenges, they can consider various movement planes. Whether it’s during tummy time or during a dance party or a lullaby, whether it’s to stimulate or to regulate.

Also, exploration cannot be contained. It is learning. So we might have some movement in and out of the location where the session started. We might be sitting up or laying down on the floor. We might be mouthing something or exploring how one surface is different from the next. Movement is also connected to gesture, so pushing, pulling, raising a hand, waving all of those things. Even in that example, earlier that you were giving of pushing that coffee lid on on the floor, for instance, with a little toddler: you can have them flick it with their finger, or with their whole hand, or their the tops of their fingers, or with a foot. There’s so many ways to integrate movement, and we know that early gestural communication is also linked to this movement as well.

It’s all connected. And I want to also just name out loud that all of these things, play, talk, sing, move. There’s overlap with all of them, of course. Just gonna say that. So it’s not like you can, you know, check one off the list and be done with it. It’s an ebb and flow. You’re always playing. All of this is play, but how can you infuse more playfulness, more language, more melody or rhythm or and more movement into your everyday moments with your child.

Also, those four pillars are how we support cognition, communication, motor and sensory development and social/emotional development. That is how it happens! It’s sort of this developmental matrix that I like to talk about: there are ways that you can play that support cognition. There are ways that you can play that support communication. There are ways that you can play that support motor and sensory development, etc, etc. And then same goes for all of the other pieces.

Beth: Yeah. I was just thinking, we love the song, zoom, zoom, zoom. And in that song, you’re doing all the things, because you’re doing, zoom, zoom, zooming. Yeah, we’re flying to the moon, and then when you do blast off and you lift the baby in the air, it’s playful, it’s movement. You’re flying them around the room, even the part if you want to take a trip, climb aboard my rocket ship, has talk in it. There’s singing… So if your baby wants you to sing, zoom, zoom, zoom 10 times. Guess what? You just did all of the components!

Ayelet: Exactly. All you need to do. And maybe they’re telling you that they want you to do, zoom, zoom, zoom by moving their hands in that zooming way that is representative of that song. To me, it’s really, you know, it’s not about you getting to show off all your cute therapy toys or getting to use your laminator as a provider, but for every single material that you use as a provider or a therapist or educator, for instance, if you’re bringing something into the home or you’re providing materials within a group, or you’re using what’s already there, try to think of the most basic version.

In our use of everyday items, we’re educating caregivers that they don’t need what you have, what you bring in, they can use what they already have in their own homes, regardless of how “much” or how “little” they have. Our caregivers are a diverse set of people and children who may or may not be accustomed to playing with a variety of materials. So I want to address this too, right? Folks maybe started a speech therapy session or a developmental class maybe already having spent the morning in a cardboard box or the kitchen cabinets. OR, that caregiver may be completely opposed to their child using their their kitchen as a play space, and that’s fine! That is their right. If they’re not comfortable, you find another way, another material, another space. Because, again, we’re building family capacity, family confidence and family competence.

Beth: Amazing. So would you say, if, let’s say a therapist is listening to this. The question is: what is your favorite tool that you can find in someone’s house?

Ayelet: Ooh, the favorite? That’s a fun one. I think the salad spinner is one of my all-time faves.

Beth: Wow, I was not expecting that!

Ayelet: Yeah, my kids still, if they see the salad spinner… again, they are eight and 11 years old. They will take it out. They’ll just push down that topper. It’s such a fun, very regulating activity. The sound of it, the pushing of the topper is great. You can put things in, take them out, tap it. It goes round and round. There’s so much vocabulary. There so much opportunity for a musical element. It is a movement activity. Fine motor, yeah.

Beth: Great one.

Ayelet: And, of course, there are multiple levels of hats, right? The top is a hat, the bottom is a hat. The netting section is a hat.

Beth: So, wow, lots of hats.

Ayelet: When in doubt, it’s a hat.

Beth: Yeah, when in doubt it’s a hat! Do you have any practical shifts you can give to caregivers to help them shift their mindset from entertaining their child to supporting independent play?

Ayelet: building attention is done through helping children see the creative aspects within what they have in front of them. When you are engaging with those everyday objects, whether it’s the coffee lid or a diaper itself, or whatever it is you are helping them with, see the magic and the wonder in all of those things, and see the value in those things.

What the research says is that one way to support attention and independence in young children is actually through engagement. So it’s a little bit counterintuitive, but that is literally what we can do. The more little moments that you can spend in engagement with your child, the the more actually that fosters their independence and their ability to see playful opportunities everywhere.

Beth: Yes, that is in deep alignment with one thing that I I talk about. I have a course at Big City Readers, learn to draw, drawing to writing. It’s a progression, it starts with just drawing, and then you’re writing words. And some parents will say, Okay, I put it on and my child is it’s for four and five and six year olds. The child is watching it, but they’re not doing it. What should I do?

I always say, set up two spots, put it on and don’t say anything. You just do the class. You sit and you draw with me, and you write with me. And you don’t need to invite them. They see that there’s a spot for them if they want to come over there, but show them that you’re doing it. If you’re like watching TV and you say, Okay, you do this, or you know you’re doing something. They want to be close to you. They want connection with you. So if you’re doing it and not pressuring them, they’re probably going to be interested in what you’re doing.

Ayelet: Yes, absolutely.

Beth: What advice would you give to parents or caregivers who feel pressure to keep up with trends of toys and things, especially with social media. I get a lot of messages saying, this new reading curriculum came out. Do I need it? My answer is: You have taken Big City Readers classes. Those are the tools you need. That tool that that new reading game, is not going to teach your child anything more than you know already! You don’t need another tool. You are the one that teaches your child. That tool is not magical. Do you have any advice on people that are trying to keep up?

Ayelet: I mean number one, don’t be afraid to opt out. I’ve gotten much better at that over the years.

Beth: Why is it so hard?

Ayelet: It is so hard because we live in a capitalist society that tells us that more and more and more is always better, that you need to be more, do more, and buy more to be the “best” parent or therapist that you can be. And the the the secret in that is that you do already have everything you need to support and connect with tiny humans in your life.

That is the gold. And it is, it’s very hard to remember that. But if you need permission, here it is, you literally have everything you need. It’s probably in your recycling container. It’s in every single room in your home, and it’s everywhere that you go, if you are taking a walk with your tiny human, there is grass, there are spider webs, there are cracks in the concrete. All of that is, is the tool of supporting early language, early learning in general.

Beth: Wow, I love it. I Okay. What would you say to the parent or caregiver who is overwhelmed by clutter? Where should they start in simplifying their play space.

Ayelet: I’ve always been a big fan of toy rotation. Something children haven’t seen in a while suddenly takes on meaning and excitement and wonder, and it’s because they haven’t seen it in a while, or they forgot what joy it brought them. Even now , my 8 and 11 year old do this if they catch wind of a box we have in the garage that’s going to another family or for donation!

Even if you have, say, a closed bin of stuff, or a closet full of stuff, bringing just a few things out at a time, and just observing your child, looking at what what is exciting for them or interesting to them. And if you want to do that on a weekly basis or a monthly basis, there’s no right way, again. That’s a good reminder: there’s no right way for any of this.

Anyone who tells you that number one, they’re a parenting expert, or that this is the one, be all, end all solution, has something to sell you, right? I think really just reminding folks that they literally already have all of the tools they need, they probably need less than what they have depending on the family and community that we’re talking about. Just giving that permission to to Learn With Less®, is it.

Beth: I think that’s a really good reminder. You have what it takes. You don’t need these extra things. It’s hard to remember, though!

Ayelet: It is. Well, one of, one of the things that I want to offer to your audience is what I call the Learn With Less® infant and toddler development blueprint, which you can find at learnwithless.com/blueprint, and it goes through everything that we covered today. It’s everything around those four pillars of play, talk, sing, and move, how they connect to early development, and how you can support that. So that is a gift that I would be happy to share with your audience so you can keep it top of mind.

Beth: I like to remember whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed by anything, not just in this developmental world, that social media – back to the keeping up thing – you wouldn’t have 200 people in your house talking to you and giving you advice. Scrolling and watching videos from 200 people saying you should do this. You should do this.

I always like to suggest picking like the three to five people that really align with me right now doesn’t have to be forever. I say, you can unfollow me if I’m causing you stress, because you can’t, in this season, do these things with your child, but pick three to five and just focus on that and don’t look at anything else.

Ayelet: Decluttering, decluttering that digital landscape is also an important piece.

Beth: It is. I need to work on it as a daily practice.

Ayelet: Yeah, for sure, I’m there with you. 

Beth: Ok, I have two questions for you that I like to ask my guests. The first is, what are you currently reading?

Ayelet: Oh, what am I currently reading? Ooh, what am I currently reading! This is a good one.

Beth: I surprised you with this, because, as we talked about before we started the podcast recording, I was asking, how do you keep up? You’ve been doing this for almost 10 years, and I forgot that I have segments, and because I haven’t been I’ve been so irregular. I realized, oh yeah, it’s been a month since I recorded an episode. I forgot.

Ayelet: Yes, I’m reading a couple of books, which tends to happen. One is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a beautiful book. I’m listening to it on audio, and it’s her actually reading it. I love when that happens. Her subtitle is: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teaching of plants. It’s a really beautiful book.

Beth: Oh, that sounds amazing.

Ayelet: Yeah. And then the other one is called the Trail Guide to the Torah of Non-Violence by Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, who’s a wonderful Jewish spiritual leader and anti racist guide. So yeah, those two things on my reading list.

Beth: Oh I may have to link those too.

And okay, this one’s kind of tricky. So I’ll give you a minute if you need to think about it. But everyone that listens to this podcast seems to be from the same-ish generation. So I started asking, what is one thing that you miss about elementary school? It’s different now than it used to be. And you know, some people have said book covers. Lisa Frank pens have been mentioned. Oh, market days, which seems to be only certain population in the US had market days.

Ayelet: I want to know what that is!

Beth: It was a fundraiser for the school, like, once a month, and you could put an order for market days, and it was very novelty items, but not good at all, like french toast sticks and these little, tiny mini frozen pizzas. And it would raise money for the school. A percentage of the orders from market days would go to the school, and but only about 60% of people that I’ve mentioned that to knew what it was, and they’re like, Oh yeah, but the French go sticks from it were so good!

Ayelet: That’s really funny. Two things come to mind. One, and this is ironic, because my eight year old is is now begging to do this, which we will do. Don’t worry. Lemonade stands.So bringing it back, yes. The other one… and maybe this is more, a little bit more middle school, but mix tapes.

Beth: Yes, oh my gosh. I actually bought a used car a couple years ago, and there was a mixed CD in the and I found it like a year later. I was like, this is someone’s mixed tape!

Ayelet: Yes, so much love and intentionality goes into that. Oh gosh, yes. You know, there’s always a good playlist, of course, but the actual sitting down. And again, I was born in 1981 so cassette tapes were my jam, literally. But sitting down, often recording a song from the radio literally going, pressing record at exactly the right time. Yeah, amazing.

Beth: Yeah, wow. I do remember that, just like, brought me back. I remember what I had one that was written on it in pink marker. And I remember packing it to go to college, it was my favorite thing.

Ayelet: Yes – I have one from summer camp back in the day that I still treasure.

Beth: Oh, I love that. Wow. Where’d you go to summer camp? 

Ayelet: I went to Camp Tawonga, which is near Yosemite, yeah, fun place. Love it.

Beth: Well, okay, thank you so much for being on this episode. I can’t wait to share it with everybody and link all of your things that you mentioned. Where can people find you?

Ayelet: Yeah, at learnwithless.com, at Learn With Less® on all the social platforms, I hope! I mean, yeah, by the time this episode comes out. Yeah. I’m also on blue sky @learnwithless, as meta implodes, definitely at Learn With Less® you can find me almost everywhere, sharing information, ideas, permission to to put it down and opt out. And, yeah, lots of ideas and fun.

I love social media because it literally can be so social. And so if you’re on there, and you hear this and want to connect, please do – love to chat with you in the DMs!

Beth: Yay. Well thank you so much!

Ayelet: Thank you, Beth!

The post Am I Doing Enough? Understanding Your Baby & Toddler appeared first on Learn With Less.

On this episode of the Learn With Less® podcast, Ayelet discusses how a simple shift in our understanding of what we can view as “educational materials” or “toys” can help us see how little we actually need to buy… And also how much power there is in opening up our own eyes to the wonder of play, as seen through a young child.

Are you a new parent or caregiver wondering what you really need to support and connect with your baby or toddler? Or are you a professional who serves new families as a developmental therapist, early childhood educator, or other professional in the perinatal space? This episode and our related resource, Connect Learn Play, is for you!

Connect Learn Play

Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program

The Emerging Parent

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Hi there. I’m Ayelet Marinovich, and you’re listening to Learn With Less®. Today, I wanted to share a little bit about a very exciting new resource that we have just released here at Learn With Less®, in collaboration with my friend and colleague, Miranda Zoumbaris at The Emerging Parent. Miranda and I attended the American Speech Language and Hearing Association conference back in November 2023, and at that convention hall, we had a exhibit booth for Learn With Less®.

One of the fun giveaways that I had created was a series of postcards. On the front was an image of an everyday object, like a funnel or a laundry basket or a box. On the back there were a series of ideas for how you could use that everyday, simple object (a commonly found household item) to support connection and development through the use of play, language, music or movement. These are the four pillars of Learn With Less®: play, talk, sing and move.

Now, I had created these as a giveaway, and they were sort of a testing ground for the kinds of fun things that might be useful for both professionals serving young families as well as new parents and caregivers themselves. What happened was pretty hilarious. Everyone was getting them as giveaways, and they were asking where they could buy the product. So Miranda and I got to work creating this new, exciting resource for all of you, and we call it Connect Learn Play.

What does Connect Learn Play do? Basically, the promise is that you’ll always know how to support a young child’s development with a laundry basket, a cardboard box or a dish towel. Connect Learn Play is a resource for parents and caregivers of young children and for practitioners working with zero to five year olds. They are digital, printable, infant, toddler and preschool aged ideas to provide simple, enriching ways to support early development through play, language, music and movement, using everyday items, helping you to Learn With Less®.

I want to give you a little bit more information about what Connect Learn Play is, and why it is a useful resource for you. So essentially, it’s your invitation to stress less, to need less and spend less of your time and money so that you can feel more confident, be more responsive, and create more connection.

So, picture this: you’re sitting on the floor with your tiny human. You’re trying to figure out what to do to maximize the 20 minutes between the time you’ve gotten home and the time you’ve got to start getting ready for the next meal. You take out your devil device and start scrolling through Tiktok or Pinterest or IG, or whatever the latest idea rabbit hole where you’re currently following the latest parenting or early childhood influencer. Everything you find requires materials that are not within arm’s reach. And everything requires time you don’t have. Everything requires pre-planned brain space that you don’t have. And in the meantime, your child has found the curtain above them.

What do you do next?

A, pull your child away from the curtain again and again.

B, distract them with one of the five toys you got suckered into buying from this year’s best toys to buy for kids under five.

C, join your child at the curtain after recalling the idea about using long fabrics on the Learn with Less® Connect Learn Play prompt yesterday.

You can play peek a boo. Or you can talk about the color or texture of the curtain, or what you see outside the window. You could sing a song about hiding and seeking. And you could follow your little one around as they move behind the curtain. Listen, you get to decide!

Connect Learn Play cards are a classic resource from Learn With Less®. They’re designed to prompt you to start thinking about ways to connect the dots between what a child is showing interest in, between the relationship between caregiver and child. And to connect the dots between the literal neurons in a young child’s brain that enable them to grow, learn and thrive without being prescriptive, overly structured or requiring of any specific toy. Connect Learn Play helps parents and caregivers make the connection between a child’s interests and strategies used to support development, whether that child is experiencing a delay, is right on target or is ready for more.

If you are a parent, a caregiver or a provider of developmental services, then Connect Learn Play is for you! As with all the resources we create here at Learn With Less®, we use the four-pillar framework of the Learn With Less® curriculum (as I mentioned, play, talk, sing and move) to address four major areas of infant and toddler development: cognitive, communicative, motor and social and emotional development.

Toys and more materials take up, extra space, cost more and sometimes even prevent us from following a young child’s lead and responding to what they’re interested in at the moment. So, let’s get real. As a mother, a pediatric speech language therapist, and as a coach for practitioners using the Learn With Less® developmental curriculum, I am certainly not anti-toy. I say, do what works for you. But the idea that you need to buy anything in particular to support a tiny human is not only flawed, but also deeply inequitable.

Supporting development and connection for young children can be simpler than we think. Families need to know how to make use of the natural routines and everyday interactions in front of them. The idea that there’s an inherent developmental value in an object classified as an educational toy is, quite frankly, a delusion. The truth is, you already have the resources to give young children the right stimulation, play, and interaction to thrive – whether or not your toy closet is bursting at the seams. The items in our homes that we already have often hidden in plain view are powerful learning tools that can support all areas of development.

So just imagine, providers and practitioners: instead of spending your precious time pre-planning sessions, hauling that big old therapy bag around, wondering how to do bagless therapy routines based intervention and how to center parent education in your work with young families. You feel confident responding to the parent or caregiver and the child in the moment. You feel rooted in the routine you step into using what the family already has and relying on your own set of skills, knowledge and observations instead of a particular toy. And you feel relieved to have a quick reference guide to use an object the family already has on hand in either printed or digital format so families can generalize and carry over what you practiced in the many, many days and hours while you’re not there.

Now for families, imagine this instead of the constant looming guilt that you’re not doing enough or that you don’t have that special toy or specific material in order to support your kids, brain, language, muscles, emotional needs, I’m looking at those very expensive toy subscription boxes in your social media feed. Instead of all those feelings, you have ideas for play and interaction using what materials, time and energy you already have. You have confidence. You’re doing enough for your young child’s physical and mental development each day. And you have more valuable interactions using the tools at your fingertips to play and engage in enriching activities that support the connection between you. Finally, you also have access to ideas on the go wherever you are with a digital download.

What exactly do I get with Connect Learn Play? So what this is, is access to over 100 ideas for play with 25 everyday items. It is a simple digital download. You’ll be provided with both postcard-sized and full page handouts, in case you want to print a physical copy for easy use or easy sharing with families. For families, you can easily save to a folder on your phone, for instance, print it out and place one on your fridge. And for providers and practitioners, you could text or email an idea to a family with whom you work.

Connect Learn Play can be used during sessions as handouts or cards. They can be provided as supplemental material after. You’ll receive a link to a digital download with all 25 cards in English. Currently, we’re still working on Spanish and Arabic. As a parent or caregiver, or as a provider, you can save these to a folder on your device or print them out for quick reference. Just as you’d refer to a cookbook for a recipe, you could check out what you might do with the ingredients you have on hand. Once you’re using these ingredients regularly, you’ll start to see the power of everyday items. Connect Learn Play can go alongside materials you might use as a clinician, for instance, mental health or developmental therapist, as an early childhood educator, home visitor and or a licensed Learn With Less® class facilitator.

I want to share with you one thing that a current Learn With Less® facilitator, parent of multiple young children who have attended Learn With Less® classes themselves, with me as a facilitator, and who are now in preschool and beyond… I want to share with you what Rachel Kammeyer has to say about the power of Connect Learn Play.

“The most powerful thing is that, like, this veil gets lifted of our adult perspective of the use of an object. And then once you unsee one thing, like a garden hose, you start to unsee it everywhere. You’re open to how a child explores it, versus our expectation of how we use it. Yeah, it’s amazing!

So the preschool I go to is very Learn With Less® in the sense that we use a lot of everyday objects for our activities, and one little girl was touring yesterday. There are these little sticks that look like golf tees, and we have 12 or 15 little things to put them in. And this was, like, this little girl’s jam. She was just putting in and taking out and lining them up. And it was fine motor. It was cognition. It was so beautiful. And the mom was like, How do I buy these? And I’m like, “Oh, do you have hot rollers at home? You can do the same thing. She can put them up and put them right down on this.” And she’s like, I do, and I haven’t used them in forever! She’s like, I never would have thought of that. I’m like, I have been trained in the art!”

I love that from speech-language therapist and Learn With Less® facilitator. Rachel Kammeyer, Thanks, Rachel. So again, who this is for: Connect Learn Play is for families with or expecting infants, toddlers and preschoolers. It’s for individual providers serving families in a home based, clinic based, school based and/or medical setting, and it’s for organizations serving families.

So no more scrolling Pinterest trying to find the perfect activity to set up for your child. No more digging through your therapy bag to find the perfect toy to invite playfulness into a session. Again, there is a simpler, more equitable way to support tiny humans without needing the fancy toy subscription. Connect Learn Play is the perfect, simple resource that allows you to offer a perfect blend of child led and structured play for tiny humans to thrive.

