Introduction to FLIP IT! - Transforming Challenging Behavior in Your Early Childhood Program

Editor’s note: This text-based course is an edited transcript of the webinar, Introduction to FLIP IT! - Transforming Challenging Behavior in Your Early Childhood Program, presented by Rachel Wagner, BS, MSW.

Learning Outcomes

After this course, participants will be able to:

• Identify the three prerequisites for FLIP IT success.
• Explain the reason we acknowledge children’s feelings.
• List the three steps that follow the feelings step.

Introduction and Agenda

Welcome to this introduction to FLIP IT. FLIP IT is a four-step strategy that helps us to respond to children's behaviors in ways that build up their skills and build up our relationship with them. I'm going to start with a story of how FLIP IT began because that will really give you the brush strokes of the four steps. You'll get to really see it in action. I'm going to share that story as we get started. Then we'll get into what I call the FLIP IT prerequisites. Those are the things that need to be in place for this strategy to be successful. I'd like to take a closer look at the first step of the FLIP IT process. FLIP IT is an acronym that starts with F-L-I and then P. The F is the feeling step. If we don't get that one right the rest of it doesn't work. During this course, we're going to really zero in on the feeling step. Before we're done, we will take a quick look at the L the I and the P, but you will hear and see it as we make our way through our time together.

As we get started there are always a couple of things I like to ask of folks as they're taking in this information. The first thing I like to ask is for people to be critical, which is a brave thing for an educator to ask of her students. But I think, especially when you're learning about a strategy that's supposed to work for children who use challenging behavior, I think it's important to be a little bit skeptical. I know that we already are skeptical, like yeah right, is this really going to work for that kid, or is that really going to work when I have 20 kids in a room. I think it's important and I embrace it. I think that the more we try to poke holes in a strategy the more likely we'll be to use it if it holds up to our criticism and our skepticism. I really want you to try to poke some holes in this strategy and see if it holds up. I hope that you'll find that it does.

In the same breath that I ask you to be critical, I encourage you to be open-minded. I think you can be both at the same time. The reason of course that I ask you to be open-minded is it will never hurt to try something new that will hopefully help kids. I am guessing you might have questions when you're through with this course, so I encourage you to check out moreflipit.org because there's a section called frequently asked questions (FAQs), where I've captured questions that I've gotten over the last 10-15 years and put answers in. If there are any questions that bubble up you might be able to find some good answers there.

The Story

Let's get started with the story of how FLIP IT began. I started my career as a pre-school teacher and then I became a social worker. About 19 years ago I ended up working in a therapeutic pre-school. Our therapeutic pre-school was a really intense environment full of therapists and special educators. We took kids in therapeutic pre-school who had to be expelled from three other pre-schools before they came to us. These children were three, four, and five-years-old and had already been expelled from three other programs, which proved that they had a really hard time being successful anywhere else.

I was a young social worker full of enthusiasm when I met a little girl named Hayley. She was four years old and had blonde hair and blue eyes. She came to therapeutic pre-school having being expelled from four other pre-school programs before she got to us. She had had a really rough go of it in her first years in pre-school. What we knew about Hayley when we met her is that she had experienced a great deal of abuse and neglect in her early years of life and that she was in her third foster care placement at four years old. Her previous foster care placements had let her go. The first two had let her go because of her violent and aggressive behavior. When we met her she was in the care of this lovely sort of older couple who were about ready to let her go because they were getting pretty sick of getting beat up by little Hayley. She was really tough and they really wanted to hang in there but they were getting assaulted on a pretty daily basis by our little buddy.

Hayley was tough and I will just describe a little bit of what her personality was like. I worked the closing shift at therapeutic pre-school so when I arrived all the kids were already in the room. I would walk in the room and wherever she was in the room she would look at me kind of surprised that I came back. She was always surprised I showed up again. She'd look up and appear sort of shocked. Then she'd pop up from where she was, march over to me, put her little hands on her hips, and look up at me and say, "Rachel!" That's literally how she talked, like a 60-year-old smoker. She'd say "Rachel, what are you doing here you fat, feeble female?!" Fat, feeble, female. There was another F word in there but I'll leave that one out. Then she would kick me or slap me or her favorite thing to do was to try to rip my bleeping eyeballs out. She would literally charge and try to gouge my eyeballs out. That was every morning.

Can you imagine how fun it is to go to work when the first thing that's going to happen when you walk in the door is you're going to get called a fat feeble female and then get slapped or kicked? That was Hayley about every five to 10 minutes of every day. Every five to 10 minutes of every day we were sort of on guard because she was going to be charging someone or pulling someone's hair or cursing somebody out. It was me or another therapist or a teacher or another child in the room. We didn't just have Hayley, we had 11 other kids with very similar stories who used challenging behaviors in very similar ways.

I'm going to tell you, we sweat a lot in therapeutic pre-school. I felt like I did a lot of chasing kids, a lot of getting beat up, and I bled sometimes. It was a tough environment. We were a well-funded program, we were well-trained staff, and we really had felt like we had tried everything. Nothing felt like it was working. When I say this in live training everyone starts to nod their heads because I think we can all identify, whether it's as a teacher, as a parent, or as a social worker, with those moments when it doesn't feel like anything's working and how frustrating it is to feel like you're trying stuff, you have the best of intentions, and nothing feels like it's working.

Along my journey, early in my career, I came upon some resources that really inspired me. They were strength-based, resilience-focused resources, and they really gave way to the four steps of the FLIP IT process. I became inspired. FLIP IT is nothing new, but in therapeutic pre-school, we found we were often sort of scrambling and tongue-tied. When a child calls you a fat, feeble female and then tells you she wants to rip your eyeballs out you get a little tongue-tied. Accessing best practices doesn't always come naturally. I started reading all the good stuff that was out there on being strength-based and resilience-focused and these steps revealed themselves. They're not new but I needed to organize them in a way that my brain could remember in a tongue-tied moment.  Figure 1 shows my representation of these four steps knows as the FLIP IT Model.

