260: The Best Strategies for Building Emotional Connections with Kids! With Diane Goyette

In this episode, Kate and Carrie sit down with Diane Goyette to chat about the real heart of early education: supporting kids’ emotional needs. Diane shares her “Four C’s” framework—connection, calming, compassion, and capacity building—offering practical tips for teachers and directors facing challenging behaviors. 

The trio swaps stories, laughs, and wisdom, all while reminding us that strong relationships and a little empathy go a long way in helping both children and adults thrive. Grab your coffee ☕ and join this warm, resourceful conversation. You’ll leave with ideas you can use tomorrow!

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Transcript

Marie 00:00:01  Welcome to Child Care Conversations with Kate and Carrie.

Kate 00:00:06  We are so excited to have a guest today that's going to share with us all kinds of goodies related to, well, I'm just going to say dealing with everybody's emotions, not just our own, not just the children in our classrooms and not just our teachers. And so Diane Goyette is with us today. And, Diane, why don't you introduce yourself real quick? And then we are going to start our conversation.

Diane 00:00:32  Thank you so much, Kate. So I'm delighted to be here with you too today. And what I would like to say about myself is just a little snippet about why I am on the mission that I'm on right now, which is to support the adults who work with young children, whether they're parents or teachers or administrators or in any other role. Because your work is so incredibly important. It's hard, it's challenging, And we need for you to have the support so that you can then, fulfill my vision, which is a more compassionate world where supported adults cherish and nurture each and every child.

Diane 00:01:14  And I would say, including the challenging ones, because that's part of the reason is my background is in typical child development. And then I had a daughter who was anything but typical, and she brought me on a parenting journey that I have to say, I was quite reluctant to go on. And, but finally, finally, after, you know, she grew up and we are still figuring things out. I feel like I have figured, out enough to give you a framework that not only supports children with challenging behaviors, the emotional needs that they have, but also your own emotional needs, your teachers. And it works with spouses, significant others, or kids teenagers. So anyway, I'm.

Kate 00:02:04  So excited.

Diane 00:02:05  To share that with you.

Kate 00:02:07  Absolutely, Diane, I'm so excited to get to that framework. But let's just talk a little bit about the directors who are listening. And, Carrie, I know that you've got some thoughts on what you've been hearing from directors in the last, actually the last probably 6 or 7 months.

Kate 00:02:24  And so I'm going to toss it to you to then toss it to Diane.

Carrie 00:02:29  Well, so this school well, the 2024 2025 school year. And now as we're going into the 20 2526 school year, that just hurts my head. But what I've been hearing a lot about is that there are so many more kids who are having emotional needs, or are at least perceived to be diagnosable. I don't know that there are more kids who are diagnosable, but there's at least a Perception by an awful lot of directors that there's more kids in their programs that are diagnosable, and they don't know how to support their teachers in dealing with those needs, instead of the teachers constantly sending kids up to the front to be in the office, which means the director can't do her work and the teacher is not learning how to support that child.

Kate 00:03:25  Okay, so I'm going to ask a question.

Carrie 00:03:28  oh.

Kate 00:03:29  Just for those who aren't 100% sure. And again, we are not medical professionals. But when you're saying diagnosable, why don't you give us just a little bit of a not so what what you think they might be diagnosed with, but what behaviors people are seeing that are causing you to use that phrase.

Carrie 00:03:46  Okay. So what people are seeing in the classroom is that they're seeing a lot of kids who have, poor emotional regulation, poor impulse control Troll and low frustration tolerance. I think those are the three that I hear the most about. And I'm hearing directors.

Kate 00:04:07  And do they all need a cup of coffee? Well, sounds like me before a cup of coffee. Do they need coffee.

Carrie 00:04:12  Or do they need a Benadryl? Like. But the question is, like the teachers and directors are trying to put labels on these kids. And I don't know about you, but I have yet to run across a director or an owner who is a doctor. Like, I've come across ones that are PhDs, but that doesn't necessarily make you a diagnostician. And you can think all day long that that kid has oppositional defiant disorder, but you're not able legally to diagnose them. And what we have to deal with, since we're not the ones diagnosing, is how do we support the teachers to support the kids and help the teachers learn and grow in how to handle all of that.

