You may have heard Janet, other parents, or early childhood professionals speak about “RIE” (pronounced “rye”). Perhaps they described “RIE” as profound and life changing. Or maybe they outright panned it. They may have brought up elements that sounded odd or controversial or even ridiculous. You wondered what this was really all about. In this episode you’ll hear RIE Executive Director Melani Ladygo and Janet respond thoroughly and passionately to the questions: What is RIE, and how does it help us as parents?
Transcript of “Why Parents Need RIE (with Melani Ladygo)”
Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.
As some of you may know, the parenting approach I teach is inspired by the teachings of infant expert Magda Gerber and the nonprofit educational organization she founded, Resources for Infant Educarers, commonly referred to as RIE, R-I-E. The RIE classes I attended over 30 years ago with my firstborn had a profound effect on my perceptions of babies, the art of childcare, and life, really. And I had the privilege of training one-on-one with Magda, as well as spending many hours at her feet, literally, while my daughter played on her floor and I was able to soak up her every word. I cherish those memories.
Over the years, I’ve been asked by parents and early childhood professionals to explain and define RIE, but it’s such a nuanced approach that it’s impossible, for me at least, to sum it up in just a few words. So I thought, who better to give an overview of the RIE approach than Melani Ladygo, who is RIE’s executive director. She’s also a longtime RIE associate and currently teaches RIE parent-infant and -toddler classes in her home.
I’m a huge fan of Melani. I love the way she embodies the respect that Magda taught us. So I’m thrilled that Melani agreed to join me today to help clarify and crystallize her experience with RIE, and all the benefits.
Hi, Melani.
Melani Ladygo: Hi, Janet.
Janet Lansbury: Thank you so much for finally being on this podcast. I’ve been wanting you on for a very long time.
Melani Ladygo: I am so incredibly thrilled to be here and honored that you asked me.
Janet Lansbury: One of the things I want to take advantage of now that I have you here is this idea of the “elevator pitch” for RIE, for what this approach really is. As you know, and I know from being on the board of directors for years, it’s a challenge to find a succinct way to express a philosophy or way of being that’s so rich and important to all of us. I was wondering how you generally do that.
Melani Ladygo: I feel like when I first learned about RIE, the whole reason I took that first course—which was called “RIE I” then and now is called RIE Foundations—the whole reason I took it is because I wanted to be able to do exactly that, to say, “This is what RIE is.” And I took this rich 60-hour course with all these other passionate people that were in early childhood, and I got to the end and I felt so filled up and I still could not say what it was.
I really think it was the years that I spent working in the office as the person who would answer the phone, or I used to say I was the educarer at educarer@rie.org. And I really got practice in talking to people about it and saying what it is. It kind of changes every time, depending on who I’m talking to, but essentially RIE is an organization that teaches parents and professionals how to have respectful, reciprocal relationships with babies and toddlers, children zero to two.
And the more I talk about it, the more I realize that RIE is—well, the name of it itself is Resources for Infant Educarers, and that’s a big mouthful, but it simply means that the organization itself is meant to be a resource for what Magda Gerber called an infant educarer. And she called it that because we care while we educate and we educate while we care. So the organization is meant to be a resource for people who practice this educaring approach.
Janet Lansbury: Or who want to develop that kind of relationship with their child, a lifelong relationship that begins at birth. They want to be able to bond and they want that trust between them and that respect. I originally thought, before I discovered this approach, I thought that bond and respect was something that happens later, when they’re talking and you can do things together and play together in a way that to me meant playing together, which is just where they’re able to participate in the way that you’d expect it to be more mutual.
But then what RIE taught me, or what I learned in that first RIE class with my three-month-old and just observing her, was that she had all these thoughts and all of these ideas and all this stuff going on inside her that I had not realized could possibly exist in a baby. And I wanted to know about that. I wanted to discover that person and get to know her and bond with her. Really, I wasn’t even thinking about bonding with her. I was just thinking how I really want to know more about what’s going on inside the mind of this person.
