Welcome too Inclusion Matters, a podcast about children's development from the Center for Inclusive Child Care.
Welcome to Inclusion Matters, a podcast from the Center for Inclusive Child Care. I'm Priscilla Weigel, the executive director, and I am joined today by one of our strong partners and a great friend of the Center for Inclusive Child Care, Tracy Schreifels from the Ellison Center in St Cloud. And we are doing a part two to a conversation that we had a while back about the pandemic and its impact on children, and those who work with children and care for children and know children. So Tracy's back today to talk a little bit more about what we know as time has passed. And before we jump in, Tracy, I would love for you to tell our listeners a little bit more about you and Ellison Center before we jump into our conversation. Welcome.
Thank you. So a little bit about me. I have, my history is I have been a head start teacher, preschool teacher, and so sometimes when I'm thinking about what we're talking about on here, I'm also thinking about my days back when I was in the classroom with all my kiddos. I am now a licensed marriage and family therapist and an endorsed infant mental health clinical mentor. And Ellison Center is a nonprofit mental health agency in the St Cloud area that specializes in infant and early childhood mental health services. So we provide therapy services to families, but we also have grant based services for some short term home visiting and parent education classes, and we also offer some training opportunities, and we provide reflective consultation to other agencies as well. We always offer Lunch and Learn trainings are typically about three or four times a year. Highly recommend that you watch our Facebook or Instagram or our LinkedIn pages for all of those fantastic updates, we're going to have a fantastic, we're going to start in person trainings once a year as well. So we hope, ,nice. yeah, keep an eye on that and check out our website. Feel free to sign up on there to get on our mailing list. And then you'll have access to all of those as they come out, we'll just send out a brief email every once in a while. We won't spam you, I promise. But that's a good way to stay connected, otherwise, on our social media pages as well.
Well, that's exciting. There's wonderful resources there and their team, I will say, just knowing all of you, just quality professionals who understand infant and early childhood care. it's just we we have accessed their expertise many times at CICC. So just to recap, from our past, part one conversation about this, you mentioned something that really stuck with me was the fact that a lot of children during the pandemic took a little developmental detour. We touched on that in the last podcast talking talked about the fact that a lot of children also missed some of those key social interactions, those practice opportunities for regulation emotionally, and so when we're seeing some of these increases in behaviors that challenge adults taking into account some of those pieces. And so we we covered a lot of conversation about the fact that things are not the same, because we did all experience this really big event, not just us in Minnesota, but the world. And so there's a lot there to unpack. So today, I think what we're going to talk about is just, what do we know about some of the changes that have occurred, to start there, and I know Tracy, you have some things to share about that, and kind of just let the conversation flow from there to what does that mean for those of us who are spending time with young kids. So I'm going to just hand it over to you to share some of that information.
Thank you. Well, now that we have a few years of I don't know if it's hindsight or not yet, but we actually have some a little bit more data and research that has been collected as we have been monitoring child development through the last few years. And so just to share some of those research driven pieces of information, maybe we do know that there have been delays in social emotional development. That's one of the most common things that we are seeing. And we know that kids who spent a lot of time at home and isolated from peers are showing significant delays in social skills. We also know that many families had very stressed systems during that time, and it's really hard to teach somebody how to calm down from their emotions when you yourself are not calmed down, kind of like trying to teach somebody how to swim while you're drowning. So so we know that that is a big part of it, which also is connected to a lot of the language and. communication delays that we are seeing, but we also have seen an increase in anxiety and behavioral challenges. We know that when babies are in utero that they experience the stress and they feel mom's emotions, they feel dad's emotions, they also get exposed to any of the stress hormones that are felt as well, and so and this also happens during their their infancy, pay time while they're with their parents, too. So if, if we were living in a frightened state, then that baby is born with a more sensitive system to anxiety. So they're going to be more prone to feel anxious, but not necessarily even know why, and so they're going to need more help understanding what they're feeling and regulating from it. And anxiety is really contagious. It's more contagious than the flu. If one person is feeling it, it's like it ripples through the room, because we are social creatures. We social reference. And so if one person's anxious, the rest of us should be too. It's kind of how our bodies are biologically reacting to each other. We've also seen changes in physical development. We know that there are shifts in attention span and learning preferences. A lot of this is getting blamed on some of the screen time during pandemic, and how many kids have spent on screen time. We also know that some of that is just connected to early childhood. We have high expectations for what kids should be able to pay attention to. On average, a child's attention span is about the same as their year of age. So if they're three years of age, they have a three a three minute attention span would be typical for that age, which means our group times for a three year old should be three minutes or less, and yeah, many of us are doing that. We're expecting sit and attend