Teaching Kids to Love Reading

Listen to the full episode

Rachael: Welcome to No One Told Us, the podcast that tells the truth about parenting and talks about all the stuff you wish you knew before having kids. I'm your host, Rachel Shepherd -Ohta, and today I'm with Beth Gaskill, or better known as Miss Beth. And I'm so excited to talk with you today. Let me just tell our audience a little bit about Beth before we jump in. Beth is trained in the science of reading, the Orton Gillingham approach, and You are a multisensory literacy instructor and a former early childhood and elementary school teacher. You founded big city readers to create a space for families to come together and understand how to teach their kids the unique ways that they are wired to learn and read. Not just to teach reading, but to build community and have fun. And I love that so much. I am a new follower of yours on Instagram. I have a kindergartner. He just started recently. And so I've been just loving your content. And I am a former teacher as well. Also trained in Orton Gillingham. I taught special ed elementary for 10 years. So I feel like this is going to be a great conversation. And I'm just very excited to nerd out with you on teaching and reading stuff. Thank you so much for being here.
Beth: Yay, me too. I did not know that you were Orton Gillingham trained now. We need more than half an hour.
Rachael: I know, I know.
Beth: How did, how did kindergarten go, the start?
Rachael: Oh my God, it's been shocking. Like I, so I, my followers from Case to Be Baby know about this whole saga. So I live in San Francisco where we have a lottery system for public schools. So we felt very strongly that we wanted public schools. Also, like it's pretty much our only option 'cause public private schools here are 40 grand a year. So we were definitely gonna go public school route. And it's a lottery system here. So we had to tour all the different neighborhoods, all the different schools. We had to like rank all of our choices. It was very overwhelming. And my oldest is a pretty sensitive little guy. Luckily, and I do wanna hear your thoughts on this 'cause I know you have a whole podcast dedicated to red -shirting, but here in California, it's kind of based on your birthday. And so he did a TK year, which was huge for him. He really needed that extra time and he really thrived in TK. And so we felt like he was super ready, but we were still nervous 'cause of his personality and he came home on the first day saying that it was the best day of his life.
Beth: Oh, yay.
Rachael: Second day, best day of his life. Like it is just, I don't know, it's just been amazing. So I'm kind of like holding my breath waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Beth: No.
Rachael: But I feel like starting out the gate on a positive is so huge. So yeah, we're thrilled. But it can go a lot of different ways, right? Like the first day or the first... week anxiety is so real.
Beth: Oh, it's so real. I had a friend actually just call me yesterday in tears because she was her third kid starting kindergarten and she was like, she was my easiest one. I mean, like the other ones I thought were like the ones I had to worry about. And then she was like, I don't know what to do. This was such a surprise that she's like having so many meltdowns. And I was like, sometimes though, the ones that like you think are totally. fine, they surprise you. And they're like, I have been holding it together for years, you guys.
Rachael: Yeah, exactly. Let me show you what I can really do.
Beth: Yeah. And then you're like, now you're just throwing me into this kindergarten?
Rachael: I know. It's really tricky. And I think, you know, you're right, like what you just said, a lot of kids are really good kind of like maskers. And then it's not until you kind of throw them into that big new situation that you realize-- oh maybe there was you know some other stuff hiding underneath the surface but yeah for him so far it's been it's been good so yeah yeah but I don't know I feel like just that whole process of looking for schools and hearing about different curriculum and what they're doing for reading was very and you know I'm looking at it with like my teacher lens and I'm it's hard because change in public school education is very slow. And it was funny to kind of see all the administrators squirm when parents who had clearly listened to like the sold a story podcast. They started to ask about reading instruction. And I would love to hear your thoughts on all of that because I know you do such a great job on your Instagram giving parents like the confidence to ask about that stuff and to advocate for better reading instructions. So first, maybe we should go back to the beginning and let's hear a little bit about your background and how you got started and then how and why you made the shift away from school based education.
Beth: Oh my gosh. Well, also I was going to add that I think it's like behavior, I think behavioral stuff and reading go so hand in hand and like those are the two big things. And it's funny that you say it's what it's it was funny watching administrators squirm because I always say like the biggest green flag is when administration is not shaken by your questions like they might not have the answers but that they're okay with your questions is what you want …. like kind of like relationships you know if you think about like you're like if I just go through life like I'm not gonna be friends with that person let's say this this this, this, this, and this. No, it's like, oh, I really like that person or like even a romantic partner, I really like that they're really open to my ideas.
