Speaker 1: Hi. This is Malayan Vervier and this is Kim Azarelli.
Speaker 1: We are co authors of the book Fast Forward, How
Speaker 1: Women Can Achieve Power and Purpose. And you're listening to
Speaker 1: Seneca Women Conversations on Power and Purpose, brought to you
Speaker 1: by the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the special edition of Seneca Women Conversations on
Speaker 1: Power and Purpose. During these difficult times, we're bringing you
Speaker 1: conversations with leaders who are using their power for purpose.
Speaker 1: We're talking to experts who can help us gain a
Speaker 1: perspective on the impact of the coronavirus as well share tips, tactics, resources,
Speaker 1: and some inspiration. Today I'm joined by Dr Katherine hersch
Speaker 1: Passek at the Department of Psychology at Temple University and
Speaker 1: a senior fellow in the Brookings Institute. Her research examines
Speaker 1: the development of early language literacy and the role of
Speaker 1: play in learning. Thanks so much for joining me. It
Speaker 1: is a pleasure to be here. Well, you are a
Speaker 1: very bright person on a day that is very difficult,
Speaker 1: and we appreciate that you. Well, I think we have
Speaker 1: to put a little bit of sunshine here because it
Speaker 1: could be a long time, you know, So I think
Speaker 1: we're in hunker down kind of thing. Well, uh, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think everybody is trying to do whatever they can
Speaker 1: to adjust to this new normal. And you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things that we want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about today is how we deal with the children. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, parenting, we know is tough on an easy day,
Speaker 1: let alone in the middle of a crisis. So how
Speaker 1: should parents talk to their kids about coronavirus? Well, great,
Speaker 1: great question, and obviously that depends it on the edge
Speaker 1: of the child, um, But mostly I think it's it's
Speaker 1: to be straightforward without creating panic. Now those don't sound
Speaker 1: like they go together, so give me a moment to explain. Um.
Speaker 1: The first is that even our youngest children, even our
Speaker 1: three year olds and four year old, they know that
Speaker 1: something's up. Why your mom and at home all the time?
Speaker 1: Why can I not go to the park. Why is
Speaker 1: the park closed? Why are the museums closed? Why do
Speaker 1: I not have swim lessons on Thursday? So they not
Speaker 1: might not know it's Thursday, but they're pretty confused as
Speaker 1: to what's happening. And I think what we want to
Speaker 1: do is rather calmly and you know, as truthly as
Speaker 1: you can be with a little person to say one
Speaker 1: of a lot of things have changed right now and
Speaker 1: we're just trying out a new schedule, you know. But
Speaker 1: the important thing is you, my dear, are safe and sound,
Speaker 1: and we are going to have a good time, okay.
Speaker 1: And that's reassuring two kids that you'll be there and
Speaker 1: you're going to take care of me. I feel like
Speaker 1: that's a good good thing to say to adults too.
Speaker 1: We're gonna happen. Actually, it really is. I Mean what
Speaker 1: we're seeing everywhere is how arise in anxiety that is
Speaker 1: almost untold and unchecked. And I will admit to you
Speaker 1: that I kind of feel the same way. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean it's got us all quite anxious.
Speaker 1: So I think, um learning how to deal with our
Speaker 1: own anxiety. So we are constantly tuned into the news,
Speaker 1: and so that our children aren't constantly tuned into the news.
Speaker 1: It's just better off if they don't see it. Let's
Speaker 1: make sure they don't see the news. Obviously, if they're sixteen,
Speaker 1: they've already known what's going on. They're probably on Twitter
Speaker 1: and they're probably seeing the reports and they know what's happening.
Speaker 1: And I think there we want to be very clear
Speaker 1: with them about what makes a difference. You know, this
Speaker 1: is something where we have the scientific beat it. Right.
