Understanding Transitions in Early Childhood With Rae Pica

Transitions are one of the most challenging parts of the day in early childhood settings—but what if we’ve been thinking about them all wrong?

In this episode of Early Childhood Chapters, host Emily Garman sits down with early childhood expert Rae Pica, author of Teachable Transitions, to explore why transitions continue to be a daily struggle and how educators can approach them differently.

Together, they unpack what’s really happening for young children during transitions, why these moments are so developmentally demanding, and how simple shifts in practice can transform stress into meaningful learning.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why transitions are developmental challenges, not behavior problems
• What skills children are actually using during transitions
• How predictability and preparation reduce stress and resistance
• Why movement, music, and play are powerful tools for smoother transitions
• Common mistakes educators make—and how to avoid them
• How transitions can build self-regulation, cooperation, and problem-solving skills

Transitions aren’t something to rush through—they are opportunities to support development, build skills, and create more joyful classrooms.

Rae Pica is an early childhood expert and author of Teachable Transitions, a widely respected resource that helps educators turn everyday transitions into engaging, developmentally appropriate learning experiences.

Episode Transcript

Emily Garman: Transitions are one of those things every early childhood educator recognizes instantly the moments between activities cleaning up, lining up, moving from play to snack can be the most stressful parts of the day for both children and adults. What's interesting is that this isn't a new problem. My guest today is early childhood expert Rae Pica. She's the author of Teachable Transitions, a Gryphon House book focused entirely on helping young children move from one part of their day to another with less stress, more success, and more learning along the way.

This book has become an essential part of every educator's library, one that teachers refer to again and again. Because here we are still talking about transitions. In today's episode, we're exploring why transitions remain such a persistent challenge. What children are really being asked to do during those moments, and why. The strategies Rae wrote about years ago are still deeply relevant in today's classrooms. Rae, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

Rae Pica: Thanks for having me. I'm trying not to think about how long ago I wrote the book.

Emily Garman: Well, it really is a timeless one. And, usually when a guest appears on early childhood chapters, it's because they have just written a book with us. Or as is the case with your book, they've written a book that is such a seminal work, so frequently referenced in the field that people still are coming back to it, even years later.

And for us at Gryphon House, your book, Teachable Transitions is one of those. Transitions remain one of the biggest challenges that teachers are talking about today. Why do you think this is so persistent? Why haven't we solved this problem yet?

Rae Pica: Well, I'm gratified, that teachers still refer to Teachable Transitions. I mean, that's the good news. The bad news is that it's still relevant because we haven't yet solved the transition problem. I mean, there seem to be some practices in early childhood education that we simply, that live on just because they've always been done that way. And I think that's the case with transitions. But because it's always been done that way isn't a good enough reason to keep doing things.

If teachers can stop seeing transitions as necessary annoyances and instead see them as opportunities, transitions actually could be something that they and the children look forward to and enjoy. Which would be a nice change of pace.

Emily Garman: Yeah, really. So it's really that transitions are developmental challenges. They're not behavioral problems. And I think that's an important distinction to make.

Rae Pica: Yeah. Exactly.

Emily Garman: So you you frame your framing transitions as moments that demand self-regulation flexibility and emotional readiness. And these are skills that young children just they don't really have them there. Their brains are still developing.

Rae Pica: They don't have them I mean traditional transitions require children to to be still to be quiet and to wait. Well, while being still and quiet in a straight line and young children are not developmentally equipped to do those things, to do any of those things, let alone all of them. And as long as we keep asking children to manage what they're not developmentally ready to manage, as long as we keep having unrealistic expectations for children, we'll keep having challenges with transitions that can't be otherwise. We have to keep child development in mind.

Emily Garman: When we as adults think about transitions, we're thinking about moving from one activity to another. So maybe coming inside from playing outside or moving from an activity to lunch. But you talk about in the book that transitions are really much more than that. So can you talk a bit about what's what's happening in a child's mind subconsciously and consciously, That's happening for children during transitions?

