Welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne, so glad you could make it again. We did it. Okay, so this week I've been thinking a little bit about something that I saw in a kindergarten that I visited, and this is more an early years theme, although it does apply to older kids as well, but in a different way, as it often does, right? And this is the theme of, no, you do it.
When children are getting dressed, and I saw this in the kindergarten, a little child was getting, needed to get boots and coats and hats. I'm saying, oh, you do it, you do it, and was kind of, it was almost like a, like a feigned helplessness that was going on. And the kindergarten teacher, you know, tried her best to get the child to, because she was saying, well, no, you can put on your boots, and you know, you know, and it wasn't going anywhere fast, and the child was getting more and more elevated, and it wasn't going so well.
They figured it out in the end, but it took a long time. I want to give a few hints, because what that teacher came across is what every parent of younger children comes across, even into the early elementary age years, we can come across this, with kids just won't do it, and they want us to do it for them, and we can start to feel like an unpaid, like a butler or something. So the first step, when, but when we're going to ask a child to do something, okay, and we know it's boots, or it's coat, or it's tidy up, or whatever it is, the first thing to do is to do, is not to say.
So for example, I'll stay with the, I'll stay with the theme of boots, and that's often a hard one, coats, getting outside, transitioning in general. Now, before you, you know, tell a child to put their boots on, or their coat on, or their snow suit on, or their sun hat on, whichever climate you live in, whatever the season is, actually lean in a little bit to the mirror neurons, and I've talked about that in other podcasts, but just do something, you know, get their, get their hat, little hat out, get their, or get their boots out, get the, and do it within their sight, you know, put the snow suit down, get your own coat out, and just busy yourself a little bit, just for a minute or so, with, with the, the doing of something, because the mirror neurons of a child are involuntary, and they will not be able to help noticing you do it, and inwardly, a child starts kind of moving into the, the bootness, the coatness, the hatness, the tidy upness, they kind of can't help it. But often as a society, we, we tell kids, we tell them to do something, and wonder why it doesn't work.
And I'm suggesting that it's way more successful to show them quietly, and signal, it's almost like a, like a pre paving, you signal, this is what we're doing. For very little children, you might sing a very familiar or hum a little, very familiar little song that you, you know, you come up with, or, or use to, to get them outside. For my children, it was Gift to be Simple.
And I just hum, you know, that well known, tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to, and they would know, and I just catch their attention, because it was the changing song, that something was changing. And I would be setting out boots and coats or whatever it was at the time. It's the first step, don't just speak it, show it, do it.
Then, if you get them, and you still get that, that, that, that annoying, you do it, is just to sit quietly beside a child, and not feel any need at all. And just to let them know, it is hard, isn't it? And just to come alongside them, and feel, you know, no need to start dressing them. And I know you might say, but we've got just two minutes to get in the car and get a, if you've got just two minutes to get in the car, you haven't allowed enough time, any little child is going to need at least 10 minutes, at least to get their outdoor clothes on, or at least 10 minutes to clean up before they come to the dinner table.
And it's not like saying to them, 10 minutes to go, five minutes to go, two minutes to go, because if we do that, you know, the little children have very little concept of abstract time like that. And all they're doing is metaphorically sort of handcuffing themselves to the railing, digging in, that they're not going to move, they're not going to move away from their toys or get into that stupid coat or whatever. Okay, so the second step is just to be with them, just sit with them.
Oh, it is hard, isn't it? To get into that coat. Oh my goodness, it's hard to go outside now after we've been having so much fun inside. Just be with them, recognize that it's hard.
And in a sense, just connect back to this theme of connecting. So connect with them. It is hard, isn't it? Oh, dear.
If you still get the refusal, just remember when they did something well. This is the third step is just recall and give them a little reminder of when they did something all by their big selves. And if they're a little bit older, seven, eight, nine, 10 years old, you don't have to speak in that language.
You can just say, you know, yesterday, you brought in all those tools out the garden before the rain came. You brought in all that stuff, or you brought in all those groceries, didn't you? The biggest, the heaviest bag, thank you. That was really good of you.
And just find a very simple little memory of when they did something that was helpful, but also they did together with you. Remember their autonomy, that they can be autonomous. They can act independently.
