Episode 44-Flexibility

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Maggie. [00:00:01] Speaker B: And I'm Nicole. Welcome to the DAC Dyslexia and Coffee Podcast. We're hoping you could join us. We're both moms and dyslexia interventionists who want to talk about our students and children. What dyslexia is, how it affects our kids, strategies to help and topics related to other learning disabilities will also be covered in this podcast. Parents are not alone, and we want to give voice to the concerns and struggles we are all having. This is a safe place to learn more about how to help our children grow and succeed in school, in the world. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the conversation. [00:00:34] Speaker A: Hi, everybody. We're going to start today's episode like we do every time on Dyslexia and Coffee Podcast. We're going to start with the concept of the week. So the concept of the week is our opportunity as practitioners to kind of peel back that curtain a bit and let our listeners into an intervention session. Today's concept of the week does have relates to our topic today again. And this concept is cognitive flexibility. So kind of this is a big one. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt your thinking by shifting between different ideas or thoughts or approaches. And it really is kind of encompasses the skill. It's like to pivot between problem solving methods and consider multiple viewpoints. So it's big. [00:01:33] Speaker B: That is big. [00:01:34] Speaker A: It's big. And it is something we are talking about with our students all the time. Even when we're in a reading intervention, when we're reading words, sometimes there could be more than one way to say something. Sometimes our vowels have to be flexible. [00:01:54] Speaker B: Sometimes the meanings are flexible. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So it is a huge one. And it is our topic today. [00:02:03] Speaker B: Yes. We're on episode 44, part of our summer series of executive functioning is flexibility. [00:02:10] Speaker A: Yes. So this is actually the fourth episode of our summer series. Last week, we discussed coping strategies. Yeah. And then today, flexibility, one of the single most important skills we can build in our kids. [00:02:29] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. [00:02:31] Speaker A: I used to have a colleague who would call this the F word, because anytime we had to talk about flexibility, there was definitely a collective like, I don't want to talk about flexibility. And, yeah, we used to the F word. [00:02:50] Speaker B: So our goal is to teach our kids the difference between flexible and rigid. So tell us more about what rigid is. [00:02:59] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, kind of first I want to talk about why. Right. So when we're flexible, we are more efficient and we get our needs met. So. So when we're rigid, we don't. Right. So Rigidity and flexibility are opposites of each other. And that's something we're going to kind of build in to our kids. So we want to talk about both flexibility and rigidity and talk about the differences there. Because when we're flexible, we can actually get what we need and we can get more done. So our plan is to talk about flexibility at home and rigidity. We want to give the kids the language to talk about both flexibility and rigidity. [00:03:52] Speaker B: Our do is to practice being flexible in different situations and model flexibility for our children. [00:03:59] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, and we're going to check it. We're going to ask ourselves, how did that go? What are the next steps? You know, we're going to kind of be that constant check in process. Right. This is kind of like a reciprocal process. It's just going to kind of keep on going. [00:04:23] Speaker B: So some helpful language for our kids are, you know, flexible means you can bend easily without breaking. Cut of like a rubber band. Right. You can pull it and push it and make different designs out of it. And it doesn't snap. [00:04:38] Speaker A: Where rigid means something is stiff or hard and it will break easily if bent. Something like a pencil. Yes, you can. My kids about hit the deck when I snapped a pencil in half. When I was talking, they were like, what did you just do? You know, some ways to kind of talk about this at home. I like this. I have done this with my kids. Take a box of spaghetti noodles, you know, and have kids play with the spaghetti noodles that are raw just straight out of the box. And I say, oh, try to make a circle with the spaghetti noodle. Try to make kind of a shape with this spaghetti noodle. And of course they snap. They snap immediately. They don't bend. But then I will give my kids some cooked spaghetti noodles. And I'm like, okay, well now to try to make a circle out of that. And they can do it because the cooked spaghetti is flexible. And so we kind of talked about what's the difference between the spaghetti noodles? Right. The raw spaghetti noodles, they can't bend without breaking. But the cooked spaghetti noodles, they can easily bend and they can easily be reshaped. [00:06:11] Speaker