Kisa
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Laura: Welcome everybody back to another episode of Little Stories That Stick. I've got Kisa Marks here from I Am Still Learning on Instagram and I'm gonna let her introduce herself to you all and what brought her to where she is in her life and what she's up to now.
Kisa: Hello, hello. Thank you for having me, Laura.
I am Kisa Marks. I run a non profit, play and nature based home child care in Oak Park, Illinois, and what brought me here, several things. So, my worldview is from a little girl in the south side of Chicago, and And the ACEs were high and all these things were going up, but the belonging and protection, my needs were a hundred percent met.
In the middle of everything and so it's very important to me to reach out to children from that same space and give them the needs that they need to, to become their greatest selves. Right? And the children that come from the place where I came from don't have that. So that is how I do my heart centered work.
Right? I go and I find the children that need what I needed and I provide that for them.
Laura: You literally go find them. Do you literally like go find them? Do you seek out children in certain ways? For your program. Well,
Kisa: yes and no. So I live in what mask itself as a upper middle class and kind of affluent neighborhood.
But there are people living right here who are literally living from, you know, hand to mouth that are just basically you can pay your mortgage, but your cupboards are bare. And so I look for those people and I look for their children. And that's why I shifted my model from a for profit to a nonprofit.
So I can provide the care for those children who are sitting here. Like, I wish my child could have this. I wish I could afford this. Well, now you can. And so I provide care for that
Laura: beautiful. That's, that's awesome. And I, what I heard you say was that amongst all the things in your life, your needs were 100 percent met.
And was that by your caregivers and your family or was that by educators in school or both?
Kisa: So it's wild. So we did not have a very good school system. We had a very small school. We lived on, we lived in a neighborhood they call pill Hill. So the families was all black community and the families were either teachers or doctors.
And my mom worked for the phone company. She was a single mom. So we stood out on that block, but the people who saw me and helped me, let me. Plant flowers in their garden with them. Let me pick strawberries in their backyard. Even the way I raised my children, I don't know if you've seen the color purple where they have the words all over the house.
We had the lady across the street had that in her house. And so I was in our neighbor's house for our neighbor friend, and all of them were educators. So they weren't my teachers, but they were my teachers. They were all educators who did that. And then my twin sister and my two brothers were just fiercely protective.
So even though we were just there because my mom had to work so much, they always looked out for me. I was a very, very awkward, very introverted kid. It wouldn't have been good for me on the South side of Chicago where I grew up, but they just gave me safe passage everywhere I went and made me feel like I was the best thing since sliced bread.
And because of it. That became me. So yeah,
Laura: that's beautiful. That's so awesome. Now, I know we kind of said we were going to chat some about kind of storytelling through discomfort and trauma and challenging times and what that looks like for us as, as educators, as caregivers, as well as, you know, humans and adults.
And I think it's really helpful for me to understand what is, You know, this larger idea of trauma, what is your understanding of it and what it means, you know, to you and the lens and when you look through.
Kisa: So to me, trauma is an experience that happens to you. And the reason it sits with us is because it's unresolved in some way.
So when you hear people say like I'm triggered or whatever, it's because it, that trauma, that specific event, there was no resolution. , and then it sits with you, manifests itself and in your body and illness and in all these ways that you're activated as you get older.
Laura: Yep. That I was actually just listening to a podcast this morning and I don't have, I don't make it a priority to listen to as much stuff around self growth as I feel maybe I should, because we're all pulled in a thousand ways, right?
But trauma, I think is something that is so important for us to understand exactly for that reason, because I think what they said that really sat with me is that we've all children will all experience trauma. Life can be traumatic. Things will happen. There's no bubble. There's no protecting it. But when it manifests itself, when it is, when you're, when you do not have the space.
To process it with a comforting safe adult when you don't have the tools to resolve it when it's pushed under the rug when it's ignored, not address any of those things right like you said, when there's no resolution. There's no discussing it. That's where it lingers. Right? Because we can't remove bad, negative, quote unquote, if we're going to put a judgment on it, can't remove challenging experiences from our lives or the lives of our children, no matter what we do, what we can do is provide them the tools, the space to feel safe, to process it, to the language, to discuss it.