Rachael: So then communication and a back and forth. So it's supposed to be a relationship between you and your school.
Beth: Yes. So if they don't squirm, but they're like, you know what, that's a great question. We are always, you know, doing the newest research and stuff like that. I'm like, that is right. You don't need to have everything perfect. Okay, my background. I was a teacher. I was actually Orton Gillingham trained before I became a teacher.
Rachael: Oh, wow.
Beth: I know, but here's the interesting thing. And I actually was talking with, I was doing a professional development recently and they were like, it was with a library. And they said that a few of their librarians got Orton Gillingham trained, but which Orton Gillingham, for those that don't know. it is originally over half a century old. It's two people Orton and Gillingham. And they developed this method based on science that was originally for the dyslexic brain. Often like so many people are like, Oh, well, dyslexic people need to memorize words. It's like, no, this method was made for the dyslexic brain.
Rachael: Exactly.
Beth: So there's like so much misinformation. But Orton Gillingham is like, the tried and true. It's not a swing in the pendulum of curriculum. It's like, been steady, it's been consistent. It has not changed for over half a century. The research has not changed. So my mom was actually trained at Orton Gillingham randomly, but I didn't know that until we were cleaning up my childhood home. I was like, Why do you have these textbooks? She goes, Oh, I did that for one of your …. I have a huge family. family. So one of my siblings was dyslexic. And so she got that training in the 90s.
Rachael: As a parent, not as a teacher. Oh my gosh, how cool.
Beth: But my mom-- like, I'm one of 12 kids. Like, my mom's kind of-- I have to talk about that. I know. My parents adopted. So I'm the youngest of four biological.
And then they adopted a bunch of kids after me.
Rachael: Oh my god, amazing. Wow.
Beth: Yeah. So that's kind of part of my story, too. is because there were so many different learning needs and behavioral needs. And that's kind of why I became a learning and behavior specialist and reading specialist because I saw how like my whole life was watching how people, everyone learned so differently. And so I wanted to build a place, because my mom was a great advocate. Like she helps other people. She advocated for everyone of her kids. and she helps, I watched her my whole life, advocate for other families with kids with special needs or learning differences. And so I was like, I have to make a place. Like every parent deserves that sort of advocate on their team. So I, jumping ahead, okay, but taking a few steps back. I was trained at Orton -Gillingham, went to school to be a teacher, was teaching first grade, and I was not using Orton -Gillingham because the school didn't tell me to. Like I was trained by my student teacher. She was one of the facilitators and so I was really lucky to get that training. But I didn't know how to implement it because the school didn't like hand me that curriculum.
Rachael: Right. And if you don't have the materials and that can be hard.
Beth: yes, exactly. Exactly. So I remember it was like a couple months into teaching first grade and a student of mine was reading a sentence and so the whole language approach, which is the opposite of the science of reading, is to look at the word where, you know, actually phonics and phonological awareness is to look at each sound in the word. And somebody along the way said it's faster to teach kids to look at the word and not the sounds Which is ridiculous when you actually think about it. But I had this little girl in first grade who was reading this sentence. So If you are teaching the strategies that are not based in science, it's like look at the picture and take a guess So the sentences in the story were like the same pattern. I like to play, I like to swing. And so the picture is changing with the last word changing so you can guess the new last word. So they're just memorizing these sight words. I like to, and then changing it to the picture, you know. And so the last one was I like to ride my bike and it was a picture of a child riding their bike. And I was like, look at the picture. What could it be? be? Look at that first letter. And she's like, no, actually, it was bicycle, which is not a word that you can decode if you're learning.
Rachael: You're in first grade.
Beth: Yeah, I was like, wait a minute, this was like, ridiculous. So I was like, look at the picture. What could it be? And she didn't know what it was. And I said, do you have a bike at your house? And she said, no. And I actually then like went investigating and you know, was couldn't just leave it at that. I was like, this is ridiculous. Of course, it's ridiculous. child has a bike. And sure enough, she does not have a bike. She came from a very diverse background. She was living with her grandparents. They were working all the time. She didn't really have a lot of time to play with friends. She kind of just tagged along with her grandparents to work. English was not their first language. They didn't have a yard. They didn't really live in a safe enough neighborhood where kids were riding their bikes out in front. And then I started to be like, wait a minute, if this is the strategy I'm trying to teach, what do I do when kids don't have access to that many words, which is,
Rachael: or when they have such different life experiences, and they like, I had a same very similar situation happen where we were, I was teaching kinder, and we were reading one of those like pattern books just like that, where it was different foods on it. page. And a lot of my kids didn't know the different names of the vegetables. And it was that kind of like a light bulb moment where it's like, how, like, why are we doing it like this? It's not working.
