Season 1, Episode 1

Just as Fred Rogers encouraged us to look for the helpers, Listen to the Helpers is a podcast created by the Fred Rogers Institute to elevate the voices of helpers everywhere. Join co-hosts Sarah Goehring and Kenzee Knott for an introduction to Listen to the Helpers and the Six Fundamentals of Learning and Growing.

Listen to the full episode below: 

---

Full Episode Transcript

Sarah Goehring: Welcome to Listen to the Helpers, a podcast created by the Fred Rogers Institute to elevate the voices of helpers everywhere. Fred Rogers once said, "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." 

[music] 

Sarah: Welcome to Listen to the Helpers, our very first episode of our new podcast from the Fred Rogers Institute. Kenzee, are you so excited?

Kenzee Knott:  I'm so so excited. Sarah, how about you?

Sarah:  I am so excited as well. Um, maybe we can start off by telling our listeners a little bit about us and, you know, why we're here with this podcast. Kenzee, do you want to introduce yourself for anybody joining us for the very first time?

Kenzee: Yeah. Um, I'm Kenzee Knott. I am the program associate at the Fred Rogers Institute. I have been working at the institute for about four years now, actually. Um, and I've been through like various roles. I first started working here when I was an undergraduate at St. Vincent College where we're located. Um, my background is in education. I'm a secondary education certificate with an English background. Um, and I just kind of made my way up, I [laughter] guess. Um, I was a grad assistant for about a year until I was brought on full-time as a program associate. Um, and I love the work that we do here. How about you, Sarah? What's your background? 

Sarah: Yeah. So, my story is very similar to Kenzee's in that I started getting involved with the Fred Rogers Institute as a student. So, I've been involved with the institute in some capacity for almost 10 years now, which is crazy to think about. Um, but most of that time was spent as an undergraduate student. Um, you know, as a work study with the Fred Rogers Institute, as a Fred Rogers Scholar, which Kenzee also was a Fred Rogers Scholar. And um then I too was a graduate assistant when I graduated with my bachelor's in early childhood education. I stayed at St. Vincent College for my master's program, worked as a graduate assistant here at the Fred Rogers Institute. Um and then when I graduated with my master’s in curriculum and instruction, I got hired on full-time thankfully and I have been here ever since. Um and I'm originally from Maryland, from Columbia, Maryland. So I came to the Latrobe area for school at St. Vincent. So um and one of the biggest draws for me coming to St. Vincent was the fact that the Fred Rogers Institute was on campus and that you know we have the Fred Rogers archive here and the Fred Rogers Scholars program and a lot of really unique opportunities for students especially looking to go into education or other helping professions. And I'm sure Kenzee you can relate to that because our stories were so similar. 

Kenzee: Yeah. Um just little variation I'm from Latrobe but I um I went originally to a school up in Erie and about a year into undergrad I ended up transferring here because it was home and I love the familiarity and especially like the Institute is absolutely amazing and getting to work here as an undergrad. So there are so many you know helping opportunities that could occur on campus like of course the scholars um and we'll get to meet a scholar later on in our season as well. So, it's absolutely great.

Sarah: Yeah. So, now that our listeners have heard a little bit about us and they know kind of who will be hosting this podcast, um we are going to be talking to a variety of people working in helping professions this season. Um we're going to have guests on this show who will tell us the stories of, you know, maybe the seen and unseen parts of their jobs and their roles as helpers. And each of those conversations, Kenzee and I will really really try to tie them, and I'm sure it won't be hard. Um, we're going to tie them to the work that we do at the Fred Rogers Institute and really in particular tie them to the six fundamentals of learning and growing. Kenzee, do you want to share a little bit about, you know, where these kind of six fundamentals of learning and growing, where that stemmed from? Because we ground almost all of our work at the Fred Rogers Institute in these six. But can you give a little bit of a background on those six?

