Hello, and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. You know, this week, a couple of things to tell you about before we launch into the podcast content. Let's see, we've we probably probably know we do these trainings of group leaders of Simplicity Parenting group leaders.
It's something I couldn't be more happy about. We have over 1000 group leaders and coaches around the world in so many different countries. And this week, the window opens for our Simplicity Parenting Discipline and Guidance group leader training.
And what that is, it's a very grassroots movement. It's taking a very simple training, well be ironic if it was complicated, right? And, and then having the skills to lead groups based on my Soul of Discipline book. Anyway, if you're interested in getting more information about that, go right to the go right to the website, simplicityparenting.com Okay, so this week, I've been talking to a lot of parents actually, about transition tools, about the kinds of issues that come up so frequently, when we try to move our children from one situation to another, all sorts of little transitions, dot the day.
And then, you know, there's the big ones like getting in the car and so on. And then the small ones like just, you know, tidying up a project. How can those transitions be a little smoother? So here's one, I think, is a fun tool.
And I learned this years ago from an early childhood teacher. But I've used this tool so many times, even with, you know, elementary age kids. And this is a thinking allowed tool.
Okay, so here's, here's what I mean. Rather than have a child, you know, struggle, push back against a transition, not want to leave the project they're doing not want to get in the car and not want to put their coat on and it's just a struggle, right? What what you can do is, is think aloud, or this early childhood teacher, smilingly called talk, talk to your angel. And what she meant by this is, let's say you have a child at the kitchen table, a dining room table, and they've done a bunch of cutouts, you know, and they've, they've really been engaged in a cutting things out, or maybe drawing on them and creating things.
And they got a whole world happening there on the kitchen table. But you know that suppertime is coming up, and you're going to need the table, right? So how do you transition your child into packing that stuff up, without it becoming a big old fiery event that is just hard for everyone. So he's, he's what I'm suggesting, you know, you would come near the child, and you'd say something like, Hmm, I wonder how I can clear up the table, because we've got to have supper there soon.
But I don't want to disturb Georgie's cutouts, because they're so lovely. I know, I think I might go and get a project board. That's what I'll do.
Yeah. And then I can put the things on the project board. And that way, we can come back to it later.
Yeah. And then we can have supper and put it back later that I think that will work. Hmm.
I'll see what Georgie thinks. And then, Georgie, you know, I've been thinking, and you, you know, say to Georgie, you know, that we could get a project board. And we could put all your cutouts on the board, because I need to, we need to clear off the table for supper.
But we also need to have things all kept in the right order. Now, here's the, here's, let's go and get the board. That's right, here it is.
And let's, now, while you're thinking out loud, right, Georgie is only three feet away from you. You know, they're totally overhearing what it is you're saying. But you're not saying it to them.
That's why I think this childhood teacher said, talk to your angel, you're kind of just thinking out loud. But what this does is it gives a child a little bit of a preview, it's like is pre paving, it's like you're paving the path. And then you go back, and you walk on the path.
It gives a pre view, and I love this word preview, pre view, because it gives a child time to develop an inner picture of what the transition is going to be like. So they can get an inner picture of it, which is how children work, right? It's not, if you say to a child in five minutes, we're cleaning up Georgie, in two minutes, we're cleaning up. I mean, most kids at that stage will have padlocked themselves to the radiator.
I mean, they don't. That kind of minute warning doesn't mean much to a child younger than nine ish. And even if they do get it, it's a signal that basically prepare for transitional war.
But we think it should work, right? We're trying to be good parents. But this is just a much more subtle way of rather than announcing minutes, like five minutes until we pack up. This gives a child an inner picture.
It gives them time, because you're talking out loud. And it gives them time to go with you forming that that picture, because that's what children naturally do. But you're also not talking to the child and confronting them.
So every which way round, this thinking out aloud tool, talking to your angel, helps a child make the transition so that then when you've talked out loud, and you've worked through it a little bit, and then you say, now then, I think I've had an idea. I think we could get our project board out. And then we could put because you know, your child likes things that might be the kind of kid that likes things orderly, you know, the might be the sort of child who just loves to put things in just the right place.
And for them transitions are tough. And a little side issue here, a little sidebar, project boards, I love them. I love project boards, because you can I mean, they're a board about, oh, two feet by maybe two and a half feet.
And they're just thin ish, maybe four ply. And if you want to make fancy ones, you can sand them off and, you know, have handles and whatever like a tray, but a tray without two higher edges, maybe it's got a little bit of an edge to it, but not too high, particularly not at the front where a child needs, you know, needs a flat surface to draw and so on. But you can pick up those project boards and put them up and bring them back.
In my family, when my kids were little, we had Oh, gosh, I'm guessing about half a dozen different project boards. And then you know, a project disappears from consciousness, it takes some time, obviously a child's forgotten about it, you can clear off the board and off you go, you've got a free board. It's such a simple way to clean up.
But the main point here is thinking out aloud. And it allows the transition to not be so abrupt. It allows a child to be let into your, you know, where you're moving and where they know they've got to move to, they can see you, for example, they're in, you're in the kitchen, you're making supper, they know that that's coming.
But what it does is it enables them to, to just have that little bit of space. And crucially, again, I want to emphasize, it allows them to develop an inner picture of how the transition is going to go. You could do exactly the same thing for putting on coats and boots in the colder months.
You could do the same thing for a big transition into the car. You're just thinking out loud about how it's going to, how it's going to be, how the transition's going to be. And in that way, you're, you're, you're pre-viewing, you're allowing a child to view what's coming up before you actually speak to them directly.
Okay, I sure hope that was helpful. And please don't forget, if you want to speak to me personally about some of the challenges that you're facing at home with your kids, don't hesitate to make contact with me. Just go right to simplicityparenting.com and you'll see a link there.
It's the thing I love most to do. Okay, bye bye for now.
