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Exploring the Impact of Societal Pressures, Cultural Differences, & Trauma on Communicative Intent In this episode, Ayelet Marinovich and Jess Burchiel discuss the importance of communicative intent and access to communication as a human right. Jess, a speech-language pathologist, shares her experiences working with children, emphasizing the value of responsive parenting and the challenges parents face in recognizing their children’s communicative actions. We talk about: Communicative intent and Early Intervention Challenges in recognizing communicative intent The importance of slowing down and noticing each other, valuing all forms of communication How communicative intent is connected to broader social issues, and communication as a human right The impact of cultural differences, societal pressures, and trauma on communication We look forward to hearing the ways in which this conversation sparked your curiosity, and what new questions arise from listening! Helpful Resources Related to This Episode Learn With Less® Podcast episode: Assuming Intentionality – How to Respond to Early Communication Connect Learn Play – Digital / Printable infant, toddler, and pre-school aged ideas to provide simple, enriching ways to support early development through play, language, music, and movement – using everyday items – helping you Learn With Less®! The Learn With Less® Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint Lead caregiver/baby groups using the Learn With Less® curriculum by becoming a licensed facilitator Book recommendation: How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life With Children Ages 2 – 7, by Joanna Faber Donate to Operation Olive Branch, a direct aid fund for families on the ground in Gaza Support Palestinian Liberation by learning more about the BDS or Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement which has strategic boycott targets for consumers Learn more about the root causes of violence in Palestine, we recommend you watch this short history video or read The Hundreds Year War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi Connect With Us Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Jess: Facebook / Instagram Text Transcript of the Episode Ayelet: Welcome to another episode of Learn With Less®. I’m here today with Jess Burchiel. Jess just told me that a great way to remember how to pronounce her last name is: it rhymes with Churchill. Hahaha. Jess, would you like to introduce folks a little bit to you & to the kind of work that you do? Jess: I would love that. Thank you. Hi. Good afternoon from the west coast. My pronouns are she/her, I live in Bellingham, Washington, on occupied Salish and Nooksack and lami territory. I’m a speech-language pathologist here at a private clinic. I’ve been working with kids young as 2, and as old as 25, for about four years here. For years before that, I worked at a small community hospital in the county. I don’t know, I love cats, and I really like my job! I really like doing what I do, what we do, which has been so wonderful to continue to know. Ayelet: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, I’m really happy to have you for this recorded conversation. You and I have been in touch over the last year and a half or so, mostly over social media. More recently, we’ve been in actual conversation with synchronous face to face contact, which is lovely. It’s been about a number of topics. These are including and not limited to: communicative intent, access to communication, the fact that everyone deserves access to communication, communication as a human right, human rights in general. We’re both Jewish or Jewish adjacent, and quite outspoken within the movement for Palestinian Liberation and what is happening in Gaza and The West Bank. Really looking at how we communicate, what is being communicated, communicative intent, looking at the full spectrum of communication here, from both a political lens and a education lens. And as we all know, everything is political at the end of the day. So with that all said, let’s start there, right? Jess: Let’s start there. I really gravitate to people who have a passion for what we do, for people who are internally curious about we do and how we do it. In particular now in the last year & a half, for people who are willing to speak up and say hard things. I think that is required of us, and I’m really excited to ask you some questions about communicative intent today. What do you think? Ayelet: I love it. I want to start just because before we hit the record button, we were doing a nice little grounding practice. As we sit here recording, it’s spring break. I have kids at home. They’re in the other room doing “video game camp” in the living room. And it’s been a day, it’s been a week. Let’s get on the same page here. Let’s ground ourselves. And Jess, you were introducing this lovely exercise, and I was wondering if we could just start with that, as well. Grounding Exercise and Initial Discussion Jess: A quick note, this is a grounding exercises, very new for me. It’s very much something I don’t want to do, which is why I’m trying to lean into it. I borrowed it directly from my therapist, who’s very much grounded in Buddhist teaching. As people who’re very busy and often disconnected, one of the hardest things is just to slow down and stop. We’re going to do that by, me and you & everyone who’s listening, taking a second, truly, to put your feet on the ground. Feel your feet on the ground, and take a couple deep breaths. Maybe I’m going to ask myself and you to identify a sensation in your body, and I’ll do the same. I will name mine as my heart is racing a little bit. I can taste the cupcake that a kid gave me this morning in the back of my mouth. Yeah. How about you? Ayelet: I’m feeling some congestion in my nose and throat. I have celebrated a birthday of one of my children this weekend. I had a nine year old literally fall directly into my face while coughing. Oh yeah, it’s very cute. I’m just feeling some tightness in my back, looking forward to just getting to connect and talk today. So some ease in my belly and openness in my solar plexus. Jess, thank you. Communicative Intent and Early Intervention So you had emailed me and you had asked about resources, thoughts, ideas around communicative intent. I’m going to open up this email, if that’s alright with you, as I read it out loud. So you had said, “I’m sure you’ve spoken about this countless times. Along with our mental health therapist, I am co-leading a support group for families with autistic kids. Something that came up last meeting was the concept that everything kids do has a communicative value. I think this is a really simple concept, but it seemed more challenging to go into depth about this with parents”. You’d said, “I’m wondering if there is a specific resource or podcast episode of yours that might help explain this concept to parents.” I had shared with you that, yes, in fact, I do I have a podcast episode about this. It’s called Assuming Intentionality, Responding to Early Communication. And of course, so much of what I focus on here at Learn With Less® is with early intervention… Those earliest years of infancy and toddlerhood, zero to three. A lot is focused on parent education. Also educators and or therapists who are serving that population. This is both in a family centered approach or just the kids or just the parents. That was the nuts & bolts focus of that episode, but I want to hear anything that was helpful around listening. Before we started recording, we started talking about how so much of looking at communicative intent and assuming intentionality, assuming that there is intent behind any action, essentially, is that it actually doesn’t matter what age the child is. You and I share a lot of experience, having worked with autistic kids. We’ve both worked with assistive technology, specifically augmentative & alternative communication. Utilizing assistive technology within the realm of communication might look like a speech generating device that’s high tech. It might look like a picture based or visual communication system. You and I have both utilized things like that within our work. I want to hear what was helpful for you, specifically with your work, looking at the episode that I directed you to. Also, what else do you want to talk about? Challenges in Recognizing Communicative Intent Jess: Oh, man. Okay, so my favorite takeaway was that there is an evidence base for responsive parenting. I love being able to say, “this is what the science says” when parents are asking me questions about how to help their kids talk more. And that’s not something I’ve read into! I know that more responsive parents tend… I’ve just seen that that they tend, their children tend to communicate more. That almost seems self evident, but to know that that is what the evidence shows was really good. I was like, Okay, I can look at this. I can be able to say that confidently, even if it seems obvious. This brings me to my questions that I want to talk about with you. Would you agree that it seems pretty obvious that responsive parents have more communication coming out of their kids? Does that seem to you an obvious thing, or was it a surprise to you? Or do you even agree with that? Ayelet: In my own personal experiences, both as a mother & in my professional experiences as a speech language therapist. Yes, I have, I have found that to be the case. I think primarily the reason is because joint attention& and communicating for a social purpose of any kind… Turn taking begets more turn taking! Once we have that skill, we see that oh, I say something. You say something. I look at something. You look at some

A Co-Production from Learn With Less® and the Play On Words Podcast Are you constantly wondering if you’re doing enough as a parent? Do you feel pressure to “get it right” when it comes to your baby or toddler’s development? In this episode, In this co-produced episode, of the “Play On Words” podcast and the Learn With Less®” podcast, Ayelet Marinovich of  Learn With Less® joins host Beth Gaskill of Big City Readers. Ayelet Marinovich is a pediatric speech-language pathologist, parent educator, & founder of Learn With Less®. She’s the author of Understanding Your Baby & Understanding Your Toddler, 2 incredible resources that remind parents: you don’t need fancy toys or complicated activities—your everyday interactions are already powerful learning moments. We talk about:🧠 Why you don’t need more stuff to help your child learn✨ How to feel confident that you’re doing “enough”👶 The surprising ways babies and toddlers learn best📚 Simple, evidence-based ways to support early development🎵 Why everyday routines (yes, even diaper changes!) are packed with learning opportunities If you’ve ever doubted yourself as a parent, this episode is your reminder: you are enough. 💛 Helpful Resources Related to This Episode The Learn With Less® Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint Ayelet’s books: Understanding Your Baby & Understanding Your Toddler Connect Learn Play – Digital / Printable infant, toddler, and pre-school aged ideas to provide simple, enriching ways to support early development through play, language, music, and movement – using everyday items – helping you Learn With Less®! Learn With Less® Fundamentals Course Big City Readers Courses Ayelet’s Musical Album, Strength In Words: Music For Families Connect With Us Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Beth: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of The Podcast Episode Beth: Welcome back to the Play On Words podcast. I am so excited and a little bit nervous today to have Ayelet Marinovich here from Learn With Less® to talk about: Do kids really need toys to learn and thrive? If you don’t know Ayelet, she is a child development guru, parent, play based learning specialist, and speech therapist too, right? So many things, I’ll let you introduce yourself, but this is an episode (I already know) is going to be so great. So welcome to the show. Ayelet: Thank you so much for having me. Beth. It’s great to be here. Yay. Beth: Okay, so tell us a little bit about you and Learn With Less® for the people who might not know you! Ayelet: Sure. So again, I’m Ayelet. I have been a speech and language therapist since, gosh, 2009 / 2010. When I became a mom in 2014, I was far from where I grew up, which was here in California. My partner and I had moved to London, and so I was pregnant and had my first child there, across the pond. I was really looking for, number one, community. Number two, a way to utilize the knowledge that I have in my professional arena, and connect that with creating connection points with other new families. So I started leading caregiver and baby classes with my own child, just in my community, out of our home. I loved it so much because it was an opportunity to connect, to bring people together and, again, to share information that at least I knew. Obviously, the overwhelm of early parenthood is intense, and this was a place that I could feel confident. I could feel at least a little bit less vulnerable and and really share that information with other new parents and caregivers who I knew were feeling the same way. I just started leading these groups, and really facilitating these groups and utilizing that knowledge, and just expanding on the kinds of questions that I was getting and asking myself. What can I do to support and connect with this teeny, tiny human in my world? And yeah, that’s, that’s how it came to be. Beth: Wow. And so now, are you still leading them, or are you mostly training and coaching other people to lead them? Ayelet: Yeah, primarily I license and support other educator and therapist types to utilize the curriculum that I developed, to use in their own communities. This is amazing because it expands the impact that I can have exponentially, and really allows me to feel like I’m putting something into the world that is healing and helpful. Beth: It is. I even like the song on your podcast. Is that in – do you sing that in the class? Hello, everybody, I get it stuck in my head when I’m listening. I love singing it in my own house, like when I’m making dinner. So, okay, do you do miss teaching the in-person or the actual “caregiver & me” classes? Now that’s my growing pain, too: You want to have a bigger reach, but you kind of have to give a little! Ayelet: Yeah, and I do from time to time, often offer them virtually! I mean, it’s funny, right? Because when I started the licensing program, it was February of 2020, so there was, of course, a big switch to, I now need to ensure that other folks also are able to lead these virtually. I had actually been doing this since 2017 myself, for a variety of reasons. There has always been a need for virtual connection, and always will be. So I do still lead classes from time to time, especially when I’m getting that itch. Beth: Oh good, that’s kind of how I do it, too. I was just talking with someone yesterday, and they said, so you don’t get to be with kids anymore? I answered, No, I still do. I do, say, a once a month meetup, but it’s so hard because you think to yourself, I want to reach every kid and family! I think we align a lot on that – that is my big focus: community for families, whether they’re in school or in the baby stage. Originally I started because I saw so many parents having struggles with knowing how to advocate for their child in an IEP meeting, or like things like that. There needs to be a bridge between school and home: how to find your community, asked the right resources… and then my work expanded to people who don’t need IEPs! Yeah, it’s such a need. Community is such an important part of being a parent! Ayelet: Yes, especially in these uncertain times. Beth: I know! Every post I do, I ask myself, does this matter? The world is on fire! I know you are a big advocate of using what you have. I mean, your literal company is called Learn With Less®, right? I once posted something many years ago, and I still think about it, because I kind of got in trouble, but I posted something that a popular toy subscription company had sent me – this little toy that was a box and it had tissues in it, and you pull them out. I was like, so cute. And I made a post that said, and also, this actual box of tissues does the exact same thing. There’s no need to buy this. Ayelet: I literally have one sitting behind me, yes! Beth: The reason I got in trouble is because a toy store owner said, I’m so mad at you! but I said, I’m sorry, there’s enough for people that want to buy toys and people to know that they don’t need, too. So can you talk a little bit about what role toys actually play in child development? What Role Do Toys Play in Child Development? Ayelet: I mean, first of all, I like to say this whole the baby industry is sort of a “The Emperor has no toys” situation, right? I am not anti toy. My children have always had toys, either that I have bought or that other family members or people in our community have given them. But my my kids also have always known that the wooden spoon and the paper towel roll are equally as entertaining and an equally valid developmental tool. The power of any tool or toy is not inherently on the box that says “this is an educational toy.” Anyone can put that tag on, say, cupcake liner and say “educational toy.” It’s the actual interaction with that toy and with others that makes the difference. I think it also really comes down to the power of connection! And at Learn With Less®, we have four pillars that we want to define around creating more connection, more opportunities for interaction, more vocabulary, more modeling, more reciprocity. So those are, as I define them here at Learn With Less®, play, talk, sing and move. And I’m happy to go into that, if you’d like. Beth: Oh, please! How Does Play Support Early Learning? Ayelet: Yeah! So around play, we want to define that with attention to the following principles. First, open ended play, meaning we want to encourage caregivers to really engage in the exploration of the environment and everyday objects. Also, being playful can simply mean exploring, experimenting, offering varied environments and varying objects! Most importantly, we want to actually help the adults in the room see that being playful is a different way of looking at what we as grown ups come to define as play. Many adults in the room come into the idea of playing with their child as following set of rules. For instance, we hit the ball, we run, we score. Or it can be thought of as a procedural exercise: we open the book, we read the page, we turn the page, repeat. Encouraging caregivers to play with no specific end goal in mind can really require them to reframe their entire thinking. I think a lot of your audience are educators or therapists, as well. So in a therapeutic context, you’re going to want to weave whatever skill you’re working on into the play. For instance, it might be that a professional is working on turn taking, eye gaze, joint attention, imitation, first words, or gesture use. We want to encourage and create an environment where that caregiver is encouraged to be flexible and accepting of what is happening, what might happen next, and what their child is doing. Finally, withi

