Listen First

Welcome/Ice Breaker

Imagine that your child has just knocked down a tower that they worked hard to build (or a sandcastle, or a drawing, or a Lego structure). What is your first instinct?

When your child is upset, what is the first thing you tend to do? What helps them to settle?

Review Objectives

Today we’ll practice the art of listening first – then deciding if action is needed. Research shows listening builds closeness and autonomy, while action matters for safety and limits. By the end of our time together, you will be able to identify ways books help children process emotions. Stories can be powerful tools for talking about feelings. You will be able to describe three active-listening skills (reflect, label, ask). These strategies help children to feel heard and understood. Finally, we’ll practice a calm-communication strategy in preparation for using these skills during the interactive literacy activity (ILA).

• Identify at least two specific ways books support children's emotional development
• Describe three active-listening skills (reflect, label, ask open-ended questions)
• Demonstrate a calm-communication strategy

Opening Activity

Stories can help children to externalize feelings and provide a way to talk about emotions. In our Adult Education lesson, we examined how authors use tone and imagery to create comfort. Today we will practice how to create that same sense of comfort in real life moments with our children.

Read The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld. 

Discussion prompts:

• What problem does Taylor have?
  • Taylor felt ___ when ___.
• What do the animals try to do?
• How does the rabbit respond differently?
  • The rabbit helped by ___.
• What message does the story teach about helping someone?
• What page or picture shows that?
• Why is simply listening sometimes the best response?
• Taylor tried shouting, laughing, hiding, and more – what does that show about processing feelings?

Central Ideas and Practice

Understanding Emotional Development. Show pictures of children's facial expressions or share Lots of Feelings by Shelly Rotner.

• What emotion do you see?
• What might the child need if they’re showing this emotion? 

Books with strong emotional models help to build emotional intelligence (the ability to recognize and regulate your own emotions, as well as recognize them in others). When children see emotions portrayed in characters, through words, facial expressions, and actions, they learn to identify feelings outside of themselves. 

Storytime can provide an opportunity for expanding emotional vocabulary. The characters often model ways to cope and children can learn that others have different feelings and needs. Over time, this builds emotional intelligence by strengthening recognition and empathy.

When reading books together, ask: how does this character feel? What helped them to feel better? What would you do if you were them?

Direct Instruction

Your calm is the foundation for your child’s emotional safety. Children are sensitive to the emotional cues of the adults around them. They take in our tone, body language, and energy as well as our words. When a caregiver reacts with frustration, the child mirrors that emotion. When a caregiver pauses and stays calm, the child can “borrow their calm.” This process is called co-regulation. When we stay present and regulated, we help settle our child’s nervous system. Once their body is calm, they can think, use language, solve problems, and learn.

These skills are part of executive function: the brain’s ability to manage emotions, control behavior, focus attention, and work toward goals. In early childhood, executive function is still developing. Children build these skills through supportive relationships with adults. Our calm responses strengthen their ability to eventually regulate themselves.

When children are upset, they borrow calm from the adults around them. When we stay calm, we help their bodies calm down too. Over time, children learn to do this themselves.

So what does this look like in action? Let’s explore some simple calm-body strategies you can use to support your child in the moment.

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Calm-Body Strategies. Guide participants in different calming exercises. Practice each and discuss how it impacts the feeling of presence and calm. This can be reduced to five-finger breathing and 5-4-3-2-1 grounding for simplicity of instruction.

Try the  5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique. To yourself, name 5 things that you can see, identify 4 things that you can feel, listen for 3 different sounds, notice 2 smells, and 1 taste .

Which technique felt most calming for you? How might you adapt these for your child? (e.g., smell the rose, blow out the candle).

Introduce three active-listening skills. Now we can pair calm with three listening skills. Share handout.

Active listening involves being present, engaged, and nonjudgmental. In contrast, passive listening is hearing but not processing or responding to the speaker. Consider if the moment is about comfort or if it is about safety. This can influence your response. Just as we noticed that specific word choices in a poem can create a sense of peace, our own word choices with children shape how they feel (safe, heard, and calm).

Practice Scenarios

1. Your child lost a toy, how would you respond using this approach?
2. Your child is frustrated with a sibling; how do you help them process?

Practice in pairs, and discuss together: Which phrases felt the most natural? Which felt new? How might you respond differently if there was an issue of safety and one in which you need to set limits? When is listening not enough?

Facilitator should note the use of reflection language, labeling the emotion, and asking rather then immediate problem solving.

During block play, what situation might arise where you could use reflect-label-ask?

Big feelings are not misbehavior. They may signal unmet needs or an overwhelmed nervous system. If a child isn’t able to calm down right away, that’s okay. A gentle pause, a break, or returning later is often more effective than pushing through.

Independent Practice/Formative Assessment

Create a “calm kit.” Invite caregivers to create a calm kit that might include: 

1. Breathing exercise handout
2. Listening phrases handout
3. Copy of picture book (if available)
4. Comfort object - stuffed animal, blanket, small soft material
5. Squishy ball or fidget object

In the Interactive Literacy Activity, caregivers will read The Rabbit Listened in ILA and practice reflect-label-ask strategies during block play. Facilitators can utilize a simple checklist to assess caregivers:

☐ Identify a feeling in the story
☐ Use one reflection statement
☐ Name a feeling word
☐ Ask an open-ended question

Review Objectives

Today we explored how stories help children process emotions, practiced calm-body strategies, and learned three listening skills: reflect, label, and ask.

• Identify at least two specific ways books supports children's emotional development
• Describe three active-listening skills (reflect, label, ask open-ended questions)
• one calming strategy (breathing or grounding) and explain how it can support co-regulation with children

Wrap-Up/Closure

What is one phrase or strategy you will try this week?

During ILA block play use the same skills to follow your child’s lead: listen first, then respond calmly.