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THE ROLES YOU PLAY WORKING WITH CHILDREN (Draft)

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Example: How parents typically play with their kids
Example of dialogue between child and parent "Travel Guide"
What a Travel Guide Does
Example of dialogue between child and parent "Historian"
How to be a travel guide

What to say
Narrate your experience
Influence what your child hears in her mind's ear
Recording a "today experience"
Take the perspective of the child

What a travel guide doesn't do

Don't set the pace for yourself
Don't give more information than the "tourist" needs

Your child as tourist
Historian: connecting the past to the present
How to be an historian

Connect the present and the past
Tell stories to your child about the way she used to be

The idea to delineate and describe the most important roles parents can play emerged when our own children were just about two years old. We had enrolled them in a weekly play program--one in which children, together with their parents, went to a play space where the apparatus was moved around from week to week. We were excited to play with them and wanted to share our newly emerging play method with anyone who would listen.

At about the third week, we entered the play space, I commented to Allegra, "Wow, last week the sliding board was over there and the parachute was draped on top of the steps. Let's try to find that stair unit!" Both my children looked around, over and under, with a running commentary from me. As we were looking around the room, I commented to one mother who seemed to be standing on the sidelines, "I love the way the room looks today. This set-up is my favorite so far." She gave me a blank look and mumbled something about how maybe the janitor had moved it all. "No, they really do move it around. It's supposed to be that way." Blank stare.

I surveyed a few other moms and realized that very few of them really thought much about the way the space changed, but when I mentioned it they started to think about it. I mentioned that I had challenged my kids to try to remember the setup from week to week, asked them to tell me what precisely had moved, and even asked them to select favorite ways of making the room look.

As the weeks progressed, I noticed more and more parents helping their children focus on the room. They were making comments like, "Wow, I like the steps here. I need to move around more to get from the sliding board to the rings." These parents, with a little coaching and modeling from me, were easily and enthusiastically , assuming the first role we tell parents about: Travel Guide.

Interestingly, the National director of the program thought that the idea of the leader also assuming the role of travel guide--both for parents and for the children--would help focus leaders and help them know why they were "required" to move the equipment around. A kind of "Whistle While You Work" mind set seemed very appealing. Also, thinking of themselves as travel guides seemed to help the leaders comment spontaneously and think on their feet; they knew what they could talk about with the children and with the parents.

Having a travel guide is a very valuable experience. If you yourself have ever been on a trip in which a travel guide provides you with focus, some facts, a timetable, and maybe even some personal stories, you know how valuable that guide can be. Particularly if you've been to that same place before, without that guide. Suddenly the littlest detail takes on importance and the whole experience seems richer and more intense. Grownups even tell us that they often like to have travel guides accompany them the second time or even third time they visit a place. The first time they overviewed the experience and the second and third they experienced it with a focus. Of course, our point is that you can be a travel guide for your child at any point in their experience, even on the ninth visit to Chuck E. Cheese. Each time can be fresh. Each exposure can be a moment for a novel experience.

We like to think that you can be your child's Travel Guide through Life. In fact, many parents play that role quite naturally. Take a trip to your local grocery store, and we're sure you'll see at least one parent who naturally assumes this role.

"Look, Emma. There's the new Halloween Rice Crispies. We saw that advertised on television. I see green and yellow ones. They look just like our decorations. What other colors can you see on the box?"

"Orange."

"Yes, orange, our favorite Halloween color. Oh, wow, look. Isn't that interesting. They put the cucumbers on the new shelf. They are really shiny today. Emma, you tell me what you see."

"I see the apples. There are red ones and yellow ones and little ones and candy apples. The apples smell very sweet. Yummy. Can I have a candy apple?"

This dialogue suggests that Emma and her mother have engaged in travel guide dialogues before. Emma's mother has helped Emma use her senses to experience the here-and-now world of the grocery store

Our experience at this play space stimulated us to observe parents interacting with their children in various situations: shopping, at home, in classes, in play centers, and on the playground. After countless hours, we saw that parents who seemed most successful at stimulating their children to be most observant, most creative, and most imaginative assumed three roles besides Travel Guide. We termed these roles Historian, Coach, and Model. Once we clarified what parents did spontaneously, we classified, described, and elaborated on these behaviors so you could also utilize these roles with your own children.

Since we are professors at a university, we also had the opportunity (as well as eager subjects) to train students in these roles, to videotape these sessions, to observe the successes and failure of these student/parents, to further refine our training, and finally to establish a step-by-step program of training in the Play for Success Method.