Kenzee: Yes, I love giving a background about these six. So these six actually come from a book called Mister Rogers Talks with Parents by Fred Rogers in Barry Head. Now this book was developed originally in 1983. And something interesting that I find about these fundamentals is that they were originally looked at from the lens of how television can help a child develop and learn and become ready to learn. Um but our roles at the institute we try to expand that beyond Fred's role in television and we kind of look at them from the lens of like how these fundamentals in general can help children develop not so much television's role but just in general um what to look for and something I love too is that we look at them not just from the lens of helping children grow but also adults as well how we as adults can sustain growth growth and continue to grow even into you know aging. So um yeah that would be the overview of kind of what the fundamentals are. Um Sarah do you want to give a you know describe them to everyone. What are the six? 

Sarah: Yeah. So the six fundamentals and you know we might refer to them as just the fundamentals we might refer to them as the six but these these six big things are a sense of self-worth, a sense of trust, curiosity, the capacity to look and listen carefully, the capacity to play, and times of solitude. So those six are what we call the fundamentals of learning and growing. Um, yeah, like Kenzee said, we talk about those as it relates to children learning and growing and adults learning and growing, too, because we're all still learning and growing at whatever age and whatever stage of life we're in. So, Kenzee, let's talk through each of these six just a little bit to kind of give our listeners a little bit of an overview about each one of them individually. 

Kenzee: Let's start with a sense of selfworth. This one is a fun one in my opinion. Um, we host like an educator's neighborhood community of learners and we kind of go through each of the six over the course of a school year and we always start off with a sense of selfworth and I really feel like that is all of these fundamentals are foundational in theory but like I feel like sense of selfworth truly is like the foundation of all the rest of the fundamentals. And before I talk about the sense of selfworth too, um while we're talking through the fundamentals, I highly recommend thinking about how these work together as well and how you can see them kind of interconnected and influencing one another when you're thinking about one in particular. 

Sarah: I'm really glad you said that, Kenzee, because that's something that I always like to remind people, especially in educators' neighborhood. I like to remind people that these are not step by step. And even though we list them in a particular order, that doesn't mean like you need selfworth and then you can have trust and then you can have curiosity and then you can have this. They are all very interconnected and it's a back and forth. It's an eb and flow. So I'm really glad that you mentioned that. 

Kenzee: Yeah. I figured it'd be worth mentioning before we dive into all of them in detail. 

Sarah: Yes.

Kenzee:  But so a sense of selfworth. So this particular fundamental deals with an individual and their ability to feel they are worthy of love um and how they have value within themselves and within that it involves a lot of reflection about what they value and how they respect themselves and those around them. um and just [clears throat] basically how they feel confident in their ability to grow and what areas of their own personal lives and professional lives that they do need to work on growing as well. Um it's really all about the unique gifts that each person has that they can use to help others and themselves within our own world. Um so it's involves a lot of reflection but again I feel like most of our fundamentals do but again we'll talk about solitude in a second but I feel like one has to engage in solitude in order to have a sense of selfworth but again moving too fast. Um do you have any particular thoughts about sense of selfworth yourself Sarah? 

Sarah: Yeah, I always think it's interesting when um either people on our team like whether we internally talk about this or if it's like educators bringing this up, but the the thought around self-worth versus self-esteem, I feel like that's like a whole rabbit hole you could get into, but you know, self-worth and self-esteem, are they the same thing? Are they different? What makes them different? Is one more temporary? is like your self self-esteem is that more based on how you're feeling a particular day or you know outside influences um that make you feel a certain way about yourself or have a certain perspective of yourself but your self-worth might be more more of a more of a permanent kind of thing like your sense of selfworth and knowing that you are really truly worthy of love and respect and kindness. You know, some days you might not feel your best you, and that's okay. But deep down, you still have that sense of selfworth that even if you're not having your best day, you know that you're still you're still worthy of love. So, I I think that's kind of an interesting thing to think about. Um, and I like thinking about that.

