Get Over Underestimation by Danny J Nanny

You probably wouldn't understand what we are about to go over. I'm kidding. But that's underestimation and that is what I am talking about.

First, I apologize if your feelings were hurt by my rude words. You should know I value you and I think you will be great at empowering your staff, friends, and family. At the end of this interview you will have all the tools you need to keep empowerment top of mind.

Now, this article and interview featuring Lizy Pierson were created on the Nanny ABCs Next Step podcast to benefit the childcare nanny agency industry, but when someone starts talking about best business practices it becomes invaluable to every business owner.

I must stop here and remind you, if you do not have time to read this then you should listen to the episode Get Over Underestimation on the Nanny ABCs Next Step Podcast. Downloadable whenever you listen to your favorite shows.

Lizy Pierson discusses the damage of underestimating people and the otherwise untapped potential of empowering them instead. Nicole Lumsden, a tenured caregiver and friend, shared with me her motto to empower children, which works just as well on adults and of which, I use all the time, so now, I pass it on to you.

"You can do hard things."

One of the many go-to phrases spouted when people see someone struggling unfortunately is "This isn't that hard," and that isn't very helpful - it may in fact discourage them enough to stop trying. Have you ever tried cheering someone on instead? It works for most sports teams.

This whole article is dinner but I wont be terribly upset if you skip to the dessert at the bottom and learn how you can START TODAY to stop underestimating people and in turn increase productivity.

Visit www.NannyABCs.com to learn how to add rocket fuel to your nanny agency.

Let us begin.

Welcome to Nanny ABC's Next Step Podcast Blog, a series of interviews and monologues featuring the leaders of the at home childcare industry created to elevate agencies, caregivers, and the families they serve. Nanny ABC's. Next up podcast is here to provide you with the childcare industry best practices to be clear, concise, and immediately applicable. Here's the host, Danny J, Nanny author, speaker, and creator of the next step system for agencies.

Danny J Nanny:

Hi, and welcome to Nanny ABCs' NEXT STEP podcast and blog. I'm your host, Danny J Nanny. And this week's topic…

“Well, you probably wouldn't understand.” “I'll tell you when you're older.”

I'm just kidding. That's the topic this week, underestimation research says the negative perspective has a greater influence on people than the positive perspective. And we're going to discuss it all with my guest this week, Lizy Pierson, she's getting her master's degree in public health at temple university and has a concentration in health policy and administration. She has worked with over 20 families and has eight plus years of experience in childcare. Currently she's the director of outreach and engagement at broad street health, a data software company for social good without further ado. Here's our conversation.

Contact Lizy Pierson at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/elizabeth-pierson/

The Interview:

Danny J Nanny:

Where do you see underestimation of children most prevalent?

Lizy Pierson (01:25):

I feel like a lot of times between interactions I see with parents, or just how adults talk about children. Like I don't like kids. I never want to have kids. It mostly comes from the fact that they don't really understand that children are just, they're literally just tiny humans. They think the same exact way that we do. They have the same feelings. They're just like super hypersensitive sponges. So yeah, I remember when I was a child, I don't know. There was some point at least that I remember being like, I need to remember what it was like to be a kid, because I've like no one ever tells you that, like, you feel the same as you do now. I'm 33. And I feel the same now as I did when I was five or when I am on, I'm just, it's just me still change. That happens. So I always thought it was weird when people talk to me like a little kid, I mean, there was a part of it.

Danny J Nanny (02:11):

That's like fun and helpful for like little kids. But also for me, I've been a nanny for two year olds to 16 and I treat all of them the same, same. Yeah. And, and it works for me. I know a lot of people like they really want to do like have all those like little moments. But I definitely don't like a big for that. Like if a hug, like I give him a hug,

Lizy Pierson (02:38):

Funny that you mentioned that you feel the same now, but like the same way that you did when you were seven, because I remember being seven and sitting in my first grade class and my teacher, she said that something about like child psychologist or researcher spend like millions of dollars to study the way children think. And I remember being like, I just think like I do, like, I'm just a person. And I think that that moment has stuck with me so much, my whole life, everything I do with kids, it's like, they're themselves. They're just a person, you know, there's no, you don't really have to overanalyze them. I was just, I'm so confused.

