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KindlED
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments. Powered by Prenda, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle curiosity, motivation, and well-being in young learners. Do you have a question, topic, or story you'd like to share with us? Get in touch at podcast@prenda.com.
KindlED
Building Connection at Bedtime. A Conversation with Andrew Newman
Unlock the secrets of bedtime storytelling with our special guest, Andrew Newman, an acclaimed author and founder of Conscious Stories. He sheds light on the remarkable influence of bedtime stories in nurturing the priceless bond between parents and children. Together, we explore how those precious last 20 minutes of the day can be transformed into a powerful tool for emotional and cognitive growth, setting the stage for a lifetime of strong connections.
Dive into the fascinating realm where storytelling meets science, as we discuss the positive impacts of bedtime stories on children's emotional regulation and cognitive development. Discover how these narratives help children sequence events, expand vocabulary, and process emotions in a safe environment, while even assisting in calming their nervous systems for a restful sleep. Through engaging tales like "The Little Brain People," storytelling becomes a gateway to understanding brain functions and behavior, offering a playful yet profound approach to emotional intelligence and community building.
More About Our Guest
Andrew Newman is an internationally-renowned and award-winning author and founder of Conscious Stories, a growing series of bedtime stories purpose-built to support parent-child connection in the last 20 minutes of the day. His early and profound longing for connection with all things spiritual later inspired a career in writing and communication in many forms.
A recognized voice in the conscious parenting movement, Conscious Stories, is a culmination of his background, experiences, and humanitarian efforts, and is intended to bring parent and child into deeper connection with each other.
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About the podcast:
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.
Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.
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We're all ears! If you have a question or topic you'd love our hosts to tackle, please send it to podcast@prenda.com. Let's dive into the conversation together!
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So much of the parenting or teacher role has us in authority over kids. We're bigger than them. We decide the rules, we tell them what to do and as far as rank goes, we have rank over them. We're literally above them. And what happens in story time is we turn side by side and then the book comes out right and we go into the world of story. But we're doing it together.
Speaker 2:Hi and welcome to the Kindled podcast where we dig into the art and science behind kindling, the motivation, curiosity and mental well-being of the young humans in our lives.
Speaker 3:Together, we'll discover practical tools and strategies you can use to help kids unlock their full potential and become the strongest version of their future selves.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Kindle podcast everyone. Adrienne, how's it going today? It is good. So today, we're going to talk a little bit about something called Conscious Stories with Andrew Newman, and I'm really, really excited, and so I wanted to get a little insight into what bedtime is like at your house.
Speaker 3:Bedtime. We have a whole thing. It's quite the routine.
Speaker 3:And I feel like it has been since I've had children, and it's interesting because my youngest, when he was little, he would just go to sleep, and then I think we created this, it's like become this whole thing, but we did it because he naturally was fine. The other two did need us a little more, and so I do cherish those moments, though, because my 14 year old does not want me laying in bed with him reading stories anymore. So I still read to my 12 year old, where we always read really great literature now that he's older and I mean it's all great, but we dive into some pretty big books and then I read aloud to my youngest. What about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, reading is a huge part of it. I feel feel like, like nighttime read alouds is like probably our key connector in our family, like everyone looks forward to it. It's a time where there's no fighting, and I know like when you have littles, it can be stressful because they're like loud and, you know, distracting, they don't want to listen and things like that. So, um, keep at it, it's worth it. Eventually they'll they'll listen. Um, but yeah, it's just a Eventually they'll they'll listen. But yeah, it's just a really fun time, and sometimes they'll even come. It'll be really late and they'll come into our room and they'll be like can you just read to us some more? So I love it. I've been thinking, though, that I we've been on this schedule. That is just like really late to bed, like so late.
Speaker 2:And we need to get back on a good schedule and I need to do more with my girls.
Speaker 2:I think that I put a lot of effort into it with the boys the older two and so we have kind of like a good thing going on.
Speaker 2:And, um, I, I realized now like I think I've kind of been beating myself up about it a little bit because I they've like the girls have always been like the little ones. So it's like, okay, boys, like let me get the girls to bed real quick, and then I'll come spend 45 minutes reading to you, cause it's like I'm just putting the baby down, kind of Um, and so I haven't really. So it's still kind of like that. It's like, hey, let me put the, let me do bedtime with the girls really quick, and then the boys get this big long bedtime, um, cause the girls aren't quite ready to like listen that long. But they've been, they they'll like sneak in and they'll listen for a little bit and I'm like, okay, like they're getting to where they can listen, but again, like the difference in what they want to be read and all sorts of things, I don't know, I have not mastered this yet is what.
Speaker 2:I'm saying and it needs some addressing Cause I'm like all right, ladies see ya Like, and I need to do better. So I'm really excited to talk about conscious stories with Andrew Newman. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about him?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm super excited to dive into this conversation because he really goes into the brain science of why this is so important and what happens those last 20 minutes of bedtime. So stay tuned for an awesome conversation. So Andrew Newman is an internationally renowned and award-winning author and founder of conscious stories, a growing series of bedtime stories purpose-built to support parent child connection in the last 20 minutes of the day. His early and profound longing for connection with all things spiritual later inspired a career and writing and communication in many forms. A recognized voice in the conscious parenting movement, conscious Stories is a combination of his background experiences and humanitarian efforts and is intended to bring parent and child into deeper connection with each other, and his books do a really great job at this. He sent both of us a few of his books and I've been reading with them with my son, and I'm just so excited to talk to Andrew. Let's go do it. Welcome Andrew Newman to the Kindle podcast. I am so incredibly excited to talk to you today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic to be here with you. This is going to be great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so let's dive right in. Tell our audience who are you, Tell us about your background, how you came to the work that you're doing and what is your big, why in the world?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I write conscious bedtime stories. You can see a collection of books behind me. Guys like this, the boy who searched for silence and I came out of healing schools and therapy training in my mid-30s. I just reconnected to my own creativity. How hard it is for grownups to repair the injuries they sustained when they were kids and how much energy and effort and money and resource has to go into that process. And it was like surely it's just easier to set kids up on the right path right at the beginning.
