Hi, and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Ken John Payne, the author of Simplicity Parenting. You know, this week I've been thinking more about the art and the magic of previewing. And the reason I was thinking about previewing so much is I was helping with a workshop where we were talking about just how fast things are moving these days for our kids.
And one parent in particular I spoke to at a break time said, you know, I know this stuff about rhythm. I really get it that we're meant to keep our lives as rhythmical as possible. You know, try to have rhythmical ways to wake the kids up, rhythmical ways to have breakfast, go off to school or daycare and, you know, lunchtimes if the children are home and rhythmical little patterns of play and play time and dinner time and, you know, bath and so on and so on and so on.
And she said, I'm really kind of maxed out with rhythm. I'm doing my best, but it just, it's just I can't do any more of it. You know, I know I could do more and I know my kids would benefit from it, but we lead pretty crazy lives.
She was an actress actually, and her husband was also, you know, a guy who traveled a lot. And she just said, what do I do? Because I'm just walking around feeling really guilty. And I thought, oh no, you know, like this section of rhythm and simplicity parenting book is, it's sure not meant to make anyone feel bad.
It's meant as an aim, you know, aim towards doing this. And I spoke to her about, you know, just aiming for very, very simple little rhythms and, and just keep and just keep them, hold to them. But the larger point was this, I said, well, you know, when you've got a few daily rhythms, like I'm sure you have.
And she said, yeah, yeah, no, totally. I do. You know, we, the kids wake up in the same way every morning.
I make sure that we've got this little ritual in the way we wake up. She had two kids. And you know, she said, you know, we also have bedtime rhythms and so on, but she said, but it's, but it's often at different times.
And I, and again, she got back into this piece of, of, of not feeling good about rhythm. And so I said to her, well, you know, rhythm, rhythm has a little sister. And she said, well, what's that? And I said, it's predictability and it's preview.
If you can, if you can have, have a preview that makes life predictable and you keep it practical, then you're in really good shape. And I didn't realize this was like a, a triple P, you know, preview making it, making, making it practical and pictorial. But I'll describe just a little bit about what I've discovered around preview.
When, when life is, is, is, is a bit arhythmical, things are just getting out of whack. You know, things are coming up. It's, it's going to be busy.
You're departing even from, from rhythms. Sit with the kids in that afternoon or that evening and preview with them. And, and this is not to sort of over talk it.
This is always the danger of previewing, but just let them know, hey, you know, bedtime's going to be a little, a little different tomorrow because, um, I'm going to be, I'm going to be home late and daddy's traveling. So you know, Sarah, your, your, your babysitter is, is actually going to read you the story tomorrow night. And she's really looking forward to it because she loves that story as well.
And um, and you know, you'll be in your same, same beds of course, and you'll have your same, um, your same bath time. It'll all be the same, but you know what? Sarah's going to be doing it and she's looking forward to it. That's, you know, voicing it for little kids.
But, um, you see what I've done there is, is first of all, let's take preview. Is that when you preview for a kid and you do it pictorially, and this is the key, make a picture of it, you know, give them a picture of the bed, give them a picture of the bath, give them a picture of, of Sarah, um, and the, the babysitter, or, you know, what, whatever you can do to make a simple little picture and not just fill it full of words, then a child's limbic system and their brain is partly activated. And if you, if you activate the limbic system, because you've made a picture, that's the part of our being that relates to pictures, then what you've done is that you've moved the child from, from the amygdala, you've moved the child from the fight, flight, freeze and flock brain, because they're, they're, they're kind of, oh, what's, what's happening? What's happening here? I mean, that's, if you break rhythm, um, out of rhythms, a kid immediately starts to become a little concerned.
What's going on? By giving them a picture, you, you, in a sense, ease that and you draw the child up into higher brain function and you do it by giving them a picture. Now contrast that with previewing, but doing it in a very, very wordy way. It'd be like saying, well, tomorrow evening, I'm not going to be present.
I've made arrangements for, um, for your sitter to, to be here and, um, it's all fine. You don't have to worry. And, you know, and you could, and you could go on like that and it doesn't kind of, it actually increases a child's stress.
That's previewing and you preview and you make it pictorial, pictorial, but you also make it very practical because a child's life really, really, um, right the way through into 10, 11, 12 years old, they want it practically. They want it really, they want the nuts and bolts of things as well. So preview, make it practical, um, give it and give it pictures.
And if you can do this, then the, the, the, um, the child's soothed, the child feels safe and the child kind of gets a sense that you're the captain of the ship, you know, you've got a big picture. Well, my mom's even thinking about tomorrow night, all I was doing was, was just thinking about pizza this evening and maybe we could, you know, get pizza and, you know, it's, it's when you have a bigger picture like that and a child realizes that the family is going to be held, that you're in charge, you've organized things and previewing just, um, to round off now, previewing I've found is a, is a little like soul Annika, like Annika to the soul. It, it eases, it eases bruises.
It eases bumps. What it does is it particularly eases anxiety. If you can preview with a child, and again, I've got to emphasize pictorially and practically and, and make it brief, you know, don't over talk it.
And then you might need to repeat it again in the morning, just remind them. But if you can do that, it really eases anxiety and nervousness. With so many kids now I see in my private practice, I see in the schools I visit who, who suffer from anxiety, moderate grade, but cumulative and ongoing anxiety.
Uh, whenever I come across this, I recommend pictorial and practical previewing, um, to, to the mom or the dad. And the feedback has, has been everything from, yeah, that was, that was a bit helpful to my goodness. That was, you know, a game changer and everything in between, but I've never heard that didn't work.
The key to this is to make previewing a part of your, uh, of, of your parenting toolkit and use it regularly, really comb through the day that's, that's about to come, uh, the next day or the next week. If there's a, um, if there was a bumpy patch coming up, if you've got, um, if you've got a sort of an influx of relatives coming for Christmas or Passover or Hanukkah or whatever festival it is, if you've got, and it's going to be a bit, you know, it's going to throw your rhythms out, then preview with the child, let them know, let them know what it, what it is that's going to be happening. What, um, what mealtimes are going to be like, what bedtimes are going to be like, because every time you give a child a picture and it comes true, they basically feel safe.
So I hope that's, that's helpful. This is the power of, of practical and pictorial previewing. Okay.
Bye bye now.
