Pod Insights Life Kit Plus The 5-minute daily playtime ritual that can get your kids to listen better About this episode Children's health professionals widely recommend a strategy known as 'special time' to help reduce behavioral issues in young children. This episode explains how to do it and why this simple and free tool is so powerful. This episode originally ran October 17, 2022.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This message comes from NPR sponsor Viori with the Halo Essential Wide-Like Pant. Receive 20% off your first purchase at viori.com/NPR on any US orders over $75 and free returns. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.
0:17 Marielle Segarra? You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey, everybody. It's Marielle. And with us, I have Beck Harlin, Life Kit's visuals editor.
0:27 Speaker 02 Hi, Marielle.
0:28 Marielle Segarra? Hey.
0:29 Speaker 02 I have something I really want you to listen to.
0:32 Marielle Segarra? Ooh, let's hear it.
0:35 Marielle Segarra? That is so tall, Gus.
0:37 Speaker 02 That's so good tall.
0:38 Marielle Segarra? Oh. So tall. That must be one of the tallest Lego airplanes I've ever seen.
0:44 Speaker 02 Wow.
0:46 Marielle Segarra? Wow.
0:48 Marielle Segarra? Oh, my God. OK, this is really, really sweet. I just... What am I actually listening to? You don't just want to, like, listen to me and my two-year-old play with Legos? Kind of do, though, all day, but yeah.
1:00 Speaker 02 I know. It's really cute, right? But what if I told you that we're actually engaging in a research-backed practice that's proven to strengthen a caregiver's relationship with their child?
1:10 Marielle Segarra? Well, that sounds very official.
1:12 Speaker 02 I know, right? I'm excited to share this tool with you. I've been nerding out over this behavior management technique all week. It's called special time.
1:22 Marielle Segarra? That's it?
1:23 Speaker 02 That's it. Special time. A more formal way of describing it would be child-directed interaction or child-directed therapeutic play, but commonly, it's known as special time.
1:34 Marielle Segarra? OK, so what is it?
1:35 Speaker 02 Special time is one of the foundational components of parent-child interaction therapy, which is proven to strengthen the bond between a caregiver and a child. And one of its benefits, and this is a really big one, is that it can make your kid more likely to listen to you.
1:49 Marielle Segarra? Ooh, that's good. We like that.
1:51 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's a big one. Before we get too deep into what special time is and how it works... I want to take a minute to remind ourselves how it feels to be a kid.
2:02 Speaker 03 I don't want to wake up, get dressed. I don't want to get dressed. I didn't even want to wake up. Brush your teeth. I never want to do that. Eat your breakfast. I'm not hungry. It's too early. Get in the car. Get out the car. Sit down. Stand up. Get in a line. Come to the circle. And so we know that from a child's perspective, my entire day consists of receiving commands and demands to comply from adults that I'm simply just expected to comply with.
2:28 Speaker 02 That's Roger Harrison, the division co-chief for the Division of Community Care and Wellness in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. And he says special time is so special because it's a break for kids from dealing with a relentless flood of demands, commands, and questions, and it allows them to do what they're best at, which is play.
2:52 Speaker 03 So special time becomes a tool that disrupts that cycle and increases the positive interactions, increases opportunities for play, increases opportunities for closeness between a parent and a child. And as that closeness, that attachment, that bond is building, it actually increases the likelihood that a child is going to listen or value what a parent has to say.
3:18 Speaker 02 Oh, that really does sound special. It does, doesn't it? So this episode of Life Kit, how do you special time with your kids? It's free, it's easy, it's effective, and it involves an acronym. Stick around.
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4:26 Marielle Segarra? Okay, Beck, so let's get into some details. What does special time actually look like? How's it work?
4:31 Speaker 02 So you're gonna want to set aside 5 to 10 minutes a day with your kid. You could do it every day, but Roger Harrison says try to fit it in at least four times a week. Build it into your routine. And you're gonna say to your kid, "Okay, we're gonna have special time now." And then you'll start whatever activity you're gonna do. Harrison suggests anything that engages a kid's imagination. So it could be drawing, building with blocks, playing with dolls.
4:56 Marielle Segarra? And you need to call it special time like that?
4:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, you do. He says that as adults, we have the power to make something feel special to a kid just by calling it special.