You’ll always know how to support a young child’s development with a laundry basket, a cardboard box, or a dishtowel! On this episode of the Learn With Less® podcast, Ayelet discusses how a simple shift in our understanding of what we can view as “educational materials” or “toys” can help us see how little we actually need to buy… And also how much power there is in opening up our own eyes to the wonder of play, as seen through a young child. Are you a new parent or caregiver wondering what you really need to support and connect with your baby or toddler? Or are you a professional who serves new families as a developmental therapist, early childhood educator, or other professional in the perinatal space? This episode and our related resource, Connect Learn Play, is for you! Helpful Resources Related to This Episode Connect Learn Play Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program The Emerging Parent Connect With Me Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of The Podcast Episode Hi there. I’m Ayelet Marinovich, and you’re listening to Learn With Less®. Today, I wanted to share a little bit about a very exciting new resource that we have just released here at Learn With Less®, in collaboration with my friend and colleague, Miranda Zoumbaris at The Emerging Parent. Miranda and I attended the American Speech Language and Hearing Association conference back in November 2023, and at that convention hall, we had a exhibit booth for Learn With Less®. One of the fun giveaways that I had created was a series of postcards. On the front was an image of an everyday object, like a funnel or a laundry basket or a box. On the back there were a series of ideas for how you could use that everyday, simple object (a commonly found household item) to support connection and development through the use of play, language, music or movement. These are the four pillars of Learn With Less®: play, talk, sing and move. Now, I had created these as a giveaway, and they were sort of a testing ground for the kinds of fun things that might be useful for both professionals serving young families as well as new parents and caregivers themselves. What happened was pretty hilarious. Everyone was getting them as giveaways, and they were asking where they could buy the product. So Miranda and I got to work creating this new, exciting resource for all of you, and we call it Connect Learn Play. What does Connect Learn Play do? Basically, the promise is that you’ll always know how to support a young child’s development with a laundry basket, a cardboard box or a dish towel. Connect Learn Play is a resource for parents and caregivers of young children and for practitioners working with zero to five year olds. They are digital, printable, infant, toddler and preschool aged ideas to provide simple, enriching ways to support early development through play, language, music and movement, using everyday items, helping you to Learn With Less®. What Does It Mean to Connect Learn Play? I want to give you a little bit more information about what Connect Learn Play is, and why it is a useful resource for you. So essentially, it’s your invitation to stress less, to need less and spend less of your time and money so that you can feel more confident, be more responsive, and create more connection. So, picture this: you’re sitting on the floor with your tiny human. You’re trying to figure out what to do to maximize the 20 minutes between the time you’ve gotten home and the time you’ve got to start getting ready for the next meal. You take out your devil device and start scrolling through Tiktok or Pinterest or IG, or whatever the latest idea rabbit hole where you’re currently following the latest parenting or early childhood influencer. Everything you find requires materials that are not within arm’s reach. And everything requires time you don’t have. Everything requires pre-planned brain space that you don’t have. And in the meantime, your child has found the curtain above them. What do you do next? A, pull your child away from the curtain again and again. B, distract them with one of the five toys you got suckered into buying from this year’s best toys to buy for kids under five. C, join your child at the curtain after recalling the idea about using long fabrics on the Learn with Less® Connect Learn Play prompt yesterday. You can play peek a boo. Or you can talk about the color or texture of the curtain, or what you see outside the window. You could sing a song about hiding and seeking. And you could follow your little one around as they move behind the curtain. Listen, you get to decide! Connect Learn Play cards are a classic resource from Learn With Less®. They’re designed to prompt you to start thinking about ways to connect the dots between what a child is showing interest in, between the relationship between caregiver and child. And to connect the dots between the literal neurons in a young child’s brain that enable them to grow, learn and thrive without being prescriptive, overly structured or requiring of any specific toy. Connect Learn Play helps parents and caregivers make the connection between a child’s interests and strategies used to support development, whether that child is experiencing a delay, is right on target or is ready for more. If you are a parent, a caregiver or a provider of developmental services, then Connect Learn Play is for you! As with all the resources we create here at Learn With Less®, we use the four-pillar framework of the Learn With Less® curriculum (as I mentioned, play, talk, sing and move) to address four major areas of infant and toddler development: cognitive, communicative, motor and social and emotional development. Toys and more materials take up, extra space, cost more and sometimes even prevent us from following a young child’s lead and responding to what they’re interested in at the moment. So, let’s get real. As a mother, a pediatric speech language therapist, and as a coach for practitioners using the Learn With Less® developmental curriculum, I am certainly not anti-toy. I say, do what works for you. But the idea that you need to buy anything in particular to support a tiny human is not only flawed, but also deeply inequitable. How To Support Early Development With Everyday Routines and Everyday Items Supporting development and connection for young children can be simpler than we think. Families need to know how to make use of the natural routines and everyday interactions in front of them. The idea that there’s an inherent developmental value in an object classified as an educational toy is, quite frankly, a delusion. The truth is, you already have the resources to give young children the right stimulation, play, and interaction to thrive – whether or not your toy closet is bursting at the seams. The items in our homes that we already have often hidden in plain view are powerful learning tools that can support all areas of development. So just imagine, providers and practitioners: instead of spending your precious time pre-planning sessions, hauling that big old therapy bag around, wondering how to do bagless therapy routines based intervention and how to center parent education in your work with young families. You feel confident responding to the parent or caregiver and the child in the moment. You feel rooted in the routine you step into using what the family already has and relying on your own set of skills, knowledge and observations instead of a particular toy. And you feel relieved to have a quick reference guide to use an object the family already has on hand in either printed or digital format so families can generalize and carry over what you practiced in the many, many days and hours while you’re not there. Now for families, imagine this instead of the constant looming guilt that you’re not doing enough or that you don’t have that special toy or specific material in order to support your kids, brain, language, muscles, emotional needs, I’m looking at those very expensive toy subscription boxes in your social media feed. Instead of all those feelings, you have ideas for play and interaction using what materials, time and energy you already have. You have confidence. You’re doing enough for your young child’s physical and mental development each day. And you have more valuable interactions using the tools at your fingertips to play and engage in enriching activities that support the connection between you. Finally, you also have access to ideas on the go wherever you are with a digital download. What exactly do I get with Connect Learn Play? So what this is, is access to over 100 ideas for play with 25 everyday items. It is a simple digital download. You’ll be provided with both postcard-sized and full page handouts, in case you want to print a physical copy for easy use or easy sharing with families. For families, you can easily save to a folder on your phone, for instance, print it out and place one on your fridge. And for providers and practitioners, you could text or email an idea to a family with whom you work. Connect Learn Play can be used during sessions as handouts or cards. They can be provided as supplemental material after. You’ll receive a link to a digital download with all 25 cards in English. Currently, we’re still working on Spanish and Arabic. As a parent or caregiver, or as a provider, you can save these to a folder on your device or print them out for quick reference. Just as you’d refer to a cookbook for a recipe, you could check out what you might do with the ingredients you have on hand. Once you’re using these ingredients regularly, you’ll start to see the power of everyday items. Connect Learn Play can go alongsid

An Ultimate Checklist of Baby and Toddler Learning Essentials? Or Nah. On this episode of the Learn With Less® podcast, Ayelet discusses the ways in which early development, everyday routines, everyday materials, and simple activities (often in which we are already engaging) are powerfully interconnected. If you are a new parent or caregiver wondering what you really need to support and connect with your baby or toddler… or you’re a professional who serves new families as a developmental therapist, early childhood educator, or other professional in the perinatal space, this episode and our related upcoming workshop is for you. Many of us are searching for the ultimate checklist of items for young children, or for a list of go-to developmental activities for babies or toddlers to have in your back pocket. Ayelet makes the case that you already have the resources you need – and that if you’re spending your hard earned money on fancy developmental toys, that investment could go toward other places that are in line with your values. In our upcoming Learn With Less® Family Enrichment Fundamentals Workshop, we’ll explore the basis for the four areas of early development, and connect these to a framework of play, language, music, and movement so you can support and connect with the tiny humans in your care using the time and energy you’re already expending, and the materials you’re already using. Find the magic in the mundane, everyday objects and routines. Join us in our upcoming workshop and discover all about how to Learn With Less®! The Learn With Less® Curriculum is used in communities all over the world in a “caregiver & me” class setting, and has also influenced the philosophies and environmental considerations for play spaces and organizations serving families. Not familiar with the term, “caregiver & me” classes? We use it as a more inclusive term instead of “mommy & me” classes. Our classes are open to – and meant for – ALL parents and caregivers: not just moms… but also dads, non-binary folks, grandparents, foster parents, babysitters, nannies, and other amazing grownups who care for tiny humans. We’re going to play the “search term” game here (so you can find this great content more easily!) and help shift the conversation from “mommy & me” classes to “caregiver & me” classes… to do our part to shape the more inclusive world in which we’d like to live. Helpful Resources Related to This Episode Register now for Learn With Less® Family Enrichment Fundamentals Workshop Learn With Less® Bundle: get our favorite infant and toddler development resources (save 70%)! Discover how to support & connect with your tiny human, without having to buy a single toy. Learn With Less® “Caregiver & Me” Classes: the magic of Learn With Less® lies in the communal aspect of coming together with our resources, in community with other families. Join us for a virtual or in-person class led by a licensed facilitator near you! Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program: Use your existing skills as an educator or therapist to serve families holistically with a high quality program that will provide lasting impact! Apply now to become a licensed facilitator Learn With Less®. Connect With Me Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of The Podcast Episode Hi there, I’m Ayelet Marinovich and you’re listening to Learn With Less®. Today I wanted to share a little bit about an upcoming event that we are holding here at Learn With Less®, you can learn more about it at learnwithless.com/fundamentals. What this is, is a family enrichment workshop, all about the fundamentals of the Learn With Less® curriculum and program and philosophy. It is a live workshop for parents, caregivers and professionals serving new families. The whole idea is to help you feel confident that you can support and connect with babies and toddlers without having to buy another toy. The event is being held this time around on April 29 2023, from 10am PST until 2pm PST. When you enroll before April 15, you’ll be able to enroll and save $50 on the ticket price. So again, that’s learnwithless.com/fundamentals. What we’re trying to do with this workshop is to help support you to find confidence and connection through play language, music and movement. These are the four pillars of Learn With Less®: play, talk, sing and move. And you’ve heard me speak a lot about them on the podcast, and in all of our content and information that we put out into the world. Essentially, what we want you to do is to discover how to use the time, the energy and the materials that you already have to support young children — instead of buying all the fancy toys that you may be are being shown on social media. Here’s the question that we all sort of ask ourselves: what do we really need to support and connect with tiny humans? When the internet feels like a firehose of information, Dr. Google and the baby industry create a sense of overwhelm and perceived incompetence in families… New parents and caregivers know the should’s, but they’re exhausted! Gathering internal resources to do anything extra for their children often feels impossible. And then on the other side, educators and therapists, as well as families, often feel pressure to go out and buy a bunch of toys to ensure that they’re doing the “right” thing, maximizing the precious time that they have with tiny humans. Now, here’s the thing: supporting development and connection for young children can be simpler than we think! Families need to know how to make use of those natural routines and everyday interactions. The idea that there is an inherent developmental value in any object that’s classified as an educational toy is, quite frankly, a delusion. You Already Have the Resources to Support & Connect With Your Young Child So drumroll please, wait for it: the Emperor has no toys, folks. The truth is, you already have the resources to give young children the right stimulation, play and interaction to thrive. And that is true whether or not your toy closet is bursting at the seams. The items in our homes that we already have often hidden in plain view, are powerful learning tools that can support all areas of development. Now, again, I’m just going to break here and share with you that if you want to find out how to Learn With Less® with this workshop, you can go to learnwithless.com/fundamentals and sign up right now. As a parent myself, I’m a mom, I have two young children, and I’m also as a professional serving new families. In my work with other educators and therapists, I know that the developmental value between a cardboard box and the fancy toy that might have come inside is often (ahem) exactly the same. And