Speaker 1:And in the beautiful naivety of that I was like I'm going to America, I'm going to start writing kids' books and we're going to weave some of the lessons that I start to see like we're all dealing with some things. You know, the boy who searched for silence. Everybody needs to find silence inside of ourselves. Once we've got that anchor, we can do all sorts of other things. If we haven't got that anchor, the world blows us around. So I was like it doesn't matter whether you're four or 40 when you discover that, but it will help your life a lot if you can discover it when you're four, rather than coming to work it out later in life. And so Bedtime Stories became the place that I geek out and see how we can help parents connect more deeply with kids, particularly in the last 20 minutes of the day.
Speaker 3:I absolutely love that. You said you came to America. Where did you come to America from?
Speaker 1:I came from Cape Town, south Africa. That's where I was born and my mom was Scottish, so I've spent many years between Scotland and South Africa. And my mom was Scottish, so I've spent many years between Scotland and South Africa. And then, in 2015, I came to America and started in Boulder, colorado, but I have been pop skipping and jumping all around. I like to experience new places every couple of years.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I love it. I'm curious why children's stories? Out of all of the different ways you could have gone into helping parents or helping kids, why children's stories?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a couple of reasons here.
Speaker 1:Firstly, parents are so busy. Being a parent is this full-time job From day one. You're just on, and I didn't want to add something into the task list for parents because I felt like that it's already full. And so story time is something that's almost inbuilt. We're like we're going to be doing it for a certain age group, between two and six or seven, depending on your kid. You're going to be tucking them in at night, You're going to be doing story time, and so it is an easy thing just to change the content rather than the task.
Speaker 1:And then there's another thing that's interesting in stories that so much of the parenting or teacher role has us in authority over kids. We're bigger than them, we decide the rules, we tell them what to do and as far as rank goes, we have rank over them. We're literally above them. And what happens in story time is we turn side by side and then the book comes out right and we go into the world of story, but we're doing it together.
Speaker 1:The parenting or teacher role has us in authority over kids. We're bigger than them. We decide the rules, we tell them what to do and as far as rank goes, we have rank over them, we're literally above them. And what happens in story time is we turn, we turn side by side and then the book comes out right and we go into the world of story. But we're doing it together and it's like you know how you have the best conversations when you're on a long drive, and it's the side by side posture that's part of that. We're both going off. Here. We've got a shared intention and storytime opens up that space which then opens up connection, which then allows the mirror neurons and the co-regulating to happen, where, hopefully, as the adult in the room, we're the one with a nice calm nervous system and we're able to support theirs and let them borrow ours we're able to support theirs and let them borrow ours.
Speaker 3:I love that you said it's about changing the content, not the task, because almost every parent I know does story time, does bedtime routine, even if it's really short, because little ones especially typically don't just go to bed, because they need that co-regulation. So then you're changing the content and I can say I have two of your books. I've been reading them to my seven year old at night. He absolutely it is changing. So we read stories every single night and I can tell you it is changing our narrative, our dialogue, his connection to me, and then we're able to learn concepts from your book that we can talk about during the day.
Speaker 3:One of the books is the Hug, which is the cutest book. I love this book so much and he loves it too. And there's stickers at the end, and so he's been taking the stickers out and if someone is not feeling great or grumpy or angry or whatever in our house we have a lot of big of emotions in our house He'll take one of those stickers and just put it on their shirts. So we had these little stickers like floating around our house. So it's really powerful to just by reading two of your books. How different by changing the content. That has really brought us closer, even though we have been doing story time since he was little.
Speaker 1:Right, that's fantastic to hear. So for folks who don't know that story, the hug is coming out of the hug factory in the middle of the heart, gets caught in the web of sticky thoughts. And then that sets up the dilemma as to how do I get free, how do we get the heart flowing again when it's blocked is really what we're exploring. And so do you find at home. You can now go oh, have you got a sticky thought? Because that's what I'm hearing from teachers. They're like okay, it looks like you might have a sticky thought, can we help you get free? And I'm like okay, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 3:We talk about sticky thoughts and I thought I had a really open, beautiful relationship with him and some of the sticky thoughts he shared with me were really surprising. I had no idea that he had some of these sticky thoughts, so it is really powerful. I think what you said about posture, about being side by side or we lay in bed together so he'll be laying on top of me versus me being over top of him- I think has been really powerful too.
Speaker 3:Can you dive a little more into the importance of storytelling, into, like, child development or brain development, and kind of walk us through what's happening there whenever we're, you know, laying together reading this book?
Speaker 1:we're talking about these concepts absolutely so.
