Executive Leadership Skills

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, has been making headlines for several weeks following the release of her new book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. As she has been making the rounds of talk shows and events, promoting her book, she has been quoted time and again suggesting that we stop labeling little girls “bossy” and instead describe them as having “executive leadership skills.” 

“I wrote this book because I want to ban the word ‘bossy’ from the language. I would like every parent who’s about to call their daughter bossy to say, ‘My daughter’s not bossy, she has executive leadership skills.’” [source]

Like many women, teachers, caregivers, and human beings in society, I agree (passionately) with the heart of her message, which I believe is about the deeper, unspoken messages we tend to give little girls in contrast with those that we give little boys (like: be quiet, be sweet, get along, don’t make waves, make sure people like you). I agree (passionately) with the idea that we not adhere labels, period, whether we intend them to be positive or negative. However, as a woman, a teacher, a caregiver, and a human being in society, I have to be honest, her message does not sit well with me. It niggles at me, and here’s why: I don’t care for bossy people. I don’t care for bossy boys, bossy girls, bossy men, or bossy women. I was discussing this whole issue with my husband after we had watched Sandberg’s interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and my husband said, “We call bossy girls ‘bossy’. We call bossy boys ‘bullies.’” 

Don’t we? When I hear “bossy,” I don’t think of leadership. I think of domineering. Controlling. Getting one’s own way, whatever the cost.

The word “bossy” does send a negative message. I’m not sure it needs to be reframed, because I think being bossy is a negative quality. I have worked with many little girls and many little boys who could have been labeled “bossy.” Rather than denying the negative qualities that would have earned them this label, I worked to foster within them the prosocial skills that would lead to greater interpersonal successes down the road. 

True leaders are not bossy. That is, they don’t domineer and they don’t control. They have vision and passion and they care about those that they are leading. They guide. They bring out the best in others. They don’t railroad others. What Louis R. Mobley found when he set out to create the IBM Executive School was that, “Unlike supervisors and middle managers, what successful executives shared were not skills and knowledge but values and attitudes. And over time Mobley identified the values and attitudes that great leaders share.” [source] 

The unfortunate reality is that many executives are bossy and they are bullies. Many people who achieve great success in business and banking do so at the cost of the prosocial skills their preschool teachers may have tried to instill. Many find that they work so long and so hard at cultivating their competitive drive that they’re unable to turn it off when they leave the office (if they ever do). The always-on charisma that has gotten them so far doesn’t necessarily make them successful at authentic connections. I know that I’m not alone when I say that this is not a world that I understand or could thrive in. The world I work in is the polar opposite. 

In the real world that I work in, I am a leader. In fact, I am a pretty good leader on the best of days. Here are the things that have helped to make me successful: honesty, empathy, initiative, clarity, and not being afraid to get my hands dirty (I never ask anyone who follows my leadership to do something that I have not done or would not do). I couldn’t write a book on leadership because my leadership is very small and very quiet. Inside, I don’t think of myself as a leader. Inside, I think of myself as being pretty easily intimidated by the bossy people of the world. Sometimes, however, I find that those feelings are to my benefit. Being humble is not a bad leadership quality.

What I would prefer to see, rather than a world in which we’re fostering little executives on the playground, is a world in which we collectively stand up to the bossies and the bullies and flip the whole paradigm so that nice guys and nice girls who passionately do the right thing and are kind are the ones who finish first.

What does a leadership based on positive values and attitudes look like on the playground, in contrast with plain old bossiness? Positive leaders say, “Let’s find something that we can all play together,” rather than, “You can’t play.” Positive leaders say, “Let’s take turns being the mama,” rather than, “I’m the mom and you’re the dog.” Positive leaders say, “I don’t like when you do that so I’m going to walk away right now,” rather than, “If you do that, we won’t be your friends anymore.”

One of the toddlers in my program right now could be described (and no doubt, down the line, will be described) as a bossy little girl. After listening to Sheryl Sandberg on NPR during her lunch break one day, my assistant told me, “We need to recognize her leadership skills.” During snack that afternoon, when the little girl angrily gestured for me to go back to the kitchen to find and deliver food that was more to her liking, my assistant and I looked at one another and silently agreed: sometimes bossy is just plain bossy and it’s not cool. “She is trying to lead me,” I acknowledged. I bent down to this toddler and said quietly, “Did you want to have something more? You were telling me, ‘More, please!’” I signed the words with a smile. The little girl smiled and signed, “More, please.” That is leadership I can follow.

Rock Star

It’s a tragedy of growing up that we so quickly forget what it feels like to be a toddler. Can you imagine what the world would look like if we could call to mind that feeling as an adult? I believe that we can sometimes capture a small fragment of it, but the true immersive experience happens only once, and only fleetingly. While parents trudge through their child’s toddlerhood, it can seem endless (when a five minute tantrum on the grocery store floor seems to last five days, at least), but in retrospect it passes in the blink of an eye, barely here and then gone again. Just ask the parent of a third grader and watch them fade into dreamy memories of distant chubby wrists and big eyes and wet, sticky kisses.

From the outside, it’s magic: so pure, so intense, and so important — every second of every day is taken up with the kind of learning, growth, and development that will happen just once in a lifetime. I believe that toddlers can teach us some of the most valuable life lessons, if we can learn to tune in. It’s probably a good thing for society as a whole that we quickly move forward from the full-bodied intensity of the toddler experience. Polly Elam describes beautifully how we always retain a little bit of our toddler self inside of us and it tries to emerge at the most inconvenient times (get cut off in traffic? your response most likely comes from the toddler in you), but it’s rarely the best of our toddler self. Have you had the privilege of seeing the best of a toddler? There is nothing like it: the enthusiasm, the passion, the great, shining love they have to give. Those gorgeous toddler qualities are how we all survived toddlerhood intact, I imagine — they are a parental lifeline during the less pleasant toddler scenes.

I’m trying to record some of the more fabulous toddler moments we’re fortunate enough to experience in our classroom on a daily basis. Here is one such moment from last week that still makes me laugh out loud to remember: One child, who was battling a cold, was suddenly overcome with exhaustion and was laying across the lap of her primary caregiver, snuggling a blanket and sniffling and hiccuping away the last of a meltdown. Her primary caregiver softly sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Another bright-eyed toddler stood by the caregiver’s shoulder, an enormous smile on his face as he quietly observed the scene. The caregiver stopped singing and the smiling toddler instantly burst into enthusiastic applause, throwing his arms apart and clapping his hands together with such energy that he nearly toppled over, all while shouting, “YAAAAAAY!” The caregiver turned to him, starting to laugh, and he promptly threw both arms in the air and began to sway from side to side, ready for the next song to begin (in his mind, we could see, this child was at a rock concert, having the absolute time of his life).

That is the toddler experience: life is awesome and you are a rock star.

