Dinalynn Rosenbush Provides Insight For Parents To Build Connections With Their Kids Through The Language Of Play

Welcome to the D shift podcast, where we provide inspiration, motivation and education to help you transition from the challenges of divorce to discover the freedom and ability to live life on your own terms. Are you ready? Let's get the shift started. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the D shift. And today we have got an expert on it's going to help parents whether you're going through a divorce or not to really understand what's going on for their kids, and to help them communicate more effectively with their children. So I would like to introduce Dinalynn Rosenbush. And Dinalynn is she got a big title here and lots of things she's done. She is an international best selling author. She is a speech and language pathologist, an educator, a parent, coach and mentor, and a podcaster. So you got a lot of things going on in your life. Dinalynn. So thank you so much for being on today.

Oh, thank you for inviting me, what you're doing on this podcast is really important work. I was divorced also. And I know that boy, when I was listening to some of your episodes, I thought, I wish I had had some of this information when I was first divorced. And it is so important. So thank you for the work you're doing in the world. Well,

thank you and I and I've listened to a few podcasts you've been on, and I know how much information you share. So I'm excited about this. So So you've told us a little bit about, you know that you have been a single parent, you've done, gone through this, this divorce process that everybody doesn't want to go through. But anyhow, 50% of us are going to end up going through it at least once in our lives. So what what do you what brought you into this area of focusing on children and language and, and brain? Brain Science? How did you get here?

Well, okay, so I went to school for speech pathology. And so that's where I had started. And then when I became single, I went to work full time, regularly. Otherwise, I had been doing part time temporaries. And while I was raising my kids, and before I had kids, I was working full time. So you know, I kind of did this, this hiccup or not really hiccup this non straight trajectory. But um, so that idea of having this background of brain science and teaching speech and language was really what I learned in college, it's not related to the divorce. But going back to work full time certainly was, and then in the school that I worked in, I was really privileged to not really have a whole lot of oversight, there wasn't micromanaging. And so what I really enjoyed was that I was able to look at the literature, look at the research and say, I think I want to try this with this student, I want to try this with this family, I want to reorganize my program this way. So I really was giving a lot of autonomy, to be able to try out the research. And one of the things that I I found, which is not any bit surprising is that when you involve parents, you make a huge difference for the kids. Kids come into our classrooms, and we teach them you know, like in speech therapy, you get them for a few times a week for 20 minutes at a time, because you're taking them out of classes. So you want to crunch their focus on their learning, and then send them back. But you get into the situation where the kids need to first their language delayed. And now they need to learn how to maintain the skills that they're learning in this environment. And they have to go out there and do it. But language doesn't get learned in a vacuum. So when when I was able to bring parents in, and they could work with me with their kids, they would see oh, this specifically, is what we're working on. Now when I'm at home, I can use this phrase, or I can use this vocabulary, or I can use work on this speech, sound, whatever it is, right, and you can catch it. And just have those little reminders, like a nugget of reminder for the kiddos. And the progress kids made was so much faster. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so that was probably one of my greatest things to glean. And that's really the anchor of what it is. That is why I'm doing what I'm doing now. Yeah. And I

think the reason that when I heard you speak, that your message really resonated with me because I was a behavior consultant for school districts for a lot of years after being a classroom teacher and then became a behavior consultant. And we did the same sort of program. We pulled the behavior console or the behavior challenge children out of the program, and they had to have a concurrent learning disability and behavioral diagnosis. pulled them out one on one small groups like seven kids, eight kids in a class with the teacher and one or two assistants, we had speech and language paths we had Physical Therapists, we had the whole works. And we invited the parents in at least once a week to come in and participate. And you're right, when you get that whole wonderful synergy going. The big changes happen really quickly. So, yeah, and

I didn't know this about you. I didn't. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah, you know exactly what I'm talking about then. So if I just gloss over something, and our parents aren't gonna catch that, you know, add that in. Because it's a, it's a really big team that we're trying to help these kiddos and kiddos with behavioral disorders, like you are working with the language teaching parents how to use the language with them, that matches the language somebody else is using, can make so much difference.