Speaker 1:I geeked out over the last 20 minutes of the day because it got fascinating for me how uh trauma gets locked in the body a little T or big T, you know just like a small difficult experience is still part of how I'm going to set up my, my armoring, my, my belief system about whether I'm worthy, whether I'm safe, whether I'm loved, whether I belong. Uh, all of that as a, I'm developing it when I'm when I'm three years old and I haven't even lived for a thousand days, you know so. So the skills aren't there yet and the brain is under-resourced in the hardest possible moments it's trying to make a plan that we then live by that plan for the rest of our life. So that's got quite a lot of crazy making for us. So that's got quite a lot of crazy making for us.
Speaker 1:And the bedtime transition is when the brain is changing its activity. We know that when we go to sleep we're going to categorize and store memories from the day. We're going to be starting to build out the neural pathways for our strategy to stay safe the next day, for our strategy to stay safe the next day. And if you've ever been to sleep on an argument, you've probably experienced it when you wake up and you've basically spent the whole night arguing and sleep wasn't really a great function for that. And so if we can get the co-regulation and the downshift through story time together in those last 20 minutes of the day, then the brain and the nervous system's not working in a defensive way during the night. It's actually working in a way that's just calm, it's reset, rest. This is a natural healing state. We wake up in the morning, we're bright, we're ready to go and we're not worried about anything. That allows confidence to come through and shine, allows self-worth to come through and shine. So all of that is a wonderful opportunity to leverage the growth of self-worth and confidence for your little ones.
Speaker 1:In the classroom environment we've got a lot of teachers using the books as well. There's a growing understanding of how story time can be used to improve executive function skills. So, for example, if we're trying to help kids with sequencing and with memory, we can just say, after finishing a story, tell me what happened in the story, and then they've got to apply this, they've got to go back, they've got to think about it, they've got to work out what happened. The chances are that they'll tell something out of sequence, then you've got an opportunity to go back to the book and reflect and go through the pages again and then it gets put into its correct sequence in the memory-mind system. And we're actually using that muscle for the skill that we're trying to develop in an executive brain function using that muscle for the skill that we're trying to develop in an executive brand function.
Speaker 2:That's so fascinating and I can see this happening in my kids too. Like, just the concept of telling a story is super powerful. Sometimes, when they come home from school and I'm like, how was your day? And they're like fine, I'll say tell me the story of your day, like I'm watching a movie or something like that. Or like I'm reading the story of your day, like I'm watching a movie or something like that. Or like like well, like I'm reading the book of your day, right, and just giving them that frame of like oh, you want me to like really tell, tell you about my day. And then I listen as if they were reading me a book about their day. Um, so I think that's a really helpful context to give kids um and to help them process those emotions. Um, in kind of like a third party, like I could go to my son directly and be like hey, I noticed you know that you were feeling this way, or that you said this and we can talk about all of those things, and it kind of seems like a little confrontational almost sometimes.
Speaker 2:When I have conversations like that with my kids. I feel sometimes they go well and I feel like more connection and sometimes I'm like, oh, like that made him feel like attacked or like criticized in some way, even though that wasn't my attention. But if I, if we can experience those things kind of and then talk about other people experiencing those things, like in a story, that helps us to have these conversations, learn this vocabulary, like you're talking about sticky thoughts, these concepts. We have another series of books that we love that are kind of social, emotional type books and I kind of the other night was bringing some feeling vocabulary up with my daughter, trying to help her process and see some things that were going on in her life, and she just at the end of this conversation did this big sigh you could tell her nervous system was just like okay, that felt good to talk about. And then she just said, mom, can we have this conversation every night? I was like what conversation she's like the conversation of my feelings?
Speaker 2:And I'm like yes, we can have the conversation of your feelings every night and I feel like your books kind of give a platform for that, that invitation and like in a very gentle, connective way. So can we hear one of your books? Will you read us one?
Speaker 1:It helps the parents. Yeah, let's definitely read a book. So I mean, one of the things that helps the parents is some of the things that are built in like like the, the breathing practice at the start and activity page at the end. It helps you because it's then not you telling your kid to breathe, it's me telling your kid to breathe, and then you're like you've got to do it as well. Um, and and those little, those little conversation starters? Uh, let's jump into a story. Let's do the little brain people Fantastic. Okay, so, children of all ages, welcome to story time. Put your feet up and let's kick back and enjoy a story together.
Speaker 1:All of the stories start with the snuggle breathing meditation. This story is dedicated particularly to all who think. And so please join me. Breathing in, I breathe for me. Nice breath in, I breathe for you. Breathing in and out, I breathe for us and I breathe for all that surrounds us. If you need a yawn or stretch stretch, then you're doing it right. This is here to help us transition and to relax, connect and come into the story. Once upon a time, on a very ordinary day, deep in the center of a very ordinary brain, a scary thing happened, deep in the center of this brain lived the little brain people. Hello, little brain people. Give them a wave.
Speaker 3:Hello.
Speaker 1:Dopamine was very good at solving puzzling problems and making challenging choices. His twin sister, serotonin, was best at growing feelings of love, joy and happiness. On most days, you could see the twins happily relaxing in the front of the brain, but not on this day. On this day there was a problem. Uh-oh, on this day there was a problem. Uh-oh. A loud clattering bang gave serotonin and dopamine a fright.
Speaker 2:A very big fright. Ah, what happened Ah?