Judge Not

When I was growing up, I lived directly across the street from a very judgmental woman. My dad referred to her and her group of close friends in the neighborhood as The Nose Brigade, due to their nosy nature. I imagine there was a similar group of ladies in the majority of suburban neighborhoods across America for decades — women with lots of time and lots of opinions and lots of time spent sharing their opinions. When I was young, this particular woman, head of The Nose Brigade, was just about done raising her four children, so she was the authority on child-rearing. She was the authority on a number of other topics, as well, including (but not limited to): gardening, housekeeping, finances, health, and lifestyle choices. If you were doing something — anything — in a way that differed from the way she would have chosen to do it, you were wrong and she would not hesitate to talk about how wrong you were to everyone but you. For a very long time, I believed her to be the most judgmental person in the world. Then I grew up and came to realize that the world is packed with a wide range of judgmental people, some of whom make the leader of The Nose Brigade look downright open-minded.

I haven’t worked in another industry, so perhaps a statement like this is not fair (perhaps, in fact, postal workers, investment bankers, or baristas encounter an unfathomable amount of judgment in their daily work), but it seems that when you work with children, you encounter more judgments and more shockingly outspoken judgmental people than you encounter anywhere else. Judgments are directed at you, your work, your young charges, families, administrators, fellow teachers and caregivers, and even the custodial crew. Teachers judge other teachers, moms judge other moms, and so on, to infinity and beyond. Sometimes, it seems, children give people an excuse to be judgmental, as we couch judgments in questions about whether one is doing what’s best for the child.

I make an effort every day to fight the good fight against being judgmental of others myself and of enabling toxic judgments in my environment — that is, I make a conscious effort to nip gossip in the bud. I try to be honest with myself about a tendency to be judgmental about certain ways of doing things (because, of course, if my way is the right way, your way must be wrong) and make a genuine effort to be open to everyone’s story. Everyone has a story. They have a context that they make their choices and decisions within. Everyone has a unique way of balancing, juggling, and managing life and stress. Everyone has a history.

I am currently working with a parent who rivals the leader of The Nose Brigade in her ability to issue harsh and sweeping judgments. She directs her judgments at the other parents in my program. Over time, I have begun to notice that in addition to issuing judgments of others, she spends a great deal of time talking about herself. When she seems to be talking about her child, in fact, she is more often than not talking about herself (for example, rather than relating what was going on with him when he woke in the night, she relates what was going on with her in response). I began to observe a note of insecurity beneath her stories and her judgments, and so I started to understand, I think, where it was coming from. One day she told me about growing up in her family, with four brothers, and how competitive everything was. She said that when they get together these days, all adults with their own families, they’re now competitive about their children. I thought about her career and her success within that career and how much of that was due to a competitive drive. I thought how difficult it must be to turn that down, if not off, and how that must bleed into so many aspects of her life. I see it all reflected in her children, for better or for worse, and even in the interactions that her sixteen-month-old son has with peers. And as I try to observe this through a lens of empathy, I’m able to tone down my own judgment of her judgmental streak and respond in what I hope is a more consciously positive and proactive way.

Here are a few ways I have found to respond to judgments and gossip directed at mutual friends, colleagues, or acquaintances:

• “Oh? I hadn’t noticed that. [pause] Did you see that so-and-so did [insert positive observation].” This tends to work well for shifting a conversation from negative gossip, designed to run down others, to a conversation about something good that is happening.
• “You know, I just read an article that said [insert relevant factual information on topic].” You want to avoid engaging in an argument, but standing strong in something you’re serious about is not a bad thing. Pick your battles, but don’t be unwilling to calmly and reasonably share good information.
• Shift the conversation back to them. For example, a mom I know was making me uncomfortable talking about a mutual acquaintance who had just announced her pregnancy. I shifted the conversation by saying, “Do you ever think about having another one?” Whether she understood that I was uncomfortable discussing the third party or wanted to talk more about herself, it worked.
• “I often think about that quote: ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’ We can’t know what it’s like to be in those shoes.” Is it okay to let a judgmental person know that you’re judging them for being judgmental? I’m not sure, but it does work quite well to put a stop to viscous gossip.
• Smile and shrug, “Agree to disagree!”

They say that judgments most often spring from insecurities. It makes sense then that moms and dads and caregivers are so often judgmental of one another, when they see someone doing something differently. Deep down, almost too quietly to be heard clearly, a little voice rings out: “Are you doing things right?” Insecurity! Guilt! Two powerful forces that can rule all decision-making and interactions if we’re not conscious of them. We could all benefit, perhaps, from taking a moment to consciously recognize, “Huh. That’s different.” Not right. Not wrong. Not better. Not worse. Just plain different. And isn’t that wonderful? (And if it’s not wonderful, is it really your problem? Don’t you have other things to do and see and worry about yourself? Move along.)

Working with families, it is part of my job to identify when they may need extra help or support in an area. It is also part of my job to provide that extra help and support with kindness and empathy and without judgment. Walt Whitman said, “Be curious, not judgmental,” and I think this is an approach to working with families that can be of benefit to teachers and caregivers who find themselves being more judgmental than they wish to be. When you observe a family doing something (or not doing something) that you think is “wrong” or needs changing, perhaps take a break and ask yourself some questions before speaking your mind to another (be it the family in question or a co-worker).

• Is the child safe? If the child is not safe, say something.
• Is the child thriving? Maybe the child isn’t eating what you think they should. Maybe they’re not sleeping as you think they should. Maybe they’re watching more TV than you would allow. But are they healthy and growing? If the answer is yes, maybe their family just makes different choices. You can expose them to alternatives, but you can also choose to smile, shrug, and agree to disagree.
• Is the child happy? Perhaps your gut tells you something isn’t right. You need to follow-up with more questions.
• Do you know why? In general, it can be helpful to say, “I noticed _______. I wonder why you do it that way.” Sometimes there is a good reason. Sometimes they haven’t considered another way. In either case, it’s an inoffensive way to open the door for discussion. It’s an avenue you can wander down in curiosity and with caring.
• What is the goal? You should make a point of finding out the family’s goals, but you should also examine your own. What do you hope to accomplish in approaching this issue with the family? Are you putting the child first?

Approaching this world of differences with curiosity (like a child, one might say) opens the door to a wonderful learning opportunity. In working with families from a place of curiosity, I have learned so much and been able to change myself and my perspective for the better. Today, I’m less likely to consider something different to be wrong. Perhaps you put your baby in a swing, while I choose to put them on the floor. I do so to provide opportunity for movement. You do what you do to keep them off the floor and safe from your dog or your toddler or because you really need five minutes to regroup. I get it. It’s all okay. We all have our reasons for what we do, but how often do we stop to truly consider them? Doing so can help you to be less judgmental yourself and to stand firm in what you believe in when you find others judging you and yours.

Tell me: what have been your experiences with judgments? (I promise not to judge.)

