The characters Pause to ask viewers direct questions.Pausing Helps Preschoolers Find Their Voice
After my now infamous research session, I became known around Nickelodeon as the “research girl” and resident preschool expert. I started coming to meetings to give my point of view on new projects in development. In one meeting, we were listening to pitch after pitch for a “game show for preschoolers” that involved giving preschoolers a “clicker” to answer questions like on Jeopardy. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Three-year-olds with a clicker? Suddenly the tables turned, and everyone looked at me. I shrugged and said, “Preschoolers won’t play the show—they’ll be too absorbed with the clicker.” Then they challenged me, and said, “Well, what would you do?”
As if I were on my own game show, I feverishly researched and wrote and three weeks later, I presented a research memo. That’s right, my first show pitch was a research memo. What would I do? I started with what I know—research—so I had outlined the idea of an intentional “Pause” as the secret sauce of what a game show could be for preschoolers. Pausing so preschoolers at home can interact with the show would make them feel as if they were part of the show. A preschool version of a game show! Viewers would be the contestants, and the games would be based on all the skills they need to learn before starting kindergarten, like colors, numbers, matching, patterning, and preliteracy skills. I had seen this work in a research session—kids were talking back to the TV, but the content wasn’t sticky enough to sustain a whole series. I wanted to perfect the interactive approach with a preschool-appropriate game concept and a good storyline that would make it a hit show on television.
To be honest, in that very first pitch meeting, everyone nodded in agreement, but no one truly understood what I was talking about. After all, it was 1993 and Barney & Friends had just taken preschool television by storm. Also, while the idea of “interactive” media was being tossed around, the available technology wasn’t able to support it yet. To put things into perspective: Sony’s PlayStation wouldn’t debut until 1995. Even AOL didn’t appear on the scene until 1995, and the interactive toy phenomenon of Tickle Me Elmo didn’t come out until Christmas of 1996. Having a toy Tamagotchi pet was revolutionary in 1997, and the first iMac debuted in 1998.
When Blue’s Clues premiered in September 1996 and we introduced this idea of the four-beat Pause—Steve, our host, asks the viewer a question and then Pauses—we ended up changing the landscape of preschool TV forever. The Pause was a way to do interactivity for preschoolers—a simple, low-tech approach with a “game show” spin for the entire twenty-two minutes of an episode. Breaking the fourth wall and talking to the camera had been done before, of course, but not in the way we approached it on Blue’s Clues. Steve would wonder where a clue was, ask the viewer, “Have you seen a clue?” and then very closely lean into the camera. His eyes were wide with interest and curiosity, as if the home viewer wasn’t only his cool best friend but also had all the answers. And if you were the home viewer sitting in your living room watching Blue’s Clues, you couldn’t help but feel Steve’s intent gaze and get the sense he was talking directly to you. Then after asking his initial question, Steve would lean in even closer and wait. And wait. And wait. (And wait.)
He would wait for our now infamous four-beat Pause, which is a long time by television standards. Scratch that. It’s a long time by anyone’s standards! But Steve was waiting for us at home to answer. And when we would answer and point and say, “There! There’s the clue!” he would smile, acknowledge us with a genuinely impressed expression, and turn in the direction we were telling him to. This was the Blue’s Clues way of storytelling—pausing to listen—that brought the home viewers into each episode. It was powerful.
For Blue’s Clues, the “Pause” made kids feel like they were an active part of the story. This wasn’t a “play” they were watching. The kids watching our show actually felt like they were inside Blue and Steve’s world playing along with them. In fact, many preschoolers believed that if they didn’t help Steve and answer the questions, the show wouldn’t go on. And the preschoolers loved that power. So, they continued to talk to Steve—and he listened. The kids “helped” Steve all while learning and practicing kindergarten readiness skills in the form of interactive games. The first preschool game show!
From the very beginning, the preschool home viewer has been at the center of my thinking as I create shows—he or she is a key character in every story, and in everything I do. And my signature “Pause” has had to be carefully timed and reflect a keen understanding of who preschoolers are, where they are in their level of development, and their need to play in a world that’s part reality and part fantasy. With the Pause, my characters are respectfully listening to our preschool home viewer. I’m giving them time to think. I’m giving them a sense of power. And it works.