for much longer than that. And then we've seen some challenges and resilience and adaptability changes in the family. There's just been so many things that have now been documented as part of that. And I know we talked about this a little bit before, but one of the number one things that they are seeing still is that there is an importance for play in the recovery of all of this. Kids need structured and unstructured time. They need opportunities to take risks in their play. They need opportunities to try things that are a little bit hard with with people there to help them with that. So that helps them build that sense of resilience. We learn resilience because I try something hard and I do it, and when you're at home in a very safe place for a long period of time, you don't get to practice as many of those things. So did you know that 15 minutes per hour a child is awake, is what is recommended for physical like vigorous physical activity for kids, per hour they're awake, not just per hour they're at your care or per hour they're at school, but per hour they are awake,. 15minutes of vigorous not just vigorous, unstructured activity,
My goodness. Oh, this. I mean, as you're going through this list, Tracy, wow, I'm just thinking, okay, what does this all mean for those of us who are spending our days with these little ones and how, so that's part one of the wow. Part two of the wow is, how are we helping families understand this, that all of this is happening in their little person's body and system? You know, like you're when you you were noting about anxiety is contagious. That is so true, and I think that we forget that, and what a great reminder for all of us listening just the the wisdom of taking that in for a minute and thinking, okay. I mean, I remember when I was teaching just that opportunity to take that deep breath before you walked into your space, to go, okay, everything that I'm feeling and thinking related to whatever is causing that heightened sense, I'm going to set that aside, because I need to be present for all these little bodies here. I mean also your group time reminders about attention spans. Oh, my goodness. But the vigorous activity every hour a child is awake, we know that is not happening because especially if you're in a center where you have to take turns to get out to the playground area, the large muscle room or whatever, if you're in a family child care setting, you might be able to do a lot of outdoor, natural play in a yard or a fenced in space. But where did we, how did we get so far from that, I think, is just, this is a great wake up call for everyone to be thinking about. We just had this conversation in our team the other day talking about permission to say, let's just play.
And let's take the just out of there. Let's ,yeah, right, let's play. exactly. Because it's not just playing, no, it's the most important work that's actually happening. That's where kids learn to navigate social, emotional things. That's how they learn to master tough things. When you watch a kid play out the bedtime routine in the dollhouse or in the dramatic play area, and you hear them putting that kid back to bed and back to bed and back to bed, they're playing out potentially what might be happening at their home, own home, so that they can master how to tolerate that. Like they're they know how to do that if we give them the space and the time to do it,
Instead of always saying, oh, time's up. Put it away. Let's go do here. Let's go over, do this. And I do think we've moved so far away from the awareness of what children really need for these early years. You know that whole idea of 80% of the brain is developed by the age of three. That's big. We were we were just talking to a partner that we do a lot of work with who is a parent and doesn't work in the field of early childhood. And we and he said, "What does 80 by three mean?" And we told him, and he's like, shoot, I wish I would have known that earlier. But truly that's that's an awesome realization, and and I loved that you took the just out of that phrase, yes, let's play. So as you think of our listening audience, Tracy, and those who are in the classroom space with children every day, in the family child care home,parents who are caring for their own children, what can be done to create those spaces for extended play that help us to just not feel like we're not doing our job.
That is a great question. I would love to see an early childhood field that actually feels a complete sense of "I did it" by the fact that their kids played all day and they know what their kids learned that day. Yes, yeah, right. Oh yeah. When you step back and you watch what a child is actually doing, and you see how hard they are working to get those blocks to stack on top of each other, or how how they're trying to balance something, or how they're trying to get that clothing on in the dramatic play area, or how they're trying to talk with another kid about something, and it's not working, so they try it again. Or you see them holding the book like a teacher does, and it's upside down, and they're going backwards in the book, but they're, they're they're reading it to somebody else. You can literally see them develop. You're watching them develop as they play. And then you get to be the regulatory partner that's there with them in their play. You're not there to direct their play. You're there to be a play partner with them. You get to do that regulated presence that gets to help support them in that play. And I would just love to see where at the end of the day, or even in that moment, a teacher could feel grounded in saying, I know what the kids in my class are learning right now because of what they're doing in here. That it's not because I'm sitting up in front of them, which is a story that many teachers have been told, is that they are only learning if you're up in front of them, if they are listening to you like, there's, I don't know where that narrative came from, that that's the only way kids learn, but that's actually the least of the way kids learn. Like, research is also showing that group times are extremely ineffective for kids to learn things. Like, it's really about getting them to listen and pay attention. That's what a group time is for, and that takes a lot of energy.
Yeah, it does.
For the teacher for the child, like it's it's hard work.