Figure 1. FLIP IT Model.

The first thing, and I think we all know this already, is that when children are having a difficult moment they are having a feeling. I'm going to be honest, that wasn't what we were talking about when kids were trying to rip our eyeballs out. We were telling them, "No, Stop it, Be kind." We were not talking to them about the difficult feeling that was erupting inside of them. At the therapeutic pre-school we all agreed that when kids were having difficult moments we were going to start with feelings. Hayley's foster parents also agreed to try this strategy with us.

Once we acknowledged the feeling we had to give kids boundaries and limits because life is about having feelings but not always being able to act on them and having limits for those. You have to follow up the acknowledgment of the feeling with a limit and then once we have a feeling and we have a boundary around it, we have to figure out what else we can do with it. We have to figure out how to live with hard feelings. We call that adulting in our grown-up lives. We have feelings and limits but we have to find ways that are appropriate to cope with them. In the inquiry step, we ask questions that get kids thinking about how they're going to cope. These are inquiries that invite kids to think. Then if they need a little help thinking because they are only four and they haven't been asked to do much thinking yet, we can follow up with prompts. Prompts are where we offer suggestions and ideas and alternate coping strategies.

This is our process. It's not new and it's not rocket science. I'm going to be honest. I travel this country and I parent four children and it's not always the first thing that comes out of my mouth. What I do know comes out of people's mouths pretty quickly is the L and the P. Don't do this, do this instead. But we miss those other two really important steps of you're having a feeling and I need you to start thinking your way through stuff.

FLIP IT! with Hayley

This is what the FLIP would sound like with Hayley. Hayley would have a difficult moment and I'm not going to lie, these were difficult moments where she was charging me to try to rip my bleeping eyeballs out, so I would block because you still have to block, but then I would do a feeling statement. My feeling statement sounded like this. "Oh my goodness Hayley, you are so mad!" You don't have to talk like me. You just have to talk about feelings and I think you should bring yourself to your FLIP. I knew for Hayley that if I did it like this and I mirrored her face, that it would catch her attention in those moments a little bit. So I would say, "Oh my goodness Hayley, you are so mad."

The limit. "Remember we agreed that we're going to keep each other safe." Those were our classroom rules. She had agreed to those and she had signed off and put her little handprint on them so I said, "Remember we agreed we're going to keep each other safe."

Here's the inquiry. What can we do with your mad? She didn't know. She's never been asked to think about that before. I want all of you to take a moment and think about what do you do with your mad. When I'm in a room full of people I say, "Think about the healthy things you do with your mad and the not so healthy things you do with your mad." That's really the key here is I want to raise kids who know healthy things to do with their mad. A lot of us might turn to food or alcohol or sort of unhealthy coping strategies, and I want kids at an early age to learn healthy ways to deal with their mad. This is a really critical good inquiry. What can we do with your mad?

Of course, Hayley doesn't know so we have to follow up with some options. I said, "How about we try to blow some bubbles to take some deep breaths. Will that help you get your mad out?" Hayley promptly responded, "No, bleep off." Prompts aren't easy. Finding the thing that's going to work for each child is not a one-size-fits-all. What you do with your mad may be different than what 10 other people in the room do with theirs. We have to find the thing that's going to work for Hayley. So I offered some other prompts. I said, "How about we go for a walk? Sometimes it really helps me if I just go for a walk around the building. Want to try that?" She replied, "No, bleep off!" So I said, "Okay. How about we squeeze some play-doh to help you get your mad out, we'll squeeze it, that might help." She said, "No, bleep off." I said, "Well how about I rub your back. Hayley can I rub your back.? She said, "No." But she didn't tell me to bleep off, which was progress.

I think the better you know the child the better you'll be able to prompt them because you'll better know what they need and what they gravitate to. I knew this child's history and I knew that she needed comfort. I knew that she needed some soothing and some comforting touch that she didn't get when she was little. I also knew it was hard for her to accept and it was hard for her to trust. So I tried to offer her some other prompts. I would say, "Okay, let's not rub your back but how about if I get a car and I roll the car on your back or on your legs?" She said no, but she looked interested. So I tried a lot of different things. I said, "How about we get lotion? We'll put lotion on your hands and try to get your hands peaceful?" No. I said, "How about I scratch your head? Would that help if I scratched your head?" No.

I knew in my gut, and I think we all have to trust our guts in this work, that she needed touch. Every time we went through this FLIP and I'd get to prompts I'd say, "How about I rub your back." No! "How about I scratch your head?" No! "How about we get the lotion and rub it over your hands?" No! "How about I roll a car on your legs?" No! But one day, eventually, I got a little desperate and I said, "Hayley, can I scratch your feet." Lucky me, she thought it was funny and she said, "Yes." Here's my big tip for the day folks. Do not offer a prompt you can't live with. I had no problem with feet, but if you do don't offer it. She thought it was funny and she took off her little socks and she gave me her little feet and she let me scratch the bottoms of them. I'll tell you, she melted. She got the touch that she needed, but she's the smartest little kiddo in the world because when you think about it, she got touched but at her feet, which kept me at a distance. That was everything. I just thought wow you're so smart. You're getting what you need but you don't quite trust yet so you're keeping me at a distance. That touch just calmed her.

Figure 2. FLIP IT! with Hayley.