Beth: And when you see it like that, you can you can see so clearly that it is a huge social justice issue that
Rachael: 100%,
Beth: You know, that somebody said, it's easier for this, it's easier for a certain class. and race." Yeah, sure. So anyway, went back to get Orin Gillingham trained,
like remember asking my principal and she was like, "Are you sure you want to do a thousand hours of this?"
Rachael: It's intense.
Beth: Yeah. It is really intense. And I was like, "I do. I need to." And it was really funny to me that my principal was like trying to talk me out of it because they paid for half of it and she was like, "I'll do it, but are you sure?" And I'm like, "I need to. I need to." to do this. Because then I was transitioning to a reading specialist role. So I was like, if I'm going to be doing this with the whole school, I need to have more resources. So then is when I kind of stepped into literacy specialist. And then I did that for about six years at a couple of schools. And then kind of realized that a lot of teachers and it's no shade to teachers, but they are expected to do a lot of things. So a lot of the teachers that I was trying to like train or do things, they're like, I don't have enough time to learn this. I don't get paid enough to learn an extra thing. So nobody wanted to learn. And I was like, this is so infuriating. And so I was like, I can't fight this from the inside out. I got to fight it from the outside in. And so I left and I built my tutoring company.
Rachael: That's amazing. Oh my gosh. And yeah, I so many of the things that you just said, maybe just think back to all of the things that I experienced with teaching too, because teachers are so overworked, underpaid. There's no resources. Even if they would love to get trained in something like this, they can't always. It's expensive. It's a lot of time away from school.
Beth: Oh, yeah. And if they're parents, like, so I was saying, like, come in Tuesday mornings at 645, we'll go 645 to 745. And like, parents have their kids at daycare. Like, they can't do that. Yeah. So it was like yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't their fault, but it was just like, how… no one is giving them resources.
Rachael: No, it's a systemic, it's a systemic issue. So let's talk a little bit about why this is such a, you know, we're not like, we're not paid by Orton Gillingham, by the way. Yeah. But we, as educators that have been trained in something like this and that do know the science of reading, like we see how important it is to be doing it this way. And when you see that maybe the majority of schools are not doing this way, it's like you said, it's infuriating. So can you talk a little bit about why this approach or this type of approach is so much more needed and so much more effective than what the traditional approach is right now in the US public schools. But just based in the science.
Beth: Yeah, so if we teach kids, so the big differences are like the whole language approach, and I just gave a presentation on this, but when I was a teacher, I thought that a whole language, I didn't know that that was an approach. Like, I was like, oh, I just thought like it was like part of something. I didn't know that that was a name. So it's a name of an approach, which is a big focus on sight word memorization or high frequency words, which for those of the listeners that don't know, that will be like, if you get in kindergarten, a list that comes home that says, just tell your kid to memorize these words. And it's the like of we.
And many people will say, well, we have to teach them to memorize these words because they can't sound them out. So it's tricky. And this is going to give them more confidence. But that's not true. And there's actually a much better way to teach kids how to store these words, like we can teach them to automatically recall them. But what I like to explain is if we do that the wrong way, if we just tell kids to memorize the words, instead of actually teaching them how to, it's called map the words. I know that you all know, you know, as I'm saying,
Rachael: I'm just nodding vigorously. But yeah, please explain for everybody else.
Beth: Yeah, so it's mapping the words where we say for example, if the word is said,
you need your child to be able to tell you how many sounds they hear in the word said, ed, three sounds. So that's different than four letters, right? Because the middle two letters are one sound. And then we teach them that AI is the irregular part. And it sounds like it would be spelled with an E. The reason that we don't want to push to sight words first is because if kids can't do that and name the amount of sounds with real and nonsense words, then it's not really going to make a lot of sense for them to understand an irregular pattern.
If they can't do it with regular patterns, then what does irregular mean? So this is where there's so much confusion because people think it looks like kids can read because if we teach them to memorize 100 words, it looks like they can read. And so that becomes a future problem. You know, we're like, Yay, they passed kindergarten. Yay, they passed first grade. But then we see in second, third, fourth grade kids are struggling and it gets harder and harder to overcome that challenge that they have. So, um, so what I like to say though about sight words is it's not that we are ignoring sight words, those words exist.
