262: Unlocking the Power of Self-Regulation in Early Childhood Education With Dr. Teri DeLucca

Kate and Carrie sit down with Dr. Teri DeLucca, founder of Impact Early Education, to chat about the real challenges early childhood leaders face, especially around behavior management and teacher self-regulation. Dr. DeLuca shares practical tips, like quick “glow and grow” check-ins and the importance of self-reflection for teachers. There’s even a sneak peek at new AI tools for supporting educators. 

This episode is packed with relatable stories, honest advice, and actionable strategies you can use right away. Plus, you’ll get a few laughs along the way!

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Transcript

Marie 00:00:03  Welcome to Child Care Conversations, the podcast where early childhood leaders like you get real world strategies, honest talk and a whole lot of support. Whether you're running one center or many, we're here to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is brought to you by our summer partner Child Care Business Growth, your go to solution for filling spots, increasing revenue, and scaling your child care business without the burnout. We're proud to partner with a team that's as committed to your success as we are. Learn more at Child Care Business Growth. Now let's get into today's conversation. When we think you're really going to love.

Carrie 00:00:49  Okay, so today we're bringing a guest in. We've been doing that a lot recently. But I think this one's pretty special because it's Doctor Terry DeLuca and I being able to say doctor about somebody my dad would never let me call. Let anybody call him Doctor Rogers. He said if somebody called him Doctor Rogers, he presumed they were asking him for money.

Teri 00:01:14  So that's great. So you can just call me Terry?

Carrie 00:01:22  Yes.

Carrie 00:01:22  But in the introduction, we have to do Doctor Terry DeLuca because you.

Teri 00:01:26  Work.

Carrie 00:01:27  For that. It takes patience and willing to have challenging conversations to get through to the point where you've got a doctorate. So I think we got to at least give you credit for that.

Teri 00:01:42  I think you just planted a seed. I think we're going to talk about that today.

Carrie 00:01:46  Okay.

Teri 00:01:47  All right. So Terry, tell us about you and, well, why anybody might want to listen to us today other than we're just kind of fun to listen to. Absolutely. So I am Terry and I'm the founder of Impact Early Education. And if you haven't heard of us, we are relatively new on the scene. We are actually celebrating this month. Well, when we're filming this, we're celebrating our five year anniversary. So huge. That is huge to us. And so what we do is we solve problems for center owners and directors. We do coaching, in person. We'll come and train the whole team, the teachers as well.

Teri 00:02:27  We do on demand courses. That's probably our most popular offering. And, we are currently working on some behavior coaching software, so we have a lot going on. And, I'll tell you a little bit about myself if you would like to. So my background, as you mentioned, I did get my doctorate. I have two. One is in developmental psychology and one in educational psychology. And my focus all along was on early childhood development. I have a focus on poverty. Children growing up in low income, low income families and how that affects their academic achievement, with another focus on what's happening in the classroom. So I started off my career as a research scientist. I loved it, it was every job I've had was a dream job. and I did that for a while until I left and everyone thought I was having a midlife crisis whenever they found out what preschools. So I left that position and, started operating privately owned centers. And we had two traditional centers, one Montessori. And then we grew and expanded that business into multiple extended day programs that were offered onsite and public schools.

Teri 00:03:41  And we had summer camps. So it was an amazing, amazing experience. I did that for, I think, 8 or 9 years. I almost quit a couple times because it was so hard and challenging when I first started. I, you know, it's just eye opening to go from academia into the real world. And, what an experience. humbled myself. Learned we we had amazing teachers that had been at the oldest location for some of them over 30 years. And so I sat at their feet and just learned, and just a lot of questions. And we, we got things. It was like turning the Titanic to get things the way we wanted so that we could then scale and grow the business. But, eventually those schools were sold, which left me with a big question of what do I want to be when I grow up. That was five years ago, and that's what led to impact early education, as you can see on the wall here. so yeah, that's a little bit about me working with leaders and lights me up.

Teri 00:04:47  It's my joy. It's my passion.

Kate 00:04:49  Well, I heard you say something about, behavior, coaching and behaviors. And we know that right now this seems to be like every other week. There's a post, there's a call, there's a we have a client that will reach out. Sounds like you have clients that reach out. We've had other guests that talk about this topic. What is the biggest struggle specifically the owners and directors have right now when it comes to, you know, engaging with maybe even the teachers or the the families of children who might I don't know of a good way you know which children I'm talking about.