WHAT A TRAVEL GUIDE DOES

Your primary task as travel guide is to help focus your child on the here-and-now. As we all know, the world is a pretty sensorily complex place. By helping your child know where to look, what to listen to, how it smells, how it tastes, what to touch, you help her acquire information to store for future use. Better yet, you help her have a great "today" experience.

As I was planting spring flowers last Sunday, I had Nathaniel with me. In my role as travel guide, I helped him take an imaginative journey with me in our front yard. I had ordered a Pink Collection of 67 Spring Bulbs from a plant and bulb catalogue. It's important to note here that when developing this activity, I knew I had little time. I didn't shop from store to store, merely placed a quick midnight order with the company, saved the overview photo for use in the activity, and went to sleep that night in July knowing I had an activity to do in October. I took outside the box, the directions, even the picture I had saved from the original catalogue, a trowel for me, and a child-sized one for Nathaniel. Nathaniel and I looked at the catalogue together We sorted all the tulip bulbs, daffodil bulbs, and crocus bulbs. I told Nathaniel the story of when Mommy was a little girl and planted all the bulbs upside down. (I explained that I had convinced my mommy, Grandma Elva, that the bulbs were pointy side down because it made sense that the little part was at the bottom. We then then had to dig them all up and replant them.)

After that, we surveyed the front yard to figure out where all the best places for flowers would be. We dug holes; we noticed some grubs (yuck); we also captured a worm, placed it in our magnifying jar, observed it, and then let it go. We also managed to plant all 67 bulbs and water them. Nathaniel can't wait for Spring to come to see where the flowers grow. I'm confident that viewing the growing garden will be a perfect activity for implication of the next role,

Historian

I'm a busy career mother. Even though I can't be with Nathaniel 24 hours a day, I can be with him in his mind's eye every time he looks at the front yard. We've placed in his storehouse of images the record of this shared experience--the traveling through the front yard, making plans, and hopes for the future. All of this happened in a mere hour on a sunny brisk October Sunday late afternoon. I like to think that Nathaniel will think of this experience, in at least an intense flash, on every October Sunday afternoon for the rest of his life.

What we did and talked about was certainly not extraordinary. Here's a little of what we talked about.

"Let's look at all the bulbs. Here are some big ones, and some very big ones. Here are little ones. Let's look at the inventory on the package. "

"There are fourteen daffodils. And twelve pink tulips and five pink and white tulips. Let's lay all the bulbs next to where you think we should plant them."

"What about these twenty-four little ones?"

"They need to be in the front, so the big ones don't grow up too tall in front of them. . . ."

What's important here is not the precise words, but the manner in which you focus the senses of your child. The sense of sight is critical, as well as the notion of space. So that's what I tried to help Nathaniel focus on.

Nathaniel responded:

"I see so many pink flowers in the picture."

"That mommy planted them all together."

"I want them to be far apart."

"I want them to be like us."

"What do you mean? You want the flowers to be like us?" Since I know Nathaniel well, I knew he was talking about grouping: a kind of Daddy Bear, Mommy Bear, and twin baby bears. So I probed, "When the flowers grow, you want them to look like you and Allegra and Mommy and Daddy?"

"Yes. I want them to grow like us, four pink ones. Four pink ones. All over the yard. Maybe here we can just have you and me. And here Daddy and me and you." He ran all over the yard, guiding himself. He became the guide and I became the traveler in our newly planned front yard.

Almost every day now, Nathaniel looks at the front yard. He recalls what we did, how we planned, and his imagination picture of what the yard will look like. This picture in his head helps us talk together, to share plans, and to build hopes and dreams for the future. I feel I shape Nathaniel's dreams, in a little way when he is little, and hopefully in a bigger way as he grows up.

What this story illustrates is that you can do more as travel guide than take your child on a tour. A by-product of being a good travel guide is that you really impart your values. By what you say, you are telling your child what is important, what should be important. You are participating in sharpening your child's sense in the way you want them to be developed.

HOW TO BE A TRAVEL GUIDE

At the risk of oversimplification, we've come up with some guiding principles that can help you acquire your role of travel guide. Here they are:

Being a travel guide can be fun and easy. If you see something lovely on your walk, just say, "I see so many pink flowers. You look too." Or if you hear something you'd like your child to pay attention to, you can say, "Listen. Hear that song. That's a violin playing." If you think of narrating what you are experiencing, you will always have something to say to your child.