As preschoolers’ brains are developing, they need more processing time than adults do. When asked a question, they need time to think about what the question means, process an answer to the question, form the words needed to communicate their answer, and then verbalize it. When we fill the silence and follow up with a second question, we are forcing them to start the process all over again from the beginning.
University of Florida educator Dr. Mary Budd Rowe called this “wait time” in the classroom.1 She found that when teachers purposefully employed wait time, students gave higher-quality answers, and their self-confidence increased because they were able to spend time recalling the information and articulating a good answer. In essence, wait time or pausing sets us up for positive interactions with our preschoolers.
According to the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, interactions actually shape the architecture of the brain. They wrote, “When an infant or young child babbles, gestures, or cries, and an adult responds appropriately with eye contact, words, or a hug, neural connections are built and strengthened in the child’s brain that support the development of communication and social skills. Much like a lively game of tennis, volleyball, or Ping-Pong, this back-and-forth is both fun and capacity-building.”2
But is it possible for that same “ping-pong” back-and-forth dynamic to apply to the relationship between preschoolers and their media? Can “virtual” interactivity result in young viewers understanding and applying what they pick up from their educational shows or apps? Yes.
Research from Dr. Sandra Calvert of Georgetown University tells us that until around three years of age, depending on task complexity, children learn better from a live demonstration than from an equivalent televised demonstration, a problem that researchers have since labeled the “video deficit.” However, the entrance of “interactive media” with programs like Blue’s Clues and now interactive educational apps, has challenged this notion, and updated research continues to shed light on how the Pause has changed everything.
In one study in which Dr. Calvert and her team looked at the differences between the way young children respond to passively watching videos versus playing a computer game, they found that adding pausing and interactivity helps kids to learn and transfer what they know to real-life situations. Another found that preschoolers who interacted with key parts of a program via a computer understood the content better than those who simply observed the program with an adult, suggesting that it is the interactivity with content that leads to greater learning.3
I am a fierce believer in the “power of the Pause,” as the use of the Pause has a real and profound impact on the learning of our young viewers. A summative study of Blue’s Clues by media researcher Dr. Jennings Bryant found it was indeed working. In fact, he found that kids who watched Blue’s Clues scored better on standardized tests than kids who didn’t watch Blue’s Clues.4 I was thrilled—like “over the moon” thrilled—to discover our curriculum and interactive model helped to elevate preschoolers’ learning. This was further proof that educational media can teach and that how we approach the learning, through the use of the Pause, makes all the difference.
By employing the Pause in our preschool programs, we are supporting cognitive development because preschoolers, like any other man, woman, or child, love to feel heard. Preschoolers are empowered by the fact that their favorite characters Pause and wait long enough for them to absorb information, formulate a response, and actually state their point of view. The Pause does wonders from a child development perspective.
Whether in kids’ media or in real life, this idea of being interactive and taking the role of an active listener is what I like to call the pausing philosophy, a philosophy that addresses a preschooler’s feelings of being powerless, models empathy, and supports them in learning to understand their feelings and the feelings of others. By listening to and caring about what preschoolers have to say, parents and teachers reinforce the idea that (a) our children have value, (b) our kids’ feelings are important, and (c) our kids’ voices deserve to be heard. And just like anything else, its success depends on how we Pause and interact and with what content when utilizing this tool in our everyday lives.
The truth is, there is magic in the Pause. In fact, this super simple technique actually makes our job as parents easier. That’s right, I said it, easier. Because when we take the time to enact the four-beat Pause, we:
• don’t need to have all the answers,
• don’t have to be perfect,
• don’t jump to conclusions,
• don’t answer the question we think our kids are asking,
• answer only the questions they are asking, and
• give our preschooler time to gather their thoughts and verbalize them.
Yes, a four-beat Pause may feel like forever, but, in real life it can be a godsend. When I was pregnant with Ella, two-year-old Hope was rubbing my belly when she looked up at me and asked, “I know you are going to be the baby’s mommy, but who is going to be the baby’s daddy?”