Teri 00:05:30  We call them character builders. That's where we go. That that is a great question because that is something we see across the board, regardless of what state, actually even what country, honestly, we work with, some other schools in other countries too. And the challenging behaviors are, as you know, so stressful. And, there's it's really two parts. It's the teachers not being equipped or not really having full buy in.

Teri 00:06:00  Sometimes they're just showing up for the paycheck and they're not able to handle what's going on in the classroom. But then also it's on the leadership side and not feeling equipped or comfortable enough to have the conversations they need to have. And so, we do a kind of a different approach, I guess, you could say to when we talk about challenging behaviors with teachers, we actually approach it in a two part approach. We first work on personal leadership. So personal leadership and personal accountability. And that's helping the teachers learn how to self-regulate, how to lead themselves well and be aware that their thinking drives their behavior. Because until they can lead themselves well and they can shut out the drama and they can not be emotionally reactive and they can just regulate whenever they get frustrated. And you have five kids that are really off the wall that day, or you have an upset parent, or maybe their personal life is completely falling apart and now they have to walk in tired because they didn't sleep, stressed about finances. And oh, here's my five character builder showed up today just to push my buttons that sometimes what it feels like.

Teri 00:07:13  So we work on helping them develop the skills within themselves to regulate and to stay calm in those moments. And then once we've got a solid base of that, then we bring in the classroom management strategies, really setting themselves up for success. Because once we can get the environment right, then we can work on now here's what we do with that behavior. Here's how you can help that child. So we we approach it from that tone when it comes to the children. And then whenever we talk about the leadership, it's really teaching. well, guiding the the ones who are working with the teachers on how to have those really tough conversations and how to structure your daily operations so that it's just part of your culture to expect that you're going to have one on ones, you're going to get impromptu feedback, and that's just expected. It's how it goes. We use the term grows and grows, and it's teaching that the grows are not necessarily bad. Feedback does not have to equal correction or conflict. It's just here's how we're going to grow together.

Teri 00:08:20  And so it's really teaching a new way to approach those really hard conversations. Because I will tell you one thing we see in, in a lot of the the people we work with is that hesitancy, because so many of us as educators are tenderhearted and we love big, we love fierce, we love strong, and we want to honor those relationships and connections we've built. So you see something and it's like, you know what? I'm going to let that go for a couple of weeks because I know what she has going on. She's been trying so hard. We'll come back to that in a couple of weeks. Okay.

Kate 00:08:53  And then can we come back to that? I'm going to put a pin in there because I'm like, wait, I have questions. Sure, sure. I'm sorry. That's okay. You were getting excited and I'm like, I don't want to stop.

Teri 00:09:06  I'm telling you, excited.

Carrie 00:09:10  Well, I think what's interesting is so many times when there's a child, there's a disruption in the classroom, whether it's a child having big emotions or a child having a hard time with frustration tolerance or a child who maybe has additional needs.

Carrie 00:09:26  We have a tendency to just focus on what is causing that behavior for that child. And you took it a much bigger picture. And I think it is so hard to get educators and directors to, to look a little bit broader because we're like, there's something happening for that kid. I need to figure out that kid well, but it could be that the teachers went and got their hair colored, and now all the kids who have sensory integration challenges are being overloaded by that chemical smell from their hair. The teachers hair processing and taking that broader view is hard because we we want to just focus in on why did that kid bite today? There there couldn't possibly be a broader picture. It's why did that kid bite today?

Kate 00:10:20  Well, one of the things that I actually found really interesting, Terry, was the mindset shift that sometimes the way the classroom behaves. I don't know. May have something to do with even the teacher's response to things. And that's what that's what stuck out to me. Because, again, it's kind of like what Kerry was saying is we're so focused on, for lack of a better term, the kids issues that.

Kate 00:10:42  Yeah, it is a it's a shift. It is a it's a definite change in thinking and that mindset shift for management to help the teachers go, oh, I need to stop and do some self-reflection. I need to make sure that I'm in control of my own emotions. as a teacher, as a mom, as an owner, those are all things that we've all had. So, you know, we've definitely had days where we're grumpy because we didn't sleep well or any of the other list of issues, but it doesn't really matter what role you're in, right? So whether you're the teacher or the director.

