The 8 Great Smarts: Discovering and Nurturing Your Child's Intelligences

Ginny: Welcome to The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. I have a friend on with me today. It is always extra special when it's someone you've actually met and spent time with in person and connected. I have Dr. Kahty Koch from Celebrate Kids. Kathy, thank you so much for being here with us. 

Kathy: I'm excited to be here with you. I so enjoy who you are and what you do. So it's an honor to support your ministry here.

Ginny: Oh, you're so sweet. I'm going to read a little bit of your bio here, and then I'm going to throw in the Nativity, because that's a fun little extra. 

So Dr. Kathy Cook is founder of Celebrate Kids, Inc., based in Fort Worth, Texas, which partners with parents to strengthen family relationships, develop children's gifts and talents, and equip them to live on purpose with intentionality. She has influenced thousands of parents, teachers and children in 30 countries through keynote messages, seminars, chapels, banquet talks and other events. She is a regular speaker for Care net, Summit Ministries, Teach Them Diligently and the Colson Center. She was featured in Kirk Cameron's movie Connect and she has published five books with Moody Publishers. I love that. You've got a good life. You're doing awesome. 

Kathy: Yeah. God has been faithful and we work hard at Celebrate Kids just like you work hard to have messages that matter for the people who pay attention to you. So it's a real joy and an honor. You know, so many people are like, you're an author. I'm like and you're a mom, you know, or you're a lawyer. Like, it just happens to be my career. But some people think it's amazing. 

Ginny: It is amazing. And so if you're watching this on YouTube, Kathy is sitting in front of shelves of books. That makes my heart pitter patter.

Kathy: They're organized. They're all organized, which some people are like, no way, but every shelf is a different topic and I can pretty easily find what I'm looking for. Otherwise, why have books?

Ginny: Right. Well, then it's like a bookstore. And tell us what's out in the hallway. 

Kathy:  Oh, my nativity collection, I've been privileged to travel to 30 countries, and I started a collection of nativities back on my very first trip, which was to Manila, the Philippines.

I had one as a child that was near and dear, which is a whole nother story. But I've always, you know, I love Jesus and I love, of course, the Christmas story. And I have loved the artistry of the people. Other people began to purchase them for me when they traveled. So I own one hundred and forty three nativities from, I think about 70 countries. And so there's some overlap and they're just displayed year round either in my home or here in my office. And so it's a fun tribute to the Lord and a really neat conversation piece when people stop by the office.

Ginny: Do you have a favorite?

Kathy: Oh, gosh, no. There are favorites. All of the ones I own from Eastern Europe have Mary and Joseph praying, which I think is significant. So their hands are in a prayer posture. In many of them, Mary is holding Jesus and there's not a crib and that would be, you know, culturally appropriate. In the Czech Republic, they have a tradition that moms bring cake and pie to a new mom. And so that one has 18 pieces and many of them are women in babushka scarves like my grandmother would have worn carrying a pie. And they're delivering a pie to Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. And so that's fun because it has the Czech Republic tradition embedded within the Nativity. So there's there's some very unique situations. 

Ginny: Well, it's interesting then. It could almost be like a lesson, you know, some sort of a unit lesson for kids learning about different cultures through the nativity sets and things that you wouldn't know.

Kathy: The one that I own from Senegal in West Africa is the most colorful one that I own. The King's and Mary and Joseph are wearing flowing beautifully bright, colorful cloth robes. Well, Senegal is one of the cloth capitals of Africa. So you can go to the cloth market and buy, you know, reams and reams, if you will, yards and yards and yards of fabric. And so that's meaningful. And so you would learn about the history of Senegal.

Ginny: Yeah, you would learn a lot. I remember as a kid, my third grade teacher, her name is Mrs. Goshorn and I actually had her for two years in a row and she collected elephants. And I think it's neat when people collect things because, you know, then when you travel, you're thinking about them and it gives you like this little bit of a mission. And I remember my parents took us to Mexico when we were kids. And I vividly remember looking for, you know, a glass elephant for her and bringing it back and being so excited. So I love that it's in people’s minds when they're traveling, they're thinking about you. And it gives a little bit of extra fun to life to be searching.

Kathy: You know, it's more fun for me to travel and shop for something specific. I don't really enjoy shopping for the sake of shopping. So I do have things I collect for every member of my family. And it does make it easier. 

