Get Your Kiddos to Listen To You via The Language of Play with Special Guest Dinalynn

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This 96-minute audio-video program is educational, Simple and easy to navigate. Go to NoProblemParenting.com to get started. Welcome back to the No Problem Parenting Podcast, where we choose to deal with and overcome the emotional and behavioral challenges within our home. My special guest today is Ms.

Dena Lynn Rosenbusch. She is a speaker and parenting and life coach. Dena Lynn helps parents communicate more effectively with their kids. After nearly three decades working in the school system as a speech and language pathologist and raising her own children as a single parent, Dina Lynn gained wisdom and skills in connecting to the heart of a child and understanding how children communicate.

She shares her insights in order to empower all parents to connect, communicate, and celebrate together, and she's currently sharing those insights with you on her brand new podcast, The Language of Play. So welcome to the show, Dina Lynn. Thank you, Jackie. It's such a thrill to be with you today.

I have appreciated your podcast tremendously. Well, thank you. Awesome. And you're also going to be one of our business spotlights in our next compilation book.

So I'm super excited for that to come out. We can learn more about you and you can participate in that book. So I'm grateful for that. Today, we're going to talk about how to help your kids listen better with connection and communication strategies.

And that's what your podcast really is all about. So, let's just jump right into it and kind of talk about maybe those three key things that you are teaching parents in order to help them in an effort to help them help their kids. Sure. Let's start with the definition of play.

And I have looked at kids as we all have and we see our kids play and play and play and sometimes parents have an idea, as I did when my kids were small, that play means you're going to sit on the floor with Legos, or you need to get really animated with toys and dolls. So I took this idea of play, and I thought, what is it? What really is play? And in that, I have listened to many, many people, and I've got my own definition, which is just a list of words. And those words are experimenting, exploring, practice, fun, enjoyment, learning, creativity and imagination and so when we roll those things together I think of that as like a mindset that we have that drives how we interact and so I call that like a play mindset this idea of that's what our play is about and when we get into that mindset of we're imagining we're practicing. We can make mistakes. We're just trying and experimenting. Our mindset allows for failure and other things. And so somewhere along the way, we got the idea as adults that,

you know, we shouldn't fail. And when we look at our kids all day, every day, they're trying and trying and trying. That takes a lot of courage because everything that they do every day is in this mindset of play. They're always experimenting. They fail, succeed, succeed, fail, fail, fail, succeed, succeed, succeed, fail, succeed, fail, fail, succeed, succeed. And this goes on and on and on. We don't do that as adults very often anymore. And once we know what we're doing, we don't want to fail. And so we have this thing, this mindset that, oh no, they did it wrong.

But if we can switch our definition of play to be something that is much more broad, and we get a mindset that says we are playing, which means exploring, learning, we have a very different attitude when our kids fail. It's also called a growth mindset, like Carol Dweck and many others are promoting a growth mindset. It's really kind of the same thing. But I look at it through the perspective of communicating with your child, to communicate with that mindset that we are exploring.

With the mindset we are experimenting, we are learning. And when we communicate in that mindset, it just allows the idea of a failure to drift away because our words become, oh, how's that working? Do you want some help? Did you like how it turned out?

You want my thoughts? We just ask our kids questions and we start to interact with them. What did you learn? How would you like it to have been different?

You know, all of these kind of conversational things then come out of it. There isn't room then for like, well, I told you not to do that or you should have known or, you know, there just isn't room for that. If we can get ourselves in that mindset of play. well and I really like this uh Dina Lynn because you're talking about like when kids play like let's take the Legos for instance and they're trying to put them together and they're not forming you know they're not going together the way they they hoped or it didn't turn out the way they hoped or they're falling apart and the kid's like no you know they're getting all frustrated and upset and um and maybe throwing a fit over it or something like that and it's like no those are little mistakes kind of little failures that you're talking about right where the kids get can end up getting discouraged or they break a toy that they, you know, something they were trying to create or play with or do something with, they break it. And then they're super frustrated. And that's a little mistake or a little failure. And you're helping to kind of talk about like,

it's okay. Yeah. It's like shifting the way you think about it and helping your kids do the same. So you learned what didn't work. You know, you learn that that doesn't work. Huh? Wow. Well, what will work let's try something different and keep it simplistic like that because it can diffuse some of the frustration that kids have and it also keeps us as parents in that mindset and the reason I say this is because I need to do this with me you know I will sometimes like think oh I didn't do it right darn it and I can get mad at myself and frustrated and then if I can get back in that mindset wait a minute you've never done this before Dean O'Lanney you of course you're going to make mistakes. Of course, it didn't work the first time. Who cares? You learned something that didn't work. Now we're going to try something different. So I even have to have that personal mindset for me to be able to keep going at times that are new, especially like this new big project of starting a podcast, you know, like that self-encouragement that comes along the way.