Speaker 1:Yelled serotonin curling up in a ball, whimpering. The world is falling on our heads, shouted dopamine, running to hit the panic button. Running to the back of the brain where it's all red Cousin, adrenaline jumped into action, bursting from his security watchtower barking instructions Danger, danger, danger. It's not safe, it's not safe, it's not safe. The echoing screams of frightened little brain. People filled all the pathways with worry and fear as everyone braced for lockdown.
Speaker 1:In the cloud of chaos, serotonin and dopamine collided and started fighting for no good reason. Totally overwhelmed, the whole brain just froze. Luckily, auntie Oxytocin had missed all the drama. She'd been sitting on the potty. Whoa, what happened here? She said, her teeth chattering. She paused breathing calmly, wondering how to help her panicked, frozen friends. Hmm, they must be having a yucky brain moment, said oxytocin. I know what to do. She walked to the front of the brain and gently touched the all-clear reset button. Beautiful music played as oxytocin's calming voice flowed through all the frozen pathways you are safe, you are safe, you are safe, you are safe, you are safe, you are safe.
Speaker 1:Ah, sighed Serotonin and Dopamine, taking deep breaths whilst wiggling their fingers and toes. You want to wiggle your fingers and toes? Oh well, huffed Adrenaline as he sulked back to the watchtower, knowing that his job was done. The twins chatted happily as they returned to the front of the brain. That was scary. Said Serotonin. I'm sorry, I got mad at you. I feel happy again. I'm sorry too, replied Dopamine. That was confusing for me. I'm glad I can think clearly now. That night the twins snuggled together with their family of little brain people. That night the twins snuggled together with their family of little brain people, grateful to be feeling safe and loved once again. They all got the best night's sleep ever.
Speaker 2:The end and the crowd goes wild. It's amazing. Oh the story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the language that you're giving kids we talk about dopamine all the time in this house but to put it to a story and characters and for them to really conceptualize what is going on in their brain and the language of yucky brain moments. So you were on, securely attached the podcast and I was listening to it. I was it as I was prepping for this talk with you and my son was in the room and I definitely had a yucky brain moment that day and he totally called me out, but it gave him language versus. You know, oh, mom is Because, typically, I mean, I have a lot of tools, I have a lot of breathing strategies, I breathe every day, I meditate every morning, I walk for an hour and I do all these things to take care of my nervous system.
Speaker 3:However, I'm still human and I still have a lot of, like you said at the very beginning, like there's I don't know if you use the word injuries or trauma, things that happened from childhood and so that still comes up different times and I'm, you know, triggered by certain things. And so it was just the noise and I was trying to get a project done and I could just feel it was flooding and he just kept. He was screaming at me, so it was just our, the battle of the amygdalas, you know we were just like going at it.
Speaker 3:And but then I, I mean I started, I was just like I can't handle. And then I, I paused and I was like I need to go take a. But then I, I mean, I started, I was just like I can't handle. And then I, I paused and I was like I need to go take a breath. Then I was listening to your podcast and he was like mom, that was totally. We both were having yucky brain moments and I was like you are completely correct. So I love the language that you're giving kids.
Speaker 1:There's no blame. I mean no blame and no shame, right? It's just this thing that's happening. We're going to do our best to not cause damage whilst it's happening, do the repair that's needed after it's happened, and then one of the things the stories are doing here are preparing you in advance of it happening, because we can't teach our little ones how to resolve a trigger whilst they're triggered. We've got to teach them how to resolve it before they're triggered, and then they must apply those tools whilst they're triggered. We've got to teach them how to resolve it before they're triggered and then they must apply those tools when they're triggered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to do that in a story like, how accessible is that? I mean, I've, I've sat my kids down and we talked about dopamine and serotonin in their brains they're like nine and 11, but I think this is like something that my four-year-old, my five-year-old, could access, you know, and to have that information and to like be able to recall that, I don't know. There is just like literally something magical about a story and that being a character that helps transfer that knowledge and makes it so accessible, even when you're in that, in that mode, you know, if I, if my, if my kids are having yucky brain moments and I'm like, oh, looks like you're dopamine, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're like having yucky brain moments and I'm like, oh, looks like you're dopamine, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:They're like mom.
Speaker 2:But if I like did it in a story. I feel like they'd be like, oh yeah that is.
Speaker 1:It's just like so genius. Let me pop up that, uh, um, that final page, which is the, the way that we do the, the, the brain balance barometer, is what I'm looking for. The brain balance barometer, that's what I'm looking for. Oh, so, yeah, yeah, that's the all clear reset button that you're seeing on the right, right in the middle there, and and this is what's happening to us constantly we're going from the green space where we feel safe and loved, we're calm, we're focused, we're happy, we're just, we're just being ourselves. Everything's going well.
Speaker 1:Something triggers it, whatever it is, um, in, obviously a loud, clattering bang, and then it's fight, flight and freeze that come in, and then it's a process of thawing out of that, and we can use these tools on the left-hand side sighing loudly, breathing into the belly, stretching and relaxing, playing music, yawning, relaxing, playing music, yawning, and then even at a point, you got to watch the timing of this, but because you can't say to a kid whose brain is in survival mode, you are safe, um, although, although it does need to be said. So it's this little dilemma that we, like the brain, might not hear it, but it's still better that it's that, that it's known, and then we learn a little bit. Here we say thank you, dopamine for helping think clearly. That's part of dopamine's role. Thank you serotonin for making me happy part of serotonin's role. Thank you adrenaline for keeping me safe. Now, cousin adrenaline. We love that guy, we're so glad he's here, we don't want to try and live without him. And also thank you oxytocin for keeping me calm.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful and I noticed you had a mini class and all you were doing was trying to do story time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I noticed in the pictures that they have like little antennas that kind of represent those things Like serotonin has hearts on her antennas and dopamine has a little puzzle piece. And those are actually some of our Pranda core values. Figure it out and start with heart. And so I wonder, if we went and looked at the core values, I wonder if we could tie a brain chemical. I'm sure we could find.