Resolutions, 2013

In the first days of the new year, many of us reflect on what we’d like to accomplish in the months ahead. The new year feels like a blank slate, full of exciting possibilities.It could be the year we finally climb that mountain, run that marathon, or — in my own case — give that presentation at a conference that we’ve been thinking about giving for years. I’m not big on “resolutions” myself, on an annual basis. I’m more in the practice of making lists of things that I’d like to do more of. Not necessarily things about myself that I’d like to change, as I’m never terribly successful at that, but instead things that I really enjoy doing that I’d like to do more of, or things that make me feel good about life, the universe, and everything. Over the past few years, I’ve found that I’m able to tick off these lists quite handily over the course of the year and they really do make me more mindful of focusing on good things as the year progresses. As an example, last year I had written down that I’d like to make a point of attending more concerts because that’s something I love to do that I hadn’t done much of. Making myself consciously open to it, I had attended three such events before the year was half over and found myself feeling quite culturally satisfied.

I also like to take some time to think about my work and what I’d like to do more of. This year, I ridiculously found myself writing down that I’d like to be more “patient”. I’m certain this is the desire of everyone who has children in their lives (and many who don’t). As I reflected on it, however, I found it was too vague and generic. I asked myself what that would realistically look like in my day-to-day work with children, families, and colleagues. Where would this magical, new, extra patience come from? Sometimes I feel that I find less and less of it as the days go by, so the idea that I could just write it down and make it so was — we can all agree — laughable.

When people hear that I work with infants and toddlers, common responses are, “Oh, that must be so much fun!” and, “You must have so much patience.” I feel that these two responses are closely related because they betray two of the most common myths about what I do (although it is, more often than not, tremendously fun and does seem to require that one not be tremendously impatient, by nature).

Myth # 1: It’s fun!

Reality: This is my work, so while I do tremendously, intensely enjoy the infants and toddlers I work with and certainly laugh much more often than most people probably do in their jobs, I feel the same weight of responsibility, deliberateness, and overall seriousness that a job of this nature requires (which is often the very aspect of what I do that frays at my patience, as time passes). The children themselves are fun (and, of course, cute!), but my assignment requires much more than sitting back to observe merriment among small people. I have deadlines to meet, expectations to fulfill, and seemingly endless challenges to try to overcome. At our staff holiday party last month, one of my co-workers who teaches in the preschool commented, “I love to look into your room. I could never do what you do though. I just can’t sit so peacefully that much.” One of my infant co-teachers caught my eye afterwards and we shared a secret laugh: “She thinks we sit all day! PEACEFULLY!” She thinks this because each time she passes by, she can see that we’re on the floor with the children. We’re probably, more often than not, smiling too! Looking for all the world like we’re just having fun. Maybe even looking serene, exuding the air of peace that a good infant program ought to, which fails to betray the busy humming beneath the surface. I have never had a job that is more physical, more intensive, or more deeply (gratifyingly) exhausting than caring for infants and toddlers. This work that I do requires my entire brain, body, and heart just about every second of the work day. When you look through the window and see me “sitting peacefully,” what you may not know is that I am positioned right here so I can watch those busy toddlers closely, hold this fussy baby in one arm, reassure this crawling infant who doesn’t want her people more than an arm’s length away right now or she’ll be in panic mode, and read a story at the same time.

Myth # 2: We have superhuman patience.

Reality: I’m just like everyone else, I just have slightly better impulse control, partially because (see above) it’s my job. I’ve been trained over years to respond to children in a certain style, so when all else fails, I have a toolbox of tricks to fall back on. I’ve been working with children for long enough that I’ve seen and heard a lot. I’ve learned and grown and matured into my current role, but I’m (really) far from perfect. I do lose my patience, although perhaps less frequently than someone who does not spend nine hours a day five days a week with infants and toddlers. Just like everyone else, I’m hard on myself when I do. Some of the people that I admire most are the people who have more patience than I do. I wonder what their secret is. But maybe it’s similar to my own, when others presume a level of patience that I doubt myself to possess: I’m pretty good at faking it. I am good at keeping calm, in certain situations. Two toddlers clinging to my legs, crying, while I’m in the middle of changing the diaper of a third and a co-worker tries to ask me a question and the phone rings? No problem. But it’s nearly 6:00 PM on a particularly Monday Monday and a toddler experiments with pinching (me) for the twentieth time that day? I might snap, “NO! NO pinching!” and feel like crying myself when their face crumples.

I definitely want more fun and less impatience, but I need to delve deeper into what that means and looks like.

“The keys to patience are acceptance and faith. Accept things as they are, and look realistically at the world around you. Have faith in yourself and in the direction you have chosen.” – Ralph Marston

In terms of my work, what does the idea of being more patient mean?

• It means to slow down. To ignore the perceived “schedule” of the day and to be in tune with the natural flow of the children. To allow things to take time (Magda Gerber’s quote on development rings in my head quite often: “In time. Not on time”).
• To allow myself and the day to be imperfect, being brave enough to let go of some of the expectations of the families in favor of doing what is best for each unique child on each unique day.
• To make even more eye contact and soul contact with the children in my care, because when I feel more connected to them, they feel most connected to me.
• To be more reflective, which means engaging in more meaningful documentation and conversation.
• Take a few deep breaths before responding to a pincher (or biter or hitter or…).

This seems like a reasonable start.

The Nonfiction Debate

This morning I read a piece in The New York Times about the Common Core Standards‘ nonfiction requirements: What Should Children Read? With the implementation of Common Core Standards, the article reports, fully 70 percent of the 12th grade curriculum will consist of nonfiction titles, which is quite a shift from where the focus seems to have been in recent years. My memories of assigned readings throughout my public and private education, from elementary school through university, primarily involve works of fiction (one notable exception being The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank). I do have fond memories of reading Scholastic’s Weekly Reader publication in class, as well as reporting on “current event” articles from the local newspapers from time to time in fourth and fifth grade.

I haven’t read the new standards in their entirety myself, but I imagine that teachers will have to take the good with the bad. One question that the debate over fiction versus nonfiction raises is why we want children to read certain titles and genres. As we engage in necessary and important debate, we must never lose sight of the fact that we want, more than anything, for children to read, full stop. A quote that particularly jumped out at me from the article this morning was the following:

David Coleman, president of the College Board, who helped design and promote the Common Core, says English classes today focus too much on self-expression. “It is rare in a working environment,” he’s argued, “that someone says, ‘Johnson, I need a market analysis by Friday but before that I need a compelling account of your childhood.’ ”

My initial response to this is visceral and biased because I have a deep and abiding passion for fiction and children’s self-expression. There is nothing like sharing a wonderful work of fiction and fantasy with children. It could be considered an imperative of human tradition, if we trace back fables, fairy tales, and oral storytelling through the ages. Nothing compares to the feeling of being carried away by imagination. And, as we know, if we want to successfully compete in the world of tomorrow, we need creativity! Additionally, fiction is tied inextricably to reality. It allows for seeing events and challenges through different lenses and can help children to develop theory of mind (that is, being able to see things from other points of view). The most successful schools will balance the development of all of the unique strengths and skills of children, including those who will one day lead us in business and those who will one day lead us in the arts. Our emphasis on self-expression does not need to undermine an understanding of facts and figures. In fact, self-expression can make for mathematicians and marketers who can reach other people more effectively.