I come from a family of "talkers." When we go to a restaurant, for example, I am stunned when I see a parent and a child sitting in silence at a table while waiting to be served. It seems like a real opportunity that is missed. Instead, a parent could share her experience and his perspective while waiting. Here'a an example:

"I see so many people here today. It's really busy. And all the people have shopping bags. I bet they were out shopping. There are bags from The Gap, from Sears, from Toys R Us. Tell me what you see."

"I see a bag from Toys R Us too. And you know what? I smell French fries. And I can hear them singing real loud in the kitchen."

The conversation could go on and on. The topics suggest themselves and the role is an easy one to maintain. All this parent has to do is describe what he is experiencing.

Know that your consistent commentary will form the basis of what your child will hear in her mind's ear, even when you are not present.

When we do workshops with our students or parents, we encourage them to listen to what we say very carefully and try to replay in their mind's ear what we say. Initially both students and parents are somewhat skeptical, wondering how they can "hear" us without our being there. But, in fact, with a little mental imagery work, they are able to listen to us giving them advice at any time of the day or night.

Once students and parents understand that they can hear us, they are excited to know that, as travel guide, they can provide a dialogue that their children can replay. Both of our children tell us that they "listen" to us during the day. Allegra, like me, says "actually" at the beginning of every other sentence. Nathaniel begins all his stories with, "One day." But more than the mere turns of phrases that the twins have picked up from me, the children have integrated many other major kind of talking skills, most specifically positive self-talk.

I listen to Allegra say to herself, "I know I can get these shoes buckled. I can do it, if I pay attention and really focus on this strap." I laugh when I overhear this because Allegra sounds to me so much like myself. She uses colorful adjectives and adverbs, but also she speaks to herself positively like I hoped she would

Nathaniel talks to me about how I am in his heart and he hears me say "good stuff" to him when he listens to me in his heart. I smile too when he hears me from vantage point of his heart not from the more typical places--his mind's ear or even his head. This perspective originated from the time (when the kids were about two) and they were sad when I had to leave to go to work. I told them that I missed them a lot too and carried them in my heart with me to work. I told them that I would be in their hearts too and that they could listen to me and feel my presence by looking into and listening to their hearts. More than two years later, this image has stayed with Nathaniel, he has incorporated it into an imagery strategy, and hears and feels me all day in my role as travel guide through life.

Help your child to record the "today" experience in as much detail as possible so she can retrieve the information for future use.

Later in this book, we describe an activity called "Carnival." One of the primary purposes of this activity is to provide some very strong sensory-based experiences for children. When we piloted this activity in the preschool, we also hoped to provide a shared set of experiences for all the children participating. We wanted to find out if the children remembered the music, could hear the music and recall the experience, could see a photo of themselves at the carnival and then recall what they had done, could hear the tape of the story they told and then recall more detail about their experience. We found out that with the appropriate guiding--the consistent focusing and elaborating--all the children in the study were able, to various degrees, to recall much of their Carnival experience.

Not only do you want to focus your child on the here-and-now experience in the activities detailed in the book, but also develop travel guide strategies for everyday experiences. Sunrises, sunsets, fireflies, cherry blossoms, lilacs, sunflowers, rows of corn, any natural pheonomen can provide a stimulus for you to assume the role of travel guide. Any play space or museum can do likewise

Last weekend, we took the kids to the "Please Touch" Museum in Philadelphia. We have been to many children's musems, but this one is among our favorites. We decided to be travel guides extraordinaire for our children's day. To prepare ourselves, we read about the exhibits we would see and carefully went over for Nathaniel and Allegra what they would be seeing: a "working" bus, a monorail, a Maurice Sendak exhibit, a supermarket. As we entered the museum, they were both off and running. Each of us took a child:

(To be inserted: Conversations reported in detail.)

Take the perspective of the child.

Often, in order to be the best travel guide you can be, it is necessary to take the perspective of the other. What we mean by that is to both physically and experientially look at the world at the level of your child. Looking from the level of your child may be easier. It's really what you did when you babyproofed your house. You got down on your hands and knees and tried to find those outlets and sharp corners and open staircases that could be potential hazards

So, one simple way to gain a physical perspective of what your child is seing, is to get down to his or her level and view the world from that vantage point. Some things--like sinks, shelves, and tree branches--may seem bigger/ higher. Other things--like floorboards, crawl spaces, and flowers--are right there, just in your line of vision.