Speaker 1: There are places like Germany and South Korea that are
Speaker 1: doing a really good job and they have come out
Speaker 1: with tests and we're getting it too. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: you will be protected here and right now. That's what
Speaker 1: we're doing. We're creating our own safety zone. Yeah. That
Speaker 1: that that's great advice. And I think I can really
Speaker 1: see that also in the children that are that we've
Speaker 1: seen that just to have that sense of calmness from
Speaker 1: the parents. I mean, as you say, they can sense
Speaker 1: anxiety so easily. So I think that that what you're
Speaker 1: saying makes so much sense. And then we can talk
Speaker 1: to ourselves and use the same uh, use the same
Speaker 1: logic logic on ourselves. So that gets to one other
Speaker 1: point I just wanted to mention, which is we're all
Speaker 1: used to more order than we have right now. Um
Speaker 1: if I gotta remember a time when there was ever
Speaker 1: less order so we have right now. So I think
Speaker 1: thinking about with your child, so your child doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like they have new agency, think about what would you
Speaker 1: like to do tomorrow? Yeah, you know, should we do
Speaker 1: something to create a band and then next we'll go
Speaker 1: on a walk outdoors. UM. Yesterday I met six ft apart,
Speaker 1: but I met my granddaughter UM and her mommy. And
Speaker 1: even though I stayed six ft apart, we both put
Speaker 1: on our boots because it was pouring in Philadelphia, and
Speaker 1: we went out to find puddles, and my four and
Speaker 1: a half year old and I went puddle jumping. So
Speaker 1: now you know, and we made a plan earlier in
Speaker 1: the day, we're going to meet it through a colractical
Speaker 1: pedal jumping and you know what yet, Blast, And I
Speaker 1: just wanted to mention today as you do this schedule, UM,
Speaker 1: grandparents are really helpful human beings. So let me just
Speaker 1: give you an example of that. Not because I'm a grandparent,
Speaker 1: but because honestly, we have a great group of people.
Speaker 1: So let's talk it through. Most people have to still
Speaker 1: do zoom meetings, and I know about you guys, but
Speaker 1: having a zoom meeting business meeting that's important going on
Speaker 1: on my computer with little kids around, it feels like
Speaker 1: task impossible, and so I think it's a great idea.
Speaker 1: When my kids say, Mom, I need you to come
Speaker 1: in and there are free tours of twenty five hundreds
Speaker 1: of the most famous museums in the world are all
Speaker 1: online right now. That's incredible. I can go to the
Speaker 1: Berliner Orchestra and listen to the Berlin Symphony Orchestra with
Speaker 1: my kids and point out the instruments. Is that great.
Speaker 1: I can take geographic tours by going on Google Maps
Speaker 1: and finding out I wonder what French cafes look like,
Speaker 1: learn a new language. Notice all the things I'm doing
Speaker 1: as a grandparent that I can do virtually with my kids.
Speaker 1: And there's also Cosmo Kids that we can do together.
Speaker 1: How important do you think outdoor play is in this moment?
Speaker 1: Is that? Is that because there are a lot of
Speaker 1: kids who can't get access to outdoor play right now?
Speaker 1: You know, it's very important if indeed it's safe to
Speaker 1: go outdoors. And what I mean by that is some
Speaker 1: people live in very dense environments where you'll just make
Speaker 1: the streets super crowded in a way that makes it
Speaker 1: rather hard to keep the six foot distance on New
Speaker 1: York facing that right now. Lot of people live in
Speaker 1: apartments and what are You're supposed to be two sidewalk
Speaker 1: patches away from anybody else? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: It's difficult and for kids, I think even even more difficult.
Speaker 1: So we can create games around that. And going out
Speaker 1: and getting some freshure really helps. Uh. If you have
Speaker 1: a rooftop, go up and take a peek, you know,
Speaker 1: or go at times that are less congested than other times. Um.
Speaker 1: If you happen to live in an area where you
Speaker 1: have a backyard, I think it's a great time to
Speaker 1: visit the backyard. Is there any walking trails? Find a
Speaker 1: walking trail in New York go along the river. Well,
Speaker 1: you've us great ideas for some indoor fun too, with
Speaker 1: the different museums and orchestras and and games. Um. What
Speaker 1: about kids who won't have a play date. How do
Speaker 1: you feel about social interaction with other children if they
Speaker 1: don't have access to that? Well, you know, we do
Speaker 1: have access, and that's how we have to change our
Speaker 1: and came to be more positive. Um. I don't see
Speaker 1: any reason why kids can't see their friends on FaceTime,
Speaker 1: and I think it's a really good idea for them
Speaker 1: to do that. And you know, you can even get
Speaker 1: together multiple friends. You could do. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: in middle school and you want to do a yoga
Speaker 1: class together with your friends, do it right? You want
Speaker 1: to play a game together, Go do it. You could
Speaker 1: play pictionary. That also sounds like fun. I think I
Speaker 1: want to hate with you. Yeah, yeah, of course. I
Speaker 1: mean you can place your rade. Come on over. I'm
Speaker 1: suggesting actually right now, that you create a Zoom where
