Music, Movement, and Mindfulness Help Kids Regulate Big Feelings - Kira Willey

0:00Hunter Clarke-Fields:Hi, it's Hunter Clarke-Fields, author of Raising Good Humans. If you've ever thought, I wish I could help other parents the way I've been helped, this is for you. The Mindful Parenting Teacher Certification Program is now open for enrollment. You'll deepen your mindfulness, learn to lead powerful parenting groups, and join a supportive, heart-centered community. Are you ready to make a difference? I only take a very limited number of people into this program, so apply now. Visit mindfulparentingcourse.com slash teach. You're listening to the Mindful Mama podcast, and today we are talking about music, movement, and mindfulness to help kids regulate big feelings with Kira Willey.

0:42Hunter Clarke-Fields:Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here, it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have, and when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clark-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course and teacher training, and I'm the author of the international bestseller, Raising Good Humans, Raising Good Humans Every Day, and the Raising Good Humans Guided Journal.

1:21Hunter Clarke-Fields:Hi, welcome back. So glad you are here. a big special welcome if you are new. This is an awesome episode to tune into because we are talking again to Kira Willey, an award-winning children's music artist, author, and mindfulness expert helping kids build calm, confidence, and connection through music, movement, and mindful play. And we are going to talk about different tools you can use to help your child calm down. simple, simple tools. This episode is going to help you so, so much. You're going to learn very simple, realistic practices that you can fit into everyday family life. Even when you're busy, stressed, or running on very little sleep, you'll find ways to help get your kids to cooperate in a really lovely, playful way.

2:14Hunter Clarke-Fields:So join me at the table as I talk to Kira Willey.

2:22Hunter Clarke-Fields:Kira Willi, welcome back to the Mindful Mama podcast. Oh my gosh, it's so nice to see you again. It's been a minute. It's been a minute. Dear listener, Kira Willi was on one of the very first episodes. She was on episode 33 in 2016. I realize that's been a decade. It's been a decade since you and I talked to each other for the podcast. That's crazy. Which is unreal. Where did that decade go? I'm not really sure. whoosh it's gone I know we're like the old uh grandmas who used to say like love every minute because it goes by so fast now do you feel that way like because sometimes I kind of do it's such a cliche but I kind of do you know when I see people with little ones and I think it and I'm like don't say it because you know how annoying it was when people said it to you exactly I know Oh, I know.

3:15You don't want to say it, but you're like, oh, if I could go back for like an hour with my kid at that age, that would be amazing.

3:25Hunter Clarke-Fields:I know. For the snuggles. Yep. I know. But it's so overwhelming then at the time. Relentless, you know, time. Oh, man. I'm excited to talk to you and talk about your new book, The Joyful Child. Kira has written a bunch of children's books over the years, and this is a whole big book for all us grownups, which is so exciting. And part of what you write about, which I think is so interesting, is the idea of how rhythm and movement help emotional regulation. And I think this is something that we don't think about a lot. So can you tell us kind of how that works in an overall sense? Yes, that's one of my favorite things to talk about as a lifelong musician myself.

4:16Rhythm is structure, right? So rhythm is very symmetric. If you think of music, rhythm is the most basic building block of music. You can have rhythm without music, but you can't have music without rhythm. and rhythm, that organization is structure and feels good in our bodies. It creates regulatory structure. So when you think of hearing a great beat, right? If you hear a great beat, what do you do? Some part of you starts to move, right? You start to bob your head, you start to tap your foot or tap your lap or something like that. That's because that symmetry, that organization, that structure feels really good in your body, right?

4:55And it's the same thing with kids on an unconscious level, rhythm helps ground and regulate them. And you can use this in so many ways to your advantage as a parent or as an educator with young children, because it's very calming and engaging for young kids. So I always talk to parents and teachers and say, those instructions you say over and over and over again, put them to a beat, make them into a song. They'll be so much more engaging and so much more fun. Because another thing that happens with rhythm is it lights up our brain in a different way. When we speak to children, and also let's not forget little children get talked at all day long, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, lots of words, words, words, right?

5:37It lights up their brain differently than when they hear rhythm and music. Literally different parts of the brain light up. So their brains are more getting more oxygen flow, more blood flow, and they're more primed for listening and for learning. So it's really cool.

5:53Hunter Clarke-Fields:This is why like the kindergarten and teenagers go like, and then the kids will respond. They'll clap back and then everybody, that's like a signal to quiet down. I've tried this with adults and it works actually. It works with everybody because our brains all work the same way. Our brains are all more fully engaged by rhythm and music than by speaking. And P.S., it's just more fun. It just makes things more fun, right? Your transitions, your morning routines, your car, Whatever it is, it makes it more fun. But if you think about giving a child a set of instructions, first do this, then do this, then do this, and don't forget this, right?

