Ep #25: Tantrums and Challenging Behaviors with Jill Urbane

What is going on in your child’s brain when they are having tantrums and challenging behaviors? Today I am talking with Jill Urbane. And this conversation was amazing. I want to be best friends with her now and I think you are going to absolutely love what she shares and the tips she has for you. Jill is known as The Mentor Mom. She is a master’s level social worker and early childhood interventionist who has been working with toddler and preschool parents for nearly 25 years. She has a fascinating background from working in prisons and in homes for intervention.

And what she’s learned is incredible but also just her way of sharing it I felt was so personable, so helpful, so reachable for the rest of us. She talks about testing loops and how to understand what your child is doing as they keep repeating the same thing and making you repeat yourself over and over and over again, really, really interesting. She talks about when not to use the word ‘please’. When we are talking to our children there is a time to not use the word ‘please’ with them. I found this very fascinating. I’d never heard this before, so it was really, really interesting. I hope you will enjoy this interview with Jill and come listen to the conversation right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves because you know what? We all really need and deserve that too. I am your host, Amy Nielson. Let’s get ready to start the show.

Amy: Welcome, Jill, to the show. We’re so happy to have you on here today.

Jill: Well, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak.

Amy: Yes. Okay. So I am really excited because we’re talking about children’s brain development and how that impacts things like their tantrums, maybe some challenging behaviors, which I think we’ve all experienced if we have had children of our own or worked with children. And so this is a good one because sometimes it makes challenging behaviors inside of us. I am really excited to learn more. So kind of tell me maybe a little bit first about your background and how you got into the work that you do now.

Jill: It’s kind of an interesting story because this work was never on my radar. So I am a licensed social worker and early childhood interventionist. And I originally was in the mental health field. I started out working in mental health and psychiatrist facilities. And from there I ended up working in a corrections facility in a maximum security prison. And most of the individuals I was working with were young men in the age range of 14 to 22 years old that were going to be incarcerated, many of them for life for murder, I mean serious offenders.

And when I worked there it was just really striking to me how so many of them were so, so intelligent. It was just really quite sad that they ended up there. And so many of them had the very same kind of background. There were neglect and attachment and all sorts of different issues. And I thought, boy, maybe I want to do something to keep these guys from ever ending up here. So I ended up as a protective services worker. And I did that for about five years and that was enlightening to say the least, to see families who were struggling and at their worst in the moment because of the life circumstances they’re dealing with.

But it really made me love being a home visitor and getting to be a part of the realness of the emotions and the vulnerability and it just offered such a great opportunity for connection and support. And so I did that for about five years and then it was kind of burning me out. I mean it’s a lot of emotional ups and downs and laying in bed at night wondering if you made the right call and how this family is doing and if this child is going to be safe. And so from there I thought I just want to try something else. And a job opportunity came up in our local school district who was starting an early intervention program.

And I hounded the special ed director, calling her every week for two months, “Did you hire somebody? Because I’m still interested.” And she finally was like, “Okay, I’ll hire you. I give up.” And I have been hooked ever since. So I have been working in homes with parents of infants and toddlers and then supporting a special ed preschool program with children with developmental delays. And I absolutely love it.

Amy: That is just so amazing. I feel like you’ve come from just such a wide range of experience. And then seeing what happens when things are not going well, when it goes wrong. And then coming back to the core and I love that because my gosh, if we could start earlier, the things that we could protect from down the road. So I’m so excited to be able to get your insight on this and chat.

Jill: Yeah. I’m a firm believer that those first five years. They are the most crucial years and they are going to set our kids’ social, emotional and mental health for the rest of their life. If we can get it right then they’re going to do well the rest of the time. So the more tools we can give parents and the more we can help them understand what’s going on because it’s a challenging stage.

Amy: It really is, yeah.

Jill: They are little puzzles, yeah, they are, they’re little puzzles.

