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, sharing information, creating community around me, being in community with others… that was so needed. So you know, I think basically, over time, I started writing down the questions that people had, and the challenges that we all faced, and I gained confidence myself, in understanding what my fellow new parents and caregivers needed, because it takes some time to like navigate how to put that kind of stuff into words to, especially when you’re sleep deprived. And then over a period of a few years, I had created a curriculum of sorts.
That really was born and grew up alongside my first child, and those children and families around me. And each element became very purposeful. So I knew that I wanted to take it with me, because we were leaving London and moved, we moved to Berlin for a year. And then we moved back to California. And so I was just experimenting with form, I started a podcast in February of 2016. Been a long time podcasting! And then, over time, published the books that are now the sort of DIY version of sorts of the Learn With Less® curriculum, and continued to deliver these classes, both in my various communities all over the world, and also virtually since 2017.
So then, in February 2020, just in time for the pandemic, I launched the Learn With Less® Facilitator Training and Certification Program, which I’m happy to talk more about. But really the brand the philosophy and the whole idea is that it’s not about using any specific material. It’s not about following any particular parenting philosophy, right? Instead, it’s about identifying the value in the materials around you, those everyday and ordinary objects, and tweaking the routines and interactions that you have with your tiny human, whether that’s a diaper change, waking up, eating, putting a jacket to go outside, right, whatever you’re present for as the caregiver, regardless if you are a full time working parent or a full time stay at home caregiver, or somewhere in between, tweaking those things that you are present for, so that you’re just adding a little bit more joy, a little bit of play, maybe a little bit of rhythm or movement, and then using those moments to guide your family time and build that connection while supporting development. And that’s the key, right?
I think a lot of parents and caregivers feel like well, I might be doing this but that’s not child development, right? So it’s about like demystifying what it means to support a child. Because as we both know, Joanne, and everyone pretty much here listening, nobody needs to go out and buy a wooden box with a hole in it to support object permanence, right? We get tissue boxes right here, or shoe boxes or whatever it is lying around in plain sight. So…
Joanne: Yeah.
Ayelet: I think one thing that makes Learn With Less® unique is that it as opposed to like many programs for families out there that are like deeply locked into like a specific culture or some kind of specific material or set of materials that you have to go out and buy or some parenting philosophy, whether whether you’re buying something like musical instruments, or wooden climbing objects, or, you know, curated toys, subscription learning with lesson is literally just handing the parents the tools, the knowledge about the underlying developmental concepts that may be emerging, whether those are communicative milestones, or cognitive, or motor and sensory, or social and emotional, and then demystifying what that looks like, right?
You don’t need an organically stained wooden drum when you have a laundry basket or empty cardboard box like, the developmental value is exactly the same. And it’s about the interaction and not the object. And there’s a second… sorry, I feel like… Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Clearly a speech pathologist, love to talk. The second piece is that it’s about bringing people together. Learning and sharing and playing together, often letting your guard down as an adult, whether that’s by participating in singing and making up the words to a song or sharing some personal like high or low that’s going on in your life. And it’s about including anyone in the community who wants to be involved. Yes, Mecca, yes.
Joanne: Nope! Go! Mecca’s agreeing.
Ayelet: It’s about the interaction, not the object. Yeah. So and then obviously doing our best to center those at the margins. So like, for instance, you see that in our language, right? We don’t refer to our classes as “mommy and me,” instead, we call them “caregiver & me” or “caregiver and child” or “Baby and Me” or “toddler & me” or whatever classes. Because we would like to prepare the space and make it clear that like, this is for you, not just for this kind of mom.
Joanne: Right. Yeah. Because like parent and family models also look really different. So I liked that you’re being attentive to that, I’m sure families are very appreciative of that as well. And I like, and I liked how you talked about making it about the interaction and not the object. And I think that we had, I understand, like your mindset, I think that also we talked about the mindset shift that I had coming from a private practice in the homes where there was a clinical model of therapy that I was observing and following versus a more consultative model, where I’m getting the parents the tools to do what we’re doing in therapy, not necessarily focus on the activity, the billions of billions of toys that we bring and families might not have access to – by giving them the strategies to be able, to be able to target those developmental milestones that we’re targeting. But it’s within… it’s centered within a routine. It’s centered within the natural environment. And it’s not necessarily looking for you to have specific materials, but the materials can be what you already have home.