Speaker 3:I'm sure we can find our core. Hey, there's a new story ideas for you. There we go, All of our core values daring greatly, foundation of trust, learning over comfort. I bet we could find those values in all of your books already and then give you some more ideas for additional books.
Speaker 2:I love it. Okay, so I imagine that there are a lot of adults reading these books and that, just like we're helping our kids have these concepts and this language, this is probably new information to a lot of adult readers. This language, this is probably new information to a lot of adult readers, a lot of parents, and do you find that it also helps them, kind of?
Speaker 1:process the like big T, little t traumas of their lives as well. Yeah, I mean, one of the most common things that I hear is I wish I had these books when I was a kid, and then later, for the other parents, I wish I'd had these books when I had kids and this is a two-age experience, right, the little and the big, as you're observing really and I also realized, I mean I literally took my 30s and did healing, schools and personal development. That's all I did. I mean, I paid the rent by being a waiter and I just studied and I was immersed in it and I was like, oh, not everybody does this.
Speaker 1:So had I been the guy who had become a parent in my early mid-20s and that would have set me on a particular path of career, work, home building, I wouldn't have had this time. And so I realized that there were plenty of parents in that space who were just coming to their personal development and, in a certain way, needed to wait for their kids to grow up and leave the house before they could do it in their late 40s perhaps. And so the stories can speak to the adults who are going. I sense something, but I don't know that I've necessarily got the language for it. I know my head gets blocked up with thoughts and my heart closes. But how do I rationalize that? Make it okay, even inside myself as an adult, because often we give ourselves a hard time about this and it's like, well, it's happening to everybody. Let's, let's find an easier way.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of times when people go to do this work, there's a lot of defensiveness because they feel like I've been doing my best with what I was given and that has to be enough, right and um, there's kind of a level of uh, like de-armoring. That happens when you realize like, oh, like this isn't a character flaw in me, it's not that I'm impatient, it's that, like I have a human brain with a nervous system that is easily, like you know, it's telling me if I'm safe or not safe. And this is a common experience, like common to humanity, which puts me in the normal bucket, not the like broken bucket, right, and I think that that just goes a long way to kind of normalize this and, like you're saying, take the blame out of it, take the shame out of it and just call it what it is and embrace it and move forward.
Speaker 1:So really call it what it is and embrace it and move forward. So really, really helpful. Yeah, my hand is often going to my heart in a day and simply saying thank you safety system, thank you safety system, thank you safety system. Even in the hardest moments, where I'm the most dramatic in my own actions, internally and externally, that's my safety system, and so I can just go thank you, safety system, you are doing your job. My safety system never turns off, never. It's always ready to do its job. Isn't that amazing? Shouldn't I be grateful for that? And if I can bring some appreciation and gratitude to it in tough moments, I can settle the spiky edges. Just that 10%. Let's just bring it down 10% and then we return to ourselves faster. That all-clear reset button happens faster.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think it's really powerful that you're doing it right before a child and a parent goes to sleep. We had Ned Johnson on the podcast he was episode 42, and he talked about the default mode network and how the brain basically is like processing everything and getting rid of the junk. I listened to something I don't remember what it was on, but it was almost like the brain's washing itself during sleep. So if we can process in those last 20 minutes before a child goes to sleep, I mean how powerful that we're going to.
Speaker 3:I listened to you on a podcast and you said there were so many things that happened in those first six years of life that we are constantly trying to heal. But you know, as an adult, why don't we really focus on those first six years of life? So that they don't have to spend all that time repairing and trying to figure out you know what happened or like why they don't like going to the playground and then they can like link it to something that happened and it was never processed and because when we sleep we're processing all of the information that's happening during the day.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:One of the other things that I like about the stories is the imagination space and our schooling systems. Depending on where you are, actually there's a lot of them are getting very functional about project work for kids at a very young age, as opposed to having the freedom for imagination, and imagination is essential for visualization, for dreaming, for goal setting. It's something we have to be able to, uh, to play with and so so. Like we've created the world of the hug factory uh, you can, you can, you can come on in and you can hang out. Then I've created the world of the brain and you start to see what's inside there. Kids interestingly the young ones you go, where's your heart? They put their hand on the heart, they say where's your brain? And they look around. Right, it's not the same direct link as it is for the heart. There's this like I don't know, it's my concrete Brains inside your head, oh, my brain's inside my head.
Speaker 1:It's something that has to be learned a little bit more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and imagination is so powerful. So right before we got onto this podcast, I do have one kiddo still at home and he's home all by himself. His brothers are at school and he was having a yucky brain moment and I could tell he needed my attention. I was trying to get some work done, I was preparing, and he took off my arm of my chair. He came in and he was like unscrewing it, and I was like, oh, buddy, I see that you're having a tough time. And he was like I'm not putting your arm back on your chair. And I'm like, okay. And then my husband was like you need to your arm back on your chair. And I'm like, okay, so, and then you know. And then my husband was like, oh, you need to put that back on and we're giving him all these directives and telling him that he has to put the arm back in the chair.