Amy: I like that puzzles are fun and can also be challenging. It’s a good one. Okay, so talk to me about what’s going on with these little kiddos, these preschoolers, these toddlers, what’s happening with their brain? What’s going on? Is there feeling all the feelings and sharing some of those with us sometimes in delightful or less delightful ways? Let’s talk about that.

Jill: I would love to talk about that because I think that somebody who’s been doing this for 25 years, that understanding how young children’s brains work is one of the greatest tools that we as parents can have in our toolbox. Because when we understand what’s going on there, it allows us to meet our child where they’re at. So many times the expectation is they should be up here when they are really down here. We’re talking too much to them or whatever the case may be.

So when we understand what’s going on from a brain development standpoint as well as from the social emotional stages that come as a result of those different age groups as well. When we understand those two things, I think it’s a lot easier for us parents to look at their behavior through a different lens which then allows us to not take it as something that they’re doing to intentionally make us angry or frustrated. Or something that we have maybe somehow screwed our kids up because I remember thinking that. I’m messing my kid up for life, oh my God.

Amy: Right. And then we’re like, “We’ve got to fix it. We’ve got to fix it.” And all the stress and maybe we just need to say, “This is part of the process and observe it and say, “Okay, well, then the next thing maybe I could try is this” or something. I don’t know. I’m excited to hear from you so tell me more.

Jill: Well, I’ve got to say just a little bit more about my backstory. I’ve got two children that are grown adults now. But my firstborn was incredibly challenging to me, I mean incredibly challenging, early talker, very, very smart, very bright. You know how it is when you have kids, you have an idea. You know how you’re going to do this. I’m going to rule the roost and I’m going to get these kids in shape. And all my plans just went out the window with him. I always like to share with parents. He was about two and a half and he was going through the sassy preschooler stage a little bit early, which I’ll talk why that’s going on in a moment.

But I remember I was so frustrated with the constant power struggles and the constant debating and arguing and challenging and just the mm, mm, mm that comes out of those preschoolers mouths. And I took everything out of his bedroom except the sheets and the clothes in his closet. And I called him in his room and I said, “Do you see what happens when you talk to mom in a sassy tone?” And he looked at me and he said, “That’s okay, I didn’t need any of that stuff.”

Amy: Oh my gosh.

Jill: And I was like, “Aargh.” I could feel the heat rising from my feet and coming up my ears while I held onto the doorknob thinking, well, now what am I going to do?

Amy: I love it. And it’s the sign of a really great brain. And at the same time you’re like, “Oh my goodness, what do I do now?”

Jill: Exactly. I went in my bedroom, shut the door and laid down on the bed and cried. I was like, “I am going to fail this kid, he’s so much smarter than me at two and a half. Oh my God, how does he know how to push my buttons at that age?” And that was really when my quest to understand it started with my son, wanting to understand him. But then it translated into the work that I do with families, understanding what’s driving those behaviors because I was taking everything personal. And just so you all out there know, the number one rule of parenting is you don’t take anything personally.

Everything that your kids are doing are them trying to understand the world and it’s nothing more than that. They’re just trying to understand how what they do impacts the world and you are their world. Your home is their world and it’s the safest place for them to try these things because no matter what they say or do, you’re not going to love them any less. You may not like being around them in the moment, but you’re not going to love them any less. And if that’s how it shapes their world view the responses that they get from us in that situation will help them determine what they’re going to take out into the bigger world and to future relationships.

Amy: Wow, that’s so powerful. And you mentioned something to me when we were getting ready for this. You said that preschoolers do with words what toddlers do with their bodies. Can you talk about that? Because this kind of blew my mind and I loved it.

Jill: Yeah. This has just always been the way that I’ve kind of framed it, when we’re looking at toddlers, so much of their behavior, the things that we see are these physical actions. It’s a lot of aggression. I’m kicking when I’m frustrated. I’m hitting. I’m throwing. I’m pinching. I’m biting, all of those kinds of things. And a lot of that is because of where they are with their brain development, but having these big emotions. And they also don’t have words to be able to express those emotions so they do it the one way they can which is through their body to let us know, I’m mad. I’m going to throw myself down on the floor.