I love it. And I, and I like that you're saying it's, it's yes, there's a growth mindset, but it's, I like how you shift that to, it's a play mindset. And as adults, we don't often play enough. I just recently, a few weeks back had Julie Jones on the podcast and she was talking about how to have more fun, you know, stop, stop waiting, start living and how to have more fun as an adult and, and in our parenting, but even just within ourselves and, you know, instead of always being busy and we're so busy and we're stressed and all that, well, how about we turn that into, let's be more playful and take our busyness and our stressful moments and think about, Hey, what am I learning? You know, it's not so much about, you know, being busy and whatever all the time. So what am I learning here and how can I incorporate a little bit more fun and creativity and imagination into what I'm, what I'm learning and what I'm doing. So what are some of the things that maybe parents do to kind of discourage their kids or place maybe fear into their kids that will cause them to maybe not use as much creativity, imagination, or confidence in themselves as they play? Great question. I have a story that can illustrate that very well. So there was a 12-year-old boy who was throwing his tennis ball, and he was throwing it at the thermometer,

which at the time was like one of those 10-inch round plastic-covered thermometers, and it was on the apex of a shed and he was throwing the tennis ball at that shed and bouncing it back and catching it in his glove and he kept on doing this and his dad walks by and he says don't hit that thermometer and the boy says I won't and he keeps on throwing and keeps on throwing sure enough crash and the dad got mad and he says I told you not to break the thermometer and the boy says and this is So classic 12 year old thinking, he says, I didn't want to, I just wanted to see how close I could get.

And in that moment, I, I've often thought about this experience because the dad had such an opportunity to talk to the child, even before the incident, like to say, you know, if you keep your eye on that thermometer, you will eventually hit it. you know, the boy didn't believe he could. And this is a true story, by the way. And, and the boy didn't believe he could. And the dad had opportunity at the beginning to tell him about life and to say, when you hit it, you know, do you have $12? That's how much it'll be to replace it. Or when you hit it, you'll have to climb on a ladder and get up there, you know, like to talk with him about outcomes to, to build the relationship. And then even if they hadn't had that conversation, there was another opportunity. And the opportunity afterwards would be like,

huh, you hit it. Why do you think you hit it? I know you didn't think you would, but now do you believe you can? You know what I mean? And then what should we do now to fix this problem?

How can we work together? And so there is this big piece of if your mindset is in the realization that kids don't necessarily think about the outcome and how it is that their outcome will be experienced. They're just like in that moment of wonder. And as long as they are, they don't need us to come back and say, you should have known I told you not to.

But we as parents, when we're stressed or when we're worried, when we're busy, when we just want to get our own tasks done, it's so easy to step out of that mentality. of remembering where our kids are at. And that brings me to the second thing I wanted to talk about today. So the first thing was, you know, the idea of what a play mindset is and that failing is an opportunity to learn what doesn't work.

And the second thing is skills. When our kiddos are learning, they are practicing and practicing and everything that they're doing is a skill that they need to learn. Whether we're talking about the 17, 16-year-old driving or 15, or if we're talking about how do they learn to speak. As a speech pathologist, you know, we break down how kids learn to speak into these little bitty intervals so that we can help them when they are children that don't know how to speak.

And that has helped me to be able to think about all the tasks that we teach our kids. Oh, what part of this task is missing? What part do they not understand? whether we're learning to walk whether we're folding towels putting away their toys doing a good job showering maybe brushing their teeth tying their shoes whatever it is there we can break down these tasks into small parts of skills and the language of play is also very encouraging because we remember that these are steps these are little stepping stones and we're trying to get something new. They're trying something new again. And for kids, just because they did it 15 times doesn't mean it's not new. Yeah. And they're learning. And as they're learning, like you mentioned earlier, they're failing as they're learning, you know, they're starting to walk and they're not quite there yet. And they're falling down or they can make a couple steps,