B: Another activity you could do is go on a scavenger hunt or brainstorm different objects that are flexible versus rigid. So you talk about what are flexible versus rigid things in nature too. Right. Because there's different things in nature that can be flexible versus not so flexible. [00:06:30] Speaker A: Yeah, like a stick of wood. Right. You know, something like a twig snaps quite easily. We have a garden at home and some of our plants, like our cucumbers and our zucchini, right. They climb. And the kids are really like, very into. How far did these vine climb today? You know, And. And I will kind of tell them, like, yeah, it's kind of cool. They're being flexible because what they're doing is they're trying to seek the sunlight, right. So, like, their goal is to. To get up high. And how they're doing it as they're intertwining themselves, right. They're being very flexible and they. We like to go into the forest and you can look up into the trees, right. And the branches, right, have kind of tangled themselves because they're trying to compute for sunlight. But I think that's kind of cool because, you know, a tree we think of is so solid. Right. But really they're not. They're very adaptable, which I think is kind of is very cool. [00:07:43] Speaker B: Even you can talk about their roots too, right? Because there are roots in the tree. They go where there's water, and they have to be flexible because sometimes there's no water right there. So they kind of spread out to places. [00:07:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Like in your pipes. [00:07:57] Speaker B: I was gonna say where you don't. [00:07:58] Speaker A: Want them to go, you do not want them to go, but they end up there anyways. They sure do. They sure do. You know, another thing, another idea is, you know, tell your kids that you're gonna do a little science experiment. So you can have your kids try a variety of really simple tasks two different ways. So some things like make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or try to draw a picture, make something with play. D'oh. If you're outside, you could do some kind of, like, obstacle course or like any other ideas that you have that are kind of some simple tasks that your kids know how to do. [00:08:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:40] Speaker A: You know, not nothing super novel. [00:08:44] Speaker B: Right? [00:08:44] Speaker A: Right. And you can do this more than one time. You don't. This is not have to be a one and done thing. But the first time you try to have your kid complete the task with a really rigid body. So you tell them to, like, keep their muscles really tight and try not to move your arms and legs very much and kind of, you know, clinch even having them just do that part. What's the difference between a rigid body, you know, and then the second time you have your kids do this with a flexible body. Right. You can move easily. You're not holding yourself in too tight, you know, and then you talk about how did that go when you were trying to do something with an extremely rigid Body, how long did it take you? And you can use a timer if you want. Some kids would love that. Some kids would hate that. You got to know your kids. You got to know what's available to them, because this should be fun. This should be a fun activity. Not for not trying to. We're not trying to upset them. [00:09:52] Speaker B: And then you talk about maybe which way was faster and why. [00:09:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:56] Speaker B: You know. [00:09:58] Speaker A: You know, so all those activities kind of explore the idea of physical flexibility, which I think is easier to depict because it's. It's more concrete. Right. You know, sometimes kids really struggle with the idea that we can actually also be flexible in our minds. But if they have that connecting. Right. You can always kind of call back to remember. Remember about cooked spaghetti? You know, remember how cooked spaghetti kind of bends? And you can kind of. It can do a lot of different things because it's flexible, you know, so when we're talking about cognitive flexibility, we can call back to the things that we did, right. Kind of call back to those physical activities. You know, talk about a rubber band versus a pencil. All that kind of really, really helps our kids bridge that gap. [00:10:56] Speaker B: Yes. And being flexible in our minds means being able to change our ideas, do something different than what was planned, think about something different, consider new information, and keep an open mind. [00:11:14] Speaker A: Yes. I like this. I used to do this in the classroom, and I also do this at home with my kids. Kind of a way to kind of introduce this idea of cognitive. Wow. Flexibility. Very different word. The idea of a cognitive flexibility. Flexibility is. Talk about some accidental inventions. [00:11:39] Speaker B: Oh, that's a good idea. [00:11:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So I have some fun stories. So one example is Silly Putty. So an inventor named James wright in the 1940s was trying to invent an alternative to natural rubber. This was during World War II, and