Now we have a FLIP that's starting to work for Hayley. Everyone is doing it and every time she has a difficult moment we start with F. "Oh my goodness Hayley, you are so mad." Then we move onto L. "Remember, we agreed we're going to keep each other safe." Inquiry - "So what can we do with that mad?" Prompt - "How about we try scratching those feet?" There's my idea. We did it over and over and over again for two to three months. This was a child with a lot of trauma and eventually, some pretty cool things started to happen. We did it so consistently that eventually all I would have to say is oh my goodness and she'd say, "I know," and she'd take her socks off. Think about it. Her automatic reaction to mad used to be to rip my eyeballs out. Now her automatic reaction to mad is to rip her socks off.

I will never forget a time when I was doing a circle time one morning and we were taking turns and I made a choice to not call on her first. Usually, when I did not call on Hayley first she popped from her seat and charged me. I was ready though. I wasn't going to call on her and I wanted to see what happened. I put my arm up ready to block her and I didn't call on her. She popped out of her seat and I kept doing my circle and she looked like she wanted to charge me. Instead, she turned her little body around, walked herself over to her cozy area, took off her little socks, laid out a pillow, laid herself down, stuck her feet out, and she waited. Let's be real, she waited 20 minutes because that's how long it took me to get to her. That is when it occurred to me that FLIP IT needed to also be about scaffolding. It's about learning a new skill and providing a ton of support initially, being her foot scratcher, but then eventually helping her to scratch her own feet.

Figure 3. Foot scratcher.

So I went out and I got her a scratcher as seen in figure 3. I knew that when I introduced it I had to introduce it like it was the coolest thing ever because this had to be as cool as one-on-one time with me, which had become special to her. I brought it in and I made it so exciting. We practiced using it and she loved it. She started scratching her own feet. Miss Hayley went to kindergarten with a foot scratcher and a kindergarten teacher who was ready and willing to use it because she was terrified to have Hayley in her room.

I'm not going to lie. Hayley needed a lot in kindergarten but she made it through. She stabilized and she made it through kindergarten, first grade, and then second grade. That lovely couple that was fostering her moved forward with adoption. I'm not going to tell you her whole life has been simple or that FLIP IT was the thing that saved us, but I'm going to tell you that FLIP IT saved me. FLIP IT gave me a focus in those sweaty, I can't think straight moments that a lot of us have, teaching, parenting, and providing support to kids.

Think About Your Hayley

At this moment, I think it would be really helpful if you all just took a deep breath and thought about your Hayley. You probably signed up for this course because you have a Hayley in mind. I hope she's not, or he's not as serious as my example, but perhaps you have a Hayley that's heavy on your heart and mind. Take a moment to quietly reflect on that child. Jot down some thoughts about that child's strengths, interests, passions, and challenges. 

As we make our way through the rest of this content I want you to keep that child in mind. I want you to think about your Hayley. As we talk about this strategy it will help you with that skeptical sort of process of will this really work with that child. Will it really work with that behavior? Hopefully, by the time we make our way through you'll feel like it does apply.

FLIP IT! Overview

Now I'm going to give you a FLIP IT overview. This is the basic nuts and bolts of things I like people to know about the strategy. FLIP IT is a targeted intervention. A targeted intervention is an intervention you can use for children who are already exhibiting risk factors or behavioral concerns. FLIP IT is great for children like I described. But what I hope you can also hear in the introduction to this strategy is that FLIP IT can also be used for everyday minor challenges. Examples such as he stole my pencil or he's in my seat. FLIP those. FLIP the little annoying things for a variety of reasons. When you FLIP the little annoying things, it's easier when the big things happen. You are ready and so are the kids. They are used to the language, the process, and you are grounded. Kids feel that.

I think one of the greatest by-products of FLIP IT is when you start to use it regularly kids feel that you're in control and that there is a process they can count on. It reduces the anxiety of all the kids around the challenging moment because they think, our teacher's got this, I've seen her do it for the little stuff and I've seen her do it for the big stuff, and it's a comfort. Please consider practicing and using it for the little things, so that everyone's ready, including yourself, for the big stuff.

Another thing I always like people to know about FLIP IT is that it is best practice made simple. It is nothing new. It is everything old, wise, good, and well-researched. It's just packaged in a way that we can hopefully remember. It is a strength-based strategy. It is common sense. It is effective and portable and easy to remember, which was very important to me. It was easy to share. I wanted to be able to use it as a therapist. I wanted the teachers in the room to use it. I wanted foster parents, other family members, and even the bus drivers to be able to use it. I've done FLIP IT training for fleets of bus drivers. I want everyone to be able to share this strategy so that we can be as consistent as humanly possible across the board, with all the adults in a child's life. It's applicable in a variety of situations. It's four simple steps. It's supported by research.

Research Supports FLIP IT!

• Informed by a thorough literature review
• A 2016 study examined FLIP IT as a four-step process and observed long-term changes after a single training
• Study found that within-child protective factors increased steadily and behavior problems decreased steadily across a six-month period
• Study found that caregiver-child relationships steadily improved over a six-month period
• 100% of participants reported positive outcomes
• 92% reported that FLIP IT was a natural fit with their personal caregiving style

When I started sort of doing the research and development for the FLIP IT book and the training, we did a thorough literature review. We found that each of the four steps is evidence-based. Just doing feelings by itself is good practice. Just doing limits or just doing inquiries is good practice. When we put it all together we wanted to see if we could get some research that showed that putting it together in this order worked.

In 2016, the University of Miami in Ohio did a research study. They started by training caregivers on the FLIP IT strategy during a one-day training. They tracked what happened after caregivers learned this strategy and learned that in the six months following the experience of the one-day FLIP IT training, children's protective factors increased. Protective factors are what helps children to be socially and emotionally strong and healthy and cope with life. The behavioral concerns steadily decreased over that six month period. This included behavioral concerns for some minor stuff but also for things like anxiety and depression indexes. It was exciting to see that it hit on some of the more major stuff as well.