Rae Pica: Yeah. Well, teachers often look at the day and they see transitions as the things that take place between the learning, learning transition, learning transition and so forth. But, we know that children learn from everything they do and everything they see. So, we can stick with traditional transitions and help children learn to endure them.

Or we can be more intentional using them as opportunities for engagement and learning that feels good. And that lasts. I mean, we also need to realize that even with enjoyable transitions, children will be asked to stop doing something they really want to keep doing. And that's even difficult for us adults. But especially so for young children who are capable of getting lost in an activity in the most wonderful ways. So we need to respect that and be understanding of any reluctance that that we witness.

Emily Garman: Do you think it's reasonable to say--I know something that I do with my own child, just anecdotally as a parent is I will say we need to do X next. When you get to a stopping point, let's do that. Or can you do this when you get to a point where you're ready to stop? And I've done that with her since she was really little. Now that's not always possible in a school setting. I mean, when it's this time we have to go to lunch and that sort of thing, but, giving her a warning sort of seemed to help. Like letting her know this is coming up. We have five more minutes to do Legos, and then it's going to be time. to go to lunch or something like that. Is that helpful?

Rae Pica: Oh, yes. Absolutely. Did you find that it worked?

Emily Garman: Yes. It still, it does work for her and it lets her know what's coming. And, just prepare to do that thing when she feels like she's at a stopping point, which is nice to offer that when I can.

Rae Pica: Yes, absolutely. And as you said, it is difficult. More difficult in a group setting. But preparing them, letting them know what's coming is really important. The younger they are, the more important it is.

There are people who say, and I don't know, the early childhood educator knows the children the best. There are those who say, give them one minute per age. if they're four years old, give them four minute warning. I'm not sure about that, but they do need some warning. And when you mentioned, we have five more minutes, that means nothing to a three year old. So they need, they need to have warnings inside the five minutes, the time is coming up.

And then a flick of the lights, a clap of the hands, something that indicates. Okay, now it's time, but they'll be preparing for it. They'll be more ready for it if we just suddenly say, okay, time to go to lunch or it's it's too abrupt for them, you know? I mean, they thrive on consistency. And as I say, they can get so lost in an activity, it's wonderful.

It's what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says. He wrote a book called Flow, and it's something that we all should be striving for, is that that kind of absorption, and children are so good at it. And we interrupt it all the time.

Emily Garman: Maria Montessori talked a lot about that, too. I think that deep, deep focus, and maybe it's something we can't understand, why are they so focused on that? But they do. They get really, really focused. And I think something that she wrote about even was that it can be really detrimental to interrupt that concentration, that flow. But yeah, sometimes we are in a school setting, we have to.

Rae Pica: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, why we should make the most of transitions. And make them something that the children will look forward to and enjoy because they thrive on what feels good.

Emily Garman: So when we really break down to transition as adults, where we're fairly good at doing this most of the time, we know when it's time to wake up and get dressed and go to work and things like that, but maybe we're not super happy about it. But it seems like to perform a transition to go from doing something that I enjoy to something I don't want to do necessarily, that requires certain developmental skills. What are those skills and why don't preschool aged children have those skills yet?

Rae Pica: Well, as we mentioned, it's child development. And we keep acting as though that can be changed, you know, based on our whims or something. But it is what it is. And the brain is going to develop it. I've heard different people use different examples for this, and it's quite wonderful.

You wouldn't yell at a seedling to hurry up and become a flower, you know, it's ridiculous. And it's the same thing with expecting young children to hurry up and do what they aren't yet ready to do. I mean, it's you can't fight nature, and we humans don't have a better idea than nature had, you know? We always keep thinking we can do better.

Emily Garman: Well. And our brains are the same as they were thousands of years ago. We haven't changed. So where our expectations may have changed for young children. But that's exactly the same. Yeah. So how are some ways let's talk about some ways that educators and people who work with children can scaffold? I hear that word a lot in early childhood education; scaffolding.