Here’s the thing: when you learn to recognize the tools you already have to boost your child’s development, you are able to maximize the time you have with a young child. You’re empowered to get it right, and you’re able to unlock the power of everyday routines and everyday objects to figure out how to play with your tiny human go ahead and grab Connect Learn Play. Over at learnwithless.com/connectlearnplay. We cannot wait to hear how you’re using Connect Learn Play, and we look forward to hear what you think! Wishing you more great moments with what counts.

The post Connect Learn Play appeared first on Learn With Less.

On this episode of the Learn With Less® podcast, Ayelet discusses the ways in which early development, everyday routines, everyday materials, and simple activities (often in which we are already engaging) are powerfully interconnected.

If you are a new parent or caregiver wondering what you really need to support and connect with your baby or toddler… or you’re a professional who serves new families as a developmental therapist, early childhood educator, or other professional in the perinatal space, this episode and our related upcoming workshop is for you.

Many of us are searching for the ultimate checklist of items for young children, or for a list of go-to developmental activities for babies or toddlers to have in your back pocket. Ayelet makes the case that you already have the resources you need – and that if you’re spending your hard earned money on fancy developmental toys, that investment could go toward other places that are in line with your values.

In our upcoming Learn With Less® Family Enrichment Fundamentals Workshop, we’ll explore the basis for the four areas of early development, and connect these to a framework of play, language, music, and movement so you can support and connect with the tiny humans in your care using the time and energy you’re already expending, and the materials you’re already using. Find the magic in the mundane, everyday objects and routines. Join us in our upcoming workshop and discover all about how to Learn With Less®!

The Learn With Less® Curriculum is used in communities all over the world in a “caregiver & me” class setting, and has also influenced the philosophies and environmental considerations for play spaces and organizations serving families.

Not familiar with the term, “caregiver & me” classes? We use it as a more inclusive term instead of “mommy & me” classes. Our classes are open to – and meant for – ALL parents and caregivers: not just moms… but also dads, non-binary folks, grandparents, foster parents, babysitters, nannies, and other amazing grownups who care for tiny humans. We’re going to play the “search term” game here (so you can find this great content more easily!) and help shift the conversation from “mommy & me” classes to “caregiver & me” classes… to do our part to shape the more inclusive world in which we’d like to live.

Register now for Learn With Less® Family Enrichment Fundamentals Workshop

Learn With Less® Bundle: get our favorite infant and toddler development resources (save 70%)! Discover how to support & connect with your tiny human, without having to buy a single toy.

Learn With Less® “Caregiver & Me” Classes: the magic of Learn With Less® lies in the communal aspect of coming together with our resources, in community with other families. Join us for a virtual or in-person class led by a licensed facilitator near you!

Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program: Use your existing skills as an educator or therapist to serve families holistically with a high quality program that will provide lasting impact! Apply now to become a licensed facilitator Learn With Less®.

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Hi there, I’m Ayelet Marinovich and you’re listening to Learn With Less®. Today I wanted to share a little bit about an upcoming event that we are holding here at Learn With Less®, you can learn more about it at learnwithless.com/fundamentals. What this is, is a family enrichment workshop, all about the fundamentals of the Learn With Less® curriculum and program and philosophy.

It is a live workshop for parents, caregivers and professionals serving new families. The whole idea is to help you feel confident that you can support and connect with babies and toddlers without having to buy another toy. The event is being held this time around on April 29 2023, from 10am PST until 2pm PST. When you enroll before April 15, you’ll be able to enroll and save $50 on the ticket price. So again, that’s learnwithless.com/fundamentals.

What we’re trying to do with this workshop is to help support you to find confidence and connection through play language, music and movement. These are the four pillars of Learn With Less®: play, talk, sing and move. And you’ve heard me speak a lot about them on the podcast, and in all of our content and information that we put out into the world. Essentially, what we want you to do is to discover how to use the time, the energy and the materials that you already have to support young children — instead of buying all the fancy toys that you may be are being shown on social media.

Here’s the question that we all sort of ask ourselves: what do we really need to support and connect with tiny humans? When the internet feels like a firehose of information, Dr. Google and the baby industry create a sense of overwhelm and perceived incompetence in families… New parents and caregivers know the should’s, but they’re exhausted! Gathering internal resources to do anything extra for their children often feels impossible. And then on the other side, educators and therapists, as well as families, often feel pressure to go out and buy a bunch of toys to ensure that they’re doing the “right” thing, maximizing the precious time that they have with tiny humans.

Now, here’s the thing: supporting development and connection for young children can be simpler than we think! Families need to know how to make use of those natural routines and everyday interactions. The idea that there is an inherent developmental value in any object that’s classified as an educational toy is, quite frankly, a delusion.

So drumroll please, wait for it: the Emperor has no toys, folks. The truth is, you already have the resources to give young children the right stimulation, play and interaction to thrive. And that is true whether or not your toy closet is bursting at the seams. The items in our homes that we already have often hidden in plain view, are powerful learning tools that can support all areas of development. Now, again, I’m just going to break here and share with you that if you want to find out how to Learn With Less® with this workshop, you can go to learnwithless.com/fundamentals and sign up right now.

As a parent myself, I’m a mom, I have two young children, and I’m also as a professional serving new families. In my work with other educators and therapists, I know that the developmental value between a cardboard box and the fancy toy that might have come inside is often (ahem) exactly the same. And I also know that early learning does not happen only when I can eke out 15 minutes to provide undivided attention to my child.

I also know that it feels sometimes impossible to share succinctly about the simple and natural ways to support and form a deep and loving connection with a child. But when we can connect simple everyday interactions with early learning, we have a blueprint for parent support, partnering with families, and education. Because families already have the resources to give young children the “right” stimulation, play, and interaction to thrive and we can do it with the materials we already have. No extra time or energy needed.

So I’d like to present to you the Learn With Less® Family Enrichment Fundamentals Workshop. We held this workshop in December of last year and it was very well received. We had a lot of great feedback from folks. This is a live workshop for parents and caregivers as well as professionals serving new families. And like many of you listening right now, you might actually be both – a new parent or caregiver, as well as a, say, developmental therapist or early childhood educator – or something in the perinatal space.

The Learn With Less® framework is built on four pillars, which each, in turn, support each of the four major areas of early development. In this live workshop, you will find out how to make use of what you know is special, precious time with tiny humans. You’ll discover ways to ensure you’re doing the “right” things for children at their developmental level. You’ll learn how to find that balance between structured play and free play. You’ll find out how to let a young child guide their own learning. You’ll discover new ways to use materials you already have, and also how to help a child communicate to, say, reduce negative behavior and minimize everyone’s frustration.

Now, this is a great workshop for families with or professionals serving children who are developing along a “typical” progression within, say, normal developmental limits. It is also a fantastic workshop for families or professionals with children who are not meeting developmental milestones, for instance. This is not about milestones. It is about helping you and discussing and showing you how this four pillar framework of the Learn With Less® curriculum (which again, play talk, sing, and move) actually addresses those four major areas of infant and toddler development, regardless of where a child is performing. Those four major areas are cognitive development, communicative development, motor/sensory development, and social/emotional development.

What we’ll be doing is interacting, discussing and sharing about all of these ideas and information. You’ll come away with specific ways to support and connect with young children using what you already have through natural interactions and simple play ideas. Again, this is a workshop that’s occurring (this time around) on April 29 2023 at 10am Pacific. We will be providing a replay period to those who are registering for the live workshop. I do definitely recommend that you try your best to attend live because we’re going to have a whole lot of interaction, live Q*A, and interaction with other professionals who are using the Learn With Less® curriculum in their practices or in their families.

For instance, I wanted to share with you what one of our attendees in the past has shared about their learning in this workshop. This is from a father named Josh. He’s the parent of an infant and a toddler. After attending and after involving himself with this information, he shared the following. He said, “You’ve helped me see more clearly that we are already engaging in the kinds of activities that can make a huge impact on our children’s development. We already have the materials we need.” He said, “Ayelet’s words rang true for me. Pinterest can be helpful and fun. But it’s the experience of words, objects, people and ideas in a variety of contexts, settings and environments that support your child’s learning.” He said, “Ayelet helps you understand and knows way to do so – thank you.” So Josh, thank you for sharing all of that.

We also have from Megan, who’s a speech language pathologist, and she attended this workshop in the past. She said, “I loved seeing how easy it can be to incorporate music into everyday tasks. And I like how the class flowed and how each parent was able to be successful.” Now, she is actually referring to one of the components of this workshop. And so I’m going to share with you what all of those are.

We have four components. The first is that you’ll learn and discover those four major areas of early development. So we’ll lay out these four areas of early learning. And then we’ll take a deep dive into a particular aspect of each area helping you to find simple, practical and fun ideas to support that learning, using the time, energy and materials that you already have. Then, we’ll also be sharing how to utilize those four pillars of learning with less so that you know you don’t have to expend your energy and resources worrying about what you really need to support tiny humans. Instead, you’ll discover how you can support the connection between caregiver and child.

And then that third component, which is what Megan the SLP who shared that quote was referring to. We’re going to then connect practical application to that theory with a live demonstration of activities. So you’ll actually get to experience a live demonstration of caregivers and children experiencing the Learn With Less® framework and working together in a group class that breaks down how to use this info very clearly – and definitely joyfully!

Finally, the fourth and potentially most impactful part of this workshop is that you will be able to find out answers to your most pressing questions with a live Q&A. So we’ll have access to a panel of early childhood professionals, early childhood educators, speech language pathologists, developmental therapists of all sorts, who use the Learn With Less® framework in their everyday practice, as well as often with their own children when applicable.

I’m going to just share with you some details about this workshop. It is, again, on April 29 2023, at 10am Pacific – that’s 1pm Eastern. You can expect to reserve up to four hours of your day. If you are a speech language pathologist who is registered in the United States, you will receive professional development hours as well.

When you purchase before April 15, you will also save $50 on the price of your registration. This workshop will be held on our private Zoom room, and the link will be emailed to you prior to the session. Space is limited. We are capping this workshop it’s going to be small in an effort to create an intimate community learning experience for everyone. Once it fills up, we will consider adding more dates. As I said, we held this workshop successfully in December of last year and it was very, very well received. So that’s why we’re doing it again.

You will also have bonus access to the recording for seven days should you want to review the information, or say, if you were unable to attend for part of the day. So again, who is this for? This is for parents and caregivers of infants and toddlers, expecting and seasoned parents alike. This is also for professionals working with tiny humans and their families. So those working in the perinatal space, those who are early childhood educators, developmental therapists, doulas, mental health practitioners. Also professionals who are, in addition, parents and caregivers, so people who are looking for high quality, evidence based information and ideas to support your tiny humans, as well as those on your caseload.

There is no complicated activity planning, there’s no required materials from say a particular parenting philosophy. This is just about you. It’s about the tiny humans in your life and the everyday objects and everyday routines already happening around you. We will be sharing what the baby industry doesn’t want you to know or to understand. When you learn to recognize the tools that you already have to boost an infant or toddlers development, you’re able to maximize the time you have with young children, you’re empowered to get it right. And you’re able to unlock the power of everyday routines and everyday objects to figure out how to play with the little ones in your life while also supporting their learning.

You’ll discover how to take simple everyday items and use them in different ways. exploring them with the children in your care and guiding that child to explore with you. There is a simpler, more equitable way to support tiny humans without needing the fancy toys subscriptions. Here’s another quote from Sue, who is a pediatric occupational therapist. She said, “I often went into houses with my magic bag of toys. The Learn With Less® framework is making me rethink the way I interact with the family. For instance, interacting with family as a whole, or at least the caregiver and child dyad – versus interacting predominantly with the child.”

With this workshop, I want you to discover how to think outside the box. Parents and professionals alike are often caught up in the lure of fun new toys, only to start to feel a strong sense of overwhelm each time they idle down the toys and games aisle. Cut the overwhelm: let’s play in the box instead! So we’re going to help you connect loose parts and open ended play with straightforward developmental concepts that you’re often already supporting… without having to spend time, energy and money setting up a bunch of crafty activities. Again, space is extremely limited. We are creating an intimate atmosphere for learning and community. So I urge you to save your spot today. That’s learnwithless.com/fundamentals.

I also want to say that the Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program is a complete plug and play system for using the popular Learn With Less® curriculum in one’s community as an additional offering for new families. That is a four figure investment. It includes a complete training program and certification process in addition to access to all of our licensed materials, ongoing Q&A and coaching calls, and a professional sounding board. But I want to invite you to join me for a complete workshop around the framework, a panel of other educators and therapists who have integrated the Learn With Less® framework into their practice to answer your questions around the concepts, and a live demonstration of the Learn With Less® curriculum in action.

Right now this workshop is just $99. You can save $50 on the price of the workshop before April 15. After that, it will go up to $149. So go ahead and register now to save your spot. We have also a quote from pediatric speech language pathologist and a parent of a toddler, Meryl, who said, “I like that it makes things feel simple. It feels like you’re going back to the basics, the Learn With Less® framework is accessible, use what you have. I really like it because it feels relatable, like anybody can do it.”

Finally, I just want to introduce myself in case you don’t know who I am, and if you’ve made it this far, I am Ayelet. I’m a pediatric speech language pathologist and a parent educator and I’ve been running caregiver and me classes using the Learn With Less® infant and toddler curriculum since 2014. I’ve served thousands of families all over the world, both virtually and in person, helping new families to feel confident that they can support and connect with their babies and toddlers without having to buy another toy.

And since early 2020, I’ve helped dozens of educators and therapists to do the same by creating lasting impact leading, marketing, and filling caregiver and child classes to supplement their income and to provide education and support families in their communities. I wanted to share, in case you’re wondering, a few things. First of all, you will have the tools and guidance to promote learning and connection using existing time, energy and materials. And again, if you are a US based speech language pathologist, you’ll get more certified maintenance hours of continuing education.

A couple of FAQs, in case you’re wondering, what if I want a training that provides me with in depth knowledge and support integrating these concepts into everyday life. So here’s what this workshop will not cover. It will not cover access to and training around our full curriculum as a parent coaching and support and a family enrichment offering. It will not cover coaching and guidance around using the Learn With Less® curriculum in your community. It will not include ongoing support for your questions and challenges frustrations regarding early parenthood and early childhood, and it will not include ongoing access to a community of like minded caregivers or educators. If you want more in depth training or mentorship and support, here’s what we recommend.

For parents and caregivers, we recommend that you grab the Learn With Less® Bundle, which includes all of our best resources, including our best selling books, our musical album, a recorded class, as well as caregiver handouts. That can be found at learnwithless.com/bundle. We also recommend that you participate in a Learn With Less® caregiver and child class in your community, either virtually or in person, led by a licensed Learn With Less® facilitator. You can find those over at learnwithless.com/classes.

And for educators and therapists, if you are looking to create lasting impact leading caregiver and me classes with a high quality evidence-based “plug and play’ program. then we would love to see your application come through over at learnwithless.com/certification. And then here is the rest of the fine print, because I always want to be up front with you.

So number one, no refunds for this workshop will be granted for any reason. Space is limited, which means that if you decide to take one of those spots, it’s yours, even if you don’t attend live! This session will be recorded. You will still learn a ton from watching the recording after the live workshop is over, and you’ll have access to it for a seven day replay period.

The workshop is for parents and caregivers with or expecting infants and toddlers, and also for professionals supporting new families or who are in the perinatal space like developmental therapists, early childhood educators doulas, mental health professionals, etc. If you’re not sure really whether this workshop is right for you, please do reach out to me at admin at strength in words.com and we will get back to you ASAP. If you want to know, “how do I sign up to host a Learn With Less® group?” That’s another question I wanted to answer. We would be thrilled if you’re interested in becoming a Learn With Less® facilitator. We are accepting applications now. So if you get yours in today, you can do so by applying aat learnwithless.com/certification.

Another quote or testimonial I wanted to share from Miranda Zoumbaris who we’ve had the podcast a bunch, who is a licensed Learn With Less® facilitator and early childhood educator, and who will be on the panel on the upcoming workshop. She said, “what could be better than sharing with families the gift of joy? It has always been a goal of mine as a parent educator to take away worry, provide education and infuse joy into everyday activities, teaching parents to have joy with their babies and toddlers. What could be better than helping them have that gift?”

So again, you can go ahead and enroll now to secure your seat at our upcoming workshop on April 29, you can do that today, it’s learnwithless.com/fundamentals. And if you are wondering what the experience of the workshop will be like, I wanted to just share a little bit about our values and how those play into the way that we hold events and the way we run our communities. Here at Learn With Less, we are a relationship and values based company. To us, that means that we prioritize and make decisions based on the values that we hold. We hope that learning more about these values and how they show up in the company will give you a good sense of what to expect.

The first one is simplicity. As professionals, we know that everyday materials and routines hold the utmost developmental value, we always encourage you to use what you already have, you don’t have to go out buying more stuff. We also want to encourage you to remember that you already have everything you need. Play and interaction do not require expensive toys or lots of time.

The second value that I want to share with you is community. To us, that means communal learning. So facilitation versus hierarchical learning. We value the idea of learning together, and alongside one another. We value communal support, meaning we’re here for each other even when we don’t have the same professional backgrounds, or hold the same identities, or parent in the same way.

Our third is inclusivity. We respect and accept diverse thought and practice, these are valued. We want to help our audience with access: you don’t have to have oodles of supplies to support families or your baby. We provide access to information throughout our podcast books, workshops, and programs. We honor, create, and uphold space for those holding a diversity of social identities.

Next is education. So we value the power of learning and knowledge, shared learning. Once you know what you’re doing is supportive of a young child, you’re motivated to keep doing it. You’ll be participating in the educational information that we’ll be sharing in this workshop, but you’ll also, at times, be co-creating it.

And then finally playfulness. We value playfulness. And we define this in terms of exploration, musicality, and love. Play with your baby, play with your style, play with materials, play in a group with others, play with me. Those are the values that we define in our company and how they show up. I wanted to share with you what that feels like and looks like, and how that might present itself within this workshop.

Again, we are holding a wonderful workshop. It’s a Learn With Less® Family Enrichment Fundamentals workshop for parents, caregivers and professionals. It will be held on April 29th 2023 at 10am Pacific / 1pm. Eastern. You can expect to reserve up to four hours of your day, and you will receive professional PD hours (professional development hours) if you’re an SLP – a speech language pathologist. If you purchase your ticket before April 15, you will save $50 on your registration. Currently the price of the ticket is $99 and that goes up to $149 on April 15. You will also, once you purchase your ticket, have bonus access to the recording for seven days if you want to review the info, or if you were unable to attend part of the day, for instance. I do want to again reiterate this is a ticket to a live virtual event and there will be no refunds, so make sure you understand fully: we do have no refunds policy when you purchase.

We can’t wait to see you. It’s going to be so fun. We have a wonderful panel of early childhood professionals and it’s just going to be a great day, so please go ahead and reserve your ticket now. I can’t wait to see you go ahead and reach out to me a great place to do that would be @learnwithless on Instagram in the DMs. I would love to hear your thoughts questions, and I can’t wait to see you at the workshop on April 29th. Talk to you soon. Bye!

The post What Do We Really Need to Support & Connect With Tiny Humans? appeared first on Learn With Less.

On this episode of the Learn With Less® podcast, Ayelet sits down with Desiree Viray, an early childhood educator, mother, entrepreneur, parent partner and parent educator, Learn With Less® facilitator, and the owner of Empowered Family Collective.

Desiree’s purpose and joy are rooted in serving, empowering and walking with educators, parents / caregivers, and families through each stage of development, impacting children’s lives through a family-centered approach to play, talk (language development), song, movement, connection, and simplicity. Her work at Empowered Family Collective helps families find moments of joy, and opportunities for intentionality and simplicity in each stage of child development and parenthood/caregiving. She offers “caregiver & me” groups for families using the Learn With Less® curriculum, among other services.

Not familiar with the term, “caregiver & me” classes? We use it as a more inclusive term instead of “mommy & me” classes. Our classes are open to – and meant for – ALL parents and caregivers: not just moms… but also dads, non-binary folks, grandparents, foster parents, babysitters, nannies, and other amazing grownups who care for tiny humans. We’re going to play the “search term” game here (so you can find this great content more easily!) and help shift the conversation from “mommy & me” classes to “caregiver & me” classes… to do our part to shape the more inclusive world we’d like to live in.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Desiree’s background, how she came into the world of early childhood education, and where her career has taken her

Learn With Less® Stories:  Additional podcast episodes and other interviews from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming.