My favorite part of the study is that it found that doing FLIP IT with children increased your relationship with the child. This is one of the most important things we all know to be true is that if we can improve our relationship things just sort of fall in place. In addition, 100% of the participants in this study reported positive outcomes and 92% said that they felt like FLIP IT fit into what they were already doing. This is great when you think about all the different ways people parent and teach in the world, that 92% of folks said FLIP IT fits in with the other great stuff that they are already doing. This is so nice to hear because I know a lot of you are educators who are using other curriculums and models and programs, and I think those are wonderful and all the good research-based stuff plays really nicely in the sandbox with the other research-based stuff.

How Long Does It Take?

FLIP IT is a strategy that can fit really nicely into some of the bigger stuff you might be doing with children. Many times after people hear the overview they think, "Well that's lovely Rachel, but how long does it take to do a FLIP because I don't have all day." I say, I know, you don't have all day. But you also don't have time not to because we want kids to learn these skills for life. If we don't do it we often spend more time in a power struggle. What I'll say is, of course, it depends on the situation as to how long it will take to do a FLIP. My friends who FLIP their teenagers sometimes say the feeling step takes an hour. Realistically, in early childhood environments with children between the ages of three and eight to 10, I would say a FLIP takes about one to 10 minutes, depending on the severity. The better you get at it the quicker it'll go. I have been FLIP-ing for about 20 years and I can move through almost anything in about one minute. The more you practice, the easier and better it gets.

Additional Things To Know

A few other quick disclaimers. One thing I always want people to know is that FLIP IT isn't the only strategy on the planet. It's not the only one you should use and it should be used in combination with other good stuff that's out there. It is not magic. I think if there was magic out there we would have found it already and somebody would be making millions of dollars. I think that it is hard work. It is hard work helping children learn self-control and to learn to cope with their feelings, and it requires some consistency. I didn't lie to you when I said it took a couple of months to get Hayley in her groove. For kids who have less trauma, it won't take as long, but it still will require some consistency.

Last but not least, if you've got children with more severe behavioral issues and needs you want to get mental health professionals involved. FLIP IT certainly can't be the only thing you do. For my friend Hayley, we had a comprehensive plan for her. FLIP IT was one small part of a plan that involved attachment work and family therapy and a whole bunch of other things that were happening. FLIP IT should be used in conjunction with other good things, but if a child has really involved respecters and needs, please get the right professionals involved.

FLIP IT Prerequisites - Relationships, Empathy, & ICK

I told you that I wanted to make sure that we went over what I consider to be the FLIP IT prerequisites. What I mean by that is there are some things that need to be in place for FLIP IT to be successful. I could spend a whole day on these three things but we're going to spend just a couple of minutes reviewing them. We should have relationships with kids, we have to have empathy for them, and we have to have an understanding of something that I call ick.

Relationships

• Every strategy is only as good as the RELATIONSHIP it is built upon!

As you know, relationships are the foundation for everything we do with children, and for everything we do with other humans. The better the relationship, the easier hard things go and the more fun good things are. Relationships are everything and they are everything to FLIP IT. Every strategy that we use, FLIP IT or otherwise, is only as good as the relationship it's built upon.

I remember when I went for my interview at the therapeutic pre-school it was nap time. I was in the classroom during that time being interviewed and a little guy was really testing the teacher who was interviewing me and also testing me, the new person in the room. He was crawling under things and he was crawling on top of things. The teacher said "Oh this is a good test. Rachel, what would you do? Go ahead and show us your magic." I said, "This child doesn't have a relationship with me. It would be really hard for me to do anything magical, but I'll give it a try." I think a relationship was critical and that's what got me the job. I think it's so important that we all understand that without a relationship a lot of the stuff we do may not work.

Empathy

We could spend hours on relationships and how to connect with kids, especially kids who are challenging, but I only have an hour with you so we'll move on to empathy which is really critical for the feeling step, for the first step of this process. What is empathy? Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. The ability to think and feel from, in this case, a child's perspective. To put it simply, I really think of FLIP IT empathy as the ability to honor a child-size problem. This is often really hard to do. You might be thinking, I have a mortgage, a parent with some health issues, I have a car payment, and I have a washer and drier that need to be replaced. I have all this grown-up stuff going on in my life, and you are crying because your shoelace is broken or you spilled some peaches? It might be really hard for me to stop and think ooh, at three years old, peaches are a big deal. At four, shoes are everything. Learning to put them on and learning to take them off. Shoes are a big deal so when the shoelace is broken that matters. One of the prerequisites for even being able to do the feeling step, we have to be able to think, I see you and I can honor this child-size problem. I can take a moment and sort of think about what it's like to be three-years-old or what it's like to be five- or seven-years-old and really think about what these experiences are like.

Ick

• ICK refers to the negativity or risk factors in an individual’s life. ICK includes factors within ourselves, our families, and our environment that make us feel bad and less able to handle challenges.

The last thing I think is really important for FLIP IT to be successful is we have to understand something that I call ick and that professionals call risk factors. I often say children don't wake up in the morning trying to ruin our days. They don't wake up and say, "I'd like to make your life awful today." They wake up feeling icky. When I talk about ick I'm referring to the risk factors, the things that make life hard. Kids can have risk factors within themselves. They can be born with some ick. They can have ick in their family systems. Maybe Dad is deployed or Mom and Dad are fighting a lot or they are living with Grandma sometimes and not quite sure where they are going to sleep that night. All of that creates ick.

There is also environmental ick. We know that our kids who spend a lot of time in front of screens have more ick. They're getting exposed to violence and not so great behavior. We know kids who live in unsafe neighborhoods feel ick. Kids who are in low-quality education settings have ick.