Danny J Nanny (03:15):

I read this amazing article about that parents underestimate children's like vulnerabilities and anxieties, but overestimate like their positivities and optimism. Interesting. I could see that for sure. Yeah. And it reminded me of like how unintentionally, but I've noticed what I do with children a lot is I explained to them everything that's going to happen before we do anything, basically what I'm expecting of them, what's going to happen, how it's going to go, you know? And then I asked them questions like why, you know, is there anything that you're wondering about this? So this came in really helpful when I was traveling with a family to London and I was with a two year old. So I knew that she had never really been on a plane and okay, this is what's going to happen. This is who we're going to talk to. This is how we gotta act and behave in our seats. And this just like explaining it all. So when she got to that moment that she would be like, this is how it is. Is there any like psychological things that you do with children?

Lizy Pierson (04:19):

I feel like I do something similar where I just talk through, maybe not necessarily talk through what we're doing, but I always ask, like, if I can tell something's wrong, I say like, what emotions are you feeling right now? And if kids are upset, this one mom, she taught me when her son was being overly emotional and crying and like hysterical. She would do deep breaths with him. And I thought that was a really good skill to teach kids at a young age. Cause I mean, I have to do that now and I get stressed out. So, all the kids, every time there's like a major meltdown, I'm always like, okay, let's follow my, my breathing patterns. Like let's do that.

Danny J Nanny (04:56):

So in my book, maybe BCS, I should send you a copy by the way, I would love to read it. I wrote down all these chores for children from like the age of two and up, I noticed when I was working with one family, how they really underestimated their child's ability to do things. And it started on the first day when we were going to go outside to the park, he started zipping up his own jacket and he was three. And then his mom almost like redid it for him, like stopped him and just like did it all the way. And I mean, there's two things that play there for me.

Danny J Nanny (05:29):

One is like sometimes a parent just has to be the parent and like right around all the time as the nanny, like you get all these moments to like, parents can sometimes get jealous of, I had to like rebreak down and be like, okay, what are the things we can do? Like where are we capable? You know, he expected me to help him put on his clothes in the morning and I was like, you can totally, you can do it yourself. You don't want to wear.

Lizy Pierson (05:54):

One kid that I babysit for the same one whose mom does the breeding with him one time. So he's working on being potty trained. And one time he put his underwear on backwards and we were like, so excited that he did that, but we didn't, we didn't take it off. We didn't switch around because we were like, that was so good that you did it by herself. And it was funny. The dad came home and he goes, he's like, why is your underwear on backwards? We're like, shh. Don't tell him he did a good job, but absolutely. Yeah.

Danny J Nanny (06:26):

There's a lot of strong urges out there to help children fix those things. And you gotta let it go because otherwise they're going to feel like they didn't do it. Right. And then they won't want to do it again. Yeah. I had this three year old making his own bed really by himself. Now it wasn't like if I made his bed or if you made his bed or if his parents made his bed, it wasn't like perfect. But everything was in the right place. And it was to how he could do it. I mean, it was through you to smile. You can't do it. Like we do it. He has to go on the bed dragons.

Lizy Pierson (06:58):

You know, he probably did make the bed better than I do. I don't know what it is, but I do not like folding things. I do not like I make my bed every morning, but I don't think it's, it's very good. It's probably like how he did it. A story about my life. Also in first grade, I remember when we were learning about how account money my teacher was like, Oh, we're only doing the coins. And I was like, well, in kindergarten we did all the coins and the large bills. And she seems like so shocked that we had learned all that. And I'm like, why wouldn't you just teach us everything? You know, we like want to learn it. Like kids know a lot more if you open the door to them and they'll learn a lot more if you open the door. And I think a lot of times like parents or teachers might think that something's too advanced for a student or a kid. But in reality, it's like, it's only as advanced as you make it. Like if you sit there and explain a concept to a kid, they will probably understand because their they're sponges. Like they know everything.

Danny J Nanny (08:02):

Yeah. And you can angle any conversation to be, to fit where they're at. Yeah. To be age appropriate. Yeah. It takes skill to do that. Not everyone's capable of on the fly, knowing how to have a conversation about X, Y, and Z definitely doable. And you definitely should give it a try if it's more important to give that a try than to say, like, you're ready for that or yeah. X, Y you'll learn it when you're older. Like, you'll figure this out when you're older.