I personally don’t relish the thought of living and working in a world devoid of self-expression. I prefer to engage with other people with rich imaginations and passionate interests on diverse topics. I love it when someone can share with me something from a book or article they’ve read. We’re so much more interesting, on the whole, when we’re reading and writing and just generally expressing ourselves.

The benefits of reading and writing fluently are seemingly endless and it is always a top priority in education, no matter your educational philosophy or stance on fiction versus nonfiction. We can all agree that we not only want children to read and write, but to enjoy doing so (because it is with this enjoyment that they will be most successful). Coming from a preschool education background, I find the debate a bit — dare I say?– silly. I believe that by the time children reach high school, it’s getting a bit late in the game to light their fire. By this stage of development, they should not only read and write fluently, but be able to select quality fiction and nonfiction that sets their minds and hearts ablaze. By this stage they should have encountered and been guided by numerous teachers, mentors, and librarians, showing them the tremendous diversity available in the written word and engaging and challenging them with discussion.

In preschool circles, we talk about creating for children a “text-rich” environment to encourage early literacy. This means that children see examples of text in many different contexts, from labels and signs to books and magazines. They have the opportunity to read recipes and follow printed directions. They read and draw maps. They observe teachers taking notes and writing reports and they have the opportunity to dictate descriptions of their own artwork and projects. When I was teaching preschool, I would often check out adult reference books from the library on topics my students were interested in, from sharks to rabbits to construction to pies. As passionate as children are for stories, rhymes, and imaginary pursuits, they are passionately hungry for nonfiction — for understanding exactly how real things work and fit together and what it all means. (Have you ever shown a princess-obsessed four-year-old girl a book of real castles or shared stories of true royalty? They’re hooked from the word go. Even infants prefer books with pictures of REAL faces, real foods, and real objects, as compared to illustrations — the very earliest level of nonfiction available in bookstores and libraries.) Based on my own experiences as both teacher and student, I don’t think it would be too much of a challenge to apply the same principles as children grow. High schoolers too have passionate real-world interests that teachers can cultivate and pursue through examples of nonfiction texts. Nonfiction and fiction sometimes compliment one another, as my own recent research into the life of Mary Todd Lincoln (my interest inspired by watching the movie Lincoln) has revealed — I have dipped into both fictionalized and fact-based accounts of her life to try to gain a better understanding of her as a complete person. Here is what appeals to me: an articulate, compelling piece of writing that invites me to learn something new.

We bathe young children in dozens and dozens examples of texts so that they will know what is available to them and how written language is utilized; so that they will see its value, I suppose. By the time we’ve grown up a bit more, we should be sold on it. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to be convincing high school students that reading is really a very good and important thing to do — they should by that time be fully invested themselves, as well as competent in researching topics of interest. Wouldn’t it be something if we weren’t telling them what to read but instead they were telling us what they’re reading?

Readers are better writers. If this is what we want for students (and I hope we do), we can certainly agree on Sara Mosle’s statement:

What schools really need isn’t more nonfiction but better nonfiction, especially that which provides good models for student writing.

In all areas of curriculum, it would behoove us to focus on quality over quantity. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would also like to suggest taking a grand leap and trusting in students to pursue areas of personal interest — be it fiction or nonfiction — because it is then that true, meaningful learning begins to happen. We need to lay the groundwork, issue the invitation, and then give students the space for the magic to happen. When we want to learn something, when we feel that spark, the sky is the limit and even the most well-written standards can’t hold us back.

Leaving a Legacy

Working with infants and toddlers, I have often reflected on this quote from poet Maya Angelou: “People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.”

These babies come into my life for what seems like just the blink of an eye, but they stay in my heart for all time. Long after they have left my program, moved to other towns and cities, started preschool, forgotten all about me, I remember with great clarity details about their care and their amazing personalities. I remember the stories of their families. I remember the very first moments we truly connected — sometimes minutes after meeting, sometimes weeks, sometimes even months. I remember singular days we spent together — the very, very worst and the very, very best. I carry them with me for years and years, knowing all the while that they have moved on and would likely not recognize me if we passed on the street. (Sometimes I see children I worked with as kindergartners or third graders or fifth graders and my heart does a little flip-flop, seeing them now as half-grown people out in the world. Sometimes they look right past me, with no idea that I once helped them to add two and two and tie their shoes and rubbed their back when their friend hurt their feelings, while I study their faces for traces of who I knew them to be and breathe a few silent wishes out into the universe for them.)

Last year I ran into a family I had worked closely with when their baby was between eight and eighteen months old. The mom and I hugged, the baby’s two big sisters danced around excitedly, and the once-baby boy eyed me intensely while his mom asked him, “Do you remember Jenn?” I smiled and crouched beside him, saying hello and, “I knew you when you were just a little baby.” After a period of serious silent consideration, he smiled slowly and passed me the toy frog he had clutched tightly in one hand. “He remembers you,” his mom declared delightedly. I was not quite so certain, but I do like to think that on some level every child I have worked with carries a little bit of something inside of them that I helped to plant there.

When I was teaching preschool, the teachers and administrators would frequently have very serious discussions about kindergarten-readiness and preparing our students for all that lay ahead. We had lists of expectations from the public school kindergarten teachers (“Children must be able to follow directions!“) and we had goals and strategies and hopes and fears for every child. It’s an unfortunate reality for young children and their families that in many schools in many cities across the United States, kindergarten is becoming a really difficult year for them to get through — filled with pressure and stress and expectations that often seem unrealistic for their stage of development. Over the years, from preschool teaching to infant and toddler caregiving, I have taken the approach of filling the children in my life up to the brim before they leave me. The world will not always be kind to them, but I can be. I can fill them up with the goodness that will help to light their way through the darker places. I can foster their resilience, their creativity, and their sense of themselves, at any age. (And I’ll tell you a secret: preschool children don’t get ready for kindergarten by learning to walk quietly in lines and sit criss-cross applesauce; they get ready for kindergarten by learning to trust that teachers have their best interests at heart. They follow directions like real champs when they have had reinforced to them that everyone deserves to be listened to and treated with respect.)

One of the very best and the very worst things about my current position is that my time with the infants, toddlers, and their families is limited. The children tell us when they’re ready to move on, and we owe it to them to listen and follow their lead. They deserve new challenges, new adventures, and the opportunity to expand their little community. It’s a wonderful, magical gift to see them grow. It’s also heart wrenching to see them go.