And that was the first time I realized she was a person. I mean, I would’ve thought that if somebody asked me, but to really see that, that somebody’s got their own thing going on that isn’t just you feeding into them, you stimulating them and them responding. It’s actually them having things coming out of themselves. And that was just fascinating to me. I wanted to know everything about it, I wanted to know how to make this keep happening where I get to see this. And that became my invitation to learning about all these things that were just life-changing.
Melani Ladygo: That is the perfect example, because I think when I say “a respectful, reciprocal relationship,” people are kind of like, What is that? And that’s exactly what that is. Having a respectful relationship with you is, I want to know about you. I want to know what’s going on with you and I want to share what’s going on with me. I’m curious about you. I don’t want to impose things, I want to let things flow. And that’s exactly what you found in that first class, that you are curious about this person and you want to let them unfold and share themselves with you. And it can start at the very, very beginning. I mean, that’s the elevator pitch, so thank you.
Janet Lansbury: Well, I wanted to hear what made you want to take that course. That’s what I’m interested in.
Melani Ladygo: I first started being interested in young babies because I took a child development course and I learned about brain development. And it’s kind of like you said, if someone had asked you if she was a person, you’d be like, Well, yeah. And that’s how I felt about brain development. It was like, Well, of course babies aren’t mini-adults and their brains develop and change over time. But when I realized how much their brains change and how that impacts their behavior and how that could impact a parent’s relationship with their child, I thought, This is what I want to do. I want to teach parents about this.
And I was a baby myself, I was not even 20. And so I thought, let me go back to school, let me learn about child development, and I’ll work in a childcare center so that I can have some “real life” experience working with babies.
As luck would have it, I landed in this infant program that was very RIE-influenced. All the teachers in my classroom had taken that training, the toddler directors, the infant toddler directors had taken it, even the center director had taken this training. And I walked into this room with 12 babies and felt peaceful, and it was kind of surprising to me how peaceful it felt. I slowly started to work there and every now and then I would start to get a little bit of a correction, like a child would start to cry and I’d start to jostle them, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” And someone would come over to me and just say very gently, “It’s okay that she’s crying. We’re here with her.”
There was a time that this baby was climbing up a slide. She was trying to go up that incline and her feet kept slipping, so I came up behind her and I just kind of put my hands under each of her feet so she could push up. And she got all the way up to the top and she had this big smile on her face and I had a big smile on my face. A teacher came down and sat next to me and said, “I saw what you did there.” And I was like, “Yeah, maybe this wasn’t a good thing.” And she said, “No, it was wonderful, but how do you think she’s going to feel the next time she tries to go up that slide and you aren’t there? She didn’t know you were helping her, so she thought she did it by herself, but she really did it with you.” And it kind of got me thinking about the baby’s experience. And she said, “Did she look frustrated? Did she look like she was having a hard time?” And I realized, no, she wasn’t asking for help.
So I started to get curious. I would say, “Well, how did you learn of this? What is this? What is this approach that we’re doing? Why can’t I distract a crying baby? Why can’t I help her climb?” And they would say, “Well, it’s RIE.” And I was like, okay, I really want to know what this is. So they said, “Well, go take the training.” And so I went to Silver Lake and I met for weeks and weeks with a group of people that were passionate about RIE and about early education. And I felt filled up and I felt so excited and I felt like I understood it.
But like I said, at the end of that time, I still couldn’t say exactly what RIE was. I just knew that I was seeing babies in a different way and it felt really good.
Janet Lansbury: I think you spoke to something in your description of your time at the childcare center that is exactly it. It’s that the baby has a point of view, the child has a point of view. And it sounds like the carers were communicating to you, without you maybe even exactly knowing why that seemed different and interesting to you, but it was like they were kind of speaking for the baby. And that’s like what I saw in my daughter, that she had her own point of view there. And that really also could be something of an elevator pitch, that a baby has a valid point of view that’s worth considering and taking interest in and wanting them to express to us as much as possible, so that they can share it, so that they can feel seen.
