Telephone Free-For-All

How many times has this happened to you: your kids are playing quietly in another room, getting along nicely while you're attending to some chore, maybe washing dishes or checking emails.  Then the phone rings.  It's a good friend and you start to chat.   Two minutes into your conversation all hell breaks loose.  Your son jumps from the sofa and bangs his head on the coffee table.  Or he's suddenly ravenous, and nothing in the refrigerator will do.  Or he decides that this is a good time to tackle his little brother.  And you think, "Really?  They were so quiet a minute ago!".

You probably have also experienced the other side of the call.  You call your friend, and she's so happy to hear from you.  Then every thirty seconds she interrupts to talk to her kids, "What do you want?"; "Not now"; or "OMG I'll call you back!".

I call this phenomena "telephone free-for-all".  Kids who were perfectly content without your attention will suddenly act up to get it once you try to engage in a conversation with someone else.  And it only happens with conversations, not texting or emailing.  And it even happens with infants!  Have you ever noticed how a baby will stop nursing or drinking her bottle if you try to carry on a conversation with someone?  She looks around to see who you're talking to and only goes back when you stop talking.  What's going on?

Years ago, as mothers began to work full time outside the home, many of us worried about the effects of leaving babies and young children in daycare.  After awhile, the whole question of home vs. daycare became moot, because two paychecks and daycare for young children became a necessity for most families.  So the arguments evolved into defining principles of high quality care for these little ones.  A new child development theory emerged called "quality time".  I believe psychologists developed this theory in an effort to assuage any guilt feelings that mothers may have had for leaving their babies in someone else's care.  Quality time assured parents that the number of hours a day they spent with their children was irrelevant; that ten or fifteen minutes of focused, individualized attention were more important than being at home all day, where mom would spend most of her time attending to chores anyway.  My own theory of telephone free-for-all debunks the myth of "quality time".

Telephone free-for-all teaches me that children feel comfortable and secure just knowing that mom is nearby.  As long as she's not engaging with someone else, children get the sense that she is available to them.  Conversation, communication are the means of connecting with others.  It seems to me that on some level, children must feel excluded when their mother is connecting with someone else.  That connection takes her away, even temporarily, and along with her goes their sense of comfort and security.    Mom is the most important person in the world to a child, and the child wants to feel that he is the most important person in the world to mom. Always.

Spending quality time with our children is extremely valuable, whether we stay at home or work full time.  But it doesn't take the place of mom's presence.  Children feel safe when we're near them.  We don't need to do or be anything special.  They love us and need us just the way we are.

Kids Are People Too

Growing up, my favorite show to watch on TV was The Little Rascals.  I have a whole repertoire of quotes from those short movies, and to this day love watching them.  The Little Rascals are independent, resilient, resourceful, and really funny kids.  They made me feel like being a kid wasn't a handicap.  After all, kids don't have the freedoms, rights, and choices of adults.  Kids can feel powerless in a confusing world.  But the Little Rascals were not helpless.  In their world, kids could do and be and have just about anything.

Happily for me, my grandchildren are also fans of The Little Rascals. (Unhappily for my children, they're also quoting some of their favorite lines.) We watch episodes on youtube, and the kids laugh so hard they sometimes fall off the couch.  Recently, we watched a newer, color movie version which happened to be really good.  There were several cameos of famous people, such as Whoopi Goldberg as Buckwheat's mother.  In one scene, Spanky and some of the kids pretended to be adults so they could apply for a bank loan to rebuild their clubhouse.  The banker was played by Mel Brooks, and of course he saw through their disguise immediately.  As a busy banker, he was impatient and dismissive with them, and Spanky said, "Hey mister, you can't talk to people like that.".  And Brooks yelled back, "You're not people, you're a kid!".

Few of us would be rude enough to make that statement in real life, but the truth is that many of us convey that exact message to kids non-verbally.  And they get it.  For example, many adults seem to think it's okay to use swear words or hold adult conversations in the presence of small children because they assume that the kids don't understand.  Wrong.  Children are highly attuned to our tone, facial expressions, and body language, and even if they don't have a grasp of all the vocabulary we use, they understand what we are communicating.  Anyone who has learned a second language knows that sometimes you can get the gist of a conversation without grasping all the words.  Children have strong, innate communicative abilities.  Underestimating those abilities is disrespectful.  