Speaker 3:And he was just stuck Like I don't care, I don't care about you. And I was like, okay, what can I do? I was like I'm going to tap into story and play. And so I put a blindfold over my eyes and he put it in and we entered this world and we're running around the house. I was like I can't find you. It took literally three minutes and all of a sudden he was like oh, let me go put your arm back on your chair. So it's really powerful how we can tap into imagination and he just walked into the room. But it's really powerful how we can tap into imagination to help kids make sense of the world. Really powerful how we can tap into imagination to help kids make sense of the world. And I mean that's just the way they're wired to, yeah, I guess, to make sense of the world.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Hold on one moment.
Speaker 2:You want to say hi.
Speaker 3:This is here.
Speaker 2:You want to say hi to Andrew real quick. He's excited to meet you.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:This is the author of the Hug Factory.
Speaker 1:Can you see the hug book behind me there? Where's my finger Do?
Speaker 2:you see it.
Speaker 3:He wrote that book.
Speaker 1:And you got this one as well was it. Yeah, yeah, we read that one too, the Boy who Searched for Silence. Yeah, we're just chatting about stories. What's your favorite part of them?
Speaker 3:All of it stories. What's your?
Speaker 1:favorite part of them All of it.
Speaker 1:I'll come in and say that a lot of what I learned about the brain I learned from Dr Becky Bailey, whose work is found under ConsciousDisciplinecom, and it was astounding for me to realize that you can't talk to kids about brain function and the relationship between brain function and behavior.
Speaker 1:They talk about the executive brain in the front, the emotional brain in the middle and the survival brain at the back, and I had some help in writing the stories from some of the teachers who know that framework and we just decided to do the executive brain at the front, survival brain at the back. But I've been in classrooms, on classroom visits, where there's a brain map on the wall where kids are able to understand Because we're giving them the language we're feeding repetitive, repetitive language. It's like, oh, it looks like they're in the emotional brain state. Let's wish them well and then we can take a breath for a moment and we can connect to our heart and we can wish them well. And when I mean being on the receiving end of that as a grown man, when there's like 25 year olds wishing me well, it's like, oh, my goodness, melt, completely melt.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 2:That was my first book too, oh my goodness, melt, completely melt.
Speaker 2:That was my first book too. I don't know if I've told this story, but I got a book in the mail like maybe 10 years ago now and I had no idea who sent it to me and I almost threw it away because I didn't know where it came from and it was easy to love, difficult to discipline and I was like hovering it over the garbage can, thinking like who sent me this random book? My mom hadn't sent it to me, like I didn't order this book, and so I almost threw it away and some little voice in my head said don't throw that book away. And then I put it on the shelf for a year and a half.
Speaker 2:And then I got to a place in parenting where I had two littles and I think I was pregnant with number three and just having such a hard time thinking that I had to control their behavior and that they were bad kids because they couldn't sit still and listen and they weren't exactly obedient all the time and I was being this very cut and dry consequences focused parent. And then I read that book and I'm like I have been completely blind to everything that's actually going on here. And after I read that book and I'm like, oh, I have been completely blind to everything that's actually going on here. And after I read that and then I read Gordon, you felt hold on to your kids and just like dozens of other influences, but all kind of stem from that and I'm just so grateful for for that body of work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amazing, and it just is like you know, you're reminding me, like what it takes to be the parent. There you are, you know, two kids, one on the way is what you said and it was like it's like my system needed to take a breath and so, for the folks who are listening and are here, you've been with us for 20 minutes an hour. So long you're doing great, like the fact that you're engaged in the conversation, the fact that you're just you. I don't, it doesn't matter if you're driving the car, if you're multitasking, doing something else you've got you've chosen to listen to this podcast. Uh, you know it's about parenting. We know we're going to explore something. You're hoping to pick up a small superpower. That's what parenting is. You're like that's good enough Way to go. Guys, just keep doing that. That's incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen to that.
Speaker 2:I think it's so hard being in the trenches and living this every day and it's really hard if you don't have the tools, like you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, that you know you're the adult, you're the one with the calm nervous system that the child can borrow Like.
Speaker 2:I don't think I wish that that was true for the majority of adults, but you know that's that's a dream, where we're trying to get to that and a lot of this, like all of this work that we're doing, can get us there.
Speaker 2:But I think that so many adults are stuck in that space where it's like I just like, if only this external thing would change, if my child would listen to me, if they would fall asleep, you know X, y or Z would change, then I would feel calm and I think the work that you're doing and through Conscious Discipline and Becky Bailey's work, the New Felton Institute, all these things, what they're calling us to is just the idea that you can have that healing that's a you thing right, that you can, totally you. You can do that work and you can find that peace and and develop a nervous system that you're in tune with and you can develop tools to really understand yourself and then when you then go to try to parent or interact with a child's the teacher, wherever you interact with kids, that's where the magic happens. It's not. It's not. Can I modify this child's behavior in my classroom through excellent classroom management techniques? It's like can I show up in this, in this child's behavior in my classroom, through excellent classroom management techniques?
Speaker 1:It's like, can I?
