Welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries. You did it again. You've made this little 10 or 15 minute gap in your week to have a listen or a watch.
This week, I wanted to unpack a little more a theme that we've touched on once or twice before, and that of previewing. But the window I want to have us look through in terms of previewing is how we can have previewing not only be doable, but why? Because the why of previewing is also super important. Now, previewing, what I mean by this is little previews and big previews.
The big previews, you know, the macro previews, they're all about, you know, like at dinner time previewing the next day or at bedtime previewing the next day. But the previewing needs to be fairly general. Otherwise, kids can hold you to the letter of the law to exactly what you said.
So the previewing has got to do with well, tomorrow morning, we'll have to see what the weather is doing. But if it's fine, I think there's going to be projects out in the yard. If you have a backyard, there's going to be some projects that we've been looking forward to doing, isn't there? Because, you know, your daughter might be working on a fort or her sibling might be working on some ramps to jump her bike or, you know, whatever it is.
But tomorrow morning, we'll just see. But it might be it might be projects in the morning. And then in the afternoon, you know what? I know we need to get some things to grandma.
We need to take some and you see where I'm going. It's like a it's like a big picture, but it's not it's not too explicit. And then the the micro previews, the little ones generally accompany meals.
You might remember I've mentioned this before, so I won't go into it too much now. But, you know, at breakfast time, you preview up until morning snack. So and then at morning snack, just as you're about to pack away, you preview up until lunch, lunch, you're about to pack away, you preview.
And so the day goes and this is the connective tissue, right? This is the this is the little previews that join up the dots of the big previews. This is not when we do it, but how we do it. And these little micro previews, you can get a little more specific about these because, you know, you've only got got like a two hour little window and you pretty much know what the weather is doing.
You pretty much know how the flow of the day is going, what's doable, what's not doable. So these little micro previews are also a great idea. Now, having said all that, why? You know, why do it? What are some of the benefits of this? One of the big benefits, of course, is that it soothes anxiety.
When a child's got like a picture of what's coming next. So they develop this picture because you've just previewed with them and you said, well, yeah, we'll have to get we'll have to get all yet. It is cold outside today, isn't it? But you know what? We'll get all your beading things out.
We'll get your jewelry making kit. Yeah, I think I know where it is. Mm hmm.
Yeah, we did. We got some new new beads, didn't we? And so they're sitting there, they're having their snack where there's a bit cold outside. But now they know beading, jewelry making.
I'm going to make a bracelet. I'm going to make a bracelet for Aunt Maureen. And so it goes.
Now, what you're doing there is developing an inner picture. You're developing a picture. They're developing a picture.
So number one is that you're co-regulating. If you're developing the same picture, then you're co-regulating. Right.
It's a bit of a one of the beautiful benefits of of looking forward and creating a picture together with a child. And what's going to happen in the next couple of hours is already you're co-regulating. So, which is lovely in itself.
But if something goes wrong and it doesn't go, you know, something's annoying, it doesn't go well, there weren't, you know, whatever it is, then you're starting from a place where you're both regulated together. Mm hmm. The second part of it is that when you preview like this, it builds a picture.
It builds a mental image, of course, and that mental image moves both you and your your child, tween or teen into into their limbic system, into your limbic system, into their limbic system. And then even further up, it can even move us up into the prefrontal and particularly the frontal lobe, one of the four lobes of the of the neocortex in our brain. This, you know, the human the human brain and it by by developing a picture, what you're doing is basically walking up the neural stepladder, the neural staircase, because you're coming from the brainstem like, what are we going to do? And they're not sure that any kind of not sureness is hard and kids will default to the downstairs brain.
But walking up the stairs is developing a picture that's in the limbic system where where that lovely feeling of cozy. I know what I'm doing. I know how I'm going to fix.
And, you know, if it's an older child and you need to, you know, fix the basketball hoop because it got a bit wobbly and, you know, but you're making you're making a picture of what needs to happen. And then you're talking about the wobbly basketball hoop. You're talking about the, you know, the the jewelry kit or whatever it is.
Now we've gone up into the frontal lobe where where we're, you know, a little bit more. We're tickling the executive brain. So now we're in organizational world, which is a really good thing to to tickle that so that it myelinates that big organizational world in the neocortex, which is going to be so important for a child's future, so important for their learning, for their organizing of their learning, for their projects, for and then, you know, when they're in college and organizing all they've got to do and when they're maybe parents themselves and they've got to organize their day.
But that that building that organizational feature you can do through these little micro previews, do you see? But it's just a little it's just a little warm embrace, a little tickle of it. And then finally, the last thing I want to mention is the children are much more likely to have fun because the preview has come. The trajectory of moving into what they were doing was well done.
They know what they were doing. They got their stuff together. And then the laughter comes because they're not wondering what I'm going to do next.
What do I need? They're not their eyes aren't darting to the edge of the clearing for any beasties that might be at the prowl, so to speak. They can immerse themselves in what they're doing. And the creativity begins and the fun begins.
And the diving deep down into creativity and the fun that that brings and the enjoyment that that brings can be done if you've established the picture. In a sense, it's almost like pre paving, isn't it? You've built the pathway and then you walk it. You've developed the picture and then you live into it.
And these are just wonderful benefits of both the macro, the big picture that sets the scene. But then the micro kind of is just as important, really, that you've previewed what's going wrong. And look, even if something does go wrong, even if it does, then you're a little bit more co-regulated together.
Right. Because you've done this together. Something is going wrong.
Easier to set right and get back into creative and fun flow. OK, that's another way of looking at previewing. Sure.
Hope that helps. Bye bye for now.