I also know that early learning does not happen only when I can eke out 15 minutes to provide undivided attention to my child. I also know that it feels sometimes impossible to share succinctly about the simple and natural ways to support and form a deep and loving connection with a child. But when we can connect simple everyday interactions with early learning, we have a blueprint for parent support, partnering with families, and education. Because families already have the resources to give young children the “right” stimulation, play, and interaction to thrive and we can do it with the materials we already have. No extra time or energy needed. Supporting Early Learning With Simple Activities So I’d like to present to you the Learn With Less® Family Enrichment Fundamentals Workshop. We held this workshop in December of last year and it was very well received. We had a lot of great feedback from folks. This is a live workshop for parents and caregivers as well as professionals serving new families. And like many of you listening right now, you might actually be both – a new parent or caregiver, as well as a, say, developmental therapist or early childhood educator – or something in the perinatal space. The Learn With Less® framework is built on four pillars, which each, in turn, support each of the four major areas of early development. In this live workshop, you will find out how to make use of what you know is special, precious time with tiny humans. You’ll discover ways to ensure you’re doing the “right” things for children at their developmental level. You’ll learn how to find that balance between structured play and free play. You’ll find out how to let a young child guide their own learning. You’ll discover new ways to use materials you already have, and also how to help a child communicate to, say, reduce negative behavior and minimize everyone’s frustration. Now, this is a great workshop for families with or professionals serving children who are developing along a “typical” progression within, say, normal developmental limits. It is also a fantastic workshop for families or professionals with children who are not meeting developmental milestones, for instance. This is not about milestones. It is about helping you and discussing and showing you how this four pillar framework of the Learn With Less® curriculum (which again, play talk, sing, and move) actually addresses those four major areas of infant and toddler development, regardless of where a child is performing. Those four major areas are cognitive development, communicative development, motor/sensory development, and social/emotional development. Interaction, Discussion, Observation, and Practice What we’ll be doing is interacting, discussing and sharing about all of these ideas and information. You’ll come away with specific ways to support and connect with young children using what you already have through natural interactions and simple play i

Building a Sense of Community in Parenting On this episode of the Learn With Less® podcast, Ayelet sits down with Desiree Viray, an early childhood educator, mother, entrepreneur, parent partner and parent educator, Learn With Less® facilitator, and the owner of Empowered Family Collective. Desiree’s purpose and joy are rooted in serving, empowering and walking with educators, parents / caregivers, and families through each stage of development, impacting children’s lives through a family-centered approach to play, talk (language development), song, movement, connection, and simplicity. Her work at Empowered Family Collective helps families find moments of joy, and opportunities for intentionality and simplicity in each stage of child development and parenthood/caregiving. She offers “caregiver & me” groups for families using the Learn With Less® curriculum, among other services. Not familiar with the term, “caregiver & me” classes? We use it as a more inclusive term instead of “mommy & me” classes. Our classes are open to – and meant for – ALL parents and caregivers: not just moms… but also dads, non-binary folks, grandparents, foster parents, babysitters, nannies, and other amazing grownups who care for tiny humans. We’re going to play the “search term” game here (so you can find this great content more easily!) and help shift the conversation from “mommy & me” classes to “caregiver & me” classes… to do our part to shape the more inclusive world we’d like to live in. In this episode, we discuss: Desiree’s background, how she came into the world of early childhood education, and where her career has taken her What drew her to the Learn With Less® philosophy, and the value of prioritizing parents and caregivers and parent education How she has placed her values front and center with regard to her own business decisions, marketing decisions, and how she coaches families The ways in which creating a sense of belonging serves both her as a business owner, as well as serving families with young children How she has respected her internal pace and intentionally created slow and steady growth Helpful Resources Related to This Episode Learn With Less® Stories:  Additional podcast episodes and other interviews from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming. FREE Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: Discover the four major areas of infant and toddler development, what’s involved in each one in the first three years of life, and what you can do to support that learning (using what you already have in your home). Desiree’s Podcast, Storm and Sky (specifically, her episode on writing new chapters – what happens when you find yourself in your sweet spot) Learn With Less® Bundle: get our favorite infant and toddler development resources (save 70%)! Discover how to support & connect with your tiny human, without having to buy a single toy. Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program: Use your existing skills as an educator or therapist to serve families holistically with a high quality program that will provide lasting impact! Apply now to become a licensed facilitator Learn With Less®. Learn With Less® “Caregiver & Me” Classes: the magic of Learn With Less® lies in the communal aspect of coming together with our resources, in community with other families. Join us for a virtual or in-person class led by a licensed facilitator near you! Connect With Us Desiree: Website / Instagram  Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of The Podcast Episode Ayelet: Welcome to the Learn With Less® Podcast. Today I am joined by my dear friend and colleague Desiree Viray. Desiree, welcome to the Learn With Less® podcast. So happy you’re here. Desiree: Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here. Ayelet: Yay! Desiree, I would love it if you could just tell us a little bit about you who you are, your background and what led you to come into the world of Learn With Less®? Desiree: Yes, I was an educator in the classroom for about 16 years. And I’m going to take it way back to junior college where I did not know what I wanted to do with my life, and I felt lost. I found my way when I stumbled across a flyer from Bright Horizons. I took my very first child psychology class, and I was hooked. That literally was the seed to my career in early childhood education. It should not have come as a surprise to me, because I actually come from a long line of educators. My paternal grandfather was a principal in the Philippines. I have been in the classroom, as I mentioned, for 16 years. I managed a team, if you will. One of my dream jobs was to become a principal, which I tried on for two and a half years… and realized that it just was not my thing. And I’m glad that I tried it. Fast forward a little bit. I’ve since transitioned into executive support. I’m not surprised that my skills have transferred over really nicely to this role. So I do that full time. I am a bonus mama to two wonderful children that I met about eight years ago. They are 10 going on 20, and 12 going on 50. My son has a very old soul. One morning, I heard him say Hey, Google… Play Elvis Presley. Like that’s, that’s my kid I love.  I met you and I stumbled upon Learn With Less® when my good friend Lesley Mayson had posted about her own experience. And I was in a bit of a transition. I knew that I wanted to serve the community in some capacity, and I had thought, Oh, I’m going to be a career coach! Took an intro class and realize that specific framework was not the right fit for me because I am an intense introvert. And when I met you, and you told me a little bit more about how the information is disseminated. Again, I was hooked. And so here we are together. A year later! What is it about the Learn With Less® Program That Speaks to You? Ayelet: Let’s hear a little bit about what was it that really intrigued you about the way that the Learn With Less® facilitator training and certification program, really… What is it that really got you in terms of feeling like it was a better fit? Not only, of course, within the way that you wanted to serve and impact your community, but also in the way that we do our training? Because it sounds like that, as as I know from speaking with you over the year, I know that really was useful to you. But I’d love to hear specifically what it was about it then. Desiree: The thing that really drew me in is the fact that it is play-based. I was in a program where we had a community of parents and caregivers that did not initially see the value of a play-based program. And I tell you, I talk to them still, many of these families, their children are probably now in middle school, which is absolutely insane to think about. They talk about that time, this magical time that they had in this particular program. Now seeing why play was so important, and is still so important. So that was part of it is just the fact that it was play-based. The other part is that it was a mix of philosophies, Ayelet. I came from a program that was heavily inspired by Reggio. And so my own value system, my own philosophy around education, is actually a mix of those different philosophies and ways of thinking around child development and play. So that was the other part. The receiving of the information is that I got to choose my own adventure. I took about a year to go through the actual program. And you and our community did not make me feel guilty about that! We had just talked about time being a very precious and scarce resource, right. While working full time, I would go through the program when I felt called to it. And that is so empowering. I just want to pause there because I got to make very intentional choices as to when I engaged in that learning. And that was really important to me as a working mom, and someone that was making a very serious investment in this… I don’t like to call it a small business because it’s not small! In this venture, this new chapter that I was writing for myself. Ayelet: I love that. Yeah, it’s so important to me, in terms of the way that people go through the program, to have that opportunity. Because we know that not everybody life circumstances are the same. Everyone is coming from a different educational, professional background. People are dealing with different COVID restrictions, different life restrictions, different life pathways, and some people zip through it, who are in your exact circumstances, right? Who are working full time parents, and some choose because of other circumstances to take their time. What we try to do is, like you said, try and create that ability for people to self determine what it is that is important to them, and what they need while continuing to provide the support, and information sharing, and inspiration to those who are ready to take it in, as well. And to bring you back in, and pull you back in, when it’s time. Finding Your Sweet Spot, Creating Balance in Your Life Desiree: Yes, you make me think about this conversation that I had with a few – three of the executives that I support right now. And I said to them, no joke, I’m retiring with you all, I will be on this team supporting you all for as long as you’ll have me. And one of them said, I really worry about the day that you’re going to leave and want more. And I told him, I found my sweet spot. Sometimes people search a lifetime for that sweet spot where you feel like everything is integrated at just the right volume, if you will. And so that was the beauty of Learn With Less®, is that I was able to maintain equil

Creative Ways to Add Movement into Your Young Child’s Day This episode of the Learn With Less® podcast is the final of a 4-part series about incorporating play, language, music, and movement, into everyday routines. These episodes feature a conversation between Ayelet Marinovich (pediatric speech-language pathologist, founder & creator of the Learn With Less® curriculum) and Miranda Zoumbaris (early childhood educator & interventionist, licensed Learn With Less® facilitator, and entrepreneur). In this series, we’ll explore the four pillars of the Learn With Less® framework, and examine how we can incorporate more of each of those into our everyday routines to support connection and early learning. For each episode, we chose one routine and one everyday object, and explored the ways in which we could infuse developmentally enriching experiences into everyday life, and helping families see they can do this using the time, energy, and materials they already have. Be sure to check over at our Instagram and Facebook pages (linked below) for additional content that may support your understanding and experience of these episodes. As we release each episode, we’ll link to them here in the show notes so you can access them easily. In this episode, we discussed: What is MOVE (as we define it in the Learn With Less® curriculum), and how it can be woven into everyday routines How to take the routine of dressing (putting on and taking off coats, zippers, etc!), and incorporate more opportunities for movement into these moments How we can adapt movement activities based on our body’s needs or the needs of our children Adapting an environment to include opportunities for movement and integrating a child’s needs How to incorporate movement into simple routines, using simple, everyday objects How to include young children within an activity by facilitating opportunities for movement The value of learning in community, of parallel processing with other families, and of experiencing the practice of following your child’s lead, through caregiver and child classes like those led by licensed Learn With Less® facilitators Helpful Resources to Acknowledge For This Episode: Daily Routines Freebie: download Miranda’s free handout about winter dressing, and get ideas for incorporating play, talk, sing, and move into your everyday routines! Free Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: what are the four major areas of early development… and how can you use the pillars of Learn With Less® to support that learning, using the time, energy, and materials you already have?! Download our free blueprint today. How to Incorporate Play into Everyday Routines: our first episode in this podcast series, featuring a conversation with Miranda Zoumbaris and Ayelet Marinovich How to Incorporate Language Into Everyday Routines, the second episode in this 4-part series! How to Incorporate Music Into Everyday Routines, the third episode in this 4-part series! The Power of Play Through Movement, a Learn With Less® podcast episode featuring physical therapist, Wendi McKenna What Is Sensory Processing?, a Learn With Less® podcast episode featuring occupational therapist, Christie Kiley Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program, helping educators and therapists create lasting impact in their communities with a high quality, evidence-based, “plug & play” program Expand Your Impact Workshop Bundle: for early childhood educators and developmental therapists hoping to serve new families in their community and support themselves, using their existing skills Learn With Less® Bundle: our best infant and toddler development resources for families and educators alike, including our bestselling books Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler, our acclaimed family music album, recorded Learn With Less® “caregiver & me” classes, and a caregiver handout featuring ideas for carryover in the home Learn With Less® Stories: Testimonials from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming. Connect With Us: Miranda: Website / Facebook / Instagram Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of this Episode Ayelet: Okay, welcome back to the Learn With Less® podcast. And welcome to my co-host for these four episodes, Miranda Zoumbaris! Hi Miranda! Miranda: Hello! I’m glad to be back. Ayelet: I can’t believe this is the last one, of this installment. Tell us over on the socials: did you enjoy this? Was fun to have Miranda join us in all four episodes. This is so fun. I had a great time. It is nice to have a co-host, actually. Thank you so much, Miranda, for all your contributions to the last few weeks of content and things that we’ve been talking about. This conversation has just been so much fun to have and connect with people over on social media, Instagram and Facebook over on @learnwithless and @earlyinterventionmama! Why don’t we go ahead and finish out our series of our four Learn With Less® pillars, with the final installment of MOVE. So again, just like we’ve been doing in the last few episodes, and if you haven’t already listened to those, go ahead and check those out. We’ve got three other wonderful episodes for you about the other three pillars of Learn With Less® which include PLAY, TALK, and SING. But today we’re going to talk about MOVE, what move is. We’re going to give you some examples about how this pillar of