But as we work with them and helping them to understand which of those behaviors are acceptable and what aren’t and help give them some tools to help express those emotions in more appropriate ways that are going to serve them better later on in life. They’re also starting to develop this growing and burgeoning vocabulary of words. So as we’re helping them to diminish the physicality of the twos, we’re now entering the sassiness of the threes. Oftentimes we kind of frame it for parents that what your toddler was doing with their body, they’re now doing with their words.

They’re not saying these things to try to hurt your feelings, just like your toddler wasn’t hitting you to try to hurt you. They were just trying to express a feeling and they didn’t know how and let me try this and see how it goes. It’s the same with the words that our preschoolers are using. They’re just trying to figure out how powerful is, “I hate you.” I remember hearing that from my son when he was three and a half. I don’t even know where he learned it. We don’t say, “We hate broccoli.” We don’t say anything like that in our house. And one day out of the blue he said, “I hate you.”

And of course my response was, “How can you say that to me? You don’t say that to your mother.” Which guess what? I heard it all the time after that.

Amy: Yes, because it’s like, that was fun. That got a response.

Jill: Well, exactly. And there is this brain process that’s going on with young children called tertiary circular reasoning or trial and error. Where we see kids doing these repetitive things. A lot of parents call it testing. They’re doing these testing behaviors. They are doing testing behaviors. They’re not doing it because they want to make us aggravated. They’re doing it because they have these little loops that are forming up in their brain and they’re trying to find exceptions to the rule. When they finally have determined there will never be an exception to this rule, I can close that loop and move on to the next one.

So I always use the example of a little one putting together a puzzle with a square, a circle, and a triangle. They get good at it and they know exactly where those pieces go but every now and then they may try to put that circle in that square. And parents are like, “Why do they do that?” Well, because they’re still looking to see if there is an exception. They haven’t quite closed that loop and made their own determination that this will never work so I’ve decided that it will always be this way. So now I can let this one go and move on to the next thing. So it’s the same thing with that verbal stuff that we get from them.

They’re looking to close some loops like our toddlers were looking to close loops with all that physicality.

Amy: That’s so fascinating. Oh my goodness, so they’re testing loops. And then they just have to kind of figure out on their own. That is so interesting.

Jill: You know what the hard part about that is? We are not consistent as parents. The less consistent we are, the more exceptions there are to the rule, the more they are going to do it. And if one parent’s really consistent and the other one isn’t, I’m going to try it with both of you because I need it to be consistent everywhere.

Amy: Oh my word, does it help to have consistency in their care during the day versus being at home, does that change anything?

Jill: Absolutely. I am such a big supporter of the daycare environment. When I’m working with a family, if I can get in and work with the daycare provider or the childcare center and get them on board with whatever strategies we’re working with, with a particular child. Because sometimes kids are spending more hours during the day with that person than they are with parents at night. Parents have to drop their kids off by 7:00am and pick them up by 6:00pm and then you get what? Two or three hours at night during the week that you really have interactions with your child.

You’ve got dinner to cook and you’ve got all the stuff to do. It’s really rough. So daycare providers, absolutely, the more they can be consistent and be on board with these kinds of things the better it is for the child and helping them close those loops.

Amy: Yeah. Interesting. Okay, so we want to try to go for consistency. Do you have tips for how to kind of maintain consistency and regulate yourself at the same time? Because I think sometimes we get exhausted. And maybe just understanding that it’s a loop and that they’re just doing the testing and looking for exceptions helps with that. But I think the struggle that we have is this like, I’ve already said this so many times, do I have to say it again? But maybe if we look at that and understand, this is a loop, they’re looking for exceptions, if we just keep staying consistent it will self-solve essentially.