I would like to say I Paused instinctively, the expert use of a correctly timed Pause, but the truth was she caught me completely off-guard and I had no idea what to say. During my Pause, Hope scrunched up her face and ran over to Greg to protectively give him a hug and said, “Is it my daddy? Is my daddy the baby’s daddy?”
I Paused and then nodded, waiting for her mind to be blown.
She continued, “So, I have to share?”
Again, I Paused, sure that her head was about to blow off her body. And before I could even nod, she shrugged, as preschoolers often do, and said, “Okay. I can do that. I love OUR NEW BABY!!!”
I just love preschool enthusiasm!
If I hadn’t Paused, I may have jumped in before she was ready to hear the information. But with the Pause, she led the conversation and the information was better received.
PRACTICING THE FOUR-BEAT PAUSE
Implementing a “Pause” in real life the same way we do in our shows might seem unrealistic at first. And I understand why. After all—four beats is a long time to wait for a response, especially in a world where we’re used to multitasking and rushing around trying to fit everything in. And it’s not something we experience in most (if any) of our day-to-day real-world interactions. Think about it. Have you ever seen someone talk with a child and ask, “How’s school? Good? Great!” So often, we as adults don’t leave any room for kids to think about what was asked, formulate a response, and actually provide an answer. As a preschooler, my niece used to think this was a ritual of sorts. For Morgan, “Good!” always came after “How’s school?” Just like for most of us, “Fine” always comes right after, “How are you?”
But once we become conscious of this, we can begin building the four-beat Pause into our day-to-day interactions with our kids. The payoff—higher self-esteem and the time to think and absorb what is being asked of them so they can find the right words to give us insight into what they’re thinking—is priceless. A little practice goes a long way:
1. Ask a question to your preschooler, making eye contact and PAUSING (it works with your spouse too, and even to yourself in a mirror).
2. Wait for an answer, slowly counting to four, Mississippi style (in your head, of course!)
3. Respond.
PHEW! It’s a long time, right? Well, that’s the power.
Have you ever caught up over coffee with a friend who couldn’t help but interject her feedback, opinion, or advice about whatever you were sharing before you even finished getting the story out?
Me: We were in NYC until Hope started kindergarten and then—
Friend: Really? How could you have babies in the city? It’s so loud and crowded. I love the suburbs!
Me: Well, we loved walking everywhere and going to the museums—
Friend: I would hate it! I mean, you have no space, and it’s dirty . . . isn’t the city so dirty?
Me: We loved the city with the babies . . . it was easy—
Friend: No way. I couldn’t even imagine it.
Doesn’t feel so great, right? Yet we often do the same exact thing with the young children in our lives. We may have the best intentions of trying to help our child formulate his or her thoughts or let them know we understand what they’re trying to say, but the truth is, nothing stops a conversation with our kids quicker then jumping in with our point of view before we are asked. But when we Pause, we’re telling them that we’re open to hearing anything else they have to say.
Adele Faber taught us how to listen in her groundbreaking book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, because we want our kids to talk. We want our preschoolers to find their voice. We want them to have and express opinions. Practicing active listening not only boosts their self-worth and helps them gain confidence in the notion that what they have to say matters, it also plays an important role in setting up a powerful foundation for tweens and teenagers.
This act of pausing, repeating back what we hear in a positive way, and letting go of any “agenda” is known as reflecting, and by actively choosing to do this, we are encouraging our preschoolers to not just recall information but to be aware of what they learned, what was interesting, how they feel about it, and what they can do to build on the experience. With reflection, we are setting the stage for mastery of deeper thought.
Case in point. My four-year-old niece, Reese, came home from school devastated one day, telling her mom, my sister-in-law, Alicia, that no one had liked the picture she made. As she burst into tears, Alicia hugged her while simultaneously noticing her own anger at the other child who’d made her daughter feel bad. But rather than speak to that emotion, she kept those thoughts to herself, Paused, and then repeated back, “It seems like you’re sad about your picture.”
