Real Talk for Real Teachers #20: Impacting Early Childhood Education by Becoming the Change

Research confirms the early years (ages 0-5) are a time for rapid brain growth and development. Research also indicates that stimulation and interaction with loving, caring adults – not toys, screens or academics – are critical to early brain development. So, how do we impact a system and a society that has grown away from what is developmentally appropriate for the sake of academics and convenience?

Listen as Mindy Becker, Owner of Grow with Us Academy, shares her story of meeting the community’s needs by bringing developmentally appropriate practices back into the preschool classroom through the connection, attachment and social play cultivated with Conscious Discipline.

Essential Takeaways
• The brain is a social organ. A child’s connections and positive relationships with adults during the early years are a deciding factor for healthy brain development.
• Adults must learn to regulate ourselves and model this self-regulation with children.

Steps for Tomorrow
• Put the phone down and build connections with your children through face to face interactions and social play.
• Become aware of your own feelings and manage those feelings before you interact with children.
• Remember, “what you focus on, you get more of.” Focus on the behaviors you want to see from children.

Important Links

Products
• I Love You Rituals
• Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline
• Conscious Discipline: Building Resilient Classrooms

Show Outline (time stamps)
:18 What is Conscious Discipline
1:12 Challenges of today’s preschools
3:36 How we traveled off course from developmentally appropriate practices
6:35 Introduction of guest Mindy Becker, Owner of Grow With Us Academy
7:54 Seeing a need for change
13:34 Beginning to work with parents through parent/child classes
16:58 The structure for “Mommy and Me” classes
18:01 What are I Love You Rituals
20:36 “Round and Round the Garden” I Love You Ritual
22:36 Importance of social games with young children and impact of rising technology
24:30 Conscious Discipline requirement for parents of children attending Grow With Us Academy
26:25 “Arrival to School” routine at Grow With Us Academy
30:17 I Love You Ritual drop off choices for parent and child
31:14 Safekeeper ritual and teacher greeting
33:54 Summary
35:52 Steps for tomorrow
39:33 Success story of a child with challenging behavior that transferred to Grow With Us