MOVE can be woven into those everyday routines. And the routine that we’re going to be talking about with relation to one particular object… we’re going to talk about this notion of dressing, coats, zippers. Learning About Motor and Sensory Development So that’s what we’re gonna be chatting about today. Let me go ahead and introduce  the ways that we define this pillar of move within the Learn With Less® curriculum and framework. So movement, as we know, can be very big movements, very small movements, proprioceptive movement. Gross motor movement and fine motor skills, all kinds of visual spatial movements, there’s lots of different pieces to movement, and then motor and sensory development, in addition to how MOVE can support all other aspects and areas of early development. First of all, movement, whether we’re talking about a child who is developing along a typical progression of learning and within, you know, quote, unquote, “normal limits” of meeting milestones and things like that, or whether we’re talking about a child with severe motor needs and limitations, movement is learning and movement is life. We can always help to create more opportunities for movement, even with a child who has more motor challenges. In general, with all of our movers, babies and toddlers are learning how their body moves, where their body ends and begins, and where the rest of the world ends and begins in relation to themselves and their own identity… through exploration and movement. Through touching the surfaces on which they’re laying down or running around on, or whatever it is. And we want to think, even from that very beginning, of when our children are just starting to learn how to move, to consider various planes of movement, when they’re on us, or on the floor, forward and backward and side to side, up and down, vertical and diagonal. Really remembering that when we’re talking about exploration of movement, yes, we can think about a “yes space” kind of a thing, a place where everything is available to our children. And also thinking about, that can be inside or outside. One of the physical therapists that, I love her work, and we’ve had her on the Learn With Less® podcast in the past, Wendi McKenna, and I’ll link to the episode, she talks about how our homes are just giant containers for our children. I love that notion of the idea of yes, it’s really important to have a space that you feel comfortable for your child to explore in, and also get outside, right? Your children can explore spiderwebs, and the gravel and the broken sidewalk, and the little pebbles between their toes, and the grass, and the dew, and all of the things. It doesn’t matter whether you are in a rural or urban or suburban setting or any other place, there is so much to explore. And movement is how our young children do that. So that is the basic outline that I wanted to start with, a–nd let’s move into how we can use this understanding of this pillar of MOVE in relation to, say, putting on coats and zipping up and zipping down zippers, and really just dressing in general. So Miranda, why don’t you get us started on the ways that we can utilize this pillar of movement and MOVE in relation to everyday routines. How we can embed movement into everyday routines Miranda: Yeah. So I don’t know my brain just goes to the really tiny infant side of things first in terms of developmental spectrum. Thinking about, at first, you’re kind of moving your tiny human through dressing. Putting their arm through a shirt for the first time and those sensations that they have, putting their hand through it. Then, thinking about how when they start moving their fingers and really moving from involuntary grasping onto something to voluntary grasping on something: your hair, a necklace maybe you’re wearing, or your shirt, the zipper, feeling how that feels different. So just really thinking about those smaller movements. And then working up… there’s this meme that’s going around the internet that shows instead of a toddler trying to get dressed, it’s wrestling an alligator. Ayelet: Yeah, every parent and caregiver of a toddler knows this. Even if they’

Bringing Music Into Your Everyday Routine Can Support Early Learning! This episode of the Learn With Less® podcast is the third of a 4-part series about incorporating play, language, music, and movement, into everyday routines. These episodes feature a conversation between Ayelet Marinovich (pediatric speech-language pathologist, founder and creator of the Learn With Less® curriculum) and Miranda Zoumbaris (early childhood educator & interventionist, licensed Learn With Less® facilitator, and entrepreneur). In this series, we’ll explore the four pillars of the Learn With Less® framework, and examine how we can incorporate more of each of those into our everyday routines to support connection and early learning. For each episode, we chose one routine and one everyday object, and explored the ways in which we could infuse developmentally enriching experiences into everyday life, and helping families see they can do this using the time, energy, and materials they already have. Be sure to check over at our Instagram and Facebook pages (linked below) for additional content that may support your understanding and experience of these episodes. As we release each episode, we’ll link to them here in the show notes so you can access them easily. In this episode, we discussed: What is SING (as we define it in the Learn With Less® curriculum), and how it can be woven into everyday routines How to take the routine of transitioning (from one activity to another, from inside to outside, etc), and incorporate more musical elements into these moments What kinds of musicality can we infuse into the routines we have when it comes to transitioning between activities Using the power of music to create levity in a stressful moment – for both children and adults How to incorporate music into simple routines, using simple, everyday objects The power of “group sing,” and learning within a group How to create inclusive environments for children (or adults) who are reticent or averse to music The value of learning in community, of parallel processing with other families, and of experiencing the practice of following your child’s lead, through caregiver and child classes like those led by licensed Learn With Less® facilitators Helpful Resources to Acknowledge For This Episode: Daily Routines Freebie: download Miranda’s free handout about winter dressing, and get ideas for incorporating play, talk, sing, and move into your everyday routines! Free Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: what are the four major areas of early development… and how can you use the pillars of Learn With Less® to support that learning, using the time, energy, and materials you already have?! Download our free blueprint today. How to Incorporate Play into Everyday Routines: our first episode in this podcast series, featuring a conversation with Miranda Zoumbaris and Ayelet Marinovich How to Incorporate Language Into Everyday Routines, the second episode in this 4-part series! Infant-Directed Speech: Tips for Talking To Your Baby, an early Learn With Less® episode Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program, helping educators and therapists create lasting impact in their communities with a high quality, evidence-based, “plug & play” program Expand Your Impact Workshop Bundle: for early childhood educators and developmental therapists hoping to serve new families in their community and support themselves, using their existing skills Learn With Less® Bundle: our best infant and toddler development resources for families and educators alike, including our bestselling books Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler, our acclaimed family music album, recorded Learn With Less® “caregiver & me” classes, and a caregiver handout featuring ideas for carryover in the home Learn With Less® Stories: Testimonials from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming. Connect With Us: Miranda: Website / Facebook / Instagram Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of this Episode Ayelet: Okay, welcome back to another episode of the Learn With Less® podcast. I am again joined my my fabulous current co-host Miranda Zoumbaris. Hi, Miranda! Miranda: Hellooooo! Ayelet: Hello! Miranda: I know that’s like almost how I always say hello, when I’m on a call like this. I don’t know why. But… Ayelet: Well, I would like to propose a thought, which is that, I think it’s because it’s fun and playful and musical. And that is the thing that we’re talking about today. I’m very excited because the last few episodes that we’ve been chatting together have been about the first two pillars of Learn With Less®, PLAY and TALK. And today, we’re going to talk about SING! I know that SING is sometimes one of those more divisive, maybe… You either know the power of musicality, and you’re always singing to your child or always humming in the shower, whatever it is. Or, you’re like, nope, I am not musical, I am not a singer, I do not want to do that. I do not feel comfortable, I hate all children’s songs. They sound like nails on a chalkboard… or nobody wants to hear me sing or whatever it is! We all have a story that we have in our heads about what music means to us and our relationship with it. And also, I hope that today, you and I Miranda, can just give people a few extra tools in their toolbox about how they might consider utilizing musicality, and really what that means to us here at Learn With Less® with regards to how we can utilize it with young children, and in our families, and in our daily routines. Because I know, Miranda, you and I both know that there is a great power in singing and in music. And in utilizing music to enhance, energize, or decrease energy and lull to sleep, our young children, or lull into a more regulated state. Lull into? I don’t think that’s really the term I want to use, but help move into a more regulated state. I don’t think I want to be loaded into a regulated state. Miranda: We’re gonna lull you in. Yeah. That’s for our podcast listeners, we’re just going to let you lull you in! Ayelet: Listen to what we say. Anyway. So let’s just talk a little bit. Again, we’ve been doing this structure of sharing with you listeners: what are the definitions about how we define these pillars of PLAY, and TALK and SING and MOVE, those pillars of Learn With Less®. And then also, we’re going to be talking today again, about how we can weave this pillar of SING into everyday routines and give you a few specific examples and ideas around one particular routine. That of… you want to introduce it, Miranda, go ahead? I’ve been talking a lot! Miranda: Yeah, going in and out of the house, or transitions in and out of the house. Ayelet: Yeah, the transition piece and maybe bundling up or heading outside. Miranda, you are in Michigan. And right now it’s January. And it’s wintertime, and it’s cold. Here in California right now, it is also wintertime and it’s been raining a ton. We’ve been very wet. And you know we’re in a drought, still, despite all the rain. But it’s meant a little bit of a different kind of transition for us than maybe our children are used to, and us as adults, as well. So those going in or out transition types of things. Singing To Babies – For Non-Musical Parents! So let’s just start a little bit with what is SING as we define it here at Learn With Less®. So really, as we know, singing, yes, can look like singing a song from start to finish through and through. Having particular lyrics, and having it be the lyrics that you associate with that song in particular. Or, it can just be humming a tune, or tapping a rhythm, or moving, swaying to the beat of something that is happening. Holding your child! It can be really just adding a silly element and adding more joy, often, into routines through this idea of musicality: of quickening or slowing the pace. Of enhancing the pitch intonations, which as it happens, is something that we actually naturally do in every single language – spoken or gestural – in the world. It’s what we call infant-directed speech, sometimes referred to as “parentese” or, more archaically, “motherese.” It’s this idea of naturally slowing down, enhancing those pitch contours, being more melodic in our voice, actually. And this is something that I linked to the podcast episode that I did about infant-directed speech years ago. But this is something that we do to help our young children really feel considered naturally. And when we don’t even think about that we’re doing it, right? Think about the connection between all those specific things: shortening a phrase, making your voice more melodic, all those kinds of things… You are already doing it. You are literally already enhancing the musicality and this experience of SING for your child. But then also remembering that we can distract or engage with music. We can heighten an experience or an energy level, like we said, or we can lower the energy level with a lullaby, for instance. We can connect and cuddle with a lullaby, or a cozy song, or we can have a wild dance party. Rhythms are everywhere, right? They are literally everywhere – in the sounds that we hear, the environmental noises everywhere. We can bring them into a song, knock, knock, knock, who’s there? Whatever it is, like Tada, like, there it is. Really, remembering to make music with what you have, whether that is a fancy, organically stained, hand carved wooden drum, or a laundry basket. They are all great. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about relating this pillar o

Use Everyday Routines to Build Language Skills In Young Children: It’s Powerful! This episode of the Learn With Less® podcast is the second of a 4-part series about incorporating play, language, music, and movement, into everyday routines. These episodes feature a conversation between Ayelet Marinovich (pediatric speech-language pathologist, founder and creator of the Learn With Less® curriculum) and Miranda Zoumbaris (early childhood educator & interventionist, licensed Learn With Less® facilitator, and entrepreneur). In this series, we’ll explore the four pillars of the Learn With Less® framework, and examine how we can incorporate more of each of those into our everyday routines to support connection and early learning. For each episode, we chose one routine and one everyday object, and explored the ways in which we could infuse developmentally enriching experiences into everyday life, and helping families see they can do this using the time, energy, and materials they already have. Be sure to check over at our Instagram and Facebook pages (linked below) for additional content that may support your understanding and experience of these episodes. As we release each episode, we’ll link to them here in the show notes so you can access them easily. In this episode, we discussed: What is TALK (as we define it in the Learn With Less® curriculum), and how it can be woven into everyday routines How to take the routine of nose-blowing and other self care routines, and incorporate more language into these moments What kinds of language routines we can create with an item like a tissue or tissue box Using language to create levity in a stressful moment – for both children and adults How to incorporate language strategies into simple routines, using simple, everyday objects The value of learning in community, of parallel processing with other families, and of experiencing the practice of following your child’s lead, through caregiver and child classes like those led by licensed Learn With Less® facilitators Helpful Resources to Acknowledge For This Episode: Daily Routines Freebie: download Miranda’s free handout about winter dressing, and get ideas for incorporating play, talk, sing, and move into your everyday routines! Free Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: what are the four major areas of early development… and how can you use the pillars of Learn With Less® to support that learning, using the time, energy, and materials you already have?! Download our free blueprint today. How to Incorporate Play into Everyday Routines: our first episode in this podcast series, featuring a conversation with Miranda Zoumbaris and Ayelet Marinovich How to Incorporate Music Into Everyday Routines, the third episode in this 4-part series! How to Incorporate Movement Into Everyday Routines, the final episode in this 4-part series! The Power of the Pause, an early Learn With Less® episode Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program, helping educators and therapists create lasting impact in their communities with a high quality, evidence-based, “plug & play” program Expand Your Impact Workshop Bundle: for early childhood educators and developmental therapists hoping to serve new families in their community and support themselves, using their existing skills Learn With Less® Bundle: our best infant and toddler development resources for families and educators alike, including our bestselling books Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler, our acclaimed family music album, recorded Learn With Less® “caregiver & me” classes, and a caregiver handout featuring ideas for carryover in the home Learn With Less® Stories: Testimonials from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming. Connect With Us: Miranda: Website / Facebook / Instagram Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of this Episode Ayelet: Okay, welcome back to the Learn with Less® Podcast. Today I am joined by my current co-host Miranda Zoumbaris. Hi, Miranda! Miranda: Hi! I’m so glad to be back! Ayelet: Yay! Let’s go ahead… Last week, we had an episode all about that first pillar of Learn With Less®, which is PLAY. So, go back, if you haven’t listened to that, and