I like it best when the children in my care move to the room next-door, then across the yard to the preschool rooms, so I can continue to be with them, albeit at a greater distance, for a few more years. They often come by to visit with their families, standing outside and pointing through the window, saying, “I played with that when I was a baby. You held me like that when I was a baby.” They love when their infant caregivers tell them stories about when they were babies. One little girl, now a preschooler, is so tickled to hear about the days when she “cried and CRIED!” She prompts us, “What did you do? How did you help me when I cried and CRIED?” We tell her, “We held you. We carried you. We sang you a little song. We said, ‘We’re here with you.’” She smiles.

Recently, a child who had left our center after graduating from my room returned over a year later as a three-year-old ready for our preschool program. One day I ran encountered him and two other Infant Program graduates in the kitchen with their preschool teacher. We chatted about when they were babies. “I remember when I was a baby,” one girl proudly stated. This very quiet little boy, who had been gone from our center for over a year, said shyly, “I remember too.” I asked him what he remembered. “I would play outside and I would play inside. Then I would eat lunch. I would take a nap and cry a little. Then it would be tickle time, and then my dad would come and pick me up.” “Tickle time?” I asked him, laughing to myself on the inside. “Yes, it would be tickle time,” he said somberly. When I relayed the story to my assistants, they reminded me of another boy who had been a toddler at the same time and, having been tickled at home by his sisters, liked nothing more than to rub his fingertips against the bare soles of other children’s feet, laughing, “Ticka ticka ticka!” Perhaps it is the memory of this shared experience that sank deepest into this small boy’s memory.

As an infant and toddler caregiver, I often reflect on the positives and negatives of group care. There is much to be said for both sides. I wonder how it impacts the very youngest of children — two, three months old — to begin forming their sense of self away from their families for long periods of time. How does it impact their worldview and their overall well-being? It’s all quite individual, I believe, and it’s not possible to make blanket statements except to say that all children require high-quality and personalized care (at every stage). One thing I can say with certainty is that it could never be a bad thing for a child to know that they’re loved by so many: by not just their families, who made the effort to determine where the best care for them could be found, but also by their extended family of caregivers. I know that when these little ones leave my program, they know in their heart of hearts how it feels to be loved.

The Perfect Blendship

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh?” he whispered. “Yes, Piglet?” “Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Several months ago, a one-year-old infant enrolled in our full-day program. Prior to starting with us, his parents had employed a nanny to care for him at home while they worked. Now that he was a bit older, however, they felt it was time for him to be around other children, so that he could begin to — cue ominous music — socialize. After spending some time in our program, observing how we work with the infants and toddlers, his mom asked me about their friendships. “Do they tend to make friends pretty easily?” she asked me, as we observed several infants playing nearby. I considered her question for a little while before answering, as it seems to me to be a complicated issue. Relationships at any age can be complicated things, can’t they? They’re tangled webs of unequal parts history, fiction, hopes, and emotion. As adults, we tend to simplify and romanticize the relationships of young children. We tell children to “go and play,” assuming that certain groups of children will simply find common ground and get along and successfully, peacefully. And quite often, left alone and trusted, they do. By the same token, we often devote a substantial amount of time and energy to telling children exactly how to interact and play with one another. We force them to be inclusive, to be nice, and to share. We’re uncomfortable with their disagreements and their sometimes strong opinions regarding one another. In a wide, bland swath of dishonesty, we tell preschoolers, “We’re all friends!” Is it because we think saying it will make it so? That we can right the wrongs of society with our words? In truth, children learn relationships like language — soaking it all up like a sponge, both consciously and subconsciously observing the way that everyone around them interacts. They learn to be friends by being treated as friends. They learn to include by being included. They learn kindness through kindness. They learn all the worst of us as well: how to hurt with words, with actions, with a cold shoulder.

It’s intensely heartwarming and often humbling to watch infants interact with one another at the earliest stages because they demonstrate the purest of intentions with one another, beginning with a genuine curiosity about one another’s facial features and expressions, bodies and movements, and sounds. There are those who say that children don’t truly make friends until they’re older — three, even four years old — but I think this is subjective depending upon your perception of what friendship is and what it means to children. Based on my observations of the interactions between infants and toddlers, I believe that many children delight in friendships much earlier. I see a genuine caring and compassion and mutual enjoyment between infants sometimes even before they’re walking. I see very young children expressing preferences for who they want to spend time with and expressing joy at seeing a familiar peer again.

Many parents and teachers seem to feel a great deal of pressure to help young children make friends and maintain friendships. We talk a lot about making sure that children are socialized. It is my belief that it would be impossible to overstate the importance of helping young children to develop positive social skills because once they acquire them, they’re good for life. I once read (and wish I could find a source for the information) that if children haven’t acquired certain social skills that help them to get along in a school setting by the time they’re five, they won’t have the chance to master them until middle school. This is one of the reasons that preschool and preschool-like settings are so important. We want children to walk into the world with confidence and kindness. We want them to be friendly and to feel safe asking for help from others. We want, essentially, for them to be a part of a community. At the same time, I believe we all need to take a breath and give children a little bit of space. Relax about it because it’s not a scientific equation that can be solved from the outside. In general, children will be drawn together at one time or another due to common interests, shared curiosity, and a sense of plain old fun. Let’s see what happens when we allow them to navigate early relationships without being told how to do it right (spoiler: they’ll mostly get it “right” on instinct alone). Let’s allow them to bump up against each other and experience conflict and also experience working it out, within safe boundaries. Let’s bite our tongues for a minute and not blurt out who was “using that!” or who “was there first!” Leave that grown-up baggage outside and see what happens. It will be amazing. It may even change your perception of your own relationships.

Here are a few suggestions for promoting truly positive social skills in young children:

