Dinalynn Rosenbush is a Speaker & Consultant, Parenting Coach, 30-year public school Speech Language Pathologist, international best-selling Author, and Creator/Host of the Top 1.5% podcast: The Language of Play. Dinalynn helps parents understand how children communicate so they can connect more deeply with their children, even in the presence of speech delays. She empowers parents with strategies for building speech and language skills during normal daily activities.

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I once again have the pleasure of introducing Dinalynn Rosenbush.

Dinalynn is a speaker and consultant, parenting coach, 30 year public school speech language pathologist, international best selling author and creator, co host of the top 1.5% podcast, the language of Play.

Dinnayn helps parents understand how children communicate so they can connect more deeply with their children, even in the presence of speech delays. She empowers parents with strategies for building speech and language skills during normal daily activities. Welcome Dina Lynn.

It is a pleasure to have you back again today. Thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you for having me back. I love being on, on your podcast, so this is fantastic. Thank you.

You are so very welcome. And thank you for being here.

And you know, we want, we've already talked with you once, but we for those people have maybe they haven't seen this, your show. Talk about your passion a little bit. Why is this important to you? And then we'll wander through the other things we want to talk about today.

Absolutely. Thank you. And well, you know, bringing home education is obviously something that's real passion driven for you.

And for me, having worked in the schools all those years, one of the things that I saw over and over is that parents are the ones that are their kids enough to practice regular intervals. And in speech pathology, the kids will come to my room and speech pathologists do good work. You know, I'm not knocking that.

We do, however, in the model that we have in the schools, which is all you can do is work with the kids when they can come out of the classroom.

You work with them and then you send them back to their classroom and they're needing to integrate their learning at their own pace, on their own effort.

But when I could get parents that were able to come into my classroom and work with me with their kids, then those kiddos would have drip type of practice, you know, like just a little bit here and there, here and there, here and there. And then the progress happened. So when I was done working as a career speech pathologist, I thought, what do I want to do?

And I thought, I still want to teach parents and I still love to watch the change, the transition, the transformation that comes in a family. And so how can I do it so that it fits what I love the most and I can nix what I don't.

So I didn't really like the paperwork and I didn't like being inside all the time and you know, certain things like that. And now I'm coaching parents so that they know what they can do at home.

And they come on weekly with me, and we'll talk about exactly where their little one is at, and I'll give them the next little piece, do this for a week, and then they can ask me questions, and I'll explain what's going on in the brain science behind that. So then they're like, oh, oh, I know why my kid did that. And then I'll give them a nugget more.

Now, keep that first practice because you've spent a week doing it, getting good at it. Now we add this much more to it, and then they get good at being able to drip those practices in times of the day that are suitable for everybody.

So we don't add anything more to family life. Family life is busy. So that's. That's where my passion is.

That's what I'm really enjoying doing, is helping parents to really make the change that they want and eliminate that communication frustration that happens.

That.

That temper tantrum, that breakdown that little kids have when. When they're like, she didn't get what I'm trying to say. That's not what I want to say. And the kids melt.

I love how your story so aligns with Christina's as well.

Slightly different, but one of the reasons that she left teaching was the administration basically told her she couldn't keep working with the parents. And it's like. But you don't understand. It's like, that's where all the magic happens.

And then now she's out coaching, and it's like, it's less work with the children and more work with the parents. Because if you work with the parents, then the children are just gonna flourish.

Flourish. Yes, they do.

You can work with the children, but if the parents aren't involved, then they can get lost again. But if the parents are involved, then it's. Then it's a together trip through the education system. Yeah.

And it's much faster, and it's much easier, and it's much more. Much more cohesive. And so the journey is done together. And then you build strong bonds during that time.

So, yeah, I'm sorry that you experienced that, Christina, where your administration wasn't supportive. I fortunately had a very supportive administration. When I said I wanted to bring parents in, my principal just asked me, is it good for kids?

I said, yes. He says, let me know how it goes. There was no more conversation. He just wanted to know, is it good for kids? And trusted me.

And with that, it was beautiful. I was able to do a lot of things.

Yeah, that's so Beautiful. And I love the way you were winding it into, you know, giving it to the parents so they could add up just a little step, a little piece at a time.

Right? Because we don't want to overwhelm our parents. We don't want to overwhelm our kids. Like you said, I've done that.

I've done that. You know, you sit in an IEP meeting and you're going to talk with parents, they say, well, what can we do at home?

And I go, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It's like, do these things in the meeting. They understand because it made sense. But as soon as they walk out that door and think, what'd she say?

There's no understanding or remembering any of it because they were given a lot of information. And it runs through like sieve, you know, like, what are you supposed to do? None of us could remember all of that.

And that was what prompted also me wanting to bring parents into my classroom and work with them there.

That's. That's the entrepreneurial education model. You give them all the information for free. Here's how you do it all. Now go.

But if you want help, I'm here to help you. But here's how you do all of it. It's. It's no. It's no mystery how. How to. How to do it. But the getting, the help, the coaching, the confidence, the.