Kenzee: Yeah. Fred has something really um nice to say in relation to a sense of selfworth, which I'm going to share now. Um, “As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is. That each of us has something that no one else has or ever will have. Something inside that is unique to all time.” And again, like just those key words of like unique, valuable. It truly is like so important that we value ourselves as human beings above all else. It's just not like I know we all have different expectations of ourselves or what others have of us but at the end of the day it's how we find ourselves valuable and the gifts that we share to others too. So 

Sarah: Absolutely. Yeah. And so moving into a sense of trust. Um again all of these build on each other and it's not you know a first second third kind of thing but um sense of selfworth can definitely feed into the relationships that you have with others. I think a sense of trust is really one of the foundational building blocks of relationships. Whether it's adult, child, child, child, adult, adult adult, any kind of relationships, that sense of trust is there. A sense of trust is a person's level of confidence in someone else and level of confidence in themselves too because you can trust others, but you can also have a sense of trust with yourself. Um, trust can also be continuously developed through relationships. Um it's reflected on your ability to rely on others to feel vulnerable and feel comfortable as yourself and comfortable with others. Um and having a sense of trust can really help again with it being a foundational element of relationships. It can really help open yourself up to being able to talk about big feelings and experience big feelings and cope with things that are changing around you and really finding your place in the world. Again, this applies to children and adults, any phase and stage of life. A sense of trust is important in relationships and a sense of trust in yourself. Um, Kenzee, do you have any kind of personal thoughts on a sense of trust?

Kenzee: Yes and no. I feel like in my opinion I think that this fundamental personally is one of the most difficult, especially when you know talking to others just because you or yourself or you or someone else might have trouble engaging in trust. you don't know. You might come across a child or someone in your career that you know has a difficult history with trust and developing trust in themselves or you. And I feel like I would always encourage someone to just keep that line of conversation open. Just letting that person or that child know like, hey, you may not want to be able to talk about what you're going through or something difficult now, but you might get to a point later where you become more comfortable. I'm always going to be here. Um, trust can be difficult. It just truly can. I feel like to some degree someone might feel that another one of our fundamentals is more difficult. But to me, I always, you know, hear that when we talk about the fundamentals, this one is the most, you know, difficult to engage in, I guess.

Sarah: Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of layers with this one. And there are layers to all of them. Sure. But I can see what you're saying about, you know, this being a really difficult one because again, there's the whole layer of having trust with others and having trust in yourself and then thinking about when trust is broken, how does that impact relationships? And how do you move forward? Do you move forward? Can you move forward with a relationship when trust is broken? And what about when trust is broken with yourself? You know, like what if I trust myself to do something and then I don't meet my own expectations? So, I feel like this is a really complex one of the fundamentals. And I'll share a Fred um quote around trust that we often talk about in our work. And I'm sure that many of our listeners might have heard this quote before. Um it's a pretty popular one of Fred's. Um but he said, "Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable." When we talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.

Kenzee: That's great, Sarah. Um, with that, I'd love to talk about our next fundamental, curiosity. Um, I think I it's hard. I know there's only six of them, but I always say that they're all my favorites, but curiosity might be one of my favorite ones. Um, and I think it's important because this is something that we tend to, you know, lose focus on as we get older. I feel like children are, it's a little more easy for children to engage in curiosity because they always have so many questions, right? Especially someone who works with little little kids, I'm sure they have a question like and they talk a mile a minute and you know it can feel a little difficult to answer their questions. But as adults, um, I feel like we just have so many different tasks and expectations on our plate that we tend to lose our curiosity. But it's so important that we do engage in it because it's our ability to explore and learn about the world around them. And it's so important even as an adult to be a continuous learner. I think to be a person that engages in curiosity as an adult, I think it's super important to start off that curiosity with like something you're particularly interested in. Like maybe you know there was a topic in school in like social studies class that you really liked but you feel like you didn't learn enough on. Like I'm sure there is a podcast that exists out in the world about that topic. I'm sure your local library, shout out to libraries, has a book on this topic. Like it's all about engaging in that curiosity, making sense of the world around you and being curious and asking those questions and seeking out opportunities to engage in curious moments. So 