Ginny: You are interesting. I love it. And I think collections are a special thing. I collect the little black walnuts. Like after a season has gone by and the squirrels have gotten into them and eaten the nut, I think it looks like a little heart inside. Some people think it looks like a pig snout, but I think it looks like a little heart. And so my kids are always looking for them for me. And they'll come running up. And I'm like, that's cute. I just know life is full of cool things to collect.

OK, so I've got a couple of your books here, and I know you said you have five, but I've got three of them here. I have 8 Great Smarts: Discover and Nurture Your Child’s Intelligences. I have Screens and Teens, Connecting with our Kids in a Wireless World. And I have Five to Thrive: How to Determine if Your Core Needs Are Being Met (and What to Do When They’re Not) What a great question… and what to do when they're not.

So can you tell us a little bit about your path to Celebrate Kids? I know there's two more books besides this, but how did you end up where you are in a nutshell? 

Kathy: Yeah. Speaking of nutshells, right? I taught second graders and I thought I would teach second graders forever because I was a second grader. I loved it and discovered that the lady teaching me was getting paid so I could do this too - true story. So my family valued education. And so Dave and I were both raised with a high value on learning and truth. And so I wanted to pass that on. I thought I would teach kids forever. 

But the Lord kept showing me that parents mattered and that that teaching could even be better. And so I earned a Ph.D., went back to Purdue University and earned a Ph.D. in reading and educational psychology and was a professor for seven years. And I thought I would do that forever. So I've been a coach and as a teacher of young kids, a professor, I've been a school board member of a Christian school, I had to try a little bit of everything, trying to find where am I going to settle.

And I don't know if you can relate, but I just never felt settled. And it really felt like there was something else out there and a little bit terrifying because I felt like I had answered the call correctly, if you will, and earn the advanced degree, be a professor, which obviously is important to teach teachers how to teach children. But I wanted to work with parents and I'm not a parent, as you know, I'm single and I'm not a parent. But I love telling parents what to do with their kids. It’s so much fun, you know, and I stay away from where I don't have a right to go like bedtime battles and picky eaters. But I have expertise and insight that, you know, people have benefited from. 

So I met some people who allowed me to dream the dream. And Ginny, we all need people who allow us to dream the dream. When I moved from Green Bay, Wisconsin, to Fort Worth, Texas, to do this, I had earned tenure. I had a job for life as a professor. But that doesn't mean I should stay. And it was hysterical to quit and have so many people like, what are you doing? But now I've done this for 30 years. 

So now I travel and speak. And as you know, I have a wonderful staff and we create products to go with the books. I'm a writer, speaker, and podcaster myself. And it's a joy and a privilege to do the conferences. We do conferences on our own. As you know, we have women's conferences. And then I'm also hired, as you are, to go into different situations and bring a word that is hopefully going to be transformative for people because we want to be encouraging and we want to be helpful. It's not easy today to parent kids. The culture is chaotic and people are messy. And we want to bring messages that are going to be encouraging and insightful. And it's a real pleasure. It really is a pleasure to do so. It's hard, but it's a pleasure. 

Ginny: Yeah, well, and this is how we met, actually. We met with HEAV, which is their faith based homeschool organization in Virginia and they have so many resources for families. And we met at their virtual conference, but we recorded it live. So that was really an interesting experience. And I was drawn to you right off the bat. And I think that's something that a lot of people say about you. It’s something that you can't even quantify. But it is something about you as a person. Your quickness and you are obviously very bright. I just was drawn to your presence, you know, when people were asking questions and in these different situations that we were kind of thrown into, you're just there for it. And so that's where we met. It was a pleasure to meet you there. 

Kathy: And I remember you listening and I remember you being teachable, and that was inspiring to me because sometimes when we do this for a living, we have our niche, we have our expertise, we have the thing we're known for. I mean, what you're doing is so important. And it can sometimes allow us to check out when others are teaching and decide. But you listened as a mom and you listened as a leader of your own organization. And I really appreciated your teachability and the joy that you brought to the stage yourself. It was a wonderful experience. And I'm very, very glad we met there. 

Ginny: Thanks, Kathy. Well, let's talk about some of your books. So I just love this concept of telling kids that they're smart. So I'd like to start with 8 Great Smarts: Discover and Nurture Your Child’s Intelligences. We have this common thread where we were both teachers. You taught second grade. I love second grade. Actually, that was my teacher that collected the elephants. I had her for second and third grade. 