grab all of the things that we talked about, listen to all of that, and catch up with all of the content that we’ve created over on Instagram and Facebook and places at @earlyinterventionmama and @learnwithless, and you can get caught up with all the great stuff all about PLAY. But this week… Miranda, what are we talking about this week? Miranda: We’re going to talk about TALK! We’re going to talk about talk, and talk about playing with some tissues or tissue boxes. Ayelet: Yeah, last week, we talked a little bit about what play is, and then different routine examples of using a specific object in play. This week, we’re going to do the same thing about TALK. And the object that we’ve chosen for this week is, as you said, that whole routine of blowing your nose. Blowing, the sort of handkerchief, nose blowing, tissue pulling type stuff. Tissues and self care, really, is the topic that we’re gonna chat about. Let’s talk a little bit about what talk is, as we define it in Learn With Less®. I can start there. And then I’m going to hand it off to you to chat a little bit more about the different routines that we’re going to chat about. So when we’re talking about this pillar of TALK, what we’re really discussing is discussion, the act of discussion and observation. The idea of repetition with variation. Because every single day, we hope, you’re having some kind of conversation with your young child. Within daily routines… is such a wonderful time to really give into that discussion and observation. Instead of quietly changing your child’s diaper, this is a great opportunity to say the same kinds of things at the same time. Because then you’re repeating yourself and giving context to words. So for instance, oh, let’s take it off, when you’re taking off the diaper. You can sequence events, and look at what’s coming next, and all of those things. So you’re repeating, and you’re giving a lot of consistency, but then a little bit of variation, right, the pattern adjusts a little bit each time. We’re also talking about, when we’re talking about TALK, we’re having this conversation about communicating for a variety of purposes, not just “what’s this, what’s that” – labeling, which is, I think, something that a lot of us as adults tend to get stuck in in terms of quizzing and drilling our little ones. That’s how oftentimes we’ve learned what learning is! It looks like taking tests and quizzing. Also as the grownups in the room, we want to hear our children say those words, we want to see that they can identify something. We want to know what they know, we want to see what they know. We want to show our loved ones what they know. And also, because again, we’re talking about not just the but/or its AND. So, we want to communicate for a variety of purposes. We want to ask our child questions. We want to wonder aloud, we want to imitate them. We want to talk about what’s happening around us, how something feels, what it looks like. And notice what they are noticing – and say those things out loud. And then, of course, we also want to communicate to our little ones using a variety of means and modes of communication, right? We know that right now, Miranda and I are sitting at two different computers looking at each other on Zoom, and she’s nodding, That tells me that she’s listening, right, and she’s smiling. That tells me that she’s engaged. And all of those nonverbal communication skills also assist in communicating and engaging with each other as humans. So whether it’s gestures and pointing or clapping. Or whether it’s moving towards or away from our little one. Whether it’s facial expression, or different kinds of motor movements, like hugs or pushing something away, not everything has to be positive! Really showing that there are so many ways to communicate what we need, what we want, what we think what we’re wondering what we’re questioning. Then finally just modeling what you want to see both in terms of the kinds of communicative behaviors that you want your child to then imitate and replicate because goodness knows. Some of the things that I’m noticing in my nine year old right now are directly influenced by things that I’m like, Oh my gosh, I wish I wasn’t like that. I wish I didn’t do that to him because now he’s doing that to his little brother. That doesn’t feel very good. Yeah. How lovely. So just bringing that awareness to ourselves, because even from before day one, they are learning from us. So those are the pieces that I wanted to start with in terms of what is TALK. Right. So let’s talk a little bit about, Miranda, how to utilize routines with regard to this pillar of TALK. Miranda: Yeah, absolutely. So oh my gosh, There literally is so much to talk about. So let’s really think about that self care routine and your child has a runny, gunky nose. So maybe you start by explaining what’s going to happen, if that works for your child. So you’re using language. I see you, you have boogers coming out of your nose. It’s about to get on your mouth. Let’s find a tissue to clean it up. Or maybe you want to give some choices. You know, you have boogers on your nose. Do you want to wipe or a tissue so you can wipe it and allowing them to do it, giving some choices! Or maybe you’re the one blowing your nose! And your baby looks up at you startled! Or you know,

Turning Everyday Routines into Developmentally Enriching Play Experiences (Hint: You’ve Already Got What You Need) This episode of the Learn With Less® podcast is the first of a 4-part series about incorporating play, language, music, and movement, into everyday routines. These episodes feature a conversation between Ayelet Marinovich (pediatric speech-language pathologist, founder and creator of the Learn With Less® curriculum) and Miranda Zoumbaris (early childhood educator & interventionist, licensed Learn With Less® facilitator, and entrepreneur). In this series, we’ll explore the four pillars of the Learn With Less® framework, and examine how we can incorporate more of each of those into our everyday routines to support connection and early learning. For each episode, we chose one routine and one everyday object, and explored the ways in which we could infuse developmentally enriching experiences into everyday life, and helping families see they can do this using the time, energy, and materials they already have. Be sure to check over at our Instagram and Facebook pages (linked below) for additional content that may support your understanding and experience of these episodes. As we release each episode, we’ll link to them here in the show notes so you can access them easily. In this episode, we discussed: What is PLAY (as we define it in the Learn With Less® curriculum), and how it can be woven into everyday routines How to take the routine of transitioning indoors and outdoors, and incorporate more playfulness into these moments What kinds of play routines we can create with an item like a glove Using play to create levity in a stressful moment – for both children and adults You are the expert on your child, on what routines are useful for you, and on how you play with your little one Helpful Resources to Acknowledge For This Episode: Daily Routines Freebie: download Miranda’s free handout about winter dressing, and get ideas for incorporating play, talk, sing, and move into your everyday routines! Free Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: what are the four major areas of early development… and how can you use the pillars of Learn With Less® to support that learning, using the time, energy, and materials you already have?! Download our free blueprint today. How to Incorporate Language Into Everyday Routines, the second episode in this 4-part series! How to Incorporate Music Into Everyday Routines, the third episode in this 4-part series! How to Incorporate Movement Into Everyday Routines, the final episode in this 4-part series! Listen, Learn, & Advocate: Support New Families, featuring Sydney Bassard Maximizing Natural Language Opportunities, Without Toys, featuring Joanne Cazeau How to Use Everyday Routines to Boost Infant & Toddler Development, featuring Stacey Landberg Parent Coaching and Routines for Early Language Development, featuring Cari Ebert Connect With Us: Miranda: Website / Facebook / Instagram Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of this Episode Ayelet: Hi, Miranda! Miranda: Hi, Ayelet! Ayelet: So, I’m really happy that we’re here together today to do some recording of these podcast episodes. This is a series that you and I are co-creating and putting together just a little bit of content for both of our audiences. And I want to just start by giving you the chance to introduce yourself to anybody who does not yet know you, because you’re the co host of these four episodes that we’re about to start releasing. So, take it away! Miranda: I’m Miranda Zoumbaris, and I am… I am an entrepreneur! I spent 14 years in early intervention and serving families through a few different programs. And then transition to being a stay at home mom while also offering Learn With Less® classes. And that’s how Ayelet and I know each other! So yeah, now I would describe myself more as an entrepreneur than I would an early interventionist, although my instagram handle is @earlyinterventionmama, and I don’t think that’s going away anytime soon. Ayelet: Right! Well, I love how you stated that because it is a very strange shift in identity, what both you and I have been doing over the years. We started as these helper people in the communities that we are both a part of, and then transitioned into working with families and professionals in a different way. So today, and for the next few episodes, we’re going to be sharing a little bit about the Learn with Less® framework: play, talk, sing and move – the four pillars of the Learn With Less® framework. As well as routines, and routines-based intervention in terms of how this relates to supporting early development for families. And then giving professionals also some ideas and thoughts and resources to help support families that are looking to just utilize more of what they already have. I know Miranda, you and I are both very committed to this idea of number one, family focused services, and really putting the power in the hands of the family and helping to show them what they already have access to and how they can utilize that. So let’s just start, I guess, by talking a little bit about what “play” is. And then we can talk a little bit about some examples of how we can weave that into everyday routine. Miranda: Yeah, well, I would just I just want to add before we hop into play, too, I think so often, there are providers, or even parents, who look at play as one routine. And so I think just really reminding everybody that play can be woven into any routines. And if there are parents or therapists who are listening to this episode and thinking like, Okay, well, that’s great, but I really don’t want to do Routines Based work. I want to stick with my very play based therapy. I think we just keep that in mind, right? That play, yes, is a routine. But play and playfulness can be woven into any routine. And, you know, just something to kind of keep in mind. Ayelet: Yeah, I love that. I think part of what we’re trying to do here today is just have a little bit more of a nuanced conversation about: it’s not routines based intervention versus play-based intervention, or Routines-Based Services versus play-based services. It’s not one philosophy versus another. It’s all/and and it’s not and/or. Let’s talk a little bit about what we mean, first of all, by “play,” and I’d love to start, if it’s okay with you, with how we define it within the Learn With Less® framework of that first pillar of play, in terms of play being really all about open-ended experiences. When we think about that term… because I think it’s one of those things that’s thrown around by professionals a lot! It’s important to think about, okay, there’s no specific end-goal. This is about exploring, experimenting with a variety of objects, in a variety of different environments. Whether that means indoors or outdoors, in the hallway, in the kitchen, whatever it is. And really just remembering that instead of that definition of play that I think a lot of us as grownups start off with, or have defined for ourselves, as: we play a game. There’s a specific set of steps involved. There’s a start, and a middle and an end. There’s a trajectory and an arc. And yet, we know that when it comes to playing with infants and toddlers, especially, that’s not what it is, right? It’s it’s more about being flexible and accepting what is happening in the environment. Miranda: That’s right. That’s right. So it’s up to us to help to just see what happens, and let it unfold in front of us. And provide language around it, provide opportunities for movement around it. Provide music, is often something, right? I think the thing to think about, too, is just taking a little bit to sit back and watch the children you work with or your own child – and they are really good at it! It is a muscle, I think, for so many adults – myself included – to really stretch, to embrace that open-ended exploration. To look at a toy that you are going… okay, this is a little person, I need to put it in the bed. Versus, we can just play dumb, bring it in and out, or we can play hiding it. So I think, letting our children guide us because they really are so good at that open-ended piece of it. They have less of that structure that things have to be a certain way, I think in their brain, than we do, oftentimes. Ayelet: So I think one of the things that it’s important for us, that we wanted to set out and discuss today, was giving examples for families and professionals about how play can be woven into everyday routines. So you and I took the idea of… let’s come up with a specific object that we could think of, that would really help to define all the things that we could do within many different routines, with a single object – that’s not traditionally thought of as a toy or a play object! So do you want to go ahead and introduce what that is? Miranda: Yeah. So we are going to be taking a look at gloves within that pillar of play, that focus of play. So when you hear gloves, I want you to if you’re listening, stretch in your mind what that might think. Here in Michigan,  gloves or mittens for winter. But think about the gloves that you might wear for washing dishes in the sink! If you might happen to have access to a glove because you happen to be sitting in the doctor’s office, and they’re they’re accessible. So just kind of really start by just stretching that, and not thinking oh, like a glove that you put on to go outside because you’re cold. You know, there’s more than one way that we can kind of think about that even, in itself. Ayelet: Yes, I cannot even say how many times we’ve been in the waiting room. Yes. How many w

Building Equitable Outcomes for Families with Young Children Through Access to Information On this episode of the Learn With Less® podcast, Ayelet sits down with Sydney Bassard. Sydney is an ASHA-certified speech-language pathologist, with a B.S. in Public Health. Her clinical focus areas are working with individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing and those with literacy challenges. Sydney engages in research with these populations as well as clinical practice. With a passion for access to high-quality service and care for all, she takes the time to invest in each client and their family. Her motto of listening, learning, and advocating stems from the three principles that guide her clinical practice. We discussed: Sydney’s new book, “A Day With Mom,” which she co-authored with her own mother The importance of health literacy The fine line between “doing enough” and not doing enough for one’s child How everyday routines can be developmentally beneficial The importance of play, and what high quality educational materials actually are Where to find high quality resources for families Helpful Resources to Acknowledge For This Episode: A Day With Mom, by Pearl and Sydney Bassard Understood.org – great resources on early intervention and early learning Free downloads for families and professionals from Sydney Early & Bright SLP (formerly Mommy & Me Milestones) Maximizing Natural Language Opportunities, Without Toys, featuring Joanne Cazeau How to Use Everyday Routines to Boost Infant & Toddler Development, featuring Stacey Landberg Parent Coaching and Routines for Early Language Development, featuring Cari Ebert Free Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: what are the four major areas of early development… and how can you use the pillars of Learn With Less® to support that learning, using the time, energy, and materials you already have?! Download our free blueprint today. Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program, helping educators and therapists create lasting impact in their communities with a high quality, evidence-based, “plug & play” program Expand Your Impact Workshop Bundle: for early childhood educators and developmental therapists hoping to serve new families in their community and support themselves, using their existing skills Learn With Less® Bundle: our best infant and toddler development resources for families and educators alike, including our bestselling books Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler, our acclaimed family music album, recorded Learn With Less® “caregiver & me” classes, and a caregiver handout featuring ideas for carryover in the home Learn With Less® Stories: Testimonials from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming. Connect With Us: Sydney: Website / Facebook / Instagram Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of this Episode Sydney’s Book, A Day With Mom Ayelet: Okay, welcome Sydney Bassard, to the Learn With Less® podcast. I’m so happy you’re here today. And I’m really excited to have this conversation with you, we have met all over the place on the internet. But finally, in November 2022, we got to actually connect and spend lots of good time together at ASHA in New Orleans. And we also around that time, it became very clear that you had just embarked upon the journey of publishing a book, which is incredible. So I wanted to make sure that before we get to the rest of the episode, we have a chance to talk a little bit about what that book is, why you wrote it, its name, and how people can order it, because I’m just very excited that my copy is on its way! Please go ahead and share with the good people. Sydney: So first off, it was so great meeting you and getting to spend time together in person at ASHA. It was great to just finally get to connect with the people you’ve been talking with over the internet for the past couple of years. So the title of the children’s book that I co-authored with my mom is called A Day With Mom. The principle of the book is to really just tell the authentic story of middle class Black families: to show that Black people live everyday lives, oftentimes in children’s literature, Black children are put on pedestals of being extraordinary – they’re super smart, they’re scientists, they’re all of these amazing things, which can be true! But they’re also allowed to just be ordinary children. Everything doesn’t have to be rooted in being super amazing, and everything doesn’t need to be rooted in poverty and struggle. So that was our mission behind writing the book, and then everything in it is based on activities that my mom and I did as I was a child growing up, from making breakfast together, going to different book fairs, to just shopping at the mall and looking for a good sale. Ayelet: Yep, that’s great. And tell us the name and the best place that people can find it. Sydney: Yeah, so the name of the book, again, is a day with mom, and people can find it at artistmadridbooks.com. Please, please, please, we are so thankful for the people who have read the book, for the people who have shared the book with their audiences. But our real goal is just so people can feel seen and represented in this story. But also just to continue to make good connections with your kids. Everything doesn’t have to be an extraordinary experience, sometimes the simple things create those lasting memories. Ayelet: That’s right. Fantastic. All right. Thank you, Sydney for that. That is very exciting. And again, of course, we’ll link to that in the show notes. So let’s get on with the rest of the episode. You and I have been in community on Facebook for quite some time now. And it’s just great to hang out with you in well, not in the flesh, but synchronously here now. Sydney: Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to chat with you today. The Trajectory of Sydney’s Career as a Speech-Language Pathologist Ayelet: Yay. Why don’t you, instead of reading a bio out loud, it would be great to hear from you a little bit about your story, you know, what led you to the work that you are doing today? And what is that work? Sydney: Oh, that is such a long story. But I’m going to do the condensed version today. So I’ve been an SLP for almost three years. And I tell people that I kind of ended up in this space by chance. I originally went to school to be a pharmacist. I was dead set on being a pharmacist. And then I took organic chemistry II, and found out that I was not cut out for the pharmacy life very quickly. And so I was kind of in the space of not really knowing what I wanted to do or having a strong foundation. And that’s around the time that my brother found out he was dyslexic and had ADHD. So I ended up working for the reading center that he went to. I loved it, but I knew that I wanted to still have some of the freedoms that I would have if I had gone into pharmacy. So I found SLP, fell in love with the field from the reading standpoint, first, and then learned a lot more about hearing loss and working with children with hearing loss that use cochlear implants or hearing aids, particularly. So that’s kind of what led me here. Then right out of grad school, I wanted to work on a cochlear implant team. That was my goal. And so I did that for two years within a children’s hospital and I absolutely loved my job there. But I really missed my family. So I decided to move closer to home last year, and now I’m here owning and running my own private practice, and doing a bunch of other jobs on the side, too. Ayelet: Amazing. That’s so great. Well, I It’s always fun to talk to people who like came to the speech-language pathology worlds from a slightly different path, because that was my path as well. And I learned about the field much later in life, or realize that that that was a thing that condensed all of… basically all of my interests. And it’s always nice to hear from people who found this field more intentionally. The Inception of The Listening SLP: Health Advocacy and Parent Education So let’s hear a little bit about what you are doing. You run an Instagram account and social media existence, and of course, a whole website that is called The Listening SLP. And I would love to hear about what you’re doing over there, what your mission there is, and the message that you would like to share with families, because as you and I both know, but we want our dear listeners to know, that it’s very much in line with what we talked all about here at Learn With Less®. Sydney: Yeah, so The Listening SLP happened kind of by chance. I had been following some other SLP accounts on my personal Instagram, and then ASHA in 2019, I was like, I can do this, I want to share! I really wanted to help and connect with students, was my initial goal. So that’s kind of what I did then, I was still in the midst of my clinical fellowship. And so I just stopped it. And then COVID happened. And I picked it back up, thanks to a really good coworker who’s now a friend of mine. But my mission at that point had changed. At the time, I was like, students need help and information and support. But what I really started to see more from practicing is that there was a lack of transparency with information. My bachelor’s degree is in public health. It’s not in communication sciences and disorders. So I knew a lot from the public health aspect of what does health literacy look like? What is the importance behind it, and how we’re always wanting to get people to this “take action” step. But sometimes we miss the steps along the way of, we have to plant t

How do we provide new families with the skills they need to support their baby or toddler’s development? This episode of the Learn With Less® podcast features an interview conducted by Joanne Cazeau, a recent guest another episode of the podcast, pediatric speech-language pathologist, owner of Koze Speech Therapy, and the brains behind the Instagram handle @thespeechpathologist. The interview originally aired on her Instagram page, and we wanted to share it more broadly, here. I want to acknowledge that the sound quality isn’t perfect, but as always, the full transcript can be found here on the Learn With Less® website, and we know you’ll get a lot of good information, even imperfectly. Toward the end of the episode, we also mention the Expand Your Impact Retreat, which is an event that already took place; however, you can access the recordings by going to learnwithless.com/expand and grabbing the workshop bundle! We discussed: Ayelet’s professional journey and how the Learn With Less® infant and toddler development curriculum was born What Learn With Less® is, what makes it so unique, and the inspiration behind the program The biggest misconceptions and challenges about toy-less learning The biggest benefits of the Learn With Less® approach from both the parent/caregiver perspective, as well as the Learn With Less® facilitator perspective The problems or challenges the Learn With Less® program seeks to alleviate and address What professionals can expect from the Expand Your Impact Workshop Bundle (originally the Expand Your Impact 2021 Retreat), who it’s for, and who can benefit Helpful Resources to Acknowledge For This Episode: Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program, helping educators and therapists create lasting impact in their communities with a high quality, evidence-based, “plug & play” program Expand Your Impact Workshop Bundle: for early childhood educators and developmental therapists hoping to serve new families in their community and support themselves, using their existing skills Learn With Less® Bundle: our best infant and toddler development resources for families and educators alike, including our bestselling books Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler, our acclaimed family music album, recorded Learn With Less® “caregiver & me” classes, and a caregiver handout featuring ideas for carryover in the home Free Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: what are the four major areas of early development… and how can you use the pillars of Learn With Less® to support that learning, using the time, energy, and materials you already have?! Download our free blueprint today. Learn With Less® Stories: Testimonials from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming. Why Is Parent Coaching Important in Early Intervention? A Learn With Less® podcast episode also featuring Joanne Cazeau of Koze Speech Therapy Connect With Us: Joanne: Website / Facebook / Instagram Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of this Episode Ayelet: Hello! Joanne: Hi, how’s it going? Ayelet: Good. How are you? Joanne: Good! Ayelet: I’m excited to chat with you today. Can you hear me okay? Joanne: Yeah, I can hear you perfectly fine. I’m so glad to have you today. So is it okay if you just hop right in? Ayelet: Let’s do it. Joanne: Yeah, perfect. Hi, everybody. My name is Joanne Cazeau, I’m a speech language pathologist and I run the account at @thespeechpathologist, and I am here with Ayelet – Ayelet, can you let me know how you see your last name? Ayelet: Yes. Yeah. So i-YELL-it Marinovich. Joanne: Ayelet Marinovich? Woo! Ayelet, nice to meet you. Oh, my goodness, everybody’s here! Or not, not nice to meet you, Ayelet, we’ve talked a couple times? Nice to see you. So we’re hopping on today with Ayelet who is founder of Learn With Less®. And we’re going to learn a little bit about her program and also a little bit about a live seminar or live retreat that’s coming up on Saturday, and she’s gonna explain it. And I can’t wait for you to learn about what you can expect. So Ayelet, not everyone who’s joining us knows you. So I just was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about yourself for the people who are a little bit newer to you and your program, and a little bit about your professional journey. Yeah! Ayelet: Yeah, totally. So I’m Ayelet, she/her/hers, I came to the SLP world (I’m a speech language pathologist) because really, because I wanted to like find a profession that melded my interests in like child development and psychology and working with people. And I love that that’s the field offered flexibility to work with humans, like across the lifespan and like that it offered flexibility. At the time I was in my early mid 20s. When I came to this field, I knew that I wanted to hopefully have a family at one point, at some point. And I loved that there was like potential for flexibility for balance, balancing career and family. And, and just like my grandfather had this phrase that he used as to “repot yourself” like every, you know, few, 10 years or whatever, to be able to shift gears in your career to reduce stagnation and that, our field, absolutely has that ability. And that was always something that really drew me in and I loved that idea. So as far as I mean, I don’t know how much you want to know about like my own professional journey, but… yeah? Okay, so in grad school, I fell in love with AAC, and I did my CFY under Dr. Marilyn Buzolich who has an AAC consultancy. And I worked with preschool aged kiddos school aged kids and young adults using AAC. And that was amazing because, you know, you get to really, as the AAC specialist, and I was, right out of grad school, which was wild, and amazing, but you get to work so much with the whole team and really specialized in and bringing everybody together for the purpose of this child or person’s communication. And I mean, that was just totally amazing. Also doing it all the time, full time, I did get burned out. And so a few years later, I realized, you know, over time, how much I love supporting early communication, and really the whole family. And so I started to shift gears slowly to work, you know, part time with my AAC clients, and then part time in early intervention, and then that went towards full time. Then, in 2012, I got married, and then my partner was offered a job in London. And so when I was about 10 weeks pregnant, we moved to the UK. And then I spent really the bulk of my pregnancy waiting for my license to be approved through the Royal College of Speech Therapists for about, yeah, about nine months. And then finally, it was approved when I was 38 weeks pregnant. It Yeah, it can be… so, happy to chat with anybody who’s looking to go down that road because it’s quite an interesting set of paperwork that you get to fill out. But yeah, so you know, as that happened, and I gave birth and I had signed on to work very minimally with clients through a local practice. And I did that for a while. Really, what I wanted to focus my energy on was building a community of support for myself because we were in a very new place with new systems and then suddenly navigating new parenthood. And I am a person who very much values community and friendships and so I had this idea, you know, like, why not invite the other like new parents or pregnant people that I’ve met in a prenatal yoga class and then like local childbirth classes and such to join me each week with their babies to sort of hang out, and have some activity geared towards stimulating and playing with our babies, have been a discussion about child development, and then tea and a chat as one does! So I was, you know, very much in that stage of deeply vulnerable, extremely sleep deprived, lost and confused about a lot of things related to early parenthood, as is everybody who experiences that. And I could definitely see that we were all asking the same questions and experiencing very similar challenges. In London, in a very diverse area, you know, I had friends from like, all over the world, from Singapore and Italy, and Australia, and India and Wales, and Seattle, and Malaysia, and blah, blah, blah. But in this time of, you know, new parenthood, we were very much all there in this like, am I enough? Am I doing enough? Who am I? Sort of transition from, like, individual personhood to parenthood. So like I said, I was very much struggling with many of those, like new parent things. But the one area that I did feel confident in was, how to play with my baby, right? How to connect with my child. Since my storage locker of therapy, materials and toys, and such were halfway across the world, I improvised. And I knew that I could improvise, right, I knew that like play and talking to your baby and singing with your baby, and encouraging movement and all those things, are super important aspects of supporting development, supporting connection to your child. And so I started sharing about what that might look like, also using very simple materials. And that’s how Learn With Less® was born. Joanne: And tell us a little bit more about I love to hear the journey about how you got to Learn With Less®, tell us a little bit more about learning with less, and you know, what you do through that program? And what makes it especially unique? Ayelet: Yeah, so what is now the brand Learn With Less®, obviously, very much came out of that time, right, that need for like, new families to feel confident and capable and competent. Like that was obviously a huge part of it. And then for me, sharin