Yep. Yeah. And to be, you know, super vulnerable. I was just speaking with my therapist about some challenging things that I'm going through. And it's really hard as a mom because I'm like, but how is this impacting my kids as well? How is this impacting my kids? And she was like, this is different from your experience, Laura, because you are teaching your children to state their feelings.
You are repairing when you, you know, I just lost my cool at my daughter earlier and went in and said, I shouldn't have yelled. I should've taken a breath. Are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. Okay. Well, I feel that, so I'm gonna say I'm sorry. Even if you don't need an sorry. Right. And it's those little things and it's those big things, you know, and Mm-Hmm.
reminding myself that I can't feel them or, or everyone from it, but I can continue to provide the, the space to discuss it and feel safe. Which is not to say that my parents didn't do that, but they were definitely challenging things that we all went through, and my parents were trying to process it themselves, and did not have the tools to support me through processing it, right?
If you think about, like, something like a divorce. When parents are divorcing, they're, they're dealing with that and as an adult. And so then having to shift that in your brain. Now, how do I, you know, emotionally provide the support and talk about this with my children? I just don't think it was super talked about, which is why I think I I'm still triggered and activated by a lot of it, you know, because I'm starting to understand it was just, there wasn't a ton of resolution to it.
It just. And it came and went
Kisa: You said two things that stuck out to me. One, when you were talking about like, specifically divorce or any type of grief, right? Anytime, if you're divorced, you have to grieve the loss of the relationship and the ideals you had with that relationship. And then, like, physical death.
When an adult is going through that, They are in survival mode. All you're trying to do is get through it. And so you're not thinking about the residuals, right? You're not thinking about the impact of your children and how they're experiencing what you are going through, right? And so that's why it's important to make space for it, to have a conversation for it, because while, while you're in survival mode, somebody's watching the movie.
They're getting the play by play. They're getting to observe all of those things. So then later, if they have the language and the space or somewhere safe to go, then they'll understand that this is what is happening. And yes, this hurts, but it's not my fault. You know I'm not a bad person because we tell ourselves all types of stories when we're observing other people.
And usually we take it personally, even when it has nothing to do with us. Right. So, yeah, I heard that clearly and I can't remember what the other point is. My mind is the place today, but I did hear two things.
Laura: I get that. I get that sometimes when I'm, when I'm doing podcasts, I'm like, I should talk a little less, Because that is right, our brains, we suddenly want to fire back.
But when you're recording, you try to have this like etiquette where you wait for that moment to jump in. So I get it.
Kisa: Yeah, it's really important to, to step back our trauma and what we're experiencing I talk a lot about seeing your own humanity and giving yourself grace and, and to me this, that fits so well here because like, we can't be all for all, we have to take care of ourselves.
And when you're talking about processing trauma in real time, it's like building the plane while flying it. You got a problem. You have to make space for the fact that it's going to be messy. Because who knows how to do that well, you know,
Laura: and that's where, I constantly fall back on stories. So, like, bedtime comes, and I'm talking to my daughter and I'm like, Once there was a mommy who was feeling really tired and hungry that day.
She was really frustrated and she yelled, and I will literally retell the story, but I will add in that little bit of context. I will add in what was triggering me, what activated me and how it was all the mommy. And the mommy's reaction and not, in fact, the child, right? Because in that moment, right before bed, I am hoping that I am rewiring that story.
That the story she's telling herself when she's going to bed is, Oh, mommy's a person just like me. She gets mad and screams and cries and throws things or whatever. Like I, myself, my three year old self do. And it's about mommy and not about me.
Kisa: Yeah. And we didn't get that gift. That's a gift. No matter how well intentioned our parents were, we, that was the other thing I was going to say, is that back in the day, parents, they didn't see their own humanity.
