Before I became a mother, I thought I knew a lot about children. I had a master’s degree in child development and instructional technology and media. I had spent years studying how young children learned, processed information, and obtained mastery over a concept.
When I co-created Blue’s Clues, we wanted a show built around one simple but groundbreaking idea: kids learn best when they are active participants. Steve would look directly into the camera, ask a question, and then, he would wait.
That pause became one of the most important parts of the show.
At first, some adults worried that the silence lasted too long. They thought children would become distracted and turn away. They thought the show was slow.
But kids didn’t turn away. They leaned closer. They thought about the question and shouted their answers. They believed Steve was listening because, emotionally, he was. We gave kids the time to think, and we treated what they had to say as if it mattered.
I knew why Steve’s pause was effective, but that didn’t make it easy to do.
I understood the child-development research behind that pause. What I didn’t understand yet was how hard — and how important — it would be to practice it as a mother.
When my daughters were little, I wanted to do everything right. I wanted to pack the right snacks, read the right books, ask the right questions, and give them the kind of childhood that would help them grow into strong, creative, and compassionate women. Because I had spent my career thinking about what children needed, I assumed all that knowledge would make parenting easier.
It did not.
Parenting was different from teaching kids through a TV show
My daughters were not characters in a TV show. They were two completely different human beings, with their own personalities, worries, gifts, and ways of moving through the world. They didn’t always respond the way the parenting books said they would. They didn’t always need what I thought they needed. As mothers, we become experts at anticipating needs. So, when our kids bring us a problem, we want to fix it. We jump in with answers, solutions, and plans because helping is one way we show our love.
But as my girls grew older, I started to recognize something familiar. Sometimes, when they came to me, they needed exactly what the children watching Blue’s Clues had needed all those years ago.
They needed the pause.
They needed me to stop planning what I was going to say. To stop trying to make the uncomfortable feeling disappear. To listen long enough for them to hear themselves think. That is much easier to write into a script than it is to practice with your own child.
Courtesy of Angela C. Santomero
Reminding myself to pause was crucial to raising my two daughters
On Blue’s Clues, the pause lasted only a few seconds. In parenting, the pause might last through tears, frustration, a slammed door, or a very quiet car ride. It might mean resisting the urge to send one more text. It might mean allowing your daughter to make a choice you wouldn’t make and trusting that you don’t need to prevent every mistake. We just need to make sure they always know where home is.
Watching my daughters grow up, now 25 and 23, changed the way I teach children because it changed the questions I ask and the way I ask them. I used to focus primarily on what I can give them — and think just as deeply about what they can give themselves.