Reese was instantly engaged. “I really like my picture. It’s a dog. See?” She shoved the picture in Alicia’s face.
Alicia nodded, and noticing that the dog was purple, once again reflecting back her daughter’s sentiment. “You sound so proud of your purple dog!” She then shared a thought to give some insight into the problem. “It’s creative!”
Reese perked up, feeling a bit better at being validated. “I am creative, see? Even her tongue is purple!” She giggled and continued to tell a whole story about her favorite purple dog and how much her brother would love it and how she wished purple dogs were real. Alicia agreed—purple dogs would be cool.
In the end, Reese not only felt heard, but she got to work on learning how to label and cope with her feelings by talking to someone, namely her mom. And this is a strategy that will be incredibly useful to her as the problems she’ll face get increasingly complicated as she gets older.
In the story of Reese and her purple dog, Alicia’s pausing followed by reflection gave her daughter the opportunity to more deeply understand what she was feeling. Another powerful benefit of active listening through Pausing is that it helps us find solutions together. When we listen and Pause in response to our child’s upset, we model compassion and empathy, which are great precursors to solving whatever problem is happening for the child. On Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, we always try to go the extra step. Even when Daniel learns to apologize, our strategy is, “I’m sorry, how can I help?”
Perhaps what I love most about Pausing is that it is active “listening with heart,” as parenting expert Julie Ross has called it. Julie sees Pausing as a power capable of drawing our kids into us in a “magnetic and creative space.” In doing so, we’re encouraging independence in our children while still helping to collaborate with them on the big decisions life brings. And isn’t that exactly the dynamic we want to foster in the long term?
Taking the time to Pause when confronted with a conflict enables us to remember to use it as a learning moment. The results of being calm enough to be positive and non-judgmental will allow our preschoolers to grow and learn from each situation.
Old response (shuts down conversation) |
New response (keeps conversation going) |
Possible response from child after Pause |
|
Your child is upset that she lost her library book. |
“How many times are you going to lose your book? I tell you all the time, put your book on your desk so you always know where it is.” |
“I can tell that you’re upset” + Pause |
“I am! I’m looking and looking . . . I’ll look by my bed.” |
Your child doesn’t want to do his homework. |
“If you don’t do your homework you’ll never get into college.” |
“It seems like you might be stuck. What could help?” + Pause |
“Maybe a snack and then I’ll do some more?” |
“My sister is so mean . . . she’s the worst!” |
“Tell her to come over here! It makes me so mad when you both fight!” |
“Hmmm” + Pause |
“Sometimes I hate her, but I love her too.” |
“I don’t want to go to bed! I’m not tired. I’m never going to bed!” |
“That’s it! I’m picking you up and putting you in your bed myself.” |
“You have so much to do tomorrow—I’m not sure how you’ll do it all if you don’t get a good night’s sleep” + Pause |
“Well, maybe . . .” (Stays up longer, but in his bed, and eventually goes to sleep.) |
“Everyone is invited to the party but me.” |
“That’s not true. Not everyone. You’re exaggerating—again.” |
“You sound disappointed” + Pause |
“I am.” |
“Why are you sooooo mean????” |
“Really? I’m mean? You are being ungrateful.” |
“I know this is important to you. But it’s my job to keep you safe” + Pause |
Grumbles. |
One of the greatest benefits of the Pause in the way we communicate with our little ones is that it gives them a chance to process new, confusing, or potentially difficult information and fully understand it. When we Pause, we are also giving us, as parents, a chance to process the situation and formulate thoughtful responses that respect our child’s emotional well-being.
Pausing for a purpose can be seen in one of our most challenging episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood to date. In the episode, Daniel Tiger, our three-year-old protagonist, has to deal with the death of his beloved fish. After Daniel observes the fish isn’t moving, he calls to Dad Tiger, who comes over to investigate. With Daniel, he pokes the fish gently, showing that he’s not moving. Daniel doesn’t understand, so Dad explains: “It looks like Blue fish has died.” Daniel looks at Dad quizzically. Dad Tiger Pauses, waiting for Daniel to respond.