Empowering Parents is the Key As an educator or therapist, you recognize that empowering parents and caregivers is the key to supporting the families you serve. They’re the ones that are “doing it” everyday. Maybe you work primarily with children, and you want to expand to serve the family more holistically. Maybe you’re a therapist who believes in the parent coaching model and routines-based intervention. You’re curious to expand into serving families in a resource and support role. The idea of serving families in a new way in a parent education or parent support role can be daunting! To make a whole curriculum, to teach parents language (and other) strategies, to work with the whole family unit, outside of a classroom or therapy setting. You know this work is needed, and is an amazing expansion of your own skill set and knowledge. In my work both delivering caregiver/baby classes and training other professionals to create these programs in their own communities using the Learn With Less® Curriculum, I see 3 myths that tend to get people stuck, holding them back – often before they even get started. Now, before I get into these 3 myths and why they’re just false assumptions, I want to encourage you to fill out the short application form over at learnwithless.com/certification right now. You’ll gain access to my private training, which will teach you all about the ways to create lasting impact leading “caregiver & me” classes with a high quality, evidence-based, plug & play program that will have families coming back again and again. When you do, I’ll review your application, then I’ll send you limited time access to this training! In addition, I’ll be gifting you free Caregiver/Baby Classes Roadmap, wherein you’ll discover all the pieces to help you become successful with a family enrichment program that every infant/toddler family can access. 3 Myths That Are Holding You Back From Leading Caregiver/Baby Classes I find that many people believe you have to have children of your own or be an “ideal caregiver” yourself to lead Caregiver/Baby Classes in your community… First of all, I personally would pack up my baby and things, and leave the room if I walked into a group where the facilitator claimed to be the best parent ever or to know everything there is about early child development. Of course parents and caregivers want to be led in community by a facilitator who has knowledge, someone who has experience… But let’s stop for a second and think. Do you like learning from a perfectionist? Especially in one of your most vulnerable states (i.e., early parenthood)?? When parents and care givers come together in a group setting like this to gain support, education, and ideas about how to help their child thrive… they’re often not looking for a rigid parenting philosophy. They’re looking for a place where they can feel heard. Where they can connect with each other, with their babies, with a community that understands what they’re going through. So it doesn’t matter whether you have kids of your own, or whether you regularly fall short of being an ideal caregiver yourself. What matters is: do you love being around kids? Do you interact well with kids? Do you love empowering and coaching parents? Because when it comes to wearing your teacher hat or therapist hat OR a family enrichment facilitator hat… what you’re doing matters… but it doesn’t matter as much as how the parent feels their child is doing. The goal is to help the parent or caregiver feel supported, empowered, and curious about discovering something new about themselves or their child. What matters is whether you have empathy, whether you can learn to create community so that you can help parents and caregivers feel empowered to try new strategies or new ways of playing with their kids. Myth #2: You have to perform for the parents & caregivers or expend energy so they’ll participate & engage with your “caregiver & baby” classes I find that many people considering leading parent education and support classes believe that you have to perform for the parents and caregivers or spend a lot of energy to get them to participate and engage with your classes. Professionals with whom I’ve spoken often share with me that getting adults to participate can be difficult, or that they seem conditioned to approach the class as if you’re doing a service or performance for them. Now, I have certainly seen this happen. And I think a lot of it comes down to a few things. First, the primary objective is to lead with trust building. Parents are often confronted with divisive topics and opinions on every single topic, whether it’s how they choose to feed their babies, hold their babies, or put their babies to sleep… The primary objective when building community for parents and caregivers is to ensure that you are creating a place where everyone – regardless of the social identities they hold – can feel included and heard. Now, that’s no small order. That’s why I highly recommend that you ensure you are in a practice of understanding more about the systems that uphold certain social identities over others, and where you fall in terms of the identities you hold. I also recommend that you stop looking at these groups with a “therapy” or “teacher” hat on. You’re not leading them. You’re not telling them how to parent. You’re not telling them what to do. You are facilitating. That means that you need to be modeling, you need to be sharing, you need to be asking them what they need, you need to be setting the tone. You don’t need to solve their problems. You don’t need to give them “one-size-fits-all” solutions. I also think there is a lot here to do with the fact that often, when leading a group of parents and young children, the greatest challenge for you as the facilitator is actually meeting the needs of the group versus the needs of the curriculum. This is why ensuring that the content you share needs to be flexible. It needs to allow for and accommodate the needs of the group. As a facilitator, you may not know how to address everyones’ questions. Please know: you don’t have to. The knowledge of other families in the room may be useful, and when you are the person in the room with access to more resources, there’s nothing wrong with saying, “let me look into that and share some information with you later.” Myth #3: You will have to spend lots of money and time on marketing, ads, logistics, etc. that may or may not work I hear from many, many professionals who believe they’ll have to spend lots of money and time on marketing, ads, logistics, etc. that may or may not work. While this absolutely CAN be true, it doesn’t have to be. When you have a plan, when you know how to address the challenges your families are sharing – within your marketing… When you make time to create systems around logistics like finding spaces, communicating with your potential audience through things like email and social media, building relationships in your community, and build self-reflection measures into your entire process… It all becomes much simpler. When you know the value of your program, know what you’re presenting, have a plan for promotion, create partnerships with existing organizations and businesses in your community… you have a roadmap. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can create a system that works. You can be intentional about where you put your energy. You can do more of what you enjoy – which, of course, is the actual service to families. Don’t Reinvent The Wheel So if you want to discover how to show parents and caregivers what play is all about: helping them learn to let their infants and toddlers explore, experiment, fail, and persist. If you want to find out how to get parents to try new things – even if they haven’t been willing in the past. If you’re looking for ways to establish a relationship quickly and get buy in for your families. If you want to logistically enroll for economic diversity in a fiscally responsible way – even if you’ve considered various avenues before. If you want to discover new ways to offer your knowledge to young parents in your community – even if you don’t have a clear plan! If you want to figure out what to present, how much to charge, how to promote, and how long to make your workshops… Start by registering for my FREE on-demand training, Then head over to learnwithless.com/certification and fill out the short application so I can share with you the private training helping you create that lasting impact on new families in your community. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions. The post 3 Myths Holding You Back From Leading Caregiver/Baby Classes appeared first on Learn With Less.

Families already have all the “right” tools to support their babies: they just need to know how to use them. In today’s episode, I’m going to be sharing with you the ultimate guide to supporting infant and toddler families through parent education. Because here’s the thing: The single most important thing your families need to realize about supporting their young child’s development is that they already have all the “right” tools to support their babies: they just need to know how to use them. All around the world, educators and therapists working with families with infants and toddlers are moving to a “routines-based intervention” approach. Essentially what that means is that the research is finally catching up with what professionals in early childhood education have known for a long time: tiny humans must be supported by responsive caregivers, and do this best in their natural environment. In the first few years of life, children learn through a process of observation (observing others), imitation (starting to imitate others) and interaction (interacting with objects in the environment and with other people in the environment). And everyday routines are those common threads that help children make sense of the world, and help them learn about basic concepts, about vocabulary for things around them, about how their bodies move and how the world feels, and about how to engage socially with others. Apply now to receive access to my private training! So when parents and caregivers can learn to maximize the everyday routines and everyday objects that they’re often already participating in and using, they can unlock their potential and boost development… and this, in turn, gives them the peace of mind they crave: it empowers them to do the big job of parenting tiny humans. They get to combat the overwhelm of early parenthood. Parenting is that great equalizer, and no matter where your families come from, what language(s) they speak, what socio-economic bracket under which they fall, or whether a child is developing along a typical progression or whether she falls outside the norm, there’s one single thing we all need to realize: When you can help families learn to recognize the tools they already have to boost their young child’s development, you’re able to help them maximize the time they have with their babies, you help them feel empowered to “get it right,” and you’re able to help them unlock the power of everyday routines (diaper) and everyday objects (paper roll) to figure out how to support their tiny human and boost all areas of development. Play, Talk, Sing, Move So what are the kinds of things we as educators and therapists can do to support young children and their families? What are the things we can show parents and caregivers that can help them infuse every single interaction with more connection, more opportunities for interaction, more vocabulary, more modeling? I see these as play, talk, sing, and move. I refer to these as the 4-pillars of Learn With Less®. I come back to these in each one of my therapeutic sessions as a pediatric speech-language pathologist, in everything I model and discuss with client families, and in all my parent education work with Learn With Less®. Now, the ultimate goal both with direct therapy and with any kind of parent education or enrichment class, is to build family capacity, competence, and confidence. THEREFORE, this means that your job as a parent educator or a therapist of any kind is to help parents and caregivers believe they can make a difference with their child… and you can do that using very simple strategies and very simple materials! As a pediatric speech-language pathologist, parent educator, and imperfect mother of two young children, I see so often that parents and caregivers often get caught up with the idea of finding the “best route” to follow, and then, instead of thinking things through or thinking about why they believe something is the best or why a certain material holds specific developmental value, they become a “blind follower” to the tool they’re using or philosophy they’re following. Your job as a parent educator or therapist, in many ways, is to help them think for themselves. It’s to show them that the materials you’re using don’t matter. Because – they ARE going to get fixated on the materials! I kid you not, I’ve literally had a mom say out loud without even thinking about it as her baby was reaching and grasping for an empty toilet paper roll, “We’re going to have to go and get one of these!” We had a good laugh about that when she realized what she had just said. But we are conditioned to want to go out and get the best for our babies! And because the baby industry is so strong, we believe we have to go out and buy things to support development. So it’s not about the materials. It’s what you infuse the experience with that matters. In the Learn With Less® curriculum, I encourage families to use four basic pillars to connect with their little ones. These are the pillars of play, talk, sing, and move, and these pillars allow us to connect as a group, and allow me to facilitate and model to other caregivers. Today, I’m going to break those down for you. As a facilitator of caregiver/baby groups, a parent educator, or a therapist of any kind, these four pillars will help you provide families with the foundation for learning and connection, and will help you break down early development so parents and caregivers can think about supporting their infants and toddlers through simple, manageable steps. Pointing out these pillars allows you as an educator to set a warm and friendly tone with both caregiver and child, and allows you to use the languages of play, talk, sing, and move to connect, facilitate, and model to other caregivers. So what are the kinds of things we can do to support young children? That can infuse every single interaction with more connection, more opportunities for interaction, more vocabulary, more modeling? What does that mean for our little ones? First, we want to define PLAY with attention to the following principles: Open-ended play – meaning, we want to encourage caregivers to engage in exploration of the environment and of everyday objects, and being playful can simply mean Exploring, experimenting, and offering varied environments and varied objects Most importantly: we want to help adults see that being playful is a different way to look at what we, as we grown ups, come to define as play: many adults come into the idea of “playing with their child” as following a set of rules of a game, like, we hit the ball, we run, we score! Or, as a procedural exercise: we open the book, we read the page, we turn the page, repeat! So, encouraging caregivers to “play” with NO specific end goal in mind can really require them to reframe their entire thinking! Now, of course, in a therapeutic context, you are going to want to weave whatever skill you’re working on into the play! SO whether it’s turn-taking, eye gaze, joint attention, imitation, gesture use, first words, or building on existing verbal language… We want to create an environment where the caregiver is encouraged to be flexible and accepting of what is happening, what might happen next, and what their child is doing And finally, within that play, we want to ensure safety with a variety of materials. Next, we want to define this second pillar, TALK, with attention to the following principles: We want to help caregivers recognize that just by having discussions with their (potentially pre-verbal!) baby or toddler, just by making observations alongside their child, they are creating a language-rich environment. We want to encourage them to engage in the gold standard of early learning: repetition with variation, which we’ll talk more about in a few minutes. So helping them see the value in all those everyday experiences like the diaper change and the sitting down to a meal or the bath or the waking up or going to bed routine… all those are opportunities for repetition… and tiny variations they can make, with a change of pace, with a change in attention, with the addition of a choice-making opportunity, with a little song, and so on… that is the way to go! We also want to help them remember that the drill and kill kind of “what’s this, what’s this, what’s this” labelling that many parents get stuck in (because they want their child to show them how much they know!) is just one of maaaaaaany reasons we communicate – labeling is just one way we can talk about things, but so is asking questions, so is making requests, so is greeting, and so many other parts of joint attentional acts and socially interactive acts, and behavioral regulation acts… And we want them to recognize that we ALL communicate using a variety of means and modes – not just with words, but all those precursors to language, and all those additional ways like eye gaze, and facial expression, and gestures, and moving closer to an object… We want to help them recognize that modeling our own curiosity, talking about our own feelings, imitating their vocalizations and verbalizations and movements… are all supporting various areas of communication… And finally, we want them to realize that they are the primary language models. They are the ones modeling what they want their child to then imitate. So not only do we want to help them model a wonderful variation of vocabulary, and the formation of sentences, etc., but we also want them to model positive behavior, positive communication styles, and we want them to talk to their children and around their children in the ways we want them to eventually do the same to us. And now we come