So you had to be fake and put your way through horrible things. But the gift we get through storytelling. Is we get to be vulnerable in a playful way, right? We get to tell the story about our humanity so that you can see I'm a human being. I do these same things you do. You might not see me doing it or you might hear me throw something that might be scary to you or raise my voice and it might be scary to you.
But once you hear it, you can relate. You can relate to losing your cool. You can relate to being hungry. They can do that. Absolutely.
Laura: Absolutely. So yeah, so just telling stories to the Children all the time at bed, you know, I default to that. And, and one of the things that when I read, you know, what you were thinking, like, let's, let's talk around, you know, storytelling through discomfort, trauma, death, divorce, things like that.
One thing that really stuck with me was how not only can we Okay. Tell stories about the here and now, right? Maybe something that just happened and experienced, which comes to mind when you had the, the flood last school year and you're, that was really. A bit significant for your crew and telling stories around it probably was helpful, right?
And whether it was to envision and imagine what was going to come or comfort, maybe about the unlikeliness of it happening again, or whatever the fears were that coming out, right? We can tell it about those immediate events, but, and we can also be telling those stories that are made up and Fables or, you know, twisted fairy tales that have those pieces in it that have evil, that have scary things that happen and that kids, you know, need to hear these stories.
Kisa: They need to hear them. I, so when I was a child, like we withdrew a lot and it was like in the crack era. So it was a lot of wildness going on. And my sister and I, every night when we went to bed, we told each other stories. And. I always joke that, you know, I'm magic and I create magic. But really the reason that I say that is because every night when I went to bed, the life that I'm living is the life I told her I was going to live.
And so I would just say, and we would, because we were kids, it would be like on Monday, I'm going to do this. And on Tuesday, I'm going to do this like the whole week. But basically all we were saying was we wanted to live a stable life. We wanted to have a family. We wanted to have peace and we created these stories.
every day. And as an adult, I didn't connect that until I met you. And when I met you and I saw you online, I was like, Oh, I get it. I can put that together because I never I never shared the storytelling aspect of my life because I saw it like If you're an artist and the child is just how to form circles, and then you go and make this Picasso.
So I never told stories, but when I heard how you incorporated it in your everyday life, I'm like, Why haven't I been doing this? Storyteller. I am a storyteller and I can tell these things. And then it's like all these instances came up. I don't know if I knew you at the time, but my cat, I love cats.
And one of my cats got murdered by the dog next door. And I mean, this was like, I didn't even know I was going to be able to open the following Monday because of how devastated I was. And. The cats are like, you know, a part of the family and so they're a part of the culture of the, the childcare, right?
And so to have to tell the kids and they came in mm-Hmm, . And I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do it. And they were all like wearing fancy clothes. I don't know if they sent out a memo. Like little dresses and one wore a tie and they brought little offerings, like a little thing, a catnip to go outside.
And so we began to tell this story. Now, only one child is still here from that group. And she's the one about to go to kindergarten, but we have a new group. And she shared. The story of what happened to Casey because I told I made it like Lion King I'm like there was this big fight back and they were squaw clawing and the dog was like get out of my yard and like I told dramatic story and so my oldest Kiddo shared it with another one and we found out that before she came to us Her mom, her grandmother fosters puppies and that happened between two of the dogs.
So she was able to relate that was very scary to her and kind of like that happened to you too. And so now and then it'll come up like, Oh, we lost Brody and you lost Casey. And we share that through the story just over and over again. So yeah, Absolutely. It
Laura: brings. Right. It brings things to life. I mean, and that's what we as adults do.
Right. I think I've, I've been, I don't know where I've been coming across it, but some things that are saying, like, let's say there's a a parent or an adult that's lost somebody in their lives. And especially a child, and they say that the hardest thing for them is. When people don't even ask or think they don't want to talk about it and what they want is us to tell a story.
Tell me a story about my child. Tell me a story about this person that you also knew that you also loved. Let's keep them and their memory alive. And the way that we do that, right, is with stories. And I think that what you just said as well about the child, the oldest child recounting it, right, in whatever way, whether it came out.