Children entering toddler and early childhood programs are not empty buckets waiting to be filled up with knowledge.  Even our youngest students bring with them a world of experiences and understandings.   Ask any mother how quickly the first year of life goes by --zoom!  And in that time, our children are gathering tons of information about their bodies, about the people and things in their surroundings, and about communication.   Developmentally appropriate practice, which is the professionally accepted approach to early childhood education, means using the developmental levels of our students as a starting point for teaching.   Lesson plans are based on the children's interests and personal experiences.  So, let's say a holiday is coming up and we want to learn and celebrate in class.  The first step is to find out what the children already know about the holiday, what experiences they've had with it, and then develop activities to extend their knowledge.  All learning is about making connections between new concepts and prior knowledge.

It's important to be every bit as thoughtful in talking to children as we are when speaking to adults. We may never know the full impact of our words.  Once, at the beginning of a new school year, a four year old boy said to me, "My teacher last year said I was a tzaddik "(righteous person).  I answered him, "You're still a tzaddik".  To me, it was a nothing conversation.  Days later, his mother repeated it word for word.  She said that another adult might have paid little attention to him " That's nice"; but that my words touched him deeply.  Wow.

It's important to treat children as our conversational equals.  This will:  1) demonstrate that their thoughts and feelings have value; 2) build their self-confidence; and 3) strengthen their own communication skills.  Of course children deserve to be treated with respect.  They're people too!!

Mirror, Mirror

Remember that line from Snow White?  The wicked queen had a magic mirror that she would ask everyday, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?".  The mirror always answered that she was, until the day it named Snow White.  And so the story began.

 Wouldn't it be lovely to have a magic mirror that could honestly evaluate our strengths and weaknesses?  Self-awareness is so hard to achieve.  In a way though, we actually do have such a mirror.  We learn a lot about ourselves by the ways in which people respond to us. Part of growing up is figuring out who we are how we fit into the world, and we get much of that  information from the caring adults in our lives.  Children know how we feel about them and what we think of them, regardless of the words we use.  They intuit our true thoughts and feelings.   Our eyes are magic mirrors that reflect who they are.

I interviewed many potential teachers when I was an early childhood director.  One question I learned to omit from the interview was, "Why do you want to teach young children?".  The answer was always "Because I love children".  Unfortunately, this statement is meaningless.  Most everyone claims to love children, but what does that really mean?  Sure kids can be adorable, and affectionate, and funny and cute, and make us feel needed.  But they can also be mean and rude and defiant and hyperactive and messy.  They test our patience and can make us feel incompetent.  Loving a child isn't about saying it or even feeling it; it's about our actions.  Loving a child means working very, very hard to understand what her behaviors are communicating to us; to reach deep within ourselves for all the patience and positivity we can muster to get her through this stage, then the next.  I used to tell my teachers that they would not fall in love with every child in their class, but that every child had some lovable qualities, and it was their job to identify, appreciate, and build on those qualities.  It's no easy task, but it's the only way that children can learn.  They need to know, deep in their bones, that we really care for them. 

One day a prospective teacher was giving a model lesson to a toddler class.  A little boy in that class had been presenting behavior problems; frequently hitting the other children, pulling their toys away, and even biting.  The teachers, parents, and I were working together to identify his needs and help him learn better behavior.  At the model lesson, the prospective teacher asked each child his/her name.  This little boy said, "I'm Connor (not his real name) and I'm a bad boy".  My heart dropped to my feet.  I'm sure no one ever told him that, but he felt it.  He understood that he was attracting a lot of negative attention, and as wonderful as his teacher was, it was only human for her to feel the need to gird her strength day after day, paste on a happy face and try to manage this child's antics.  On some level, he caught all that.  