Speaker 2:show up in this child's life as a safe place of warmth and compassion and empathy, and let them borrow my nervous system as they're developing their own, you know, as you've said, like their belief system about if they're safe, if they belong, like all of those things that the framing that we're going to keep for the rest of our lives. Um, anyways, tangent on just how important this work is and I'm so, so grateful to be a part of it. I feel like it's just, I'm just grateful and and we can motivate why.
Speaker 1:Why adult first? Like if there's an adult is still like. I don't know why I need to do this first, why can't my kid just do the thing? We're essentially like a flock of birds. When one takes off, the entire flock takes off right, and that's what's happening in our brain. So one bird gets a little fright, the information is transmitted through the entire flock instantaneously and the whole lot move as one. How that plays out in the brain state is a five-year-old on the other side of a kindergarten class goes into a survival state because someone takes their pencil. Every brain in the class has to go. What just happened right has to go. What just happened right has to spark, has to activate again back into the survival aspect of the brain to make sure that they're okay. And of course we know that. You know everyone turns towards the loud screaming. We're all like, we all kind of freeze when it happens and if we step in in that moment, our brain is also frozen. Our brain is also in survival. Now how do we regulate from that place? We actually can't. So we want to have that little interruption where it goes okay.
Speaker 1:I'm actually allowed as an adult to take a breath in a difficult moment like this. No one's going to die if I take a breath. I've attended to that, Obviously. If it was a situation that was that severe, you would just attend to it like that. But now attended to that. Obviously, if it was a situation that was that severe, you would just attend to it like that. But now you're in the classroom, just take a breath and go, and then your system starts to come online again. You get to wish the kid well, which is a conscious discipline tool. And it's similar in the hug who got stuck. When the hug gets stuck, one of the keys to getting's similar in the in the hug who got stuck when the hug gets stuck, one of the keys to getting unstuck is to focus on the heart. The love is for right. It puts us into an outbound service oriented position and our nervous system just just settles right down when we get to have that.
Speaker 1:And and that's why adult first, like if we can, if we can do that, that's how much change we can affect with it, with a classroom full of kids.
Speaker 2:I really love the bird analogy, um, because we, when we see that in nature, we don't look at that and think like what a bunch of disorganized um, like distracted, naughty birds, right. But when we see that behavior in five-year-olds, we're like why are they out of? They're out of control. Like control, someone control those kids. Like they can't settle down and they're being naughty and they're going to get their name on the board and things like that. And like, oh man, if we just understood that this is just our body safety system, it's part of like like a healthy, a healthy system. It would just change how we can, um, you know, interact with them in that moment.
Speaker 3:I think it's also really important to note that the adult, a fully developed brain with a fully developed brain not all adults, we know, uh, you know have fully developed prefrontal cortexes, but they have more access to pausing, to those breaks than a very, very underdeveloped brain. And we're talking about five-year-olds. They have extremely underdeveloped brains and so they don't have as much access that they are a hundred percent dependent on that adult in a room on their nervous system. I'm a certified conscious parenting coach through the Jai Institute for parenting and that is what we learned right out of the gate is parents are going to come to you with all these problems that they, their kids, have and they want you to fix their kids. We got to start with the parent because the kids emulate our parents. They're wired to model, Even if we don't, if we say one thing and we're modeling a different thing, they're going to go off of what they're modeling.
Speaker 3:Their brains are wired and constructed to be like their parents regardless if we like that or not, or like the adult in the room or whoever they have, you know, an attachment to.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I just want you to speak to how attachment plays into this whole. Like you know, we've you've written stories so that parents and kids can connect at night before bedtime, which I think makes so much sense and like the broader, the broader goal there is to build attachment right. And can you just kind of define what attachment is to you and how you see these stories and kind of this way of parenting playing into building, to building relationships that have strong kids, that have strong attachment to their primary caregivers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting because if we start going into the adult space around us, we're going to be talking about securely attached or anxious, or anxious avoidant, and again it's a whole melee of labels that we're putting on ourselves pathologically, again saying we've somehow done something wrong and we're less than and we're not functioning great. Which is why my preferred word is connection, because connection is a sense of. There's a sense of we know when it's happening. The three of us here are connected in a conversation. Occasionally the internet glitches and the connection drops. Now we've got a very clear understanding of when we're connected and when we're not connected, of when we're connected and when we're not connected. We're also able to then drop into aspects of depth and in a normal day between a parent and child, there's plenty of things that are kind of superficial connected. Hey, brush your teeth, you know like, put your pajamas on. Is there connection happening? Yes, is it the same connection that's happening in that moment when your son is telling you his sticky thoughts after you've been sitting in bed together for 10 or 15 minutes doing story time, snuggling? No, those are different depths of. I don't know if strength is the right word If we were thinking of it visually as a rope. One would be a thin rope and one would be a nice, thick, woven, strong rope that you've got between heart and heart.
Speaker 1:Some of my training was in the world of energetics, so we were learning about how we hide ourselves versus how we show up, depending on what our pattern is. And that's it. There's literally. If you could see the world through the lens of energy, there's literally a little thread that goes between me and you because we're connecting now. Now the threads between you and your children are much more developed because you've got much more time in the relationship, you've got much more equity in it and we want to be able to have this backwards and forwards flow of our energy. It's a little bit like ping pong. I'm going to hit the ball over the net and I know you're going to hit it back so we can keep the game going. And if we can keep the game going, I feel better about myself. If we can't, then that's what would resemble some sort of a broken attachment process and we drop out and we're alone. Ping pong's not as much fun by yourself.