there was a shortage of natural rubber, but the army needed it for tires and for boots. [00:12:06] Speaker B: Right. [00:12:07] Speaker A: So James invention that he came up with, it could make, like, perfect copies of items, right. Like, he would press it into things that would make perfect copies. It could lift the print from a comic strip, but it could not be used for tires or boots. So he gave up on it, and he just completely scrapped the project because it didn't fit his original idea. Well, a few years later, a business name, a businessman named Peter Hodgkins saw the putty and thought it would make a great putty for children. So he packaged it into colorful plastic eggs and he sold it. So this was obviously wildly successful, Right. We still have Silly Putty today, right? There. I recall many, many times playing with Silly Putty. You know, it went on to have different iterations, too. It was actually used in space. The Apollo at 8, astronauts actually used Silly Putty to hold their tools in place while they were on space missions. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Funny. [00:13:20] Speaker A: So. Whoa. I mean, cognitive flexibility, you know, wow. This first idea didn't work out, but. But the second one did. The second one sure did. You know some other fun examples? [00:13:40] Speaker B: I like this example. Chocolate chip cookies. Wakefield, you know, she worked at Toll House and used chocolate pieces to make chocolate cookies. And they expected that the pieces would melt. [00:13:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:56] Speaker B: But they did it. [00:14:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And Ruth did very well. Chocolate chip cookies. Yeah. Ruth did very, very well for herself after that. Potato chips were another one. They were invented in 1853 by chef George Crumb, which is kind of funny. That is funny, actually. His name. Yep. When a customer kept sending back his fried potatoes because they weren't crispy enough, so he got really frustrated, and he sliced them really thin and fried them for a long time as kind of. In spite of. But then they were potato chips, and. [00:14:42] Speaker B: We know how that went. [00:14:43] Speaker A: Again, wildly successful Prada. [00:14:46] Speaker B: You just have to go to the grocery store. [00:14:48] Speaker A: Yeah. There are just a ton more examples that. I mean, kids can look up their own examples. Super glue, Teflon. At so many things that are accidents. [00:15:07] Speaker B: And yet we use them every day. [00:15:09] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Some of my favorite meals that I've made, like, okay, I have an idea of what I want to make. And then, oops, we're out of that ingredient. So put something else in. And then I was like, oh, I like this better. I mean, sometimes not, but that's okay, too, Right? [00:15:26] Speaker B: You're still learning. [00:15:27] Speaker A: Right. That's okay, too. [00:15:30] Speaker B: And just like kids sometimes struggle to understand cognitive flexibility, they need some help understanding what we can be rigid about. Also in our minds. [00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, when our minds are rigid. The word I like to use with kids is stuck. All right? So when my mind is rigid, then I'm stuck. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna stay rigid. [00:15:59] Speaker B: Right. So you're not changing your ideas or you're not thinking differently. You can't make other choices. When we're stuck. [00:16:08] Speaker A: Yeah, we're just stuck. We're just stuck. So I think a great way to talk about this with our kids is to kind of find examples of flexible thinking and then also being stuck. TV shows or movies or books. I mean, usually the central problem to Especially a kid's TV show. Right. Is kind of the idea of like. But I really wanted X to happen, and it didn't happen. There's a reason that's the central problem to a lot of television programming, because that's how we think. [00:16:48] Speaker B: That is true. And it's also important to relate to real life situations. [00:16:54] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I try to model this. Right. I kind of get, like, a script in my head, right. Like, I. I felt really struck or stuck when I wanted a specific kind of food for dinner. We were out of an ingredient home, so I went to two different stores to try to find it. I wasted a lot of time in the grocery store. Right. And now dinner is late, everyone is hungry. I mean, again, real situation that has actually happened. [00:17:24] Speaker B: Right. [00:17:25] Speaker A: You know, and then I kind of think, what could I have. What could I have done better? I do allow my kids to pick on me sometimes. Right. Like, okay. Because we all have our things that we're just a little, maybe too rigid on, and it's okay. I kind of like it when my kids nicely point out to me that maybe there's a different way that we could be doing things. [00:17:55] Speaker B: I've never eaten that kind of food before. Should I keep an open mind? It looks really funny looking. We went to a kind of a conference not too long ago, and they had purple cauliflower. And I looked at