I taught high school and I taught high school math. And as you would probably know, high schoolers have carried this burden that they're not good at things. By the time they get to that age, it's very ingrained in them. And so what I set out to do was to try and change their messaging within themselves. You know, you meet adults. They're like, “I'm not good at math.” I mean, this is a badge that we carry forever. You know, not that you have to love math, but you know that you're not bad at it. You can do it. It might not be your favorite thing, but you can do it. And so that was sort of always my goal. 

But I definitely had students who had had teachers who had taught them that they're not smart. And I grieved that. So I never really thought about saying to a child, “You're smart.” Those words - how powerful that is for a child to hear that. And so can you tell me about how the 8 Great Smarts gives us this path to tell children that they're smart? 

Kathy: Right. We say that smart is a power word. If children don't think they're smart, they don't think studying will help, which is really interesting. I would have thought in the old days that if you didn't think you were smart, you would study more because you would recognize you need to put forth more effort in order to learn it and potentially earn a better grade. But it makes sense to me now, knowing what I know, that children and adults who don't feel intelligent, they don't believe that they're smart, they don't believe they're capable, they don't believe studying will help because it's their brain that's defective. 

So we have a tendency to tell kids, you know, “Good answer” or, “Boy, you're really creative” or, you know, “I like your idea” and there's nothing wrong with saying those things. But to say to a child, you know, “You're creative because you’re picture smart,” you know, “You did an excellent job at that because you're logic smart.”

So there are eight smarts. We know from the research of Dr. Howard Gardner that all of us have the capacity to develop all eight. 

There's word smart, we think, with words. 

Logic, smart. We think with questions. 
And those are the two that I kind of call school smarts, because if you think about school and even church learning, there's a whole lot of words and there's a whole lot of questions and answers that take place either in discussion or in the written form. 

But we're also picture smart, we think, with our eyes.

Music smart, we think with music.

Body smart, we think with our bodies through movement and touch

Nature smart. Hello. We think outside with patterns. That's how we know it's a blue bird, not a blue jay, an apple tree, not an oak tree.

And then people smart, we think with other people.

And self smart, we think deeply inside of ourselves.

So quickly, those are the eight and we can enhance all eight, awaken all and they can be paralyzed. If we're not careful, we can help kids study with all eight so that they're more effective. And if we're homeschoolers, we can homeschool. We thought we can teach with all eight if we teach in a brick and mortar school, if we teach Sunday school, if we're a scout leader, we can teach to more parts of the brain and increase motivation and learning and application and joy. And it's a beautiful thing to do. 

Ginny: Let's camp here for a little bit because I heard it because I was a teacher. You know, you hear about the different ways that kids learn like kinesthetic. Does it stem from that or is this a completely different path? 

Kathy: Yeah, that's a great question. And I deal with that a little bit in the book. It is different. I'm kinesthetic, I remember what I do auditorily. I remember what I hear. 

Now, if you are a body smart child or an adult who thinks with movement in touch and you're also kinesthetic by design, meaning that you remember what you do, you really will have a need for action. And you are constantly, you know, “sit down, sit down, put that down. Would you just sit still for a minute?” We paralyze the kids by making them sit still all day, they won't do as well. So we teach, of course, in my book and in my seminars that obedience is right and that we need to tell our kids that just because you're body smart, is it because you're smart and you would rather be outdoors all day long, it doesn't give you the right to complain and whine when you're not allowed to go outside because you still have to play the game called school, if you will, and sit in your desk and pick up your pencil and do your daily work. 

Ginny: But these experts, I'm going to read a little blurb from your book. So if parents are listening, this might help them figure this out.

“Does your son keep his eyes glued to his book? When you ask him to help with the dishes, he may be word smart.”

So I've got a couple of those that walk, they walk and read, every meal, every restaurant they've got their book. 

“Is your daughter always asking why, why, why? Maybe she is logic smart. Does your daughter doodle all over her notes? She may be picture smart. Does your son irritate others with his constant humming and finger tapping? Music smart. Does your child constantly move and touch everything? They may be body smart. Does your daughter pay so much attention to her cats that she doesn't finish your homework?”

You know, we have friends. We're on a little happy farm here. We have friends that come over and all they want to do is be with the animals. That would be nature smart. 

“Does your son interrupt you? Because he needs to know what you think about his ideas. He may be people smart. Does your daughter get lost in her thoughts and ignore your input? She may be self smart.”