FREE Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: Discover the four major areas of infant and toddler development, what’s involved in each one in the first three years of life, and what you can do to support that learning (using what you already have in your home).

Desiree’s Podcast, Storm and Sky (specifically, her episode on writing new chapters – what happens when you find yourself in your sweet spot)

Learn With Less® Bundle: get our favorite infant and toddler development resources (save 70%)! Discover how to support & connect with your tiny human, without having to buy a single toy.

Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program: Use your existing skills as an educator or therapist to serve families holistically with a high quality program that will provide lasting impact! Apply now to become a licensed facilitator Learn With Less®.

Learn With Less® “Caregiver & Me” Classes: the magic of Learn With Less® lies in the communal aspect of coming together with our resources, in community with other families. Join us for a virtual or in-person class led by a licensed facilitator near you!

Desiree: Website / Instagram 

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Ayelet: Welcome to the Learn With Less® Podcast. Today I am joined by my dear friend and colleague Desiree Viray. Desiree, welcome to the Learn With Less® podcast. So happy you’re here.

Desiree: Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Ayelet: Yay! Desiree, I would love it if you could just tell us a little bit about you who you are, your background and what led you to come into the world of Learn With Less®?

Desiree: Yes, I was an educator in the classroom for about 16 years. And I’m going to take it way back to junior college where I did not know what I wanted to do with my life, and I felt lost. I found my way when I stumbled across a flyer from Bright Horizons. I took my very first child psychology class, and I was hooked.

That literally was the seed to my career in early childhood education. It should not have come as a surprise to me, because I actually come from a long line of educators. My paternal grandfather was a principal in the Philippines. I have been in the classroom, as I mentioned, for 16 years. I managed a team, if you will. One of my dream jobs was to become a principal, which I tried on for two and a half years… and realized that it just was not my thing. And I’m glad that I tried it.

Fast forward a little bit. I’ve since transitioned into executive support. I’m not surprised that my skills have transferred over really nicely to this role. So I do that full time. I am a bonus mama to two wonderful children that I met about eight years ago. They are 10 going on 20, and 12 going on 50. My son has a very old soul. One morning, I heard him say Hey, Google… Play Elvis Presley. Like that’s, that’s my kid I love. 

I met you and I stumbled upon Learn With Less® when my good friend Lesley Mayson had posted about her own experience. And I was in a bit of a transition. I knew that I wanted to serve the community in some capacity, and I had thought, Oh, I’m going to be a career coach! Took an intro class and realize that specific framework was not the right fit for me because I am an intense introvert. And when I met you, and you told me a little bit more about how the information is disseminated. Again, I was hooked. And so here we are together. A year later!

Ayelet: Let’s hear a little bit about what was it that really intrigued you about the way that the Learn With Less® facilitator training and certification program, really… What is it that really got you in terms of feeling like it was a better fit? Not only, of course, within the way that you wanted to serve and impact your community, but also in the way that we do our training? Because it sounds like that, as as I know from speaking with you over the year, I know that really was useful to you. But I’d love to hear specifically what it was about it then.

Desiree: The thing that really drew me in is the fact that it is play-based. I was in a program where we had a community of parents and caregivers that did not initially see the value of a play-based program. And I tell you, I talk to them still, many of these families, their children are probably now in middle school, which is absolutely insane to think about. They talk about that time, this magical time that they had in this particular program. Now seeing why play was so important, and is still so important. So that was part of it is just the fact that it was play-based.

The other part is that it was a mix of philosophies, Ayelet. I came from a program that was heavily inspired by Reggio. And so my own value system, my own philosophy around education, is actually a mix of those different philosophies and ways of thinking around child development and play. So that was the other part.

The receiving of the information is that I got to choose my own adventure. I took about a year to go through the actual program. And you and our community did not make me feel guilty about that! We had just talked about time being a very precious and scarce resource, right. While working full time, I would go through the program when I felt called to it. And that is so empowering.

I just want to pause there because I got to make very intentional choices as to when I engaged in that learning. And that was really important to me as a working mom, and someone that was making a very serious investment in this… I don’t like to call it a small business because it’s not small! In this venture, this new chapter that I was writing for myself.

Ayelet: I love that. Yeah, it’s so important to me, in terms of the way that people go through the program, to have that opportunity. Because we know that not everybody life circumstances are the same. Everyone is coming from a different educational, professional background. People are dealing with different COVID restrictions, different life restrictions, different life pathways, and some people zip through it, who are in your exact circumstances, right? Who are working full time parents, and some choose because of other circumstances to take their time.

What we try to do is, like you said, try and create that ability for people to self determine what it is that is important to them, and what they need while continuing to provide the support, and information sharing, and inspiration to those who are ready to take it in, as well. And to bring you back in, and pull you back in, when it’s time.

Desiree: Yes, you make me think about this conversation that I had with a few – three of the executives that I support right now. And I said to them, no joke, I’m retiring with you all, I will be on this team supporting you all for as long as you’ll have me. And one of them said, I really worry about the day that you’re going to leave and want more. And I told him, I found my sweet spot.

Sometimes people search a lifetime for that sweet spot where you feel like everything is integrated at just the right volume, if you will. And so that was the beauty of Learn With Less®, is that I was able to maintain equilibrium, if you will. I was able to maintain that sweet spot. I think that was really important to me, it still is really important to me. And I just I want to talk more about that with other people! Just that if you have found your sweet spot, that’s okay. And that is good.

Ayelet: Yeah, well, I want to dig into that more, actually, because it’s such a perfect parallel to what you’re doing for families using the Learn Wit Less® curriculum, right? Because yeah, I mean, as we were also talking about before we started recording, new families have such limited bandwidth. And so asking them or sharing with them new ideas for more ways that they can play with their child, and more things to do, and more things to buy, and blah, blah, blah, is like… no! That’s not what people want.

I want to actually quote you. When you entered the program, I ask people, you know, why are you passionate about being a parent educator using the Learn With Less® curriculum? You wrote that this chapter is rooted in wanting to help caregivers feel and be empowered to look at their environments through a different lens, and to help them see value in and find their way to simplicity. So I mean, well done, Desiree of the past.

Desiree: I wrote that?

Ayelet: You did! And that’s, I mean, that’s it. I think, that really cuts to the heart of what we’re doing here and why. And I wonder if you could just say a little bit more about that. And what you think was going through your head when you wrote that! What it is that you, now that you’ve been through the training program, and you are a licensed Learn With Less® facilitator. You’re fully certified, you’re doing the thing, you’re marketing your classes, you’ve hosted a demo class, and you’ve done some investment into local marketing things. So let’s talk about what it is you are trying to create for folks who enter your space and what the value is of your classes.

Desiree: Yes, I as you know, I hosted my first pop up last weekend, and it was actually a school district sponsored event, it was outdoors 80 degrees in Texas, and there was a breeze. So it was good. I learned a lot with it being my first pop up, and we can go back to that. But you encouraged me to really think about what my elevator pitch is and was. I got to practice it a number of times. Yes, it changed a number of times too. But it allowed me to get closer to what it – and that was the question. I was approached with, oh, Empowered Family Collective. What is it that you do?

I often started with, well, I’ve been an educator for a number of years. I’m also a parent and I one want to serve the community. And through that, it is about disseminating this message that your child, your children, don’t need the $100 toys. I’d walk over to the shelving that I had available because I wanted. The vibe that I wanted was, I wanted one to feel like you were walking into my living room.

Ayelet: Yeah. And to clarify, this was a pop up like marketing event. You were the vendor at a fair at the school district’s fair.

Desiree: That is correct. I wish you could have seen the faces when I was unloading my car. Then I talked a little bit about, and then I pointed to the recycled materials that I had collected and amassed over the last, I don’t know, six months? I talked about how oftentimes what our children want to interact with and play with and learn most from are the things that we have at home already. I had spatulas, colanders, tons of recycled materials. Then, of course, conversation began around, oh my gosh, yes. Why don’t I save the egg carton, right.

So I created, I like to call them invitations. I created invitations as to how you might pair something that you did buy from Amazon, because that’s real, with something that you purchase from the grocery store, like a yogurt tub, and how you could pair those things. That there is room for a combination of both situations. Then I talked a little bit about, you know, many times our families really crave, like, how do I cultivate independent play? It’s through that is through these open-ended materials that you offer. Because the possibilities are endless, and the creativity and the imagination is just bananas!

Ayelet: That’s right, that’s not going to happen with a press the button toy, cause and effect, right? There’s room for that, yes. And when you have these wonderful, open-ended – meaning materials that can be used in a multitude of different ways… You have endless opportunities, as you said. I love that. Yeah.

Desiree: And you hit on something. I think we can fall into the trap of “but” –  I think what we’re doing through learn with less is the message of using more and yeah, I have these, what is the word that we use for things that have single use – prescriptive materials? There’s room for prescriptive materials and open-ended materials, loose parts.

Ayelet: Yeah. Right. Because the point is not to be anti toy. It’s very interesting. Because we do live, you and I are both stateside, we both live in the US. And we live in a very binary society, right? That’s how we’re socialized generally. And you have yes/no, good/bad, big/small. And that’s… so much of all of this is taking that down. Helping people see that parenting also in general is not a binary there’s no right and wrong way, right or wrong way to parent, a human. Number one, we’re all coming from a unique set of circumstances, life experiences, cultural, ethnic, and otherwise background. And number two, we have our different humans who have their specific needs.

So, we often in a Learn With Less® group, will touch upon those challenges, and also wins of what’s going on with families. And in that time, that sort of sharing time, it’s a wonderful opportunity for families to share, like, what is going on with them, what they’re challenged by. But of course, as you know, we talked so much about how this is not the time for you to give the prescription of oh, well, here’s how you can solve that problem. Right? Which I think a lot of us as the helpers of society. Early childhood educators, developmental therapists, we want to help we want to solve the problem, we want to get that child to the next milestone!. But in this case, it’s, it’s so much more about creating a space where people can feel seen and heard. And I wonder Desiree, if you could talk a little bit about that, in terms of what it is that you’re creating, and why that’s valuable.

Desiree: Oh, my gosh, yes. Many of the people that I met last weekend, were those who have moved to Texas recently, and are essentially rebuilding their communities, their villages. And that can be so challenging. And some people talked about how isolating it can be. That’s part of my purpose is to create these communities of support, especially for those who are feeling isolated by especially first time, early parenting. I am here to create space for whoever it is that you want to show up as today. I am here to simply listen.

One thing that I like to often start conversations with is, okay, I need to know, do you need me to listen? Or do you need solutions? Or do you need both? Because then that sets my mindset into the space of like, okay, I’m going to be totally clued in. And so one of the pieces of feedback that I receive quite often is that people often feel visible and heard by me. So I’m using… I’m hoping to really use that gift in the community while I’m serving them in that way. Building community. Allowing space for parents and caregivers to feel like it’s okay to make mistakes. You’re not going to show up as your best self every day. There are going to be things that are challenging and I want to be that sounding board for you. And to just help you feel okay with that?

Ayelet: Yeah, beautiful. I think for all our listeners here, right now, like it’s, I mean, if someone were there to do that, for me, when I was a brand new parent, that would have been really nice, right. And also, that’s for me also why I started leading these classes, because I wanted a place to be able to do that for myself and for others. I knew the value of that for myself. I knew how much I got out of creating a space for people.

I just want to come back to what you said about that. Instead of immediately jumping in to solve a problem, that that pause of asking a person and this is so true in all areas of life. It’s very, it can be very hard for people to do it is actually that moment of empathy, right? Where you’re asking someone what support looks like for them in that moment: what would you like for me right now?

A lot of what you’re doing in this season of life with families is creating that space, holding that space and creating a place for families to let someone know what they need… and be asked. Because we also know that in early parenthood, that doesn’t happen very much. There’s not a whole lot of… you’re giving, giving, giving, giving, giving to this tiny human and whether or not you have a co-parenting partner, it can be really hard. Many people, I will say, don’t have — who is asking them what they need, right? Because often when we’re sleep deprived, or we’re overwhelmed, there’s an immediate go to.

There’s that switch of, without that pause, of the other person who’s trying to provide support, often goes right into trying to solve the problem. And all of this is not to say that there isn’t a problem that we solve within a Learn With Less® class, right? Of course, what we’re doing and actually, I’d love to hear what you would define that as – what, what is it that we are doing? If we’re not solving, solving all the problems of early parenthood? Why do people come to your classes to Learn With Less® classes? What is it that they get out of it, other than having a space to come to where they can feel seen and heard and held? Because just that is super valuable to people! But there’s a lot more, right? And so what what else is it that you’re doing for families, Desiree?

Desiree: I’m gonna go back to that, to that sense of community that you’re building. Especially when we have Learn With Less® facilitators that offer a series of classes, right, that you’re going to see these consistent faces over a certain amount of time, and you will more than likely exchange phone numbers with somebody, right? So that’s another connection that you’ve made locally. And I think that was the that was the other thing that drew me in, Ayelet, I’ll bring it back, is the fact that you’re encouraging us to be in our local communities.

And so it makes it easier for parents and caregivers to make those local connections. Isn’t that what we want? That when you are not in this space, when you’re not in the space of Empowered Family Collective with Desiree, that you are potentially connecting at the local park or the coffee shop when we are not all together. The other part is that we are holding our parents and caregivers and those children at the same time. When I think about traditional classes, like a music class, for example. It is mostly geared towards the children.

But yet we incorporate our parents and caregivers by engaging in the conversation of hey, what are your roses and thorns this week? I want to hear from you very intentionally about what you are excited about and what was challenging this week. So there’s that layer, again, of visibility for the adults that helped bring the children to this space. And so yeah, I have goosebumps.

Ayelet: Yeah, it’s powerful stuff. And then of course, without failing to mention the entire developmental enrichment piece of it. So I want to hear about that, too. For sure.

Desiree: That part I get really excited about. I’m a child development nerd. I really enjoyed the classes that I took both in undergrad and graduate school. And so I really appreciate being able to talk about that with families, because one, we talked about this: time is a very precious yet scarce resource. We no longer potentially have the time to read the 100 page book about what to expect. Allow me to be your personal, oh my gosh, what was it back in the day, they were yellow. If you wanted to read a book… allow me to be your personal CliffsNotes. Yeah, around child development, in particular. Why is my kid waking up at 3am every morning? Or why is it that my child’s appetite is very unpredictable? Right?

Well, Oh, well, I’ve spent 16 years in a classroom, I’ve seen a variety of things, I have my own children to kind of add to the mix, right? Allow me to, to maybe offer three or four possibilities. And if you want them, some solutions that you might try at home. So yes, the whole child development piece. Then of course, the enrichment part, right? Is how do we put these philosophies into practice? But in a way, that’s not scary, very approachable, again, using the things that we already have at home. And I think that’s where the simplicity comes in. Again, I’m not asking you to go out and buy all these things. Everything that you need to create an engaging environment for your child is already in your home.

Ayelet: Yes, whatever kind of home you live in, whether it’s big, or small, yes. Whether you have ample storage, or none at all, yeah, okay. So Desiree, you’ve acknowledged that your business is called Empowered Family Collective. So I’d love to hear what it is, if you can speak specifically to what it is you’re empowering families to do.

Desiree: Yes. The seeds were planted during the pandemic. And I had a number of families that had been part of my program, my early childhood program, when I was teaching, reach out to me because we were still connected. Because they just weren’t sure how to navigate the pandemic. We were all homeschooling, et cetera, et cetera. And I had done this with a number of families. And I thought, I feel like I’m kind of good at this, and I still got it. So there’s something there. That led me to the proposition for myself, like, okay, so if you’re going to do this, what is it that you’re trying to do here Desiree? And the word empowerment kept coming up, because what I was finding is these families that were coming to me just seemed disempowered, and potentially because they were so flippin’ tired.

So I am here to help you step into that empowerment that still exists. It may be dormant right now, and to potentially connect you with the resources or local resources that can help you get to the next step. I think the empowerment piece also comes in to play when I am listening, I’m actively listening to these parents and caregivers. I’m actually reflecting back what I’m hearing and or validating what I’m hearing and what they’re experiencing and feeling. And I think that when you are truly heard, when you feel like you’re heard, and you’re visible, that you actually realize that oh, she’s in there still, and I am going to make it through this season. It may not feel like it today, but I’m going to.

So, multiple conversations with these families over time, none of these things were fixed overnight, not not even fixed. I don’t like to use the word fixed. It took time to address what was happening for them. Some of them are still ongoing. But it was really helpful to have someone that they trusted, someone that had been in the classroom for a number of years. Someone who had sort of the educational background to help them figure out what might be happening and what next steps were. Sometimes you just need someone to say, what if you tried this? Here are three options, and here is where you might potentially go for that support.

Ayelet: Yeah, I think it’s so important to to really get to the core of what motivates us, as business owners, as parents, as women, as humans. And really understanding what the values are that guide our choices in making decisions, right, because that, when we move back into those values, whether those are of the company that you’re building, or the way you are parenting, actually stating those out loud, writing them down somewhere, having that set of belief systems to guide you… really helps. So of course, empowering families is one thing for you. But I’d love to hear if you’re willing to share, Desiree a few of the other values that are really guiding you.

Desiree: Yes, I all of a sudden had this vision of when I had engaged in the rocks, pebbles, sand – you can actually Google this – framework around how to identify what your rocks are, when you put all of those together, the rocks are the ones that take up the most space in the physical vessel that you put them in. And those actually, for me, translated into my values. And my values, my very first one, actually, is my family. The other one was my career. The other one is also my wellness. And I have two more, but they they slipped my mind at the moment.

So I use those values for myself. They help me make decisions. I use this very same sort of provocation invitation, if you will, for families that have needed help to say… I don’t know which school to send my child to. And my response is… Sometimes they’d come in with like piles of printed articles around data, just data, right? And that’s how they thought! And so I would take them along a different path, sometimes an uncomfortable path and I’d say well, what are your values as a parenting unit? What are your values as a family? And if you haven’t established them, here’s a way that you can.

We actually have our values as a family posted in a common space very clearly so that we can go back to them when we have hard conversations. And so when I think about just to bring it full circle, when I think about my full time job writing this new chapter around starting my business, Empowered Family Collective, I kept my family at the forefront. How is this going to impact them?

What ways can I include them in this in this chapter, which my daughter made her own name tag and she had her name, her age, and on the top, it said, employee, she laminated it. And so that’s just an easy example, if you will, of how I have used my values to inform this chapter of mine. And the way in which I think about how I’m I’m actually executing the vision that I have for myself. What I do as a parent educator – I prefer to call myself a parent partner – is rooted in family, whatever, whatever that looks like! I wish there was a different term that we could use. So I’m going to figure that out.

Ayelet: Well, let’s talk about that, actually, because I do find myself using the the word “parent education” so often. But I think it’s so useful to explore what does that mean? How else can we say that? What are we actually referring to when we’re talking about parent education? For you, what would you say in terms of like, why you prefer the “parent partner,” instead of “parent educator” piece? What does that bring up for you? What, what resonates there?

Desiree: It brings up sort of a division of power for some reason. And so when I think of partner, you and I are side by side, potentially linked in arms if you want to. The other word that I love using is Sherpa. We’re on this journey together. Allow me to utilize the information and experience that I’ve gathered over time to help you and inform you as you go through this experience that you’ve never gone through before. And working with you, working with a number of the educators that I’ve worked with in the past, I’ve just learned to really value belonging.

Yeah, not just inclusion, belonging. And so I have learned to use “y’all” more. “Hey, everyone,” and then so much of what I post has slashes, right. It’s like parents slash caregiver slash, etc, etc, because, and I, I say that out loud, because it’s like, I just want people to feel like they belong in this space. Oh, my gosh, that’s it. I’m trying to cultivate a sense of belonging. I know that the Learn With Less® framework allows us to do that. And that is so clear in your value statement too. And I think I told you in the beginning, that really drew me to your values are so clear. And that allows someone like me to say, hey! My values actually line up with Ayelet’s. And this framework that she has created. So the decision was so clear. I’m in.

Ayelet: Yeah, I love that. Thank you for sharing that does. The piece that I wanted to really tease out of there is in terms of the belonging piece, and how that relates to how we talk about things at Learn With Less®, and to really emphasize about what you said in terms of those slashes. And the partner piece is how we speak about our role as facilitators of a space or guides. Versus a leader, a class leader, a teacher, an expert, right? And that, what you said there in terms of, let me guide you through a process. Let me move you through an understanding. Let me give you the Cliff Notes, right, let me break it down into bite sized manageable pieces of information that you can utilize right now to understand how to build the connection between you and your child in a way that feels natural to you.