The personalized help to. To get that. Oh, you. You did that. Here's the next nugget. And here's the next nugget.

Because they might have all this information, but not the proper order to put it together, right?

Like you're saying with business, entrepreneurial, it all comes at us, doesn't it, when we're trying to learn?

But if somebody, if you have a coach that understands your business and is able to tell how does it apply to your business, then you take one nugget at a time. And that's what I'm doing with parents. You know, how does this apply to your child?

With what your child is either not able to say, if we're talking about speech or their vocabulary, or maybe they're stringing sentences together, or maybe they're not listening. So if it's speech, language, listening, then we tease those apart.

And I can give what's pertinent to your child right now and what's bothering your family right now and deal with those things first, because that's what matters to parents.

I love when parents are really listening into that and really following along with the coaching.

They Figure out, oh, I can integrate this into my child's regular day, their regular play, their regular interactions, so they aren't feeling like they're wrong or bad because they're not saying something correct, but instead is interactive and woven in and makes everything much easier to understand and obtain.

Exactly, exactly. And in speech and language, you know, like if.

If you were to teach a parent how a child is going to ambulate after a broken leg, it's visible, you can see it, and you can see the equipment or the support that's used. It's all visible. And so we get that. But speech and language development is kind of invisible, isn't. Is ambiguous. What is the next step?

And then what parents typically do is the thing that stands out the most is where they start. But that often is the worst place to start. And the reason is because that's the part that is the meltdown area.

That's where mom and dad have angst and worry, and that's where the child feels failure. And they can't do it. They're not feeling enough. And so there's this. There's a way to do it.

So you're working with the periphery skills that support mom and dad. And I was just working with somebody this last week. It was just such a joy.

He's a mom and dad, and the child is three, and in 15 weeks he's gotten three sounds like stabilized in 15 weeks. And it's because mom and dad are such good listeners, good implementers, and, you know, they just do what they're told and they're like, oh, okay.

And they get it. They just want to. And the love that parents have for their kids derives that energy. So it's fantastic.

Yeah. And, you know, the most, the most important aspect or factor in a child's education is, is the involvement of the parents.

So if the kid's smart, if he's going to grade school, whatever. The most important factor to their success is the proper active involvement of the parents involved.

Whether they're homeschooled or schooled in the public education system or private schools, parents need to be involved. Parents need to be communicating. Parents need to be talking with their kids and staying involved in the education.

And there's a way to involve, isn't there? There's a way to involve where there's this building up, where there's support and it feels good.

And then there's an involvement that feels like you're getting shut down and you're doing it wrong and you can't, you know, like There's a way to support.

And that's one of the things that I have to talk about with parents a lot too, and I'm sure you do too, because some of us just don't need the programming from our own parents to come forward. We need to do things differently than experienced.

And until somebody gives us some ideas of how to do it differently, they don't necessarily have those ideas in their head. I know I did a lot of.

Personality types that are involved as well. So you need to bring personality information into it. So some personalities really appreciate being told what to do.

Some personalities can't handle that at all. So you have to be more appreciative. And again, the ones that appreciate being told what to do, they don't like the v, the vagueness.

So having a clear path, it's not like they like being told what to do, but having a clear path makes them comfortable.

So understanding how your child is thinking and moving through the education system and as their parent, it's like, you know, you can see it really early when there are children because you think, oh, my children's going to come out a blank slate and I'll be able to program them. And they come out and is like, no, you ain't programming me. I'm. I'm me. It's like, you're going to figure out who I am. So, yeah, so that.

That individualized aspect towards education is incredibly important.

Very much so. And to honor each person, where they're at, it's so important.

That reminds me, you know, like you said something about where, where parents come at it. One of the things that I find is a common experience among all of us, you know, you guys probably too, until you learn differently.

And that is as adults, we tend to think that our children are thinking what we think. And they don't. They just don't. Their brains are not developed that way. You guys are shaking your heads no. As you know that this isn't true yet.

When we get into interactions with our kids so often, our first response is still to think that they had a motive that would be equal to our motive if we did a behavior like that. They must feel a certain way, because if I behave that way, I would be feeling a certain thing. Like we put our thoughts on the child.

So if that child is really sad in a temper tantrum on the floor, boy, if I behave that way, I would be so distraught. They must be distraught. I need to xyz. This thinking is common with development. And. And what? When parents are trying to Teach kids, too.

So learning how that young brain learns is a key part of helping a parent be able to connect with the child and make progress quickly.

So in speech pathology, we obviously work with the brain a lot, and so we tease apart what is it that is going to work with that child, and that's what led into play. And how does play actually work? And imagine, you teach a lot on play, don't you?

Yeah, absolutely. And that leads me into my question, because we also know that children learn best when they feel safe, when they feel secure. Right.

And so if you have a parent who maybe has been like, butting heads with their kids over this speech thing for a while, what kind of tip can you give them to help de escalate that and so bring that into the safe space where the kids and the parents can actually work together.

Actually, can I take her back to the play? Because she just got into the play and it was a really cool.