Ayelet: Yeah, whatever it is, right? Whether it is a toy, or something else.
Joanne: Yeah. And I like everything is a toy. Anything is a toy, really. So I like that idea that you’re kind of guiding professionals to be able to kind of broaden their, their horizon and their outlook on what therapy looks like, and also what parent education looks like.
Oh, I wanted to say one more thing. Oh, the thing that I wanted to highlight, which I love about the Learn With Less® program is I have come to this realization that whether we’re in the clinic, or whether we’re going in the homes, we are spending one or maybe 30 minutes, like one hour, maybe 30 minutes, or maybe sometimes two hours, right? If the kid needs more support, we’re spending like one to two hours that might be very generous, but one to two hours a week with the child, whereas the child is spending 80 or more hours in the week with their family.
And we already know that parents are you know, their child’s first teachers so why wouldn’t we equip that person to be able to carry over and to be able to so many opportunities to do what we’re, what we’re doing the natural opportunities versus… you went to clinic for 30 minutes and then you’re out the door and then the parents kind of feel like they’re leaving with nothing, or they feel like they have to get Potatohead just because you have it, or they have to get this toy just because you have it, but it’s not necessarily about those objects. It’s about ways to implement some of those strategies to use during routines. So I love that link.
Yeah, Yeah, I was gonna ask you what is one of the biggest misconceptions about toyless learning? Kind of what, what freaks people out? What do families, and even providers not understand about toyless learning?
Ayelet: Well, first of all, I think it’s funny because I get a lot of like, oh, do I… Like do I, from professionals, people are like, Oh, can I join this program, can I be a Learn With Less® facilitator if I use toys or if I like, like preparing the environment? It’s like, yes of course! I’m not anti toy, right? Yeah, this program is not being about anti toy, the whole thing, right?
We just deeply resent the baby industry’s notion that there is such a thing as an educational toy, right? Like, did you know that anybody can put those words on a box! I could, and probably should, packge a spatula, and write, “educational toy for toddlers” on it. I mean, it’s ridiculous. So, and also, I have plenty of toys for my kids. But I also have a deep pride in the fact that my five year old still won’t let me throw away an empty box without playing with it, and the salad spinner is his, and when he was three, and we went to a garage sale, I started scrounging through the kitchen items, and his eyes lit up and he screamed, “TOYS!”
Yes, marketing at its finest. And yeah, we’ve had to make that disclaimer so often, it’s not about being anti toy. And it’s totally about, you know, I think the point is, the big misconception about toys is that they’re for kids. Really, toys are for the adults. Kids are going to make anything into a toy. And they’re going to use objects imitatively, often, or we can encourage that more, right, by letting them play with objects, right. And these are fun things, right.
So it’s really, it’s more about helping the adults in the room see that there’s so much creativity there, if we allow it. And if we can create space for it. One thing that is very interesting is that I always tried to also, of course, integrate any toys or objects that a family has, or that parents come to learn with us class with. Like, we often will say, like, especially if it’s a virtual class, like you know, have next to, you know, something with print on it, something that’s soft and maybe like a pillow that’s fluffy or whatever, like those kinds of things, but they’re always things that they have with them and they can access.
And so it’s all about creating that shift and showing families that anything can be a play object and also in the way that we use it, it can support development, whether it’s an envelope with pictures in it, whether it’s a greeting card, whether it, you know, a shiny empty box, this is a new favorite of mine – look at that, look at all the fine motor skills, the drumming, you can use it as reverberation, mouthing and you know, “shiny!” so much vocabulary in this ridiculous, once nut container!
Joanne: Plenty of things just lying around the house and we aren’t thinking of it as toys. And I also just think from like a financial standpoint, also, how some families don’t have access to… toys are marketed… Toy makers and marketers of toys, they are brilliant people! They almost like generate a guilt families to provide these items for their children, where it might not be accessible, accessible to the family. So when you can grab the nut container, right, which does the same thing as this other actual toy, the family feels they can provide that interaction for their child, without it also generating guilt.