They can do things. And remember that and just sit with them and tell them a little 15 to 30 seconds story of, and then we brought that inside, didn't we? We did. And you put everything in on the, just on the right shelf.
Gosh, that was helpful. See, when you do that, you're taking them out of not their only their fight or flight brain, but they're freeze. They've frozen.
They're not going to do it. They're stuck. They don't want to.
Like, no. When you tell them a little story, number one of their autonomy, of their competency, and number two, it's pictorially based. It's a little 30 second, 15 second, doesn't have to be a great big deal, but you've told them a little story.
You're moving them out of that, of that freeze brain, out of the fight, flight, freeze brain. And you've moved them into a different part of their being, into that pictorial imagination. And you've also recognized with them that they can be very, very strong.
It can be competent. They can be helpful. Just tell them a little story that will often move kids along.
Very often. Still recognizing it's hard that we've got to transition now, but remember their independence, their competency, and remember it pictorially. Tell them just the briefest little story of when they did that.
If they still don't move, they still know, and they're reading around on the floor, and then try a we direction, a W E, a we direction. And that's not a re direction with an R, but with a W, we direction to say, oh, let's just, oh, this is a bother, isn't it with these coats? Do you know what? I think we just need to get some things out on the counter and pack our lunches just a little bit. So you're still getting ready for what you're doing.
If it's packing up toys from the table, it might be that you come over to the kitchen and you sit a child up at the counter and you just tell them a little, you know, and I remember when these are all of the podcasts, aren't they? By the way, those of you who listen to all these podcasts, I remember when you were just a little baby. Do you know what? There was a bird that landed right on the handle of your stroller, of your pram. And so you basically we direct, you just take them and you do something with them that's not exactly, you know, forcing them to put on the coat bodily or doing it for them.
But it is still staying in the flow of tidying up. It still is staying in the flow of getting ready, but it's not exactly that thing. It's not exactly the coat.
It's not exactly clearing away the blocks or the project, but it is still moving the day forward. You know, you're not just sort of sitting and getting a picture book out and sitting with them, telling them a story that like we parents know that's just never going to work. Not, not, not, not consistently.
We've got too much to do to get out the door. So the third step is a we direction. Now that's discussed more in a previous podcast.
If you're interested in looking back on we directions. And I talk about why re-directions with an R often don't work as well as we hope because they're sending a child to do something. Why don't you go and ride your bike? Why don't you go to your room and play? Why don't you know, sending a child away just when they want to be close and orient to with us, they want us.
And that's why re-directions often have kids kind of walk off and then come on back like boomerangs after a couple of minutes and start whining and whinging and doing that really annoying stuff. So the third step is a we direction, still staying in the flow of getting ready, but not going head to head with the coat. After you've made a little bit of a connection, after you've sat a child at the counter and you've told them and you're putting lunches together and you may be giving them the, some of the things to put in the box and organize, and you may be telling them a little story.
I love these I remember when stories. I think they're beautiful. I remember when you were little.
I remember when I was just a little girl. I, you know, that kind of stuff. So, because we've always got an I remember when story, you know, they're so easy.
We've got lots of them, haven't we? And then circle on back to the coat and put your own, and again, put your own coat on or get your coat out, get it ready, maybe even put it on and say, okay, coats and boots on now. And it's surprising how often a child would slip right into that snowsuit, pop that sun hat right on. Whereas two, three, four minutes before they were flat refusing or particularly they were going into that.
No, you do it. You do it. Because a child saying you do it, I think underneath it all, often there's a motivation of, well, obviously not wanting to do it, but secondly, wanting to connect.
They want to connect with you. They want to feel your hands putting their things on or whatever it is. They want to connect with you as you pack things away and help them.
They're looking for connection, but they're doing it in the most annoying and helpless way. In this way, you can give them what they want. You can keep the morning moving or the evening moving.
You can keep it moving, but you also circle back and get the thing done now. And it's all done within three or four minutes. And you are going to spend 15 minutes trying to get that child into that coat and the mop up afterwards and the crying.
And it's just a very, very economical way of going about helping a child when they meet that kind of no, you do it type of thing. Okay. I sure hope that was helpful.
Okay. Bye-bye for now.