Spontaneously or something, you know, made the child think of it. And like you said, that other child was able to be like, oh, this death, it exists in more than one way. Oh, I thought this was an isolated event. A dog died. That's the only time probably that child has experienced death. And now to be able to, in a much more concrete way, comprehend.
Mm-Hmm . 'cause they get the idea of a story and this, they respect and trust this child that's telling it and that it is factual, you know? And then was like, oh, this. Happens in other ways and then I'm sure, let's say you know somebody or something else dies. It's just going to help build that comprehension and that understanding.
Right and how it
Kisa: is like, I feel like it's very odd that I just had this situation. on the family group, a parent group, a parent talked about the ham, they have hamster, the hamster was for sure going to die. It was on circling the drain and her and her husband were kind of contemplating it all disappear so that when their Children woke up, it just wasn't there to shield the Children from pain.
And I was like, Hey, you know, this is natural. It's awkward. It's painful, but it has to happen. Let them get a frame of reference now so that But when the bigger stuff comes, they can touch that, you know, I've, I've experienced this. I know, I understand the process of it, you know, and you can get as formal or informal as you want, but it has got to happen.
And I shared with them that when I was growing up, my grandfather went to Louisiana every summer and he had cancer, but he, they didn't share it with the children. So when he went on his trip. He never came home and everybody knew that he went to go to the hospital, but they didn't share it with the kids.
And the way that my grandmother dealt with grief was to make everything disappear. So not only did he leave and never come back, but they cleaned out his room. They cleaned, he was a mechanic. They cleaned out his garage. They took down every picture, the whole thing. And how confusing that is to a child.
Now, an adult, they thought they were shielding them, but it was like, wait, what? And now 35 years later, I'm still trying to make sense about how my grandfather left and disappeared, like just vanished,
Laura: right? And that's that. That's the traumatic experience, not that your grandfather died. The trauma lives there, not because of the death.
Right? Like as a child, like, okay, wait, if I suddenly left, let's say I now disappear from the family. Right? They're taking my pictures off the wall. They're like, well, Kisa never existed. We're not going to let her live on. Right? Scary. How scary is that? And so much of it. Is rooted in that like adult need to protect.
I think. Right? But it's doing the opposite.
Kisa: It was all good. Yes, it's really counterproductive. And I don't remember when Coco came out. But I remember balling. I mean, balling. Strangely enough, I can't listen to Vivo now, I mean Coco now, because the kids played Remember Me during the funeral they wanted to have for Casey, my cat.
Oh! During when I watched Coco the first time, I was bawling, but that was why. Because our family, They just make people disappear when it, when it hurts, they just make the whole thing disappear. And I thought about how you don't honor, you don't honor the person that you lost when they stopped existing, you know, and how important it is to tell me a story about them.
That's the best thing you can do is to keep telling stories. It can be as mythical and as fun as you want it to be, but you have to tell the story.
Laura: Absolutely. I wanted to go back to when you shared you and your sister laying in bed at night. Yeah. So I have this, you know, picture in my mind of what maybe that looks like and what that right to me is.
What you both were doing in that moment was developing resilience, right? You were building resilience. And this makes me think of Dr. Stephanie Galloway, who I did a podcast with and she wrote Happily Ever After. And the idea that. You know, fairy tales that have the evil that have the bad are necessary because they exist in real life.
So by not reading Cinderella with the evil stepmom, you're not, you're again, we're doing the same thing of just sheltering and protecting and sweeping it under the rug or ignoring or whatever, rather than Letting it be and then sharing how in that story how Cinderella overcomes how so and so overcomes how they get out of it and or don't write, but we're, we're giving those children those experiences those stories, those opportunities to act out those stories and take on those roles.
Yeah. And that's this protective factor of resilience that they're building and that's what you both were doing. You're building this bubble of your own and you were finding a way to, to grow and thrive and developing the resilience through the storytelling. And it was her that really shift my narrative because I, you know, I used to feel a little uncomfortable with all the mean characters.
