Pip and Charley Teach Social Emotional Learning with Special Guest, Author Katy Steinbach

Hey, welcome back No Problem Parents. Today's episode is all about social emotional learning, which is the process of developing the self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills that are really vital for school, work, and life success. So this episode is focusing a little bit more on teaching social emotional learning to young children. However, we can all do better when we have strong social emotional skills. So my guest today is Katie Steinbach.

Katie is an elementary school counselor in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the author of Pip and Charlie's Social Emotional Learning Children's Book series. Katie graduated from the College of St. Benedict with a degree in psychology and has her master's in counseling and personal psychology from the University of Minnesota.

In her third year as the school counselor at Bruce Vento Elementary, Katie led efforts in achieving recognition from the American School Counselor Association for implementing a model school counseling program. She lives in St. Paul with her husband, daughter, dog, and a baby on the way. So today we're going to learn about the Pip and Charlie series and how we can make social emotional learning accessible and fun for all kids and families.

And I thought it was quite timely actually when I recorded this episode with Katie as we are struggling with our grief at the loss of our dear friend, Charlie Boyk. Charlie was an amazing friend. He was a pro at making friends and solving problems and was always so positive and humorous. Charlie, we will remember the bright light that you brought to everyone you met.

Your kindness, thoughtfulness, humor, and friendly soul will live on in all who knew and loved you. Skate free, Charlie. We dedicate this episode to you. Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast.

Turn behavior problems into no problem with Jackie Fineman. Are you ready to become the confident leader your kids crave you to be? Do you want to learn how to make parenting easier and more fulfilling? Whether you are at your wits end or you want to have more fun as a parent, you're definitely in the right place.

Now here's your host, Jackie Fineman. So welcome to the show, Katie. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Well, this is so fun. I've had authors on the podcast before. I love when we can find a good children's book for parents to not just to read to their kiddos, but actually learn something from. And so I am super interested in your Pip and Charlie series.

Before we get into all of that, why don't you just tell us a little bit about your background and why you decided to write a children's book series? Yeah, so I am a school counselor and I work at the elementary level. And I have always wanted to write a children's book. And actually, as a kid, I really wanted to illustrate a children's book.

And over COVID, as I was putting different lesson plans together, realized that I could turn what I do for my work into a book. And I could illustrate it to fulfilling both of those dreams. So I started, you know, kind of brainstorming what I would want to see in a book that I share with my students and decided on two characters that can solve problems together and work on their friendship skills together. I wanted it to be lighthearted.

I wanted kids to be able to connect with it. So I picked characters and animals that seemed likable to me. And then Pip and Charlie was born. Oh, it is so cool.

The illustrations are amazing. And so that's so fun. I didn't realize that you are actually the illustrator as well. So that's super cool.

And so you're really helping in these books too. You're helping adults to initiate conversations with their kids about social emotional topics through your stories. And so what topics are you like most interested in or that you see the most in, you know, your work as a teacher that you really feel that you can help parents to help their kids with? Yeah. Well, the first book is on making friends. And I chose that topic, well, first of all, to introduce Pip and Charlie to each other and to my readers. But then the second book is on solving problems and solving conflict, because I do see a lot of that in the work that I do.

I see a lot of things that get really big, a lot of issues with students that get big that don't need to. And so giving kids the skills to be able to solve these problems will keep things small and keep relationships strong. And parents and people that are not professionals in social emotional learning can talk to kids about this and can teach their students and even practice the skills themselves. And then the third book that just was released a couple days ago is about being kind to yourself and using positive self-talk, which is another thing that I see come up a lot with my students.

So it's really focused on building that confidence in school and in other parts of life. Well, that's really important, especially with all the social media stuff out there. kids being on social media at younger ages, comparing themselves to other people and really do they add up or are they as good as, or what kinds of things are they saying to themselves and just all the messaging that's out there right now. Right. Absolutely. And I see that a lot in, you know, testing anxiety and, um, kind of that perfectionist attitude and thinking that they need to be perfect in school, um, and in their friendships, but really they don't. And they just need to be kind to themselves. Yeah, exactly. What kinds of challenges are you seeing more so than others with mental and emotional needs among your students? So I work with a population of students that do face a lot of challenges. I see a lot of trauma. I see a lot of attachment difficulties among my students. And so the way that I will work with that is build relationships. I mean, that's really number one is building those strong relationships,

helping teachers build relationships with their students, working with families. And if there are kids that need even more support than what I as a school counselor can provide, I do a lot of mental health referrals to therapists in the community. Let's talk a little bit about what social emotional learning is even. What is it and why is it so important to kids? Right. So it encompasses a handful of things. The interactions that kids have with each other, with other people, the way they build relationships, and the way that they take care of their feelings and their emotions.

Social emotional learning is then teaching kids the skills to be able to do those things. Something that I work a lot with students on is taking care of those emotions, and so learning ways to calm our feelings so that we can look at things from a more objective perspective sometimes. So taking deep breaths and calming our bodies so that we can calm our minds, knowing how to solve problems with ourselves, with other people, and having the appropriate reaction to the size of the problem. I love that. Yeah. The size of the problem should match the size of the reaction and vice versa. So those are just a few of those skills that kids learn at a young age and then can carry with them throughout their life.