In many of my classes at Rutgers, I conduct a guided imagery journey with my students. In this journey I take my students back in time to reexperience the room of their childhood. I ask them to look around and see all the furniture, the pictures on the wall, and even what might be in the closets of their room. When they return from the journey in their minds= eye, most students talk about how large everything in their room seems--the bed is high, and the drawers of the bureau are so heavy. They have recalled how they experienced their bedroom as children. Many also describe the wonderful emotions that returned as they re-experienced their childhood bedroom.

So, what you are doing as travel guide, is helping your child to focus on everyday experiences--the taste, the smell, the sight, of familar objects and of new objects. You are helping form the experiences today that will be recalled by your child far into the future, By what you help your child experience, you shape what your child will remember about today. You too can be part of this memory storehouse when your child is being a travel guide for her own children and so on and so on. You can touch the future.

WHAT A TRAVEL GUIDE DOESN'T DO

About five years ago (when I was pregnant with the twins), I took a guided tour of a Picasso show . Because I adore Picasso and know a little about him, I thought I'd take a tour with a guide so I could learn more. I took a tour that no human being (pregnant or not) needs to take. The tour began with an incredibly long explanation of Picasso's life and loves. I was eager to view the paintings and to hear about them, but instead our guide rambled on and on about where Picasso lived and what he ate and how obnoxious he had been to his girlfriends, but never connecting the information to the paintings. She seemed very interested in all these facts, undoubtedly she knew the connections between the paintings and his life, but she neglected to verbalize what was in her head.

Once we did start to view the paintings, however, her tempo changed. The five members of her group were me (obviously very pregnant), two artsy type students (who really seemed to be interested in very detail of every painting), and two senior citizens (both at least seventy-five years old). What we had hoped for, after this long and detailed history, was a slow and leisurely pace through the museum. What we got, instead, was a rousing, doubletime race through the paintings. Just as we viewed "Name of Painting" and were intensifying our focus, she forged ahead. I'm sure you get the effect, almost like a situation comedy portrayal of how not to lead a tour.

From this experience, as well as from training many students and parents, we have evolved some principles that guide from Negative example.

Don't set the pace for yourself; find the pacing that works for your child.

Even though you may know all about doll houses, when you and your child are investigating one for the first time, adjust your pacing to fit the needs of your child. Our twins are good examples of two sets of very different pacing needs. Allegra is finished in a flash. Last Halloween Allegra dressed as a firefly and a very appropriate costume it was. Allegra flits in, gets the big picture, and feels she knows everything she needs to know about this dollhouse. A travel guide for her needs to move quickly and efficiently, perhaps encouraging her to stop a moment and look at the details around the bedrooms and the tiny plates in the dining room, but mostly to show her everything and help her know she can revisit the dollhouse whenever she choices.

Nathaniel, on the other hand, will have one of two reactions. He would either spend hours and hours touching and smelling and viewing every single nook and cranny. Or, he would take one look, say, "Girl stuff" and go back to his Firefighter costume for the ten thousandth time. If he were in his sensory experience mode, all a Nathaniel travel guide needs to do is keep him focused on the extraordinary detail of the dollhouse.

Don't give more information than the tourist needs.

You know the classic story of the child who asked, "Where did I come from.?" The mother responded with her ready answer about the birds and the bees and sperm, eggs, and Lamaze. After this lengthy answer, her child said, "Oh, Rebecca down the street said she came from Pittsburgh and I wanted to know where I came from, too."

This story seems almost ludicrous, but we cannot tell you how many times we observe parents who provide much more than they need to. If you watch and listen to such an interaction, you can hear the parent drone on and see the child zone out.

Your Child as Tourist

Some of our parents tell us that it's easier for them to assume the role if they first think of their child in role, i.e. the role of tourist. Once they visualize their child as tourist, it's more fun and exciting for them to think of themselves as a tour guide. In fact, you can even tell your child about the roles you and they are assuming and the games they are playing

Telling your child about their role can be fun. Here's one possible script:

"I'd like to do a special activity with you. It's a lot of fun. Every time we do something new, I'm going to help you look at this place or taste this food or smell the flower so you'll know everything you can know about it." The words that I might say are, "Let's really look or let's really smell or let's really feel or let's really listen or let's really taste."

I have to tell a story here about my own children. Of course, these activities and this method originated in our own home. We tried out the activities with our own children, trained our students to do the same, etc. etc.

To be inserted: Story of Nathaniel and the results. He says, "Look , look , Mommy. I see a birdie with a red head. I smell something cooking. It smells sweet and hot. I bet it's a burrito!"

To be inserted: Even to Allegra, "You smell like you made pee-pee in your pull-up.