So those were helpful questions for me. And I'm thinking about my own children and thinking about myself. So I thought I'd read that there for parents. And obviously they can learn more about the 8 Great Smarts from your book. But I thought those are really good questions. And I'm curious what you are actually.

Kathy: Well, very word smart. I was a Chatty Cathy as a kid, you know, did drama, did forensics, you know, win the library reading awards in the summer. And now I'm an author and speaker. So, you know, the joke is people pay me to talk. It's a beautiful thing.

So logic smart, I think, with questions. I love it when things make sense. I actually enjoy some of my nativities because of the logic behind them. You know, even as I was describing the one from Czech Republic, you know, why are all the characters in the Nativity bringing in pies and cakes? Then I researched it and found out why - so very logic smart.

Body smart. I'm a former athlete and coach. I did marching band, so that was a combination of music and body smart. 

People smart. I like thinking with other people. People smart people know what they are. They know their ideas are good when they hear themselves say it and someone responds to it. And so as a speaker and as a podcast or, you know, we're in this beautiful zone here where we're interacting and we're having ha ha moments within our own minds and hopefully our listeners are as well. And that's the joy of being people smart. So people would be in my top four as well. Yeah. What about you? What do you think? 

Ginny: All right. So actually, this is the interesting thing. People call me The 1000 Hours Outside lady. Even out in public, we run into people and we run into people here in the parks. “Are you The 1000 Hours Outside lady?” And I do really enjoy being outside, but we fell into it because I was drowning as a mom, not necessarily because that's what I was drawn to. 

I actually love to play the piano, but I don't think that I'm music smart either. I don't think in rhythms. So actually, I think that I'm probably self smart because I know what I like and I am. And I'm probably people smart. I think going through the book, that's where I landed. So I guess what's interesting is that people can have different interests. But maybe also that's not their “smart,” you know? You would think, oh, they must be this or they must be that. But, you know, I was actually surprised. I mean, the book and thinking through the different things where I landed and I just been thinking through about my kids as well. So anyway, it's interesting. I think people should read the book and think it through and it helps, you know yourself better.

Kathy: And I appreciate that, Ginny. What I usually recommend is a top four and bottom four because you can find your joy and your purpose in the way that you've been created to be smart.

The combination of self and people is super important. It can be confusing internally and confusing to the people you live with because they don't know which one of you is going to show up for dinner. But it's ultimately a really good thing to know that about yourself and it can help us identify our children and how to relate well to them, which, of course, is something you and I are both really passionate about. 

Ginny: I love that your ministry is called Celebrate Kids. I mean, I think that that's something that as a society we don't do. And I also think that in general, kids are really siphoned off from the real world. And so, you know, out in public during the day, I mean, we don't see kids and so I just love that: Celebrate Kids.

There's something you said in your book: “I've met many adults who decided they were stupid because of how teachers treated them, what parents said about them, what parents never said, and how easily school came to a sibling. I don't have enough fingers to count the number of times I've heard my brother was the smart one.”

And so I just found that these eight grade smarts for me are a new thing to be learning about. This gives me the tools to hone in on individuality. There's less comparing. 

Kathy:  Kids need to be obedient and we need to teach children that they live, work, love, serve in community. And it starts in the family. So you have an obligation to love your brother. Well, and just because you can whistle, tap and sing doesn't mean you always should. And that's the power of the teacher, again, is to not paralyze out of a child that gift of music, but to allow that child to know there's a time and a place. And we've got 20 minutes of Sete work, 20 minutes of quiet reading, 20 minutes of, you know, your brothers trying to memorize a poem, you know, for the contest at school. And so you really need to be obedient and you need to find a way to be quiet for at least 20 minutes. And kids need to learn that they're capable of that. 

Ginny:  Yeah. And so one of the topics I found in your book was this paralysis versus resilience. Let's talk about what causes paralysis, because actually, I think that's something that people would struggle with their entire life. I struggle with that at times. It is like I don't know what to do or I don't want to do or I'm scared to do, versus there's this quality of resiliency. I want to do it. And even if it doesn't work out, I'm going to keep trying. 

Kathy: The brain is a muscle like all the other muscles in our body and so it can be paralyzed. And so it's possible that somebody is listening today realizing, oh, shoot, I paralyzed my son 20 minutes ago. Well, the good news is that it can be undone. And the other really good news is that, you know, you weren't responsible to know this 20 minutes ago. So, you know, no shame, no blame. But we can, you know, we can walk forward with hope. 