We can scaffold up and help support children through these necessary transitions. So you've talked about routines, predictability, preparation. We were just talking about giving children's some warnings, letting them know what's coming along. So, what is letting them know what's coming? Why is that so important?

Rae Pica: Well, because, as we said, they do thrive on predictability, on routine and consistency. It's just how they're built. So the more often we do something with them, even when the repetition drives us a little crazy.

The more comfortable the children will be with what we're asking of them, knowing what to expect and when means will get less resistance from them. And less resistance means fewer behavior challenges.

And then the preparation, the more prepared we are for each transition, the less waiting the children will have to do. And that's good news for everybody, because children are developmentally ready to wait. It's not in their DNA, I guess. for example, if the children are transitioning to lunch, they shouldn't have to sit at the table waiting. The meal should be ready as the children are finishing up the prior activity.

If a transition will involve a prop, finger play or music, it's important to have those ready beforehand. I mean, a little bit of prep can make life so much easier in the long run.

Emily Garman: It almost seems like predictability is boring, and that we want to give children a lot of variety and varied experiences. But you're saying really that that predictability in having a consistent routine creates sort of predictability, emotional safety. And, and it doesn't really limit children. It frees them to participate more fully.

Rae Pica: Yes. I was just having this image of what have we as adults, were suddenly asked to shift gears and in ways and at times we weren't expecting it. We wouldn't handle it very well, and we've lived a lot longer than they have our brains have developed hopefully a lot further than theirs have.

Emily Garman: I mean, if we set the alarm for seven and it went off at five, I'd be mad about that.

Rae Pica: I would be furious with that. And that's like sometimes having a cat is like that. But, I'm trying to train him, but, like, if we were in an office working and, and the boss gave us this project, and we were deep into it, and then he came in and took the the papers away and said, here, work on this instead. It's a shift. It's just too difficult.

And for us adults and as I said, that makes it even more difficult for the littles to handle. So we have to be the children.

Emily Garman: And it's a learned skill. I mean, not only do we have adult brains, so we're a little bit better equipped to cope with that, but we've practiced it a lot over the years of our lives. And so when someone's three years old, they haven't had very much time to practice. So we look for tools and strategies to help with the transitions.

And a lot of the things that you talk about in the book involve movement or music and play. So tell me about why these approaches are more effective, especially compared to just saying, All right, it's time to go to lunch now, or it's time to stop playing with the blocks.

Rae Pica: Oh stop playing with the blocks. That's too sad.

Emily Garman: Or just a countdown timer or an alarm or I always even in high school I hated the bell. The bell was so jarring.

Rae Pica: I'm trying to think I'm not sure I hated the bell.

Emily Garman: I guess that depends on if I was in algebra. Maybe I liked the bell!

Rae Pica: Yeah. I'm a very scheduled person. Someone recently called me rigid, which I think is a less favorable description than scheduled. But, we're all different, right? I mean, that's what allows me to be productive is to know when I'm going to do things, at a certain time, because otherwise I'm going to be thinking, oh, I gotta get to this.

But in terms of the movement and the music and the play, I mean, the simple answer is that this is what children love. I mean, those are their favorite modes of learning. And hello, it's what nature intended them to learn through. We also know that joy contribute significantly to learning. There's even research now proving it. I'm not quite sure when or, when it was decided or who decided that school should not be a joyful place. But young children are motivated by what feels good. By fun, I mean, the only time a countdown is going to be fun is when they're pretending to be spaceships blasting off.

And as any mom or teacher knows, verbal reminders all too easily go in one ear and out the other. When the children are enjoying themselves, they're going to be more responsive. They're going to be more engaged. They're a whole lot less likely to demonstrate challenging behaviors. And really, the movement part is just logical, isn't it? Transitions almost always involve moving from one place or activity to another. So why shouldn't movement be interesting, you know?

And why shouldn't it contribute to motor social, emotional and cognitive development? I once did a site visit at an elementary school where the children were lined up to climb the stairs back to their classroom. They weren't exactly unruly, but they also weren't exactly complying with the teacher’s instructions to stay in a straight line and move quietly.