Well, and I think the other thing, whether you're talking behavior or speech, to have to normalize it, and to have the whole family supporting the child, sometimes kids feel very isolated, especially if they have communication problems, we work with lots of kids on the spectrum on the autism spectrum. And we're language was a challenge, or kids that have had some other kind of speech and language impediment, or like a physical issue or something that caused challenges in speaking, so much of our world is communication. And if we're not able to communicate, it's frustration. And then frustration leads to outbursts, sometimes, or kids withdrawing, right. So it can be any of those things. So tell us a little bit about the role of or how you see parents and kids communicating more effectively together, just in day to day interactions.

All right, thank you for that question. Because that is really where I put my bread and butter, you know, like I, I want to help parents to develop the connection. And so the connection with your children, it really comes out of that language comes out of that communication that you use. And when you're able to pick words that emphasize you're curious about the child's life. So often, the behavior that is like terrible turns out to be Oh, that they were exploring. So I don't know if you heard the podcast episode that I just put out. One of the examples of this was a little boy was hitting blocks at his dad's house at the time, he was in third grade. And he had taken a hammer, and he was smashing patio blocks. And his dad comes around the corner, what are you doing smash in my blocks, and the child just freezes. And he didn't even realize he had been smashing the blocks. He was. And later on, as we became curious, we talked about it, he's, you know, coached him all this stuff. He went back to his child, and he asked him softly, what were you thinking about when you were smashing those blocks? And, you know, say, get into that zone where the child actually is. And then what we learned was that in music class at school, they had been doing mallets, on wooden blocks and listening to the varied sounds, and the different blocks for different sounds, different sized blocks, excuse me. And so he tried a hammer on the cement blocks, and he found the same thing as they broke, there are different sizes. And so he's smashing him more and more as he's listening to this sound change. Children are so much in this moment right now, right? And when we come at them thinking about how I would be thinking when I was behaving like that, it's not the same. So when we say why did you smash my blocks, what made you want to smash my blocks? It's irrelevant to the child. And they're stuck, right? They don't know what to say, because that's not where their brains were. Right? Their brains were this boy, his brain was just listening to the sounds. And that's all it was cool.

And it makes perfect sense when you know that they were doing this in school, because the kids just trying something do,

right. And I think our kids do things like that the more and more I explore, and I'm a grandma now. And the more I watch my grandson, who is almost two, he does crazy things all of our kids do crazy things all the time, don't they? And when we can stop and try to figure out why are they doing that? But not say, why are you doing that, but rather get in there and try to figure out what's behind their eyes, we find out a different story, right? And then, and then in that we build connection, because the child has learned, oh, you know, like, I'm telling you, you're interested in me. And then they eventually you know, after you validate them for what they're doing, that's really cool sounds. You can say to them, but don't ever break my patio blocks again, right? After you validate the child, then we can correct the child but that validating and listening needs to come first and That's why my podcast is called the language of play. Because this mindset is playful. Our children are exploring, and when we use that mindset of exploration, and we realize our children are always in that mindset of play, which is curiosity and discovery, and I wonder if and, you know, like, that's fun, or that's, I enjoyed that, or this is designing or whatever it is, that's playful.

Right? Yeah. And, you know, I always I always, every behavior has a reason, it may not make sense to you, but to the individual make using that behavior. It's serving a purpose. Yes. You know, and, you know, really getting curious about what is that purpose for you? And I even say that, you know, with the women I coach going through divorce, I often say to them, instead of man that your spouse is doing that, get curious, like, what's that effective for that individual in that situation? Because once you can understand, like you said, with this little, little, little one, smashing the blocks, once you understood that, then guess what, Mom and Dad can create a place and bring in materials and support that learning, and encourage the child to proceed because hey, this could be a musician in the in the bud stage, right? Or an architect or a designer or an engineer? Who knows, right?