And also, how to really feel confident that you are doing all of the things that you need to be doing, quote unquote, “need to be doing right” in terms of supporting their learning and development in all those areas of learning – cognitive development and communication, development and motor and sensory development and social and emotional development, right? Because we go through all of those things within the different classes that we hold, and we have a very clear breakdown of ways in which we address all those areas of learning. So I’m curious, what for you stands out in terms of the actual curriculum and the way that it’s broken down for families? How does it allow you to do the job of empowering families to feel confident? How does it facilitate for you a process of transition in that way that you’ve said is so important?

Desiree: Well, one of the more powerful pieces around what we do is we’re basically equipping our parents and our caregivers with information that is so powerful. It’s a game changer often, but again in a way that is bite-sized, and is just so easily understandable. So we’re equipping this community with knowledge that is going to help them in their home when we’re not with them. And two, helping our parents, caregivers, families, units understand and see the value around play, natural play, let them play.

Ayelet: It comes back to what we were talking about earlier, in terms of just like that pause, instead of providing an answer, or a direction, or a solution. It’s also letting… providing that model for families that you’re doing, also provides them to do that, and step back and watch what their child is doing, what their child is interested in. So that then they can respond, and support, and clue in and provide the words or the tools, for their child to do the play. To actually do the learning. And then for them to create that environment around the child that facilitates even a deeper level of it through the interaction.

Desiree: Yes, the other part is the playfulness that the adults are encouraged to engage in. So parenthood is hard. But it doesn’t always have to be! That it is okay, it is encouraged to bring in playfulness. And I’ll give you an example. My kids don’t like to brush their teeth. So guess what mama does, I go in there, I make up a silly song, it may not be in tune. And I’m actually brushing my teeth with them maybe took five minutes in my day.

Sure, I could have been washing the dishes, I could have been doing other things. But making those intentional choices around being playful myself, has helped me many times over. So we’re modeling that right? That that’s okay. Two: the practicality of what we are sharing that again, you do not have to come to this space that we are in together once every few weeks, you can do this in your home. And that’s the idea. Yeah, the practicality.

Ayelet: Alright, Desiree with our very short remaining time, I would love to ask you about the intentional building that you’re doing, like the building of what you’re creating, and how you’ve gone about that. Because you’ve been very intentional about really being interpersonal, more one on one interactions and reaching out to your existing community and the people who you know, and who can help to facilitate connections for you. And now you’ve also stepped into some additional sort of marketing type adventures. So I would love to just hear very briefly about what that’s been like for you – that process of stepping into actually letting other people know about what you’re doing here.

Desiree: Yes, when I knew that I was going to write this chapter, I knew that I needed to be very intentional and slow about it. Because as I’ve gotten older, and as I’ve peeled back my childhood, mamahood, adulthood, I have learned that I am, one, an introvert. Two, that slow and easy is my pace. I am happily going to hang out in the slow lane, like, let me be. So honoring me has become very important and it’s also one of my values. And so I don’t like to make mistakes. And so going slow allows me to avoid as many of them as possible.

I did make mistakes along the way but they were mistakes that I felt like I learned a lot from, right, some of the things that I had done were sort of out of order, if you will, in regards to setting up an LLC for example. And my time also led me, my own sort of resource, like my time, really led that. You know, I work full time, kiddos are with me, and so when is it that I can earmark some uninterrupted time to doing this and looking at this more closely.

A lot of it was just having that internal banter with myself. I call her the negative roommate. She tells me sometimes that I’m not good enough, you’re not going fast enough. What is it that you’re doing? And so I say to her, I hear you and it’s not true, right? So I try to combat those messages. You know, with that, I just I try to make very intentional choices. Yeah, and it’s, it’s okay to go slow because ultimately I want to be proud of what it is that I’m doing and that stands true today.

Ayelet: And what a perfect place to land. Yes, Desiree thank you so so much for your time today. We will be linking to all of your beautiful links but just for all the folks at home who are listening will you let them know where they can find you?

Desiree: Yes, on Instagram you can find me at @empoweredfamilycollective all one word. And the same thing for my website empoweredfamilycollective.com.

Ayelet: Awesome. I cannot wait to send people your way. Thank you so much for you your time and energy today, Dez!

Desiree: Thank you for having me! Again, you and I could talk for hours, and so this just felt so natural and so good.

The post Building Community & Belonging for New Families appeared first on Learn With Less.

This episode of the Learn With Less® podcast is the final of a 4-part series about incorporating play, language, music, and movement, into everyday routines. These episodes feature a conversation between Ayelet Marinovich (pediatric speech-language pathologist, founder & creator of the Learn With Less® curriculum) and Miranda Zoumbaris (early childhood educator & interventionist, licensed Learn With Less® facilitator, and entrepreneur).

In this series, we’ll explore the four pillars of the Learn With Less® framework, and examine how we can incorporate more of each of those into our everyday routines to support connection and early learning.

For each episode, we chose one routine and one everyday object, and explored the ways in which we could infuse developmentally enriching experiences into everyday life, and helping families see they can do this using the time, energy, and materials they already have.

Be sure to check over at our Instagram and Facebook pages (linked below) for additional content that may support your understanding and experience of these episodes. As we release each episode, we’ll link to them here in the show notes so you can access them easily.

In this episode, we discussed:

• What is MOVE (as we define it in the Learn With Less® curriculum), and how it can be woven into everyday routines

Daily Routines Freebie: download Miranda’s free handout about winter dressing, and get ideas for incorporating play, talk, sing, and move into your everyday routines!

Free Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: what are the four major areas of early development… and how can you use the pillars of Learn With Less® to support that learning, using the time, energy, and materials you already have?! Download our free blueprint today.

How to Incorporate Play into Everyday Routines: our first episode in this podcast series, featuring a conversation with Miranda Zoumbaris and Ayelet Marinovich

How to Incorporate Language Into Everyday Routines, the second episode in this 4-part series!

How to Incorporate Music Into Everyday Routines, the third episode in this 4-part series!

The Power of Play Through Movement, a Learn With Less® podcast episode featuring physical therapist, Wendi McKenna

What Is Sensory Processing?, a Learn With Less® podcast episode featuring occupational therapist, Christie Kiley

Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program, helping educators and therapists create lasting impact in their communities with a high quality, evidence-based, “plug & play” program

Expand Your Impact Workshop Bundle: for early childhood educators and developmental therapists hoping to serve new families in their community and support themselves, using their existing skills

Learn With Less® Bundle: our best infant and toddler development resources for families and educators alike, including our bestselling books Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler, our acclaimed family music album, recorded Learn With Less® “caregiver & me” classes, and a caregiver handout featuring ideas for carryover in the home

Learn With Less® Stories: Testimonials from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming.

Miranda: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Ayelet: Okay, welcome back to the Learn With Less® podcast. And welcome to my co-host for these four episodes, Miranda Zoumbaris! Hi Miranda!

Miranda: Hello! I’m glad to be back.

Ayelet: I can’t believe this is the last one, of this installment. Tell us over on the socials: did you enjoy this? Was fun to have Miranda join us in all four episodes. This is so fun. I had a great time. It is nice to have a co-host, actually. Thank you so much, Miranda, for all your contributions to the last few weeks of content and things that we’ve been talking about. This conversation has just been so much fun to have and connect with people over on social media, Instagram and Facebook over on @learnwithless and @earlyinterventionmama!

Why don’t we go ahead and finish out our series of our four Learn With Less® pillars, with the final installment of MOVE. So again, just like we’ve been doing in the last few episodes, and if you haven’t already listened to those, go ahead and check those out. We’ve got three other wonderful episodes for you about the other three pillars of Learn With Less® which include PLAY, TALK, and SING.

But today we’re going to talk about MOVE, what move is. We’re going to give you some examples about how this pillar of MOVE can be woven into those everyday routines. And the routine that we’re going to be talking about with relation to one particular object… we’re going to talk about this notion of dressing, coats, zippers.

So that’s what we’re gonna be chatting about today. Let me go ahead and introduce  the ways that we define this pillar of move within the Learn With Less® curriculum and framework. So movement, as we know, can be very big movements, very small movements, proprioceptive movement. Gross motor movement and fine motor skills, all kinds of visual spatial movements, there’s lots of different pieces to movement, and then motor and sensory development, in addition to how MOVE can support all other aspects and areas of early development.

First of all, movement, whether we’re talking about a child who is developing along a typical progression of learning and within, you know, quote, unquote, “normal limits” of meeting milestones and things like that, or whether we’re talking about a child with severe motor needs and limitations, movement is learning and movement is life. We can always help to create more opportunities for movement, even with a child who has more motor challenges.

In general, with all of our movers, babies and toddlers are learning how their body moves, where their body ends and begins, and where the rest of the world ends and begins in relation to themselves and their own identity… through exploration and movement. Through touching the surfaces on which they’re laying down or running around on, or whatever it is.

And we want to think, even from that very beginning, of when our children are just starting to learn how to move, to consider various planes of movement, when they’re on us, or on the floor, forward and backward and side to side, up and down, vertical and diagonal. Really remembering that when we’re talking about exploration of movement, yes, we can think about a “yes space” kind of a thing, a place where everything is available to our children. And also thinking about, that can be inside or outside.

One of the physical therapists that, I love her work, and we’ve had her on the Learn With Less® podcast in the past, Wendi McKenna, and I’ll link to the episode, she talks about how our homes are just giant containers for our children. I love that notion of the idea of yes, it’s really important to have a space that you feel comfortable for your child to explore in, and also get outside, right?

Your children can explore spiderwebs, and the gravel and the broken sidewalk, and the little pebbles between their toes, and the grass, and the dew, and all of the things. It doesn’t matter whether you are in a rural or urban or suburban setting or any other place, there is so much to explore. And movement is how our young children do that.

So that is the basic outline that I wanted to start with, a–nd let’s move into how we can use this understanding of this pillar of MOVE in relation to, say, putting on coats and zipping up and zipping down zippers, and really just dressing in general. So Miranda, why don’t you get us started on the ways that we can utilize this pillar of movement and MOVE in relation to everyday routines.

Miranda: Yeah. So I don’t know my brain just goes to the really tiny infant side of things first in terms of developmental spectrum. Thinking about, at first, you’re kind of moving your tiny human through dressing. Putting their arm through a shirt for the first time and those sensations that they have, putting their hand through it.

Then, thinking about how when they start moving their fingers and really moving from involuntary grasping onto something to voluntary grasping on something: your hair, a necklace maybe you’re wearing, or your shirt, the zipper, feeling how that feels different. So just really thinking about those smaller movements. And then working up… there’s this meme that’s going around the internet that shows instead of a toddler trying to get dressed, it’s wrestling an alligator.

Ayelet: Yeah, every parent and caregiver of a toddler knows this. Even if they’ve never seen that, they know exactly what you’re talking about.

Miranda: And I think the tagline says, “recent photo of me getting my toddler dressed,” or something. All of that is the movement – playing chase to get away from your mom because she wants your coat to go on to go outside! You don’t want to go! So those parts of dressing routine is movement.

Or, keeping in mind, you’ve done such a great job Ayelet, of just how we adapt, based on our own body’s needs. So if you are a parent that is wheelchair-bound, how you might need to move your body to be closer to your child using a wheelchair and describing that to your child. Thinking about how we get around, or how we get how to get around, impacts every area of development, whether it’s the parent or the child that’s working on movement.

I’m just going to share as we’re talking through this, I am just reflecting on the last couple months, my husband had a significant break in his ankle. And I was gearing up to have a big season of Learn With Less® classes, and instantly one Chipotle curb took him down for months! So really, it just changed our whole perspective, I think, on movement, and just what he could and couldn’t do.

Thinking about, for him, his ankle was completely immobilized, but he was allowed to move his toe – and how important it was for him to have that little bit of movement in his foot up to when we regained full mobility and the celebration we had around him running around the kitchen. Oh my god! So yeah, really put some perspective, I think, for me, on what an impact movement is on development and you know, just in daily life.

Ayelet: Yeah, so, so true. Let’s give a few fun ideas and examples for families who are looking for a few more tools, because it’s interesting, I like to ask before Learn With Less® class that I hold, I like to ask people about which of those four pillars of PLAY, TALK, SING and MOVE, are they most confident or at least confident or comfortable in supporting, or doing, or participating in?

For those of us who do have more challenges with integrating movement, or maybe our children are not as interested in movement, bow can we integrate more of that pillar into our daily life, in say, the routine of getting dressed or zipping up coats and things like that? Do you have some ideas for us, Miranda?

Miranda: Yeah, of course. So I’m envisioning, if you have a little one who’s working on balance, and you’re working on getting on snow pants, or just regular pants, or shorts. Or working on weight shifting, right: lean to the left, lift your foot up, put it in! Lean to the right, lift your foot up, put your foot down. So we’re working on balance, or if you have an infant who you’re working on getting them to really push their hand through that shirt to get their hands out, playfully helping them slide that hand through.

Let’s see,  other things… You know, of course, those zippers, we’re talking a lot about, I’m envisioning gross motor things here. But that fine motor movement is so important, right? Being able to pinch something to pull it up, or oftentimes they’re gonna start by pulling down the zipper on us if we’re wearing something. And scaffolding it.

If they can’t quite pull it down, helping them by aligning the zipper a little bit better, right or giving a cue: tug, tug, tug or pull down! Scaffolding that interest that they might have in dressing to give the least amount of support that your child might need in order to be successful. Do they need two hands to step into their shoes? Do they need to sit down? Do they need you to put on their shoe, but they can shove their foot the last little bit?

Ayelet: Yeah, or encouraging them to ask for help in whatever way they can. Whether it’s looking at you or signing the word help or saying something approximation of the word help – I love that.

Miranda: Visually searching for the coats and the gloves that didn’t return to where you hoped they would be when you needed to leave! All the movement that comes from that!

Ayelet: That’s right, yeah. Or racing to get to the door from the outside. If you’re not interested in running around in the home and things like that! Just using movement to warm up – my gosh, to warm up or slow down. Playing with the different kinds of movements that you can do. Again, a little bit of levity. Oh, how slowly can we put on our coats? I wonder, slowly, we can bring up the zipper or whatever it is, right?

Miranda: Love that. We just did the same thing in Target today. My little one did not want to hold my hand. And it was, well, do you want to hold my hand and go fast? Or do you want to hold my hand and go slow? And yeah, that helps helped us move forward with our grocery run.

Ayelet: That’s a great example. I love it. Amazing. What else? Have we got anything else to share with folks? I mean, I feel like we’ve given people a lot to hold here. And so many tools for all four of our pillars of the Learn With Less® framework. Oh, one other thing I wanted to make sure that we chat about in terms of MOVE is that idea of moving in and out of a space that’s created, and exploring a space, and moving in and out of a physical space. And the comfort level of the group, and the caregiver, and the Learn With Less® facilitator, for instance. I wonder if you can share a little bit about experiences.

You shared in our SING episode, a little one who was interested in exploring and needed to regulate their body by moving away. And how you pulled in that child and their caregiver by creating opportunities to continue to involve themselves in the class, even though they had moved away from the space. So I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about how MOVE is integrated into your classes, even within the physicality of the space and the need for movement, or sometimes disregulated children and/or caregivers.

Miranda: Yeah, I… oh my gosh, this is something that I think can be really stressful for parents. They envision oftentimes a class, sitting down all together, nobody moving away. And just as the facilitator, I think it’s our job to really set up the situation to say: your child is going to need to move, let’s do what they need to be comfortable, you need to move! And then us, as facilitators, attune to what those needs are. And maybe say it out loud, Oh, I see everybody is ready to get up and go let’s just take our stuff with us.

I think for me, it’s really being as responsive as possible. We have certain classes that are designed to focus on movement. But for me, when I run out for classes, just really reading the group. And if we need to move out of the space that we are in to go on a walk, and we sing about the trees, or we… I had – one of my favorite examples, we were pulling the branches on a pine tree down, and using our muscles, and then letting it go and fling up. And it would like fling snow on us.

Ayelet: Oh my gosh, that’s so fun!

Miranda: How fun to do again and again. But you know, it was in response to… we needed to warm up, we needed to move our bodies. And you could tell that some of the children were getting restless. And so yeah, I think just ensuring that your space that you have, or that parents are comfortable in your space to move around in whatever way they need to. Referencing what you talked about at the beginning, that you know, your home is a container like your classroom space is a container, too, and guess what, sometimes the door needs to be open so your little one can go up and down the hall instead, and take a break from class and use their body that way.

Ayelet: Yeah, beautiful. Thank you for that. That’s really wonderful. Yeah, I think that it’s really important for people to know that, too, just about how because that is a really distinguishing marker for how, say, a Learn With Less® class functions versus sometimes other caregiver and child infant-toddler classes, that maybe people are used to. And really how, also your ability as a facilitator, to manage all of that.

Because, you know, we have people who are early childhood educators who are maybe more used to managing groups of children, but not necessarily managing caregivers and children. And then we have more interventionists, developmental therapists, who are more maybe used to managing that caregiver and child dyad, but not multiple ones, and not outside of a therapeutic context. So we give a lot of training around all of those things, and how to manage a group and how to really facilitate engagement, and movement, because that is such a big part of it.

Miranda: And I think we’re so conditioned to have movement be very prescriptive, almost. You think about – none of this is right or wrong, like you’ve talked so much about. And… use your phrase, Ayelet!

Ayelet: It’s not “but,” it’s “and!”

Miranda: Yeah, it’s not, you know, so we can attend a dance class AND we can have a dance party with our family at night, that’s not this very structured thing that’s just free. We can go for a run, AND we might just chase our child down the hill. So I think helping again, to just stretch that muscle in your brain and think about what does movement mean? It can mean your baby working on tummy time.

But it can also mean that they are stretching their arms up or grabbing their toes, all those things are movement and doesn’t have to be this prescriptive look at movement – that we often see in school, nowadays, right in school. Like this is when recess is, this is when gym time is. I’d love seeing more movement happening in classrooms throughout the day.

Ayelet: Yeah, for sure. So good. Yay. Well, Miranda, this has been such a pleasure. Is there anything else you want to add?

Miranda: Oh, gosh, no, but I just want to like, I’m ready, I’m ready to move now. And… ready for a dance party?

Ayelet: I know, I feel like we need to get moving! So everybody, thank you so much for tuning into these last four episodes. This has been so fun to do with you, Miranda. I really appreciate your time and energy and brain because it’s just so fun to put our heads together and chat about these things that we’re both very passionate about. And I’m just so happy to have you in this space. And as part of Learn With Less®. So thank you for everything you do. And anybody who’s in Lansing, Michigan, especially Miranda, do you want to just share a little bit about what you have going on your community specifically?

Miranda: I would love to! And I will just say, too, before I get into that, I just so appreciate all the support Ayelet. And getting to come and talk about this. Yeah, so I am in the process of actually opening up a physical space in Lansing called The Emerging Parent, where I will have Learn With Less® classes and open play, and some other classes and hopefully lots of collaboration with local early childhood providers and parent support people.

And so my vision is to really serve families that have young children, who are looking for places to get out and build community in a space that feels safe. You know, here in Michigan, I think one of the things I’ve noticed running classes, it is hard to get out in the winter, it’s important, it’s essential. Oftentimes, parents want to have that opportunity to linger and be together and connect. And so that’s what I’m doing. I’m building a space that will allow us to do that, you know, indoors as well as what we’re done outdoors. So yeah.

Ayelet: So special. And you can learn more about that over at Miranda’s website, earlyinterventionmama.com. Again, it’s called The Emerging Parent. So anybody who is or knows anybody with a little person in Lansing, Michigan, head on over because it’s gonna be awesome! All right. And then Miranda, you have a special freebie that pulls together some of the routines we’ve talked about in these last four episodes, can you let people know where to find that?

Miranda: Yeah, you can find that earlyintervention.mama.com/dailyroutinesfreebie.

Ayelet: Amazing. And then again, you can also download the Learn With Less® infant and toddler development blueprint that goes through all of these four pillars of PLAY, TALK, SING, and MOVE, in terms of the framework that we use here and how it relates to early development. And that’s over at learnwith less.com/blueprint. We will have all these things in the show notes. And we can’t wait to connect with you. We want to hear all about how you have enjoyed these last four episodes and all the content that we’ve created for you over on Instagram and Facebook with regard to the more visual aspects of the things that we’ve been chatting about. So Miranda, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure. Let’s do it again sometime.

Miranda: All right, that sounds like a plan. Thank you for having me. And like you said, I just look forward to connecting with everybody on socials.