And she ended up yelling at them, I mean, really yelling at them. And I was speechless, and all I could think was if she just asked them to pretend they were climbing a mountain, or if they played Follow the Leader, with her leading and tiptoeing in an exaggerated way. Gosh, they would have loved that. They would have been absolutely delighted and that transition would have gone smoothly.

It comes down to expecting children to be children, which seems like a silly thing to say. Shouldn't surprise us that children act like children.

Emily Garman: Right? And children do have so much. We ask children to do so much self-control of their physical bodies. So often that is just completely unrealistic to expect little children to line up and be quiet and still. Children are not still. And so what you're talking about is helping them support channeling the energy and using it in a positive way throughout that transition.

Rae Pica: Yeah, movement is just too often seen as misbehavior, but movement is self-regulation. Movement is everything, especially at that age.

Emily Garman: That's that's something that people are talking about so much these days and co regulation and self-regulation and how we are asking them out of younger and younger and younger children. Yes. And movement does regulate children and I would think that a transition, especially from doing something you like to doing something else is, is one of the most difficult times to regulate yourself.

Rae Pica: If you are being asked to do that which you can't yet do. Sure.

I think that we believe, I mean, we have good intentions. Of course, I think that we believe if we tell them to sit still, tell them to stand still, tell them to be quiet, and they obey. Then they're learning to regulate. But self regulation means there's no outside input. it comes from within. And, if we are doing blastoff, the children are crouched down low and we ask; we do the ten, nine, eight with as much drama as possible. And we ask them to blast off. They stay still because they want to, because it's fun. So we have to keep in mind that that enjoyment is what motivates young children.

It's not fun is not a nasty word. It may be the most important word in the child's world.

Emily Garman: And that requires preparation on the teacher's part, too. It requires them to think about how I'm how I'm going to get the kids up the stairs. In this situation. And just doing a little bit of preparation can help smooth that out. And even experienced teachers struggle with this still.

And the teacher you described, I mean, it's such a typical situation. She was probably exhausted and kind of at the end of her rope. And so we can completely have compassion and empathy for that situation, but. Absolutely. The way she approached it probably made it harder for her the rest of the day because the way the children reacted to being yelled at like that. So, yeah, talk about some of the common mistakes or pitfalls that educators and people who work with children can fall into when trying to maybe kind of just ram children through these transitions and what is happening when a transition falls apart and maybe what did the adult do wrong.

Rae Pica: Yeah. Well, I don't, don't get me wrong. I do have compassion for that teacher. I had a group of four year olds that I worked with once that kept me from working with children for three years. They were they were so challenging. Everything about the situation was challenging.

And, and I was only there for 45 minutes with them. I would get in my car and want to run somebody over and I'd get home. And my husband would say, how'd it go? And I say, I don't want to talk about it. And that was after just 45 minutes. So I do get it.

So the first thing, of course, as we previously discussed, that we do wrong is having unrealistic expectations. Children can't do what they're not yet developmentally ready to do. And also, we discussed the preparation issue. The longer the children have to wait, the antsier they'll become. And antsy children aren't happy children, and antsy children don't make teachers happy, and unhappy children may well act out, additionally, it's really important that teachers remain calm and collected. Easier said than done.

If teachers appear unhinged during transitions, the children will become unhinged too. You were absolutely right that it probably did make her day worse, because that's very jarring to the little ones to be yelled at.

if the teachers move slowly and speak softly, the children respond in kind. So, I mean, that's not always what we're looking for. Moving slowly and speaking softly. But think about, the the example I gave of playing Follow the Leader. It's just if we can put ourselves in the minds of the child, I mean, that's just so much more fun. Or pretending to climb a mountain or, whatever.

It's just so much more enjoyable than being told, get in a line and shut up and climbing stairs, and again, we have to remember that moving and talking are not misbehavior. If we look at child development as our guide, we understand that it's simply what young children do is, as we've said and yes, we can say that they need to learn to be still and to be quiet.

And they will, but not before they're developmentally equipped to do so. again, we shouldn't be surprised that children act like children.

