Welcome to the XO parenting podcast. I’m really excited today because we have a play advocate (just like me) who believes in learning through play joining us and her name is Alanna and she's joining us from Connecticut which is super fun we haven't had anyone from Connecticut yet. So, Alanna tell us about you and what you do? 

Alanna: Hey! So, I am the founder of a brand called play, learn and thrive. Well, I’m still a teacher so I’m a public school teacher I’ve been teaching for about 10 years and after I became a mom I sort of saw the issues that I was seeing in public school and realized that I wanted to do something about it. And so, I founded this brand this company to help educate parents and just to give them permission to step back and let their kids play, not push early academics and just kind of allow kids to really have a childhood. 

So, tell us about child-led learning and why it's so important? 

Alanna: So. it's funny because I’m not an early childhood educator so for me when I’m thinking about my students who are older they're in high school some of the problems that they were having was this idea of student-led learning, where I would kind of be more of a facilitator or a guide and I was just seeing that they weren't able to lead themselves into any kind of understanding of content. They just wanted to be told what to do and when to do it and how to do it and they you know, they just they didn't have that intrinsic motivation. Some of them did obviously but for the most part it was just a very like result driven instead of wanting to learn for the sake of learning. 

And so, that kind of set me off and I, after having kids really didn't want that to be the way that they end up. So, I started researching you know what creates lifelong learners and what are some early childhood strategies or parenting techniques or what have you and one of the sort of more early childhood education philosophies is like this idea of emergent curriculum, child led learning and so, you know it's literally exactly what it is it's like following the child it's the child is leading their education. So, if you think about instead of like what you were talking about instead of oh we're gonna learn about you know we're gonna sit down we're gonna do a worksheet with numbers on it you know you're driving down the road and they notice the speed limit sign and they're oh you know oh look that's the number two the number five 25 and you talk about it and then you know so, it's just really incorporating learning into your day-to-day. And as your child is asking questions you're just like latching on to whatever it is that they're naturally curious about and kind of extending on that instead of taking what you think that they should be learning and pushing it at them. 

Lauren Pace: Absolutely, I seriously I brought you on here because I totally agree with everything about it already I just wanted another voice to talk about it because I didn't want to you know bore my people by over talking about it. But I love what you said like from the perspective of seeing high school students that weren't able to like be student-led learners and play and letting the child lead and kind of letting the child create their own little realities within their play structure. It's allowing them to have critical thinking skills at like age two like they're starting to think for themselves, it's amazing. 

Alanna: That's like one of the biggest things I mean it would my colleagues and I mean that was one of the constant conversations, was just like these kids they don't know how to think about things, they don't know how to you know how to ask questions. They don't know they're not self-starters, they need you to hold their hand and kind of lead them through everything and they're they don't want to take any risks because god forbid they get you know they don't get the A or you know and it's like constant is this going to be on the test or you know and that was just sort of this mentality that as an educator made me sad because I love learning and I myself am a lifelong learner. I’m constantly reading and just expanding my own knowledge on anything that's important to me. 

So, I was like wait a second I don't want that, I don't want my students to only want to learn because it's going to be graded or because it's going to be on a test or because it's you know something that they quote unquote have to know I wanted them to want to learn and it was just like wow it kind of hit me after I had my own kids like wow. You know you kind of have to start this at the beginning when they're young because if you start to make everything about getting a reward for learning or you know getting a check plus because they did you know they did reading or something like that it's like you're setting them up for this extrinsic motivation and that's exactly what we don't want and so, yeah, it's crazy. 

You’re saying - a lot of these students who are extrinsically motivated are focused on the products and not so much the process of learning. 

Lauren Pace: And I’m just like you, I’m a lifelong learner. If I want to weave I'll learn how to weave, if I want to do macramé I learned macaroni and that's not like education stuff but it's like I have this desire to want to learn if I want to learn a power tool I'll learn a power tool and I'll continue to learn about child development all the things. So, yeah I just think it's so important to just have the skill to if you're interested in something, learn about it no matter what it is. 

Alanna: Especially now, I mean we have access to so much out there I mean I can understand you know back when schools were started it was very much the teacher had the knowledge and the teacher was sort of supposed to give you the knowledge. But now everybody has access to the knowledge I mean you can go on Google and you can search literally anything like any question that you have it doesn't even have to be written in a way that makes sense as like a search term you can say like how do I do you know how do I put to use how do I put a drill bit into a drill-like you’ll find something. 

You'll find a YouTube video you'll find an article and you know there's just so much out there for people to learn and there's no one right way to be a learner and I think parents kind of have that view that kids should know X. When we're not we shouldn't be the people that are deciding you know, what they're passionate about, right? Like your child is born and they are who they are and if their path is something that you don't necessarily expect whether that's you know for me like I’m not into art or creating or crafting or anything like that. So, like if my child was like oh my gosh, I want to learn to sew I'd be like really? But that's not my choice to make like that's not me to say no you can't learn that or no you're not allowed to be passionate about that I think we have this idea of like this is what kids should be able to know and do but there's so much more to that. 