• Help children be empathetic by articulating the emotions expressed by them and those around them. For example, when infants notice another child is crying, acknowledge this by saying, “You see that she is upset. She’s crying because…”
• For toddlers, make simple suggestions of how they can help others. For example, “Sam is sad. Maybe he would like to hold his blanket.” Acknowledge when they have offered help, no matter how clumsily or how ill-received.
• For preschoolers, simply ask what they think might help someone else. “I wonder how we could help her,” you might say. Listen to what they have to offer.
• Respect children’s preferences. They don’t have to like everyone. Here are the limits: They may not hurt others. They must be kind. But, really, truly, they don’t have to be friends with everyone. Listen to why your child doesn’t want to play with someone.
• Give children the opportunity to resolve conflicts. Stay close. Intervene if someone is going to get hurt, but don’t stomp all over their interactions. They’re learning.
• Allow your children to have ownership over their things. It is not necessary for them to allow their friends to play with and use whatever they want to. Your children can set boundaries. Respect them. (When you have friends over for a visit, do they slip into your favorite pajamas and eat from the crystal dishes you inherited from your grandmother? Perhaps not. We all need sacred spaces.)
• Help your child understand how to be a respectful guest in a friend’s house. I’ll never forget a child who came to play at my niece’s house when she was about three years old and had my niece pinned against the wall of the playroom, whisper-hissing to her, “You have to let me. I’m a guest!”
• Talk to your child about things they can say when conflict arises, before conflict arises. Role play, use puppets, use teddy bears. Practice, practice, practice. “What will you say if someone takes something you’re using from your hands?” (“I was using that.” “I don’t like when you take something from my hands.” “Please pass that back to me. I wasn’t finished.” “Do you want to use it when I’m done?”)
• Model the kind of interactions you envision for your child: smile at people, even strangers. Hold the door for others. Say please, thank you, and excuse me. Be kind but assertive when necessary — have boundaries. Share because you want to and because it’s nice. Hug your loved ones. Take an interest in other people.
• Be genuine. (As in: if you don’t want to be friends with someone, don’t pretend that you are. Your children are so perceptive. And they do as you do.)
• Trust your children to make choices and to interact with other people without you being on their shoulder (you’re already in their head, for better or worse).

Now take three giant steps back and just watch. This is the greatest honor and pleasure of working with young children — simply being able to observe their amazing interactions with one another, undisturbed. We adults can learn so much in these moments. So much that we have forgotten and so much that maybe we never learned in the first place.

Please note: some children do need more hands-on help with social interactions than others and I’m not suggesting you throw one socially awkward/delayed/timid child to the wolves. I recently heard what I thought was a wonderful way to support a child who is trying to enter into play with others and is being rebuffed. Rather than asking, “Can I play?” encourage children to ask, “How can I play too?” As in, “What role can I take here?” I feel like there is a lot adults can take away from this idea. Also, respect the child who wants to work on their own. Children need to have time and space to themselves too.

Hold Close Your Power

I’ve written before about the choices we give children and how it’s important that the adults who are caring for children remain mindful that some things aren’t choices. At their very best, parenting and caregiving are partnerships with children, but that doesn’t mean that the weight of responsibility for setting the tone and maintaining safe, respectful limits does not sit firmly on the shoulders of the adult. Raising and caring for a child with respect and kindness does not mean saying “Yes!” to all of their whims. It does not mean giving in and inviting a child to trample down the limits because you’re too exhausted to maintain them. At the very core of our relationships with children, we’re modeling the sort of interactions that will set the tone for the rest of their lives. That’s why even when we say we’ll never do things the way our parents did, we often hear their words flying from our mouths. Those things, deeply embedded in our subconscious, can become our defaults. Sometimes those things are wonderful and surprising, like when we find ourselves humming a lullaby we haven’t thought of in years. Other times, those things invite the slow leeching away of our power, as when we say to a misbehaving preschooler, “If you don’t stop, I’m going to call Daddy.” Teachers do the same thing when they use other teachers as the bad-cop or when they send children to the principal’s office or to the childcare center’s supervisor for offenses like “not listening.” There is a difference between using another adult as support or backup (as when you’ve told your toddler not to do something and they turn to the other adult with raised eyebrows and the other adult says, “I heard them say that is not okay to do,”) and actively giving away your power.

As adults who care for children, we’re often terrified of using the word “No.” We don’t want to be too restrictive, too mean. We don’t want to break children’s spirits or hinder their creativity. We don’t want to drive children away or shut them down. We must, above all else, bolster their self-esteem. Reports flood in from all philosophical corners on how we should treat and raise and value and respect children. It’s confusing! It’s often contradictory. It’s overwhelming. Add to that the dynamics of real families — families who spend the majority of time away from their children while working, parents who feel guilty, parents who are exhausted, children in groups that are too large and teachers who don’t have the appropriate support or training… Written down, it’s not a recipe for success. At the end of the day, however, it’s simple: you’re the adult, they’re the child, and they are looking to you for guidance, for discipline, and for limits.

Janet Lansbury writes beautifully about providing simple, connected responses to your child. She references this wonderful piece by Suchada Eickemeyer, “The Most Valuable Parenting Phrase After I Love You: “I won’t let you.”

“The absolute best benefit of owning the boundaries we set is that it helps build a relationship with our children. There is no question about where the rules are coming from.

“Sometimes the rules may seem burdensome, but children appreciate boundaries. They know they need someone bigger, wiser, and more experienced to keep them safe. When your child knows that you’re the one looking out for them, they trust you.”

I’ll let you in on a secret: “No” is not a four-letter word. It’s certainly fallen out of favor over the years, for a few reasons that are valid and for a few reasons that I believe are unfounded. No is a powerful word because it’s definitive. Some of us aren’t really No-People, are we? We’re concerned with being “liked”. We don’t want to come across as too dominant or too harsh. We’re self-conscious in our Nos and we often resort to the Maybes. I’ll let you in on another secret: Every four-year-old knows that a Maybe is really a No waiting to be unleashed (and sometimes they are simply unable to resist the temptation of pushing every possible button to bring that uncontrolled NO blasting to the surface). I would like to suggest that you not waste time on the Maybes. Not only are they too ambiguous for young children to understand, they’re not helping you to establish yourself as a center of power. As a true compassionate partner to the children in your life, be honest: say Yes! when you mean it, without reservation, and say No! when you mean it, without fear and hesitation.

Let’s embrace No for what it is: the bottom line.

I know a mom who is a wonderful, active, fully-present parent. She is an older parent, having given birth to her first and only child remarkably late in life. Before she become a mother, she devoted a decade to studying the art and science of parenting. Having competed for years in the financial world, she embraced parenting as the new challenge in her life and she was going to win at it. Then she met her child. Her child, who hadn’t read a single one of the parenting books and articles and didn’t realize how and when babies were expected to sleep! Her child, who came into the world with her own passionate opinions from day one. This mom knew, based on her research, that the word no was to be avoided in her interactions with her child. She certainly didn’t want to encourage an endlessly nay-saying toddler and one of her primary goals was to raise a child with a strong and independent spirit: a modern, free-thinking young woman! One day, this mom and her child arrived at our childcare center in a particularly frazzled state. It seems that when they were getting ready to leave home, a morning routine that involved opening the garage door before getting into the car, the little girl had raced out the garage door as it was slowly rising, heading straight for the road. The mom had raced after her, scattering her lunchbox, blanket, and cups behind, and grabbed her before she landed herself in traffic. Both were safe, one more ruffled than the other by the experience. The mom held the child and pointed to the road, explaining at length of the danger of running out onto it. The child, it bears mentioning, was at that time not quite two.