Ayelet: It’s all about the guilt. Yeah, I brought a few fun things to share with y’all. But yeah, it’s all about the guilt. So when we can show a family that actually, the developmental value of this object is exactly the same. Or we can look at that toy subscription box that shares this, like I said earlier, like the beautiful wooden box with the gorgeous pieces of fabric it’s like it’s called a tissue box, tissue paper, a mask, a handkerchief, toilet paper, come on people! I like to… I have this phrase, which I like to say which is the emperor has no choice, right? Like, hello!
Joanne: Yeah, yeah, no, but it’s true. Yeah, I wanted to ask you what the biggest challenge have been either for yourself or some of your facilitators or for families, about toyless learning.
Ayelet: Yeah, well, I will. And maybe like – Wordy Child is here, Ronesha, and she’s a Learn With Less® facilitator. I know we have a couple of people actually in there who are there. So feel free to chime in also because we want to hear from you because you can speak better to your own experience. But for me, I will say for me as things, as time has gone on, I will say that I am challenged not to see everyday objects as toys. And I tend to drive my partner a little wild because he’s constantly throwing away my treasures. I’ve created these little monsters who get very upset about him throwing out their things, right.
I guess part of it is like knowing when to call it quits with a cardboard box. Though like the same thing is true for actual toys, when all they want is that thing that they find in the box that’s going to Goodwill that they haven’t seen or played with for a year. But I think really, it’s just that shift. I mean, I think it’s a huge shift for people to see it in action of like, what can we do with hair rollers, right? Oh, my goodness, what an amazing, like, at first, you know, you see these things and you’re like, uh, okay, well, everybody starts with ok, well, they’re blue. Right? Okay, well, let’s What else can we talk about? They fit on our fingers, their finger puppets? Oh my god.
Joanne: Brilliant.
Ayelet: Look at that, right? We count them if we really want to, but we can do all kinds of things. So really starting to, they have kind of this nice sound.
Joanne: Yeah, right.
Ayelet: I mean, there’s so much we can talk about like, this is an SLP’s dream, right? But really, starting to shift. And oh, so I’ll say that it’s really giving people a framework for how to think about what it means to support a child’s development is really the key. So the challenge, I think, is not having a place to start from as far as the thinking goes. So what we’ve done at Learn With Less® is we have our four pillars that we integrate into every class, and that we talked about in all of our work, which is, they’re play, talk, sing, and move. So what could you do with this object? Or how can we organize activities around this kind of thing, or this kind of developmental concept to share, so that we can we can think about it right? So like, I mean, we can practice this right now, if we want.
I’ll ask everybody who’s here. How can we play? How can we use these little they’re like silicone baking cupcake things? How can we use these in play? How could we add more language to it? Or vocabulary? How could we add more music for sing, or rhythm or whatever? Like, POP! How could we add more movement? Right, sorry, what was that? I was gonna say, I didn’t even think about popping them. Yeah! That’s what my fingers want to do. But there’s so much there.
And when we add those, when we think about it through a lens, right, then we are given the tools to be like, oh, right, right, if I add that, and I’ll share that, like one of my, one of our facilitators recently had a, she shared a sort of realization and in our group, about like, “pre-Learn With Less® certification,” she’s like, Oh, well, this child like she’s very quickly wants to change activities has a short attention span. Maybe she’s bored. So we’ll change the materials… Post-Learn With Less® certification, she’s like, well, maybe she needs to move, how can we add more movement? Blah, blah, blah, right?
Just giving people a framework can be a big mindset shift to address that, that challenge. And then of course, for families, seeing it in action, seeing how, let’s sing about these objects, let’s make up the words to it. Let’s do that thing, even if I don’t feel confident singing, in general, and would never do that, how can we add some rhythm to it? How can we, like those kinds of things, that’s what like, makes a huge difference for families. And they see that it doesn’t have to be so complicated. It’s all about keeping it simple, right? And literally, if they say something, you can just add that exact word or set of words into a song, right? And that’s it. So a lot of times we find that our Learn With Less® facilitators tend to move in the direction of more bagless therapy and parent coaching models in their therapy practice, in addition to leading more community based groups or classes, as well.
Joanne: Yeah, yeah. And I find that the consultative model of therapy is just so foreign, compared to a direct clinical, because we’ve got to give the parents the strategy so that they can use it in the home. And I love the fact that the Learn With Less® program teaches us a way like so important. Especially coming from like a clinical model. Like we think about, alright, we have these toys we know what to do. Whereas when we don’t have a blueprint of what to do with something, we get creative really quickly.