Sarah: yeah, I love that. Yeah. No, I'm really glad that you put it like that and I totally agree that I feel like it's curiosity is one that is easy to say, oh yeah, kids are curious. That's true and we hope that's true, but adults can be curious, too. adults should be curious, too. And I feel like I have a special connection to the idea of curiosity because that's something that I'm like really really really trying to respect my son's curiosity. As Kenzee knows, I have I have a son who is entering toddlerhood and he like as he can move around and explore the world around him more and more every single day, I'm like I said, I'm trying so hard to be really intentional about respecting his curiosity and engaging in curiosity with him. Um, I think about how it's really easy and pretty common to say no, don't touch that or no, don't do this or no, you can't do that. There is, you know, plenty of safety concerns for no, don't touch this, or no, don't touch that. For sure, but something that I try really hard to do is to not say that unless it is actually a safety thing. Like I, if it's like I have to take a step back and think, you know, if I'm going to tell him not to touch this or if I'm going to tell him not to explore this, why am I saying that? Am I saying that because it's inconvenient for me to him for him to be exploring this thing or am I saying it to keep him safe and, you know, keep him from harming himself or someone else around him? If it's more of like I'm a little nervous or I'm a little scared or I'm trying to make things a little more convenient for me, let's just let him explore. Let's let him be curious and let me engage in it with him so that I can I can be alongside him and not only support that curiosity but maybe I'll become more curious too. So I don't know that's been one that I've been like personally growing in over the past year or so for sure. So I I always get excited to talk about curiosity because I feel like I'm like in the thick of becoming more curious with my son. So that's that's exciting for me.

Kenzee:  And I bet you that's also I don't know how your curiosity and your sense of curiosity was prior to having a baby, but I bet you it's kind of helping you develop like those skills further or back if they went away. But yeah. 

Sarah: Yeah. It's like bringing back like a joy for life, you know? 

Kenzee: Right. And you know, it's okay too when you're engaging in curiosity that you don't have to have all of the answers, especially when you're being curious with kids. Like I said earlier, they might ask like a mile a minute questions and they might have a ton to say and you may not have an answer to all their questions, but that just gives you an opportunity to be curious with them. 

Sarah: Yeah. And there's so much power in the phrase, I don't know. And that's that's okay to say, 

Kenzee: right? And Fred said something similar about curiosity that I'm going to go ahead and share now. Um but he said “it's natural and healthy for children to be curious about the people in the world around them. When we express our awareness and appreciation of children's interests and wonder, we let them know that it's good to be curious.” So thank you Fred. 

Sarah: Thank you Fred as always. So our next one of our six fundamentals of learning and growing is the capacity to look and listen carefully. So the capacity to look and listen carefully is the ability to really intentionally observe and learn from the world around you. Listening carefully might look like active listening and being attentive. Looking carefully might be stepping back to observe and really trying to take in information. Um, if you're a teacher, it might look or if you're a caregiver in any sort or you're around children, it might look like um instead of engaging in play with a child, taking a step back and kind of watching the play happen and seeing what you can learn from the children who are playing um maybe what their choices are that they make or how they interact with toys or materials. So, that might be looking carefully. Um life can really push us to to hurry and do more and consume more and you know rush from one thing to the next. Um but even with kind of this demand to have your attention divided in a million directions um especially with that demand um to divide your attention the capacity to look and listen carefully and really slow down and and and take a minute to intentionally engage with the world around you. um that can be really powerful and it can you can learn a lot and others can learn a lot from you too. Um you can learn a lot about the world around you and you can learn about yourself too. Um so I guess what do you think about the capacity to look and listen carefully Kenzee? 

Kenzee: I feel like I've grown a deeper appreciation of this fundamental since not only working at the institute but also like as we said earlier we facilitate different educators neighborhood small groups. A lot of our role as facilitators is stepping back and well asking questions first and foremost. Um and then stepping back and giving different educators the space to talk about, you know, each question and fundamental and be really vulnerable. And I feel like in doing so, I've learned a lot about not only myself but others in this sense. um just because I don't know as we've said and I just feel like you learn so much about an individual when you do step back and you listen and being an active listener which comes up a lot I feel like in the episodes we've recorded so far is difficult. It is super difficult because you feel like you kind of have to solve a problem to what whatever someone is talking about. But it really is super important to connect with others and the world around you. And I feel like this fundamental really does give you the opportunity to develop connection and build the foundation for relationships and even cultivate relationships just by engaging in it. 