Children can sometimes misinterpret our reactions.  How many times have you heard a child say, "My teacher hates me."  This is surely an exaggeration, as anyone capable of hate is certainly incapable of teaching.  Nevertheless, the child is probably sensing something and it would be a good idea to contact the teacher and hear her thoughts.  At home, one of my daughters was convinced that every time I became angry at her I stopped  loving her. She would wail, "Mommy hates me!".   It took lots of one-on-one time and conversation for  her to believe that I loved her no matter what.  Even if she did a bad thing and even if I was very  angry, she was my precious child and I still loved her. Behaviors can be bad; but children are not.  It's important to separate the behavior from the inner-self.  I wanted my daughter to know that there was nothing she could ever do to make me stop loving her.

These examples show how exquisitely sensitive children are to the feelings of  adults .  It's not terrible for them to see our disappointment or even anger.  Disappointment shows that we know they can do better.  Anger, as long as it is controlled, can even serve as an important teaching tool.  Children see that anger is a normal human emotion, and that the speech or behavior that prompted it is deeply offensive.  By observing how we behave when we're angry, children can learn ways to manage their own angry feelings.


I've heard it said that eyes are the window to the soul.  I personally believe that children are almost like angels.  They're so new to the earth, and haven't yet sinned.  Maybe that's why they can look into our eyes and read us like a book.  For their sake, I continue to work on myself, so that when a child looks into my eyes all he sees is love and kindness.

Parent Teacher Conferences: Making Them Work

The home-school connection is a vital component of education.    When school and home share the same philosophy and approach to learning, children thrive.  Parents and teachers become partners. They work in tandem for the benefit of the children. By  communicating openly with each other, they enable seamless guidance and support for the child in both environments.   The key ingredient to making it all work?  Trust. 

Developing trust takes time.  Teachers gain parents' trust when they reach out at the beginning of the year to introduce themselves, to let parents know how their children are adjusting to the new school year, to share information about their availability for calls or emails.  They can write newsletters or blogs to keep parents up to date on class happenings and upcoming events.  They can share photos and anecdotes with parents, giving a peek into their child's school experiences.  They take the time to get to know the child, and find ways to communicate that to parents.

Parents  gain teachers' trust when they respond to requests for supplies or information; when they make sure their child comes to school on time, well rested and well fed; when they let the teacher know of any extenuating circumstances at home that may affect the child's behavior in school; when they keep a sick child at home.  A parent who demonstrates respect for school rules and culture is the ideal partner in a child's education.

Parent Teacher Conferences are brief meetings at which teachers  share their observations of a child's performance in class, and parents  give feedback about how they see their child responding to the learning program.  Teachers can show work samples and discuss ways in which the child relates to classmates and activities.  Parents may have questions about areas of specific interest to their child.  The teacher is an expert in working with groups of children; the parent is an expert in his own child.   Both have valuable information that can facilitate the child's healthy development.

Any behavioral or academic concerns ought to be addressed prior to the Parent Teacher Conference.  If the teacher notices that a student struggles to complete tasks, for example, the first thing she does is keep a log of her observations, to try to find a pattern.  Does he finish some tasks but not others?  Are there distractions?  Is the work too easy? Too hard?  Once she identifies a pattern, she can take steps to remediate.  She contacts the parent to  explain her concerns, her observations, and the steps she is taking to help.  She can ask for reinforcement at home, and/or find out if the parents have a better strategy.  

Behavioral issues are often more difficult to address.  Parents are naturally very protective of their children, and may be quick to blame the school for any reported behavior problems.  This is where trust becomes critical.  If a parent trusts that the teacher understands and appreciates his child; if the teacher communicates her concerns through a lens of caring and is using positive strategies to address the child's behaviors, the parent and teacher are more likely to work together in the child's best interests.  Naming a problem is not enough.  Placing blame is not enough.  The goal is to understand the child's individual needs and temperament, and to find ways to accommodate those needs and that temperament within the classroom.  It's hard work, and  requires teachers and parents to pool their knowledge and plan accordingly.

There are no surprises at Parent Teacher Conferences.  Any issues have been discussed beforehand.  At these meetings, teachers and parents can share their pride in a child's achievements. Parents get a little window into their child's life away from them. Teachers and parents share snippets of the child's personality in action.  And they marvel at the amazing privilege of` having a hand in the growth and development of a precious child.