EP 46: Do You Know What Children Are Reading?

This week I attended a conference where the conversation centered around childhood literacy, declining reading scores, shrinking attention spans, and the growing influence of screens.

I agreed with every bit of it.

But I couldn't stop asking a different question...

What are we programming our children with when they do read?

Because children don't just learn from books.

• They learn from the stories we tell.
• The stories we live.
• The emotions we model
• The relationships they witness.
• The patterns they experience every single day.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why the first eight years of life matter so much
•  How repeated experiences shape the subconscious mind
•  Why stories become emotional blueprints
•  The connection between childhood programming and adult patterns
•  Why I wrote Courage Finds His Calm
•  How awareness allows us to interrupt patterns before we pass them on

Whether you're raising children, working with children, or simply trying to understand yourself a little better, this conversation is ultimately about the stories that shape us all.

Because children are always reading something.

And awareness gives us the opportunity to become more intentional about what they're learning.

You're not broken. You're patterned. And patterns can be changed.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Reparenting Radio. I'm Lisa Watson, architect of human transformation. This is a space for leaders, parents, and anyone ready to break old patterns, regulate their nervous system, and show up in their life with clarity and self-trust. If you're ready to change the way you lead, love, and live, you're in the right place. Let's begin. Hello and welcome back to Reparenting Radio. This past weekend I attended what is called Book Thinkers Live. It was a conference for authors and book lovers that I was invited to through my publisher. And it was held in Boston, and it was pretty exciting because I am from Boston. That is where I grew up, just on the outskirts of. And I got to go home and I was introduced to a brand new great nephew that I have and got to enjoy walking around the beautiful city and watching the tall ships come in. And it was a beautiful, beautiful summer weekend, and it was just really fantastic. But that's not what I came to talk about, how beautiful Boston is. One of the speakers that was at this event, in fact, he's the one that started the event, Book Thinkers. He was talking about the decline of childhood literacy. And he shared some statistics about children reading less, how they have attention spans that are way shorter than they've ever been. Screens are replacing books, IQs are declining. No one's reading long-form content anymore, at least not the younger ones. And honestly, I have to say I agreed with everything that he said. However, even though that is a very important conversation, children's literacy and getting children to read more long-form content, as I sat there listening, I realized that there's a bigger question that's even more important than that. Because everyone seems so focused on how to get children to read more books, but I couldn't stop thinking, do we even realize everything that children are already reading? Because before a child learns to read words, they're reading us. They're reading our faces, they're reading our tone of voice, they're reading our relationships, our reactions, our nervous systems. And then eventually they begin reading books too. Which led me to another question. If children are absorbing information everywhere they look, then the quality of every story they consume matters. Not only the stories that we read them, but the stories that we're living in front of them. Because every repeated story, whether it's inside a book or inside a home, becomes part of the blueprint that they're building about how life works. Those belief systems become the filters that they lay over their reality and experience life through. And that's what I want to explore today. Because one of the things that I've spent the last decade studying is how the subconscious mind develops, how children learn, how nervous systems adapt and how beliefs are formed, how patterns and habits become automatic, and how these early childhood experiences quietly become the patterns that we continue to live through as adults. And the reason that I spend so much time talking about the first seven or eight years of life is because during those early years, children are not filtering information the way adults do. They are simply absorbing it. They're taking in repeated experiences and building a subconscious blueprint for how the world works. Not because anyone sat them down and said, here's how relationships work. Here's what love looks like. Here's what you should believe about yourself. Because even if you do those things, but the modeled behavior is different than what you're telling them, they're going to adopt the modeled behavior. They're going to adopt what they see through the experiences, not through just what you tell them. Because before a child can explain anxiety, they've already learned whether the world feels safe. Before they understand relationship, they've already been studying the relationships around them. Before they are familiar with the word self-worth or self-esteem, they've already begun to decide whether they're worthy or not. Children are extraordinary observers. They are reading everything, not just books. They're reading your face when you walk through the door. They're reading your tone of voice. They're reading what happens when someone makes a mistake. They're reading how conflict gets handled. They're reading whether emotions are welcome or should they shut them down. They're reading whether it's okay to cry or not, whether it's okay to say yes or it's okay to say no. They're reading whether love feels secure or unpredictable. They're reading your relationship with money, your relationship with food. They're reading how you speak to yourself in the mirror. They're reading whether you rest or you constantly stay busy. They're reading what gets celebrated, what gets criticized, what gets ignored. Children are always reading something. And yes, I understand long form content. It would be nice if our children would read more long form content, but as I'm sitting at this conference listening to this, I couldn't help think that what they're reading is so much more important than how much they're reading. Years ago, when I began studying childhood development, conscious parenting, and the subconscious mind, and then I began to nanny to you know workshop some of those ideas and practice and put it put it into place since my children were grown adults, I didn't get to practice on them again. And I started noticing the stories that we normalize. And I began to ask myself, what emotional lessons are these stories having our children rehearse over and over and over again? What beliefs are they reinforcing? What expectations about life, love, courage, family, and themselves are quietly taking root? And I noticed some recurring themes, especially in the really popular books that I saw in so many of the houses