Sarah: I'm glad that you mentioned the fact that being an active listener is hard. And as I was listening to you talk, I was thinking about what I might say to respond. So I was even struggling being an active listener right there. Um I feel like there is. It's like an art being able to listen to understand rather than listening to respond. There's something like there's no like right way to listen. But it's really hard to figure out, you know, depending on the conversation, the situation, the person that you're in the conversation with. Um, being that active listener and truly listening to understand kind of a side note, but when I go for walks, I don't I don't put my headphones in. I don't listen to music. I don't listen to podcasts. Um, I I don't know. That was like a pre-thinking about the capacity to look and listen carefully. But then when I started learning about and really diving into the six fundamentals of learning and growing, that's something that I think is like kind of by accident a way that I practice this idea to look and listen carefully because I like that time and space to just look and listen and be present. And it's not a bad thing at all to listen to music or podcasts or whatever um during a run or a walk or an exercise or a drive, whatever. Um, but that's like my personal way of like time and space that I get to carve out to to really look and listen carefully to myself, to the world around me, um, to if I'm walking with someone. Um, so that's kind of my personal relationship with this fundamental. Um, but Fred Rogers said that “ there are many different ways for children to find out about the world around them. looking carefully at things, touching and feeling the things they see, and listening carefully to the sounds they hear and the words people say. By looking and listening carefully, they can begin to understand the world around them and the people in that world.” 

Kenzee: Just as you do when you go on runs. 

Sarah: Yes, I try. 

Kenzee: All right. Awesome. Um, so our next fundamental, which is a I'd say probably like when we think about the fundamentals, this is probably a pretty popular one. Um, yep. The capacity to play. Um, I feel like this one, again, they're all interconnected and they all influence each other. But I love that I was able to talk about curiosity and now we could talk about play because I feel like they go in hand in hand is a lot about being creative and exploring and expressing yourself as well. Um, just because, you know, children haven't really developed a surefire way to express themselves the same way adults do. If I'm upset, I'm going to say, "Hey, Sarah, I'm upset." Or at least that would be the hope, right? 

Sarah:  I would hope that you would be able to share those big, I hope that you trust me enough to share those big feelings with me. 

Kenzee: Exactly. Um but you know, children don't really have that yet. We as adults, we need to help by modeling that. Um but most times children do utilize play in order to express how they're feeling. And play can look like so many different things to so many different children. It could be, you know, using their imagination, um, you know, painting, doing art, so many different kinds of things. I could literally not even form an entire list. Um, but it is their way of trying to make sense of the world around them, right? Um, but it is really important to know before I pass it on to you that adults also can play. We play all the time. Our play might look differently than children or it might not. You know, some I love a good Lego as much as a 5-year-old does. I shall admit that. Um, and it's our way too of making sense of the world. Um, and we can play by ourselves. Um, we could play in groups. We could I love the idea of like parallel play where two children or people play two different things but they're near each other and they're still connecting. Um, there's so many ways to play. Um, how about you Sarah? What do you think about play and how do you play in your life? 

Sarah: Yeah, I love talking and thinking about play from the perspective of adults because I feel like Yeah, you're right that kids aren't the only ones that play. Yes, play is so important for kids, but play is also important at any age of life. And I I agree. You know, Legos, adults can do Lego. any age can do Legos, board games, literally any kind of games like card games, whatever it might be. Those like very literal forms of play. And then there's also reading, puzzles, um 

Kenzee:running 

Sarah: going for a walk, going for a run, that can be play. Um there's a million types of play. And I think for me personally, you know, I love a good book. I like to go outside. I like to spend time in nature. Um, I love board games. I, you know, might be a sore loser every now and then that I, you know, I won't I won't deny it.

Kenzee:  I think we need your husband on the podcast to confirm that you are a sore loser at times. We need evidence.

Sarah: He would be able to confirm that. I also love thinking about play in the in the context of hobbies. Um, it's funny that you brought up, you know, that my husband would need to confirm that I'm a sore loser. He is like the most prime example of an adult exploring different hobbies because he's very much the type of person that like every week is a new hobby. And you know sometimes I have to remind myself like oh this is this is play like this is him making sense of the world around him and like exploring his curiosities, exploring his interests and like engaging in that play. So whether it's I'm going to learn a magic trick this week or or whether it's I'm going to go buy a heavy bag because I'm going to start boxing. And if it only lasts a week, that's fine because that week was full of play and full of joy and full of fun. Life doesn't have to be so serious all the time. 