He finally asks, “What does that mean?” Dad responds, “It means that Blue fish is not breathing or moving anymore.” Daniel again takes some time to process this new information, while Dad Pauses. Daniel, not completely understanding, says, “Well, I’ll play with Blue fish later.”
Dad bends down, looks Daniel in the eye and says, “Blue fish died, which means he can’t play with you.” Daniel frowns, his eyes watering with tears and says, “I’m so sad.” Dad embraces Daniel. For the rest of the episode, we deal with Daniel’s feelings about the subject. Mom and Dad Tiger model active listening, pausing, and helping him cope by offering some solutions, including drawing a picture of Blue fish to help him feel better.
The use of the Pause gave Daniel a chance to absorb Dad’s information and create meaning from it, while also giving Dad a chance to collect his thoughts and consider the best way to share this sad news with his son. What resulted was a respectful, connected conversation. And when we as parents and caregivers can follow Dad’s lead in the way we communicate with our own children, we can reap the same benefits.
Pausing can be an extremely effective tool while playing with our children—one capable of turning any kind of dramatic play into genuine and meaningful learning experiences. The key is to jump into the play, Pause to let our child lead, ask relevant questions, be in the moment. Do this and you’re primed to empower, challenge, and build their self-worth, all while making them laugh!
For instance, say you call your daughter to get her shoes on so the two of you can run to the grocery store, and she surprises you by coming down the stairs dressed as Supergirl, complete with cape and bright red tights. Instead of being annoyed or embarrassed or inflexible because your expectations haven’t been met, try jumping into the play. Suddenly you’ve gone from dad and daughter picking up eggs and milk to superheroes saving the day from hunger. You stay in the moment and ask, “All right, Supergirl, ready to save the day?”
“Ready!” she says as she jumps to her best superhero stance.
As you get her into the car, you say, “Okay, let’s soar to the grocery store. Supergirl, what do superheroes eat?”
“Food!” she declares.
You listen, Pause, and then probe for more creativity. “What kind of food would make you stronger, Supergirl?”
She thinks and you Pause, all the while getting her into the car to go. “Lots of veggies for strong muscles!” she shouts.
You continue to actively listen, adding some more flavor to the conversation. “Green veggies are the healthiest for superheroes. Which are the green veggies?”
Play your cards right, and she may spend the rest of the shopping trip labeling all the green veggies she knows as you fly around in the grocery cart, quickly, because that’s what superheroes do.
Simply put, asking questions and pausing is in and of itself a game. Much like we’ve shown through Blue’s Clues or Super Why!, asking questions of kids promotes learning and a strong bond. Whether on screen or in real life, playing an interactive game in the grocery store has all of the same effects.
The research shows that kids learn more when they are interacting and learning for themselves, but the same is also true when we as parents and caregivers are interacting and using the “pausing philosophy” with our preschoolers in our everyday lives as a way to encourage our child’s self-discovery, self-knowledge, and eventual mastery.