And we do want them to be automatically recalled. But we're not actually making them automatically recalled if we just teach them to memorize them. It's kind of like if you bring your groceries home and you put like your milk in the bathroom, they're in the house, but it's not going to last. So like to actually teach the right way to store that word, taking 30 more seconds rather than just teaching them to memorize it is going to actually set them up for lifelong success. And so those are the two big differences. is like one we're thinking that this is like faster to teach kids just look at the picture clues just memorize the words we're looking at the whole word rather than each of the sounds in the word.
It seems faster but it's kind of like building a building on one brick it's you feel like you're gonna get really really tall and then it's gonna come crashing down where this one is like a huge foundational layer and then it just shoots up once we have that huge foundation. So I'd say that's the big difference. And as I was talking, I was like, what was the question you asked?
Rachael: No, basically, that was it. Like, what are we doing now that's not working? And why is a different approach better? So something that's like more multi sensory and more focused on phonological awareness and phonics and decoding and all of that is what you want to see. So I guess maybe for the non educator. So for a parent who has no idea what we're talking about. what should they be looking for? What should they be asking about when they're maybe touring potential schools or maybe they don't have a choice of school, but they wanna just make sure that their school is kind of up to date on reading instruction.
Beth: Oh, that's good. So I do wanna say somebody messaged me the other day and they're like, what do we do if our school is doing sight words and transferring isn't an option? And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, I was like, that's not I was like, how did that get lost? Like, right, you know, so I would say you want to hear word the words phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. So a lot of people I think are familiar with phonics. But what has to happen before phonics is phonological awareness. So phonological awareness is being able to do all of these tricks with your eyes closed.
So the big trick that people always go, wait a minute, what is learning to read actually starts with your eyes closed. And so we want to be able to have kids play with sounds. And that would look like if you say, ooh, there's a car, what's the last sound you hear in car, and your child can say rrrr, but then when they have such a strong understanding of that, then you say what letter spells. So that's phonics.
So phonological awareness is naming the sound. Phonics is putting the letter to the sound. And so I would say like the green flags that you want to hear are schools that are talking about strong phonological awareness that doesn't look like worksheets in the preschool and kindergarten level. It looks like a hands on. It looks like Play -Doh. It looks like sand. It looks like kids closing their eyes as they count sounds and words. They're using their fingers to count how many words they hear in a sentence and they're clapping syllables.
You know, we want to see whole body learning and we want to make sure that we are not having kids spell words before they are so strong in doing it with just their ears. So we don't want to even put the letters and sounds in front of them if they're not really understanding that. So that's what I would say you want to look for if you're on a tour, like look for preschool classrooms where I'm imagining right now like a circle of preschoolers and the teacher is saying words and all the kids are stretching them slowly with their hands or like counting and showing their fingers how many sounds they're hearing or, you know, humming syllables and songs. So, phonological we're going to see. really a lot happens in read alouds, a lot happens in singing songs together.
And a lot of it happens through play.
Rachael: Yeah, I love that. When I was student teaching, I will never forget this teacher that did all of that so beautifully. I have no idea now if they were like trained and in Orton Gillingham or something. But yeah, I just I loved how they made everything into a game. game. So like they would have a secret password to get up from your seat. And they would say, the secret password today is d-o-g. And then they would see if this, if the kiddos could understand that word. And like you said, like those are the types of things you want to see just like throughout the day, not just during, okay, it's reading time. We're going to learn our sight words today or we're going to learn about this one letter today. It's like it should be incorporated throughout their entire day and really based in playfulness.
Rachael: Yes. I love and I do a lot of training with preschools like holds preschools and I'm like, that's the biggest thing I say. I'm like, I'm not going to make you add anything to your day. I'm going to show you how you can do this. You can say like, okay, oh, I noticed your shoes are untied. Can you fix that? Or like, put your hands on your head. And so it's those moments that are actually showing what's happening. It's not necessary. the, like, we use this curriculum. I like want to see that teachers fully understand or are trained and get what they're doing. Not just like this is the curriculum we bought, but like teachers get it and are supported and know who they can ask when they have questions.