Ayelet: Yeah. We get stuck very easily. Yeah.
Joanne: Exactly. I wanted to ask you what, I know, when people create something, it’s usually because there was a problem, right, and then seek to, to find the solution to that problem. So what problem is Learn With Less® a solution for?
Ayelet: Yeah, great question. I love this. Yeah. So really, for families, we help, really what we do in the end of the day, is we help families, new families feel confident that they can support and connect with their babies and toddlers, without having to buy a single toy. Because we know that parenthood is amazing, miraculous time, yada, yada, yada, right? It’s what we see here on social media all the time. And it’s also incredibly hard, and it’s ok for it to be both! It’s all about the but/and, right? I mean it’s creating that space.
So really, helping families see that they already have the resources to give their little ones the “right” stimulation, play, and interaction to thrive, and that you can do it with the materials you already have, no extra time or energy required. That’s a big key of it, right? And that there are ways to get gentle support so that you don’t want to pull your hair out, and to get that reassurance that you’re doing a really good job, and insight into how others are playing with their little ones. Like that’s huge! That’s, that’s a big part of it.
So I can share a quote from a mom who participated in a Learn With Less® class who said, and I think this is the key, right? Like, she’s like, I just don’t have the internal resources in me. She said I, of course, I have a desire to connect. But I don’t have it in me to do anything extra. This is a working mom, right? So this helps, it’s helpful, because it’s literally showing you what you’re already doing, or how to maximize that opportunity, or how to think about what you’re doing in a different way, and maybe alter it a bit so that it’s more enriching, instead of having to do a completely new separate thing to create a whole activity for your child, for instance.
Joanne: Yeah. And also, I know that we kind of like briefly touched on it yesterday, but Mecca, at @meccatheslp [on instagram], she had made a really good point, too, that a lot of the times parents feel like they have to carry out this activity, and it has to be an activity, and it has to be targeting something developmental. But really, it can just be that you’re connecting with your child. And connecting with your child, like, that is the biggest goal, is connecting with your child. And in connecting with your child, you also are doing strategies that are targeting development. So it doesn’t, you don’t have to sit here and do XY and Z to target this. But it can just be that I want to connect with my child. And I get the added benefit of, you know, like targeting some different milestones as well.
Ayelet: Yes, exactly. So really, like the problem that we solve at Learn With Less®, for families, is we help to build family capacity. And community.
Joanne: Yeah. And community.
Ayelet: And thinking, on the other side, because for facilitators, for these educators and therapist-types that we serve with our program, and so that they can then turn around and share the program with others. It’s really a big piece of it is creating lasting impact on your own life, right, that reflexive impact, as far as how it can help you support yourself, diversify your own income streams, improve or alter your own therapy practice potentially or like, again, we also have a lot of early childhood educators in the program, and other kinds of developmental therapists, and social workers, and those kinds of people – all kinds of people! It can really helped to shift gears and also create a huge impact, social impact on families in their communities, human impact in the general community of like, what does that do, to create more connected families in your community? What problem does that solve?
Man, that’s, that’s pretty amazing when we can create a more connected set of families and more confident caregivers and more connections between caregivers in your community. I don’t know about where you are in Jersey, Joanne, but like it is… So for me, the US is so fractionalized, or it’s very hard for new parents to, to find other people who they want to be in community with, and who are at a place that’s like creating a space that is built for anybody to join.
It’s very hard and early parenthood can be a very divisive time for families as well. Right? Like, Well, I’m a breastfeeding mom and I’m a co-sleeper and I’m a cry-it-out mom or you know, whatever, like parent, caregiver. And it’s very, it can be very difficult to navigate and it can be very ugly. So creating a space that is specifically especially during the pandemic and doing that virtually is freaking amazing. And there’s I will say, there has always been a need, like I said, I’ve been leading virtual classes since 2017. And that’s… there’s always been a need, there always will be a need. But my goodness, did the pandemic clarify that need to be even bigger and rip it wide open, like it has done with so many pieces of our society.
People need connection. And it is quite amazing that you can create that in a virtual space. And it’s about setting the stage, it’s about creating a space, you know, creating that in your marketing, in your – in your whole message. And that’s what we’ve done in my own brand, and to share it with other facilitators as well. And that that’s very powerful. And, of course, that not having to reinvent the wheel piece is huge!