Everybody can get slimed and when I think about Hayley, I have my little ick here. When I think about Hayley I think this is Hayley and this is how she came to pre-school. We think about everything that she's lived through. She came sort of weighed down. It's pretty hard to behave when you're weighed down by so many things in your life. I know some kids who can handle a lot of ick and still function pretty well, and some kids who have just a little and they fall apart. Kids are born with different abilities and tolerance levels to ick, but it's so important that we acknowledge that they are not doing the behaviors because they want to ruin our lives. They are doing these behaviors because they are feeling something hard that's happening. Just because you have ick doesn't mean you're doomed. We know that more and more kids are probably being exposed to more and more ick through screens, through really chaotic schedules, and through the climate that they feel out in the world.

Children haven't changed, but childhood has.

This quote really resonates with me and a lot of people I share it with. I think that maybe there isn't more ick but we're more aware of the ick that kids are weighted down with, and we're seeing more and more children at younger and younger ages showing us their ick. Kids usually show us their ick in a variety of different ways, but the ick is connected to the feelings.

FLIP IT - Step 1 - Feelings

Let's take a look at the feelings step. The feelings step is the first part of the process and you have already heard how it works. The definition for the feelings step is written below.  I'd like for you to read it out loud.

Gently talk with children about their feelings and what you are seeing and hearing as a result of their emotions. Help children identify the root feelings causing the behavior.

As you read the definition I hope that there were some words that jumped out at you. The first word in the definition of the feelings step is to gently talk with children, which really speaks to the way you enter into a FLIP. You have to enter into it gently. I lovingly say this, but if you can't enter into a FLIP gently you might need to go to the bathroom and FLIP yourself, which you can do. You can go through your own feelings and limits and inquiries and prompts before you go out there and FLIP a child. The first part of being able to do a good feeling statement is to enter in gently.

I hope, as you read the definition out loud, you also noticed the words seeing and hearing. We want to talk to children about their feelings and what we're seeing and hearing. In my FLIP 18 years ago with Hayley, I didn't do this because I didn't know about it yet. Now I would say to her, "Hayley, your face is red and your fists are tight. I wonder if you're feeling mad." I would describe it a little more because when we describe to kids what's going on they start to become more connected to it. They start to get more present. They start to come back in their bodies. For those of you who are familiar with how the brain works and when the amygdala fires, kids are in fight or flight and are kind of having an out-of-body experience. When you describe what you're seeing and hearing, we help them to get sort of back in their bodies. Noticing is powerful.

I want you to think about your life as an adult, when somebody has really noticed you and what's happened. Think about how when somebody really pays attention it helps you to get connected. Sometimes it makes you cry because they've gotten you connected with a hard feeling. Until you connect with a hard feeling you can't work through it though. Make sure you describe what you're seeing and hearing.

I hope the word identify jumped out at you as well. We want to be able to help children identify their feelings. You cannot fix it if you cannot name it. We want kids to start to get a rich feelings vocabulary where they know what's happening inside of them and have words for it. If you've only been on the planet for three years you don't have all the words yet. You may not even understand it. So the word isn't "understand," the word is "identify." Later on, we'll get to understand it but the key at first is to just be able to label it to identify it.

And the last word I always like to highlight in this definition is the word root. We want to get to the root of this challenging moment that we're in. One of the best visuals we have of course about feelings and behavior is that of a tree.

Figure 4. Tree showing feelings and behavior.

In figure 4 you can see a tree where at the roots we've got feelings and what grows from feelings is behavior. The leaves and branches are behavior. Of course, when we look at a tree we don't see roots. Most of the time when we walk through the woods we see leaves and branches. We don't see roots. When we look at kids we don't see feelings we just see what grows from them, we see the behavior.

It's important for us to notice that if kids have any ick at their roots, we might see it manifest in challenging behaviors. We're going to see it in more challenging behaviors. When there's ick at a child's roots they usually do one of two icky things. They will FLIP in or FLIP out. A FLIP in is when a child takes their ick and internalizes or holds in that ick. Those are our children who withdraw more, hide under the table, suck their thumb, or avoid participating, eating, or talking. They are the children who take their ick and hold it in. We have to pay attention to those that FLIP in because they usually end up FLIP-ing out. We want to catch it before it gets to that point. Kids who FLIP in probably have just as much ick and just as much of a need for us to intervene as the child who's FLIP-ing out and flipping the table.

A FLIP out is when kids take the ick they have in their lives, like little Miss Hayley, and share it with everyone in the form of kicking, cursing, slapping, biting, spitting, the whole nine yards. It's the externalizing and sharing of ick. We've got FLIP in's and we've got FLIP out's.

We have a third choice which is to learn how to FLIP IT, because ick may not go away. Learning to cope with ick is a lifelong journey. If we can learn to FLIP IT, that's learning to cope with our ick and that's what we hope for all of us, for kids and for grown-ups. Ick doesn't mean you're doomed. Ick just means you better have some coping skills. That is key.

Unfortunately, when we see behavior, we tend to address it by trimming it. In an early childhood classroom, what I hear a lot of times, is trimming the tree of behavior. Some of the things I hear include:

• Use your walking feet.
• Be kind to each other. 
• Just share it. 
• If you can't play with that nicely I'm going to put it away.

All of those things, which I say all day long, are things that sort of trim behavior. What happens when we trim behavior but feelings are still there? When we haven't addressed the roots and the roots are still there but we've trimmed all the behavior. What happens? You all know the answer to that. Everything just grows back and sometimes it grows back even stronger. The behaviors come back if we don't address the feelings. It's a very exhausting life as a parent or a teacher or social worker to be a trimmer and then have kids come back and do all the same stuff again and sometimes even with more intensity.