Kenzee: Yep. Uh, my favorite thing to share, well, my favorite thing to do for everybody who either has to grade papers or write papers or any tedious task that you have while you're doing your job, um, I personally, um, when I write papers, because I'm currently in grad school, um, I like to play the Coconut Mall theme track from, uh, Mario Kart because not only does it make me feel accomplished, but it makes me go faster. [laughter] So, it's very nice. Highly recommend. Mario Kart soundtrack is your friend. And it gives me an opportunity to be playful and make joy out of something that does not bring me joy. 

Sarah: So fun. That's a great idea. [laughter]  Finding playful moments in the everyday like mundane things. 

Kenzee: Right. Exactly. And so, which leads me to say, what does Fred have to say about play? “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. At various times, play is a way to cope with life and to prepare for adulthood. Playing is a way to solve problems and to express feelings. In fact, play is the real work of childhood.” 

Sarah: And it's so true. I feel like that is another Fred quote that's very popular. Um if you're a follower of Fred's work, then you've heard that play is the work of childhood. And I think anybody who does support the work of Fred can't disagree with that statement. Um, our final of these six fundamentals of learning and growing is times of solitude. This one is another one that has a lot of layers, I think. And I find this one really really intriguing. And um I think I know I've heard from several of the educators involved in the work that we do that this one can be really tricky. Um so solitude is being present and intentionally connecting with yourself. Times of solitude can happen alone or they can happen with others. Um Kenzee, you talked a little bit about like parallel play. So, like playing your own thing side by side with somebody else. So, you're playing kind of together, but not really together. That's kind of how I think about times of solitude. They can happen parallel to each other, but they um the people involved can have their own experiences of that time of solitude. Um during a time of solitude, somebody can slow down, reflect, um explore their feelings, their thoughts. If someone is alone during a time of solitude, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're feeling lonely. So being alone and being lonely can be two different things. They can be two different feelings. Um I think something to note about times of solitude, um especially when thinking about young children, um times of solitude are are voluntary. So like you you enter into a time of solitude because you're choosing to have a time of solitude. This is not you did X, Y, and Z, so you're going to go in timeout or you're going to be punished and you're going to sit by yourself for a little while. The the whole think about what you've done kind of thing. That's not what we mean when we say times of solitude. Times of solitude are 100% voluntary. Um, and they're intended for time to reflect and slow down. What do you think about this, Kenzee? 

Kenzee: Um, this fundamental is actually my favorite fundamental. I love times of solitude. I am somebody I'm an introvert, which basically means that at the end of the night when I'm home and I've relaxed, I've done everything I need to do to prepare for the next day. I just like to go to a quiet place and just unwind and reflect on how my day went and how what I did well and what I didn't do well. You know, just really reflecting on, you know, the connection I've made with others, which is super important in our jobs. And then, you know, what I could do better moving forward, I guess. So, I guess sol times of solitude, you know, I guess I didn't associate it with a sense of selfworth until I'm sitting here talking through with you about times of solitude and I'm sitting here like, wow, I really do think it kind of helps build the way we value ourselves. Um, but basically, I really love times of solitude. It's my favorite fundamental. Um, it really does help me unwind and prepare to be my best self the next day and moving forward. So, 

Sarah: I like that you said that it helps you prepare to be your best self. What does a time of solitude look like for you? Like when you say that you enjoy those times of solitude to unwind like what does that look like for you personally? 

Kenzee: I am a in bed by like 8:00 kind of girl even though I don't go to bed until a couple hours later. definitely PJs, you know, in bed, like my Kindle is next to me. I have uh ice cold water and I have been really into those um like YouTube playlists where it's like peanuts or Snoopy and it's like just it has like like a peanut 

Sarah: cozy vibes. 

Kenzee: Yes, cozy. Literally cozy vibes. And you know what? There's a Peanuts playlist for every season of the year. Okay. So, right now I'm listening to like fall Snoopy songs and it's a great time and just like just ability to be quiet and music 

Sarah: and so yeah, you make a good point too that times of solitude don't have to be silent either. I think that tends to be a misconception. The whole like alone means lonely I think is a misconception and solitude equals silence is a misconception because that it might be true for some people silence might might feel like their best times of solitude. But for you some music in the background is what you need to feel your best self and unwind and relax and and reflect on your day and prepare for the day ahead. So, I'm glad that you brought that up. 