it, and I looked at it. [00:18:11] Speaker A: And you're like, I don't know. [00:18:13] Speaker B: And I'm like, okay, I'll try it. But it took me a minute because it wasn't the typical color. [00:18:20] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not the idea you have in your head of what it should look like. What it should look like. Yeah. Right. And I mean, kids are very much like that. [00:18:30] Speaker B: Exactly. When Catherine was younger, she had a blue plate, and she could only eat on the blue plate. [00:18:35] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:18:36] Speaker B: Oh, that was awful. [00:18:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:38] Speaker B: I'm so glad we're past the blue plate. [00:18:40] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. [00:18:42] Speaker B: Because that had to go everywhere with. [00:18:44] Speaker A: Us, because that was it. [00:18:46] Speaker B: She wouldn't eat if it wasn't on a blue plate. [00:18:48] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. And it kids with, like, dinosaur chicken nuggets, right? [00:18:54] Speaker B: Yes. Okay. It's circle or not circle. [00:18:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:59] Speaker B: Why is that a big, big circle. But it is a big thing. [00:19:02] Speaker A: It is a big thing. You know, also, I got really stuck trying to find the shoes that I wanted to wear, you know, to work or to school today. I spent too much time looking for them, and now I'm late. [00:19:18] Speaker B: Yes. I think we can all relate to that. [00:19:20] Speaker A: We can all relate to that. Right? I mean, it seems like every morning in our Our house a little bit with my. With my daughter. She has a very specific idea of what she wants to look like. And boy, help us all if what she has in her head is, like, in the dryer or something or in the wash, because it's very difficult for her to see her way out of. That's just not what I'm wearing today. You have plenty of clothing options available. Trust me. [00:19:59] Speaker B: Yes. Sometimes we find that, like, if we go to an ice cream store and they're out of the one that they really wanted. [00:20:08] Speaker A: Yes. [00:20:09] Speaker B: Can't seem to pick a different flavor. [00:20:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And I could. I can totally get that. Right. I mean, who cannot relate to that situation where you have a very specific idea in your head, something that you want, and it's just not an option right now? And that is a. That is a really big feeling. And you do have a choice, though, right. I can get stuck and I can be mad and just not have ice cream at all, or I could choose something else, and I can still get something that I will still like. [00:20:46] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, this idea of flexibility, there's a reason that, like, it's dubbed the F word in education. I think a lot of our examples. Right. Are kind of talking about how do we talk about this with younger children. But I would be really remiss here if I did not say yet again, this idea needs to grow up with our kids. You know, I think a lot of the problems we experience as adults is our inability to be cognitively flexible. You know, we do have to. That is a skill we really, really do need to have. And of the human brain isn't really naturally designed to be flexible. [00:21:45] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:46] Speaker A: We are kind of designed to be like, this is what I want, and I'm going to do everything in my power to go get what I want. Instead of allowing our prefrontal cortex to step in and say, okay, maybe we need to be thinking about this in a different way, or maybe we need to kind of pivot and do something else right now. [00:22:11] Speaker B: Right. [00:22:12] Speaker A: You know, and it. It can be hard to decide. It can be hard to decide, I think, like, circling back to kind of our idea, right, that. Like Silly Putty, Right. Okay. His original idea didn't work out, you know, and maybe he scrapped it because, guess what? He still needed to. Like, there was still a need, right. Like, he kind of probably had to put that idea to the side for a little bit. Like, there was still a big problem to solve. So it is. It is not as simple as I need to be Totally flexible all of the time. It is having the executive functioning enough to keep yourself regulated. You know, kind of going back to last week's episode, we talked about coping strategies. There's a reason those coping strategies are a prerequisite to talking about being flexible. We can't be flexible if we're in, you know, red brain. [00:23:14] Speaker B: That is true. [00:23:14] Speaker A: You know, we can't. And so it's like, we. We really can't talk about this skill or really build it in a meaningful way until we have enough positive coping strategies to actually practice, because that is really the only way we do get better at flexibility. You know, and sometimes. Sometimes it is just talking out loud. I mean, the joke in my family of origin growing up, and then I think I've really kind of continued the tradition is, you know, the movies with Clark W. Griswold. Right. The National