6:31Or starting a great beat and putting it to a rhyme or a beat. Which one's more fun? Which one do you think the child wants to pay attention to and engage with more, right? So it's just a great tool. and I feel like I wish more grown-ups knew that you don't have to be a musician or a singer, but it's a tool you can really, really use to your advantage with kids. They respond to it so well.

6:55Hunter Clarke-Fields:I feel like us non-musical people, I feel like I felt comfortable. I'm not a great singer. I kind of sing a little. I doubt that, but okay. No, no. Anyway, but I was like, they're my kids. They'll love my singing when they're little and I sang to them when they went at bedtime. And I was like, okay with that. But it isn't something people think about for these transitions, the idea of morning and bedtime. It's a battle. It's a whole thing. Did you use rhythm and music in your morning or bedtime rituals with your own kids when they were little? Oh, yeah. First of all, I had one non-sleeper. You know, I had one of those children who just, I think for nearly three years, just every night, battle, battle, battle.

7:47And singing was what really, really soothed her. And I would make up. So at that time, I didn't have all these songs that I've now written and put out in books and albums and everything. I would literally think of what I wanted to say. Maybe it's you're safe, mommy's here, daddy loves you, you know, whatever it was, and just put it to a melody. I sing Sonia melody and just sing it and sing it and sing it. And that's what soothed her. You know, children respond differently to our voice, their parents' voice, than they do to any other voice, too. It has a more calming and soothing effect. But I also realized as a musician that I could sort of be the DJ of the vibe in my house because music, different tempos have different power, right?

8:28And if it's just everyone has a case of the crankies and we have to clean up and get in the car, a great beat transforms the energy of that situation completely. Or if everyone's tense and whiny in the car or something and you'd really like them to settle down for a nap, you put on a song that has a tempo of about 60 to 80 beats per minute, which is similar to a resting heart rate, all of a sudden the vibe just chills. right it has such power that's just not on a conscious level that you can you can use to really create the vibe the atmosphere that you want in your home so yeah i used it constantly another way is most children don't get enough movement that they need and i had one one of my boys in particular is a was a non-stop whirling dervish type of boy you know just move move move all the time music is a great way to get that movement happening right put on a great beat stomp to the beat, have a big dance party in the kitchen before it's time to sit at the table.

9:26There's so many ways to do it. But yes, I used it constantly to just to try to create the atmosphere that I wanted in my home.

9:33Hunter Clarke-Fields:Okay. What is, I have so many questions. What is an example of 60 to 80 beats per minute? What's a song that sounds like that? Because I can't think of it. A lullaby. So I mean, I can think of lots of my own songs, like How to Be a Cloud or Just Be or And I'm happy to give your listeners a playlist of these songs because I actually have a playlist. And it's in my book as well, The Joyful Child, because that is a very soothing tempo. So it'd be about like this, about like, you know, the tempo would be something like this. Something that makes you kind of sway a little bit. All right, cool. But you're not doing this, right?

10:10Because that's too fast. It's about the pace of like a resting heartbeat. So if you think of how your child is soothed, you know, if you're a mom when they were growing inside you by hearing your heartbeat or when they're little and they're sleeping and they can hear your heartbeat, it has that same tempo, that same pace. And so it feels really calming and grounding. So, yeah, again, I'd be happy to provide a list of soothing songs like that. But it's just it's a tool that it works really. It works wonders.

10:41Hunter Clarke-Fields:Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break. Emotional regulation is a huge topic in mindful parenting for obvious reasons. We want to have a more peaceful home. We want our kids to not be dysregulated. We want ourselves to not be dysregulated. We want to be able to stay grounded in the chaos. And one of the things we talk about very rarely on the podcast when it comes to dysregulation is sleep and our sleep quality. We know that sleep affects the whole house. A child's nighttime breathing and a parent's sleep quality can really shape the tone of the next morning. When kids sleep poorly, the whole family can feel it.

11:21Hunter Clarke-Fields:One of the things that can affect kids' sleep is mouth. A simple option for kids and adults is muzzle sleep. Muzzle is a small, low-tech habit that can fit naturally into your bedtime routine. What is it? Muzzle Sleep makes comfortable mouth tape for kids and adults that is designed to gently support lip closure and encourage nasal breathing during sleep. The whole thing is built around a very simple idea that better nighttime breathing can be supported with a practical low effort bedtime habit that really fits into family life. So if you are worried about your kid's sleep or maybe you have a partner that snores, this is such a simple low tech way to help this problem.