that I was nannying for, the little golden books, the Disney books, heroes separated from their parents, characters that are abandoned, love arriving after suffering, fear becoming the engine that moves the story forward, you know, parents dying in the first ten minutes of the movie. And I'm not saying that stories shouldn't contain hardship, because life contains hardship and it's real, and and stories, you know, they should reflect the human experience. But repetition matters, and the age of a child matters. When children experience the same emotional themes, like being saved by the prince or being abused by the wicked stepmother, those themes begin to feel normal, expected, familiar. And familiarity is powerful because the subconscious mind is constantly learning through repetition. Repetition is the mother of learning. The brain doesn't simply remember what is repeated, it begins to expect it. And what we believe will be inevitable is what we will eventually end up creating. That's how it works. If a baby was born into a affluent, emotionally regulated, functional, high IQ family that had money, that had love, that had nurturing and food, those things would be expected. You would expect them. They become inevitable to you. It's going to happen. That's why children raised in those types of environments end up creating a life similar to the environment that they grew up in, because it was inevitable to them. They learned this is just what life looks like. We create based off of our beliefs. And if that same baby were born into a family that lived in an impoverished area where there was lots of violence, abuse, abandonment, lack of emotional regulation, they would grow up believing that that was inevitable. And it would be, and that's why children that grow up in those types of situations end up creating that type of reality for themselves. Our beliefs create our reality. These first seven years are so critical. The behaviors that are modeled for children, the stories that we are reading to them, the themes, the emotional themes, the fear in these stories. Because those expectations quietly become the lens through which we do experience the world. And if we repeatedly rehearse fear, we become more likely to expect and experience fear. If we repeatedly rehearse scarcity, we become more likely to expect and experience scarcity. And the same with survival. Not because it's the only reality available to us, but because it's the reality our subconscious has been practicing and expects to see. That's the way this world works. There really is no concrete reality except the one that we believe that we see. And this is the main reason that I wrote Courage Finds His Comb. And I plan to write many more children's books. I wasn't simply trying to write a children's book. I was trying to write a different kind of story for children. One that would help a developing mind. And I asked myself, if stories help shape the subconscious mind, what kind of emotional experience do I want children rehearsing? Could a story teach emotional regulation? Could it normalize taking a breath before reacting? Could it help a child understand that feelings come and go? Could a story remind them that courage isn't the absence of fear? It's learning how to move through fear without losing yourself? Could courage look less like defeating a dragon and more like learning to calm your own mind? And that question became the heartbeat of my book, Courage Finds His Calm, because I wanted children to rehearse something different. Not just bravery, but self-awareness, not just adventure, but emotional safety. Not just problem solving in the world around them, but learning how to navigate the world within them. And the beautiful part here is that this isn't just about children or parenting. Because every adult listening right now is still living through programming. If you've ever wondered why you people please, why you overthink, why you are afraid of rejection, or you apologize when you've done nothing wrong, or why rest feels uncomfortable to you. Maybe you wonder why conflict feels terrifying or why you're always trying to earn approval. Those aren't random personality traits, they're patterns. Patterns that made sense somewhere along the way. Patterns that your nervous system learned. Patterns that your subconscious repeated until it felt like you. Which is why I say almost every single day, you're not broken, you're patterned, and patterns can be changed. One of the biggest gifts awareness gives us is choice. When we're unconscious, we repeat. When we become aware, we choose. That's true for the stories that we tell ourselves. It's true for the media that we consume. It's true for the books that we read. It's true for the conversations we have around our children. And it's true for the emotional environment that we create inside our homes. Awareness doesn't ask us to be perfect. It simply asks us to become intentional. So this week, I would love to leave you with a few questions. What stories are shaping you today? What stories shaped you as a child? What emotional themes are repeated in your home? And if you have children, what are they reading beyond the pages of a book? And what are the emotional themes in the books that they are reading? And that you're reading for that matter. And remember, they're reading you. They're reading relationships, they're reading your nervous system, your reactions, your beliefs. What was little you reading? Because somewhere in those repeated experiences are the patterns that you're still working to understand today. And the beautiful news is awareness changes everything. Because once you see the pattern, you no longer have to keep repeating it. You get to make a new choice. You get to see that it's not actually you, it's simply a pattern and a choice. So think about that this week. And before we wrap up, I want to say that if you are enjoying these conversations, I would love to invite you to join my weekly newsletter. It's where I explore these ideas and share practical reflections, kind of like I do do here and keep you updated on things. And if you haven't seen my One Minute of Awareness series yet, you'll find a new video every day on YouTube and TikTok, each one exploring a different pattern in about 60 seconds. Just simple reminders to help you understand yourself with a little more curiosity and a little less judgment. And everything is linked in the show notes. And I want to thank you so much for spending time with me here today. And remember, you are not broken. You are patterned. And patterns, they can be changed. Thank you for listening to Reparenting Radio. If today's conversation supported you, take a moment to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who knows they were made for more than the patterns that they inherited. If you're ready for serious inner work and real transformation, personally or professionally, you can explore my leadership pathways at Lisa-Watson.com. And if you're raising little ones alongside your own healing, you'll find my children's books at awakintheone.org. Until next time, stay grounded, stay open, and keep reparenting the parts of you that are ready to come home to their authenticity.