It's so important that we get to the root, but it is the biggest way that we flop. Just looking at behavior. When I say flop I am lovingly referring to the pitfalls. The ways that we just get in a rut. Our biggest rut is to react to behavior. This occurs when we respond to the first thing we see - the child's behaviors, instead of the feelings.

Practice

Figure 5. Young girl breaking crayons.

Let's practice. Imagine you've come upon this little girl and she has taken every single crayon in the whole classroom and she is snapping them into itsy-bitsy pieces. She's taken all of them. She's snapping crayons and destroying everything in the room. What do you say to her? Take a moment and jot down what you might say or what you have heard other people say in a similar situation if you're not thinking about FLIP IT. Here are some examples of things we know people say.

1. Stop breaking those crayons.
2. You are hurting those crayons' feelings. Stop breaking those crayons, you hurt their feelings. (I'm not so worried about the crayons' feelings, I'm worried about hers, but so be it.)
3. We keep our crayons whole so that we can play with them again and again. (Or some version of we respect our materials.)
4. What else could you do with those crayons? Let's get you redirected into something else. 
5. If you like those crayons, how about we try scribbling on some paper?
6. If you like breaking things let's find something safe to break. Let's get you some sticks to break or something like that. 
7. We can't break crayons because we are on a very tight budget here. (That is very real. When we see kids destroying stuff it may not be our first reaction to respond to feelings.) 

I want to point out some first reactions here. I want you to look at number three. We keep our crayons whole so that we can play with them again and again. This is actually a limit. It's a positive limit that lets kids know what you expect from them. We respect our crayons, we respect our materials, and we keep our crayons whole so we can play with them again. Those are all great limits.

I want you to notice that sometimes our first response is one of the steps in the FLIP IT process. Another one of these responses is also part of the FLIP IT process. Number four is a great inquiry. What else could you do with the crayons? Then look at numbers five and six. Those are part of the FLIP IT process. Would you like to try scribble on some paper or break some sticks instead? That is a lovely prompt. I want you to notice that a lot of times our first responses are part of the process. They're a lovely part of the process. But we have to ask ourselves, "What about the feelings?" We might be doing all this great stuff, but skipping the feelings step. We have to really push ourselves to think that she's not just breaking crayons to annoy us. She's breaking crayons because she's having a feeling. Let's try to help her identify that so that she can start to work through it, and not just sugarcoat it or take the crayons away so that she doesn't really learn anything.

Another one of my favorite quotes is "Behaviors are feelings to be understood." Every behavior has a feeling underneath it that is begging to be understood. As you think about getting started doing the feelings step, I have some tips for you. I don't care if you finish this course and you never do L, I or P. If you just go out into the universe and start doing the feelings step for a month I promise that it will start to feel different. Kids will start to respond differently. They'll start to become more emotionally aware and settle in a little bit. If all you do when you leave this course is the feelings step, it's a great place to start.

Tips

1. Change a Habit
2. Use Some Tools
3. Talk About All Feelings
4. Keep it Simple
5. Just Start

I encourage you to think about it in terms of changing a habit. If your first reaction is a behavior it's going to take a little time for you to change that habit. I want you to be gentle with yourself as you try to get into the habit of this.

I encourage you to use some tools to help you break your behavior reaction to habit. It's as simple as printing the word "feelings" on 20 pieces of paper and posting the word "feelings" all around the room. Print up a feelings wheel from a Google search on feelings wheels, so that you can get yourself saturated in feelings words. I love to take sticky labels and write the word "feelings" on them and let kids have a whole sheet. If you use the big labels there are six of them on one sheet. Let kids decorate the sheet and then put it in their cubby. Every morning they start their morning by grabbing a feelings sticker and sticking it on their chest so that every morning for about a week you come in and you walk around with "feelings" on your chest. It reminds me that when you're coming at me to rip my bleeping eyeballs out you're also having a feeling. It's a super simple way to create a reminder system for you to go for feelings first. 

I encourage you to talk about all feelings all the time, not just in the crisis moments. FLIP IT is really for the challenging moment but we should be talking about feelings and using all the great books and resources that we have, including feelings posters. We should be using them all the time. So many teachers tell me, "You know Rachel, I have a feelings week that I do." I say, "Great. But isn't every week feelings week?" We often have a lot of great resources at our disposal but we don't use them all the time. I want kids to have a rich feelings vocabulary which means we should be talking about feelings, not just in the FLIP IT moments but in all moments.

I encourage you to keep your feelings words simple. As kids get used to this they don't need the expansive, nervous, anxious, jealous stuff yet. They just need to know mad, sad, and scared. Keep it simple when you start. As they start to get the hang of it then you can evolve to more complicated feelings.

Last but not least, I encourage you to just start. Don't even worry about the L the I and the P. Just start talking about feelings, looking at feelings, and acknowledging feelings. Do it with kids and do it with your fellow grownups too. The world will be a better place. Take a look at some examples of how you might start a feelings statement.

Examples of Feelings Statements

• “I see you are doing __________. I wonder if you are feeling __________.”
• “Wow, it really looks like you are feeling __________.”
• “I notice you are doing ___________. What is going on inside?”
• “Your body is getting antsy. Are you feeling nervous?”
• “I’m so sorry you are feeling so _________.”
• “What are you feeling?”
• “Point to the face that tells how you are feeling.”