“I don’t know what I should do to make sure this doesn’t happen,” the mom said to the teacher, “I don’t think she understands yet about road safety.” There are clearly ways to avoid this scenario from the get-go. She could buckle her child into the car before opening the garage door, for one. They could load their things into the car and then hold hands as the door rises. She could, she suggested, have her husband help her get the child and the belongings loaded up every morning. Listening and assessing, the teacher made a bold suggestion: “Did you tell her “NO,” she asked. The mom flinched. “I didn’t want to scare her,” she said.

Let’s step back for a moment and view this scenario through a wider lens. The mom in question was raised in a much more authoritarian time. She heard plenty of No. And Because I Said So. She was not far removed from a Children-Should-Be-Seen-and-Not-Heard generation. In fact, she was expected to behave in just that way at her grandparents’ home. She is highly sensitive to raising her child in a different way, in these different times. I think it is safe to say, however, that she may have gone a bit too far.

Being authoritative means saying, “No. Stop. I won’t let you. That’s not safe.” It means being consistent and clear in the limits you’ve established. It doesn’t scare your child and it doesn’t scar them either. It’s really a gift to your child because it makes them feel safe. We live in a world of limits, rules, and laws designed to keep us safe. When a police officer pulls you over for speeding, he or she is not likely to back down when you throw yourself on the ground and scream and cry. You can throw a fit, but the limit still exists and they will continue to enforce it. There is rarely a question of their power and authority. You should feel the same weight of responsibility and confidence in what’s reasonable as a parent or caregiver of young children.

Holding close your power does not mean saying NO for little things, because that strips you of authority just as surely as not saying it at all. NO is not be used on auto-pilot. It’s not be used to break your child’s spirit or to restrict their freedom. NO means that you’re there — you’re connected powerfully to this child and to the situation at hand, and you’re not going to let your limits be breached.

Consistent Parenting Advice says of Authoritative Parenting:

“Children nowadays seem to be expected to know, understand and formulate answers to questions that are not for them to make – often young children respond with tantrums to these questions simply because they are frustrated by the amount of power they are expected to hold.”

The adults need to be adults so that children can freely and safely be children. This is kind and it is firm. It is direct and it is reassuring.

As a teacher, caregiver, and adult, my best advice to you if you feel that you waver a bit on the limits you’ve set for your child is to be reflective.

1. Consider the limits. They should be reasonable and they should be clear. The limits we want to establish are based on commonsense, not on our moods or the tides or the wind. I set the limit in my classroom, for example, that we sit down to eat and drink. Always. Every time. That’s safe. When the toddlers stand up and walk away with their cup or cracker, I say, “I won’t let you walk and drink. It’s not safe. Please sit down.” If they want to make it a game and run away with the item, I said calmly, “I see that you’re all done drinking and you’re ready to run. I’m going to hold your cup for you.” If a child asks you why something is a limit, you should be able to articulate it. If you can’t, it may not be reasonable.
2. Consider the true source of your hesitation. Some parents (and caregivers and teachers!) have a genuine fear that their child won’t LIKE them if they’re too firm. Your child may not like the limit. They may not agree with the limit. They may HATE the limit. But your child loves you and, even beyond that, they need you: they need you to be trustworthy, consistent, and clear.
3. Consider and sit with your guilt. Your baggage is generally about other things, not the limit in question. Give yourself this time to reflect on what you’re truly feeling and what you truly owe your child. Whatever other hurts, fears, and distance has played out in their young life, your child deserves clear and consistent limits. Be conscious of this in the face of their tantrums and tests. Your job is to keep the issue on-task: this isn’t about the hurt feelings or missed opportunities of six months ago, this is about what is going on right now.

Hold close your power. Look the child in the eye. Don’t raise your voice, but instead lower your tone. When I’m feeling a little weak in the knees, I sometimes remind myself and the child in question (whether a toddler or a ten-year-old), “I’m serious. This is serious,” to bring myself back to center. Here we are, in it together. I don’t need to bring in someone stronger than myself, to make them the bad guy, because there is no bad guy here: there’s just this child and I, engaged in a learning experience together. Make no mistake about it: enforcing limits with children is not for the weak of heart. You will have to call on a wellspring of confidence, compassion, and kindness. That’s where your power truly lies.

#WhatIWrite

October 20, 2012
National Day on Writing, via the National Writing Project.

“At the National Writing Project we believe that writing, in its many forms, is the signature means of communication in the 21st century. We envision a future where every person is an accomplished writer, engaged learner, and active participant in a digital, interconnected world.”

It’s strange: I distinctly remember the process of learning to read, from pretending to read aloud from books to actually recognizing singular words (I was four when I was sitting in the waiting room of a vet’s office with my mom and the family cat and realized I could make sense of the animal names spelled out on the walls), but the events surrounding learning to write are much fuzzier. I do have a clear memory of sitting at my desk in first grade — how I loved my desk! — looking at the tag taped to the top edge with my full name spelled out across it, first and last. I had become accustomed to writing “Jenni” on all of my papers in kindergarten, but now I would have to write the full eight letters of my surname each time as well. To my then five-year-old brain, this seemed incomprehensible. How would I ever learn to write all that by myself? And how would I have the patience for such a daunting task? I’m pleased to report that within a few short weeks I had figured out that my surname was comprised of two smaller words that I already knew fairly well, so I had my name writing down (and could move on to sorting out that whole number line thing come math time). When I got married, years later, I increased the length of my surname by a letter but also made sure it was a name comprised of two smaller words to keep the task of writing it down manageable.

I’ve always been in love with the tools of writing, from crayons to pencils to pens to calligraphy brushes and markers. When I was growing up, I loved playing “office,” laying out my writing tools, an old rotary phone, and tapping away on my mom’s electric typewriter. For a period of time, I practiced typing on an Atari keyboard-console that plugged in to our TV. I loved seeing the words I chose to type on display across the blue screen. Sometimes just my name, sometimes a message to members of my family (plenty of, “Hi, Mom!”).

I had a small chalkboard in my bedroom, perfect for playing school with my stuffed animals, where I would sometimes write messages to my family as well. One day when I was about six, I was angry with my mom for something (funny that I don’t remember what) and scrawled, “I hate you,” across the board. I’ll never forget the expression on my mom’s face and the quiet way she said, “That’s hurtful.” I soon erased it and wrote a note of apology, but I can still feel the deep pang of empathy and guilt I felt in that moment. I understood early on that there is power and responsibility in writing things down.

I’m required to do a fair amount of writing at work each day, but I also delight in it. I still love the act of writing things down, although I have learned to weigh and measure my words a bit more than when I was six. I write anecdotal notes on the children in my care each day, daily reports for the families, emails to parents, co-workers, and administrators, and love notes to my co-workers. I write Facebook status updates, text messages to my husband and friends, and I write blog entries. Inside a journal, I write down the things I most want to remember and the things I want to reflect on. I jot down to-do lists, grocery lists, titles of books I want to read, quotes from books I’m currently reading, and little things I observe that make me happy.

