PlayStrong Strategy 1: Think Out Loud
One of the biggest challenges we face as parents is to teach our children how to share their thoughts with others and express themselves calmly. Talking to our kids while they play massively increases their ability to think, reflect, and calmly respond when we need them to.
Calmer Thinking
As children grow, they need to develop a greater ability to express themselves. We’ve all heard from experts that the more we talk to our kids, the more we develop their understanding of words (receptive language) and speaking in words (expressive language).
Remember walking along with your baby in the park and pointing out all the brand new sights and sounds she was just discovering for the first time? “See the girl going down the slide - whee!” “Those are ducks - quack, quack!” From the moment they are born, we know how important it is to tell babies what is happening around them. Our kids learn to talk by listening to us say the words, label the things they see, and describe how things work. We start to say things like “use your words” to ask for milk or a turn with brother’s toy (don’t grab!).
But it doesn’t stop there. Around 4 or 5 years old, kids realize that they have way more complex thoughts than they ever expected, like “Will ALL my teeth fall out if I stop brushing them?”, “Why did my parents have another baby?”, or “When will Grandpa and Grandma die?”. Our little ones are now faced with really big questions!
We want our kids to feel comfortable talking to us - especially if they are sharing fears or worries and need our comfort and reassurance. And even more especially because, if left unchecked, those big hairy thoughts and impulses could turn into rude remarks, snap reactions, or screaming fits.
But how do children figure out that they have thoughts? And how can parents start teaching when kids are very little how to stop and reflect, “use their words” and share their thoughts calmly - instead of flipping their lids over the tiniest problem?
Finding the Time
One of the concerns I hear most often from parents is that there just isn’t enough time. If you have a packed family schedule, multiple children, young children, a child with highly specialized needs, or your child just has a very limited tolerance for “talking things out”, you are doing a great job just getting through the day and putting out fires as they come. But if you’re here, I’m going to assume you want to be able to do much more than that.
This is where PlayStrong comes in - a simple approach to being with our kids that only takes minutes a day, but teaches lasting skills they need right NOW. You’ll learn a little something about your child’s brain, too, because we can parent more effectively when we understand not just the HOW, but the WHY, too.
Let’s start with the first one - and I promise this will be quick and easy. You can use it when you’re playing with or talking to your child. It comes in handy any time, really.
“Talking to our kids while they play massively increases their ability to think, reflect, and calmly respond when we need them to. ”
Pay Attention
The simple fact is, kids don’t understand they have thoughts to express unless we pay attention to what they are thinking.
When we pay attention and act as if we are curious about the way our kids think, our kids learn that their thoughts are important and worth being shared. They are more motivated to reflect and find calm ways to describe their thinking.
Paying attention to what might be going on inside the mind of your child has also been referred to “getting present” and “becoming attuned”. Dan Siegel calls it mindsight, your human capacity to focus attention on the inner workings of your own mind, and the minds of others.
When I ask parents, what are some tricks to getting present with your child, I usually hear them say things like “turn off my cell phone”, “put work aside for a few minutes”, and “try not to think about my long to-do list”. They are trying to switch off the highest functioning parts of the parent brain, nagging them to get back to work.
Not to mention, parents are SO much more patient and methodical in their thinking, it can be exhausting keeping up with kids’ fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants, churning-out-rip-roaring-fast-ideas, spontaneously-quick brains that are growing with every new impulsive spark. Your child’s biological drive has wired up the instinctual lower brain to “just do it” so they keep learning and developing new skills through trial and error - and it’s relentless! How will we ever meet in the middle?
I say, let’s put the more mature, highly developed, thinking part of your brain to good use and teach you how to see, connect, and direct your child’s seemingly random ideas into well-organized, articulate, calm and logical thinking. It’s not rocket science, though. It’s so simple you might even laugh!
All you have to do is think out loud while you’re with your child for a few minutes each day.
Say What You See
Let me be specific. Here’s how to practice. Decide to spend a few minutes doing something that both of you might enjoy. It helps if the activity is kind of spontaneous or open-ended, like drawing a picture, building with blocks, digging in the back garden, or going for a walk in the park. It doesn’t require a lot of expensive toys - in fact, kids are more creative with fewer toys. Think of your kid tossing aside a pricey birthday gift to play with the box instead!
Every so often, try and imagine what your child might be thinking as they play and “say what you see”. Kids express so much without words, we want them to become conscious of what they might be thinking but not saying.
As you are sitting with your child building with blocks, for example, watch closely and imagine there is a thought bubble forming above his head. Try and guess a statement to go in the thought bubble, and say it out loud.
Let’s try it together. Look at this picture and tell me what you think it is.
What do you think this is? Illustration: Yoly Stroeve
Most of you probably guessed correctly. “Looks like you made a ramp.” Yes! That’s thinking out loud. It’s most likely a ramp because I put a car at the top.
Now what if I put a person on top instead? “Looks like you made a slide.” That’s totally right! You’ve got it. It’s that easy!
For the next few minutes, you simply focus on “saying what you see” every so often when your child is thinking, doing, or planning his next move. You don’t have to comment on everything - just what seems most relevant. We don’t want your kid to shush you for talking too much! Just look how his ideas take shape and watch him act on them. What happens to the car next? Does he push the car down the ramp or build the ramp taller?