Melani Ladygo: It’s interesting that you say that about being seen, it’s exactly that. Because you do end up giving this elevator pitch here and there throughout your life. And during COVID, I taught these RIE parent-infant classes outside, to do it in kind of a safer way. And I was teaching a lot of classes because parents were, especially during that time, really looking for connection and support. I was teaching like six days a week.
So I was going to the grocery store and buying a lot of bananas. Because if you’ve been in a parent-infant class, you know that pretty much the snack that we usually serve is bananas. And I was going to this grocery store pretty regularly and only buying bananas. And finally, one of the checkers asked me like, “Okay, what’s up with the bananas? Why are you here three or four times?” And so I said, “Oh, it’s for this class that I teach.” She’s like, “What kind of class?” I was like, “Well, it’s this class where I help parents slow down and let children figure things out on their own and really help parents really see their children.”
And two checkers over, there’s this gentleman who kind of slammed his hand down on the register and said, “I wish my parents had taken that class. They need it right now.” And that’s an adult, right? And it’s exactly that: We all want to be seen. We all have a point of view. Even young babies want to be seen.
Janet Lansbury: Yes. They don’t know they want to be seen, but to be able to invite them into the world being seen is incredible. And then that only continues. It’s like once we see them, we can’t really unsee them, I’ve found, as people. I mean, it took me a long time to really get it, get it that, Oooh, that’s really a person. But once I did, you can’t go back. It’s so interesting. Every baby you see, you’re seeing into them.
And one thing I really wanted to talk with you about, actually you brought it up when we first connected about doing this together: This is for parents. This sounds like we’re talking about how to do the best thing for babies, but what this is really about, and why I share it so passionately, is for us. Because when we see the person in our baby, then we get to be seen by them as ourselves. We get to be ourselves. We don’t have to say the right things and do the right things and be this perfect parent that maybe we saw on Instagram or what we think we’re supposed to be. We get to be a whole person too in the way that we engage with our baby and have boundaries.
Obviously we have to give up a lot to be able to care for the needs of a baby, but we’re doing it as ourselves. We’re not having to go in there and quiet them down and jack them up again to get excited. We can really engage with them in a way that’s so comfortable and easy, and therefore we end up engaging with them a lot more than we might if we thought we had to do it in some performative way. To me, that’s the beauty of this, how it changes our experience. Not only making it easier because we’re letting our child do all these things that we thought we had to do for them, like get them up the slide, get them to calm down. We thought those were our jobs. And when we let go of a lot of those things and are able to be present and receptive to who this person is, it just takes this whole load of work off of our plates.
Melani Ladygo: It so, so does. When I first started working at that childcare center, I was only working six hours a day. I was a super part-time person and I found myself going to the office saying, “Hey, if you need anybody working extra hours . . .” And I didn’t really have time, I was going to school, but it felt so good to be in the classroom. It felt so good to be with children in that way.
Just last week, I had some people come and observe one of my classes. And it was actually kind of a chaotic class because I have a beautiful space where I teach out of my home and I have a lovely play space that opens out onto a deck. We usually take advantage of that full space, but the week these people came, it was raining and we had the door closed. So I had seven very active toddlers in a space that’s about half of the space they were used to having. And it was a busy class, children were climbing and sliding and throwing balls and actually moving a little furniture here and there. They were sharing toys, taking toys. It was busy, but it wasn’t stressful. All of the parents were able to just sit back and simply watch and maybe have a little conversation on the side here and there.
We wrapped class and before even the last parent had left the space, my observers were like, “The parents are so relaxed. Did you see they were climbing to the top of that piece of equipment? How was that safe? How did they feel calm?” They just said, “What a gift to parents to be able to just sit back and have confidence in their children’s abilities.” And I talked about how it’s not that we just suddenly landed here, it’s a process. I walked them through how parents slowly start to develop this muscle of trust by observing their children and looking at them as they struggle through something or as they attempt something they’ve never done before. You’re still going to come close, but you’re going to let them do it. And the more you start to see how capable they are, the more you can relax and have that trust.