Emily Garman: And I think that has to affect the way we approach the transition as well. We're going to do that differently with three year olds than we are with ten year olds.

The things that I, that I took away, mostly because I think I've been doing them wrong. One of the things is talking too much. I will give a child ten reasons why we need to do this, and why it's a good idea. I'll just talk and talk to talk. Talk with them. And that really doesn't work, does it?

Rae Pica: Well, these are the things we learn from experience. I mean, I don't even want to think about all of the things I did wrong when I first started working with children. So one thing I was so naive, I mean, I was doing movement with little kids and I thought the lesson would go exactly the way I had it on paper.

So, we learned, yeah, talking too much, thinking, it's like, well, they tell you, like with your dog or your cat, if you, if you have a multi syllable name for them, they only hear the first syllable. Children are something like that. Right? They only hear the first part of what you say. And one of the things I learned along the way is we have to not use the word “don't.”

Emily Garman: I've heard that too.

Rae Pica: Yeah, If we say, I don't know, don't talk while you're moving. They hear “talk while you're moving.” I don't know why, but that's the way it works!

Emily Garman: Well, and you've talked a lot about going slowly, giving yourself enough time, not rushing and not expecting children to comply instantly. It's just not going to happen. So maybe adjusting our expectations of how things are going to go, like you learned.

Rae Pica: Yeah. I mean, we're learning all the time is we're teaching, right? I mean, we're learning what works. And I think maybe the most important lessons are, we're learning what doesn't work. and if we're, introspective, if we're intentional about our practice, then we change what doesn't work. I mean, one of my favorite examples comes from Timothy Walker, who was an American teacher who went to teach in Finland and wrote a book called, Teach Like Finland.

And he thought the Finnish way of giving children a break every 50, every 45 minutes, they have a 15 minute break after every 45 minutes of instruction in Finland. And he thought that that was soft. So he was going to do it the American way. And it didn't take long for little one to say to him, I can't take it anymore.

And so he reflected on it and realized that actually the American way hadn't worked all that great either. So let's try it the Finnish way. Voila! It worked. I mean, again, we have so much research about the value of breaks. But it’s never a break from learning because they learn from everything.

Emily Garman: I think that that idea of, well, we've just always done it that way, or this is how we do it here, or this is how school is. This is how it works. This is how it has been. And that is such a part of school. I mean, I think about the things that I did in elementary school, 40 years ago that are so much the same as what my mother did when she was in elementary school, that are still the same things that my child did in elementary school.

And yet we look at what we're learning in all these other fields, like the science of reading is something that I've been reading a lot about. And we're learning new things all the time about the way children learn language and the way to approach reading in a way that's developmentally appropriate. That's the word that the phrase I keep hearing “developmentally appropriate.”

And so much of what you wrote about in this book makes so much sense and is backed up by all this research around what's developmentally appropriate for young children to be able to do in terms of transitions, why do we still expect them to do things in this way that just doesn't? I mean, the whole idea of trying to make 3 or 4 year olds line up, it seems insane.

Rae Pica: Well, who was it? Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. He was kind of a smart guy, you know. He got that right. I mean, I'm much older than you are. And when I think about the things that have changed, but over the past two decades, how much has changed? It's all happening, so rapidly. Education, what's changed in education over the last hundred and 50 years or so?

Not a whole heck of a lot. we still think that sitting equals learning. And that's a big reason why teachers say, learning transitions, learning transitions. No. the transitions can back up concepts, I mean, word comprehension, tip toe stomp, glide, all of those things can be part of a transition.

And learning does not take place while children are sitting still. It's just because their bodies need to move and they need to physically experience. They are multisensory experiential learners. Period.

I don't understand why we insist on fitting everybody into a certain mold. I mean, we we venerate the individuality of people like Einstein, Amelia Earhart, Maria Cassatt, you know, Steve Jobs. And yet we don't do anything to promote the children's potential.