Carrie 00:05:04  And you know, you were talking, Diana, about supporting their emotions as well as supporting the kids emotions. And so I think that that is very, very important because just passing on the quote unquote problem, children from the classroom to the office doesn't serve the child, doesn't serve the teacher, and doesn't serve the administrator. Now, sometimes the teachers think it serves them because they've gotten that problem out of their room for that 15 minutes. But that kid's going to be there in 30 minutes, and they're going to be there the rest of the day and tomorrow and the next day. So it doesn't really serve the teacher.

Diane 00:05:48  So sorry.

Carrie 00:05:49  I'm.

Diane 00:05:50  Jumping in on.

Carrie 00:05:51  How do we help with that?

Diane 00:05:54  interesting that you should start there, which is actually the number one priority that the priority emotional need that we all have, especially young children who are living in the emotional and survival part of their brain and that is the need for connection or relationships. What brain research has taught us, especially in the last ten years, but ever since the 90s, we learned so, so much about how children's brains grow and develop and what they need to thrive.

Diane 00:06:28  And the most important. I'm going to paraphrase one of my favorite quotes from this, the Harvard Center on the Developing Child. And they say basically that the most important factor for children to develop that, that resilience, that ability to regulate their own emotions and everything is the caring, supportive relationship of one. At least hopefully one adult like a teacher.

Kate 00:06:56  And so Like a teacher.

Diane 00:06:58  Exactly. And that's where. Exactly. So here's the thing. It's good news for you, but it means you have to support your teachers. Those of you who are directors, I'm saying it's actually good news for everybody. Because have you ever noticed that if you if you have something that's easy to do and so you get through it and then you're just kind of like, yeah, okay, that went well. And and so yeah, now picture that kid that comes to your teacher's classroom, the one that the teacher kind of goes, oh, why are they never ever, ever absent. Okay. That was my daughter.

Diane 00:07:33  Just so you know. And, not that I sent her to school sick, but she really didn't, like, ever have colds and strep throat or anything for a long time. So she she was always there. She had very challenging behaviors. And, I talk in circles sometimes, so I just want to circle back for just a second to the diagnosable part and share some wisdom from another of the experts I based my framework on, and that is Doctor Ross Greene, who wrote a book called The Explosive Child. And he says he calls some children explosive because it seems like something happens and their behavior just, you know, like an explosion. And he says, these children have these these behaviors and they can be all over the, as he puts it, psychological map. Okay. So the good news also is we don't have to be diagnostician. We don't need to know what that label is because Doctor Green is telling us it doesn't matter. What matters is what's happening in their brain and body in that moment, how we support them in the classroom, and then the skills that they need to build later when they are calm and ready to take in information.

Diane 00:08:55  And so I just wanted to throw that in there so that you would know that. Don't worry about that. And you're not going to worry about solving the child's emotional regulation problem in the moment when the teacher's having a rough time. Because guess what? That teacher needs to have that primary relationship with that child. And believe me, it is. Yes.

Kate 00:09:20  I was gonna say I have a question. Yes. You've referred to your framework. Does your framework have a name or how do we how do we want to reference your framework other than your framework?

Diane 00:09:32  Thank you so much for mentioning that that, you know, it was so funny. Somebody told me it needs a sexier name. So if I'm open to suggestions. Oh.

Kate 00:09:41  About getting something sexy is all about sex.

Diane 00:09:45  I'm all about alliteration. And my framework is called the four C's. Like the letter C. I don't know if I need to go forwards or backwards anyway on the camera. the the Four seas framework of emotional support. And so the first sea is connection which stands for that all important relationship.

Diane 00:10:06  And so that's where this addresses what, what Kerry is saying that you all as directors, you know, you get frustrated with because they, you know, a teacher has a problem a problem with a child's behavior. It gets a little out of control. Of course, their job is to keep everyone safe at first. And so they're calling in the reinforcements, but they're expecting you as the director to take the child, who is probably not doing so well emotionally at that moment out of the classroom. Sometimes a different space is helpful. However, remember back to the most important thing is the relationship with a caring adult. And since your teachers are the ones that are the caring adults in the classroom all day long, they it is their Responsibility to handle that child, because that child is going to feel safest with that adult. And so when you come in to reinforce and help keep everyone safe. You're taking the rest of the class to the book corner to read them a book or, you know. Whatever it is that, that they need, they need, you know, help with in that moment.