Supporting The Family As A Unit, as a Parent Educator We’ve used the term “Mommy & Me” here because it’s a searchable term, but we refer to our Learn With Less® classes as “caregiver & me” classes. Not familiar with this term? We use it as one way to reflect our commitment to inclusivity. Our classes are open – and meant for – ALL parents and caregivers: not just moms… but also dads, non-binary folks, grandparents, foster parents, babysitters, nannies, and other amazing grownups who care for tiny humans. We’re playing the “search term” game, here (so that you can find this great content more easily!), and we’re committed to helping shift the conversation from “mommy & me” classes to “caregiver & me” classes… to do our part to shape the more inclusive world we’d like to live in. As an educator or a therapist of any kind, you know that parents and caregivers need to feel confident that they can support and connect with their new baby or toddler. As a professional working with families, the single most important thing that allows you to do your job effectively… is to support that CONNECTION between caregiver and child. You know that all parents and caregivers – regardless of where they come from, what language(s) they speak, or what socio-economic bracket under which they fall, ALL want the same thing for their child: to raise a great human and to have peace of mind they’re doing what they need to do to support their child. You also know that not all parents and caregivers come into parenthood knowing about how to support their children’s development, and many of them have a LOT of questions. They may rely on you as an educator or therapist to “fix their child” or “educate their child” for them, but many of them want to know more, want to “do it right” and “do it better.” You know that not all kids who need a bit of help are going to qualify for early intervention services. And finally, you know that ALL parents/caregivers – whether their children are developing within “normal” limits or whether they fall outside of the typical trajectory. They could use the support and education involved in seeing how the magic in those mundane, everyday moments is the key to connection, the key to supporting their child’s development, and the key to raising a great human being – from day one. Ready to apply now to the Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program? Head here! You Have the Knowledge and Ability to Support Families through Parent Education Within the therapy room, you can support parents and caregivers alongside their children if you’re serving a child with delays, and if you can manage to get buy-in and engagement from the family. Within an early childcare setting, you can support the children by creating a language-rich, movement-rich, child-led environment to support open ended play… But still, you know you could be doing more to support the family unit as a whole. There’s still that niggling feeling that, with your knowledge about early child development and how to support the bond between caregiver and child… you could create truly enriching opportunities to help families from all backgrounds in your local area… And… you know could probably get paid to do it! You may have already started checking out the other offerings in your area. You may already be the person many of your friends and neighbors confide in or ask questions about development or behavior problems… The idea of leading “mommy and me” (caregiver & me) groups or “sign language” classes or “early language development” workshops… may crossed your mind. You may be tempted to put yourself out there and try something new… So I want to give you 5 reasons why leading “mommy & me” (caregiver & me) style family enrichment classes is in your best interest as a professional working with families. 1. Promote parent education about play and development Whether you work with children who are developing along a typical progression, or who are experiencing developmental delays, you may be looking for additional tools to encourage parents and caregivers to understand their children and the stages they go through. As professionals working with families, I know many of us feel we’re often repeating suggestions and are often looking for more concrete suggestions for parents, as well as multiple ways or activities that they can do to address early learning. Leading caregiver/baby workshops allows you to establish a relationship quickly, gives all families access to fun and simple activity ideas they can learn to do to help their infants or toddlers thrive. These family enrichment classes can provide caregivers with suggestions they can take home and apply more generally . This is true, even if they’ve seen your examples in a therapy room or classroom setting as the only way to do things. You can help them see where their child’s development is, what their child is looking for, what their child is showing them, how they can respond to that to get their child to the next step – you can create a space that says, “this is a place where we can explore together.” 2. Facilitate opportunities for early parent support Early parenthood can be incredibly isolating for families. Parents and caregivers don’t often have the opportunity to observe and reflect about their own challenges, or about their children in an organized, uplifting space. A group scenario that allows families to benefit from quality, developmentally enriching opportunities, adds a whole other layer of enrichment – as families can learn together and from one another. Often, bringing families together provides them with additional opportunities to build their own confidence and parental competence, and allows the facilitator to convey to parents that THEY are the agents of change in their household. It doesn’t matter where you come from or what economic level you’re at, everyone wants the best for their child – that’s universal! If you build authentic relationships with various populations within your community so that you can serve them in the ways they express a need to be served, you become a wonderful conduit of knowledge. When you get groups of parents together that are of different backgrounds, it can be quite miraculous. Everyone gets to learn together and from each other, and everyone gets their assumptions blown out of the water. That said, it’s also beneficial to create identity-aligned groups, especially for families holding marginalized identities. This is one of the biggest reasons why I started this program: as a white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, able-bodied, neuro-typical/allistic woman, I’m not the “right” person to serve every community. But the next licensed Learn With Less® facilitator just might be the right one for their community! 3. Establish yourself as a resource and leader in your local community As a therapist or educator, I’ll bet one of your biggest thrills or pleasures is giving families resources for other high quality supports that are community-based. What if you could create a natural transition for families to engage with you – and with other families – what if you could partner with other local organizations, and support families in new ways? As a therapist, you know that you can only do so much in your role as “expert” – or as an educator, you can create that learning environment for the child… but to be able to truly empower the whole family unit is a gift that keeps on giving. When we’re in a therapeutic or educational context, you’re often focusing on one specific skill that you’re trying to do. But in so doing, you’re also supporting all kinds of different things, we just don’t talk about that. The family enrichment class context provides the context for learning, exploring, observing, and scaffolding – for both the child and the adult! And you get to facilitate that! 4. Earn an income You can earn or supplement an income, diversify your current offerings and practice, and supplement a maternity/paternity leave! You may have gone into the field you’re in because you’re passionate about working with children, dedicated to helping families, committed to the work of early childhood education, maternal mental health, or strengthening family relationships. You have a knowledge base that is valuable to others. In this climate where we aren’t quite sure what’s coming around the corner, how we’re going to be serving our communities, or whether our industries or companies will survive a global pandemic… The ability to diversify one’s income streams and the ways in which we serve our families by sharing knowledge, imparting information, providing enriching experiences is a gift like nothing else. The ability to introduce families to developmental concepts (supporting their babies with what they already have) is what creates freedom and true job satisfaction. And we can do that not only in our primary functions as therapists or educators, but as a parent educator, “mommy & me” (caregiver & me”) class facilitator! Give families virtual and local, in-person ways to connect with each other, with their tiny humans, with you (a knowledgeable practitioner!) and with themselves in this new identity as caregiver. 5. Create a steady stream of clients for your other services When you help families bring more joy into their homes, create community by bringing families together, foster early development and early parent support… you also build your own authority in your community. You can promote your other services through your classes! You can create and build a system that allows you to build your reputat

Bringing Together New Families to Build Community On this episode of the Learn With Less® podcast, Ayelet sits down with Lindsay Teitelbaum, a pediatric speech-language pathologist, mother, parent educator, Learn With Less® facilitator, and the owner of the inclusive community play space, Spirited Play Labs. Lindsay’s physical community play space for new families is in San Ramon, California. She supports new families with neurodiverse children, as well as parents and caregivers with children of all developmental levels, from birth to three. Lindsay has doubled down on building community by bringing groups of families together with “caregiver & me” groups. Not familiar with the term, “caregiver & me” classes? We use it as a more inclusive term instead of “mommy & me” classes. Our classes are open to – and meant for – ALL parents and caregivers: not just moms… but also dads, non-binary folks, grandparents, foster parents, babysitters, nannies, and other amazing grownups who care for tiny humans. We’re going to play the “search term” game here (so you can find this great content more easily!) and help shift the conversation from “mommy & me” classes to “caregiver & me” classes… to do our part to shape the more inclusive world we’d like to live in. In this episode, we discuss: Lindsay’s background and how she placed her values front and center in terms of how she wanted to practice speech-language therapyWhat drew her to the Learn With Less® philosophy, and the value of prioritizing parents and caregivers and parent educationPerception changes she’s experienced that allowed her to create a space for familiesWhat it means to be creating an inclusive space, what Lindsay has considered, and who ends up being centered How it feels to serve families as a facilitator, instead of coming in as the “expert” Helpful Resources Related to This Episode Learn With Less® Stories:  Additional podcast episodes and other interviews from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming. FREE Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint: Discover the four major areas of infant and toddler development, what’s involved in each one in the first three years of life, and what you can do to support that learning (using what you already have in your home). Maisie Soetantyo’s Better Community certification and Autism Career Pathways (you can follow Maisie Soetantyo on Instagram, here) Independent Clinician Podcast, with Jena Castro-Casbon Affect Autism Podcast Two Sides of the Spectrum with Meg Proctor Learn With Less® Bundle: get our favorite infant and toddler development resources (save 70%)! Discover how to support & connect with your tiny human, without having to buy a single toy. Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program: Use your existing skills as an educator or therapist to serve families holistically with a high quality program that will provide lasting impact! Apply now to become a licensed facilitator Learn With Less®. Learn With Less® “Caregiver & Me” Classes: the magic of Learn With Less® lies in the communal aspect of coming together with our resources, in community with other families. Join us for a virtual or in-person class led by a licensed facilitator near you! Connect With Us Lindsay: Website / Instagram / Facebook  Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest Text Transcript of The Podcast Episode Ayelet: Lindsay Teitelbaum! I’m so happy to have you here recording for the Learn With Less® podcast will you go ahead and just share a little bit about you, how you got into this work, your educational background, and how that led you to what you’re doing now! Big question, but you know, that’s where we’ll start. And if you could share your pronouns and where you are in the world and all that. Lindsay: Yeah, so my name is Lindsay Teitelbaum, pronouns she/her. I live currently in San Leandro, California, which is the San Francisco East Bay. And I have a business in San Ramon, California called Spirited Play Labs. I am a speech therapist. And I’ve been doing speech therapy for about eight years or so. And I’ve worked in a lot of different organizations and systems in which I just took issue with a lot of the ways in which we treat kids, you know, using speech therapy. I discovered Learn With Less® during COVID, so 2020. And at the same time was sort of envisioning something larger where I could practice the principles of therapy, but also parent coaching and community building that I felt like I wasn’t able to practice elsewhere. So that was in school districts, private practice, clinic work, I’ve done all of those things throughout my career. And there was always those couple pieces that I was like, Oh, you seem like you want to do this, but then you’re not really doing it, or you just don’t want to change things or whatever, you know, that whole thing about if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, you know? And so, during COVID, I was working for a public school, you know, we weren’t doing anything in person, and then also virtual, they wouldn’t let us do anything virtual. And so I just said, Oh, okay, I’m going to stop, then, I’m going to leave this district, and I’m going to go into private practice. And that’s where I started seeing kids and building the vision of what Spirited Play Labs is, and I did your Learn With Less® training during that time, which really significantly influenced what I did with Spirited Play Labs. A Community Center For Families, Featuring a Multisensory Play Space The business that I have currently is a community center, I run an open play space, inclusive, multi sensory space. It’s interesting, because it’s bringing in neurodivergent, kids, neurotypical kids, it’s a big old mix. And I love that, and it’s birth to six. And then in addition, I’m doing parent and child facilitated play groups. To me, the parent and child piece is like the most important because a lot of people are doing facilitated social groups or play groups or what we call like social skills and all this, but the most important piece is that the parent is present in the groups that we’re running. And it’s play, and it’s with your community. And I’m doing lots of different versions of that with other local providers in the area. Okay, that’s everything. Ayelet: That’s everything, yeah. Okay, so where to go from here? I mean there’s so much… so much there! So okay, let’s take it back, and I would love to hear a little bit if you could tell the good listeners… So you said before you started the Learn With Less® program, you were working in a few different kinds of environments like private practice and in the school district, right, before I started. Initially, what was it that drew you to this whole Learn With Less® philosophy? What was it that brought you in and made you want to take a move? Lindsay: One piece was I felt like a lot of the people that I worked with didn’t seem like they cared about parents, or they saw parents as an obstacle. It was always this sort of negative thing around parent. And then I became a parent in 2017. And especially because most of us are, you know, white women in this field, serving a diverse group of families. And I always just felt like we stepped in, and we were like, this kind of boss lady being like, Oh, I don’t like the way you do this, parent! The style that we approached parents was very, like, authoritative from above talking down. And I always was just like, this is weird, like, what’s the point of this? And so Learn With Less® really spoke to me because it was directly addressing the parents. You and like one other sort of giant program is sort of addressing parents, I don’t know of many other programs that directly say, parents are part of the experience of development. We want parents to be given the tools, and we want parents to be the main sort of supporter and teacher of their children… and that we are the conduit, we are the vessel for that information; we are not the information. Ayelet: Us as educators and therapists, right or yeah, I love that. The Parent Piece: Working With Young Children Means Working With The Whole Family Lindsay: I would work with a kid for an hour, and I would walk away and I would be like, so what? What did I do for an hour? I put on a little show, I did a little song and dance for the kids. I got them… and people would say to me, Oh, you get my kid to do things that I can’t do. And I was like, Oh, I’m failing, actually, if that’s what they’re telling me! Because, who cares if their kid can use certain skills or certain strategies when I’m present but as soon as my presence is gone, they’re no longer able to do those things. I’m like, what’s… what is that then that’s no point, no point. So Learn With Less® spoke to me because of that parent piece. And then, the other piece that I really liked was… I’m also just, my own parenting style is giving my kid like… Like, I remember when he was little I used to just get paper towel rolls. And I’d just put them on his hands and see what he did. Just silly stuff in the house, and I almost never bought toys. And I would go to Target. They have now an entire V-Tech aisle, and it keeps expanding! And I’m like, What is going on here. So I was also really inspired, I worked at the public preschool, and all of those people would give me their hand-me-downs, and they were all just sort of, quote unquote, old school toys were really simple. They have no lights and flashing and all of this. I just felt like, oh, yeah, like this is so accessible. And this is meaningful. It doesn’t