Jill: Yeah, the biggest tip that I give parents is to look at what is the one thing that your child is doing that is draining the most energy right now? What behavior or action or situation is occurring that is just, you know, for me I remember going through the stage with my daughter where she was just whining. It was so much whining it was like fingernails on a chalkboard. There were lots of other little things going on but kids do at that age that we’re also, I’ve got to work on this and I wish she would stop doing that.

But you focus your energy on the one thing that’s draining your energy the most, continue to manage the others but try to get consistent about that one thing. So I always tell parents to start with that red zone behavior, if it’s an aggressive behavior like a toddler who’s doing a lot of kicking or a lot of throwing and people are getting hurt then that would be where we have to start which is usually the thing that’s draining most parents’ energy at that stage anyhow. But when we focus on one thing it doesn’t seem so overwhelming like, okay, I’ve got to work on the hitting and I’ve got to work on the sassiness.

And I’ve got to work on the climbing. And I’ve got to work on this. When we look at the big picture, that’s where we’re like, “I can’t today. So I’m going to let this go this time because I don’t have any energy.” So pick your one thing and once you’ve picked your one thing, you’ve got to take care of it every single time and just think in your head, I’m closing that loop. I am going to close that loop.

Amy: I love that idea that we don’t have to be doing everything all at once because I feel like I can handle a thing but it’s when it’s all the things. So let me ask you this. If you can manage to really just focus on one thing and be really consistent with that and close the top priority loop, does that help kind of with some of the other ones too where they see that consistency with that one thing, does that tend to kind of carry over into maybe some of the other things as well?

Jill: It does absolutely. One of the things that I remember from the Love & Logic program that I love so much is kids need to see that you’re going to do what you say, say what you mean and follow through. When you can do those things they start to realize, if I’m touching the TV and my parent is saying, “We’re not going to touch the TV” but they’re already up and moving. I know any time I’m doing something if my parent is getting up I might as well just stop. Because that’s another key is if you’re going to work on something, we talk too much to our little ones.

It’s almost like we’re begging them, parents will say, “Will you please sit down, stop standing? Could you please, please sit down, please?” Well, here’s one thing about a request like that, I always tell parents, if you’re giving a directive, you don’t have to use the word ‘please’ because please implies that there might be a choice. It would be like my boss coming to me and saying, “Could you please stay late tonight, Jill, we’ve got so much stuff we’ve got to get done?” And I might be thinking, I don’t really want to stay late. And I think I’ve got some wiggle room there. So I’m going to say, “I’ve got something going on. I’m sorry, no, I can’t tonight, what a bummer.”

Now, if my boss came to me and said, “Jill, I need you to stay late tonight because we need to finish this project that we’re doing.” She’s not saying it in a mean tone. She’s just being assertive. “I need you to stay tonight.” That has a whole different flavor. My response to that is going to be, “Okay. Alright.” So when we say please to something that is a directive or a command that we want our child to follow through on, then we’re giving them an implied choice. “Could you sit down? Would you please sit down?” “No.” “Will you please stop jumping?” “No.”

They’re hardwired to do the opposite of what we say anyhow, so it just is an ineffective way to give a command.

Amy: I’ve never heard that before and that’s fascinating. So when we ask them to do something we’re using not necessarily a loud or a different voice but not using the word ‘please’. And then do you add action to that or what does that look like on the action side because you talked about movement towards when they’re doing something. And again not necessarily aggressive or unkind in any way but just adding structure to what you’re asking them to do. What does that look like?

Jill: Yeah, I love how you said it because I often use the analogy, I don’t know if anybody out there has ever watched the Dog Whisperer. But he talks about calm assertive energy. We need to have calm assertive energy with our children. When we’re giving direction and things that we want them to follow through this with, we’re just being calm and assertive with kind of this general kind of energy that says, “Yeah, this is what we’re going to do, yeah.” In a very non-confrontational, “Yeah, we are picking up the toys. Yeah, that’s what we’re doing, we’re picking up the toys.”