Rachael: Exactly. And so what do you suggest to parents for, you know, that communication piece that we ask and they're kind of brushed off that was something I experienced a lot when we were looking at school… is there were a couple of parents who were in the know… and brought up like oh what are you doing for phonological awareness or oh you know we've heard that this is not really the right way to teach reading anymore. It was very clear that a lot of them had listened to certain podcasts and I can link that podcast in the show notes if anybody is interested because I've mentioned it it a lot.
And I'll link your podcast too, because it's great. What would you say if you're getting met with kind of that resistance or that, oh, you know, it's just a trend or it's just a fad or, you know, our teachers are very well trained. And, we're not worried about it. Or, you know, you're, you're just not being validated. And they're not seeming to understand that it's a big deal. How do you navigate that? If you can't change schools?
Beth: Well, it's like, it's educational gaslighting, which is extremely unfortunate. Like I hear some people talk about medical gaslighting and it's like, then next thing is educational gaslighting. And it is like, parents know what they're talking about. And, but I think that like what you said, you're being met with that resistance. And I like to remember, you know, resistant force is always met with resistance. So humans are triggered easily, and people want to feel validated. So I kind of tell parents to ask in a different way. So maybe like reminding the admin, if you're on a tour, or your teacher, or whatever it is, like how much you respect them.
And so I would say like, hey, this is newer to me, but I'm really interested in this. I'm wondering if you've heard anything about this podcast sold a story, instead of being like, I know everything about this, because then you know, you get that resistance back that's like, oh, you listen to a podcast and now you know everything.
Rachael: Oh yeah, you think you know, I've been teaching for 20 years. Like let me tell you, yeah, exactly.
Beth: Yeah, so kind of like going at it with that approach by being like, hey, this is new to me. Like remembering that you are like, like new to this, whatever you're hearing about, even though you are qualified, but this is new to me, wondering your thoughts on this. I always also like to remind parents like to start a really positive relationship at the beginning of the year by, you know, maybe like the first couple of weeks of school, sending something a really lighthearted article like to the teacher and being like, Hey, I read this article, made me think of you would love to know your thoughts on it.
I know you're super busy. Things like that, even if it's just in your child's folder, because I know like a lot of people will get annoyed with like too many emails or like, obviously you don't want to just be in their inbox every day. But I would say like, starting small and not just jumping in with, you know, the big guns, but being like, thought of you with this article… I really value your opinion would love to know what you think. Then going into like, listened to this podcast, it's really new to me, wondering what your thoughts are. I know a lot of other parents have been talking about it on the playground but I thought I would come to you first.
So kind of reminding them how much you respect them. Instead of like, you know, it's a small shift of being like, Hey, all the parents are talking about this. Can you make a comment on it? But being like, I heard some parents talking about on the podcast, I know you're the expert wondering your thoughts. And then and then from there, you know, offering help.
So I always tell parents, like, you have to be willing to help with the change. So that means like going to it. So first, going to your teacher instead of being like, fighting, going and like reminding them just like reminding your own kids, like, we're on the same team. So being like, Hey, do you know about this finding out if they know about this? Second, like, Hey, can I help you with this? Like, do you think you need more resources? Like Is it a school level thing? Do you have ability to change? Then if the school allows volunteers, is that something that I could come into the classroom and help with? Or is that something that I need to go make a parent group to go to administration about?
Then at the administrative level, is this something that is about funding? Is this about parent support? Asking for a meeting with the principal or the administration to say like,
what needs to happen? And how can we help? Because I'm willing to assemble the parent team to help make this change. So not just like having the complaints, but being ready to back it up with the support.
Rachael: Absolutely. I think that's such a good point. And I think a lot of teachers might be frustrated by parents coming to them in that way because they're like, I don't make the rules. Like, I'd love to be trained in this thing, but I literally can't. But then at the same time, they don't to want to feel like you're going over their head and like running to their principal about you don't like the way that they're teaching reading, because that's not going to make you any friends with your kid's teacher either.
So yeah, coming in with that, that spirit of support, like, hey, I just joined the PTA, we'd love to support any training that you guys want to do, like please let us know, we think something like this would be really great. Or going to the board, like sometimes it's even out of the principal's hands. And they're tied to their board and their district.
And they don't have maybe quite as much power as we'd like to think.
Beth: Yeah, so true.