But if I say to a child over and over again, “Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet”. You know, if I would have been raised by parents, you know, “Be quiet, be quiet, shut up. Would you go find something to do? I'm so sick of your talking.” I don't think I'd be here on this podcast with you today. But my parents chose to see all the words in me as a strength to develop, not a problem to eliminate. And that's a key because the things that we do well can irritate others.

I think we often get in trouble with our strengths, not our weaknesses, because too much of a good thing is not a good thing. So the child who asks lots of questions, you might say, “You don't need to know that. Would you just leave me alone?” Or my child who's always doodling and always coloring and was distracted... “Would you just listen to me and put down your pencil?” You know, and the music smart kids are totally hum and beat and, you know, body smart who move, shake, rattle and roll and nature smart who are staring out the window and can't focus. And people smart people who are always talking to other people and self smart people are always, you know, falling kind of into themselves and they're isolated into their own thoughts. And we are uncomfortable with that. And so, you know, get back over here and stop that. 

And the kids can begin to think that that strength in them is bad. And so they stop it because children want to honor their mom and their dad and children want to be loved and they want to be liked and they want to be obedient for those reasons. And yet there may be women and men listening today, right now, Ginny, who realize that a first spouse or a teacher or a sibling said something that caused their brain to atrophy, or maybe it was self-hatred. You know, maybe we even didn't like that part of ourselves because we didn't think it made us smart or it made us good. And so we stopped. But we can be resilient and we can try again and we can choose to hang out with optimistic, encouraging people who love us well. And we can choose to activate the interest that was there when we were younger and to use it for good purposes now.

Ginny: And this gives tools. So, you know, for my daughter that sings all the time, you know, to be able to say, “Honey, you know, you were made music smart and what an awesome quality that you have.” And like you said, this is part of your purpose. And, you know, and even with your story, like you don't know where it's going to show up later on in life, but and then also to be able to say, you know, “This is a for quiet” or “This is a time for stillness” or or those types of things. I think it gives you tools to reframe it. So I think that's a good tool for parents, for teachers. 

Kathy: Yeah, and then, you know, the other thing, Ginny, is to help kids like your daughter know the other ways that she's smart so that she does when she does have to be quiet to respect that grandmas over and gets nervous when there's too much noise or a brother or sister is studying her mom or dad need quiet, that she understands that she can she is capable of controlling herself. Like what a gift to learn that about yourself. And then you don't sit for 20 minutes angry that you have to be quiet. You go to a different part of your brain and you do that for 20 minutes. You read, you color, you play with the dog. You have self smart moments. So that's the other reason to help kids know more about themselves.

Ginny: That's good.

One of the things that you talked about in your book is about the smarts that tend to not be celebrated in the classroom. I actually really loved this part.

There was a child that came up to you and said, “I think I'm a permanent C student. Like how you're permanently tall.” And I thought. Wow, I hope, you know, just sort of this realization about ourselves that some things we can change and some things we can't change as easily and celebrating the way that we are, and I don't know that really that really stuck out to me so. Can we talk about the smarts that are celebrated in school, you know, and the ones that aren't so much and how his parents and teachers, we can help kids through that. 

Kathy: Yeah, for sure. In most schooling situations, it's word and logic that are the most celebrated because word smart children who have a lot of word smart brain cells, read, write, speak and listen easily. And what do we do all day in school? We read, we write, we speak and we listen. And so children who do not have as many smarts in that part of the brain will not find school as enjoyable, or probably it will not be as easy, but they can certainly still be successful. 

Logic smart are kids who think with questions, they like it when things make sense - lots of fact, comparison, contrast, thinking comes easily to them. So science and history tend to be things that they may gravitate toward. Nonfiction versus fiction would be another example. And so children without as many brain cells there are going to feel like they're not as smart as their brother. And yet, in reality, we all know people who have been very successful in life, even if school was hard. 

And we also know people that school was really easy and they're flunking life because life doesn't work like school, you know? And so we do need to celebrate all eight. And so this is part of the book.

For instance, if children aren't terribly word smart and writing is hard for them, but you know that your child is picture smart, make sure your child sees what she's writing. She's writing about the angry sheriff who found the kids playing in the park after curfew. And so see that and now write that. And now you're going to write with more vivid verbs and with richer adjectives because you saw it in your mind. As somebody who's not terribly picture smart, it's one of my weaker ones, I have a hard time as a writer remembering to add adjectives. It doesn't come naturally to me. 