I truly believe that is the biggest gift that RIE gives to parents and to children, that trusting relationship and that peacefulness that you can find. Not all the time, but it’s your baseline.
Janet Lansbury: It’s your baseline, exactly. It’s that peace that you felt when you first walked into that childcare center and saw the babies and it was almost jarring to you. Why are people not working so hard trying to keep everybody happy? Because it’s like we’re reunderstanding happiness, what that is. And happiness for babies is being allowed to be where they are in development and be able to be kind of struggling to do things that they may not achieve that time or the next time, but one day they will. And to know that that’s not a negative thing. To be able to see when a child is working on something, how positive that experience is. It’s not just positive that they got to the end and solved it, but that they’re able to be in the middle of it.
Getting comfortable with that as a parent, which is no small thing, it takes us all the way through life with our child. I could say with children as adults, it takes you all the way through the college applications and the career decisions and the disappointments and the heartbreak of relationships. And it helps you help your child through all of these situations and gives them this sense that life isn’t always easy and sometimes it’s very hard. It doesn’t feel good when you’re in the middle of that sometimes, but you’re going to be okay. We could tell kids that until we’re blue in the face, but they have to experience that.
Melani Ladygo: Yes. And the connection, it’s being seen in your struggle. You don’t have to be rescued from your struggle, but just having someone see and acknowledge it and say it’s okay. I mean, I had that exact experience as an adult just a few weeks ago. Someone asked about something I’ve been struggling with and I said, “I really don’t know.” And they said, “It’s okay.” And it was like a little crack opened up in my heart because it’s like, right, I don’t have to have it all figured out.
That kind of goes back to what you said about what it gives to us as adults when we practice this. Watching a baby struggle and not get there and sometimes they struggle and there is no angst, right? They’re just like that baby that was going up the slide. She was just working on a problem and she hadn’t ascribed any kind of angst or worry to it. So it’s kind of like a reflection for myself: Not every problem needs to be quite so stressful.
Janet Lansbury: Yes. And I would say for the baby, that wasn’t even a problem. That was just the situation in front of them that was interesting. They were just exploring a situation that they were in. As parents or adults we frame it as, Oh, there’s a problem and hopefully they’ll find the answer and they’re worried, and all these things that we project. I mean, I’m guilty of all of this still, but I catch myself now. I’m able to hear those voices and go, Okay, that’s you, but let’s really see where they’re at with this. And when they do get upset and cry, oftentimes it’s very much about them being tired or something else when they’re very little. They’re learning that they can manage things and that we are there and that we support where they are right now, as much as we try to do that.
I just wanted to get back to one thing you said about it’s not always easy though, because it definitely isn’t. I mean, being a parent or working at a childcare center, it’s very draining and exhausting, physically and emotionally and everything else. But imagine if we could also find areas of our day that refuel us, allowing us more of that peace. That’s the observation part of this, where you’re seeing and you’re enjoying the challenge of accepting and appreciating where your child is on a particular day, or maybe you are seeing them achieve something they’ve been working on. And all of these things that to me would’ve been unnoticeable, not something to cherish, they become little wins in the day that kind of get you through a lot of the other stuff or help make it a little more palatable.
But there’s still going to be days when it’s just impossible and hard to be unruffled and all of those things.
Melani Ladygo: Yes. I definitely say that this work makes parenting or being with children easier, but this is human relationships and we all get tired and we all get overwhelmed and we all have days, babies included, where things just aren’t clicking the way they need to click and we don’t always stay in connection. But when you have this framework to fall back on, there’s more opportunities to catch those moments because you’re looking for them.