Lizy Pierson (08:33):

That was the worst thing I ever heard when I was a kid. I was like, when am I going to be old enough to learn how to do that? You know what I mean? Like when do I get to do it? It's like potty training. Like if a child shows interest in it, it's time to really start working on that. And so if a child asks the question, it's time for you to answer it rather where they're at or what, where you think they're at. I like that's the whole thing is underestimating them. Right. They're ready for it. They're ready to go. Yeah.

Danny J Nanny (09:01):

Yeah. I mean, that all goes back with like expectations and where, if they know what you expect of them, they're going to try to deliver that. They want, I know it sounds so stupid. I think to people, when you say that, like they want to please, you like, they want to be a part of that, but it's true. Like no one actively wants to hurt somebody else's feelings. Nobody wants to be on some of these bad side. Everybody is always, there's a part of everybody that's in this. Like, I want to please, you, like, I want to listen. I want to do all this. I want to have them. If you don't give them the ways to please you or to make things happen, that you're expecting of them. If they're not going to do it. Right. And they can't read your mind and they don't, you know, they don't know what they don't know. Like you would just have to tell them, this is what you're expecting. And that's really funny with what you were just saying. Cause it reminds me of underestimating a child by giving him too many times. He had a swimming lesson at four o'clock and it was like three o'clock and we had to leave at three 30 and he was like, can we watch an episode of, winnie the poo? And so as the like, I'm usually like, no, cause I don't really do any like watching the only two reasons that I'll watch I'll stop and watch is if the child is sick or if I'm sick, is there the only times where that will happen. But his mom was walking through the room. She was like, Danny, I don't care if you want guys want to watch an episode. Like that's fine, I don't care. So I was like, all right, well then we'll do it. So I'm looking for one and we find a movie of Winnie the Pooh. There's no episodes. Right. So I can see where this is going. So I tell him like, you know, this is a movie it's not going to finish in the time that we have, but I'll start it if you want. So what do you want to do? And he's like, let's watch it. And so like, we're watching it. And we had like 10 minutes before we need to go. So it's 10 minutes. We need to shut this off soon. I'm just letting you know. And he's watching and he's like, okay. And then he gets a five minutes and I'm like, just so you know, it's five minutes left. And then we had to turn this off and it got to like two minutes. And I said, it's two minutes. And he just turned and he's three. And he said, Danny, I get it. I had never heard him speak like that. And he, I really took this. Like I underestimated where I thought he needed all these times because he did. Right.

Lizy Pierson (11:41):

I thought you were going to say that, that it was cause I feel like for me in that situation, a kid would have a temper tantrum if I was like, all right, time to turn off the TV. And it's like, no, but that's it. I mean, that's really good that, that he knew what his boundaries were.

Danny J Nanny (11:54):

So do you have any tip that you can think of a grand helpful solution for, to avoid underestimating children, treat people how you'd want to be treated the golden standard? Oh yeah. Brilliant. Yeah. I always say to people how I act around my parents is the same way I act around babies and how I act around babies is the same way I act around like close friends in general, by my personality remains the same throughout everyone I, I interact with.

Lizy Pierson (12:32):

So treat people how you want to be treated.

Danny J Nanny (12:34):

Well, that's a fabulous way to end that. I feel like I have so many things I want to say about that, but that's too good. I don't want to go any further with that.

Lizy Pierson (12:42):

And cut mic.

Danny J Nanny (12:44):

Exactly. That was amazing. Thank you so much for this. Thank you. It was great meeting you and talking to you. Is there any way that people should get ahold of you?

Lizy Pierson (12:53):

If anyone has any questions, they can find me on LinkedIn Elizabeth Pearson.

Danny J Nanny (12:58):

That's fantastic. Okay. Well that's our show, but,

Now it's time to bring it home.

How can you stop underestimating people?

1. Give them a chance, whoever it may be on whatever it may be. For example, if you ask someone to clean something up, which we all do, when you feel that urge to remind them, stop and give it 20 more minutes, set yourself a timer to hold yourself accountable.
2. Ask if they can do it again. No matter what it is. If you notice you were helping someone accomplish a task, ask if they can handle it, ask if they can handle it from here or ask them to try taking over from this spot.
3. Honestly, I could not have said it much better than Lizzie Pearson treat others how you would like to be treated. That's the whole ball game right there.

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Want to add rocket fuel to your agency? Contact Danny J Nanny through LinkedIn.