12:02Hunter Clarke-Fields:And it's all super clean, BPA, forever chemical free, made in the USA. Go to muzzlesleep.com and use the code mindfulmama for 10 % off. That's muzzlesleep.com promo code mindfulmama. And then for nighttime for your non-sleeper, how would you use that? I mean, I remember using some songs that way. Like I remember when I was changing a diaper, singing Maggie had a little lamb. Yeah. Oh, sweet. I love it. But how would you use it at nighttime to make nighttime more relaxed for this kid who didn't want to sleep? Yeah. And just to be clear, you know, some soothing tools work one day and then and they don't another.

12:50What works for one child, you know, as a calming or regulating tool won't work for another. So it's completely unique to your child and your family. And recorded music didn't work that well for my daughter. She wanted my voice. So it was great because it calmed me too. There's all kinds of research about how calming it is for our own systems to sing, right? Just singing is physically good for your health. And so it worked for me too when I was getting really frustrated that she wouldn't go to sleep. But she wanted to respond to my voice. So that's why I just made up. I would literally look around the room and sing whatever I saw or sing whatever.

13:32I just put it to a melody, and that's what soothed her. But for many children, a recorded song will work great, especially if you have one that becomes a touchstone. It becomes like our good night song. And then it starts to, over time, signal to the body that it's time to wind down and rest. You know, musical memories, this is really cool, are more durable than other kinds of memories. There's lots of research that shows that people who have memory deficits or even dementia, who have a hard time remembering, you know, what they ate for breakfast or even their friends' names or family members' names, they can remember their wedding song.

14:10because musical memories are more durable than other kinds of memories. So when you start to connect a song like a bedtime song, you know, to the act of getting in your cozy jammies and snuggling up in bed, it becomes a really strong association for children. And believe me, they'll remember it when they're grown up too, what the bedtime song was because that'll stick.

14:32Hunter Clarke-Fields:So would you think about like thinking about these transitions? And I'm trying to imagine like a transition from like it's after dinner and kids are getting rambunctious and excited. And then I can picture exactly what you're saying when it's like, OK, we're in bed and we're calming down and all that. But would you use it in that transition time between like excitement to low energy? Because that was one of the things I thought was so interesting thinking about kind of like a mindful communication is the idea that, you know, we can sort of meet people at the energy where they are and then start to shift it.

15:14Hunter Clarke-Fields:Is that something that you would do with music? I'm so glad you said that because it's actually exactly what I was going to say, which I teach particularly to classroom teachers all the time. You have to meet the energy where it is now and then take it where you want to go. right? You can't fight against the energy that's in the room. So if you walk into a classroom and the children are bouncing off the walls and you play a lullaby, it's not going to take, right? You're fighting the energy that's there. If you walk into a classroom and the kids are bouncing on the walls and you play a dance tune and everybody dances and just has a ball for 30 seconds and you really egg them on and get them going and get them going.

15:53And then the song has a freeze dance part or a slow down or you slow down the song. Now you're taking the energy where you want it to go, right? But you can't fight the energy that's there. And it's not going to be effective anyway, right? So after dinner, if everyone's rambunctious and a little hyped up, it's time for a dance party. And it doesn't need to be a half an hour dance party. It can be a two minute dance party. But if you participate also and have a full on dance party, and then the next song has a slightly slower tempo and maybe now we're just having a sway party, right? And the next song has an even slower tempo.

16:32Now our bodies are starting to get the message that we're coming down, right? We're starting to ground. We're starting to relax. We're starting to wind down, but you have to do it gradually. You can't fight the energy that's there. Yeah. But you can match it and then take it where you want to go because you're driving the bus.

16:49Hunter Clarke-Fields:I love that. So you really are being the DJ of the vibe in your house. This is so cool. So I can imagine this. Like, I would probably want a Spotify. I mean, I use Spotify. I would make a playlist. Yes. I love this. Like the dance party songs and then the like medium tempo songs. Yeah. And then the, you know, because I did that same thing when I was teaching yoga. I would have the like, we would start out with the slow and then we would build up to the more intense.

17:20Hunter Clarke-Fields:And you know, whatever. And then it would like be slowly like chill out until you were like in the real meditative, like mesmerizing songs that just like put you in such a deep rest. So yeah, there was like a whole arc to it. Yeah. In an hour and 15 minutes, I have all these playlists that have that arc. But yeah, so we could make these, I mean, a listener could make this kind of playlist for their kid in like a 10 minute version. Yeah, not exactly. Not even. And most children's songs are, you know, are two minutes long. So it doesn't need to be a production. It can be a couple of songs and you could make a whole, you know, some different ones to vary it up night after night if you wanted to, or you could stick, especially if you have little children who love repetition, it makes them feel safe and secure.