Speaker 2:This is reminding me of. We did an episode, episode 50, with Howard Glasser, the author of the Nurtured Heart Approach, and he talks about this a little bit. Energy is kind of a currency between adults and children.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, wonderful idea. If there was one thing that I could teach more of, it be touch, and and. Because this was absolutely life-changing for me and I didn't grow up in a family where there was a lot of physical affection uh, in my early 20s I had to learn how to hug. It was deeply awkward and uncomfortable for me. I was like someone would come in. What are you doing in my space? I don't understand this um and and and. To get to the point where there was pleasure around it and then so there was. Later in the time, we start to realize that these hands are incredible. And you know, you bang your knee. The first thing you do is your hands go to your knee and that it sets up a flow of energy that is helpful for the nervous system and for the recovery and for the healing, and the whole system just starts to go. I worked with patients in coma for a series of time in South Africa and in the hospital environment.
Speaker 1:And I learned that this is very distracting to someone in coma. The moving of the hand up and down. It's too much information to try and process. For someone who's in that dream state, a firm, settled touch with a hand in one place is much more comforting than movement and I was like when I learned that, I was like that makes so much sense for me, for my particular system. I'm like just put your hand in one place and I'll feel safe, I'll know where you are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know I really want to take time just to have gratitude for my brain, because, as you were talking, I had a visceral reaction when you were talking about hugs. Because when I was in college, I was a visceral reaction when you were talking about hugs because when I was in college, I was a big sister with big brothers, big sisters to a little girl who she lived with her grandparents. Her mom was incarcerated and the house was, it was just, they were hoarders and it was very filthy, and so I really developed this beautiful relationship with her. And again, when you said it, I could just feel this flooding of emotion in my body, because when I left college and I moved across the country, I went to give her a hug and I realized which I'll get emotional that she had never been hugged before and and and I never recognized in the three years that I was her big, that that touch, how powerful it was.
Speaker 3:And then, not to get more sad, but once I moved out to Arizona, she died in a car accident and she was hit by a drunk driver who was trying to take his own life. And so it's just so powerful, everything that we're talking about and what you're doing through story to connect adults to children, teachers to children, parents to children is so incredibly powerful, and I just want to thank you for the work that you're doing, because it is going to make a difference with people that get these books in their hands. So I would love to ask really quick how can teachers and educators use stories like yours to enhance learning and engagement?
Speaker 1:I mean, following the things that we've been touching in here, let's come back to the basics. Do the breathing practice every story, every time, I don't mind if it's not my story. Find a way to do a breath as a transition into your story time and then you're welcome to use the activity pages at the end to reflect back. You can start to identify what is the executive function skill the particular child you're working with is lacking and then just ask a question that starts to bring that back. Ask a question about time, Ask a question about sequence. Help them focus by asking them what the most important part of the story was or what their favorite part of it was.
Speaker 1:All of those things are developing functional skills in the littles and the most you know. To state the obvious, we were all little ones and those little guys they're going to be big at some stage and running governments and teaching in other schools and being models for their kids. So it's such powerful work that the teachers are doing to be helping kids at such a young age. My heart always goes out to them. They're on the front line in a way that is extraordinary in terms of service and devotion, and I have so much appreciation for the teaching community.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, we do too. And the parents on the front line as well. So this is a question we got to wrap up. I mean, I could talk to you for another couple of hours, but this is a question we ask all of our guests, Andrew. So who is someone who has kindled your love of learning, curiosity, motivation? As you're talking, we can tell you're a very passionate person. So who has kindled that in you?
Speaker 1:Well, in the story world it was Maurice Sendak with when the Wild Things Are. When I learned what he's done with his art and I had to go through an exhibition and a gallery of it where they explained it for me to go oh my goodness, this is brilliant. The little ways that he starts to use the frame of the page to recess back into the book to convey the dream state. That, to me, got me really thinking on my own understanding in the space of really thinking on my own understanding in the space of writing and illustrating, and then in the personal development space.
Speaker 1:I've been such a I don't know a super fan of Dr Shefali's that when I was first coming into the I had only written a couple of books. I didn't know I was starting a business, I didn't know I was going to be doing so much around children at that stage. And there I was reading her first book, the Conscious Parent, and I was like, yes, yes, yes, I like that, yes, why has nobody said it like this before? And so she's just caught some of my heart there.
Speaker 2:Love that, Okay. So last question how can listeners learn more about your work?
Speaker 1:Yeah, come and hang out at ConsciousStoriescom Visit on Instagram, which is Conscious Bedtime Stories and reach out, Share what you're struggling with, what you're interested in seeing for teachers and schools who'd like an author visit? That's one of my favorite things to go and do a drop-in and an immersion at a school. We get to meet the parents, the teachers, the kids. That's just my favorite thing. But all of it is centered through ConsciousStoriescom.
Speaker 2:Love that. Thank you so much for your time today. We've loved this conversation.
Speaker 1:Such a pleasure. Yes, thank you so much.
Speaker 3:I'm inspired by what you're doing in your community. Thanks for having me. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Kindle podcast. If this episode was helpful to you, please like, subscribe and follow us on social at Prenda learn. If you have any questions you would like for us to address on the podcast, all you need to do is email us at podcast at Prendacom. You can also join our newsletter, the Sunday spark, by going to our website and signing up.
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