Julie Ross wrote about the idea of letting kids learn from themselves in her fantastic book, Practical Parenting for the 21st Century. In her book, she presents the well-known story of a boy finding a butterfly cocoon. Fascinated, he examines it and notices that, in fact, a butterfly was struggling to come out. He watches and waits as the butterfly desperately pushes and pulls to try to get his wings outside of the cocoon. The process takes such a long time and the boy gets increasingly sad and wants to help. So instead of watching the butterfly continue to struggle, he very carefully opens up the cocoon wider and wider until the butterfly is able to break free. The butterfly flies right out of the cocoon high over the boy’s head and then comes crashing down and dies. The heartbreaking moral of the story, of course, is that the butterfly needed the struggle to ensure her wings were strong enough to fly. Without the lengthy struggle, the butterfly didn’t develop the tools it needed fly on its own.5
In her book The Gift of Failure, author Jessica Lahey has pointed out how we, as parents, are too often making the same mistake the boy made with the fledgling butterfly. She describes loving, well-meaning, yet helicopter-like parenting practiced by so many moms and dads and calls us out on it. As she reminds us, when parents constantly rush in to help our children—when they fall down but are fine; when we bring them their forgotten gym clothes; when we swoop in and fix a friendship fiasco—they will never learn how to help themselves. By barreling ahead without leaving breathing room for Pauses, observations, reflections, and yes, mistakes, we’re taking away opportunities for personal growth and mastery.6
Perfect example—my girlfriend and fellow writer, Becky, recently sent me a video of her fifteen-month-old daughter, Meadow, at a small trampoline park. Mind you, this sweet little girl had just mastered the art of walking, so even I caught myself holding my breath as I watched the video of her attempting to jump on the trampoline. Yet as I watched, I realized she had quite possibly the best coping strategy I’d ever seen in a child that age. First, she Paused and observed how the “big” kids jumped. After a minute, it becomes clear by the way her face lit up that she made the decision to jump, too. She then “hopped” her way over to the trampoline, as if to prove to herself that she had the chops to do it. When she got to the trampoline, she was immediately flung backward. But her mom knew she wasn’t hurt, so instead of swooping in, she continued to watch, testing the level of resilience (both hers and her daughter’s). Meadow Paused, got herself up, and tried it again, and this time she was successful! The pride and happiness on her face beamed through the video. A perfect example of how pausing on both sides—Becky and Meadow—had great effect.
The next time you Pause and really take that moment to listen to what your preschooler has to say, watch what he or she does. In my experience, preschoolers tend to lean right back into you, stand up taller, hold their head up high, and speak in a measured, excited voice. By giving them this pausing time, we are giving them a voice. We’re letting them know that their opinion matters. When we validate what they have to say without judgment and simply ask for more information, we’re letting them think things through. We are boosting their self-worth.
My mother has an uncanny way with preschoolers. She’s very in-tune, very in-the-moment, and loves her one-on-one time with them. Once, when my daughter Ella was little, she looked at my mother and said, “You would look pretty with blue hair.”
I thought maybe my mother would balk at her statement or brush it off. Instead, she looked right at her, smiled, Paused, and eventually said, “Then my hair would match your eyes!”
Ella laughed and said, “I know. You would match me!”
Knowing that this made Ella proud, my mother said, “I would like that!” My mother took out some crayons and paper and they went on to draw my mom with blue hair. Ella felt proud, heard, and like her ideas had merit.
Truth be told, the reason that Blue’s Clues became interactive in the first place was to let preschoolers know that their voice mattered, just the way Mister Rogers made me feel when he looked at me through the television screen and said in his legendary gentle tone, “I like you just the way you are.”
The Pause is the tool, but it’s how we use the tool that makes all the difference. We need to be conscious of our body language when we Pause and what we say when we interact. Being intentional with the Pause results in positive outcomes for both our kids and ourselves.
For example, what we choose to say and how we say it after we Pause is important. In fact, sometimes we can Pause and say nothing at all. We use body language like leaning in to our preschoolers and looking into their eyes. This is definitely a sign of interest and our preschoolers feel it. To them it says, “You’re important.” When we do want to make a strong point, getting on our preschooler’s level and looking into their eyes is a powerful tool.
Your child says: “My friend made fun of my picture.”
You say: “That makes you feel . . .”
Pause and listen for response.
You say: “What can we do?”
Your child says: “I can’t do it.”
You say: “You sound frustrated . . .”
Pause and listen for response.
You say: “How can I help?”
Your child says: “I’m so sad.”
You say: “That makes me sad . . .”
Pause and listen for response.
You say: “Can you tell me more?”
If yours is like most families, there’s a good possibility you and your child have “trigger” words that arise during conflict, or words that conjure up feelings of upset, annoyance, or worry. For instance, when your child pouts that she’s bored, are you instantly put-off and angry? It could be that it conjures up a feeling of disrespect, as if you haven’t done enough for your child! How could they be bored?! Before you react, take a Pause and think, What is your child really saying? Perhaps if we dig deeper, we can find out they’re feeling left out because they weren’t invited to a friend’s party or perhaps they are being shut out by their sister. They are still learning to maneuver through their emotions and don’t have as strong a handle on them as we do.