Carrie 00:11:17  So I. Think that's exactly right, because you have trust. If a child does not trust. A child cannot learn. And part of what we're trying to help them learn is some emotional regulation. Right. And they trust their teacher because their teacher is with them every day. And if instead we're pulling that kid out of the classroom, that is going to feed the dysregulation. Not calm it down. So if the teacher and the child step out of the classroom and the administrator goes in and handles the rest of the class, that's going to support that trusting relationship.

Diane 00:11:57  Exactly. And, in my trainings about the four CS framework, I talk at length about strategies within each Si. But today I'm sure we're just only have time to skim the surface. So I'm just going to tell you what the forces are. And but but let you know that there are some pretty simple strategies that you can use, both in the moment when the child is upset, as well as later on where you strengthen that relationship so that the child feels safe and they feel like they can trust you.

Diane 00:12:29  All right.

Kate 00:12:30  I'm going to jump back real quick just because I want to just remind everybody, if you're listening. And, you know, I know we've talked about kids who perhaps are diagnosable, but remember, some days kids are just having a bad day or they're looking for something. Maybe they're not getting at home, so it may not have anything really wrong. It could just be they want they're the attention seeking child. So, and so when we do separate them out and send them down to the office. that's exactly what they want. Right. They they they want that, connection with that adult, which is so part of your foresees. But we have to also sometimes look at patterns. And, how does that behavior continue? and I'm sure that's part of your foresee framework. So I'm going to ask you real quick, can you give us all four C's because I'm like, I keep wanting to write down what all of them are, and I'm only on the.

Diane 00:13:21  Yeah. And we haven't even gotten there yet, but okay, I'm gonna I'm going to throw a challenge out there, okay.

Diane 00:13:26  For you and for all of you directors that are there. Saying that a child is having attention seeking behavior comes from a behaviorist approach where we look at what is this child either trying to get or get out of in the classroom? Okay. And I'm going to hopefully we'll have time where I can share a little bit more about this brain body connection and the stronger messages that are coming from inside the child. So I just want to challenge all of you if you haven't heard of this before. Just reframe. Just switch that word and instead of calling it attention seeking, call it relationship seeking because we all need to feel safe with who we are with. And perhaps they don't feel safe because somebody just bumped into them or knocked over their block tower or whatever. They are seeking relationship with you. You know, maybe they're not toddler age, but but picture that. We all do this. We run to the skirt, if you will. Right? When I got in a in a fender bender with my husband's new car, I was very, very upset.

Diane 00:14:31  and I run to him. Kind of hysterical, I might say. But anyway, we all do that. So. So anyway, I just wanted to throw that out for for you all as a point to ponder. Okay, so here we go. The four seas, basically three of them are are, three what I call the three C's of Co regulation. And I hope you know what that is where we you know, share our frontal lobes with them and our emotional regulation with them. So that's connection, which we just talked about already. Calming because telling a child go over there and calm yourself is not very effective because guess what. Their relationship seeking in that moment they need us. They're clinging to our skirt so to speak. And so, we have learned from this brain research that it's better not to separate the child immediately if they're ready to go to the calming down corner themselves. That's great. But it needs to be the child's choice. So connection calming. And then the the third C of Co regulation.

Diane 00:15:36  And this is this is my own take because this is one of my favorite words compassion. Compassion means empathy with a desire to help okay. Empathy as I understand how you're feeling you know. Yeah I know what you mean. I don't like coming inside on a on a beautiful day either. That's empathy. Compassion adds the how can we make this better? I wish we could stay out. You know, sometimes it's just I wish I could help. I wish we could change our schedule today. Or, you know, I'm right here to help you. Let's blow bubbles together or whatever. So connection, calming and compassion. It's not a one, two, three. It's an all melded together kind of way that we give emotional support to children who are acting out, melting down. And yes, even the ones who did something that we think is just totally mean in the moment. Because typically, again, think about this for a second. It's called fight or flight. I know you're familiar with that.