You'll see that there is no one perfect way to do it. You have to make it your own. Depending on the child's language ability and how upset they are, you'll try different versions. Take a look at all the ways you could deliver a feelings statement. Sometimes you can say, "Are you feeling nervous?" or, "What's going on inside?" But if you have a less verbal child or it's a more heated moment, it might be better to say, "Wow, it really looks like you're feeling _____." My favorite and a go-to for me is the first bullet. Sometimes it's really helpful to have a script so you know what you're going to say in sweaty moments where you're a little tongue-tied. Go ahead and write that down on a post-it, write it on your forehead. “I see you are doing __________. I wonder if you are feeling __________.” If that is the only one you use for the first month as you're getting practice, it's a great setup. "I see you're breaking crayons. I wonder if you're feeling mad." "I see you're trying to rip my bleeping eyeballs out. I wonder if you're frustrated." It will work for just about everything. "I see you're grabbing that marker from your friend. I wonder if you really want it." That first bullet is a great go-to to get you in the habit. Those are some tips to get you started on the feelings stuff.

FLIP IT - Step 2 - Limits

I want to take a quick look as I promised at the L the I and the P. I think you've gotten a little bit of a flavor of what it looks like already, but I want to give a little love to each one of these steps. The next step after we do a feeling is we have to give kids a boundary.

Remind children of the positive limits and expectations you have for their behavior. Loving and simple limits help surround children with a sense of consistency, safety, and trust.

The FLIP IT process is about yes you have a feeling, but there's a boundary around it too. This means that we want to remind children of the positive limits and expectations that we have for them. Loving and simple limits actually help kids feel better. Kids actually want to know what you expect and want you to keep them safe. Sometimes it's not always easy but I have some simple guidelines for what limits should be. 

Limits should be:

1. Positively worded
2. Kept simple
3. Based on familiar rules
4. Descriptive
5. Stated without a “BUT”
6. Reviewed during non-challenging moments

My first tip about limits is that they should be positively worded. This means we don't say, "No running." Instead, we say, "Use walking feet." We don't say, "No yelling. Instead, we say, "Use an inside voice." We try, whenever possible, to use positively worded limits in life but also in the L step of the FLIP IT process.

My second tip is that limits should be kept simple. Again this is a very simple process, not the time to explain why the limit exists. It's not the time to say, "We don't put our hands in toilets because toilets have germs and blah blah blah blah." The limit is we keep our hands clean. We don't get into the whole explanation in the FLIP. We'll do that another time when it's not a heated moment. Keep it simple.

Limits can be based on familiar rules as seen at the top of figure 6. If you have house rules or classroom rules they usually function around some pretty basic stuff, such as we keep ourselves safe, we keep each other safe, and we keep our things safe. Some version of that always works really nicely in the L step. You heard it with Hayley. Remember, we keep each other safe. That was the rule of our classroom, I used it during L.

Limits can also be a little bit more descriptive, meaning we're telling a child a little bit more of the behavior we're looking for or expecting such as, we use gentle touches, we use kind words, we listen with our eyes and our ears.  You can see an example of this at the bottom of figure 6.

Figure 6. Example of Limits

Limits should be stated without using the word "but." This one is so hard to do. So listen, this is what it sounds like. I have a feeling every morning that I would like to eat potato chips for breakfast, that is my feeling. My limit is I want to be healthy. Just because I want to be healthy doesn't mean that I don't want potato chips in the morning. Those two things live together, my feeling and my limit. When somebody says to me the feeling statement, "Rachel, I know you really crave potato chips first thing in the morning, but you want to be healthy." What does that feel like? It feels like I want to punch that person in the face. The "but" sort-of negated my feeling. Try not to say, "but." Try to say, "and" instead. If somebody said to me, "Rachel, that feeling that you have, you want that savory salty potato chip in the morning and you're trying to be healthy." That feels different. Those two things live in my body. Then we have to get to I because then we have to figure out how to live with it and what my solution is going to be. Right now we are talking about "you have a feeling and you have a limit." They don't cancel each other out, they live together inside of you.

My last tip about limits is that they should be reviewed during non-challenging moments. Your FLIP should not be the first time kids should be told that they are not allowed to run in the hallway. You should be reviewing that before a challenging moment ever happens. During calmer moments is when we say, "We are about to go outside. What are the rules for outside?" Please remember to review the rules during those non-challenging moments. Once kids know what they're feeling and what the boundary is, then we have to figure out how to live with it. Just like when I know that I want potato chips I also want to be healthy, now I have to figure out what to do with that.

FLIP IT - Step 3 - Inquiries

Encourage children to think about solutions to their challenges. Ask questions that promote problem-solving and healthy coping skills. Inquiries invite children to think, learn, and gain self-control.

Then we move on to the third step which is the inquiry step. My dad was a philosophy professor so I was raised with the inquiry step as a go-to parenting approach. It's the time where we ask questions that invite children to think. We want to encourage them to solve their own problems, not have us fix everything for them. We don't want to have quick fixes, because life is about tolerating hard conflicts. Potato chips versus being healthy. We have to teach kids how to tolerate those types of challenging moments. The inquiry invites them to think it through.

I always ask this question in live training and I see the heads shaking no, so I'm going to imagine all your heads shaking no when I ask this question. Are we raising children who can think through a problem? This is when heads start shaking no. I don't think we are. We can talk about why this is. We know that we live in a world full of quick fixes, quick results, not tolerating discomfort or bad, not having the answers, where everyone just Googles everything now. Nobody tolerates not knowing things. So I'm a little worried. I'm a little worried about kids not being able to say, "I can't have potato chips and I want to be healthy. What else can I do?" and sitting with that, because there are not perfect, easy, quick solutions to every single one of our problems.