So you don't squash that? Right? And it also, if you're able to pause and get yourself back into that state of okay, be curious and calm yourself from what made you bad. What you find out is a reason. And often the anger that you had for what they were doing just melts away. Yeah, it evaporates. Because then when you understand it, you know, it's not about you, right? And we tend to think, Oh, what are they doing to us? Why did they do that? Because of us? Yeah, it's not about us. It's not even really that much about him. He's like, just listening to the sound in that case. And that happens a lot. And another thing is that our children don't have much language sometimes. So like my grandson, who has almost to hurt his finger, and he is just, angrily just slapping up the door of the house and all this kind of stuff from her what's going on? And, you know, like, why is he doing this? And so we just sat down on the ground, and said, are we and we put our hands up, like where, you know, like, What are you talking about, because he wasn't able to say much, because he was so mad. And finally, we found out that it was his finger. And then we just said, Where, and so then he he takes us. And he walks down to the car, and he says come, and he goes down to my car. And he had her just finger on the door of my car. And so, but what he's saying is like he was scolding and reprimanding the car, again, you get a window into how mature is the brain? What do they understand. And so then it's like, oh, he wasn't trying to hit the house door, which is what he was doing when we first sat down and said, What's going on, but rather than he was scolding the car, which helps me understand that, oh, he thinks that the car did something to him, right? Like, once we understand how mature our kids are, we can get behind their eyes. And then we can educate from there, and we can come have compassion from there. And then in that compassion, we're going to build that trust, that connection, that really, when it comes to behavior, then allows them to listen later, when they're going to have a True Temper Tantrum about something, because we have built in this regular language with them, so that they know, I'll be believed I'll be listened to. And then they start to listen, they start to believe.

Yeah, well, and that's that. Thank you for sharing that example. Because I think that makes it really clear, like both of those examples together, kind of produce a holistic picture of what this might look like, in real time actually happening in your world. So why do you think and I'm not, I'm not blaming parents, because I think a lot of times we we parent, the way we were parented, and let's face it, things have evolved a lot since when I was parented. So why do you think parents tend to react to a child misbehaving, let's say, a temper tantrum in a store. That's a really good one. Right. Okay. Until a little bit about that. Yeah, I

can take that. That's a good question. And it happens all over. And I think you're right, that there's a lot that we know now about the child's brain, the child's understanding, and none of us were probably parented the way we want to parent aspects. Yes. But, you know, but the more we learn, the better we are at it. Right. And I think that there's a lot more learning that has been done. So one, you're absolutely right. If we're not thinking about what it is that we want to become as a parent, and who we want to be, our default setting is going to be how we were raised. Right. And so in the moments, we're not thinking about our direction, we default to our experience. So that is a certain thing. But the other thing, while there's several things, another thing is the speed of life, we have so much happening so fast, and especially if you're single parents, I was a single parent, for from the time that my youngest was, let's see, it was 2003. So figure out the math. So I've been a single parent, you know, I raised them. And, you know, there are some glories in that in that you don't have to decide with anybody, you wear the pants, you're the boss, that's that what you say goes. And sometimes that makes it easier. But the majority of times, I think it's a lot of pressure. And you're trying to do a lot of things. And so sometimes we just don't stop, to slow down for children at our children's pace. And sometimes we don't feel like we can. So that's, that is a big, very real reason why and, and it's, it's really about navigating it on any given day and learning how to make repairs. Because when we, when we mess up when we say things that we don't need to say when we do things that are less than we want to be for them. And for ourselves. We just need to know how to make an apology, and do that. So that might be another topic for another time or whatever. But that concept of making an apology making a repair teaches our children how to do it. Yeah. So that's important. So anyway, back to your original question. So one reason is the default settings we have at home, or from our upbringing, the second reason would be that speed of life. But here's where I want to put a lot of energy is that we as adults, and we do this at every age, we tend to think when we see somebody doing something from the perspective of if I did that, I would be thinking or feeling this. Sure. And so we assign it to the child. Like the blocks, for example, if I was smashing patio blocks with a hammer, I would one wants to smash the blocks for some reason or two. I'm just really, really angry. Right? Right. I can't think of another reason that

content are getting back. Yeah, yeah, we are the only things I

can think of, therefore, I ascribe that meaning that intention to the child. And I think that when we're in a grocery store, and the child is acting up, sometimes it's, you know, well, that for them, it's just that moment. You know, that's, that's where they're at, for whatever reason, maybe they haven't eaten, maybe they're like, they want something, maybe temper tantrums have worked in the past all kinds of reasons, whatever. For us, we can think, why are you embarrassing me? That's it. Yeah. Uh huh. And so we respond from that perspective. Now, the child doesn't know they're embarrassing you. They have no idea about you. They can't think like that. All their brains are developing up to think about that, right there. If they're having a temper tantrum in the grocery store, they have no idea what you're thinking, no idea what you're feeling and no capacity to understand those things. So it doesn't matter if you've embarrassed. That's not part of the equation. Yeah, yeah.