Diane 00:16:35  Yeah. This is a stress response because your brainstem is constantly going around. Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Your emotional center, the limbic area where your amygdala is, is scanning the environment going, do I belong? Am I love? Do people care for me? Okay. When those things are activated and it can be perceived because of, you know, this, this bad guy with a deep voice, you know, and then somebody else with a deep voice comes, you know. I mean, let's not assume it's the family's fault, necessarily, but what I'm just saying is it's complicated. And so, at any rate, when the when the brain is doing that, it's sending these chemicals. Right. Cortisol in the brain. Adrenaline through the body and all the other stuff I don't know about. And giving that child or adult has the case may be we've all lost it, I hope. to to run away or to fight? Yeah, that's a very powerful message.

Diane 00:17:36  It's coming from inside. And these little people, they haven't been around, but only months, if you think about it. And.

Kate 00:17:43  Absolutely. So what's number four?

Diane 00:17:45  Hang on. Let me just finish this. I promise I'll get to it, I promise. But I've gotta I've gotta throw this in there because let's not punish children for listening to their bodies. Of course they can't hit and run away, but that's what their body is telling them. So that's why we give them the three C's. Okay, I was wrapping it up, but thank you for the reminder. Okay. Yeah.

Kate 00:18:05  No. Number four.

Diane 00:18:07  Number four. The fourth C is capacity building of self-regulation. We make it possible. We build their capacity for self-regulation. That's where we teach their skills, them skills. We model for them. We, play games that get them to stop and think. Because research shows that that helps them build their emotional regulation skills. sometimes we have to adjust either our expectations of individual children because that one always does need to go get a book or something to help me at group time, because he can't sit still during group time.

Diane 00:18:42  So we may adjust our expectations of each individual children. or we may adjust the environment as a whole because it may be overstimulating at some times or whatever. So capacity building has lots and lots of strategies and it's basically all it's a combination of all those developmentally appropriate practices that you do, you know, to teach children other skills and manage the classroom and all that other stuff. So it's not really something new, except for that we can we can then provide connecting activities to build the relationships so that children feel stronger emotionally and safer and hopefully won't fall apart.

Kate 00:19:27  Trying really hard to be nice and let you finish. But I can see here she going, it's right here. It's right here. Okay.

Diane 00:19:33  Well.

Carrie 00:19:34  On the tip of my brain, which is two of my favorite ways to help kids calm and center are blowing bubbles and playing with Play-Doh. And as you're talking like I'm going, okay, so the teacher needs to be modeling when she's having a hard time with her emotional regulation going to the calming center and blowing bubbles herself.

Carrie 00:19:55  And she needs to be talking about the fact that I. I need a break right now. So I'm going over here and I'm blowing bubbles, or going to the table and pounding on some Play-Doh as hard as she possibly can.

Kate 00:20:08  Okay, so if you're a parent of a teenager, you might need these skills too. As a parent of a young adult, I need these skills, but which I think is important to identify when you need them and to say it out loud, because a lot of times we don't have the words or even some of our staff don't have the words. So I think that if you are having a bad day as a teacher, as a director, as a parent, as a spouse, putting words to whatever you're feeling, fight or flight, you need to calm down and tell people what you're doing. I think actually opens up a great opportunity for community communication and connection because you're saying, I'm feeling this. This is what I'm going to do to help myself. And so it is that whole modeling, instructional coaching.

Kate 00:21:01  Like, you know, sometimes we use phrases like coaching or where we're going to coach our teachers, but it's instructional coaching, and it's a whole different thing than if you're coaching sports or you're coaching something else. Right? Like so in instructional coaching a lot of that falls into modeling. So I think the best thing we all can remember to practice doing is to practice putting words to what we're doing, because we just assume, like Diane goes, yes, we all know what this is, but we may have listeners who haven't. They may know the phrase fight or flight, and they may have recalled seeing somebody in that, but they may not. They may go, oh, that's just for certain folks or not, everybody does that, or we grow out of that. Not everybody grows out of that, or I don't.

Carrie 00:21:48  Think anybody grows out of it.

Kate 00:21:50  And but I think there are people who think people do because they think because we've learned to regulate. And I use that those.

Carrie 00:21:58  And again, it's that whole the all four C's helping the teachers understand that I am helping you connect with me as your leadership.