We want the same answer, at the same time, we expect all children to learn at the same rate because they're in the same grade and at the same age. And it’s kind of nonsense. Yeah, I mean, that's just not realistic.

We can't think that our voices don't matter and that our practices don't matter. And if we are using developmentally appropriate practice, parents see that. Administrators see that other teachers see that we model, you know,

Emily Garman: When we think about teachers doing this correctly or doing this with the right intention, say they're approaching these transitions very intentionally with the guidelines that you have described, what skills are they building? because we're not, like you said, we shouldn't be just aiming for immediate compliance. We're building an adult. That's the goal, to have a successful adult human, not a compliant child. So what are those long term skills that we can see as adults that we learn if we are coached through these things as children?

Rae Pica: Well, a lot of people are very focused on academics these days. And parents want to know, “why are they just playing?” And I hate justifying this way, but transitions are easily linked to content areas, as I've alluded to briefly before. So there are plenty of academic concepts that can be introduced and reinforced.

Aside from that, children acquire self-regulation skills when they need to calm themselves and shift their energy. And that will only happen if we don't sneak up on them and we prepare them and we prepare ourselves, they learn cooperative skills when they work together to ensure a transition goes smoothly. I mean, I cannot say I personally am a freak when it comes to cooperation.

We focus so much on competition in early childhood. I mean, in this country we're very, very competitive. And yet when you look at the lifespan, we have more opportunity and need for cooperation than for competition. I mean, very few of us become Olympic athletes or, it's not hand-to-hand combat out there in the real world.

But we do have to learn to cooperate with family members and coworkers and community members and whatever. And we don't really focus on those skills. But transitions are a great way to help the children acquire those skills. And early childhood, of course, this is a time to focus on skills that they're going to need as adults, in a developmentally appropriate way.

As they learn to navigate routines, they become more confident. Nontraditional transitions, like those I'm suggesting, help them feel capable during times that used to feel overwhelming. And that, I mean, you can't put a price on that, that feeling that I can do it. I can do this.

For me, another biggie is problem solving. If we ask them to move as though they're walking through peanut butter, they love that one. They're jello jiggling in a bowl. Those are both really good snack or lunch time transitions. We're asking them to imagine; that translates into being able to imagine solutions to challenges.

And we can specifically reinforce problem solving skills by inviting them to show us how they can move, in a crooked shape or in a sideways direction, using any method of locomotion, but walking or running and, that's that kind of a lot of direction. We talk about too many words. You've got to take the children's age and developmental level into consideration.

But if there's one skill children will need in life, it's problem solving. We talk. Oh, they have to learn to keyboard because that's going to be part of their lives. So they have to learn it, when they're four years old, when they're five years old, in kindergarten? Maybe not. I mean, by the time they're in their teens, who knows? We’ll all be be speaking to our computers or whatever. I never thought my computer would be speaking back to me! Oh, and the things it says to me, it like blows my mind. But problem solving; that need will always exist. As long as there are humans, you know we will have problems that need solving.

Emily Garman: And it seems like with some of those skills, learning them at a very young age is better. I mean, you can't begin to learn to have a flexible brain when you're 14 as well as you can when you're three.

Rae Pica: That's exactly right. It’s weird because on the one hand, we think, oh, we'll teach them to sit still now because they're going to have to sit still when they get to first grade. Without considering that they're not ready yet to sit still and that it is a developmental progression.

Emily Garman: And they still aren’t in first grade! They’re not ready to sit still.

Rae Pica: I Know it's true. It's true. Yeah. I mean, it's it's six and over, and it is a developmental progression. So, but movement gives them the ability to sit still, developing the vestibular and proprioceptive skills. I mean, if they haven't got those, they're going to be falling out of their seats. And one first grade teacher counted in in one week, 43 of her children fell out of their chairs. I mean, she said, it was like trying to get penguins to sit in chairs! And it's a funny image, but it's not a funny thing. we're messing with human development.