And so you can also use teamwork. I have a member of my staff who proofreaders and who enhances my writing because on my own I'm not as effective as I am when I work with the team. 

Math as an example - Math is a logic smart discipline. But geometry requires logic and picture smart. Chemistry and physics and general science are very logic and word oriented. But what about earth science, biology, meteorology, environmental science? Those are all nature smart sciences. And so if you know that you're raising a kid, is nature smart, now you help him choose a ninth grade science elective that he'll do better at and enjoy. And that actually might be some career focus there as well. 

My thesaurus was one of my favorite books when I was a child and I use it the source now to write, whether it's my blog, my newsletter article or one of my books, because I can as an example, I could look up pretty in at the source and find all kinds of other words that I might not have been able to find in the dictionary. And there's nothing wrong with that. You surround yourself if you knowing your weaknesses is really wise because. They might hurt you, they might hurt others, but then you surround yourself with things and people that will fill in the gaps. 

Ginny: And I think this is a huge message of hope for parents, you know, to say, look, here's an accomplished adult who has written five books, who speaks around the world, and she carries a misspellers dictionary. Like I think then we can take that and say to our kids, you know, find the things that help you. There's nothing wrong with you.You know, we can all find tools that help to strengthen our weaknesses.

I liked in the 8 Great Smarts how you had games that were good for every smart. So for example, word smart is like Scattergories and Apples to Apples. Picture Smart is Tellestrations and hat's one of our absolute favorite games. You have games for all of them, you know, body smart. You have Twister and self smart - puzzles and Legos. And I think you know how and in a family setting that games can help all of your children. Because if you're playing apples to apples and you have a kid who's not word smart, you know, maybe that's one of their top bottom four, you know, then that's going to help bring that up into how we can help our children grow through games that, you know, that's kind of what I got out of it.

Kathy: Absolutely. And I think it also helps us identify why some kids don't want to play certain games. And it's also, of course, games are really, really good when the family loves each other. Well, you know, games are not healthy if there's a lot of comparison itis and teasing and, you know, man, you're so stupid. So maybe we team it up. Maybe a child partners with the child who's not as good as that, and they play apples to apples as a team so that they can be supportive, you know, but yes, games can be a super fun way to awaken the smarts because the capacity is there when we're born. It needs to be awakened and strengthened and developed and supported. So absolutely. 

Ginny: Yeah, I love that. We usually do a giveaway with all of our podcasts. That would be to give away some games. We really like a lot of the ones that were on your list.

Let’s talk about Screens and Teens since technology is so pervasive. I put down a couple of quotes and one of the things you said is young people don't think about their technology. Technology is technology only for people who were born before it was here. Yeah, that was eye opening for me. You know that our kids don't view this the same way that adults do. It's just their world. 

Kathy: Yeah. They're so intuitive. It's just a part of them. Kids have said it's like breathing, you know. And so, like, when I use technology, I have to use brain cells to actually think about it. And I have a purpose to go somewhere with my tech. Whereas for young people like you were saying that your kids can walk and read a book at the same time, you know, young people today think they can multitask and use technology at all times and do things. And it's here to stay. There's nothing inherently horrible about tech, but it can change our character. It can change our beliefs if we're not careful. And that's the passion. You know, as you know, Ginny, my book is not about technology. It's not about platforms and apps. 

Celebrate Kids is to help parents and educators and even young people themselves understand how the use of technology can influence what we believe and how we behave if we're not careful, you know, we're all more impatient than we used to be. Let's just admit that. And that's because of the ease of the click of the mouse and the GPS and everything's on the phone that you think you'll ever need. And we don't have to wait. And when we have to wait, it's just terrible. The red light, like it's very hard. People have admitted to me to not pick up a phone at a red light and it's 60 seconds. 

Ginny: One of the quotes that was in here - Well, you had a great little paragraph about things to do, like let's make meals together, let's enjoy life, let's discuss what we're reading and what we find enjoyable and what we find intriguing. Let's play board games. Let's talk and laugh. So I just love that, you know, it just reminds you of a full life. Let's go to sporting events, that type of thing. Let's plant in the garden. And one of the parents said, “I am putting down the screen. My son had not left us as much as I had left him.” I thought that was quite a statement. I think a lot of times we look at it that screens are pulling teens away from our family or they're pulling our children from us, but then that was a different perspective, which is that, you know, possibly that screens are pulling us away from our children. Is that something that you see? 