Carrie 00:22:09  And I am helping you build capacity by coming into your classroom when you need a challenge, when you're having a challenging moment and giving you the tools to regulate. And you know that whole I love the rainbow breath cards, right where the kids trace the rainbow back and forth and back and forth. And I have met some adults who need to have rainbow breath cards in their pocket, because when they get all wound up, they don't know how to de-escalate themselves. And I think as a director, sometimes our job is to help our staff de-escalate themselves because they take it as a personal affront that that kid's not listening to me, or they're being disruptive, or my favorite is when they go, oh, they're just trying to manipulate me. It's a two year old. That two year old is not trying to manipulate you. They're trying to get their needs met.

Diane 00:23:15  Like. Right. That's giving them a little too much thinking credit, you know. And so that's the issue too, is that, we need to remember that the younger the child, the stronger those messages from their brain and body, from the internal messages are.

Diane 00:23:31  They're actually 80% of the communication is coming from the body to the brain versus the other way around. So we we I used to say, if a child saw a child, you know, throwing blocks in the block area and I walk over and I'd say, I can see you're choosing not to play with blocks. Well, actually, that child probably didn't choose that. They got disregulated and they did the fight or flight thing. And so it just kind of that's why I wanted to, to to add that in as we were talking about the three C's of Co regulation. And the other part is when we talk about strategies for the calming. The first part of that of course is to stay calm yourself. And can I just share one strategy that I love that absolutely. It came from Becky I can't take credit. It came from Becky Bailey of Consciousness and another of my heroes that I base my model on. And, you take three deep breaths and you tell your brain, I kind of refer to this already a little bit.

Diane 00:24:27  your brainstem needs to feel safe. Your limbic area needs to feel loved, and then your thinking area needs to be ready to think. So you take three deep breaths, and you tell your brain, you know, in a positive ways what it needs to do because it actually is more effective than counting to ten. And so you take a deep breath and you say to your brainstem, I am safe. Take a second, deep breath and you say to your limbic area. I am loved. And you take a third deep breath and you say to your, executive functioning skills in your frontal lobes. I can handle this. I am safe, I am loved, I can handle this. Works for me in traffic every time.

Kate 00:25:14  You know, you just brought up a great point. And that is exactly what I kept thinking in my head was how even what you're talking about. To our directors, to our staff, are are things they can apply every single day. And it's a great argument for why phones should not be in a classroom, because we've all had that day where we've had that one text message that's just kind of put us in a mood or, you know, whatever.

Kate 00:25:40  And it's hard to get out of it because we're cycling through. We're trying to remember it so we can deal with it later, instead of taking ourselves and putting us in the calming common corner and, you know, dealing with it. And I think that this is I mean, to me, this could be a great argument for why. Personal cell phones, smartwatches, those kinds of things shouldn't necessarily be in a classroom. When a teacher really needs to be with their with the children and their classroom, because if the children are struggling with their own fight, flight, capacity, compassion, lack of connection, right. All those things, if we are a teacher or an adult who is struggling through a lot of the same things these kids have been dealing with the last five years, you know, and a lot of us probably haven't really sat down and went, well, yes, our connection is our piece of technology, and there's a reason why we hold it all the time and we need it all the time, is because that is the connection we've had the last five years, because we didn't have people we couldn't necessarily connect to the to our extended people group.

Kate 00:26:46  And

Diane 00:26:47  And Kate, that's bringing us all the way back full circle to where we started, when Carrie was saying how it looks like children are having more challenging behaviors, and it's because, you know, for some of our younger kids, they started life during the pandemic. And, and it does have an impact. And we do need to focus our time in the classroom on human connections. The the babies brains are wired first and foremost to focus on people's faces. There's a, you know, the there's a reason that this far away, I don't know if you can see my arm. So I'm I'm holding my arm up as if I'm holding a baby. And, that distance from my arm to my eyes is is pre-programmed to babies brains. That's what they can focus on. And then as they grow, they are pre-programmed to learn from the 3D environment, and they discover their toes and their fingers and rattles and on and on it goes. We are not programmed for screens. Okay. We're not.