Emily Garman: Well, right. And so then the thought is, you would if you really were working with penguins, you might think, okay, well, maybe let's throw out the chairs. Chairs maybe is not the way to go, with the penguins. So why do we keep instead of thinking, well, we just have to make them sit in the chairs. They don't have to sit in chairs. I think that that thinking outside of the box, it's what. It's what we we praise in adults. We want that in employees. We want that in adults. But in children, we kind of stifle things that would lead to that.

Rae Pica: Well, think about it. Thinking outside the box requires imagination and problem solving. But so many adults have been taught to be conformists.

Emily Garman: Do what you're told.

Rae Pica: Yeah, yeah. So that's what they know. And sitting equals learning is one of those myths that is just messing everything up. It's hugely damaging because we keep repeating the cycle. An instructional coach emailed me once just freaking out, with good reason, because she'd been in a one year old classroom, which is not a term that I like for when it was, a room full of one year olds, and they were being required to sit for 20 minutes at a time to memorize the letters and numbers on flashcards.

Emily Garman: Oh, wow.

Rae Pica: They are one, you know! So where is that idea coming from? And we've got those myths; earlier was better, children learn by sitting. I mean the sitting thing goes way back in tradition. The earlier it was better is a more recent myth that, has come about.

Emily Garman: I have to think that schools are doing that in response to parent wishes, because I remember being on a school tour with my child when we were looking at choosing her school and, and these were I mean, we had incoming kindergartners, they were little kids. And this parent was asking all these questions about how much math, how much advanced math is there, how much time in math instruction. And I was like, I just like, want my kids to learn to share blocks. Maybe that this would be a great goal. But I see that parents love to be able to say, oh, my child is only three and she can read; they would love to say, my one year old can do the alphabet. Parents like to brag about that stuff. Yeah, I want that.

Rae Pica: not to pile on parents. They have been getting a lot of misinformation. It goes back to the 80s, and the the Nation at Risk report and all this stuff, which had a lot of falsehoods in it about how America was doing compared to other countries and blah, blah, blah, and then, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top. And oh, we've gotta hurry, hurry, hurry to keep up. They're getting a lot of misinformation, and they are the easiest group of people to scare.

And they're afraid that their children will fall behind. That is a big, big fear. And they've been given the wrong information about how to get their children. It shouldn't be “ahead of” anybody else. It should be ahead in the world, ahead in their development, ahead in life. Success translates differently for all of us. I would have been like you, sharing blocks successfully is a sign of success. But, yeah. Teachers are hearing from parents. When are they going to read? When are they going to write their names?

And, all of those things require movement first and I won't go into a long explanation, but if we're looking at motor development and child development, they have to move and play first. They simply do.

Emily Garman: Well, Rae, I'm going to wrap it up here. This this has been a really such a fascinating interview, and I've so enjoyed talking to you. Your book, Teachable Transitions, is available from Gryphon House on our website. And Rae, what is your website where people can find you?

Rae Pica: RaePica.com.

Emily Garman: We'll put that in the show notes. Great.

Rae Pica: Thank you. I just want teachers to know that, I mean, they don't have the time to sit and create, right? So. And they really don't have to where transitions are concerned because I've done the work for them. I mean, that's a big part of my job. And if I can make things easier for teachers, that's what I want to do.

Emily Garman: That's great. One of the things I loved most about our conversation is just this reminder that the transitions and the things we talked about have not remained challenging, because educators aren't trying hard enough, or because the research hasn't caught up. The transitions are difficult because they ask young children to practice skills that are still developing, that regulation of flexibility, patience, emotional regulation.

And that's why they're so important. So your book, Teachable Transitions reminds us that these moments are not interruptions to learning. They are learning through learning all the time. Yes. And when you approach those with intention, empathy and developmentally appropriate strategies, then you're doing much more than just helping students get through the day. You're helping children build skills they'll carry with them for a lifetime.

Rae Pica: Yes.

Emily Garman: Well, thank you all for joining us on Early Childhood Chapters. We hope you'll subscribe so you can get new episodes when they're released and drop us a line. We'd love to know what you'd like to hear about next.

Rae Pica: Thanks, Emily.