Rachael: Yeah. Okay, the last thing I wanted to ask you about, and for anybody that's interested in this stuff or that has kids that are going to be school age, please go listen to Beth's podcast because she has like a million different topics that you can listen to. at length. One thing I wanted to talk about though, since we mentioned it at the beginning was like signs of readiness for school. So for parents who do have those kids that have like a cuspy birthday or they have an option for a TK versus going straight to kindergarten or something like that, what are the things that you would look for to see if a child is ready or to see if maybe they would benefit from that extra year before starting kindergarten?
Beth: Oh, my gosh. I that's it's such a hard one because it's so dependent on the child, right? But I like to remind parents, one, you do know your child best, like, even though, like, you always know your child better than anybody, you are the parent. But school is for learning. So I would say I barely look at the academic stuff about kindergarten readiness. That's what they're going to do. They're going to learn how to read. They're going to learn their ABCs. It's developmentally appropriate to start kindergarten without even knowing all your ABCs.
People are like, Oh, they can't read. It's like, No, schools for learning. I will look at the social emotional, like, how do they feel about when they're away from you? Have they spent enough time away from you? How are they okay talking to other adults? I would ask a friend if they could take your child out for coffee, see how that goes, or even swap kids for the morning and go for a walk with each other and see how they do talking to adults, how they feel about sharing problems they might have, independent skills like bathroom or self -regulation soothing things, and then sitting still, but this is like hear this the right way….
That doesn't mean sitting still for eight hours that means like people are like Oh, you know, sometimes they have a hard time sitting for five minutes. Like well, so do I actually so I Mean like are they like rolling around on the carpet cannot like Understand you saying hey for the next couple of minutes We're gonna sit sit like do you need to go do 20 jumping jacks? And then come and sit?
Like, that's a normal thing for a five year old. But if they can't do that, if they can't like, look at you in the eye and have that understanding that this is my job right now, we will play. If they're rolling around, if they can't regulate their body around other people, like, those are signs that they might need another year of preschool, but not, not necessarily like the, the only signs because kids are made to move and kids are still learning every day and they're still learning how to ask for help.
So it's, it's, I would be cautious about this because I want, I want parents to know, don't expect that they know how to do all these things. If you haven't practiced them, if you've been practicing them and then they can't do them, then maybe they need a little bit…another year of practice. But yeah, I haven't introduced them.
Rachael: Yeah. And you know, your kids energy level, like if you can't take them to a restaurant, restaurant or like a library story time or something like that.
Beth: Yes, exactly.
Rachael: It was so funny, 'cause one of the things that my son said when he came home from school, 'cause he was at a very play -based preschool and they did the TK as well. So he was there for three years. He was very comfy, cozy. I absolutely love them. I think they did like an incredible job at preparing him, obviously, 'cause it's gone so well, but one thing he said was like, "Well, now that you know, what's the thing that I asked? "I am a little too bored, but I've never thought of it. "I'm just so excited to help you out." But one of the things I have to say that's different mommy is we have to stay seated and he like that he didn't seem bothered by it but it definitely did feel like a big change for him that he wasn't able to just like get up and wander around wherever he wanted and go inside and go outside um so yeah like preparing them the things might look a little bit different but also knowing that like that's what it's for it's going to be different than preschool because it's it's kindergarten ….it's it's big kid school.
And so that wasn't something he was used to, but it's been going fine. So far, at least, but that's just his personality too. He's never been one of those rough and tumble type boys that's like falling out of chairs all the time, he has total high energy. So for him, it's been fine for another kid, it might not be, but right, just like knowing, knowing how to prepare them for that. So the last thing I wanted to ask you about was, um, kind of similar to that question. So we're sending our kid, they're going to school now, and then they come home and they're having complete meltdowns and losing their minds. And this is something that we commonly refer to as afterschool restraint collapse.
And I remember it so well when I was a teacher sitting in meetings, I would just be like gushing about somebody's kid and how much I was enjoying them and how lovely they were. And the parent would look at me like I had three heads and be like,
are you sure that we're talking about the same child because at home they're an absolute nightmare. And I just want to normalize that for parents and let them know that that is such a common thing that we see that your child is struggling at holding it together and they're working so hard all day at school to keep all of those big, messy feelings inside. And then when they get home, they let it rip because they feel safe with you. So do you have any tips or things that you could say to parents who are dealing with that, like really, really big, heavy emotion, emotional release after school? And is it a sign that they should be worried or not?
Beth: No. oh my gosh. That's funny, I literally just posted this this morning. Like, I was like, we're on the same page.
Rachael: I know.