So I always tell parents, if you’re going to give a directive to your child, a command then you want to be moving right away when you’re giving the command. So I’m going to use the example of, the classic example of a toddler touching the TV. They go over, they start to touch the TV and we say, “Oh, we’re not going to touch the TV.” And then they turn around and look at you like, this TV. And there’s a process going on with toddlers called negativism and they’re all about independence and no means yes, you tell me not to, I’m going to do it. That trial and error, tertiary circular reasoning, all of those things going on there.

So they turn around and they look. As soon as they turn around and look, I’ve already said, “We are not going to touch the TV.” The minute they turn and look, I am up and moving towards them and moving their body away or blocking them with my body from the TV and saying, “We are all done with the TV.” And I just stand there until they give up and move away because 93% of communication is body language and tone of voice. Only 7% is actually our vocabulary. Kids learn more from what they see us do and our tone of voice than they do from the words that are coming out of our mouth.

So say it once and then follow through because if you continue to say it over and over and over and over, you are actually teaching your child not to listen.

Amy: That is so interesting. And I feel like there’s almost this thing where we feel like we’re supposed to say please if we’re being kind, nice parents. And I think when we talk about physicality, the image or the thought that comes to mind is something that’s aggressive and unkind and maybe not healthy. But I love how you talk about it’s not in that way at all. It’s very much just assertive as you said but in a way that’s gentle and assertive. But using your body to communicate because that’s the primary method of communication over words and so many words. Fascinating.

Jill: Exactly. I can think of a home that I went to many years ago and she had a little, I think the girl was probably around 18 months. And when you go in a home, everybody has different rules and you have to respect that as a home visitor. That what maybe I wouldn’t allow as a parent, other people allow it in their home and that is totally up to them. This home had a glass coffee table. And the 18 months old was up on this table and she was jumping up and down on this table. And of course I’m like, “That makes me kind of nervous.” And I just out of respect to the parent I just said, “Are you okay with her jumping on the coffee table?”

And she’s like, “No, I don’t want her jumping on that coffee table. I have told her a million times but she will not stop.” And I said, “Well, can you show me what that looks like?” And so she was like, I’m just going to use the name Josie, “Josie, stop jumping on the table. Josie, get down, Josie.” And of course, Josie’s just bouncing up and down on the table, giggling and laughing. And after about 10 times of saying it she’s like, “See, she doesn’t listen to me.” And I said, “Well, I have to ask you, which one of those you actually meant?” And she kind of looked at me like, “Well, what do you mean?”

And I said, “Well, you said it 10 times.” And I said, “But there was no action behind those. So which one did you mean?” I said, “If you had a dog that was chewing on a shoe, would you say, “Stop chewing on that shoe? You need to stop chewing on that shoe. Stop right now, stop.” You would get up and take the shoe away from the dog and you would say maybe, “No, leave it”, whatever you want to say.” So I hate using the analogy of training dogs and training toddlers but the theory behind this is using less talk and more action because so many times we’re using big, big sentences with kiddos, young kiddos too. And it just turns into hearing the Charlie Brown, wha wa wa, wha wa wa.

Keep it really short and sweet. We are all done with that. We are all done with the TV while you’re moving and blocking. And then once they move away, that’s when we’re like, “Thank you. I love it when you listen to me.” And we work on manners all day long with please and thank you during play and meals and snacks. So it’s not like they’re not getting that, but when we have a directive, teachers are not saying, “Could you please open your books and please read page five.”

Teachers are saying, “Open your books and start by reading page five”, calm and assertive.

Amy: Interesting. Okay, let me ask you another one because this is something I’m curious about. Sometimes if I’m trying to have my child stop doing something and we use that calm assertiveness or whatever, is it appropriate then to kind of pull them, you’re blocking them or maybe you’re removing your child from the top of the table. Is it appropriate then to kind of pull them into your lap and have some fun with them and maybe do some tickling or something enjoyable and connection building so that it doesn’t feel like you’re being, I guess, physically aggressive or something, but does that look okay?