Ayelet: Yeah, so @earlyinterventionmama and @learnwithless – head on over and let us know how you enjoyed these episodes! Alright, talk to you soon.

Miranda: Bye!

The post How to Incorporate Movement into Everyday Routines, with Miranda Zoumbaris & Ayelet Marinovich appeared first on Learn With Less.

This episode of the Learn With Less® podcast is the third of a 4-part series about incorporating play, language, music, and movement, into everyday routines. These episodes feature a conversation between Ayelet Marinovich (pediatric speech-language pathologist, founder and creator of the Learn With Less® curriculum) and Miranda Zoumbaris (early childhood educator & interventionist, licensed Learn With Less® facilitator, and entrepreneur).

In this series, we’ll explore the four pillars of the Learn With Less® framework, and examine how we can incorporate more of each of those into our everyday routines to support connection and early learning.

For each episode, we chose one routine and one everyday object, and explored the ways in which we could infuse developmentally enriching experiences into everyday life, and helping families see they can do this using the time, energy, and materials they already have.

Be sure to check over at our Instagram and Facebook pages (linked below) for additional content that may support your understanding and experience of these episodes. As we release each episode, we’ll link to them here in the show notes so you can access them easily.

In this episode, we discussed:

• What is SING (as we define it in the Learn With Less® curriculum), and how it can be woven into everyday routines

Daily Routines Freebie: download Miranda’s free handout about winter dressing, and get ideas for incorporating play, talk, sing, and move into your everyday routines!

Free Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: what are the four major areas of early development… and how can you use the pillars of Learn With Less® to support that learning, using the time, energy, and materials you already have?! Download our free blueprint today.

How to Incorporate Play into Everyday Routines: our first episode in this podcast series, featuring a conversation with Miranda Zoumbaris and Ayelet Marinovich

How to Incorporate Language Into Everyday Routines, the second episode in this 4-part series!

Infant-Directed Speech: Tips for Talking To Your Baby, an early Learn With Less® episode

Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program, helping educators and therapists create lasting impact in their communities with a high quality, evidence-based, “plug & play” program

Expand Your Impact Workshop Bundle: for early childhood educators and developmental therapists hoping to serve new families in their community and support themselves, using their existing skills

Learn With Less® Bundle: our best infant and toddler development resources for families and educators alike, including our bestselling books Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler, our acclaimed family music album, recorded Learn With Less® “caregiver & me” classes, and a caregiver handout featuring ideas for carryover in the home

Learn With Less® Stories: Testimonials from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming.

Miranda: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Ayelet: Okay, welcome back to another episode of the Learn With Less® podcast. I am again joined my my fabulous current co-host Miranda Zoumbaris. Hi, Miranda!

Miranda: Hellooooo!

Ayelet: Hello!

Miranda: I know that’s like almost how I always say hello, when I’m on a call like this. I don’t know why. But…

Ayelet: Well, I would like to propose a thought, which is that, I think it’s because it’s fun and playful and musical. And that is the thing that we’re talking about today. I’m very excited because the last few episodes that we’ve been chatting together have been about the first two pillars of Learn With Less®, PLAY and TALK. And today, we’re going to talk about SING!

I know that SING is sometimes one of those more divisive, maybe… You either know the power of musicality, and you’re always singing to your child or always humming in the shower, whatever it is. Or, you’re like, nope, I am not musical, I am not a singer, I do not want to do that. I do not feel comfortable, I hate all children’s songs. They sound like nails on a chalkboard… or nobody wants to hear me sing or whatever it is!

We all have a story that we have in our heads about what music means to us and our relationship with it. And also, I hope that today, you and I Miranda, can just give people a few extra tools in their toolbox about how they might consider utilizing musicality, and really what that means to us here at Learn With Less® with regards to how we can utilize it with young children, and in our families, and in our daily routines.

Because I know, Miranda, you and I both know that there is a great power in singing and in music. And in utilizing music to enhance, energize, or decrease energy and lull to sleep, our young children, or lull into a more regulated state. Lull into? I don’t think that’s really the term I want to use, but help move into a more regulated state. I don’t think I want to be loaded into a regulated state.

Miranda: We’re gonna lull you in. Yeah. That’s for our podcast listeners, we’re just going to let you lull you in!

Ayelet: Listen to what we say. Anyway. So let’s just talk a little bit. Again, we’ve been doing this structure of sharing with you listeners: what are the definitions about how we define these pillars of PLAY, and TALK and SING and MOVE, those pillars of Learn With Less®. And then also, we’re going to be talking today again, about how we can weave this pillar of SING into everyday routines and give you a few specific examples and ideas around one particular routine. That of… you want to introduce it, Miranda, go ahead? I’ve been talking a lot!

Miranda: Yeah, going in and out of the house, or transitions in and out of the house.

Ayelet: Yeah, the transition piece and maybe bundling up or heading outside. Miranda, you are in Michigan. And right now it’s January. And it’s wintertime, and it’s cold. Here in California right now, it is also wintertime and it’s been raining a ton. We’ve been very wet. And you know we’re in a drought, still, despite all the rain. But it’s meant a little bit of a different kind of transition for us than maybe our children are used to, and us as adults, as well. So those going in or out transition types of things.

So let’s just start a little bit with what is SING as we define it here at Learn With Less®. So really, as we know, singing, yes, can look like singing a song from start to finish through and through. Having particular lyrics, and having it be the lyrics that you associate with that song in particular. Or, it can just be humming a tune, or tapping a rhythm, or moving, swaying to the beat of something that is happening.

Holding your child! It can be really just adding a silly element and adding more joy, often, into routines through this idea of musicality: of quickening or slowing the pace. Of enhancing the pitch intonations, which as it happens, is something that we actually naturally do in every single language – spoken or gestural – in the world. It’s what we call infant-directed speech, sometimes referred to as “parentese” or, more archaically, “motherese.”

It’s this idea of naturally slowing down, enhancing those pitch contours, being more melodic in our voice, actually. And this is something that I linked to the podcast episode that I did about infant-directed speech years ago. But this is something that we do to help our young children really feel considered naturally. And when we don’t even think about that we’re doing it, right? Think about the connection between all those specific things: shortening a phrase, making your voice more melodic, all those kinds of things… You are already doing it. You are literally already enhancing the musicality and this experience of SING for your child.

But then also remembering that we can distract or engage with music. We can heighten an experience or an energy level, like we said, or we can lower the energy level with a lullaby, for instance. We can connect and cuddle with a lullaby, or a cozy song, or we can have a wild dance party. Rhythms are everywhere, right? They are literally everywhere – in the sounds that we hear, the environmental noises everywhere. We can bring them into a song, knock, knock, knock, who’s there? Whatever it is, like Tada, like, there it is.

Really, remembering to make music with what you have, whether that is a fancy, organically stained, hand carved wooden drum, or a laundry basket. They are all great. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about relating this pillar of SING into this routine of going in and out. And that transitional thing that happen, those micro routines of transitions that we all experience – whether we are at home with our children all day long, whether we have another caregiver with our child all day long.

And we’re only present for a couple of routines throughout the day, I want to just really name that this is for all of us. And whether you are a full time working parent, or a full time stay at home caregiver, or anywhere in between, you can utilize this information, you can utilize some of these ideas.

Again, these are tools for your tool belt, and I know that you’re present for at least one routine throughout the day. So let’s think about how we can utilize this pillar of SING and make it more fun, if that’s the one you choose. If singing just really doesn’t speak to you, and you’re like, No, I refuse to do that. That’s fine! After you listen to this whole episode, go back and listen to the other ones that we have around, PLAY and TALK and MOVE. But Miranda and I are hoping to convince you otherwise, that there’s something here that you can take away and utilize. So Miranda, take it away, let’s hear a little bit about how we can use this pillar of SING with these routines of going in and out and transitions.

Miranda: And the other thing I’ll say before I dive into that, too, is I think I would hope that this will allow anybody that is a little bit hesitant to see SING and music and rhythm around them more frequently. Like when you see your child on the floor banging a whisk that all of a sudden you notice that it happens to be kind of in a rhythm or that you are watching a group of parents swaying back and forth. Nobody told them to do that. They happen to be doing that.

Ayelet: Oh my gosh, I still do it when there’s a baby around.

Miranda: Right? Yeah! So just open those pathways up in your brain to see it when you go out and pick up on on where it might be coming in. And maybe that makes it a little bit easier for you if you are hesitant, so search it out. But yeah, so, okay, right now I’m gonna give a very real example. So we use SING a lot when we have grumpiness going on in our house. And there is so much grumpiness when it happens to come to transition time, right? So even just the way that we might call our children to come into what we call it the Magic Room. It’s our laundry room where we exit our house, everybody comes in there and we’ll be like, Okay, come to the Magic Room.

Ayelet: Oh my gosh, that’s amazing.

Miranda: Or, you know, and it’s not every time we’ve talked about this, right? Or it’s time to go, how we say it, you know, the words that we use to give some instruction for older toddlers who may have a good understanding of receptive language, who have good receptive language skills, right? Or we’re modeling it for them. That is a way to kind of get their attention. It’s not mom and dad just chattering in the background. It’s this calling, of them to come.

Ayelet: Right, and it’s a shift in tonality that they recognize as distinctly their family. Actually, a funny example of that is a specific whistle that my dad used to use. And if we were in a store, a grocery store, whatever, I’d always know if he was looking for me. I’d be like, Oh, that’s mine. That’s my, that’s my family. That’s my family’s whistle. Right? So that’s just that even – if you don’t want to sing it, or call it, or use your traditional speaking voice, there are other ways to do it. A whistle is great one!

Miranda: Yeah, or chanting, right? It’s time to go. It’s time to go. It’s time to go out the door. I know you don’t want to go anymore. It’s time to go out the door. Like it doesn’t have to be singing, it can just be saying you know, I mean… My husband and I sometimes I have some very humorous moments where we’re like we don’t want to go eiiiiither!

Ayelet: Love it right? Yes.

Miranda: Levity just for us, even.

Ayelet:  That’s for sure!

Miranda: But yeah, so I would say for us, we use this so much to regulate ourselves. And I think to just rhythm and that beat helps us regulate when we’re having a difficult transition. I think oftentimes, we see clean up songs being used in transition. So thinking about having some kind of song that signals when it’s time for something to be done. Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho it’s inside we go, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, you know, something like that.

So something that, like you said, when you hear it in the store, you knew what it meant? It meant come find me. I’m waiting for you. This signals, Hey, it’s time to come inside. And we’ve set the routine and you know it. Or singing about what we’re going to put on next to go outside? You know, we’re gonna put on your… gloves next. Now we’re going to put on your… hat. Pausing for them to add those things in.

Ayelet: Yeah, right holding up the object so they can see what it is and then waiting for them to fill in the word, for instance. Yeah, that’s great. Right or even, the transition that comes to mind for me, this is not like an indoor outdoor but like diaper changing. And especially for a little ones for whom diaper changing and that sensory experience is not a pleasant one, adding in a little levity, through your voice and through song, or just a little playfulness and connection. Where you’re looking into their eyes, and you’re being silly, and you’re my… Do you mind, Miranda, if I share my favorite song that I made up when my child was young?

Miranda: No! Please sing about the poop!

Ayelet: Is their a poo-poo in there? Is there a poo-poo in there? Was it only  air or is there poo-poo in there? Good one. And it still gets giggles! It still gets giggles. In fact, my six year old now is like, hmmmmm, Mama, stop being silly! There you go. But even if it doesn’t work for him, it works for me!

Miranda: Yeah, yeah!

Ayelet: What child doesn’t love talking about poop as they get older. Right. So right, right. Good. All right. Back to you, Miranda.

Miranda: Oh, well, I’m just remembering, now that you’re singing about your little one, we have lots of songs for this when we were doing diaper changes, too! I used to sing, every party has a pooper, that’s why I invited you! Poopaloop? Poopaloop! Yeah, right! I think we as adults kind of know when we need to add a little bit. And it is such a mood shift. Yeah, I’m sure there’s plenty of research about how music, like you talked about, but how it can really like calm and, and shift moods and all of that.

So the other Oh, the other things I’m thinking about, right? If you’re transitioning a little tiny baby to go outside how, as you’re putting them in their car seat, maybe you’re humming, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm! Even if it’s just one tone, because maybe you don’t – you have a Shusher upstairs in your nursery and you don’t have one when you’re putting them in the car. Maybe it’s shh shhh shhh shhh. So even just simplifying it to that, or as you’re swaying, waiting for the garage to close or something, and you’re racking their car seat back and forth. Or giving a gentle bump on it to give a little bit of that patting sensation that they got.

Ayelet: Yeah, or just in the stroller, right? I’m thinking of folks who don’t live in suburban areas. Like for the first three years of my journey through parenthood, we lived in cities and did not have a car and so it’s the stroller, right? So yeah, just all of all of the things that’s just think about how you can apply it to you. And if you’re having a hard time envisioning that reach out, reach out to us we we got ideas clearly. I think that’s pretty clear here, Miranda! All right. What else? How about a song modeling a familiar tune with the steps to get ready to leave the house, for instance?

Miranda: Yeah. Oh, gosh, we love The Ants Go Marching. My favorite Learn With Less® classes, too, we utilize this, but so let’s let’s just sing it! Let’s say your child really needs you to walk them through each step. It’s time to get our shoes on, hurrah, hurrah. Now we’ll put our coats on, hoorah, hurrah. Time to go out the door, walk to the park once more. And we’ll be ready to go play at the park, at the park park park park… And then you might even say something like and now you’re laying on the floor hurrah, hurrrah. You don’t want to put your shoes on hurrah, hurrah. But we’re gonna do it anyway, so we can go play!

You know, I think singing through some of that… Obviously we want to attend and attune when our child is upset, but it does help sometimes to sing through it! You know, sing through it, and then acknowledge where we’re at, and pause and, and use that other pillar of TALK to be at their level.

Ayelet: That’s right. That’s right. I love it, I also want to actually use this moment to chat about that power of “group sing” in a Learn With Less® class, for instance, and this is slightly off topic in terms of our routines piece. But I mean, you can certainly utilize it with a caregiving partner even, right, in your own home. Or replicate this in your home with, maybe it’s a family dinner, you know, extended family, if you can get people on board.

But my goodness, when you have people within your community all singing the same tune at the same time, there are such limited opportunities for humans to experience this. I think, especially in the United States, outside of, say, a religious or cultural, specifically cultural experience, I would say. It’s that creation of a ritual that is very special, and very special somehow to give our children the experience of. Can you, would you mind talking a little bit about what that can feel like for families in your classes or for you as the facilitator of a space that’s doing that?

Miranda: Yeah, I mean, to me, it’s like the evolution. When I have a group of families that have committed to come for a several week session, the beauty of the evolution of them coming at the first class and kind of looking around, like, we’re gonna do this? We’re gonna do that… we’re gonna, oh okay, everybody’s singing, I’m good, I’m gonna join in! Or they’re like, oh, I want to, I want to have this moment with my baby. And they sing.

And just, I think, you know, to see people be a little bit afraid, a little bit brave, too, to call out something to add into a song. Or maybe they really enjoyed the singing piece of it. And other parents get a giggle out of it, because they’re singing about something ridiculous. Or oftentimes using humor, and we all can sing together.

We’ve had little celebrations, you know, at classes, too. I know some people, some people celebrate birthdays, some people don’t. But like, that’s really a powerful thing to have happen on a normal basis. But for us all to sing together, or when oh, gosh, this is a good example. I had a class where we were doing, “way up high in the apple tree.” And I am not very familiar with that song. And I had a few other parents who were! I was like, Oh, please, please. And they just kind of go over for that part.

Just, the joy that we had hearing them sing and lead was just… yeah, just just really wonderful. I think in class – Ayelet, you and I are reading a book right now, and one of the things that it talks about in that is the power of strangers. Kind of how you might be a little bit more willing. And I think there is that element of it to a Learn With Less® class, too! You’re coming into it and you know, it’s not your, it’s not your aunts and your uncles that you never sing around that you just happen to be doing. It’s just everybody is getting to know each other, perhaps, and there is that element of… well, they don’t really know me, I guess I can sing and feel comfortable and, and do it.

Ayelet: That’s right. That’s right. And also just noting that creating accommodations, too, for people who are like either not interested in singing. Or where song or music or voices in unison can be a very overwhelming sensory experience both for adults and children in the space. So creating opportunities for families to note that this might be an issue in advance, or noticing yourself as the facilitator of a space when there might be some discomfort for a child for instance, who’s covering their ears because things are too loud. And just giving that opportunity also in a community group that creates that space that helps people feel seen and heard, and helps them feel noticed and valued. And their needs valued. So I just wanted to say that, as well.

Miranda: I love that you’re pointing that out because that’s bringing up for me, I have a little person who has attended several of my classes and he needs to move. And a lot of times the start of that movement is with the welcoming when we’re all together having that group sing of the Hello Song. And he kind of heads off on that.

Then when we, it has been really great with the outdoor classes I’ve done, to allow him to move away — or not allowed, just to, we have the space and safety in place for him to be able to move far away from the group. But ironically enough, sometimes with that SING portion, being able to call out to the mom across, she’s a little bit away attending her little one, to invite her back in, be a part of the SING like, “call out what he’s doing right now and we’re gonna sing about it!” It kind of brings her back even though she might not be able to be right at the circle.

Ayelet: Exactly, exactly right. Because within that structure, there’s always… It is like, we like to call it sort of a semi structured class structure. Because yeah, there’s always that flexibility. And you’re never stuck trying to accommodate the needs of a curriculum versus the needs of the families within your space. So yeah, love that. Thank you. That’s a that’s, I think that’s really helpful for people to know, actually. Anything else? What other songs do we want to leave people with? Or other other ideas for song prompts, right?

Miranda: Yes. So what about if you’re, we oftentimes, on the way going places, instead of singing Wheels On The Bus, we’ll sing about the wheels on the car. So we’re just changing a little bit. Yeah, you know, the wheels on my car go round and round. Or the clip on your car seat goes click, click, click. Or with a stroller, right the buckles on the stroller go click, click, click. Or on your carrier, or whatever it is, but taking that very familiar song and just changing a little bit of it is something we do all the time in Learn With Less®. It doesn’t have to be a particular song. Pick something that you know, and feel comfortable changing. Or instead of singing, like we talked about, do a chant: buckle buckle, put on the buckle!

Ayelet: Talk through it in a rhythmic way.

Miranda: I just want to point out, too, we’re talking I think a lot about activities that work really well for toddlers. But just keep in mind, you’re doing a lot of this with your babies and infants, tiny people. And yeah, they need to hear this language. They need to hear your voice and be connected with you from the time they’re very little. So, just remembering that they’re soaking all that in, like we talked about, from the womb, and though when you’re pulling them out of their bassinet in the morning, or rolling over if you co-sleep. Good morning, good morning, you know, just those little moments with your tiny ones. It doesn’t have to look like this preschool circle that you’re sitting around.

Ayelet: That’s right. Thank you for that. That’s so important for people to just remember and hold. Awesome. All right, well, Miranda, just a little recap of where they can find, our listeners, a special little freebie that you’ve created all around routines. Why don’t people head over to your website at…

Miranda: https://earlyinterventionmama.com/dailyroutinesfreebie!

Ayelet: Amazing. And of course, go ahead, if you haven’t already, go ahead and download the Learn With Less® infant and toddler development blueprint that goes through all of the four pillars of Learn With Less® that we’re talking about in these four episodes of PLAY, TALK, SING, and MOVE. And just what they’re all about and how they can relate to early development, as well.

So go ahead and follow what we’re doing over at Instagram and Facebook and social media in relation to these episodes, because we’ve got lots more visual content and maybe even more auditory content that you can see us doing these things. What we’re doing with our hands or the things that we’re holding with relation to the music or chants or songs that we are encouraging you to utilize.

And we’d love to hear from you about what you feel regarding this episode. Did this change anybody’s perspective? Give you new ideas for utilizing music or musicality in new ways? What’s your big takeaway? We’d love to hear it. So head over to Instagram and let us know. I love Instagram right now. Looking forward to see you at @earlyinterventionmama and over @learnwithless. We will be back next week with our final installment of these four pillars, with our pillar of MOVE. So we’re going to be talking all about that next week. But in the meantime, head over and we will see you on the socials. Okay, bye Miranda!

Miranda: Good bye!

The post How to Incorporate Music Into Everyday Routines, featuring Miranda Zoumbaris & Ayelet Marinovich appeared first on Learn With Less.