And I think that is that insight alone should help, I hope should help parents to understand. And don't worry about what other people are telling you to do. Or there's Oh, well, other people say things. Leave those people out of it. They're out of the equation, too. So

they are and you know that sometimes you will have the wonderful person that comes by and encourages you, when you're a parent and your child is acting up. And they say, it'll pass. Yeah, or my kids did this to the Hang in there. You're doing a good job. And I wish more people would say that, because that's what we parents need. When we're in those situations. Unfortunately, you have judging eyes, you have people that actually speak up. And my experience, though, has been that when people give advice like that, they're the people that didn't go through it. So when I got my divorce, the only people that told me about divorce, like how to do it were people that hadn't been divorced. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Yes. There is a lot of that going on. Yeah. And it is important to be able to put that boundary up around yourself to realize, hey, this situation, you know, that these other people are not relevant. Right, and my child cannot understand my feelings in this situation. So I need to get behind their eyes. What is it that they're wanting, right? Or, you know, and if it's a candy bar, and you've said no, what they're not saying that they want is to learn boundaries. To learn you're No means no. Because when they press They're really seeking to know where you stand. Is your word good? Does your Nomi know? And so when they press like that the unspoken thing that their, their emotions inside are saying is, is your word good? And if we can rephrase it in our own mind, to let them have their temper tantrum, and just think, yes, I am teaching them that my word no simply means no, right. And I can still smile, because I'm remembering their learning right now that my word is good. And they can do all their stuff. And their self talk, though, takes practice, it doesn't just come because you heard it on this podcast.

You know, and I was thinking, when you were saying this, I think I always feel such compassionate and I don't have any children of my own. But I have. I mean, I've been with other people's kids, my professional career, and when I always feel so sad or so empathetic towards moms or dads on an airplane with infants, because they are going to cry at some point in time. And you can just see, you know, people get so upset and so pissy for lack of a better word, you know, just making these glances and comments and everything else. And I just feel so sad for parents that are having to deal with that. And, you know, if I, you right, so far, I tried to say to people, maybe maybe you can't reach in them. But you know, when they get off the plane or something, just say, well, you really did a good job on that. And babies are babies, and they're going to do what they're going to do. So I love what you're telling people do you have? We're almost at a time here, believe it or not, but you might have wicking down and dirty tip that maybe a parent could use if the child is having a temper tantrum in the store. Is there anything that you think, like is just one quick idea that you have might help defuse that?

Sure. So in the store, the I guess the first thing that I would think if we're specifically wanting to be in the store, would be to work on the ability for yourself to be able to not worry about other people. But to focus on what is your child actually learning? In this situation, then they're learning whether your No means no, they're learning that you love them. They're learning that they can be accepted, even if their behavior isn't what you want it to be. So your if you can focus on what are they learning and try to zoom out Hi, and look at the situation. And remember that, then you it'll help you to smile through their behavior, because you can remember what it is you're learning and then you can choose how to respond differently. Right?

And then you can have all the conversations that go along with that. And all the

extend the car. Yeah.

Next time you go into the store, you can set those expectations again, and you know, it's kind of for you go in this Yeah, yeah. And the kind of that rinse and repeat cycle, right? Kids don't learn anything the first time things happen. They have to go through that repeat process to really get it, get it solid, internalize that behavior and stuff. So

yeah. And to be curious what it is that happens. So when you are out in the car afterwards, and you're talking about it, to ask those questions in that soft, gentle, easy voice so that they feel okay.

Yeah, I love that. I love that message. So dealing, what do you think is? We've talked about a lot of different things here. So what do you think is the one thing you would like moms or dads listening to this podcast? To think about when they take out their earbuds and go on about their day? What would you like them to remember?

That you can get behind the eyes of your child? And you can understand what their motives are. If you get into that posture of play with and by play, I mean, like exploring, being discover of what it is, they might be thinking, if you can get into that mode, and try to watch them and try to understand from their perspective, that curiosity mindset. If you can go there, you can get behind the eyes of your child, you can understand what it is that's going on. It is possible, and then the whole world looks different. Yeah. And your parent different.

Yes, absolutely. I love this input. And I love that insight that is so important. If people want to get in touch with you. Learn more about what you do or work with you. What's the best way to make that happen?

Thank you for asking that. That's wonderful. I love to work with parents. Yes, my podcast is the language of play. And you can hear it on any of the major outlets. And so hello app, the language of play is my email so you can email me and if you want to learn more We're about me first, you can just listen to my podcast. And of course, email me that would be great. My parents and that would be