Variations of the Tourist Role

Ocassionally we find that, after a particularly successful time of being tourist, a child wants to be more active than he or she feels that the tourist role allows. For that child or for a child who likes more of a challenge, we suggest that you help your child be detective in response to your tour guide.

To be inserted: Example.

HISTORIAN: CONNECTING THE PAST TO THE PRESENT

In the Fall of 1995, we built a family room where the side porch stood. We decided that we wanted to take a photographic record of how the porch disappeared, how the outside of the house became the inside wall, how the children looked as the frame was constructed and the walls and then the door appeared, and finally how the room looked when the carpeting was installed. Finally, as we planted our dogwood tree, we wanted the children to be photographed in front of it, because both they and the tree would change over time.

As we documented the process, we began to show the children the photographs. We talked about how the room was evolving: how it looked before and how it looked now. The children were (and continue to be) enchanted by these changes. They love to look at the photographs of Uncle Dutch, our contractor), John (the landscaper), and Mike (the roofer). Every year, we take a photograph of them next to the tree and have long conversations of the way the tree changes and the way they change. The change in where we live is riveting and interesting for all of us

From all of this documentation and discussion, the role of historian emerged. Related to travel guide, but more focused on connecting past to present to future, historian is a role that many parents and particularly grandparents love to assume

How to be an Historian

Try to make connections between the present and the past, particularly in terms of sensory information.

Tell stories to your child about the way she used to be, or even how things used to be when you were a child.

In our china closet, we have a little china figurine of Barney. This figurine stood on Allegra's birthday cake when she was a year old. During that day, we wanted Allegra to really "experience" the cake, so we placed the cake, with the Barney figure, onto the floor. In the birthday chaos, Allegra lurched at the cake, presumably to get Barney, and landed directly in the cake. Clutching Barney and licking cake and icing off of her arm, Allegra announced, "Birthday Barney," her first two-word sentence.

Allegra loves to hear this story, over and over again. We use this story to help Allegra know what she used to do, what she used to say, and how she used to behave. We are historians of Allegra

To be inserted: Other activities

Focus your child on the recall of past experiences.

You can also help your child gain access to his inner world of experience.

What a Historian Does

How Not To be a Historian

When we tell the parents who are professors that we want them to be historians with their children, they behave in a way that makes us laugh. They assume we want them to be real historians not play historians. Here's a scene that describes what not to do.

Daddy: "Cassandra, I love the snowman we're making."

Cassandra: "I want to put a carrot for the nose."

To be inserted: Here's a more appropriate rendition of Historian.

What Your Child Gains by Being in the Company of a Historian

To be inserted: We will tell a good story here.

YOUR ROLE AS COACH

When we began to watch parents working together with their children, we often saw parents who had the right instincts, but often providing confusing feedback to their children. In one particular play session I was observing, little Morgan climbed up the stairs of the mini-sliding board backwards, slid down the slide on her back head first, and did a back flip at the bottom before her mom could reach her. Morgan stood up, looking a bit dazed and then decided not to cry. Her mother exclaimed, "Good job, Morgan." Morgan, even at the age of 3 2 looked perplexed, as did I. I was wondering what part of the gymnastic routine I had observed gained the "good job." Was it the flip, the not crying, or the climbing up the steps backwards? I wasn't sure, and I could that Morgan wasn't eithe

As any good sports coach knows, coaching requires that the coach give precise and fairly immediate responses.

The following sections will be inserted:

How to be a Coach

What a Coach Does Do

How Not to be a Coach

What Coaching Does for Your Child

I always tell Allegra, when she describes missing me, that I am with her in her heart. But, in fact, I think I am in actuality in her mind's eye and in her mind's ear. She tells me that when she feels like she can't remember how to make the letter "A" she seems my hand writing that letter in space. Also, when she feels worried in Kindermusik class that she won't remember the steps to her movement pattern, she tries hard to remember how we talked through it. She says she actually hears my voice, talking.

YOUR ROLE AS MODEL

How to be a Model

When demonstrating how to do something, it=s important not to be so good that you overwhelm your child with your performance and cause him not to even try to be as "perfect" as you.

Try to think about the essence of the task so you can demonstrate the critical key components instead of every subtlety.

What Research Helps Us Know

Seeing and Hearing Yourself in Your Child

Notes to be made into text: Obvious--walking and talking. Allegra walking like me. PA accent.

ROLE THEORY

Notes to be made into text: Acting theory. Presentation of self. All of them are you. But the you at it's best. Important here: the notion of role. Taking the perspective of other.