Janet Lansbury: And just to be able to admit you’re in the struggle. I mean, this is one of the things I started doing with my children. If there would be a diaper change or something that was just seeming impossible and they were pushing back and it just wasn’t working and I was trying to do all the things, be respectful and slow it down and let them be a part of it, and they just weren’t having it. And just being able to say, which I did from time to time, “This is really a disaster! We are just not working together here. This is awful. What’s going on?” But to be able to throw your hands up and go, All right, sometimes we’re just not going to get along very well.
Melani Ladygo: That’s such a real thing, and it’s a reset. It’s like a discharge for you and it’s authentic with them. I think it kind of brings you both back to the moment of connection. And then maybe it’ll work, the diaper change will flow after that, maybe not, but you’ve had that moment of connection.
Janet Lansbury: Yes. You’ve put it out there and you’ve released yourself of this thing of, Oh, I’ve got to pull it together and I’ve got to get this working, and all that tension that we do to ourselves because we think that’s our job. But our job is to be ourselves, our job is to let our babies be themselves and give ourselves permission to be who we are. I loved Magda Gerber’s thing of, it’s two in the morning and you’re going in for that feeding or your toddler woke up and was having a bad dream. You don’t have to come in perky, you get to be your tired, grumpy self. You don’t want to try to take it out on them, but we get to be exhausted and Ugh, what is it?
Melani Ladygo: Just like how you would be in any other authentic relationship, right? If you have a houseguest who’s like, “I need this and I need that!” You’re not going to go in, “Here you go!” You might be like, “What is it this time?” And just be real. It’s two in the morning, man. Here’s your water.
Janet Lansbury: Yes!
Melani Ladygo: When you said free to be ourselves, I think about the reflection a lot of parents have about the impulses that come up for themselves. And the thing that RIE gives you is the opportunity to pause and choose, do you want to react or respond? Because a lot of our reactions are kind of knee-jerk from the way we were raised or the way society tells you that we should be with other people.
I’ll never forget this one mom, she had a really powerful daughter and her daughter knew her mind, she knew what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it. And her mom loved that, except for when she got in the rocking boat and wouldn’t let anybody else in the rocking boat. She wanted to be in that boat by herself. And it’s built for multiple children, so that mom had the hardest time with her daughter saying no to other children getting in the boat. I talked to her about it and I said, “It’s perfectly fair for her to want to be in the boat by herself. I would want to be in the boat by myself sometimes too. And we want her to be able to notice what that no is doing to other people.”
After a couple of times of this, I noticed that she was crying a little bit. We talked about it and she said, “I realized I feel like I always give up what I want when someone else wants it and I don’t want that for my child. I want my child to decide that if I want to be the only person in the boat, I want to feel comfortable being that only person in the boat. And not feel like just because someone else is saying I want it too, that I have to automatically just acquiesce and let someone else in the boat.” Yes, I want you to be someone who’s out in the world who’s kind and who shares, but I also want you to be someone who can take care of your own needs.
Janet Lansbury: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I don’t think I would keep the other kids away though. I mean-
Melani Ladygo: No, I didn’t keep the other kids away.
Janet Lansbury: Yes, I would be there spotting. First of all, I can totally understand wanting to be in the rocking boat alone because somebody moves it every time you’re just trying to get balanced in it and then somebody else changes that. You’re not going to feel any kind of sense of control. But I think very much allowing that point of view and encouraging that point of view, I would still allow the children to decide for themselves if they want to go up against that. And if they do, I’m not going to let her push them off, I’m going to have my hand there so she can’t hurt them or physically keep them from getting in. For me, the idea is that, Yes, your point of view is valid, and so are these other children that want to get on. I’m not going to help them on, I’m not going to help you hold onto it, but I’m going to allow the children and you to figure that out, with me there keeping everybody safe.
Melani Ladygo: Just keeping everybody safe, and sometimes translating. “I hear you saying no, and I hear you saying you really want to get in the boat with her. I hear that and I see their space. No, I’m not going to let you push. You can keep telling her no, it’s okay.”