Beth: But I like to remind, like I, for me, even in teaching, I'm like, and this is what I say whenever I do a professional development to teachers, like you have to put yourself in the situation and understand this. So I like to tell parents. literally close your eyes and think about this. Imagine that for eight hours a day, five days a week, you are in a room, in one room, with 25 of your friends. And someone is in charge of you and says, do not speak to them. And you have to, right? And you are not in charge of when you get to go to the bathroom.
You are not in charge of any of your bodily functions. You might be thirsty, but it's not water time. You might be hungry, but it's not time to eat. You as an adult would hate that if someone's just speaking. And of course, you know, it's the there's time for play and there's there's time that they get to chat. But like, really, someone's talking basically at you for the whole day is telling you not to trust your own feelings to hold that bathroom, you know, to hold that hunger to hold that thirst, to kind of not really look at your friends, because you might want to tell them something and maybe like for me, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can't not tell my if I'm in a room with my friends,
I can't go more than 30 minutes without..
Rachael: Oh, no, no, I was always in trouble for talking too much in school. Like I cannot my son told me that his table won a prize for being the quietest group and I like that a little. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I get it. This is like a whole nother topic is like behavioral and teacher classroom management strategies. But yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot to ask a fan, right?
Beth: It's so much it's a lot to ask of adults. So so put yourself in their shoes, then go, realize that that's insane a little bit and then go, okay, what would I like to do? Maybe I actually don't want to talk and answer questions about my day. Maybe I want to go hit a punching bag. Maybe I want to go jump on a trampoline. Maybe I want to be able to pick whatever snack I want in my own house. Maybe I want to be alone. Maybe I want to scream. Like those might be the things that are happening. But so maybe set those options up instead of being like, you can't throw your body but being like, there's a trampoline or you can't scream.
Oh, actually, like, maybe we do karaoke or maybe we do, like, go outside and have 30 seconds to scream, you know, your emotions can't stay. If we let it out, it won't stay in our bodies, you know, if like, actually, like, if you just allow them to become come undone, like, you are going to be so fine. And like, give yourself that extra, like month, I remember a pediatrician friend of mine said, um, never in kindergarten, like don't schedule any extra activities for the first six weeks at least.
Rachael: Yes. Yes. I think that's such good advice. They are doing plenty.
Beth: They're doing plenty. They're doing mental gymnastics all day long. So let there be room for screams, for jumping, for eating ridiculous things, for letting them choose. Let there be room for that. And if we allow the room, then it's not frustrating for us. You know, if we allow extra. extra time instead of like, why are you ready? I told you to put your shoes on. They're being told to do all those things all day.
But if you're like, okay, we're leaving in 30 minutes, I'm going to go tell them like, Hey, we're leaving soon. You need to put your shoes on. So then it's not like a big deal. It's like, they have the time to take their own time. They're really just trying to claim who they are back in that after school time. Like they need that autonomy.
Rachael: Exactly. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you put it that way because I totally agree. And yeah, it's nothing to necessarily worry about. It doesn't mean that they're miserable at school. It just means that they worked really hard to keep all that in all day. And they need to let it out with somebody that they love and trust and that will not judge them or shame them or punish them for having those big feelings. Beth- Thank you so much. This was such a fun talk. I feel like we could do 25 ,000 different episodes. But you've already done so many great episodes on your podcast.
So I would love for everybody to check that out. And then what else can parents do to access your resources if they're wanting to kind of get ahead or help remediate their child's reading or anything like that?
Beth: Yeah, well, you can always message me on Instagram. It's big city readers. The podcast has a lot of topics. It's the play on words podcast. But I have a ton ton of courses for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and up to third graders that are, yes, reading focused, but also like social emotional and problem solving and kind of empowering and anti perfectionist.
So it's kind of a 15 minute lesson, but it covers a whole range of things to help regulate those those maybe after school blues.
Rachael: love that they have -perfectionist thing is so big too, 'cause my son is so, so that way. And yeah, I'm kind of anticipating that when he's starting to get into the meat of learning to read that that is gonna be really hard for him. So I will check those out.
Beth: Yay, yeah, it's, I am too. And I didn't know that I was because I, a perfectionist, is not what we think it is. So it's, it's a lot when you're like, "Oh, that's why you're acting like this." It makes a lot more sense.
Rachael: right? Exactly. Uh, thank you so much Beth. Have a great rest of your day.

Potty Learning and Supporting Your Child's Pelvic Floor Health

Emergencies, Injuries, and First Aid

No One Told Us