Kenzee: And I want to ask you, too, because your solitude is going to look a little different than my solitude because you're a new mom or as Yeah. Still, you're still a new mom. 

Sarah: He's one. 

Kenzee: What does it look like for you? 

Sarah: That's a great question. I feel like I don't get many opportunities for solitude now. I feel like now that I am a mom, I understand more how needed those times of how important and like rejuvenating those times of solitude can be. Um I you said you're an introvert. I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't think I'm an extrovert. I don't think I'm a total introvert. I like being around people but like certain people. [laughter] And and I think I'm a big fan of the parallel solitude, if that makes sense. Like if I'm, you know, having an overwhelming day or a really overwhelming moment and if my husband is like, you know what, I'll I'll take I'll take our son and I'll I'll give you some time alone. Most of the sometimes I'm like, yes, that's what I need or I need to either like get some things done or like yes, I need to just lay down and just rest. whether I take a nap or just rest. But most of the time, my answer is no. I don't want you guys to leave. Like I don't want you not here. I just need like some peace for myself, but like I want you guys around. So like let's sit on the couch next to each other and like you guys can play and I'll just like sit back and watch or like I'll just like go on my phone for a minute or I'll whip out my Kindle or whatever it is. is like I'll just do my own thing, but while you guys are around doing your own thing, too. I think that's my preferred times of solitude is my like I can do my own thing around the people that I love, you know? 

Kenzee: Right. And like again, like we just gave two very different examples of what time solitude looks like. It really is unique to everybody. You know, some might need two hours of solitude. Another person may not have that luxury and, you know, really enjoys that five minutes they might have. So it really is up to the person, but they deserve it nonetheless. 

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. Even like this is trickling back into a sense of selfworth, so it's a little bit full circle. But another thing that I've also found as like a time of solitude for me is like in the morning when I can get up and brush my teeth and wash my face. Like that's like such a small thing, but because I do have a young kid at home and it's a little bit chaotic in the morning, like trying to get things ready and get both of us ready and get our day started and everything, that like 5 to 10 minutes that I can just go into the bathroom, shut the door, be by myself, brush my teeth, wash my face, take care of myself, like the very bare basic necessities of getting ready for the day. I feel like I've centered myself. I've gotten myself ready. I have like put on my best self, you know, in the mirror and I can I can feel like I'm ready to start the day because I'm like taking care of those self-worth things like I'm physically taking care of myself and also I have that moment of like reflection and like you can do this in the mirror, you know. [gasps] And Fred Rogers um talked a lot about times of solitude. Um, one quote in particular from Fred, he said, "For young children, comfortable solitude often means being near someone they love. It's only when they are a good deal older that they may seek out aloneeness in their rooms or in another part of the house. For a long time before this, they may need to see or hear someone they love nearby, but it's still a form of solitude. Some children may simply lie down on the carpet, eyes open, seeming to be doing nothing at all, but you can be sure that inside they're doing the things they need to do in order to go on growing.” And I think that's a great way to kind of wrap up um that we're doing the things that we need to do in order to keep on growing. And that's going to look different for each of us when it relates to any of these six fundamentals. Um so I guess Kenzee, do you have any final thoughts before we wrap things up? 

Kenzee: So, I hope for those who are just being introduced to the fundamentals, they help you in some capacity. And I hope you do take the time, whether it's after you listen to this podcast or after you listen to any of the other episodes that we'll have in the future, think about how these fundamentals reflect back to your life. 

Sarah: Yeah. And join us for each of our episodes. We'll have a different guest who's working in some kind of helping profession and we'll tie it all together with a nice little red sweater bow with one of one or more of these six fundamentals of learning and growing and and more of our work at the Fred Rogers Institute. So, um we are so happy to have you along this journey with us as we kick off this podcast officially. 

Kenzee: Yep. Thank you and we'll see you later. 

[Music]

Kenzee: The Fred Rogers Institute advances the legacy of Fred Rogers by investing in the strengths of families and caring adults to support the healthy development of children. To learn more about the Fred Rogers Institute and our initiatives, visit fred rogersinstitute.org and follow the Fred Rogers Institute on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X.

[Music]