This episode of the Learn With Less® podcast is the second of a 4-part series about incorporating play, language, music, and movement, into everyday routines. These episodes feature a conversation between Ayelet Marinovich (pediatric speech-language pathologist, founder and creator of the Learn With Less® curriculum) and Miranda Zoumbaris (early childhood educator & interventionist, licensed Learn With Less® facilitator, and entrepreneur).

In this series, we’ll explore the four pillars of the Learn With Less® framework, and examine how we can incorporate more of each of those into our everyday routines to support connection and early learning. For each episode, we chose one routine and one everyday object, and explored the ways in which we could infuse developmentally enriching experiences into everyday life, and helping families see they can do this using the time, energy, and materials they already have.

Be sure to check over at our Instagram and Facebook pages (linked below) for additional content that may support your understanding and experience of these episodes. As we release each episode, we’ll link to them here in the show notes so you can access them easily.

In this episode, we discussed:

• What is TALK (as we define it in the Learn With Less® curriculum), and how it can be woven into everyday routines

Daily Routines Freebie: download Miranda’s free handout about winter dressing, and get ideas for incorporating play, talk, sing, and move into your everyday routines!

Free Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: what are the four major areas of early development… and how can you use the pillars of Learn With Less® to support that learning, using the time, energy, and materials you already have?! Download our free blueprint today.

How to Incorporate Play into Everyday Routines: our first episode in this podcast series, featuring a conversation with Miranda Zoumbaris and Ayelet Marinovich

How to Incorporate Music Into Everyday Routines, the third episode in this 4-part series!

How to Incorporate Movement Into Everyday Routines, the final episode in this 4-part series!

The Power of the Pause, an early Learn With Less® episode

Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program, helping educators and therapists create lasting impact in their communities with a high quality, evidence-based, “plug & play” program

Expand Your Impact Workshop Bundle: for early childhood educators and developmental therapists hoping to serve new families in their community and support themselves, using their existing skills

Learn With Less® Bundle: our best infant and toddler development resources for families and educators alike, including our bestselling books Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler, our acclaimed family music album, recorded Learn With Less® “caregiver & me” classes, and a caregiver handout featuring ideas for carryover in the home

Learn With Less® Stories: Testimonials from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming.

Miranda: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Ayelet: Okay, welcome back to the Learn with Less® Podcast. Today I am joined by my current co-host Miranda Zoumbaris. Hi, Miranda!

Miranda: Hi! I’m so glad to be back!

Ayelet: Yay! Let’s go ahead… Last week, we had an episode all about that first pillar of Learn With Less®, which is PLAY. So, go back, if you haven’t listened to that, and grab all of the things that we talked about, listen to all of that, and catch up with all of the content that we’ve created over on Instagram and Facebook and places at @earlyinterventionmama and @learnwithless, and you can get caught up with all the great stuff all about PLAY. But this week… Miranda, what are we talking about this week?

Miranda: We’re going to talk about TALK! We’re going to talk about talk, and talk about playing with some tissues or tissue boxes.

Ayelet: Yeah, last week, we talked a little bit about what play is, and then different routine examples of using a specific object in play. This week, we’re going to do the same thing about TALK. And the object that we’ve chosen for this week is, as you said, that whole routine of blowing your nose. Blowing, the sort of handkerchief, nose blowing, tissue pulling type stuff. Tissues and self care, really, is the topic that we’re gonna chat about.

Let’s talk a little bit about what talk is, as we define it in Learn With Less®. I can start there. And then I’m going to hand it off to you to chat a little bit more about the different routines that we’re going to chat about. So when we’re talking about this pillar of TALK, what we’re really discussing is discussion, the act of discussion and observation. The idea of repetition with variation. Because every single day, we hope, you’re having some kind of conversation with your young child. Within daily routines… is such a wonderful time to really give into that discussion and observation. Instead of quietly changing your child’s diaper, this is a great opportunity to say the same kinds of things at the same time. Because then you’re repeating yourself and giving context to words.

So for instance, oh, let’s take it off, when you’re taking off the diaper. You can sequence events, and look at what’s coming next, and all of those things. So you’re repeating, and you’re giving a lot of consistency, but then a little bit of variation, right, the pattern adjusts a little bit each time. We’re also talking about, when we’re talking about TALK, we’re having this conversation about communicating for a variety of purposes, not just “what’s this, what’s that” – labeling, which is, I think, something that a lot of us as adults tend to get stuck in in terms of quizzing and drilling our little ones. That’s how oftentimes we’ve learned what learning is! It looks like taking tests and quizzing.

Also as the grownups in the room, we want to hear our children say those words, we want to see that they can identify something. We want to know what they know, we want to see what they know. We want to show our loved ones what they know. And also, because again, we’re talking about not just the but/or its AND. So, we want to communicate for a variety of purposes. We want to ask our child questions. We want to wonder aloud, we want to imitate them. We want to talk about what’s happening around us, how something feels, what it looks like. And notice what they are noticing – and say those things out loud.

And then, of course, we also want to communicate to our little ones using a variety of means and modes of communication, right? We know that right now, Miranda and I are sitting at two different computers looking at each other on Zoom, and she’s nodding, That tells me that she’s listening, right, and she’s smiling. That tells me that she’s engaged. And all of those nonverbal communication skills also assist in communicating and engaging with each other as humans. So whether it’s gestures and pointing or clapping. Or whether it’s moving towards or away from our little one. Whether it’s facial expression, or different kinds of motor movements, like hugs or pushing something away, not everything has to be positive! Really showing that there are so many ways to communicate what we need, what we want, what we think what we’re wondering what we’re questioning.

Then finally just modeling what you want to see both in terms of the kinds of communicative behaviors that you want your child to then imitate and replicate because goodness knows. Some of the things that I’m noticing in my nine year old right now are directly influenced by things that I’m like, Oh my gosh, I wish I wasn’t like that. I wish I didn’t do that to him because now he’s doing that to his little brother. That doesn’t feel very good. Yeah. How lovely. So just bringing that awareness to ourselves, because even from before day one, they are learning from us. So those are the pieces that I wanted to start with in terms of what is TALK. Right. So let’s talk a little bit about, Miranda, how to utilize routines with regard to this pillar of TALK.

Miranda: Yeah, absolutely. So oh my gosh, There literally is so much to talk about. So let’s really think about that self care routine and your child has a runny, gunky nose. So maybe you start by explaining what’s going to happen, if that works for your child. So you’re using language. I see you, you have boogers coming out of your nose. It’s about to get on your mouth. Let’s find a tissue to clean it up. Or maybe you want to give some choices. You know, you have boogers on your nose. Do you want to wipe or a tissue so you can wipe it and allowing them to do it, giving some choices! Or maybe you’re the one blowing your nose! And your baby looks up at you startled! Or you know, you’re running a Learn With Less® class and you make the children cry when you blow your nose!

Ayelet: I assume we’re speaking from personal experience!

Miranda: Yes. I did a playful sneeze, and I had about three crying babies. And they were like, Yeah, that’s kind of traumatic right now! You have to know your audience! But you have your tiny baby looking up at you because you just sneezed or you blew your nose – to useTALK to change the pitch and tone of your voice to let them know it’s okay. Whoa, you were startled, and I blew my nose – that was loud. And then you pause and look at your child and give them an opportunity to go oh! And kind of reconnect and that serve and return that we get with TALK, too. So I think in all those different examples, right? They’re just little micro routines that are happening around nose blowing, but we’re able to use that pillar of TALK. And I think playfully too, like I said during class where we’re pretending to sneeze really loud using noises…

Ayelet: Yes, right, right, those social sounds. Yeah, I love that. And actually, just another note about that is that, again, we talk about these four different pillars, sometimes as if they’re four distinct, different things. But there’s always overlap. Just like when we’re working on a communication skill, we’re also often working on a motor skill. And we’re also often working on a cognitive skill. So there is overlap in all of this, especially in those first three years of life. So I love that you brought that to our attention, Miranda.

Let’s talk a little bit about some of those kinds of things in terms of… So we’re talking about blowing the nose, but also like wiping faces, putting a mask on talking through some of those things. Let’s just chat about how we can useTALK in terms of – you had said a little bit about nose blowing, but also tissue pulling, right? Even just taking little pieces of fabric out of a box and just saying some of the words right? Out! Out! Pull! All of these things have so much potential for adding a more language-rich environment into your everyday routines. And so providing those examples of little tiny bits of language to offer during some of those nose blowing and caregiving [routines]. Do you want to give a few more examples? Miranda?

Miranda: Sure. Yeah, I’d love to. I’m thinking now because we talked about that pulling something out of a box: wipes! That’s the same thing is a tissue, right? So maybe you talk about opening the wipe, the little button, push! And then put it in front of your child and maybe you don’t say anything. Maybe you look expectantly at them and just wait, give that power of the pause that we talk about in Learn With Less®, and see what they do. Do they say something back to you? Do they reach for it, but we’re looking at them with this playful expectation that says, Hey, it’s your turn to do something? What are you going to do? So that’s one thing that I’m thinking and then just like you said, maybe it’s not wipes or tissues that you’re pulling out? Because those do get expensive. You know, and they are a valuable resource then maybe we save that empty box to put things in that we’re okay getting continually pulled in and out because…

Ayelet: Yeah, it might be mail – Junk Mail. Yeah, pieces of paper, envelopes that we’re pulling out. It might be postcards, it might be… I’m just thinking about paper now. But other little scraps like scraps of fabric or ribbons or ties or hair ties, hair pulls… any – it can be any little thing! I’m just riffing on different things that you can put in and pull out that are just everyday items used in self care routines.

Miranda: Then thinking about what do we do with like a blanket right off Sometimes we’re hiding behind that. So playing peekaboo thinking about taking that and using it when you’re using a tissue or a wipe. Or maybe you happen to be sitting out waiting to get into a restaurant, the only thing you have in your pocket is the tissue. And it’s a clean one! And you pull it out to play peekaboo, or maybe you pull it out and ball it up in your hand and give a big puff of air and blow it across the table and take turns practicing that back and forth. And again, you’re giving that turn taking which is essential to communication and you’re playing and talking about it. Maybe we do a verbal routine, crumple that tissue or mask or whatever you have in your hand. 1,2,3 – And we throw it in the air! Lots of ways to add language and play and all the pillars.

Ayelet: Yep, that’s right. Yeah, I love that idea of crumpling up a tissue or even a little piece of paper or a mask or whatever it is – something really light right it can be a cotton ball and then blowing it across a floor right the vinyl or laminate or wooden floor. Yeah, and then watch it go! So BLOW, GO, taking something OUT of a box – out! Pretending to sneeze, all of the Ah-CHOO! And ooooh – when is mom or dad or other caregiver going to finish? That anticipation of “choo!” coming right? Or finding a hidden toy, or hidden whisk, under one of a few of the hankies, handkerchiefs, for instance. So yeah, UNDER, ooh, WHERE? Where could it be? You put something under! Where is it?! So much language in there – anything else you can think of Miranda?

Miranda: I was imagining if you don’t have a box to pull things out, of that maybe you shove it in your couch. Or maybe you’re cleaning your socks out of your couch that got taken off and you’re pulling that in a silly way or pretending and you’re pulling! Oh, what did I say? I found a sock. Maybe it’s not a sock, maybe it’s a maybe it’s a tissue, and pretending, or a hand puppet. Put it on as a puppet.

Ayelet: Yeah. Well, I’m thinking about my getting-more-stinky-as-we-go  little people. But there are always socks. There are always socks hanging around the house. That is, yeah, that is the eternal issue… Why are your socks here? Again? Child. Yeah, again, that levity that we talked about in the last episode, when you’re feeling energized and frustrated. How can we bring that a little bit of play and language into that? Love it.

Miranda: And as you’re saying that I’m just thinking about how we’ve talked about repetition with variation. And in this instance, last episode, we talked about how you might say, we need to put your gloves on your feet! Come here. Also, if you have a child that’s resisting nose blowing: we need to blow your nose come here, and you wipe their ear! So using that same concept of I’m going to do something that’s not quite right, in a silly way, you know, using it and then switching it to something different. The next time.

I always talk with parents about all these little things are tools that go in your tool belt. And sometimes when you’re just getting more comfortable using those concepts, it helps to have a script like that. I’ll pretend to put something on a different body part or wipe a different party part or tickle a different body part. So to kind of have that in your mind as a way to help you stretch that muscle of play and talk.

Ayelet: It’s so true. I love how you said that too, Miranda. Because I think that is the real key differentiator of the biggest difference between you and I who came into parenthood with this set of tools… versus a parent or caregiver who really never spent a whole lot of time, maybe, with kids or young children before. Having access to those little tools to pull from, from the very beginning. Now, number one, I want to say that does not solve all the things. So if you’re, if you’re a professional who is hoping to have children one day and thinks you’re gonna be the best parent ever, because you’re already an early interventionist of some kind, yeah, good luck.

Miranda: We will wait for the enlightening, the enlightenment.

Ayelet: Right? But yes, there are there are some nice aspects to having that knowledge. And that is the whole point, I think, of number one, why we’re here with you today. And number two, what Learn With Less® is all about, and what we’re doing in our classes. Miranda, actually, I wanted to just ask you as a Learn With Less® facilitator, what are some of the… because before we hit the record button, we’ve been chatting a little bit about those little moments of “aha moments” for families in your classes. For instance, that when they realize like, Oh, this is what play can look like, Oh, this is what talk can look like, and how simple actually, it really is right? Because we see all this content on Instagram or we read all the parenting books. And we hear all of the messages that oh, we need more and to do more and to buy more and to blah, blah, blah. But really, it’s about simplification and just utilizing these simple simple routines and simple objects. So I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about that.

Miranda: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s so interesting to watch parents have this surprise that they come to a class and their child happened to play with a tissue box for 40 minutes. And they did it together with them, and it was fun! Or that they played with a big shower curtain, rising above and below, and that those were the things that their child was most interested in. So I think just that feeling of watching on parents faces experience the delight that their child has in those simple interactions. And then getting to see later on maybe as they’re coming into class or leaving class, that they’re infusing some of that in the moment practicing it. Maybe they’re trying to have a conversation with a parent that they met during their little uncertain thing get fussy, and they pretend to sneeze! Because you’re doing that in class and their little one thought it was so funny, and so they’re like, oh, that worked!

Yeah, so absolutely, I think just watching them see that it’s a simple things. And then like you said, just adding a little bit of variation to it. Just me as a facilitator, I really view it too, as my role is to be like, I’m not doing anything, like I’m literally just pulling a tissue and pretending to go “ah-choo!” This is completely accessible to you. If you don’t have a voice, we can use the action, that we can modify, like, there are thousands of ways to modify this, to make it fun. And just really taking away too, I think that feeling of, “she can do it better than I can” or  “they have more ideas.” No, put it back on them.

Ayelet: Like, actually, your child is going to show us what their ideas are. And then we’re gonna follow what they do. That’s literally, that’s a Learn With Less® class. And also, one thing in there that I really wanted to highlight is it’s not just… your role as a Learn With Less® facilitator is you’re not just illuminating that these are the simple objects that they can play with. It’s that you are connecting that there is a developmental value inherent in the ways in which they can very simply interact with those everyday objects. And you’re taking away the facade or the illusion that it has to be a fancy subscription box full of toys, or it has to be purchased from a specific aisle in a specific kind of store to have developmental value.

You’re totally busting that myth, you’re doing what what I like to talk about is, showing everybody that the emperor has no toys, that it’s just what you already have! You and your child, letting the child lead the way. Noticing what your child is interested in. And then providing a more robust version of these four pillars of play, talk, sing and move, around your child when you have the capacity. And that’s what you are doing and in your Learn With Less® classes, Miranda, and it’s clearly helping the families in your community because they keep coming back!

Miranda: And it’s so it’s so fun to just model that, you highlighting, we’re watching what the kids are doing, right? We’re watching what the babies and the infants are interested in and what they’re doing. And I think, too, we model that by also watching what our parents do, you know, in class, that whole parallel process! If you see a parent that happens to be pretending, if you see in that class, or maybe they’re gently waving a blanket up and down and up and down. And we might gently nudge them and say, Tell me more about why you did that. Or, I saw that you noticed your little one really wanted that scarf. They were looking intently at it. How did you think to do that little song? And just looking at the parents and watching them and letting them lead. That way they can do the same thing with their little ones.

Ayelet: That’s right. And then the value of doing that within a group setting is that other families can notice that, and see that, and observe different ways of being with children. And my goodness, especially as we come out of the deepest, darkest depths of COVID. What a beautiful, what a beautiful thing. And I will say we’ve been doing also all of these classes virtually, as well. And that is an incredible thing to witness because as we know virtual connection can be actually just as fulfilling in many ways.

Miranda: Yes. From from here in Michigan to you in California, Ayelet.

Ayelet: Here we are right now! Exactly. Right. So let’s just wrap this one up today, this episode. Go ahead, Miranda, and let us know where people can find this special little present that you have created for our listeners.

Miranda: You can add the earlyinterventionmama.com/dailyroutinesfreebie. I’d love to have you download my dressing routines guide.

Ayelet: So fun. So fun. So fun. Awesome. And then of course, you can go to learnwithless.com/blueprint to download the Learn With Less® infant & toddler development blueprint that really kind of outlines just all of those four different pillars that we’re talking about in these four episodes as well. So hurray, head over to our Instagram and Facebook profiles, as well, for some more visual content around what we’re talking about today at @earlyinterventionmama and @learnwithless, and go ahead and DM us if you have ideas or thoughts or takeaways from these episodes, because we love to hear what people say. And of course, also feel free to comment on on our stuff, because it’s really fun! And it’s actually I love having these conversations with you, Miranda, so I’m looking forward to our next episode! Until then, we’ll see y’all next time.

Miranda: Goodbye!

The post How to Incorporate Language into Everyday Routines, with Miranda Zoumbaris and Ayelet Marinovich appeared first on Learn With Less.

This episode of the Learn With Less® podcast is the first of a 4-part series about incorporating play, language, music, and movement, into everyday routines. These episodes feature a conversation between Ayelet Marinovich (pediatric speech-language pathologist, founder and creator of the Learn With Less® curriculum) and Miranda Zoumbaris (early childhood educator & interventionist, licensed Learn With Less® facilitator, and entrepreneur).

In this series, we’ll explore the four pillars of the Learn With Less® framework, and examine how we can incorporate more of each of those into our everyday routines to support connection and early learning. For each episode, we chose one routine and one everyday object, and explored the ways in which we could infuse developmentally enriching experiences into everyday life, and helping families see they can do this using the time, energy, and materials they already have.

Be sure to check over at our Instagram and Facebook pages (linked below) for additional content that may support your understanding and experience of these episodes. As we release each episode, we’ll link to them here in the show notes so you can access them easily.

In this episode, we discussed:

• What is PLAY (as we define it in the Learn With Less® curriculum), and how it can be woven into everyday routines

Daily Routines Freebie: download Miranda’s free handout about winter dressing, and get ideas for incorporating play, talk, sing, and move into your everyday routines!

Free Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: what are the four major areas of early development… and how can you use the pillars of Learn With Less® to support that learning, using the time, energy, and materials you already have?! Download our free blueprint today.

How to Incorporate Language Into Everyday Routines, the second episode in this 4-part series!

How to Incorporate Music Into Everyday Routines, the third episode in this 4-part series!

How to Incorporate Movement Into Everyday Routines, the final episode in this 4-part series!

Listen, Learn, & Advocate: Support New Families, featuring Sydney Bassard

Maximizing Natural Language Opportunities, Without Toys, featuring Joanne Cazeau

How to Use Everyday Routines to Boost Infant & Toddler Development, featuring Stacey Landberg

Parent Coaching and Routines for Early Language Development, featuring Cari Ebert

Miranda: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Ayelet: Hi, Miranda!

Miranda: Hi, Ayelet!

Ayelet: So, I’m really happy that we’re here together today to do some recording of these podcast episodes. This is a series that you and I are co-creating and putting together just a little bit of content for both of our audiences. And I want to just start by giving you the chance to introduce yourself to anybody who does not yet know you, because you’re the co host of these four episodes that we’re about to start releasing. So, take it away!

Miranda: I’m Miranda Zoumbaris, and I am… I am an entrepreneur! I spent 14 years in early intervention and serving families through a few different programs. And then transition to being a stay at home mom while also offering Learn With Less® classes. And that’s how Ayelet and I know each other! So yeah, now I would describe myself more as an entrepreneur than I would an early interventionist, although my instagram handle is @earlyinterventionmama, and I don’t think that’s going away anytime soon.

Ayelet: Right! Well, I love how you stated that because it is a very strange shift in identity, what both you and I have been doing over the years. We started as these helper people in the communities that we are both a part of, and then transitioned into working with families and professionals in a different way.