18:08Just stick with those three songs. It's time for our dance party. You know, and now it's time for our, you know, now it's time to wind down and they just, they know what's coming next. It feels really good. And you're making it really fun because you're playing songs that you love.

18:22Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. Hopefully you're playing songs that you love. Yeah. Yeah. Play the songs that you love. Don't make yourself suffer through the children's songs that you hate. Please don't. There's so much great music out there. You don't need to suffer. I used to work at a teacher's and parents bookstore in Newark, Delaware. And we used to play children's music that we sold all day long on the, you know, and I just like, oh my god i'm just like no but don't play that one some of it can be painful yes but as a children's music artist i will say the genre has come a long way oh good good it really has yeah and we've had you and some other another we've had um laurie the dinosaur song laurie berkner has been on the podcast dear listener check that yeah friend of mine she's fabulous fabulous yep Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

19:14Okay.

19:15Hunter Clarke-Fields:I know that you also are a mindfulness practitioner. You're a teacher of mindfulness. How did you keep that practice in your life when your kids were little? it was a challenge it was a it was a real challenge and you know especially when I first started teaching children's yoga and I was creating these classes that were 20 30 45 minutes long I thought I'll just bring this whole class home we'll do it with my kids we'll set up the mats we'll do the you know and I mean with three under seven at the time there was no there was just no way that was going to happen so I managed my expectations and I realized if it's not a mindfulness practice that can be done on a Tuesday morning before school, it's not going to work.

20:01Right? And it doesn't need to be quantity of time. It's quality of connection is what it really is. And that's why I've come up with so many of these really short and fun and kid-friendly mindfulness practices that you can do with your child. But for me, it looked like tiny resets throughout the day. So it was grounding myself during a transition, maybe setting an intention for what I was walking into just in my mind with a few deep breaths. It looked like waking up with a moment of gratitude and a few deep breaths, going to bed with a few wins, baby wins, whatever they were, got the kitchen counter relatively clear before I went to bed type of wins, right?

20:46and a few deep breaths. So I built it in, and I still do. Some of these practices have really stuck, the little ones, throughout the day, 30 seconds here, 60 seconds there. Because when my guys were little, there was no way I had the time to sit on my cushion for 20 minutes, right? Or get on my mat in peace for 30 minutes. It was these small, but really powerful practices throughout the day that I built in. And again, I still follow a lot of them to this day, and they really help.

21:16Hunter Clarke-Fields:big steps okay that's awesome yeah I still do like three deep breaths when I in the car a lot of the time yeah just okay we're slowing it down before we you know after the hype getting in the car yep yeah or like hands on the steering like I can feel my hands on the steering wheel I can see that you know trying to be you know really mindful drive instead of that spaced out driving that we all sometimes do because we've been to the same place so many times you arrive and you're like, how did I get here? But trying to be really present. So small things like that, yeah, it can be really, really effective.

21:53Hunter Clarke-Fields:And then you have practices for kids. You talk about one-minute movement and breathing practices that can prevent a meltdown. So tell me about some of these. So many of those. Here's the thing with mindfulness with kids. If it's not fun, they're not going to want to do it. They're not going to want to do it, yeah. It's got to be kid-friendly. And the language of kids is play and movement and music and imagination. So all of my mindfulness practices, and I have tons in my children's books and in my new book, are quick and kid-friendly. And if you do them consistently, if you just weave them into your day consistently, the transformation they can have are amazing.

22:34So everything from breathwork made fun, like imagining you're a bear hibernating for the winter taking long slow deep breaths in and out through your noses right and imagining how warm and cozy and safe you are in your bear cave that's when my little littlest loved at bedtime we would get him into his blankets and you know make an imaginary bear cave and i would just do bear breath and his whole body would just relax to candle breath you You know, imagining you're holding a candle and blowing, making your candle flame dance and wiggle. And then eventually you get to blow it out to hot chocolate breath.

23:12So lots of playful, imaginative, fun breathwork exercises. And we know that long, deep breaths, you know, can have a significant effect on your stress physiology. It can really calm us down basically, right? And then lots of movement-oriented ones that are great for focus and presence and attention, like listening activities. So I have one called Outside Inside where we just get really quiet and still and we listen for the farthest away thing we can hear. What's the farthest away thing we can hear? Can we hear a flame in the sky or maybe the wind or the cars on that road that's kind of far away?