Janet Lansbury: Yes, but you’re neutral. That’s the hard thing. I think that’s the hard thing for parents, especially if it’s their child. If their child is one of the two children, how hard is it to be neutral? But that’s what we get to practice with this approach. And it helps with siblings, it makes all the difference with siblings loving each other, getting along with each other, that they don’t feel that we’ve made one into a villain and one into a victim in any situation or that we’re more on somebody else’s side.
Melani Ladygo: Because if you do come in and you litigate that, if you’re like, “There’s space for two and I’m going to hold the boat and this person can get in,” then you are putting a judgment on it and you’re arbitrating it. And instead, what we’re doing is teaching children to be RIE with other children. We’re letting them see the experience that the other person is having, because that is where true sharing is going to happen. For you to be a truly empathetic and generous person, you have to understand what it feels like to be selfish a little bit because, spoiler alert, being selfish doesn’t really feel that good. When you’re the only one in the boat and you’re protecting that boat and nobody else can get in, you’re not enjoying the boat.
Janet Lansbury: Or maybe if they get in and then you say, Well, I’m going to get out, then the people that were so insistent on getting in feel like, Well, this really isn’t that fun when she’s not telling us not to get in here. So everybody’s learning something about how to be in relationships. I mean, that’s why we get the children together in these classes.
And most people don’t have this kind of opportunity, I just have to say, most people do not have these communities, these like-minded people available for playgroups. Parents are maybe working outside the home all day and they can’t give their child these experiences of getting to socialize in a way where there aren’t other parents judging them and feeling like they need to do a certain thing. And I think that is hard.
But what this whole approach gives us is, well, it gives us first the understanding that our relationship with our child is by far the most important teacher of social intelligence and that we have complete control over, at least on our end, how we’re navigating that. And then what we learn from these classes and what we can bring to parents that aren’t able to be in a situation like that is that your child is very capable of social exploring and problem-solving. Maybe there are places you can allow them to do this and they can do it with their sibling, as long as they have us to keep them safe.
Melani Ladygo: That is the thing. And the number one question is, How do I do this when I go to the park? How do I do this with my friend when they come over? My answer is, depending on your comfort level, try. Say, “Well, let’s see what happens.” Or, “I’m watching this and I wonder what she’ll do. I wonder what will happen if we kind of just let them work this out.” Sometimes, maybe most of the time unfortunately, you’re going to get somebody who looks at you like, You are 100% crazy. I need to teach my kid to share and this is what’s going to happen. But you might get someone who pauses back and recognizes, Oh, I could do this in a slightly different way. That’s how you can start to grow your network of people.
It’s low-stakes, only do it when you feel comfortable. But I’ve definitely had people who knew nothing about RIE, but had an interaction like that at a playdate or in a park and said, Oh, I want to know more about that, because they see it out in the world. I think that’s what we need more of, people modeling this in little interactions.
Janet Lansbury: Definitely. One thing I used to do a lot, and it actually helped me build confidence in myself with this approach with my children, is that I would just go up and be what I call the “buddyguard.” I’d just be up next to my child to make sure my child’s not taking something away from this other child or whatever. But I would interpret like we do in class, with my hand there to block things. “Oh, you really want what he’s using and you want to keep that for yourself. Of course, you brought that here.” Just doing that thing of being neutral and allowing the children to experience the conflict.
And oftentimes what happens is they do find a solution. It’s not the one we would find for them where we’d say, “Okay, give them a turn and now you do it.” Oftentimes nobody wants it and they both go off and do something else or they’re interested in following each other or maybe the child does give it to the other child or your child decides that they see something else interesting to do. They find their ways of resolving it. And a lot of times it is the way that actually brings them both more together, in my experience. But not always! I think we have to be open to everything. I mean, that’s the whole thing of letting kids problem-solve, is that it’s a big surprise how it works out every time. You can’t dictate it.