Yesterday I wrote down two different observations of two different children. I am recording them here as well because they were both special moments in their own right and I don’t want to forget them.

R. hit M. in the head repeatedly with an empty box. I said, “R, I can’t let you hit M. That will hurt him.” R lowered the box, looked at me for a moment, and then walked over to where S. was sitting. R held the box over S.’s head and looked at me. “It would hurt S. too,” I said. R then carried the box over to another box on the floor and began to bang one with the other, smiling.

I was holding M. before his nap and he turned his face towards me, smiling. He reached towards me with one hand and tugged on my hair very gently, then held his hand towards my mouth. I made a kissing sound and he laughed and held his hand to my mouth again before pulling his blanket to his cheek and closing his eyes.

Those are two quick moments in a chaotic day that struck me as important to record. Moments like that fill me back up to the brim when depleted. I write them down as a record of development and as a note-to-self to pick me up in trying times. I write them down throughout the day to model writing — I want all of the children in my life to be writers.

What do you write?

Alternatives to Distraction

Now no more smiling mid-crestfall
No more managing unmanageables
No more holding still in the hailstorm.
- Alanis Morissette

I recently wrote about the way that we unconsciously (through no ill will) invalidate the strong feelings of infants and young children by shushing them when they’re in distress and telling them, “You’re okay!” when they’re feeling anything but. I worry that when we devalue their (very real) feelings, we encourage children to swallow them down. Over time, there is a risk of children being unable to recognize, label, and communicate effectively about emotions.

It can be intensely uncomfortable to be around crying babies and young children. Their emotions are powerful. They don’t always respond to “reason”. We often feel tremendous urgency to settle them, quiet them, and put an end to what feels like impending chaos. Their cries are meant to alarm us!

The first step in being able to help and support them is to calm our own response. If we know that there is no real emergency to attend to, we can consciously slow ourselves and support children in reaching their own place of calm. Calm is often (delightfully) contagious. We must be aware of how sensitive children are to our harried pace and the underlying stress we may feel. I like this piece from Dr. Sears on babies’ cries:

Responding appropriately to your baby’s cry is the first and one of the most difficult, communication challenges you will face as a mother. You will master the system only after rehearsing thousands of cue-responses in the early months. If you initially regard your baby’s cry as a signal to be responded to and evaluated rather than as an unfortunate habit to be broken, you will open yourself up to becoming an expert in your baby’s signals, which will carry over into becoming an expert on everything about your baby. Each mother-baby signal system is unique. That’s why it is so shortsighted for “cry trainers” to prescribe canned cry-response formulas, such as “leave her to cry for five minutes the first night, ten minutes the second,” and so on.

In the course of my job, I actively practice my responses to children in distress. There are days when I am up to my elbows in fussy infants and my blood pressure threatens to shoot through the roof when one of my toddlers melts to the ground in pre-tantrum mode. When people remark on how much patience it must take to work with young children, I always think of those moments and how much I long for a bottomless well of patience. What I have instead is decent self-control (developed over the course of my childhood with the support of nurturing adults) and enough experience under my belt to have a deep bag of tricks.

I mentioned before that I don’t think it’s always appropriate to attempt to distract children (especially infants) from their distress. I think it’s disrespectful. Consider whether you would pull a rattle from your purse to shake in the face of your girlfriend if she burst into tears over coffee.

I have compiled a list of alternatives to distraction that I would like to invite you to try with the young children in your life.

• Sit with it awhile. Be in the moment with that children and their distress. “I’m sorry you’re feeling upset. I’m right here with you.” Model empathy by simply being there — a hand on their back or arm if they seem to want to be touched. Have you ever needed a good cry? Sometimes children do too, especially infants. Hopefully we can all call to mind a time when we were in distress and someone was simply there with us, without asking or taking a thing. Think of how comforting it was for you and channel that back into the world.
• Talk it out. In the early education field, we call it “sportscasting,” when we simply talk through our observations of a situation. It’s a way to be there with children without interfering in their process, trusting that with our support (but not control), they can work things through. An example would be when a child is distressed about falling down or hitting their head. You might say, “I saw you fall! That hurt your knees. Your knees hurt. I see you looking at that block on the floor. You tripped over that block.”
• Get a change of scene. While I don’t advise hurriedly whisking babies up into your arms and rushing outdoors at the first sign of distress, a change of scene can be beneficial to all involved. If the baby agrees to be picked up, ask them if they’d like to walk outside. Walk outside and perhaps narrate what you see, feel, hear, and smell. “The wind is blowing. Do you feel the wind blowing? It’s ruffling your hair. The wind feels good on my skin. I feel better outside.”
• Breathe. I observed a particularly chaotic preschool morning the other day. Their regular teacher was out sick, the children were testing all the limits with the substitute and assistant teacher, and they could best be described as off the wall. Gathering a small group of children around her, the substitute teacher said in a very quiet voice, “I’m going to take a biiiiiiiig deep breath. Will you take a deep breath with me? Here I go!” She demonstrated breathing in deeply, then out slowly, sighing with relief. “Let’s try it again together,” she said, and all of the children quietly breathed in and out, in and out. The teacher then observed, in a quiet voice, “Oh, I feel so much more calm now. I’m ready to sit down and read a book.” I’ve been with infants during times when it seemed to me they were never going to calm down, and when I inhaled and exhaled deeply, I felt their bodies respond as well — it’s important to be aware of the tension we’re carrying and communicating outward.
• Background music. When I’m in for the long haul with a fussy baby, I’ll often turn instrumental music on low and turn off the overhead lights. Sometimes I’ll open a window, or close a window, or turn on a fan. Subtle alterations like this to the environment provide the soothing atmosphere I’m going for to relax myself, rather than provide active distraction.
• Troubleshoot. It may seem like the most basic idea possible but is the infant hungry? Are they tired? Too hot? Too cold? Do they need changing? Is something irritating their skin? Are they sick? Do they need to be burped? (Nine times out of ten: yes.) It can help to consciously run down your mental inventory. I don’t suggest trying different solutions willy-nilly at a pace to alarm the baby, but give thoughtful consideration to the environment, the child’s basic needs, and what else may be impacting them.

One thing I’d like to make note of is how important it is for those who are taking care of young children (or taking care of anyone, full stop) to take care of themselves. When you begin to feel frayed around the edges, take a break. Put your baby down, walk away, and put the kettle on for a cup of tea (your baby will survive those few minutes as you regroup). Whenever possible, don’t be afraid to call in reinforcements. The beauty of working with two other women like I do in caring for infant and toddlers is that when something isn’t working and I’m feeling depleted, I have backup. Use your village. Remind yourself that sometimes babies cry without us knowing why, but you’ll get through it together. It’s not a bad thing — it’s always a learning, growing, bonding experience for you both. And it will pass.