Joanne: Exactly. And Claire brings up such a good point. And I had just written down “pandemic” in my notes just now while you were talking. Not only is it a benefit to parents, because they get feel like they’re part of a community without having to step outside of their house, which is pretty darn hard there are restrictions on everything, restrictions on being in groups, how big the group can be, etcetera, etcetera. And we’re like, in the middle of a very big wave. But they still get to feel like they’re part of a community, they can do it virtually and be safe.
But also from the provider standpoint, we aren’t going out to houses where you have to worry about toys, and then you have to worry about what is their chance of transmission, that it’s you know, it’s based on the fact that you can be effective in the work that you’re meant to do, and the need to do parent education. But you can do it virtually! That’s really helpful. And just, for people who are going into the homes, inside the homes and for providers who are doing EI, they’re still going into the homes, it just teaches them because we’re not supposed to be bringing toys anyway. Right.
Especially with the pandemic, we’re definitely not supposed to be bringing in our toy bags. So it just teaches them a new way of thinking about how they’re going to do their therapy. And it forces them to involve the parents a little bit more. Because it’s like, we’re going to switch gears, we’re going to play with what you have. And that doesn’t have to be a toy, which… it makes parents feel really good. A lot of times when I walk into homes for the first time, parents are expecting me to be walking up with like a huge, backpack full of things. And I’m just walking in with my coat and my cell phone. I’m like, Hey, I’m here. I’m ready to play.
Ayelet: Yeah! And by the way, everybody go check out Mecca’s… was it a reel? I think she made she was like, you don’t think I’m gonna bring toys? Yeah.
Joanne: Yeah, exactly, everybody, definitely check out meccatheslp’s post from yesterday, that was really awesome. But yeah, families think we’re gonna come in with, you know, a whole bunch of toys. And it’s like, we’re coming in, just ourselves. We’re gonna empower you to be with your child. But also a lot of parents feel guilty because they don’t have anything. And we’re not bringing anything. But they feel like they have to have more… If they’re like, we don’t have much. And it’s like, okay, but what do you have? What can we… also, oh, you’re gonna go make a sandwich? Or some some parents have time poverty, right? In addition to, you know, like poverty in terms of finances, they have time poverty, there might be multiple children in the house that they need to attend to during that time where, you know, you’re sitting down, and they’re expected to sit down and play.
They could be making sandwiches for like, you know, their other child who it’s lunchtime for, and neither, like the two of them don’t have to be separate, right, we can still go into the kitchen, we can still make that sandwich, we can still target so many skills. While you’re getting what you need to get to do done it’s part of a routine and you can focus on learning, obviously.
Ayelet: Absolutely. Another thing that I love to do, especially in our like virtual classes, when if there is a sibling, like an older sibling who’s, I don’t know four or five, and you have a parent with, or a caregiver with an infant or young toddler… Getting that sibling involved and modeling for – showing the caregiver how to get the sibling involved, and how to model language, or model, you know, developmental concepts for the younger child, is so valuable and so powerful for that caregiver to see – like, oh, yeah, gosh, this is great, because all we need is a colander and a spoon and look, everybody’s going to be involved. Because, you know, my bigger kid is going to be showing the little one what they might do, and then providing the language, and all that, you know, just it’s this continued approach. And it just, it’s great.
Joanne: Yeah, it’s great. I hope that everybody was able to get a lot of information about what the Learn With Less® program looks like. And this was just a sneak peek. We’re giving people an idea of what to expect because the retreat is on Saturday! Yeah. So what should we expect from the Expand Your Impact retreat?
Ayelet: So really, the whole point of this day is to bring people together, share ways and get ideas and sort of vision, ways to you know serve your community, support yourself, using your existing skills. So whether you are an early childhood educator, a speech pathologist, an occupational therapist, physical therapist, somebody with a sort of a background in early child development-related stuff – SLPA! If you have an interest in, you’re in a helping profession, yeah.
And if you have an interest in building other ways to guide and support families, and really facilitating that connection between caregiver and child, finding new ways to do that. And so we have four workshops that we’re going to be hosting. One is all about new ways to serve new families. So really thinking outside of the box about service delivery. We’ll be helping you to sort of refine your own inspired goal or vision. And then consider the role of like community and connection. Discover the importance of being able to identify that smallest next step to help you actually move forward into that goal.