Diane 00:27:51  We have done research and showed babies, a screen. And it looks like the baby's kind of having fun with it when they wire the kids to, you know, whatever noninvasive thing they do to figure out what part of the brain is firing up, which means it's active. Guess what? It is the stress response. Which is.

Carrie 00:28:12  So yeah. So my brain is now going, okay, we have to have her back for a second visit, because I now want to do a whole one on security objects with you, because we were talking about the blankets having become the security objects for the adults. And I know so many programs who are like, you can't bring anything from home. And I'm like, but you're letting everybody bring their phones into the classroom, but you won't let a kid bring their blankie. I want to do a whole session on that.

Kate 00:28:42  Security items I would have I would have had I would have had a really hard time. I was a blanket kid till I was 7 or 8.

Kate 00:28:50  So. And I have children, I have four children and they all had their version of that. whether it was a, you know, stuffed dinosaur or a pink rabbit or a brown rabbit or, you know, whatever it.

Carrie 00:29:03  Was, whatever it was.

Kate 00:29:04  But yeah.

Carrie 00:29:05  I really I don't know why, but that is in my head right now as we have to have Diane back on so that we can talk about how security objects and letting kids have them plays into their sense of connection and their ability to self-harm. So that gets two out of our four and having the compassion to let kids get their own security. I just got three of the four C's by just going. We need to be able to have a blankie. but I really want to have a whole conversation about security objects.

Kate 00:29:39  Actually, I think that's a book. I think that is like, you guys need to write a book on that one, which is the I need a blankie and why it's okay to be seven and still have it.

Kate 00:29:50  because there was definitely.

Diane 00:29:52  Or 34 because.

Kate 00:29:54  450.

Diane 00:29:55  Little guys behind me. These are my daughters. security objects, you know, because she has special needs, including autism and other things. and, and that truly is something that she can have in her purse or pocket. And, it's just something that's soothing for her. If we have a conversation on the phone and she says, mom, I need some TLC. and I can say she calls them earworms and and I can say, you know, I'm, you know, I'm sorry you're having a rough day. Eep! Worm cares. I can just tell over the phone that she just. And don't we want that for all the children and ourselves when we're upset? So I'm not saying we all need a part, but some of us as adults like to have a, you know, a fidget.

Carrie 00:30:43  And that's probably part of knowing that whole earworm story is part of probably what connected in my subconscious and went. We need a second conversation on this topic.

Diane 00:30:52  Oh, that would be delighted. You know what? Maybe we could pull Corinne into that one.

Kate 00:30:55  Well, there's also probably something in your pocket, Carrie, that might have also reminded you of that.

Carrie 00:31:01  I don't have anything in my pocket.

Kate 00:31:02  You don't have it in your pocket today.

Carrie 00:31:04  I don't have any fidgets right now.

Kate 00:31:06  You're a little set in peace. I thought that was almost always in your pocket.

Carrie 00:31:09  No, I just take it when I travel.

Kate 00:31:11  Okay. Okay. So I'm sorry. I was like, it's in your pocket. I know it's in your pocket.

Carrie 00:31:18  No, no, I use it.

Diane 00:31:19  So empty your pockets, Carrie.

Carrie 00:31:21  I'm going out.

Kate 00:31:22  I want proof. Show me your pockets.

Carrie 00:31:24  I'm a fidget person and helps me get to sleep. So, I think that we could probably keep going for another hour. And we need to let our listener get out of the car and go into their child care center. or if they're listening on their way home, get out of their car and go into the house.

Carrie 00:31:42  So I want to wrap us up today, but guys, we're going to have Diane back on because I need this second conversation. And if there's another topic that you think we should have with Diane. So we need to have a third. Go ahead and send us an email to Kate and carry a child care conversations, or write it in a review on your podcast. Player of choice. guys, if you learned something today, which I know you did, I know you did share the show with someone who needs to know. And if you would like to be part of one of these great conversations again, send us an email at Kate and Carrie at Child Care Conversations, and we'd love to have a great conversation with you, just like we did today with Diane. Talk to you next week. Bye bye.

Marie 00:32:31  Thank you for listening to Child Care conversations with Kate and Kerry. Want to learn more? Check out our website at Texas Director. And if you've learned anything today. Leave us a comment below and share the show.