When we take the time to Pause and listen, we are giving ourselves the chance to calm down and reflect on underlying issues our kids may be facing. My friend’s trigger was when her son would stomp his feet and say “I don’t wanna!” Any time her preschooler was adamant like this, she pictured him as an adult, acting like a big baby when he doesn’t get his way. Taking a Pause, she was able to put her emotional fears and annoyances on the back burner and deal with what was going on right then for her son. The truth is, parenting is day-by-day and behavior issues that bubble up at the age of four can be emotionally dealt with so that they don’t erupt when they are twenty-four!
Sometimes it takes a conscious effort on our part to create true family bonding interactions between us and kids, but these almost always provide rich opportunities to introduce and play with the power of the Pause. Here are some ideas:
• Family meals, whether shared daily or weekly, are an ideal time to practice the Pausing Philosophy and active listening.
• Interactive games you can play as a family help promote pausing through turn taking in a fun, silly way. My favorite games that can be adapted for preschool play? Apples to Apples, Cranium, Guess Who, Super Why! Board Game, Heads Up for Kids (app), charades, I Spy, tag, and freeze dance.
• Family movie nights can offer fantastic opportunities for thoughtful conversation, intentional listening, and lots of pausing both during the movie (hit the “Pause” button on your remote, first!) and afterward as you reflect on the characters, storyline, and message of the film. The same goes for good television programs.
• Interactive meal prep can be a great time for thoughtful conversations full of Pauses—working together to bake up a batch of yummy banana bread, personalizing homemade pizzas with your favorite toppings, or prepping the ingredients for a make-your-own taco night.
• Reading together is an ideal time for practicing the Pause. In fact, studies have shown that preschoolers’ learning soared when parents and caregivers actively and interactively read the story by stopping to ask the preschoolers questions or have them predict what would happen next.7 This might include simple questions about the pictures such as, “Where is the ball?” to more thoughtful questions like “What do you think is going to happen next?” or taking time to study the faces of the characters and asking, “How do you think this character is feeling?” One of my favorites is, “How would you write the ending to this story?”
• Take a walk or go for a drive. Two words: captive audience. Combine intentional listening with the pausing philosophy, and you’ve got all the ingredients for amazing conversations. My friend Maddie has said that her mom always missed a tricky highway exit in her hometown because as a child, Maddie never stopped talking from the backseat of the car!
Angela’s Clues
If you remember one thing from this chapter, remember that interactivity, vis-à-vis the Pause, is a technique, a tool, and a philosophy that will make parenting easier. Pausing and waiting for a response and then being nonjudgmental, positive, and interested in what your preschooler has to say will boost a preschooler’s self-worth and give them time to tell you what they know, which gives them a “voice”—a voice they will need to change the world.
When we Pause and don’t rush in, we are helping our kids learn how to be resilient and independent, fostering grit, and teaching them to handle conflict. In this way, we won’t only see our preschooler’s smart insights, but we’ll have a powerful strategy to handle their meltdowns and the push and pull of a preschooler’s strong will. Modeling the Pause and delayed gratification is also a powerful example for our preschoolers to emulate.
When we use the power of the Pause effectively and consistently throughout the preschool years, we set the foundation for a respectful, empathetic, and caring relationship dynamic.
• Be Involved and set aside time to Pause life and bond as a family.
• Ask Questions and be aware of how long you Pause while awaiting a response.
• See the Spark and actively listen to what your preschooler has to say.
YOUR MEDIA “YES” LIST
The characters Pause to ask viewers direct questions.
The characters give a four-beat Pause.
The interactive moments in the app or show are used to promote learning.
The interactivity is integral to the plot and propels the story forward.
Clue Takeaways
• Preschoolers need time to think about what a question means, process an answer, form the words, and verbalize it.
• Intentionally pausing helps our preschoolers find their voice.
• Pausing gives preschoolers an opportunity to foster independent thinking, grit, and resilience, and promotes learning, understanding, and mastery.
• The ability to delay gratification has numerous benefits later in life.
• Pausing during challenges and conflicts allows for more thoughtful, calmer responses.