The second workshop we’ll be hosting is entitled Community Impact Begins With You, which is all about really how to become that person that your community needs. So really, considering what role community plays for you and for your ideal clients, defining the various ways that you want to create lasting impact. And then, of course, combating things like perfectionism and impostor syndrome, which tend to come up for people when they want to start or create something new that’s like outside of their box, right?
Then the third workshop will be about how to put magic in the mundane. So really sharing more about that four pillar framework that I shared about today a little bit, what that looks like, and why it works for both like parenting and supporting families, and also starting or creating something new, whether that’s a small business, or a side, hustle, or a whatever. And we’ll sort of outline all the ways that busy and tired families can still support their little ones via everyday tasks and everyday items, and you’ll get to experience our curriculum, surprise! That will be really fun.
The last one is about time hacking, because I know we are all busy professional, and how on earth do we fit even the time in to do those things and work towards those goals that we have, in terms of expanding the impact that we want to have on our communities. So really helping you envision and shift your sort of perspective, and reframe what’s possible for you, and sharing just simple, practical, and very powerful tools that can really keep you moving forward without feeling like you’re doing it wrong, or really not doing it at all.
And then the best part of this whole four workshops is that we have a ton of amazing speakers. They are early childhood providers, they are physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, all kinds of amazing, amazing people who are doing these kinds of things in their communities. And so they will be sharing their own experiences and their own takeaways. I don’t like saying the word “advice,” but their thoughts, really, their thoughts about, and just their experiences about how they came to do the work that they’re doing. I just think that’s so powerful to hear from people who are doing the things that you want to be doing.
So if you want to do things like serve families in your communities in different kinds of ways, with what you already know. And to provide parent education, and support that connection between caregiver and child. Learn to or discover how to believe that you can become a trusted authority in your area and finding that confidence to try or start something new. Whether you are a totally brand new baby business owner or a seasoned small business owner, or you don’t even consider yourself wanting to have a business, right? Yeah, trying something new. And then just discovering ways to serve families, where they’re at. And how to, I like the phrase “time hack,” your way towards making the impact that you want to have.
So it’s a one day live virtual retreat, you do get access with your ticket to a replay period, as well as an invitation to apply for our free bonus day the following day, should you want to learn more about you know, creating lasting impact using an evidence based on high quality program that can have families lining up and wanting to come back again and again. And then of course, a ton of Q&A opportunities within the day itself to really… our whole goal is to really make this very interactive and very fun and, and to really model the things that we, that our company values, uphold! Things like community and playfulness and education and inclusivity and simplicity. So you’re welcome to learn more about the retreat, and I know with a great affiliate link, which means that she gets a cut of anybody who signs up through that link, but it’s no cost to you. Yeah. And I just really appreciate your support.
Joanne: Yeah. So everyone can get their tickets and register. The thing that I do love about this retreat, which I think I told you, is that not only is it virtual, but it’s on a Saturday and I think lots of PD’s and retreats are usually in the middle of the week. And they’re usually like in the middle of your day, it’s kind of like hard to take the time off to be able to attend.
So the nice thing about this is it’s only one day, and it’s on a weekend, and it’s virtual, so you don’t even have to leave your house. It’s going to be a really awesome retreat. I’m really excited. I’m gonna be there. And I do have an affiliate link. So you guys can go ahead and register through there. And hopefully, we can see you guys there.
Ayelet: Yeah! Joanne, thank you so much for having me. This was fun. I love talking talking nerd talk about all this stuff.
Joanne: Yeah. And we’re SLPs, that’s what we do! Ayelet, thank you so much for joining me. I’m super excited about the retreat.
Ayelet: If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to DM me. I love chatting with y’all. So yeah, happy to chat.
Joanne: Thank you so much for joining, Ayelet. Bye, thanks for chatting!
Ayelet: Are you inspired to Learn With Less®? You can grab the Expand Your Impact workshop bundle by heading over to learnwithless.com/expand!
Or, if you’re ready to learn more about the Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program, head over to learnwithless.com/certification now!
Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions. You can find me over at @learnwithless over on Instagram!