but they can't, they can't go very far or they're trying to talk or they're learning words. They're learning how to stream words together, but maybe the sounds aren't coming out right. L's don't sound like L's or their P's don't sound like P's or, you know, that kind of thing. And they're just, they're learning. And so sometimes I think parents are a little bit too hard on themselves when their kid isn't up to speed with say other kids in their age group. And so what do you, what do you say to parents when they're, when they're struggling with, you know, oh, my kid isn't catching on to this soon enough or early enough. Yeah. Parents do get hard on themselves but it really is, you know, I think to help parents rewind and remember that it's not your performance report card that's going on, which we feel like it is. And I'm speaking from experience too. When my kids were growing up and I was learning along the way here too, there were many times that I judged me according to their good behavior, like I'm a good parent and their bad behavior. Oh, I'm a bad parent, but that's not where I want parents to go. And it's easier to say it now to change our mindset, to be able to say to our kids, oh, I see you're getting it.

Also helps us as parents. Oh, they're getting it. It's about them and their need to be able to just have another little step and keep it up. I can see you're learning. You're getting closer. Let's do this. Let's do it together. And another part of that that we also need to remember is encouragement is saying, you know, you can take a break. And I think as parents, we need to say to ourselves too, we can take a break. Taking a break is huge. So I have a daughter and she was learning to read and she was really having a hard time in second grade as she was trying to do the second grade reading.

And so the encouragement for that kind of situation was let's do it together. So she would read a word and I'd read a word. And eventually she'd read a sentence and I'd read a sentence. And eventually she'd read a paragraph and I'd read a paragraph.

And eventually she could do page and I'd do a page. So we had to grow this up. And she went off, she finished college. She did a great job, but her beginning was hard.

And doing it together really was a helpful thing. And then also to tell her, take a break. you did good today that's enough and we as parents too like we want it all done now yeah so we need to give ourselves a little bit of a of a break and our kids are not a reflection of us and how good of a parent we are or how much we're trying um and I think that's really important I like that you said that that it's it's really it everybody learns different and in their own time frame and so I think that's really good that we pause and remember that kids are trying they are learning at their own speed, at their own pace.

And that is good enough. Yeah. And of course there's some reflection, but it's not a total reflection. It's not a worth kind of reflection.

Right. Right. So, and even when we're doing big projects, we already talked about that. I need that kind of encouragement with myself to myself.

And I really, really appreciate people like you, Jackie, that say to me, you can do this, Dina. You've got this. And I find that to be a really, really important thing. Yeah, for sure. We need to give ourselves some grace. And I know you and I talking about podcasting. I mean, it took me two years to start a podcast because I got nervous, even though I learned all the things and what I needed to do for it, all the tangible things.

I got nervous and I'm a talker. Like, that's why I wanted to do a podcast, right? Because I can share stories, you know, all day long and not get tired of it. Like I had to get it just right. And, and it's finally like, you know, that's just kind of crap.

Like just show up, be yourself, present what, you know, the experience and the knowledge that you have and those that can benefit from it. We'll be listening and it'll, it'll be just fine. But I still don't like to go back and listen to my first couple of episodes because I was in the learning phase and I was in the nervous phase and all of that. And it's like, that is so similar to kids when they're first learning to read, to write, you know, they don't feel like they are doing it good enough and they probably aren't doing a great job at it, but it is good enough because they're learning. And yeah, so I just love what you're, I love what you're doing with all of this.

Let's get to your third topic for today. It's almost like a step. It is. The third one I want to focus on is joy and celebration. So when we're exhausted, overwhelmed, and triggered, it is so easy to lose our joy. But parenting can be very joyful. And so I started thinking about how is it that when I would work at the school, parents would say to me, how do you get kids to be able to do what it is that you want them to do? Like, really just do the next step, do the next step, do the next step. And as I thought about it, it took a while for me to tease it apart.

because kids would come into my classroom and they're scared and they hide their hands over their mouths and they wouldn't want to talk because they just got diagnosed with a speech disorder and they're ashamed you know like and you know like there's they come in with all these feelings and then after you know like say a month or whatever we've been working together and they have become confident to try and they're not ashamed of their mistakes and they you know so they've made this big change. And then parents, I invite parents to come in and they'd say, how do you do that? It's what I like to call a one second celebration. So a one second celebration is saying to the kids, that's it. That's the right thing. That's what I want you to do right there. That's it. Now I'm going to backpedal for just a minute because it's really difficult to do this if you haven't taken care of yourself. If you are overtired and hungry or lonely or any of those things, it is so hard to remember the little celebration. So you have to take care of yourself.