So today, and for the next few episodes, we’re going to be sharing a little bit about the Learn with Less® framework: play, talk, sing and move – the four pillars of the Learn With Less® framework. As well as routines, and routines-based intervention in terms of how this relates to supporting early development for families. And then giving professionals also some ideas and thoughts and resources to help support families that are looking to just utilize more of what they already have.

I know Miranda, you and I are both very committed to this idea of number one, family focused services, and really putting the power in the hands of the family and helping to show them what they already have access to and how they can utilize that. So let’s just start, I guess, by talking a little bit about what “play” is. And then we can talk a little bit about some examples of how we can weave that into everyday routine.

Miranda: Yeah, well, I would just I just want to add before we hop into play, too, I think so often, there are providers, or even parents, who look at play as one routine. And so I think just really reminding everybody that play can be woven into any routines. And if there are parents or therapists who are listening to this episode and thinking like, Okay, well, that’s great, but I really don’t want to do Routines Based work. I want to stick with my very play based therapy. I think we just keep that in mind, right? That play, yes, is a routine. But play and playfulness can be woven into any routine. And, you know, just something to kind of keep in mind.

Ayelet: Yeah, I love that. I think part of what we’re trying to do here today is just have a little bit more of a nuanced conversation about: it’s not routines based intervention versus play-based intervention, or Routines-Based Services versus play-based services. It’s not one philosophy versus another. It’s all/and and it’s not and/or.

Let’s talk a little bit about what we mean, first of all, by “play,” and I’d love to start, if it’s okay with you, with how we define it within the Learn With Less® framework of that first pillar of play, in terms of play being really all about open-ended experiences. When we think about that term… because I think it’s one of those things that’s thrown around by professionals a lot! It’s important to think about, okay, there’s no specific end-goal. This is about exploring, experimenting with a variety of objects, in a variety of different environments.

Whether that means indoors or outdoors, in the hallway, in the kitchen, whatever it is. And really just remembering that instead of that definition of play that I think a lot of us as grownups start off with, or have defined for ourselves, as: we play a game. There’s a specific set of steps involved. There’s a start, and a middle and an end. There’s a trajectory and an arc. And yet, we know that when it comes to playing with infants and toddlers, especially, that’s not what it is, right? It’s it’s more about being flexible and accepting what is happening in the environment.

Miranda: That’s right. That’s right. So it’s up to us to help to just see what happens, and let it unfold in front of us. And provide language around it, provide opportunities for movement around it. Provide music, is often something, right?

I think the thing to think about, too, is just taking a little bit to sit back and watch the children you work with or your own child – and they are really good at it! It is a muscle, I think, for so many adults – myself included – to really stretch, to embrace that open-ended exploration. To look at a toy that you are going… okay, this is a little person, I need to put it in the bed. Versus, we can just play dumb, bring it in and out, or we can play hiding it. So I think, letting our children guide us because they really are so good at that open-ended piece of it. They have less of that structure that things have to be a certain way, I think in their brain, than we do, oftentimes.

Ayelet: So I think one of the things that it’s important for us, that we wanted to set out and discuss today, was giving examples for families and professionals about how play can be woven into everyday routines. So you and I took the idea of… let’s come up with a specific object that we could think of, that would really help to define all the things that we could do within many different routines, with a single object – that’s not traditionally thought of as a toy or a play object! So do you want to go ahead and introduce what that is?

Miranda: Yeah. So we are going to be taking a look at gloves within that pillar of play, that focus of play. So when you hear gloves, I want you to if you’re listening, stretch in your mind what that might think. Here in Michigan,  gloves or mittens for winter. But think about the gloves that you might wear for washing dishes in the sink! If you might happen to have access to a glove because you happen to be sitting in the doctor’s office, and they’re they’re accessible. So just kind of really start by just stretching that, and not thinking oh, like a glove that you put on to go outside because you’re cold. You know, there’s more than one way that we can kind of think about that even, in itself.

Ayelet: Yes, I cannot even say how many times we’ve been in the waiting room. Yes. How many ways can we use this thing? So, perfect. Okay, we’ve got the idea of gloves. All right, what are some of the things that we could think of to provide for ideas for families and professionals listening? Things that we could do to play with gloves or mittens within routines of everyday life?

And first of all, I think, maybe starting with defining routines, right? What are some of the routines that families are experiencing every day. So those might be those big things that we think of, and we’ve talked a lot about this, on the Learn With Less® podcast, and I’ll link to a few other episodes that will be really helpful, as well. But things like the big ones, like waking up, getting out, dressing, diaper changes, bathing, feeding, nap time. But the little ones, like in the in-between moment, right?

Miranda: Yes, those micro routines.

Ayelet: Yeah. What are some examples that you go to, usually, Miranda?

Miranda: Oh, so one thing that I’m thinking about is leaving childcare. So like, getting your child suited up to get out to the car. Or you’re trying to cook your eggs on the stove, you know, and you happen to be in the kitchen. And it’s not breakfast yet. And it’s not wakeup time. But it’s that little five minute where you’re, you’re in between. You know, so I think all those routines and to keep in mind that it’s not about schedule, it’s what is happening.

And I think to just the little connection moments can be routine, too. So for me and my daughters,, I think there are some routines that are play-based and connection where let’s say we play a chase game. It’s a little routine that kind of has a script for us.That, to me, is a routine, too.

Ayelet: Yes, the social routines.

Miranda: Yeah, the social routine. Exactly. Those are what come to mind.

Ayelet: I love it. Yeah, that’s great. So let’s give our fair listeners a few ideas for utilizing this idea of gloves of any kind, whether, again, it’s mittens, gloves for outside, soccer gloves, or dishwashing gloves, or surgical gloves. But how we could utilize anything, really, that you put on your hand. It could even be a bag, right? Yeah.

Miranda: Yeah, oven mitts!

Ayelet: That’s exactly right! How did we, how did we forget that? Yes, exactly. How can we give some ideas for how to utilize those in play? So we’re releasing this episode now, you’ve heard it, you’re listening to it. And you can also go over too @earlyinterventionmama, and @learnwithless on Instagram and Facebook to check out some of these examples in a more visual way. Because, we’ve gone ahead and we’re releasing some reels and different kinds of posts on social media so that you can really see the examples that we’re going to talk through. Miranda, why don’t you go ahead and start with the ideas that you have for playing with gloves or mittens?

Miranda: Yeah. So in terms of gloves, I just want to go off of what we talked about today, even. And I can create some more things off of that. So think about your oven mitt, any glove that you might have in the kitchen, right? So oftentimes, they’re going to be those bigger kitchen gloves that you’re pulling on for doing dishes or an oven mitt. I want you to think about using it kind of as a container to put things in. So maybe you’ve noticed that your child likes to fill and dump, and you’re looking for something to give them putting spoons and you know, whatever safe for them in the moment! But spoons, and different things from your kitchen drawer, pull out those odds and ends and put them in and out, and in and out of an oven, or put that oven mitt on and pretend to eat their toes. Right. Yum yum yum! It now becomes a puppet, almost! I think, other things that we might think of, are when you’re getting ready to go out, pretending to put them in a different spot, right? Oh, let’s put your gloves on. And maybe you put it on their head, you just set it on their head, and they’re gonna tell you, that’s not what it’s supposed to look like. So you’re being playful with them as you’re you’re getting ready to go out.

Ayelet: I love that. Yeah, that’s great. I want to also be specific here and just really call out the fact that we’re giving lots of ideas, you don’t have to do all of these things, you get to choose some of these things that really speak to you. And also leave out the ones that don’t. Because I know, for instance, people are very specific about their kitchens.

Some people love creating a little space kind of a thing within their kitchens, one cabinet that is just low and open to the child. And that’s just, they get to go in and out of it, or explore anything that’s in that one cabinet. Or maybe they don’t have access to cabinets at all. And you have a limited space in your kitchen, for instance. And maybe you have like a little basket or a bag of things that are available to your child, and there’s like a salad spinner or a dishwashing glove, for instance.

And so I just wanted to really name the fact that you don’t have to do this, this particular thing. This particular idea that we’re giving you, any of them? Obviously, there’s no should’s or have to’s. And the whole purpose of all of this is to give you tools for your own at-home routines. In your experience of early parenthood, and in your caregiving day to day life. So just wanted to clarify that. Yeah, go ahead.

Miranda: I was gonna say I think that is just one of the beautiful things about Learn With Less®. That it leans so heavily on that improvisation. Ayelet, you talked about that like as part of your background, too. And I think, like you said, for parents to know: you are the expert on what your child enjoys, and you are the expert on what routines work within your family.

And that is why, I think in terms of routine, it’s so important for professionals to rely on parents to show that to us. So we might not if we’re a professional, we’re not going to take this episode and go, Oh, gloves, great. I’m going to bring those on my home visit the next time… No, like wait for that family that maybe says oh my gosh, every time we have to put gloves on to go outside it’s terrible! And then you can think about, how do we make this a little bit more fun and engaging and playful to de-stress. So I think just relying heavily, like you’re saying Ayelet that this isn’t something that needs to be done. But parents know. And therapists can rely on parents to know what things do fit for them or will work.

Ayelet: Yeah, that’s right. And I like that distinguishing idea of you don’t need to bring it in because we said so. You might actually come in with your bag, your purse, for instance. And look at what are you bringing in? Maybe you you came in with a pair of gloves, and that child is really interested, or you use them to engage because they’re just there. So right again, yes, if you want to bring them in, great. And also, your family has shared with you that this routine in the kitchen is a particular difficult time, or transition outside is a particularly difficult time. Here’s your aha moment to integrate that idea, potentially, into your into your therapy or your intervention work.

Miranda: I love that, Ayelet. That’s such a good reminder. Yeah, you just happen to have the… I mean, absolutely. It happened to have them on you to think about that –  again, right? You’re following that child’s lead! Oh, it fell out of your pocket. I’m gonna pick it up then. Okay. Yeah, that may be what we’re doing today.

Ayelet: That’s right. Yeah. Love it. So okay, you gave some great ideas in terms of filling a glove with smaller objects. I love how that can integrate also into so many different concept development conversations, too. Does this fit? Is it too big? Is it too long? Those kinds of things. And then finger play puppet, everything is fun if it becomes a puppet. If you remember any kind of finger plays, ghat’s great. And if not, I loved your example, Miranda, of ooooh, here are your toes! Toes are the best! Yeah.

You can also count the fingers obviously. There’s so many different kinds of little things in there. When we’re putting on… a couple of other ideas I had were, when we’re putting on a glove, find a missing finger! You put it on and intentionally craft an experience where you’re holding one finger down. Was there a missing finger, for instance? So you’re putting on a glove and there’s one empty. So there’s all kinds of things that you could do with with that, right? You could like jiggle the empty, yeah, jiggle, the empty one, talk about which one is gone. Which one is missing? Where’s my finger? Right?

There’s so much language here. Such a possibility for just absolute ridiculous playfulness. I was also thinking about how especially a dishwashing glove or surgical glove, for instance, those are great bath toys. Great for use with water, or any kind of water sensory bin, if that’s something that you have access to or want to, which, again, folks, is really just like a container. So maybe it’s a mixing bowl, or one of those plastic bins that you put under your bed flat, and you just fill that with water, boom, that’s a sensory bin. Brilliant! Ah.

Miranda: Super fancy!

Ayelet: And then you put a dishwashing glove in, and it’s incredible! So yeah, great things can be done with water, it can be a bath toy. Obviously, the age old, put it on your head, right? You can, all the different fingers can become a little chicken comb. And you can imitate a rooster, a chicken, sing a song about chickens, right, whatever you want to do.

Miranda: Yeah, draw on it before you head into the bath and wash the little chicken, you know, put it on your hand and use that washcloth.

Ayelet: I love it. When my oldest was a toddler. We were living in London and my mom… My mom is really, I would like to just say out loud right now: my mom is the real founder of Learn With Less®. Because she instilled in me these ideas of playfulness. So she sent us a care package once and inside of it was a yellow dishwashing glove. And she had drawn on little faces on the tips of each little finger. On the hand of the yellow dishwashing gloves, she had written the words to a nursery, like a little finger play kind of a thing that she knew when she was a kid that her mom had done. So I’ll do it for you right now. If I can remember. So I’m like squeezing each finger as I go. So Little Pea, Patty Lou, Lu-Lu Whistle, Whistle Nozzle… and… Kadobble-Wobble-Wobble! And then on the Kadobble-Wobble, I would always go in for a tickle. And it was adorable anticipation game, we’re looking at visual-spatial recognition kinds of things, right? You’re bending each finger forward.

Miranda: Separation of mobility…

Ayelet: Yeah, exactly. Or my son would love to then imitate and put it on and then have me sing the finger play. Or maybe he’d imitate the words. And then a tickle ending is the ultimate for most toddlers, or even older sometimes, right? But that’s my ultimate favorite. So maybe we’ll have to, we’ll have to do a video on Instagram of that.

Miranda: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Well, and I think I’ll just say to, for us with that surgical glove piece. So I’m a mom to a type one diabetic daughter. And so we spent days in the hospital and just trying to find what was around her to be entertaining. Then also take things that are being used and might seem kind of scary and use them in ways that take away that fear factor, so really leaning in on those things, leaning in on Play to be a tool of comfort, too.

Ayelet: Yes, thank you for sharing that one. That’s a just a great point. And so important. Let’s think of just a couple of others. And then we can sort of wrap up. So being purposefully silly. I loved your idea of the glove to go outside or the mitten going outside, putting it on a silly place like, oh, let’s put them on your feet. Come on, let’s go. And they can just be like, oh Mom, you’re so silly, right? But especially, I think in those times when – and this takes a lot of practice and awareness and wherewithal. And please, parents and caregivers, please give yourself the grace that maybe I haven’t in the past given myself. Recognize that you’re stressed. It’s okay to be stressed. And when you do have the wherewithal to provide some levity in those stressful moments, play can be such an important and easy way to do that.

For me, one of my big triggers is getting out the door and being on time, right? Because my mom was never on time and I hated that. And it was, it’s like a thing for me that I need. And I’m trying to let go of that urgency and let go of that desire and need for timeliness as well, because I then overextend that to my children. Then now I’m giving them distress like what’s the point? This is not working for anybody! But when I can create those moments of levity in my stress, and come on, let’s go, alright, we got to get your mittens on. Okay, let’s put them on your feet. Right. And then my kids are like, Wait, oh, she’s she’s being funny. Okay, trying. She’s trying to. Alright, we can forgive her for being such a wild woman, as well.

Miranda: Yes! It lends to that cooperation. And, and I think such a good point, Ayelet too that here we are sitting on a podcast talking about this, but I hope that like you said, everyone knows that every single time I go out the door is not filled with levity, you know? When I’m in it, would I love to have tha? We have opportunities to do these things. But sometimes you just don’t have it in you in that moment. And I think that’s one thing to remember, too, as professionals and people who do this and appear to look like they can do this every single time without issue? No, it is, it’s a muscle that has to be stretched. And every time we go out the door, it’s not always beautifully playful. But we have these tools to rely on when we’re able to and and a practice to get better at it. You know, even for, yeah, for anyone to just kind of flex that muscle.

Ayelet: That’s great. What a perfect place to land. So all of you great listeners, we would love to invite you to, number one, go take a look at the Instagram and Facebook posts that we’ve created around the time of this release of this episode. Also, Miranda, do you have a little something for our audience to grab?

Miranda: Yeah, if they want to head on over I will have a daily routines handout about winter dressing. That will be a freebie for everybody.

Ayelet: That’s awesome. And we will put the link in the show notes of this episode, as well. And then I also want to encourage you to download the Learn With Less® Infant and Toddler Development Blueprint, which really goes through the four pillars that we’re talking about. So today was play, the next one will be talk, then then we’ll cover sing. And then finally we’ll cover move. But that blueprint download just brings everything together, and puts it all into context. So go grab those things that can be found at learnwithless.com/blueprint. Miranda, people will be able to find your handout at earlyintervention mama.com/dailyroutinesfreebies, is that right?

Miranda: Yes.

Ayelet: Perfect. Okay. And then obviously, linking to all those in the show notes as well. So thanks so much for joining us and go ahead and catch us next time on our next episode. Miranda, thanks for joining me. This is super fun.

Miranda: Yeah, thank you. I’m just envisioning that we’re in the same place and maybe I’m leaving, putting my gloves on to head outside. Giving a friendly wave.

Ayelet: Good. I’m gonna go put something in the oven with my mitt.

Miranda: There you go.

Ayelet: All right. Thanks so much for joining us. See you next time.

The post How to Incorporate PLAY into Everyday Routines, with Miranda Zoumbaris and Ayelet Marinovich appeared first on Learn With Less.

On this episode of the Learn With Less® podcast, Ayelet sits down with Sydney Bassard. Sydney is an ASHA-certified speech-language pathologist, with a B.S. in Public Health. Her clinical focus areas are working with individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing and those with literacy challenges. Sydney engages in research with these populations as well as clinical practice. With a passion for access to high-quality service and care for all, she takes the time to invest in each client and their family. Her motto of listening, learning, and advocating stems from the three principles that guide her clinical practice.

We discussed:

• Sydney’s new book, “A Day With Mom,” which she co-authored with her own mother

A Day With Mom, by Pearl and Sydney Bassard

Understood.org – great resources on early intervention and early learning

Free downloads for families and professionals from Sydney

Early & Bright SLP (formerly Mommy & Me Milestones)

Maximizing Natural Language Opportunities, Without Toys, featuring Joanne Cazeau

How to Use Everyday Routines to Boost Infant & Toddler Development, featuring Stacey Landberg

Parent Coaching and Routines for Early Language Development, featuring Cari Ebert

Free Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: what are the four major areas of early development… and how can you use the pillars of Learn With Less® to support that learning, using the time, energy, and materials you already have?! Download our free blueprint today.

Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program, helping educators and therapists create lasting impact in their communities with a high quality, evidence-based, “plug & play” program

Expand Your Impact Workshop Bundle: for early childhood educators and developmental therapists hoping to serve new families in their community and support themselves, using their existing skills

Learn With Less® Bundle: our best infant and toddler development resources for families and educators alike, including our bestselling books Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler, our acclaimed family music album, recorded Learn With Less® “caregiver & me” classes, and a caregiver handout featuring ideas for carryover in the home

Learn With Less® Stories: Testimonials from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming.

Sydney: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Ayelet: Okay, welcome Sydney Bassard, to the Learn With Less® podcast. I’m so happy you’re here today. And I’m really excited to have this conversation with you, we have met all over the place on the internet. But finally, in November 2022, we got to actually connect and spend lots of good time together at ASHA in New Orleans. And we also around that time, it became very clear that you had just embarked upon the journey of publishing a book, which is incredible. So I wanted to make sure that before we get to the rest of the episode, we have a chance to talk a little bit about what that book is, why you wrote it, its name, and how people can order it, because I’m just very excited that my copy is on its way! Please go ahead and share with the good people.

Sydney: So first off, it was so great meeting you and getting to spend time together in person at ASHA. It was great to just finally get to connect with the people you’ve been talking with over the internet for the past couple of years. So the title of the children’s book that I co-authored with my mom is called A Day With Mom. The principle of the book is to really just tell the authentic story of middle class Black families: to show that Black people live everyday lives, oftentimes in children’s literature, Black children are put on pedestals of being extraordinary – they’re super smart, they’re scientists, they’re all of these amazing things, which can be true! But they’re also allowed to just be ordinary children. Everything doesn’t have to be rooted in being super amazing, and everything doesn’t need to be rooted in poverty and struggle. So that was our mission behind writing the book, and then everything in it is based on activities that my mom and I did as I was a child growing up, from making breakfast together, going to different book fairs, to just shopping at the mall and looking for a good sale.

Ayelet: Yep, that’s great. And tell us the name and the best place that people can find it.

Sydney: Yeah, so the name of the book, again, is a day with mom, and people can find it at artistmadridbooks.com. Please, please, please, we are so thankful for the people who have read the book, for the people who have shared the book with their audiences. But our real goal is just so people can feel seen and represented in this story. But also just to continue to make good connections with your kids. Everything doesn’t have to be an extraordinary experience, sometimes the simple things create those lasting memories.

Ayelet: That’s right. Fantastic. All right. Thank you, Sydney for that. That is very exciting. And again, of course, we’ll link to that in the show notes. So let’s get on with the rest of the episode. You and I have been in community on Facebook for quite some time now. And it’s just great to hang out with you in well, not in the flesh, but synchronously here now.

Sydney: Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to chat with you today.