Carrie 00:11:21  Or the child.

Kate 00:11:22  Or the parent, I mean, we've all seen the parent come in and snap at their child and you're like, all she wanted to do was to have you take their coat off. Right. It's so right. And we sit there and we now judge that parent.

Teri 00:11:37  Yeah, yeah. And you, that's a keyword what you just said. So I, I say this so many times, I believe that our life is disproportionately like our happiness is so related to the quality of questions we ask ourself when we can be self-aware of the.

Teri 00:11:56  So, for instance, my relationship with you can only be as good as the conversations I have about you in my head. So when we can be so self-aware and we can teach our teachers to be self-aware and ask this question will change everyone's life. If you ask yourself, what's it like to be on the other side of me? So ask your teachers, you know, just think about what's it like to be on the other side of me as your co-teacher, as the floater that's put in your room, as this teacher, this child who's now falling on the floor, upset and melting down. What's it like? Because sometimes they're not aware that maybe they have a different tone, or maybe that child does not have a nickname and everyone else is like, oh sweetie. And then that child is never gets that tone. They never get that little sweet nickname. And they notice that. And there's the kids are they're so young at that age and they're internalizing, I don't belong here. I'm not good at school.

Teri 00:12:55  They don't like me, I don't fit. And so in those stick at that young age, that's when self-esteem is forming. And so most of our self-esteem is fully formed by the end of age three starting age four. And so that affects everything social and emotional regulation. So when we can get really good at coaching and guiding our teachers, I like to say be our thinking partner. So teaching directors or coaches or whoever's having these conversations in your center that really your their thinking partner, it's not you should do this. You need to that and correcting them on what they're doing with kids. It's more strengthening that connection that you have in these regular conversations. So they become routine and it's expected. It's just, hey, you're asking questions. So at that point you're, you know, really careful with the words you're using when you ask these questions. But it's what do you think about this and that. And that can open their eyes to a little different way of thinking about some of these behaviors.

Carrie 00:13:57  One of the ways that, the early childhood practice in Australia is really ahead of early childhood practice in the United States, because the reflective practice is so mandated in Australia that, like, you have to have like that's part of their licensure.

Carrie 00:14:17  Is are the teachers doing self-reflection? Are they doing reflective practice? And I don't know, a single state in the United States who, even in the curriculum on a regular basis, talks a whole lot about the reflective practice. And it's so important.

Teri 00:14:34  Oh, yeah, because a disregulated teacher, one who can't. And I don't just mean with the children. I mean, if you have a co-teacher who you walk in and the trash wasn't taken out, or they're sticky mandarin orange juice still on the floor, it's like, well, now their frustration level is here. And then when that comes in, it's like all the stuff is piling up. If you can't deal with that and know how to have that, that's something that needs to be talked about. But you've got to do it in the right way so that defenses aren't rising. So if they don't have these skills, which you slash most of us, unless you are a communication major, we're not taught communication and connection skills in school. We weren't.

Teri 00:15:13  You learn it through hard through the school of hard knocks, right? We learn it by screwing up really bad and then getting it right. So gifting, gifting your staff or even yourself, you know, some which we have the little teeth. We do have courses on communication and on center culture, but I just have to throw that in there. When you can, when you can guide them in how to how to think about things a little bit differently. And how do you approach someone when you need to have a really difficult conversation and do it with skill and with kindness and clarity, but with boundaries? It can be such a game changer. And why that is such a game changer is because that flows into their personal life. When you can get better at who you are as a person, you definitely show up better at work. So I love, love, love to encourage add value to your team by growing who they are as a person.

Kate 00:16:07  So in addition to the mindset shift, one of the things that I'm sitting here as an owner and I'm like, okay, I'm hearing you.

Kate 00:16:16  I like the thought, but I got all this other stuff I've got to do, and now you want me to have real conversations with my teachers too. How can somebody listening to today's episode go? What is one way that they can, you know, tomorrow morning, start to figure out how they can adjust their own thinking to make this a priority, or weave this into their already massive to do list.

Teri 00:16:46  Yeah. Well, so I'll be honest, I tried time blocking I when I, when I was in that role, you know I had three centers and I wanted to have all these observation classroom observations done. And we failed miserably multiple times because it's like, oh, we're just going to time block. That's it. And you're going to do three observations. We came up with all these different systems and then all hell would break loose. And it's more the firefighter role. We're putting out all the fires. And so we didn't always get that right. But when we were able to come up with a plan that involved shortening that down and also using clips from the camera and being able to look digitally at what was happening.