Lampoons. You know, the joke in my family is that my dad is clerk W. Griswold, because he really is. He really is. If there is a plan, he will try to execute it, but, like, nothing will go correctly. Nothing. At every single step, something will go wrong. And it usually is pretty hilarious. And we're like, well, that completely didn't work. So I think I grew up in a house that there was no choice about being flexible. It was like, well, that is probably not gonna work the way dad has in mind. So we're just gonna be along for the ride. And I do kind of think my life feels pretty similar to that in adulthood, that usually what we have planned for a day might not. Might not work out, and we have to really think about that. Got to do things a different way. You know, there was definitely. There's a lot of that. And I. I think it's important to kind of build that in. I don't. For me, it doesn't take a lot of work because it happens naturally in my life. But, you know, it's kind of calling those things out and doing that. Modeling. Right, right. Okay. The giving language and words to things for the kids. Right. I am stuck right now, or I'm feeling X. I need to come up with a different plan. I need to be flexible, you know, even preparing my kids for a day. Like, okay, the plan could be. I mean, something last week. Right. The plan is usually my mom picks them up from summer school, but she had an appointment, and so she might be late. So it will either be grandma or it will be somebody else that you do know, you know? But it's like, well, it might go one way or it could go the other way. And so you have to. You have to be kind of okay with that. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I think there's a little danger. Especially for our kids with anxiety. We really try to, like, preview their day so much for them, and we try to make their day extremely predictable, which has a really dark side. Right. Because the inevitable is something is not going to go the way that child expects it to go. And the anxiety will put you in red brain real fast when that doesn't happen. So the real skill is building flexibility. It's great to have a plan. [00:27:01] Speaker B: Right. [00:27:02] Speaker A: But how do you cope with things when that plan does not occur? Right. When you're. When the. What you expect does not match the outcome, then you need those coping strategies. Then you need those coping strategies. [00:27:16] Speaker B: Right. [00:27:16] Speaker A: And then again, that's like. That's that. That's that flexibility piece. That's that cognitive flexibility. So it's. It's a really important skill. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Yes, it is. So, Maggie, what's happening outside of dyslexia? [00:27:31] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I feel like I kind of say this every week, but, boy, it's been busy. I feel like it has just been. It's been a really busy week. And we've got kind of another one coming up. We're excited. Excited. I live in heartland Wisconsin, and we have our little hometown celebration this weekend. So it's kind of our local little festival. We do the fireworks and do the parade. My kids are going to be in the parade on Sunday for Cub Scouts, so they're going to be marching in the parade, so they're pretty excited about it. I don't really know what the weather is supposed to be other than hot, but we're just gonna roll with it and have the best weekend available to us is what we're going to do. Yeah. What's going on with you, Nicole? [00:28:32] Speaker B: Well, kind of. Same. Very busy. About a couple weeks ago, my husband took our children to Iowa to visit his parents. And it was Catherine's first time she was able to stay through an entire parade. [00:28:49] Speaker A: That's amazing. [00:28:50] Speaker B: It is amazing. So she did have her headphones on, and she was able to sit there. [00:28:54] Speaker A: But, hey, that's big. [00:28:56] Speaker B: It is big. Usually we leave in the middle or in the beginning. [00:29:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Sometimes we do not complete the activity. [00:29:03] Speaker B: We do not complete the activity. So it was really a first for her. [00:29:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:08] Speaker B: So I was very proud of her, so to be able to sit through that. And then she told him that it was time to leave because she couldn't do anything else. And you know what? That's okay. [00:29:17] Speaker A: That's great. I mean, that's actually really positive coping skills for us. That's amazing. [00:29:22] Speaker B: That is amazing. [00:29:22] Speaker A: That's really cool. So awesome. [00:29:25] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know if we'll be able to go to another one this summer or not, but we got through one. [00:29:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Please follow us on social media and reach out if you have any questions or you would like us to discuss a topic. If you do like our show, be sure to follow and rate our show on your favorite podcast player. This is how we reach more listeners and get to help more families. Thank you, everybody. [00:29:50] Speaker B: Thank you.