How does that work for you in the school? Then if you have a kid that's just really in fight or flight and they're totally melting down, you know, sometimes when we have all these great skills and they can work sometimes and then in those big moments, they may not. What do you suggest to parents when your kid's having a big meltdown or a big fight or flight kind of moment? What do you do? Absolutely. That's a great question. The first thing you need to do is just regulate. And oftentimes if we teach these skills, we want to say, Oh, you need to calm down. You need to take deep breaths, but even that can be kind of triggering. So what I like to do is validate their feelings. You know, I see you're feeling really frustrated right now. I see you're feeling really sad. You have, you have some tears. And, and I need to be the calm that, that, that,

that student needs because they can't do them for themselves in the moment. Once they get to a place of calm, then I can help them or as they're starting to calm down, help them with those deep breaths. Well, you know, we practiced doing volcano breaths before let's do a volcano breath because I've had students in those moments who might not be able to articulate how they're feeling, they remember volcano breaths. And so they can do that with me. So the first step is validating, then taking some of those steps and practicing some of those previously learned skills.

And then once they get to a place where they're totally regulated, then we can have the conversation. What happened? How are you feeling? What can we do instead of that big reaction? Or what can we do to keep this from happening? What was your body doing in that moment? Did you notice that that your heart started beating faster, that your face was getting hot, that your muscles were tight?

What can we do when you notice those things in the future and calm them down before it gets too big? What are the age groups or the age range? And do you find that it actually, for the majority of your kids, that that works, especially those kiddos who have maybe had a trauma background or had some breaks in attachment? So I work with kindergarten through fifth grade.

and I see, I mean, every kid is different. I use, you know, different skills with different kids. So like kindergarten and first grade, we are going to practice a lot of those, like the volcano breaths, the lemon squeeze that they really like to do. With the fifth graders, it's a little more mature. I help them, again, I help them regulate. We might be using different language, but it's, it really is the same skills that we're using. That's cool. Let's give the listeners a little insight into what just even those two things, the volcano breaths and the lemon squeeze.

Yeah. So I've heard of the volcano breaths. I haven't heard of the lemon squeeze. So volcano breath is, um, you bring your hands together, um, kind of like in a prayer position as you breathe in your fingertips go up. And then as you breathe out, you explode out and kind of your hands kind of make like a rainbow shape as you breathe out. And so your arms are really just going in circles, coming together, going up and then out and down. And as we take those deep breaths, of course, we're breathing all the way into our bellies. And then when we explode out, I like to have kids, you know, make an exploding sound like a volcano. And then the lemon squeeze is we pretend that we have two lemons in our hands and we're just trying to make some lemonade. So We're squeezing all of the juice out, squeezing all of our muscles really tight.

And then we breathe out and let it go. So I use my fingers kind of like, like rain coming down. So we squeeze the lemon, breathe in and let it go. Yeah, I love it.

As older adults where a lot of people are into yoga, a lot of people are into meditation now where that wasn't, it didn't used to be as much of a thing. And I think teaching kids really young, they're breathing, these breathing techniques and different ways that they can calm themselves. I mean, it, it seems like, oh, cause come on, does that work? And it does, especially when you start them young.

I teach a lot of times the six second pause. There's an amazing video, a breathe video, a breathe technique. And it's, they talk about how you can put your hand on your heart and your other hand on your stomach. And when you do that, you just literally can't help but to take a breath.

And it takes just six seconds for our amygdala to shift from that back part of the brain to the front part of the brain. So we can get to our logic part of our brain and really kind of chill and, you know, relax. And then think about, is this problem something we need to give a lot of attention to? Or how much attention do we need to give it?

And at No Problem Parenting, that's what I'm all about. Problems are meant to, it's right in the definition, meant to be dealt with and overcome. So we only give problems as much attention as they deserve. And then as I like to say in the Midwest, we say, keep her moving.

So I love that you're saying that too, that really identity, taking a look at the problem and how much emotion do we need to give the problem or the situation or the behavior or whatever right now. So I love that you say that. Yeah. Building relationships, expressing empathy, making responsible decisions.

These are all things that Pip and Charlie teach us in your book series. Yeah, well, and I made them for anyone to be able to have these conversations with kids. And so what's unique about Pip and Charlie is I've incorporated questions into the text itself. So that as you're reading the book, you're seeing a question like, how does this make Charlie feel? Or what do you think Charlie should do? Or what do you think Pip should do now?

So these questions that are engaging readers with really thinking about emotions, thinking about that, that empathy piece and helping them understand how they can apply it to their own life. And anyone can do any adults can read that and then start to have a conversation with the kid about it. And that as little kids, they love to be problem solvers, especially with the, you know, the characters in the book and they'll, they'll have these little curious, like, or these aha light bulb moments, right.

About like what their solution would be or what Pip should do. Right. Right. Exactly.

I've read the book to many classes at my own school and other schools, and the kids have been very engaged with the story and answering those questions and trying to solve those problems. It's been really fun. That's super great. And you even have a survey on the Pip and Charlie website.

Tell us about that. Yeah. So as I was, I'm trying to understand how are parents engaging with this work? How are kids engaging with it?

Um, so for parents that have read the book, I reached out and I said, okay, have, have you had these conversations with your kids about, um, about friendship, about, um, solving problems and how has that gone? And the feedback I've gotten has been really positive that these conversations are happening. What a good idea to do that too, and get the feedback from it. And who knows, maybe there's information that you gather from that for the next book that you can add to your series.

That is so cool. Well, Katie, this has been fun. This is so great. I'm going to put the links for people to be in touch with you.

You have your website, Pip and Charlie and Charlie, C-H-A-R-L-E-Y.com. Yeah. And then all your social media links are at Pip and Charlie.

And so we're going to put those links in the show notes for everybody to go and check you out and find, find out more about how they can get the books and hopefully in time for Christmas, we'll see if this episode is able to get out in time for that or soon enough for that. But otherwise great birthday gifts, preschool teachers, daycares. I have a lot of listeners that are in, that are teachers and daycare providers.

So I would totally recommend this series to them. And I just really appreciate you being on today and sharing with us. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for tuning in to the No Problem Parenting Podcast.

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