Asking Questions
By the way, thinking out loud is not about asking questions. It’s about trying to give voice to a child’s thoughts that haven’t quite materialized enough to articulate yet. As much as we love to act like the top-down thinker Socrates and lead our kids to discover new insight through active questioning, this is not the right time to teach a lesson. Asking questions stimulates only one part of brain (the top part, also known as the prefrontal cortex), while our kids are primarily being driven to play by automatic impulses in their highly active lower brain structures. They’re flying on autopilot - so questions usually interrupt the flow. When you ask things like, “Why did you build a ramp?” or “What kind of car is that?” you might be met with “I don’t know!”, “Dad, shhh!” or complete silence.
Thinking out loud is a bottom-up strategy, which means it lights up the brain slowly in the same direction the brain is growing - from bottom to top - like going up an elevator in a tall building and watching the lights go on floor by floor. Don’t jump to the top floor without making sure the rest of the lights are on, too! This will pay off - you’ll notice your child smiling at you, wanting to share more, loving this different kind of learning and being with you. Bottom-up learning is best for kids to learn social and emotional skills because their bodies feel “just right” and their minds can become completely open to new ideas and creative problem solving.
Seeing the Why
Now that you understand the basic Think Out Loud strategy, let’s take this to the next level. Not only do we want to capture simple thoughts, like “you made a ramp”, we also need to show we understand the more complex ones.
Imagine the next thing you see is your child building the ramp taller. What made him do that or why might he want it to be higher? He sets the car on top of the taller ramp now, then turns to you and smiles. Perfect time to drop in a little Think Out Loud statement. “I think you found a way to make the car go faster,” you say with a cheeky grin. As if you are conspiring with him, joining with this clever idea. He pushes the car, and indeed, it does go faster. “Yes! I did it!” he cheers.
Video: Think Out Loud in Action
Here’s a video clip that demonstrates the Think Out Loud strategy in action. Notice how I say what I see, doing my best to guess what might be in Timothy’s thought bubble. Kids move fast and think fast so I have to keep up!
*Timothy is not a play therapy client, he and his mom are actors who volunteered to teach grown-ups how to PlayStrong.
Calling the play-by-play looks like a surprisingly easy thing for a parent to do, almost too easy. But did you see how simply thinking out loud shifted Timothy’s feelings as he played? At first uncertain, he opened up more when he felt our warmth, attention and presence. By the end, he was looking at us like, “You really SEE me, and I like that!” Our goal is to give the gift of presence - and it can transform our kids within minutes.
The Benefits are Clear
Think Out Loud is a simple skill that accomplishes SO MUCH. Three major benefits, actually.
First, you have tricked your own brain into getting more present with your child. Instead of trying to empty or wipe your mind clean, you have given your upstairs brain some purposeful work to do. Now you are so focused and closely attuned to your child - you have achieved Dan Siegel’s mindsight - the ability for two minds to be in perfect sync with each other. Recent research shows your two brains are being activated in exactly the same areas, at the same time, when you pay attention like this and narrate what your child might be thinking as he plays.
Second, while your brains are firing and wiring together, your child is having an experience of getting attached and being closer with you than ever before. This kind of connection signals loving presence to your child, and triggers the release of powerful emotional-bonding hormones, that can only be equaled by hugging for several minutes.
And third, kids learn how to share their thoughts calmly and develop emotional intelligence when we show them how we want them to say their thoughts out loud. Play gives us moment-to-moment surface area to practice when kids are calm, happy, and their minds are open for learning.
It Tames Behavior, Too
When I was a younger play therapist, I worked with a five year old boy who really, REALLY needed to learn how to think out loud. He loved building with blocks, but he was very anxious and aggressive toward anyone who might knock his buildings over. Especially his two year old sister. Picture what it was like when he was just about to add a ramp to his blocks, and the curious two year old joyfully grabbed the triangle block, breaking his entire creation.
Being a five year old with zero awareness of the mind of his two year old sister, he couldn’t understand that it is the job of the toddler to destroy before she can learn to build like her bigger brother. The boy furiously attacked his sister several times a day, and his parents had tried everything, even having the siblings in different rooms most days to keep things safe.
When kids are in a state of stress, it’s almost impossible to learn a new skill, so I chose to teach through play - while this young boy was open to learning in a healthy state of emotional regulation. I thought out loud so much with him that he started to do it himself - he got lots of practice telling me what he was doing and why. That’s exactly what I wanted. Soon he could do it with his sister in the room and even when she grabbed a block! Instead of tackling her, he calmly turned to his mom and said, “Can you help me get that back? I was going to build a ramp.” Whoa! What a mindful five year old he had become!
Mom was only too happy to oblige. She used the Think Out Loud strategy to explain the plan to the two year old. Mom and Dad could anticipate what she wanted and offer her another set of blocks. Parents could problem solve better together, because they could help their children share their thoughts and make calm choices. And it was all possible because they started to think out loud every day.
Achieving Healthy Integration
Thinking out loud is a simple skill - and a highly useful one. It tames powerful impulses rising up from your child’s body and lower brain by directing and connecting them with calmer, more logical thinking abilities located higher up in the brain. We can label strong emotions overwhelming the right brain with words and verbal abilities being developed in the left hemisphere’s language center.
Tina Payne Bryson explains that when all the parts of the brain are communicating in harmony so we can be our best selves, it’s called healthy integration. When our kids see that we, the adults, are able to “use our words” to bring them back from emotional chaos, it creates a stronger bond between us. Seeing their frazzled thoughts and naming their complex emotions has a deeply organizing effect. By thinking out loud, kids learn that they, too, can reflect and develop self-control - so their thoughts don’t run amok and control them!
