My birthday is coming up.
What I can say about my age is that I was once 34 and just beginning my parenting journey, which led me from the Dallas area to Austin in 2000. Having raised two wonderful daughters, I’m nearing the grandma end of things, but not too soon, my daughters tell me.
Here’s my Language of Listening® story in a nutshell:
My oldest daughter, Colleen, at the age of 4, had a fight over a toy at preschool. When she discovered she was wrong — the toy wasn’t hers after all — she lost all confidence in herself. Suddenly my independent little girl started clinging to my leg.
With kindergarten just around the corner, I freaked out!
Luckily for me, I discovered the world of play therapy at a time when Dr. Garry Landreth, founding director of the Center for Play Therapy at University of North Texas, was just beginning to teach parents play-therapy skills to use with their own kids in playtimes at home.
I took his 10-week course, which turned out to be group therapy for me and the four other parents in the class. I discovered that the real problem was me, not my daughter. She was reacting as any child would to MY inability to connect with her since her younger sister was born (a real eye-opener for me!).
While using the professional skills Dr. Landreth taught me in one-on-one playtimes with Colleen, I watched in amazement as our connection grew and her confidence returned.
It felt like I got my little girl back! That fall, Colleen skipped off to kindergarten, waved at the door, and never looked back!
So I thought, “Why not try this with 3 YO Betsy?” Week-by-week, her little you-can’t-make-me rebellion that had arisen in reaction to my authoritarian parenting style disappeared! (That parenting style disappeared, too, as the skills I learned in playtime naturally began to show up in daily life.)
I had no idea that putting a child in the lead during play could be so powerful. It felt like magic!
The playtimes created such a deep connection that my relationship with both girls remained strong throughout their teen years, even though all around us they saw their friends falling away from their parents. In middle school, in addition to wanting me to sit with them at lunch when I substitute taught there, both my girls separately asked me this:
“Why do my friends hate their parents? Why don’t they feel understood? You understand me.”
What happened next?
The amazing things I learned about how to stay connected with your kids, and best of all how to see them in a way that makes it easy to be patient (me, patient?), were so powerful in my life that I’ve been sharing them with parents ever since.
My drive comes from this one thought:
“Every parent should know this. You shouldn’t have to wait until you or your child needs therapy to find out!”
With Dr. Landreth’s permission, I began teaching an 8-week version of his playtime class. As time went by I simplified what he had taught me and integrated it with elements from transformational coaching and positive psychology. Then one day in 2005, our three-part coaching model for parents popped into my head!
I began using it in my playtime classes, and parents loved it. They were blown away by it’s elegant simplicity and effectiveness. When asked for a shorter version of my playtime class, I condensed it into a parenting workshop. Next, I was asked for a book, so I wrote our little handbook, SAY WHAT YOU SEE®, and posted it online for parents everywhere to read free. (Consider it my year-round birthday present to you!)
Eva Sim-Zabka attended one of our eye-opening SAY WHAT YOU SEE workshops then my playtime class and basically never left. She began presenting with me, and our workshop became so popular, we recorded a live version and made it available online as our 101 Basic Coaching Skills Course. Now, you and parents all over the world can virtually attend anytime!
While she was with us, Eva and I taught my playtime class together, did interviews, trained staff at a number of preschools, and provided coaching that changed the lives of hundreds of families. Eventually, our children grew up, Eva moved on, and I began offering Coach Training so others could help take this eye-opening approach around the world as quickly as possible.
Keeping in mind my vision that “every parent should know this,” I designed an online version of my playtime class for our Coach Training that I could build on to create an online playtime class for parents.
Finally, almost 30 years after I took Dr. Landreth’s class, our transformational playtime class is available to you online as our 201 Mastery Class. As far as I know, it’s the only online playtime class of its kind, loaded with powerful video demonstrations of the coaching skills we teach in action.
As I near retirement, I’m delighted to report that my vision is complete. You no longer have to wait until you or your child need therapy to learn these life-changing coaching skills!
Along with powerful online classes designed to teach you everything I learned from Dr. Landreth and more, we have a growing network of Authorized Language of Listening® Coaches in the US, Canada, and Europe, including my daughter, to help you make Language of Listening® your own.
Authorized Coach Dr. Betsy Blackard, PhD in Positive Developmental Psychology, will take Language of Listening® on from here!
New to Language of Listening?
START HERE (← Click)
*Note: Because of my ability to simplify complicated concepts, I became coauthor of Child Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT) Treatment Manual, 1st ed, 2006, with Drs. Landreth, Bratton & Kellam. Several pages of my SAY WHAT YOU SEE® handbook were later quoted(!) in Dr. Kellam’s book Parent Survival Guide.
Both books are a big hit with play therapists who use them to train parents and both are available on my Recommended Reading list.
You never know where your passion will take you!