5:06 Speaker 03 Imagine that you are a child, and I come to you, and I have two cookies in my hands, these two Oreos. One is a regular Oreo, and one is a special Oreo. Which one would you like? What would you choose?
5:19 Speaker 02 I would choose a special Oreo.
5:21 Speaker 03 Every time?
5:22 Speaker 02 Yeah, me too. Every time. Plus, special time has some unique rules. So by kind of delineating when it's actually special time, you're letting your kid know that you're entering that special time zone.
5:36 Marielle Segarra? Okay, so just like you tell your kid, "We're doing special time."
5:40 Speaker 02 Yep. And you know, some of those unique rules that I just mentioned, I'll go over them. Here's what you're not gonna want to do during special time. Get ready. Do not give your kid any directions. No commands, no questions, and ignore any behaviors that you don't like unless they're legitimately dangerous.
5:59 Marielle Segarra? Wow. This sounds hard.
6:01 Speaker 02 Honestly, it's really hard. The no questions is a surprisingly difficult rule to follow.
6:07 Speaker 05 Oh, Gus. Are you? Gus, you built a car.
6:16 Speaker 02 Did you hear me stop myself right there?
6:18 Marielle Segarra? Yeah, I did.
6:19 Speaker 02 Parents ask kids questions all the time. And when I tried this with Gus, I had to stop myself so many times.
6:26 Marielle Segarra? And then you sort of diverted to like, oh wow, look at that car. Do you just like kind of change modes and try to describe something you like?
6:35 Speaker 02 Yeah, you're going from kind of question asking to be more declarative.
6:40 Marielle Segarra? So I am assuming that you should not be on your phone while you're having special time.
6:45 Speaker 02 You assume correctly. I believe in you. Leave your phone in the other room and give your child your full attention. And Harrison says that you shouldn't withhold special time for bad behavior or use it as a reward. It just is.
6:59 Marielle Segarra? Got it. So don't cancel if they say had a temper tantrum that morning.
7:04 Speaker 02 Right. Now for what to do. There's an acronym.
7:08 Marielle Segarra? Oh, I love an acronym.
7:10 Speaker 02 It's called PRIDE. Harrison lays it out.
7:12 Speaker 03 PRIDE, of course, being an acronym. The P stands for praise. And we like praise to be specific. So rather than saying, good job, because kids hear that all day long. Good job, good job, good job. I'm going to say, I love the way you stack those blocks that high. I want the praise to be specific. That is the P.
7:31 Marielle Segarra? Okay, be specific with praise. Got it?
7:33 Speaker 02 Yep. And R is reflect. So you're going to repeat a lot of what the child says.
7:38 Speaker 03 If they say, and it crashes, I'm going to say, and it crashes. I'm also looking to reflect the emotion that I see in my child as they're engaging their imagination and their creativity during special time. So I might say something like, ooh, they look sad. And if I'm wrong, my child is going to go, no, they're not sad. And that is okay because it is child directed and I'm doing my best to connect with what I imagine is happening as I'm paying attention.
8:09 Speaker 02 So the next letter, I, is imitating. So if I see Gus stacking Legos, I stack Legos.
8:17 Speaker 03 I'm trying to do what they're doing so that I'm joining them in a parallel manner in this play. And this is, it might mean very little to you as the parent, but it means the world to a child to have you join them this way. The D is to describe what your child is doing, like a sportscaster, like someone who's calling the game. They're not coaching the game, they're not telling the players what to do, but they're really describing what they're seeing as if it were for an audience.
8:48 Speaker 02 I feel like that'd be really fun for a kid. Yeah, I imagine it makes them feel super special, like what they're doing really matters and that you're really paying attention to it. Yeah. So the last letter is E, and that's for enthusiasm. And Harrison notes that, obviously, every parent shows excitement in their own way.
9:06 Speaker 03 Because what really matters in the E in Pride is that you are authentically communicating verbally and non-verbally to your child that you're interested and that you're excited to be with them.