Jill: Absolutely. I mean if, in the situation of that little Josie, I asked the mom, I said, “Could I model a technique that might work for you?” And she was like, “Sure.” And so I just walked over to Josie and granted I am a new person, she doesn’t know me very well. And I said, “We are all done table, Josie.” And I took her off the table. She tried to get on. I blocked her. She was trying to get around me. “And then I said, “Oh my gosh, look at your car over there on the floor.” And she was like, “What, my car?” And we were off to the races playing with the car. So if you can redirect, it’s not about punishment or anything like that.

It’s just really letting them know, here is the boundary, I’m going to hold my boundary in a firm calm manner but you can go on and feel free to go play with it. This morning I was in a home visit and the little guy was trying to go out of the kitchen with a bunch of food. And mom was like, “No, no, no, we don’t take food in the living room.” And of course he was like, well, don’t take it in the living room means take it in the living room. And so I said, “Well, can I model something?” And she was like, “Sure.” So I grabbed his food very gently and I said, “Oh, well, the food is going to stay in the kitchen.

You may feel free to go play in the living room but the food is going to stay in the kitchen.” And he tried to take it. And I said, “If you want the food you can stay here and eat the food.” And then he was like, “I think I want to go play in the living room.” So he went and played in the living room. No fuss. No big meltdowns. It was just holding that boundary firm. If the expectation is the food’s going to stay in the kitchen, we’re using phrases that are not infused with those power words like don’t, stop, no. Telling them what we want instead of what we don’t want. You may feel free to play with the Play-Doh at the table.

Amy: Yes. Can I just put all of this on my wall? This is so good. I love it.

Jill: Sure.

Amy: It’s so good. Okay, so we talked about a little bit, I wanted to make sure we have chance to get to this, you talked about three steps that you like to share with people. Can we talk about those three steps?

Jill: Absolutely. So whenever I am working with a family, whether we’re working on speech and language or whether we’re working on behavior or connection, I use a three prong approach which any parent can do. So the first step is understanding the development, understanding what’s going on with their brains, not just the brain piece but also the social emotional development. Understanding what is the norm for your child at that age. When we understand that again, I’ve had parents that are asking two and a half year olds, “Why did you do that?” Well, guess what? Backwards thinking doesn’t usually come until about five years old.

So your three year old isn’t necessarily going to be able to say, I remember my daughter took a thing of baby powder and poured it all over our bathroom floor. And we had those teeny, little grout, teeny, teeny, teeny tiles when she was three. And I said, “Why did you do that?” And of course she gave the standard three year old response, “I don’t know.” Because she couldn’t say it because her brain isn’t set up that way yet to think backwards. So understanding the brain development, the social emotional development, what the norms are.

Because then that allows us again to meet our child where they’re at and not have expectations that are too high because that’s just going to be frustrating for them and frustrating for us. So that’s the first step. The second step then is to understand your child’s unique wiring. All of our children have a uniqueness to how they experience the world. And even though sometimes I think as parents we think, well, they must experience it the same way I do. I want them to experience the way that I do and I’m chilled but they’re really intense.

They are the way they are. They are not going to adapt to what we want. We have to adapt to where they’re at. So understanding their temperament, understanding their communication preferences. Understanding your parenting style and your communication style and do they work together? So for example when my son gets upset he likes to be left alone. Now, somebody talking to him because they want to make him feel better, not a good fit. As much as you want to as a parent to help them through that moment, he needs to go calm for a bit, pull himself together then he can verbally process it.

My daughter, she’s like ra, ra, ra, right away. She’s ready to go. Sometimes I’m not but she’s ready to go. So understanding the uniqueness and being able to meet your child where they’re at and understanding that we may have to change things that we would normally want to do for somebody in that situation because it doesn’t maybe work for our child. So understanding their temperament, our temperament, all of that.

And then the third step is, once you understand how their brain is and what we should be expecting, how they process their world and how we can meet them there with the way we process our world then we’re ready to find the strategies and implement them. And honestly, you don’t have to have 150 strategies in your parenting toolbox. You can find five to ten good ones and they will take you through many, many years.