Melani Ladygo: Yes, you’re right. It works out more often than you would expect, but it’s not foolproof. We all make mistakes in our relationships, and especially young children are going to make a lot of mistakes because they’re learning and they’re processing and their brains are developing. It’s so not a hands-off approach. It’s such an approach where you are really present and keeping boundaries, but also not solving.
Janet Lansbury: Yes. And what you find is that it does end up benefiting you, because you have a child that’s more confident going into situations and solving all kinds of problems.
Melani Ladygo: Yes. The thing about that childcare center that I worked at, it was in a pretty affluent place. It was from birth to school age. And it was so interesting to me because when children were ready to enter the “real world” of school from this childcare center, they went in many different directions. There were some that went to very progressive schools, there are some that went to very traditional schools, some that went to very rigid and academic schools, some did unschooling. But the feedback that we would get from all of these different types of schools, it didn’t matter, was they were like, Oh, we are always so glad to get a child from this program. Because what this program was really focused on was exactly that, letting children figure out how to be in relationship with other children.
Because children, when their brains are ready for those academics, they need to have the social pieces kind of worked out. And that’s what RIE really helps children do in those early years. But honestly, that’s what we all need in all of our lives, is the social pieces worked out so that we can survive and thrive.
Janet Lansbury: 100%, yes. Well, while you’re on this podcast, I know there are early childhood educators that listen and people that want to start programs, in-home childcare or center-based childcare, and maybe they’d like to attend the RIE Conference online, which is coming up in just a few weeks. And if you use the code Unruffled, you can get $50 off your registration.
Melani Ladygo: Absolutely. It’s a really wonderful opportunity to dip your toe into all things RIE. Because unlike our courses, where we’re going to teach you exactly what the approach is, what happens at the conference is you get to really see all the many, many different ways that this work can be applied. So you really get to see how does it work in a classroom? We have one workshop about how do you offer free play but also be in alignment with any ECE documentation standards? And we’ve got how do you solve conflict with RIE and through play? It’s just like a smorgasbord of hearing the different ways people can put this work into practice.
Janet Lansbury: Yes, I always think of it as similar to a smorgasbord, maybe it’s the same thing, but I think of it like a banquet that you could feast on as a parent and as a professional in childcare. It’s all there for you. And it’s like, wow, you do feel very satiated at the end because it’s about us, it’s about us and our children, so there’s always a ton to explore. The theme this year is play and you have Peter Gray as the main speaker, which should be phenomenal.
Melani Ladygo: I sat down to read his book knowing that he was going to be coming. And I don’t have a lot of time to sit down and read, but I got through half of his book in one sitting because I saw so many threads. Just like Magda said in one of RIE’s films, Seeing Infants with New Eyes, she said when she’s talking about this approach to professionals, they say, “Well, what you’re doing makes so much sense. I do it with a five-year-old or a four-year-old or maybe a two-and-a-half-year-old as long as the child could speak. I just wouldn’t think about doing it with infants.” When I read Peter’s book, it was like, Oh my gosh, you are practicing RIE with older children. So it’s really exciting to see that throughline.
Janet Lansbury: Yes.
Melani Ladygo: The other thing that I tell people, especially people who are not in a place where they have a class that they can go to, where you feel like you’re practicing this at home by yourself, it does offer a really awesome community. It’s just wonderful to be around other like-minded people that get it. And so even if you’re coming online, just connecting and just seeing that there is a wider world out there of people who see babies the way you do.
Janet Lansbury: I think we’re all struggling for that sense of community. I mean, even before the pandemic, but certainly since then, it seems like it’s still hard to feel as connected to people and this is another way to do that.
Melani Ladygo: Love it.
Janet Lansbury: Again, everybody, if you want to go to the RIE site, rie.org, and register for the conference, you could get $50 off with the code Unruffled. And I hope it’s a huge success. Until then, let’s say goodbye and hopefully talk again very soon.
Melani Ladygo: I would love to. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
Janet Lansbury: Thank you, Melani.
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You can learn and enjoy more from Melani Ladygo through her articles at MelaniLadygo.com