9:20 Speaker 02 I'm having so much fun with you. Yeah, I'm so much fun. That was me showing my enthusiasm to Gus. That's really sweet. His voice is just so sweet. It's the cutest. I mean, I'm biased, but I think it's the cutest. Okay, so it's praise, reflect, meaning kind of repeat what they say, imitate, describe, and be enthusiastic. Nailed it. You're a quick study. It sounds pretty simple, but I would say it's not exactly intuitive, like this takes some practice. In part because Harrison says we're used to teaching our kids constantly.
10:00 Speaker 03 Parents are naturally teachers. And so I've seen parents who are engaging in special time. Or we might be building blocks and the child starts to build a block and the parent says something like, oh, you have a block. What color is the block? How large is the block? Do you remember the formula for calculating the area of a block? How about volume? And it's like, no, we're not, we're not doing that. In special time, we're not using it as an opportunity for teaching.
10:29 Speaker 02 I think to sit back and really let your kid take the lead requires a lot of practice.
10:36 Speaker 03 Like any other skill, when you first try it as a parent, you might not master it. And so special time, the skill at special time increases over time. But also the bond that is being built between a parent and a child increases as parents get better at special time.
10:57 Speaker 02 Coming up, how special time can help improve your kid's behavior? That's after the break.
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11:54 Marielle Segarra? So you mentioned that this is supposed to actually improve a kid's behavior. That sounds like a big claim.
12:00 Speaker 02 Yeah, it is a big claim. And I should say that even Harrison said he was skeptical at first. He told me a little story.
12:08 Speaker 03 And so I'm working in a clinic where I am right now. And families would come in and there might be a three-year-old who's been kicked out of a couple of daycares because they're hitting, parents are at their wits' end because they're at risk of losing their job and they're in a bad place when they come in to see me. As a young clinician, I did not value this idea of play.
12:30 Speaker 02 Harrison says he wasn't so sure about the power of play when he first started out, but he trusted the science, so he gave it a shot.
12:37 Speaker 03 We'd start laying this off of parents to say, I know this feels crazy, but we're going to ask you to start incorporating this special playtime about four or five times per week and then come back. And I was amazed, as a psychologist, by the number of families who would come back, even in my disbelief, when I would ask, so how did this week go? And hear families say, a little bit better. Because like many parents out there, I did not appreciate the power of play and how, from a child's perspective, receiving this direct attention from someone who I love
13:21 Speaker 03 and who's everything to me matters so much that I change my behavior as a result of receiving this kind of attention.
13:30 Marielle Segarra? Yeah, so like, what age of kids does this actually work for?
13:34 Speaker 02 Good question. Harrison says this is typically suggested for toddlers to school-aged kids. One more thing, he says, is that you want to make sure that special time is one-on-one.
13:44 Marielle Segarra? So if you have more than one kid, do separate special time with each of them?
13:49 Speaker 02 Yes, yes, absolutely.
13:51 Marielle Segarra? And who should try this? Like, is it only if your kid has a behavior problem that they're hitting or biting or something in school?
13:58 Speaker 02 Also a really great question. And I love what Harrison had to say when I asked him who should consider trying special time.
14:04 Speaker 03 This is really only for parents who want to have a stronger connection with their child and who want to improve not just the relationship, but the way that their child feels about themselves and the way that the child feels about the connection with their caregiver.
14:21 Speaker 02 So it's for everyone. Yep, you got it. It's for everyone. It's a great tool for every caregiver to have in their toolbox. And I've got to say, when I tried it with Gus, he loved it.
14:32 Speaker 06 More special time.
14:36 Speaker 02 More special time?
14:37 Speaker 06 Yeah.
14:38 Speaker 02 OK.
14:40 Speaker 02 He was asking for more special time. Dude, I want special time now. I think there's probably no harm in you getting some special time, even though you're not a school-aged kid anymore. I'm calling my mom.
14:56 Marielle Segarra? And that's our show. If you love Life Kit and want even more, follow us on Instagram at NPR Life Kit. There you'll find gorgeous comics and illustrations and videos answering questions like, how might one actually enjoy winter? Again, that's at NPR Life Kit. This episode of Life Kit was produced by Summer Tomaad. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan, and our digital editor is Malika Gharib. Megan Cain is our senior supervising editor, and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tagle, Claire Marie Schneider, Margaret Serino, Sylvie Douglas, and Mika Ellison. Engineering support comes from Stacy Abbott. I'm Marielle Segarra. Thanks for listening.
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