Let me weave them together for you. Yes, because the answer is together. Okay. So when parents and kids are, you know, if they're a little bit older, they're button heads.

If they're a little younger, it's fall on the floor and cry, right? So either way, let's call it a butting of the heads, because they're just not meeting in that beautiful connection that we want in our communication.

So what do we do and what I teach. One of the things I just want to change the world on is how we think about play.

And when you talk about what play is, we tend to think, oh, it's play, dress up. It's role play. It's. It's Legos. And it is. But I want to say that that's not all. Some other people say, well, it's playing an instrument in a game.

I say, yes, but it's more. And I want to ramp it up myself to, to the elevation of saying, we can get into a mindset that is play.

And when I talk about a mindset that is play, it doesn't mean silly, it doesn't mean giddy. What it means is curious. What it means is exploration, discovery. Let's go figure out whatever's new, whatever's happening.

But we're going to go on an exploration and we're going to learn. So how do we get into that mindset that is curious and then approach the child that we're butting heads with?

So we use a play mindset, what I call a play mindset, to approach your child. And so instead of saying, why'd you do that you end up coming up with. Hmm. It's an interesting way to do it. Can you tell me what you were thinking?

And you know the facial expression that you have, if you're authentically like, can you tell me what you're thinking? And you've developed that. That interest. So the child knows you're truly interested in them.

They know that you are not coming at them as a correction when you ask a question. And when they know that you are truly interested, you find out examples like, oh, well, I didn't mean to hit the thermometer with the baseball.

I just wanted to see how close I could get. You know, this is the true answer for children because they don't think about what might happen if they think what they're thinking.

And they don't really go beyond. Right. We hear the phrase, the kid can't think past Friday. Well, that's true. And that doesn't mean it's a problem. It doesn't mean that it's a shame.

It doesn't mean that they're bad because of it. Developmentally, that's where they're at. So they had this thought. They just wanted to see how close they could get.

They didn't really want to hit the thermometer, but they smashed the thermometer. And mom and dad are mad. Right.

Actually hit it.

Right.

That's never happened to me. Not ever. I didn't actually accidentally shoot my sister in the bottom with the BB gun and have it taken away from me for years.

So, yeah, I. Yeah, never happened to me. And, you know, it's kind of funny because it's like that whole, oh, wow, what were you thinking? My dad was like, what were you thinking?

So a whole different vibe there.

Exactly. Exactly. What were you thinking? Or what were you thinking? Yeah, that's different. Very, very different.

And children like you, when you were a kid, you were not thinking about how it would hurt her. You were not thinking about the consequences of. You were not thinking about what happens after.

You simply were thinking only about the BB or pulling the trigger. Your mind was not beyond. This is why children don't have those.

Wasn't even there. Not even a little bit.

Right, Right, right. And there are incidences like that with every child all through lifetime.

And so when we learn how to approach those things differently, obviously we still need to teach the correcting behavior and why. But there are ways to do that. And when we get into that play.

Mindset of curiosity, the thing that I love about it is that judgment, accusation, blame, shame, can't live there. They simply can't.

When you are in that curiosity, exploration, mindset with your child, with your spouse, with yourself, judgment evaporates because it can't coexist with that curiosity. And if it can't go exist, we are better as parents, as human beings, as co workers, as spouses, all of it.

And I would love to, you know, just expand that, to think about that with your partner, your spouse, etc, you know, we don't have to forget that we're doing that with the kids. We can do that with everybody and then think about the harm, harmonious way our family life might be.

Less blame, less shame, but instead curiosity and.

And the funny thing is, is if you do start working with your children, that way, you will start seeing impressive results and it will unintentionally bleed into your other relationship relationships, and pretty soon you will realize you're talking to your friends like you talk to your children. And it's like, it's not a bad.

Thing always, but then you start.

But then it opens up communication pathways that are just beautiful, that have been maybe not communicated before. So it's just really impressive what you start with the kids and how it blooms throughout your whole life.

I can't tell you how many parents say to me, I tried that with my spouse and it worked. And I'm like, it does.

Oh, my gosh.

Dina Lynn, this has been a wonderful conversation, and unfortunately, we have to cut it kind of short because we're in that special place called Patapalooza again.

But it brought us together to have a wonderful conversation and to help parents really think about, you know, what can I do around my child's speech, language, play, etc. So would you please make sure you share your information? Of course. Everything will be down in the show notes as well.

Well, I would love to. So my podcast is the Language of Play, and you can find that on any player. And I can give you a free gift.

That would be five ways to get your kids to listen better. And that can be shared too. And then, and then if anybody wants to email me directly, just helloanguageofplay.com Excellent.

Thank you so very, very much. And thank you for being on the show and helping us explore this language of play again today.

It's been a lot of fun. It has been a pleasure to have you here. Thank you for joining us again, and we can't wait to see you again.

Thank you.

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Think about all the wonderful information that was handed out today to you to help your children be happy, healthy and successful. Make sure you're sharing this with other people as well so that their families continue to grow and develop. Until next time. Bye for now.

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