In story, and like, why are we doing that? Right? We can tell a twisted tale. Now I just twist the tales instead to be more, you know, more culturally sensitive and, you know, be more inclusive. I'll twist them in that ways and changing pronouns or the family makeups or things like that. But I'm not removing the, you know, fox that eats the gingerbread character
Kisa: when I first heard Stephanie, it was, it just blew my mind because I think there are people who may hear her and Who haven't had a lot of adverse experiences who might think, I'm not sure if I buy that, but I live that and I know like she is on the money. That is exactly what we do.
You have to, as especially as children, right? You process what you're living through, through play. And so to imagine a better world and create. These stories, this is how we're going to build resilience, especially when there's no one to model it for us. Right. There was nobody to come in like you at night and give us a fairy tale.
We had to create it on our own. And thank God I had a twin sister because we were in the bedroom together. But but yeah, that's, that's what we were doing. We were trying to. Make figure a way out, play our way through what we were going through and see I don't want to say the happily ever after, but we definitely wanted to vanquish the beast.
Like we definitely wanted to try to survive the bad
Laura: overcome. Yep.
Kisa: Yeah.
Laura: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then I think the, the part that. I love about not only storytelling, right? Disability for us as adults to tell these stories in what can be very intentional ways about challenging experiences.
The story you're going to tell about your cat, you know, the story about a grandparent passing away and things like that. Also it's modeling and it's giving children the opportunity, right? To share stories and they're going to start to tell stories and when they feel safe and comfortable. We never know what's going to come out, and we're exposing them to things. We're helping them process things. We're processing things on our own.
And what we can also be doing is if we are allowing children to tell their own stories. If we're doing storytelling and story acting like Vivian Paley does, there's been many a time over my, you know, years that I've gotten a story. And I'm saying, this is a really, this is a really special story, like, thank you for sharing this with me, and this is a really private story, we're not going to act it out on the stage, right, because it's a window into maybe an experience or something that's happened with this child that isn't a child.
For all the other children to see them act out, but this is giving them the space to tell this story because we know children don't just always come in and say, you know, last night I went to bed hungry because we had no food, right, they're not just coming and telling us this it's coming out in these different ways and we have to read through the lines but if we're taking stories that children are telling.
And they're weaving their real life into fantasy and their experiences and processing. It can, you know, that's one of the beautiful things that I have seen. And it reaffirms that by taking those few moments a day to ask a child one on one, do you want to tell me a story that they know you are a safe space, that you are going to listen, that the words that they're saying, you are hearing like actually hearing.
Kisa: Hearing it's not just going in one ear and out the other and I'm reminded of first. I want to say how beautiful it is. To be able to share that space with a child, right, to be able to hear them telling you a story and know how impactful that story is. And then say, you know what, we're not, we're not going to act this out, but thank you for sharing it with me.
And I remember a few years back, I had a child whose uncle died by suicide and it was sudden. And it just. knocked the wind out of their family. And so the families, the children knew that the child's uncle died. They knew that because that's something that we're going to share, right? And, but they didn't know how.
And so, you know, we came in and we were talking like we do. And then later on, we were walking and while we're walking, she starts to tell a story because that's our ritual. When we walk, we tell stories. And she's like, yeah. And then there was a man, he did this and he did that. And then there was a window and a fire and he jumped out.
And Spiderman was there. And and Ladybug was there. She starts weaving in these characters and, and they couldn't, they couldn't save him, but they saved me. And she starts telling these stories. And I mean, I didn't know what to think. I forgot goosebumps and I felt so honored and I wanted to cry.
The kids didn't realize what she was saying, but I realized what she was saying. She was telling me her version, her thoughts of what she wished happened in that time. And so I, again, because of you, because I knew you at that time, we kept going over it, but I just saw it in a totally different light. And I thought, I don't know if you can swear, but I was like, dang, this is such an honor.
To be able to get the bird's eye view from, you know, this little, not even five years old at the time to be able to tell me about this grief that is a four year old's version of grief. And she said, you know, my mommy's so sad she just wants to lay down and cry all day. And I was like, that's good, you know, because that love has to have somewhere to go.