Speaker 1: everyone can play game, where you can leave games. I
Speaker 1: think that would be really fun. Oh my god, that
Speaker 1: would be a great idea. We should do it. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what. Tell your listeners to look at Cathie
Speaker 1: in Row one because we are tweeting out the good
Speaker 1: advice that we get. And since we're in this for
Speaker 1: the long run, I will promise you that maybe we
Speaker 1: will put up a Zoom site and actually do activities
Speaker 1: that you can all join in on for like twenty
Speaker 1: minutes and at least you'll get it live. That would
Speaker 1: be fantastic. Give us the website. Yeah it's um, it's
Speaker 1: Kathie and row one is our Twitter. Okay, great, k
Speaker 1: A H Y and r O one. We'll be back
Speaker 1: after this break. So, UM, let's talk about school for
Speaker 1: a minute, because I know parents are very concerned about
Speaker 1: keeping their kids school work on track. Right, you have
Speaker 1: some tips for that? Um, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: activities that are being put forth. Sometimes the schools themselves
Speaker 1: have remote learning that's going on. When the school doesn't
Speaker 1: have remote learning, there's a lot of activities that can
Speaker 1: help you. Just allow your kids to be learning while
Speaker 1: they're having a black and let me tell you that
Speaker 1: that's not so hard to do. I'm going to just
Speaker 1: give you a couple of examples. UM So, let's do
Speaker 1: math and science. But would you believe that building block
Speaker 1: structures is actually really important for pretty schoolers who are
Speaker 1: going to learn later math. It's called spatial learning, spacial
Speaker 1: relational learning. Um I do a couple of towers. Here's
Speaker 1: a good way to occupy kid time. And if you
Speaker 1: have blocks in the house, arrange them in like six
Speaker 1: different ways, going from pretty easy one block on top
Speaker 1: of another to a little bit harder the one block
Speaker 1: on top of another is rotated, to something that goes
Speaker 1: all the way to maybe using seven or ten blocks,
Speaker 1: and challenge your child to see if your child can
Speaker 1: actually recreate what you just did. Well, believe it or not.
Speaker 1: When they're doing matt they're turning and rotating and use
Speaker 1: and have a discussion with them later. Oh did you
Speaker 1: put the red on top of the green, the blue,
Speaker 1: next to the to the orange. You're using spatial terms
Speaker 1: like next to one, top of through around in which
Speaker 1: are spatial terms which help young children learn various skills
Speaker 1: that are going to be important in math. Look to
Speaker 1: do another easy way. You can draw a group of
Speaker 1: shapes and just put them on the floor. Just cut
Speaker 1: them out and put them on the floor and see
Speaker 1: if the kids can do a jumping game to get
Speaker 1: to all the triubles, to get all the circles, to
Speaker 1: get all their ectangles. Yeah. I feel like that would
Speaker 1: be great for adults too. So these are fun. These
Speaker 1: are so fun. I have to tell you as you
Speaker 1: get older. One of my absolute favorites if you have
Speaker 1: like a family of four around, is uh create a
Speaker 1: human scramble, which is a game like scrabble. Okay, now
Speaker 1: each of you has like especially get more people in book.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed you pick up letters and then you'll
Speaker 1: have to move in many different directions to see how
Speaker 1: many words it can create. Amazing, isn't it fun? Yes?
Speaker 1: And that's a winter game, right. We can act out
Speaker 1: the stories they read. Gosh knows, they read these stories
Speaker 1: so many times over and over and over and then
Speaker 1: there's some beautiful experiments on the web that are wonderful
Speaker 1: science experiments. We did one not long ago where um,
Speaker 1: we just put some colored water um in a glass
Speaker 1: and then we put a piece of celery in and
Speaker 1: we wanted to see how long would it taken till
Speaker 1: the color went all the way up the salary. And
Speaker 1: then we came onto the web to try to look
Speaker 1: at all the scientific explanations for it. You know. Another
Speaker 1: easy one is to take water and put it in bottles,
Speaker 1: but put it at different heights and then blow the
Speaker 1: top and see if you can get a musical instrument
Speaker 1: out of it. I love it. I mean, my point
Speaker 1: is only that while they sound hard, they're really pretty easy,
Speaker 1: and you can create a day with some of these activities.
Speaker 1: And then don't forget it's important for you to have
Speaker 1: downtime too, because homeschooling is really hard, especially when you're
Speaker 1: carrying another full time job more than one kid. And
Speaker 1: what do you suggest in terms of I mean that
Speaker 1: whole dynamic is really really difficult, especially for single parents.
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of people are, of course
Speaker 1: using screen time as a way they have no choice
Speaker 1: being practical. How much screen time do you think is
Speaker 1: okay right now for school age children? Tat a beautiful
Speaker 1: yesterday there was was a piece by a former student
Speaker 1: of mine um in The Conversation, which is a wonderful
Speaker 1: publication that has some really really good advice. And my
Speaker 1: former student is a mother of a young child, and
Speaker 1: she thought, oh my god, the advice experts are giving.