Yes, I'm just hearing a collective sigh of "yes" by all of our listeners going, "so true." I mean, we know these things. That's the thing, you know. I think that what you're doing is you're helping us be reminded of why we went into this work. The joy. The, some of the best times I can ever recall are when I was doing nothing but watching and observing in a child's dramaticplay or peer play, or just the creativity exploding. And they don't even realize you're there as an adult, because they don't need you to be there, because they've taken it to this level of skill and confidence and competency. And it just gives me goosebumps thinking about it. You know when you see children really digging deep into play. That's what it's supposed to be about. And and I do think, you know, something that I always, my mantra is, you don't get a do over for childhood, you get one time to be two. So let's make it the best two that can possibly be. And I do think that we've forgotten about what that involves and what that could look like, and we put so much of the burden on us as the caregivers, when really children tell us so often what they need. They guide us. They they look to us. And that's another thing too, I think you mentioned when I was re listening to our part one, in that conversation, we talked about parents who were working at home during the pandemic and not, they were present, but they weren't available. They were or maybe it's the opposite. They were in the room, but they weren't truly fully present with their child. So the child then was kind of forced to do that, "Where am I at? What do I need? Who do I go to? "Where's my resource?" And and we're seeing some of that in early childhood settings now. They don't know where to go to get help.
Well, they don't know where to go to get help. And they also might not know how to play with. Yeah, yes. Because that solitary play was more one on one. And Priscilla, I know that you said that many of us go into the field for this, you know, to watch kids play, and we know this piece. I would also say there's a lot of people that have been told there's this other place of teaching that is not about play. And there's a lot of parents that have heard this narrative too, like they have to have a robust curriculum, and that looks like this, and they should be bringing home sheets that look like they're practicing writing their name and these things. And so I think that there's some of us who know that, and there's some who are really feeling torn because our, our systems are not communicating that. Like, are, are ready for K and even the Head Start standards that I had to work within, there was such high expectations for academic learning. But, you know, kids are learning how to, pre writing is learned by a child crawling like they need, they need their core to be very developed in order for them to be able to sit and hold a pencil. So having them crawl through those tubes and crawl over and under things, is pre writing like that, literally. And then it's vigorous play too. So even just knowing that these are all precursors to that development is huge. We also have a lot of kids who don't know how to play. Yes. We actually can't assume that kids just know how to do it, because there's a lot of kids who actually, they get in these rooms with all these toys, and it, I had somebody just mentioned to me recently, it's like walking into the Grand Casino for the first time. Is all these things and all these bright lights, and there's some smell coming from somewhere, and there's and for them, it's actually quite overwhelming to see all of these things and to control all the impulses, or to just even regulate with all of that input coming in. And so also we create these beautiful environments for them that might be really over stimulating. We might have too many toys out. We might need to show them what to do with these toys or how to use so we might actually need to reconnect with our own play to model how to play. Because we have a lot of kids who, actually, I'm a play therapist, and I have kids my office, and they are like, they they don't know what to do with these toys. But as I start to show them things that the toys, it's like, they go, oh, and then they can start to do it,
Yeah, that's such a great reminder. And I think that that is something that just the unders, the opportunity that you have as that adult in that situation to really observe and notice what that child needs and where, what you need to provide in the environment. Oh, we're seeing a lot of kids, you know, around that doll house, around the the kitchen area, in the blocks. We need to add more things to that space. We need to expand those opportunities. That's really where the planning and the educator can can do the hard work of setting up the environment in a way that's going to be conducive to allowing those children in their care to go to that next level, but they have to get the foundational first. And and I've been, I've been to the Ellison Center and seen the play therapy rooms, and oh my goodness, I walked in, I was like, Oh, I bet the kids just have a blast in here. There's so many options to to just go deep into play. But and when you talked about play therapy, I think that that's also something that when there's challenges in the early care setting, sometimes folks jump to, oh, they need this intensified support, when really we can start by doing what you were just describing, modeling, showing them how to use the toilets, instead of just putting something out that's new and saying, okay, go have at it, Because that's when you'll see that child just standing, the child in the group who doesn't seem to engage, or they might do a real disconnected, you know, kind of interaction with a toy or an activity. And you think, huh, they don't seem engaged. I wonder why. They they maybe need that modeling. They need that time with that adult to come over and help them understand what that, what that tool is supposed to be used for, and that tool being a baby doll, or a shovel, or some blocks and cars and animals. And, yeah.
And, and we might need to be okay with the fact that the baby doll might need to be in the block area.
Yes, right, right.