Kathy: Oh, absolutely. And it's what kids see. Kids tell me they won't talk to their mom about something that's hard to talk about if she has her phone in her hand, because as soon as the pings are things, she's distracted and she's going to go there in her mind, even if she's trying to listen to me, if we're honest, when we're stressed and depressed, we go to our social media, we go to our Pinterest boards, we go to our games on our phones. We have to be really careful of that. Dads might be gaming. They might be out on a bank website, at an ESPN website. Nothing horrible about any of that. But kids want our full attention. And I wish that we would be better when we're at present, let's be present and let's try to wait for some of those kinds of things until our kids are in bed or our kids are at soccer practice. And then we go to social media.

I don't say that lightly. You know, we have a right to be on tech, but we also, if you're a parent, be a parent. If you're married, be present. There are divorces happening because the man was in the man cave and the woman was out on Pinterest board. And I know that that's true. I'm not making that up. And so we need to be really, really careful about it. It pulls us, right? It pulls us. It's quick, it's easy, it's about us. There are reasons that we're drawn to it. Technology is teaching us the lie that we deserve to be happy all the time because we are on our phones. We want to do what we want. So it's all about what we want. We can believe we’re the center of our own universe. 

You know, before I got onto the podcast with you, Ginny, which is such a privilege to be here, really, really grateful for you. Before I came on with you, I posted something on social media. I endorsed a book and the book launches today. So I posted a picture of myself with the book and posted a high recommendation. It's a book about mental health and I really want people to read it. So when we are finished, I will go to social media to see how many people have liked that to see if there's any problem with the post. And I have to be really careful. What if no one's liked it in an hour? Like, where are all my people? And so we have to be we have to be really, really careful that we don't fall into the trap.

Addiction to technology is real and addiction to what it does to us is real. That's why in our homes we need to leave the board game out. Don't put all the board games in the board game closet, put a put a checkers board on the coffee table and put a a coloring book on the on the end table and put a jigsaw puzzle up in the living room and put a Frisbee and a soccer ball at the back door and leave things out. I'm not asking for clutter and mess.

Ginny: If you think about it in that respect, our phones are always there. But these things that facilitate relationship are not always there. And we have to put in effort to go get them out. And I think that that is actually a very practical, really good idea. Can we plant things around our life that help facilitate, you know, getting serotonin in a different way and now your relationship and through action and activity? 

Kathy: Thank you. I think they're practical and I think I think they could work for the mom and dad and for the kid. Yeah, they'll be there. We just have to choose to do it. 

Ginny: I agree. And, you know, I've heard a lot about how kids are not learning to cope with hard emotions because they always just turn to the screen and we need to learn how to cope with hard emotions. Life has hard moments. And so we're always turning to the screen to sort of numb that. And that's a disadvantage down the road. Kathy, I really enjoyed your books. I liked the “Five to Thrive.” There were all these questions about social skills. I really liked that. I'm right in the middle here. 

“Am I an active listener? Do I genuinely care about what people are saying? Do I have empathy and sympathy for their situation and communicate that? Why or why not?”

You know, these are really good questions, I think especially we've got preteens and teens. 

“Do I share what I've been told even when I shouldn't?” 

I really love this. You know, four or five pages here of really good questions.

“How can I be certain that a relationship is no longer healthy?”

So I really like this as a resource. Your books are fantastic. So I've got these three here. I have Five to Thrive, Screens and Teens and 8 Great Smarts. Kathy, what are the other two books? 

Kathy: I appreciate your endorsement so much. I've also written No More Perfect Kids with Jill Savage, and it's a book about raising the children you were given, not the children you wish you had and not trying to create them in your image, which of course is not healthy. And then the other book is the book Start with the Heart. And it's a book about securing their heart so that they'll care about what you think. So it's a book about motivation and character and communication and very, very important. A lot of practical. My books are practical and they are written for moms and dads who care about the kiddos. 

Ginny: Yeah, I like the size, like they're easy to kind of throw in your purse and carry around. So I like that too. And, you know, I think we all need practical. What can I do today? You know, I can get out a game. I can set a football at the back door like these types of things. I can start to talk to my kids about their relationships and their friendships and those deeper things, you know, the things that we learn in time. But do we really teach them? Do our kids have these opportunities? So, Kathy, if people want to find more about your books, if they want to find more about Celebrate Kids, where can they go? 