The answer to that is to raise kids with a bunch of open-ended questions. Raise kids who have to think about things. I love to think about open-ended questions as questions that open windows and questions that open kids up to possibilities. We don't want to ask leading questions such as, "Should you do that right now?" or "Should you really be doing that right now?" because those are yes-no questions. Those questions are not an inquiry, that's not what we're going for. An inquiry, or open-ended question, would be, "What else could you be doing right now?" That opens the door to all kinds of possibilities that can't be answered with a yes or no and it doesn't shut a child in, It opens a child up to thinking there might be some other solutions here. What else could you have for breakfast? What else could you do when you're frustrated, besides break crayons? What could you do with your mad? You've heard a lot of examples of what this might sound like. Now especially with our little ones or our less verbal kids, it is going to result in maybe not getting an answer, and so we have to then go on to prompts.

FLIP IT - Step 4 - Prompts

Provide creative cues, clues, and suggestions for children having difficulty problem-solving. Enthusiastic, bright ideas can lead the way to better problem-solving skills.

Step 4, prompts, is where we offer cues, clues, and suggestions, for kids who are having difficulty problem-solving. It's where we give them bright ideas. I always say we should do it enthusiastically so that they buy-in and are not drowning in their ick. Here are my tips for prompts.

• Personal examples
• Focus on strengths
• Exciting
• Re-direction
• Hints
• Positive choices
• Suggestions
• Leading questions
• Tangible

I think a good prompt can sometimes be a personal example, especially if you've got that prerequisite of a good relationship. The following story is something I said to a child who's really connected to me, which happened to be my own son. One day I said, "You know when I was your age I was also really curious about cursing." He said, "You were?" I said, "Yes. I was 10 years old once. I rode a school bus and I heard all of these words and I was very curious about them too. Do you know what I did?" He said, "What?" I said, "I rode my bike way out into the field and I said them all." His jaw dropped. He couldn't believe that I said that. I said, "I just got them out of my system where nobody could hear me and I wasn't going to offend or hurt anyone's feelings." He was like hmm. He took his curious little feelings and he got on his bike and he rode out into the pasture and I couldn't hear him but I could see him and he was trying them all on for size. Then he came back and he has not cursed out in the world ever since. Sometimes a personal example can be a great way to lead a child to a coping strategy. I don't recommend you tell all your kids that it's okay to curse in pastures, but for my kiddo, it worked.

The next way that we can prompt is to use a child's strengths. If they love to do something the prompt can be about something they love. If they don't want to learn their letters but they love trains, can letters ride on trains? Use their passions, use their strengths, and use their interests.

Whenever possible prompts should be exciting. I had to make this foot scratcher the most magical, exciting thing in the world or she wasn't going to come along for the ride. Prompts should involve a little bit of a sales pitch so they should be exciting.

You can use redirection like, "Hmm, I wonder if we broke sticks, what that would feel like?" That's redirection. Lots of us use redirection as our first step, but now I'm telling you to wait to step four to do it. I love hinting at children. "Hmm, what do you think you will need from the creative center to help you make a thank you note.? They often respond, "Oh, paper!" They think it was their idea and they run over and they do it because people are much more willing to do a strategy they think they came up with themselves. I love hinting possible solutions to kids, giving them positive choices, and offering suggestions.

You can ask a leading question. Leading questions is a great tip for kids who might not have all the language, but could answer a yes-no question. Assume competence with an open-ended question, such as, "What else could you do to feel safe?" You know you're not going to get an answer from some kids so when you move to prompts they can be leading questions like, "Would it help to hold my hand?" That's a yes-no question but it's a little bit more leading. However, for kids who have fewer language skills who may be able to give us a yes or no, it's a great way to narrow things down.

Last but not least I think whenever possible prompts should be tangible. Get your hands in it and get yourself moving into something that's different than the ick that you're manifesting. Let's get you engaged in something else. Whenever possible prompts should be something that you can actually do to start to cope or feel better.

Summary

Figure 7. FLIP IT Model.

We have now been through the F, the L, the I, and the P. I hope that you have heard on the feelings step that we gently talk to children about their feelings and we describe what we are seeing and hearing. For limits, we do this lovingly. We share with them what our boundaries and expectations are. We say it with an "and" not a "but." For inquiries, we ask open-ended questions that invite children to think. But then we can follow up with prompts and supports where we want to give them ideas and options. They are not always easy and it's not one-size-fits-all. We want to help kids find their way to cope with the challenges in their lives. My way to cope with my desire for potato chips in the morning is eggs because I can put some salt on them and it will soothe my savory craving. That's my prompt for my predicament.

You can FLIP other adults!

Last but not least I want to encourage you as you think about FLIP IT to also think about using it with adults. We really believe that this is a process of kindness and understanding and seeing one another's humanity that could be helpful in our professional relationships, in our personal relationships, and I know that we could also be modeling this for our kids by doing it with one another.

If you're in a conflict or having a challenging moment with another adult, take a moment and acknowledge what they're feeling and also what you're feeling. Then, of course, offer a limit or a boundary. Decide if it is acceptable what you're doing right now or not acceptable. Set your boundaries. Healthy adults have healthy boundaries. Then engage in the open-ended process of going how are we going to work through this. This is adulting.

Sometimes other people are better at thinking of solutions to your ick than you are because you are a little trapped. Lots of times that's when you phone a friend. Prompts are when you get ideas from people who love you, care about you, and may be able to think outside of the box of the ick that you are living in. If we do this in our own lives we will be what we want to see in children and there will be a beautiful ripple effect.

Children who have been frequently "FLIPPED" become emotionally aware problem-solvers who develop healthy coping skills that will last a lifetime. Isn't that a gift. If we can teach kids to learn about their feelings and learn how to cope with them at a young age maybe they won't turn to drugs and alcohol. They won't turn to unhealthy behaviors and coping skills because they will already know what those feelings are and they won't be afraid of them. That is a great gift to give a child.

Thank you for spending this hour with me. I