They actually might need to do something with the baby doll in the block area. And so often we're like, oh, babies have to go back here or the blocks here. And part of me wants to be like, do they? Do they really have to? They might have to get packed away over there. But yeah, yeah. And I think too, as we're talking about that, I'm thinking about, I hear a lot about the behaviors. Like, there's this worry about behaviors and kids aren't responding to the same behavior interventions that we've used in the past. Part of that's because they're not the same kids we've had. Yeah, these these children have grown up in a different world. They're going to need us to do things differently, and we need to be okay with the fact that we might not have it figured out. And we might need to let ourselves be creative, and we might need to let ourselves step back and do some observing ourselves. One of the mantras that we use in our therapy is, do not change what you do not yet understand. So understand what's going on there, I you know, I might need to spend a little more time understanding before I can really change. I also sometimes I'm challenging people to say, are you having a behavior challenge, or are you expecting too much? Yes. Their developmental capacity, their developmental stages and adapting for this new development that a three year old is not the same three year old you had 10 years ago. This three year old has lived in a very different world. I meet with families. I even met with somebody who was talking to me yesterday about their staff person. They were like, I'm really worried because they're really struggling and not really sure what to do with this. And I asked them, like, well, how old are they? And they're like, oh, they're early 20s. I said, where were they during the pandemic? Yeah, even young adults, I'm like, and we had to think about what was their development during that stage, and how has that impacted them in their professional roles? To do some of this, all of us were impacted. We can't, we can't say that we weren't, because we all had a collective trauma.
Yes, that's such a good point. I do think that that's a great reminder for folks about the the staff that you're working with, in the partners, in your classrooms, in your teams, and everyone was at a different place, and is processing what has happened and how they're moving forward in their own unique way. So we're not only trying to understand each individual child in our care, but we also are really supposed to be trying to understand each other as adults and caregivers and the families that we serve, instead of a "oh, us against them." This is, they're just not doing it right. I'm going to just forge ahead, try my old ways, continue on this path. Let's be partners. Let's have an open dialog about the why and the wonderings together, because that's going to get us to a much better place much sooner.
And I might have to keep in mind that the pandemic was actually really helpful for some people. Like we often think about this. It was so big or so heavier, it was scary, and for some families it was beautiful. We had some kids that actually had access to parents they hadn't had access to before. We had parents that weren't running to five kids' sports every night, so were more present in the evening. So we also saw that there was some reduction of other types of stress during that time, that now that we've gone back to normal, and those parents are running all over the place again, that stress has come back too. So there also were some good things that may have happened during that time.
Yeah, yeah. That's interesting too, because, you know, you think about that when you find something in the closet that you've packed away for two years and you haven't looked at it, you think, yeah, I clearly have lived without this. Why? Why am I unpacking it? I'm going to just donate it or whatever. And even, even in what you're just describing, the running and the needing to be at so many things take, I mean, I think I know that some folks really did take time to step back as things started to get back, added into their lives again, saying, "Do we really need to have that busy of a schedule on the week nights, or should we just tone things down?" You know, do we want to choose certain nights of the week where we're home? Because we know how precious that was to us during that pandemic. So it is just, there's a lot of things. What a great podcast you've given us here. I'm telling you, I just, I really so appreciate the perspective that you're bringing because you're seeing such a wide variety of folks in the field, you care. I mean, you provide reflective consultation for the professionals doing the work, for the coaches who are providing the support for the families who are trying to parent and care for their children and for the children. So you're seeing the full picture, Tracy, which is so helpful to us to hear your perspective and what you're bringing and I'm going to just hit you up for another podcast in the future, because it's so enjoyable to talk with you. I just respect you and your skill and your expertise, and I think you're just, your ability to be so approachable and not judgy on things that truly we're all figuring this out, but we're doing it together, and that's why inclusion matters. Our podcast is here to really provide opportunities for folks to get a chance to learn from others and to hear these perspectives that are so important and so useful. So thank you for being here. Tracy Schreifels from the Ellison Center. We appreciate you.
Thank you, Priscilla.
And for those of you who want more information, as Tracy said, Ellison Center has a lot of offerings. So go to their website and their social media options, and you know, CICC at inclusivechildcare.org, we have a lot of resources available as well. We love to get phone calls. We love to ponder and wonder together with professionals and families who are caring for young children, because that's the most important thing, is to provide a path for that child's development that's going to really create success for them. And a sense of, I did it. We did it. I was just thinking when you said that, I'm like, oh, wouldn't that be a great t shirt. I did it. I just think, yay. Well, thank you, Tracy, thanks to our listeners, and we'll look forward to connecting again on Inclusion Matters.
Thanks for listening. For more resources, visit us at inclusive childcare.org.