You know and I think our job as parents is really more to act as a guide instead of somebody who's like a gatekeeper and saying you know, you need to know this. And it's only important that you know math and science and you know how to obviously how to read is like I’m not that everybody has to know that right and basic math skills there are basic academics but it doesn't matter when what so what happens if you know you have a 10-year-old who can't do math well but what if they're interested in astronomy or becoming a scientist or something they're going to have to learn math. And then they're going to be like wow I need to learn this and I’m going to go and learn it because I want to versus because I’m being forced. 

What does this look like in your home with your kids? 

Alanna: So, for me and in our house we are very lucky to have a dedicated playroom and a yard. So, for me a lot of it is really just giving kids the time and the space and sometimes that means I have to like forcibly tell them like I’m doing X and right now your job is to go play and I literally tell them go play and I don't I don't actually physically kick them out of the kitchen or the living room or wherever. But I will gently guide them to either our playroom which I have gated because we need containment or outside and I let them go and I literally don't like I don't play with my kids which people ask me all the time like how much how often do you play with your kids? 

I mean I really don't I mean I will do things together I mean we read all the time together we might do a puzzle or I might help them get set up in something. You know help them build the train track or whatever it is and I might play with them for a few minutes but then it's like okay now my time is done and you're gonna continue on doing what you're doing and wherever that takes them. So, I really don't even half the time know what they're doing in their play because it's far enough away from me where they don't feel my presence because I think that that really impacts a kid's ability to get into this flow of play when there's like a parent watching or an adult that keeps asking them questions or trying to insert themselves. So, my big thing is like space like I give you space I don't want to I try to be out of sight out of mind so that you as the child can focus on your job which is to play. 

And so that's understandable like no one's telling you don't spend time with your kids but I just think that it's really important for kids to have that autonomy and to have that time and space away from adults. So, that they can make mistakes without feeling like someone's going to judge them, they can maybe do something in a way that a parent would turn around and say oh that's not how you play with this or no that piece goes here and it's like well but now you just took away that learning experience because they haven't had that, that was a chance for them to figure out for themselves that the piece didn't fit or that the puzzle piece you know was the wrong way or the toy didn't work like that like you know and if you don't let them have that process then you're actually taking away a learning experience. 

Okay so, you talked kind of about your environment already but how do you encourage independent play you talked about this too like where you just like say go do it but if you have a child have you ever had a child who has wanted you to play with them consistently? 

Alanna: So, personally not so much because my kids are so used to me not like even as babies I mean obviously I’m holding them all the time but I put them down on the floor for a period of time for them to be by themselves and sort of look around and explore. So, they don't come to expect me to play with them because they just are comfortable in their own space I do have friends who have that as a problem and that's part of the reason why I started doing this was that everybody was always asking me what like how do you get your kid to play you know by themselves for three hours and I’m like wait what do you mean like I didn't realize that, that wasn't the norm you know. 

And so, I think how to get them to play I think the biggest thing is obviously the toys you know you need to make sure that you have open-ended toys getting rid of things that do the work for the child. So, typically that's like things with batteries things that light up things that talk things that move anything that's really taking away the, like the play process from the kid giving them time giving them space like having a dedicated space where that's where their stuff is. It doesn't have to be a playroom it can be just even a corner of a living room or you know the dining room table doesn't matter. Making sure that you are like building in time for play if you're one of those people that, feels like they always have to be on the go and scheduling activities and things like that. 

I think that's one of the bigger issues parents face now is just that constant feeling of needing to have something scheduled for your child you know Tuesdays is karate and Wednesdays are art class and Thursdays are violin and you know. And then, it's like by the time the week is over they had zero time to actually just do their own thing. Yeah, I think those are the biggest things and just being minimal to in the toys that you have out and that you have just in general I mean when you feel overwhelmed. So, I say to parents like to think about it if you feel overwhelmed walking into your playroom or your play space, imagine how your kid feels? You know they're human too and they have sensory systems just like we do and if we feel overwhelmed because there's so much stuff and it's unorganized and there are pieces everywhere and you're just you don't even know where to start you know that like paralyzing feeling where you want to pick something to do but you don't even know how to get started because you just feel so overwhelmed. That's part of the biggest reason I think kids don't play independently is that they just have so much stuff. 

Xo Playtime

Yay, we just finished another play podcast because I love learning through play. A quick reminder that you can join anytime our XO playtime membership where you can access all of my XO playtime learning plans. Each plan is centered around a theme and includes creative arts, reading, and writing, math and engineering, science sensory, dramatic play, social studies which is code for field trips and gross motor play along with some supplemental activities at the end some book ideas and some super fun engaging interactive learning through play activities to create your little problem solvers and engineers.

Go to XOLaurenPace.com/XOplaytime for more information or click the link in my show notes. 

Find Alanna

@playlearnthrivekids (FB, Insta, Pinterest, Twitter)

https://playlearnthrive.com