Empathy
WE’RE BACK!!!
Did you miss us ? Did you miss the blog ? Sometimes when I am out I do try to blog our days because I know you love it and it gives you wonderful ways to discuss your child’s day. Sometimes it just isn’t possible. We trained on Tuesday afternoon / evening and then 12 hours on Wednesday and then 7 hours more on Thursday. Can you say intense ?
The techniques we learn in conscious discipline are the foundation of our days at preschool. Yes, we have been to several trainings but each one takes you a little deeper into the roots of why it works and why we say the things we say or do the things we do. I’ll give you some quick glimpses into some of the things I took away from the conference .
You have heard us say ” Did you like it ?” when a child comes to tell us a friend hit or someone took their toy. After acknowledging that they did not in fact like it we say ” Then tell then you didn’t like it .” After 5 years ( I think it’s been 5 years ) I understand it a little more and I am adding a few new pieces to this. The child is not only coming to me to ask my help in solving a problem he is looking for empathy . He wants someone to understand how the action made him feel. If it didn’t make him ” feel ” or be ” triggered ” he probably never would have approached me. I have to take this a step further . FIRST BREATH. ( You are downloading your calm to the child. ) ” Did you like it ? Oh , you didn’t like it when he took your toy. It made you FEEL sad . ( We don’t want to BE a feeling we only want it to be with us… so we FEEL sad. ) You wanted him to wait until you were finished . Oops. He forgot. Lets go talk to him now. ” You accompany the child to his friend and coach him through the steps and the right language.
While at this training we did have some fun . We played games like the human knot.
Dallas and I also had prepared presentations to ” pay it forward” with the knowledge we have gained of things that are helpful in our preschool family. Karen Hickman , the facilitator even videoed me talking about how wonderful my preschool parents are and the work that we are doing together to learn Conscious Discipline.
Today we spent a lot of time practicing some of the Conscious Discipline techniques we refreshed while we were gone and renewing connections with our littles. It’s hard when we are gone. They miss us. The routines are the same but different. Does that make sense ? Three and four year olds love routine .
If your thoughts right now are ” Why aren’t they teaching the alphabet or counting or colors or something that normal preschools teach ?” I want to remind you that the social skills we are learning are life skills. We are growing healthy productive little people that will contribute to the planet in an amazing way. They will be resilient. They will help others. They will not BE SAD but will feel sad and handle it. They will not BE ANGRY ( and run into a high school shooting friends ) but they will feel angry and handle it. They will be not BE ANXIOUS when it is time to test ( because..we all know its coming ) but they will feel anxious and know how to handle it. Also, we aren’t a normal preschool.
Next week we are going to still have our theme based activities out but our focus will be on some conscious discipline techniques and structures. If you haven’t joined us yet for a CD parent night here is our personal invitation. Please join us.
Other news :
Today was twin day and we rocked it !
Also, we found something interesting on our morning walk. Ms Dallas thinks it is a squirrel skull. We also think perhaps the bones were left there by an owl since they do not eat the bones and they were piled so nicely in an area that we pass daily. We would have noticed a dead squirrel that had time to deteriorate . I am going to do a little research this weekend and maybe we will explore the mystery of the squirrel skull a little deeper next week.