Kathy: Our website is very simple. It's celebratekids.com . My podcast is called Encouraged with Celebrie Kids. And we're all over social media as you are. And we would love for people to like us, follow us and all those kinds of things and hang out. We have a newsletter, an email newsletter that comes out every Friday that includes the Ask a Child questions and a column. For me, it's free and short because people are busy and they can subscribe to that newsletter at the website celebratekids.com . So thank you for letting me promote that and really appreciate what you're doing. And the fact that we're connected brings all of us to celebrate. Kids love you and what you do. Really glad to be here today. 

Ginny: You're sweet. I really love the “Ask a Child Questions.” Everyone loves to talk about themselves. I learned that as a young age, people like to talk about themselves and, you know, so if we can find time to listen and ask good questions around the dinner table, our kids love those questions in there. I usually grab them from Instagram, but they're also in the newsletter. And the kids are like, give us more, ask us more.

Kathy: So great. Yeah, it's like that in our newsletter, but I appreciate that you use them. 

Ginny: They are a great resource. So thank you for that. Kathy, can we end with a favorite outdoor childhood memory of yours? 

Kathy: You know, there are many, I will say, playing croquet with my brother and cousins. So I was raised with all of my cousins. We lived within a mile of each other. We went to school and church together. Grandparents, aunts and uncles were really close. And my grandparents on my mom's side had a perfect backyard for croquet - the right little hill here and the tree that would get in the way there. 

And my brother and my cousin were the ones that regularly set up the metal loops that you would have to knock the ball through. And they loved making it challenging. And so I would say, you know, hanging out on a Saturday afternoon, we went to my grandmother's every Saturday morning for pancakes every Saturday morning, oh, every Saturday morning with our grandparents for pancakes. And we would stay after and in the right weather, we would play croquet. And so hanging out with people and certainly enjoying the fresh air. There's other memories. But that's the one that stood out to me the day when I knew you were going to ask me that question. 

Ginny:Yeah, that's really special. I love it. I love the simplicity. You know, that's not hard. No. It's nice to have the little loops and the, you know, the mallets.

Kathy: When we're playing with people, thoughts and feelings merge and ideas are shared and wisdom rises so played. We should never say, “Oh, I didn't get much done today. I just played with my kids.” There might be nothing more important than spending time with children, whether that's going for a walk or playing croquet or, you know, fill in the blank. So I just wanted to leave your listeners with that idea that what you're doing to recommend that we're outside and that what we're talking about here, whether it be board games or croquet, it's thoughts and feelings and people emerging and coming together in wisdom. It's so important. 

Ginny: I'm glad you brought that up, because actually one of the things that I had thought about when I was reading 8 Great Smarts is that sometimes these things are actually really overwhelming. You know, it's like if you have a classroom of twenty five kids or you have one child or two children and five children or ten children or whatever your situation is, you have nieces and nephews and, you know, you say, oh, you could come at this and say, oh, this is actually kind of overwhelming, you know, all these different smarts and how how as one person am I supposed to facilitate. 

But I was thinking about how when you go outside. There are opportunities, I think, to touch on all of those, you know, so I've got the child that loves to read, always has a book with them. But then also there's a lot of opportunities for logic. You know, the kids are smashing ice and there's all these things that they're testing. They're testing fulcrum points and balance. An obvious one with the body smart and the kids are able to climb and then and then outdoors. It's like you've got the birds and you've got you've got space to hum. You know, the woods in the trees and the air absorbs your noise a little bit. That was always something that when my kids were young, I thought when I go outside it's quieter. Even if the kids are loud, it’s quieter for me as a mom. There are so many visual things outdoors. 

And so this was a little bit of a hope for me. You know, instead of getting overwhelmed, I thought, well, here's a venue, an environment that sort of facilitates all of all of the things. We can be obviously self smart. There's time for introspection and then people smart, there's a lot of time for social interaction as well. So I'm glad you brought that up, because it was something I was thinking about through the book and I kind of forgot about it. It was sort of a little spark of hope for me that, you know, we're getting outside, that it's giving the kids opportunity to strengthen their weaknesses and strengthen their strengths. 

Kathy: Love it. It was a joy to be with you, Ginny. Appreciate you so much. 

Ginny: Thank you. We are coming to see those nativities. 

Kathy: I would love that. 

Ginny: Thanks, Kathy.