And my daughter is currently pregnant and she has a 16 month old and it's in her norm. She has grown up with this little one second celebration idea, but I'll tell you when she is tired and she she can't even think of the glorious thing that just happened. And sometimes we need to look at the glorious thing that happened as, oh, there's no food on the floor this meal. And so for her as having a 16 month old to show the child, no, oh, there's nothing on the floor because he always says, oh, and he drops stuff. And so to point out the floor, no, oh, yay. And be done with it to give him the target. Oh, that's what I want. I really like that there's no food on the floor.

And so for a young one, it might be that for an older child, you would have, you know, like, hey, you put away the towels the first time I asked you. Great. Thank you. That's what I want. You know, it's a it's a snippet of you did it.

Yes, exactly. That's step three and no problem parenting and change the conversation. So often we forget to notice. Okay. The joy and celebration part. Yeah.

And so oftentimes I'm saying to parents, it doesn't have to, I like this one second thing though, Dina Lynn, because it doesn't have to be this, you know, long compliment or this overexcited celebration over something that they should have just done anyway. You know, that's like not really a big deal. It's just, I asked you to do this, do it. Or I didn't ask you to do it and thank you, but we don't have to like overpraise them for it.

We can just say simply, I noticed you put the clothes away. Yeah. The first time I asked you, or I noticed you put your clothes away and I didn't even ask you. And then keep her moving.

As we say in the Midwest, right? Don't overpraise them. They'll say things like, oh, why do you make such a big deal about it? Because sometimes when we over compliment or overpraise their self-esteem, because they're like, well, duh, anybody would just do that.

Why is it such a big deal? Did you really think that I'm not capable? You know, so it can have the opposite effect on, on the kiddos, but just a simple one second. I noticed you did this.

I love this, Dina Lynn. This is great. Yeah, that came out of the idea of exactly what you're saying. When you give more noticing and more time to something that it needs to be, it starts to be not authentic. And yet in my therapy office and in my home as a single parent, I wanted clear communication and communication is my focal point. The language of play, the language of clear communication and connection? How is it that we can be clear? And so I wanted to figure out how is it that I can say, boom, this is what I want. It's right here. It's right now, but I'm not going to spend time on it because I didn't want exactly what you're talking about. This idea that it's no longer authentic. It doesn't feel sincere. And so this, it's gotten to be a very common thing in my home when kids do it even even when I do something yahoo you know to just have this mini oh yeah you did it or high five or yes that's it and the glory of that is this target that you set for the kids so like as I had teens the big deal was I'd say take a shower they didn't budge and then I'd say why didn't you do it he says oh you mean now the clearness of the communication wasn't there so I first I had to learn to say take a shower now and then it got to be where I would say when I tell you I do mean now and eventually they start getting that and then it was like you got up the first time I said so that's what I want

and so then it was like you know just a thumbs up so it was like this migration pattern of how to do that second one second celebration and now it's just a quick you got it and so that is used for all kinds of things whether we're picking a tool out of the garage or if we're picking you know like whatever it's this mini that's exactly what I want the communication is clear now kids can move towards what I want them to do. Because they don't know sometimes that they don't.

And, and the other thing that I know that you've had on your podcast is, you know, when a two year old has that huge brain expansion, they miss a lot. We have the same kind of neurologic brain expansion around the teen years in the mid teens. And they have misfires. And they miss things that they used to know because their brain is expanding so fast. And so to call attention very quickly, that's the target, yes, is really helpful because their attention span can be waffling and the things they used to know, they don't seem to know anymore.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it is true. We have brain farts every now and then, whether you're a toddler, elementary student, or a teenager, or the parents.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, this has been this has been great, Dina Lynn.

Anything you wanted to add before we wrap up? Any final thoughts? Yes. With a play mindset, we can remember that we are all in process and allows for growth, encourage and learning. And when we use the language of play, our kids are encouraged and they can clearly know what we want of them. And failing isn't a problem anymore.

That is so great. So I'm going to encourage everybody to listen to your brand new podcast called The Language of Play. And the topic is all about how to help your kids listen better with connection and communication strategies. So you're giving tips and strategies, lots of free resources in that.

So I encourage all parents to go find that and then be sure, like I say to all of my listeners all the time, leaving a review, making a comment, sharing with your friends, all that helps us podcasters to be able to reach more parents, more people, more of our audience. So I would encourage people to do that for you as well, Dina Lynn. Thank you so much for having me on today. Your No Problem Parenting program is fabulous.

I love it and support you completely. Thank you for tuning in to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Join Jackie next time for more tips, tools, and resources that will help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be. Who do you know that we could support on their parenting journey?

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