Speaker 1: It's really good and really interesting, but can sometimes be
Speaker 1: crazy if you're a parent on the grountain situa here
Speaker 1: and so she sent at the following chart and I
Speaker 1: just want to share it with your with your listeners,
Speaker 1: you know. So people say that to and under should
Speaker 1: have absolutely no digital media except FaceTime, But what are
Speaker 1: parents really doing forty two minutes? The experts say that
Speaker 1: two to five year old should have no more than
Speaker 1: one hour daily. What are people doing two hours and
Speaker 1: thirty nine minutes the experts set it six to eight
Speaker 1: year old, Well, they don't really have a specific limit
Speaker 1: as long as the digital media doesn't interfere with their
Speaker 1: physical activity and sleep, and they're doing roughly three hours.
Speaker 1: We see a pattern here. So I say this only
Speaker 1: because you don't want to get to what's going on
Speaker 1: with the thirteen year olds. And beyond, because they're using
Speaker 1: an average of seven to ten hours a day and
Speaker 1: that's not okay, Um, that's more than a full time job, right,
Speaker 1: and that's not healthy to be not social and it
Speaker 1: also means you're kind of zoom and out in front
Speaker 1: of the computer. Would I be a little easier on
Speaker 1: my times with Terence today, I sure would, and as
Speaker 1: a mother of three I probably always was. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, remember that human interacts and human to
Speaker 1: human interaction is what's important, and our kids need to
Speaker 1: know we're there for them right now. So what are
Speaker 1: practical things parents can do to to interrupt that time?
Speaker 1: Because I know that's not easy and obviously times very addictive.
Speaker 1: So what can they do to create not create discord
Speaker 1: in the house in this moment, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, create a healthy boundary for their children. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think that's a discussion you have to have with
Speaker 1: your children. I mean, they're even seeing, you know, brain
Speaker 1: differences for kids who are bonchred on screen time. Obviously
Speaker 1: in a short period of time that there's the coronavirus.
Speaker 1: Am I going to worry? No? But but I think
Speaker 1: what our children don't realize is that there are other alternatives,
Speaker 1: and that may be up to us. It's sort of
Speaker 1: the day the computer broke. Like you do, if your
Speaker 1: iPhone broke and your computer broke, would you just sit
Speaker 1: there hopelessly? Of course you well maybe you would, but
Speaker 1: you wouldn't sit there hopelessly. You would come up with
Speaker 1: the kind of games like the shape Zone and the
Speaker 1: bottle blowing and put the color in the water, and
Speaker 1: the science experiments. And how fun would they be for
Speaker 1: our children to play, even a game like Simon says,
Speaker 1: you know, or those old clapping games or matching games
Speaker 1: or I Spy with my yellow eye. You would not
Speaker 1: believe how many things are out there. And for those
Speaker 1: of us who were old enough to remember a childhood
Speaker 1: without computers and without smart screens, which by the way,
Speaker 1: is anyone over twelve years of age, okay, because remarkably
Speaker 1: the smartphone only came in in twenty seven, thirteen years
Speaker 1: of age. So you know, whould do this? We'll be
Speaker 1: back after this. My last question, which I usually ask people,
Speaker 1: is what gives you hope or optimism right now? But
Speaker 1: I feel like this entire conversation was hopeful. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: my hope or optimism is really this. Human beings throughout
Speaker 1: history have been through tough periods, and there is no
Speaker 1: question that this is a tough period. It's a tough
Speaker 1: period for us, and it's a tough period for our kids.
Speaker 1: And I would argue that the demands were even greater
Speaker 1: now than ever before in history, because we have moved
Speaker 1: work home, and we have moved school home, and they
Speaker 1: are clashing right now in our living room, and that
Speaker 1: is tough stuff. And the smaller the space, the more
Speaker 1: the intrusion is. But through those tough times, if we
Speaker 1: can find a way to respect one another and one
Speaker 1: another's needs, and that means our children respecting the time
Speaker 1: we need to. Like, if there's a time to put
Speaker 1: frozen on for the tenth time, it's probably when you
Speaker 1: have that important business meeting, right and at the same time,
Speaker 1: you don't want to hang on the computer beyond that
Speaker 1: business meeting. Put a stop time, cook with your kids
Speaker 1: and figure out how to bring back very special family time.
Speaker 1: And the amazing thing you're going to find is as
Speaker 1: we play some of these games where our kid is
Speaker 1: learning too, and we're learning. Anything we're learning is the art,
Speaker 1: sometimes lost art of social interaction and here's my prediction
Speaker 1: for beyond Corona Time, should we ever find it. I
Speaker 1: believe there's going to be a day when we're going
Speaker 1: to sit next to our child in a park bench
Speaker 1: and instead of both looking in our southphone, we're gonna
Speaker 1: look at each other side. Well, that is a very
Speaker 1: hopeful message for our listeners and for for all of us.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us. You're listening to Seneca
Speaker 1: Women Conversations on Power and Purpose, brought to you by
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Speaker 1: a great day.