Teri 00:17:24  So there wasn't someone physically going and sitting, to do the actual observations. But when you can cut the one on one meetings, which are so important, if it's not practical for the director or if there's an assistant director, it's just not practical for them to be the ones. Then make one of your staff a coach, like give them whatever title you want to give them, because a lot of them really care about titles. I don't personally, but, titles can be important to some people, so give them something special and that is their job to be doing the coaching and make sure you equip them before you give that role to them. But you can have a very effective conversation in ten minutes or less, believe it or not. And it's just the first couple minutes, a little check in, I start Do your glow, which is just, hey, here's what's going great, here's what I see, and then grow. It's ask, you know what's hard? What do you need? What's hard? Or you can comment on here's what I've observed, what I would like for us to work on together.

Teri 00:18:23  And you pre-game this, you know what you're going to talk about already. Close it out with some sort of a celebration. But again, your language matters. It's got to be us together. It's us against to whoever that person is and the teacher against this behavior challenge or whatever is going on in the classroom. And when you can get that shortened and cut. Sweet. Because what would happen in our centers is that conversation would spew into a 45 minute whole thing, sometimes with tears, sometimes with tears from leadership. And it was like, we have got to get a rain on this, you know, so when you can get that going, well, it really helps. And, impact early education. We are actually creating, a really cool AI platform that will be coming out soon. And it's designed to help with this to make this easier, more effective, more easier to implement. So it'll have a piece of behavior coaching for teachers. But then it also has director coaching guidance. And so or whoever doesn't have to be the director, but whoever's having these conversations, you're able to look at overall center culture.

Teri 00:19:31  You're getting feedback on specific, child domains of how children are doing in specific domains. You can look at the teachers where they're at and, it's got positive, really great stuff. And it's not just the kids with behavior issues. It's also your really quiet child who maybe is getting overlooked because there are some behavior challenges. What does that child need? That child still needs support to to be able to get to their max of your scaffolding, to get to that total, top of the zone of proximal development. So we've got some really great stuff in there. But then for the leaders it's going to show, okay, here's where people are at. Here's some guided conversation. And it's almost like a little cheat sheet. So you can have these conversations armored up ready to go. Like here's how, here's how we can have this. And then here's some strategies you can give. So it takes a lot of that cognitive load off. Because oftentimes our block as leaders, it's really two things. It's that we've tried to have these hard conversations or we do, but they don't go very well.

Teri 00:20:33  There's a communication breakdown or the person just leaves and quits. You know, we've had it not go well. So there's a little emotional scarring because I've I've had that ever hasn't gone well at all. and then we also are just burnt out and at our full emotional capacity. It's like, I can't even handle one more thing right now. And that takes so much more mental energy to have that type of a conversation. So our goal with this AI platform is to utilize machine learning in the most beautiful way. And we will be able to tie in cameras, but it's not necessary if I know a lot of people are kind of leery and scared of that, so that's an option if you want to or you don't have to, but it'll be able to. Our goal is to just make it a little easier and take off some of the stress and save some time and some energy. We're very excited about this platform.

Carrie 00:21:24  I mean, I think it sounds great. And one of the things that we tell leaders all the time is sometimes it's not about the how can I do it? It's about who can do it.

Carrie 00:21:34  And you talked about that in a couple different ways there. It's like hiring it done through the software. And also you talked about you have somebody on staff who has emotional sorry amazing emotional intelligence, giving them a little bit less classroom time and putting them in as an educational coach. I think both of those are great.

Kate 00:21:55  All right. So on that note, Cory, I'm going to have you do our wrap up.

Carrie 00:22:00  Oh I tried. okay. So if you learned something from today's show, share it with someone else who needs to know. There will be notes in the doobly doo, or, as most people call it, the show notes, which will get you connected to all of these great options, the training options and this new I option. And guys, I think this one had a lot of things to write down. I hope you took good notes. If not, go back, listen to it again. Take notes this time and we will talk to you next week.

Marie 00:22:37  Thanks for tuning in.

Marie 00:22:39  We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event, Kate and Kerry would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at Kate and Caricom. If you learned something today. Share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Child Care Conversations.