Ayelet: Yay. Why don’t you, instead of reading a bio out loud, it would be great to hear from you a little bit about your story, you know, what led you to the work that you are doing today? And what is that work?

Sydney: Oh, that is such a long story. But I’m going to do the condensed version today. So I’ve been an SLP for almost three years. And I tell people that I kind of ended up in this space by chance. I originally went to school to be a pharmacist. I was dead set on being a pharmacist. And then I took organic chemistry II, and found out that I was not cut out for the pharmacy life very quickly.

And so I was kind of in the space of not really knowing what I wanted to do or having a strong foundation. And that’s around the time that my brother found out he was dyslexic and had ADHD. So I ended up working for the reading center that he went to. I loved it, but I knew that I wanted to still have some of the freedoms that I would have if I had gone into pharmacy. So I found SLP, fell in love with the field from the reading standpoint, first, and then learned a lot more about hearing loss and working with children with hearing loss that use cochlear implants or hearing aids, particularly. So that’s kind of what led me here.

Then right out of grad school, I wanted to work on a cochlear implant team. That was my goal. And so I did that for two years within a children’s hospital and I absolutely loved my job there. But I really missed my family. So I decided to move closer to home last year, and now I’m here owning and running my own private practice, and doing a bunch of other jobs on the side, too.

Ayelet: Amazing. That’s so great. Well, I It’s always fun to talk to people who like came to the speech-language pathology worlds from a slightly different path, because that was my path as well. And I learned about the field much later in life, or realize that that that was a thing that condensed all of… basically all of my interests. And it’s always nice to hear from people who found this field more intentionally.

So let’s hear a little bit about what you are doing. You run an Instagram account and social media existence, and of course, a whole website that is called The Listening SLP. And I would love to hear about what you’re doing over there, what your mission there is, and the message that you would like to share with families, because as you and I both know, but we want our dear listeners to know, that it’s very much in line with what we talked all about here at Learn With Less®.

Sydney: Yeah, so The Listening SLP happened kind of by chance. I had been following some other SLP accounts on my personal Instagram, and then ASHA in 2019, I was like, I can do this, I want to share! I really wanted to help and connect with students, was my initial goal. So that’s kind of what I did then, I was still in the midst of my clinical fellowship. And so I just stopped it. And then COVID happened. And I picked it back up, thanks to a really good coworker who’s now a friend of mine. But my mission at that point had changed. At the time, I was like, students need help and information and support. But what I really started to see more from practicing is that there was a lack of transparency with information.

My bachelor’s degree is in public health. It’s not in communication sciences and disorders. So I knew a lot from the public health aspect of what does health literacy look like? What is the importance behind it, and how we’re always wanting to get people to this “take action” step. But sometimes we miss the steps along the way of, we have to plant the seeds before we can get them there. So that’s where I shifted the focus of The Listening SLP. And I wanted it to be a space where health equity was at the forefront. We are no longer keeping information to a few but we’re able to share information with the masses. And so that’s really what has happened. That’s where my business tagline that really means a lot to me, of “listen, learn advocate” comes from.

Oftentimes, as practitioners, we are really instructed in grad school, that we are the professionals. And we know all the things – which is true from a foundational standpoint, from a pure knowledge standpoint of the information, we do know those things. What we don’t know is all the other things that’s going on in that individuals life. What we don’t know is how much they know coming into the situation. And so, being able to take a step back and give information freely is really what I want to do. I love the space that I’ve created now, because that’s what I get to do.

I love interacting with the parents and people from all over the country, all over the world, that have taken like little snippets of things that I’ve put together and they enjoy it. And I should clarify, this is not coming from me. I think sometimes people are like “The Listening SLP” or “Sydney said it.” No, no, no, no, no, pretty much everything that I put out is taken from either research articles or other resources that are available. And I have just compiled it in this way that is a little bit easier to digest.

Ayelet: Exactly, right. It’s all based in developmental research, or whatever it is, in terms of what researchers, what scientists what “experts” are saying and have learned, and you’re the venue, right? You’re the person who is putting those things together, and putting them in a more sort of easily digestible format so that families can have access to that information.

I love what you said about that shift between what we, number one, what we as professionals are taught, and taught to believe about ourselves or understand about ourselves that we are quote unquote, the expert, and that we come in, and our job is to “teach” and “give” information when you and I know very well that it’s actually… to do our jobs in the best way possible, to serve our clients and to provide them with the tools that THEY need to be able to be the best advocates for their families. That role is not of teacher and expert. The role is of co-host, right? It’s a collaborator.

I would love to hear a little bit more about your philosophy, your belief system and what the kinds of things that like you help families understand. Of course, that’s a big part of what we do here at Learn With Less® in terms of routines-based intervention and looking at what a family is already doing, what’s already happening in the home, and how we can build language around that. So I know that you have some great tips and ideas for how to build language in the home or in the community for that matter. And I would love to hear a few of those if you don’t mind sharing with the audience.

And what you said about how, Yes, we know that we have that knowledge base, we have the pretty deep understanding of what the research says the quote unquote “best ways” or lots of different tools and strategies to help build language in a young child’s life, for instance. But what we don’t know is the context, the context that we’re walking into within every given family. That piece is just is so essential. And I think the reality of what you said [earlier, before we started recording] about you know, yes, toys are great, toys are great, they’re great, but everyone has access to everyday things in our homes.

Sydney: Yeah, so I think the first thing that we have to realize is that parents are stressed. And that is okay to say. Parents of small children, it can be a very stressful time, it’s a lot of love, a lot of joy, but it’s stressful. And it’s stressful when your child is hitting those milestones, as we would expect. The stress is even higher when your child is not necessarily doing those things. You know, you have pressures from family, you have pressures, even sometimes from your partner and your spouse within the same house. Maybe, you know, feeling some tension in that relationship, as well.

Then there’s tension sometimes between the parent/caregiver and this child who they’re just wanting them to communicate. So I think the first thing is to recognize that parents are stressed. And oftentimes, we hear practitioners say, play-based and floor-based routines are the best. This is what people should be doing… without acknowledging that there’s so many other things going on outside of just, this parent wants to help, they still have responsibilities of cooking and cleaning and working a job.

So that’s why I love routines. Daily routines, hands down, are my favorite, from the standpoint of it can help alleviate some of that guilt that parents feel from not being able to carve out this time to sit on their floor. Or if that’s not their thing, they don’t feel pressured into having to make it their thing. So that’s what we do a lot on my social media, that’s what I do a lot in therapy, is how can we find out what your daily routine is, and then incorporate language structures?

The first thing as a therapist is I asked families, what generally is your routine? And then you have the people that say, I don’t know, we just kind of do things. Okay, well, figure out things that most people do every day, then. Most people are going to eat, most people are going to bathe, most people are getting in a car to go somewhere. So okay, there you go, you got three daily routines, I don’t really care when you do them. But there you go, you have them.

Helping families to figure out how they can incorporate those language skills into their environment. And that takes some humility on the part of the professional, because what you’re going to have to do is not come in with all the ideas and just spit them at the parent. It’s really more so a collaborative effort, because what I call things, I grew up in the South, so I might call something very different than someone who grew up in the north, versus someone in the Midwest or a family that’s coming from California. So making sure that we’re asking those things as well, when modeling those behaviors.

So I have a whole series on my page where we do building language within daily routines, and we model it with toys. But then I try to have a video, too. And now those are blog posts that live on my website. So if there’s a family that’s not you know, they don’t want to be on social media, that’s fine. It’s also in a blog format. And then I’ve been tagging the video at the bottom so that practitioners can show the demonstration as well.

Ayelet: Nice. We’ll be sure to link to those things as well. That’s fantastic. What are some of those, what have you from the feedback that you’ve received from both practitioners and families? What are some of the ones that have been the most popular or you’ve had a lot of feedback about?

Sydney: Oh, I think the one that came out about ice cream, hands down as been one that people were like in love with, because it was summer, you know, everybody was ready for a nice cold treat to enjoy. That one was a really popular one. I think the one that we did with going to school was another really popular one. And there was one on bathtime routines and bedtime routines, those were popular. And I want people to know that I don’t come up with all of these ideas of things to say aye my own generally before those posts, especially, that I’ve sent them to a couple other SLP colleagues, I’ve sent them to parents. I’ve even had some grad students look at them too. So they’re not just coming from me and my own brainchild, but a couple other people are giving their input as well. So there’s some diversity in the language and emphasis of each post.

Ayelet: Oh, that’s great. That’s really cool. I mean, I think it’s so key that one again, it’s coming down to like “the expert” versus a collaborative piece of being in community with other people and how that, depending on where you’re from, what language or what words you are utilizing, and it’s so – I love how you say that about within the English language itself, there are so many ways Is that people express themselves. It’s totally true. For those of our listeners who have not yet seen some of the videos or looked at your blog, I’d love for you to just break down. Number one, how do you define a routine? What does that look like? Because I think a lot of people think, okay, a routine is like a bedtime routine. It’s like how we get from one place to another, right?

But I think what you and I define routines as is like a little bit, even smaller, right, breaking it down even smaller into literally what happens step by step within this process. And why that’s so important is because those tiny little steps help us get from one place to another, within even a two minute period, throughout our day. And they happen again, and again and again. And those become patterns that our children can familiarize themselves with. And those patterns can help to build language, words, phrases, and expectations and all of the things. So yeah, I’d love to just hear a little bit more about that, from your perspective.

Sydney: Yeah, I would totally agree with you. And to add on to that, anything can be a routine. I mean, oftentimes, people think of routines, as you said, as bedtime routine, or our bathtime routine. But anything can be a routine. If it’s your family routine, that everybody goes and takes a walk to the mailbox, then that’s the routine. You know, that’s, that’s an integral part of what you and your family does during the day. And so what we want to do is figure out all of those ways to capitalize on language within those moments. So before you’re heading out the door, what are you having to do? We’re going to make sure we’re dressed, you have to make sure we have our shoes on. Keys are important. If you’re going to lock your your house or if your mailbox is somewhere else, you need to have the keys to open that. So those are all those little, itty bitty moments, before we’re even out the door to get on that walk.

Ayelet: Or the dog is barking. And that’s the signal that we have to do it in the first place, right?

Sydney: Right!

Ayelet: And “wah wah, wah wah…” [imitates Charlie Brown’s teacher’s voice.] I was curious to hear your thoughts around… because there are there many of us who are parents or caregivers are naturally more introverted. And so even just speaking to your child, and I think oftentimes, the big advice is like just talk, just talk more to your child, just talk freely and doesn’t matter what you say. And like, yes, of course, that is a great thing to do. And again, it’s not always – we don’t want to bombard our children, and we don’t want to overwhelm ourselves in the process.

So do you have any hot tips about what you say to families who maybe are more introverted, or for whom that part doesn’t come so naturally, about that fine line between doing enough, you know, quote, unquote, versus not feeling like you’re not doing too little.

Sydney: Exactly. So figuring out all those little ways to capitalize. And the nice thing about a daily routine, or even if you do a routine multiple times within a day, you’re having all of these language exposures. But I never want families to feel as though they have to constantly just be talking. Because when you do that, we do end up sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher, it starts to sound washed out, no one is listening. So you know, give yourself some room to grow. But give yourself some room to just connect with your child!

Every time you go to the mailbox, every time you go to do… you know, really any routine you do. It doesn’t have to be, oh, I’m narrating I’m giving information. I’m providing it, because that’s overwhelming for you. And sometimes you just don’t want to do it. So remember to keep things light to just giving your kid a hug. It’s building a connection with them. And I think when families realize that they can take a little bit of the pressure off of themselves, then it can come a little bit more naturally. Instead of feeling as though we’re constantly having to keep watering into this plant. Because at some point you’re going to overwater.

Yeah, I always tell my families, especially my moms out there to give yourself a lot of grace and kindness. Because moms, especially, can be really hard on themselves when dealing with their kid, and trying to work on these skills. But then also recognize that that’s okay. You do not have to be extremely extroverted and jumping up and down and doing cartwheels and backflips. It is totally fine for you to still be 100% yourself. I think sometimes when we’re giving advice, and we tell people to do these things, if it’s not natural to them, they’re like, you know, they’re shutting it down, or they’re not wanting to do it. Or they’re trying to force themselves to fit into this box that they don’t really feel comfortable in – and we don’t want that to happen. The interaction is still supposed to be natural. So sticking with that, you don’t have to force yourself to be something that you’re not.

As long as you are engaging with your child in a way that is intrinsic and natural to you and your family, that is 100 percent okay, and realizing we’re all different, like there are some times that I can be the most obnoxious, I’ll claim it, I can be the most obnoxious person when working with a kid and they’re looking at me like you are crazy. And then there’s sometimes that I’m just like, Alright, cool, whatever, we’re, we’re sitting back, and we’re, you know, enjoying because that’s part of being human. Nobody is super happy, super overjoyed 24/7. That’s just not life.

Ayelet: Mm hmm. Yeah, well, I think that even just that message is so important and can be so liberating for parents and caregivers, because there’s just so much, so much pressure out there. And that big transition into new parenthood can be very overwhelming, and is huge, because it is a transition not only in that now you have this human around. And also you have to figure out who you are in relation to that human, and also who you are in relation to yourself. And all of those things can be very overwhelming and very intense. And it’s a lot to handle at once. And I just think the message of simplicity is so important. And and I’m so happy that we can share that message here today as well with these different things.

Another thing I want to just touch upon the idea of toys in general. Something that I like to say a lot lately is that the emperor has no toys, right? Just like anything can be routine. Most things can also be a play object, AKA a toy, as well. And what we attribute to being a developmentally enriching object, because we have purchased it from a specific aisle in a store, is not necessarily any better. And then often is not any better than a coaster, for an empty box, or most things in the kitchen or anything like that. So I wanted to just make sure that we touched upon this in terms of both the developmental benefits of play objects, whether or not something is a toy, and also just the access issues, and what that means in terms of whether you have a lot of toys, or just a couple, or zero.

Sydney: Can I just say, I was duped into buying all the toys?

Ayelet: As a therapist, right!

Sydney: When I was in grad school, I had a supervisor who she’d be planning a theme. And I did it. And then she goes, Okay, I have a toy for that, and would pull out not just like a toy, but so many toys to all go with this one theme to the point that I was like, Wow, if I want to be a good therapist, and I want to do all my themed stuff, I need to have the treasure trove, the Toys R US of toys too, to the point now that I’m in private practice, my garage is looking like Toys R Us, because I constantly was buying all of the things! And the reality is yes, toys can be great. And they have a lot of benefit to them. But oftentimes, what people don’t realize, especially parents, is you want to do everything just right for your kid. No parent wants to make a mistake or buy something for their child that they don’t think is great. So marketers know that too.

Ayelet: The industry is capitalizing on that, yup.

Sydney: So in their marketing, thank you. So in their marketer brain, what are they going to put on there? “Developmentally appropriate, best toy for ages blah, blah, blah to blah, blah, blah, educational, must-have” you know. And then they hire all of their social media people that they want, so that they can constantly shove this toy down your throat. So that by the end of it all, the marketing that you’ve taken in for this one object, you are dashing down that toy aisle in Target to go get it. And the reality is, you can have that toy, but you can also do the same thing with a common object in your house. And oftentimes think about, you know, like they have the ball drop toys. So, you can do something very similar like that. If you take an empty toilet paper roll or empty paper towel roll, and you can like make a ball out of paper and you can put it in there. And when they go down, it’s that same kind of out of shape…

Ayelet: Out of paper, a cotton ball, out of tape, whatever. Yup.

Sydney: It’s the same concept. So I always encourage people, like it’s great to have some toys, right? Kids are gonna learn with toys, but it’s also okay to use things in your house, because what that’s really encouraging is that imaginative play. And what we oftentimes see happening with children, especially the toys of today are very battery operated, or they’re very fixated on, you know, if you push this button, I’m going to dance, sing, and do a whole jig for you. It’s going to be great. And so it’s not really encouraging kids to go beyond just like well I pressed the button and this thing lit up for me – that imagination is not developing and that imaginative play is important for language development as well.

Ayelet: Yep, right, and concept development, all of the cognition, I mean, all of the things, how something fits together, how heavy it is, whether it fits inside. All of those are concept development. And then when you see your child playing with something or wondering about something, or you do it and model it with them, then you can provide all of the vocabulary around that! And not all of it, just like one word at a time. In! On! Whoa! Big! That’s it! Very, very simple.

Yeah. For years, the only things I ever bring into therapy now are actual items of my own that I’ve seen them have in their home. So that it because to inspire them to use it in a new way. And then the next time I won’t bring it, and then the child will bring out theirs, for instance, it’s great, simple way to shift things. I love that. And not surprisingly, totally in agreement, there.

Sydney: Yeah, it is really simple. And I think we were… I mean, you and I have talked about this on several occasions about the equity issues that we see around toys and materials within not just the field of Speech Pathology, but really all over. Sometimes when we are using all these toys in therapy, we don’t know what people’s life is like at home. Even if we are a home health provider, even if we are in early intervention. And we think well, no, like I’ve seen, we have no, you have no idea what goes on behind closed doors when you are not there. So they might seem like they have all this stuff, because maybe they’re pulling it out because they know you’re coming. Or you might have the family who is breaking their bank, because they see you with all the toys, so they feel like they have to have them too.

And then there’s some people who, they quit services because they they feel pressure into doing all these things that they know realistically, is not feasible for their family. So when we help people figure out how to use what’s in their home, we’re meeting them truly wherever they are, we are taking those external influences out, and we’re working with what they have. And then what you’re also doing is you’re coaching the parent. You’re providing the model in real time, because not only is this in their house, but you’re using their materials. You’re not using something else to demonstrate the task and then trying to get them to scaffold it to this different object you’re providing. You’re basically given the YouTube tutorial right there for them.

Ayelet: I would love to hear, Sydney, because you’ve spoken a little bit, a few times about you are not the only one, you’re not like the sole place where this information is coming from, you know, you pull from resources, and you then help to break it down, of course, as you and I both do. But I would love to hear because I think a very valuable part of what we provide here on this podcast is not only the conversation, but also a little bit more, you know, suggested resources into delving further into what other things might be helpful. So please tell us a little bit about where people can find the resources that you have created. And also other things, whether it’s like podcasts, books, research, websites that you feel like might be helpful for families to know about, or other professionals, as well.

Sydney: Yeah, so all of my resources, you can find that thelisteningslp.com Pretty much all of the resources that are geared towards families are, I have them as free downloads, so that way, you’re able to easily access them, some of the ones that I really find helpful, and I’ve actually gotten feedback from parents that have loved them. I did one about like, how do you know that your child’s provider is the right one? That is a relationship that you’re going to want to foster and build. And it’s an investment, right? Like, it’s not just an investment of your time, it’s an investment of your money, it’s an investment of your feelings. And so making sure that you are really kind of screening this person, especially if they’re a private provider, schools are a little bit different. But private providers, you can do that and just kind of making sure that this is going to be a good fit for you and your family. So it’s a five question guide that you can just ask a provider and most people should feel pretty comfortable answering those. And based on those questions you can figure out like if this is a relationship that will be great, or if there’s one that you might want to adjust.

The other handout we have available is tips for building language at home. And so it just goes over some general language strategies that families can use along with an example and an explanation for why. And then, you know, we talked a little bit about toys. The list was originally created for children who are deaf and hard of hearing but it’s really a question guide for any child that a parent or even a extended family member can go through, and it’s five questions about when you are going down that toy aisle, these are the things that you should be asking yourself and it kind of gives some rationale behind why we should be thinking about these things before just picking something up and dropping it in our basket for purchase. So those are some of the ones that I have.

Some of my favorite, favorite child based resources is there’s Mommy and Me Milestones, which I find that she is wonderful. She breaks things down really well as well for families, and she has a lot of handouts and free resources available for professionals and for families. Her stuff is really, really amazing. And I really love anything pretty much that she puts out. It is really helpful. And then a lot of my other resources and things that I pull, I try to go directly to the research or the kind of the source behind it.

Sometimes that can be a little tricky as a parent to figure out where to find that. But if you ask the professional that you’re working with, they should be able to direct you to those things and then understood.org, I think is underrated. But there’s stuff is really helpful. And I love the way it breaks things down into smaller, digestible sections. So those are kind of some of my top ones that I like.

Ayelet: That’s great. Yeah. Thank you for that. I think that’s awesome. Sydney, thank you for this conversation. Is there anything else that you want to leave people with?

Sydney: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is just continue to listen to all parties, continue to learn from each other, and then form these partnerships to advocate.

Ayelet: Love it. Yep. Great takeaway. Thank you so much, Sydney for your time and energy today. And thanks to everyone who’s listening. We’ll see you next time.

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