Amy: That’s so hopeful because there’s so much information. And so to be able to just pick a couple is huge. And I love again, just going back to that pick the next thing and be so consistent with that one thing and just doing that, just that one piece will help with all the rest of it.

Jill: Yeah. And the reason I really love doing that is I remember a mom I worked with who had five boys all under the age of seven, four of whom were special needs. And her husband was gone a lot and it was chaos in the home. I mean my first visit these boys were hitting each other and pinching each other and throwing things and screaming. And she was just so overwhelmed and was having a tough time finding the joy in being a parent. She was like, “I feel like a failure every day.” And so we started with the one thing which was the aggressiveness between the boys.

And we came up with some strategies and still allowed her to correct and connect with the boys. And within a couple of weeks I went over there and guess what? Did it completely stop behaviors? No. They’re still going to keep trying but was it a whole different vibe in the home, her self-confidence [inaudible]. So now we were ready to work on the next thing, which was some of the kind of sassy talk that was going on with the boys and the way they were talking to each other and the way they were talking to her.

And she had more energy to address the sassy talk now because she pretty much had conquered this big one that was just leaving her ready to pull her hair out and feeling awful about her parenting. Then we got the sassiness under control. So you start to kind of work your way down. Well, then you’ve got more opportunity to have joyous interactions with your kids. You’re having more of those positive experiences and you’re feeling better about how you’re parenting your kids because you’re parenting then in a way that you’ve always wanted to.

Amy: This is so good.

Jill: That’s a process, isn’t it? It’s so hard. It’s so hard.

Amy: Can you just come to my house too? I feel like there’s a lot going right. But it’s so helpful to hear some of these ideas and thoughts and so just thank you for coming on and sharing this with us today. Can you come back? This was really good.

Jill: I would love to come back. I would love to come back some time and talk about attachment because that’s where it all starts.

Amy: Yes, okay, we’ll just schedule that because that sounds amazing. Tell me though before we go for today, tell me how people that want to learn more from you can find you? What’s the best place to find you and get to work with you if they’re not maybe in your immediate area?

Jill: So you can find me at my website thementormomblog.com where you’ll find links to my social media. I have a YouTube channel where I have tons of information, some of the things we talked about today, little video snippets, most of them are 10 to 15 minutes because parents don’t have a lot of time. They talk about things from hitting to social emotional development and sensory strategies. So you’ll find lots of things there. On my website you’ll find my services page. I offer one-to-one parent coaching. I have a program for parents with toddlers.

I have language delays because I’ve been doing that for 25 years. It’s a big piece of what I do. And then I also have a low cost parenting membership where once a month I do a workshop and then a group coaching session with the parents in there. So next month I’m going to be doing it on attachment.

Amy: That’s amazing. So good. Okay, so we will have the links to that down in our show notes so people can come and find that. And then yeah, I’ll just have to work with my team and see if we can get you back on again to have some more chatting because this was amazing.

Jill: It was so much fun. Thank you so much. Any time I can get an opportunity to help parents find just some strategies to feel like I can do this, that’ll work, that sounds easy enough. I’m a happy girl.

Amy: Amazing. Well, thank you for what you do.

Jill: Thank you so much. Thanks again for the opportunity.

Don’t you just love all the fun things we’re learning on the show together? Well, we wanted to give you a chance to practice a little bit of it at home. And so we made you a special freebie just for being a listener here. And you can grab it at planningplaytime.com\special-freebie. That is planningplaytime.com\special-freebie.

So what this freebie is I’ll tell you, is an amazing alphabet activity that you can start using with your kiddos. And it is based in play and is so fun. You can use dot markets with it. You can use Q-Tip painting. You could use circle cereals. There’s all kinds of options, but you can print it out today and get started. Just head over to planningplaytime.com\special-freebie and we’ll send that to you right away.

Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website, planningplaytime.com. See you next week.