So crying is what she's doing for now, you know, and to be able to walk her through it in a very, very age appropriate way. It just, it's just such a beautiful
Laura: honor. That is, that is really beautiful. And so important that you were able to recognize, right, that that was. What she was sharing, right, of if only the superheroes could have came in to save the day.
Right. And I think so often, probably a lot of the play that we don't see because our kids play all the time. Right. We can't always see it. But when they're at the dollhouse. . I, Mm-Hmm. . The things come out. You hear when they just, like, when they're playing teacher and you're like, it's a mirror in your face.
And you're like, okay, well I'm gonna change my language. I mean, I can't get my child to stop. Say it. I'm not say that anymore. Uhhuh . I can't get one of my children to stop saying a phrase. And I'm like, okay, well this is, this is a reflection. I got it. But when you start standing near the dollhouse, you can hear, I had a child that was saying.
She wanted me to be the little girl and the little girl was getting pop out every time for peeing, peeing on the chair, peeing in the bear bed, peeing anywhere that wasn't on the toilet. And
Kisa: yeah,
Laura: that's, that's not a story that's coming from nowhere. And that's a story that's coming out in their play, but we don't always know, right when they're out in the fields, in the woods and they're playing, they're rough and tumble or whatever.
That's why we just need to give that children the safe space to be. To play, to process. To engage in risky play To tell their stories. And, you know, I know that what Dr. Stephanie Galway said was that fairy tales are like the risky play of literature. And that was like, yes it is! That is awesome! Right? And I know you're a huge advocate of fairytales.
Of weapon play and violent play because I'm imagine we could go on a whole nother podcast episode just about this, but I imagine there's some form of this is children processing things that they don't know or that they've experienced and trying to make sense of the world. And by, again, not talking about it, shielding it, saying it just doesn't happen.
It's just not going to support the children and give them the tools that they need.
Kisa: It does a disservice to the children, does a disservice to children that are in high crime communities. It does a disservice to children who are living through trauma. It does a disservice to children who have either been victims of or their family members have been victimized by gun violence to just say, we don't do that here.
We don't talk about that here. This is their story and this is their space to tell their story. So yeah, we could do another podcast episode on it, but it directly relates to what we're talking about because they need to do that. Yep.
Laura: And in the same way, right. Let them tell their stories about what they need.
And we tell them stories about. Maybe their experiences that we know, right? Sometimes we get those little tidbits of things. If we know a child's maybe going through, their family's going through a separation, we, just the same way that you would, you would go to the book and go to the book, go to the library and get books about, you know, two family homes and what this may look like.
You don't always have to fall back on the book. You can fall back on a very simple narrative. Just, you know, Take one character, give that character a name, and start to build a life for this character. Make the character real, and just tell stories of that mirror, whatever that child's experience may or may not be.
And provides that window in, and maybe they're gonna take it and run with it, maybe they're gonna add to it, maybe they're gonna identify with it, maybe they're gonna have no interest and they want you to stop telling stories. Unlikely, but, you know I don't know.
Kisa: Highly unlikely.
Laura: Yeah, give them, give them the storytelling as a tool.
Give them that as a tool.
Kisa: Yep. Yeah, it is an amazing tool for our kids to have. And I think, thinking back to Casey, the way that I told that story is the way that I needed to hear it. I needed to be able to imagine because when, I mean, it was trauma for us. Like I was asleep. My husband woke me up in the middle of the night and was like, the police are here.
It was like a whole drama. Like the people couldn't get, our neighbors were calling, but we were sleeping and so we didn't know. And then they had the police come and then my husband had to go get the cat's body. Like it was a whole thing. And I'm like, I'm I'm I'm So I needed to make it make sense. And so the story that I told was what my heart needed to hear.
You know that my cat liked grass. He didn't like going outside, so we don't even know how he got outside. But he did like to munch on grass. And at that time they had tall grass sticking under there. Between our gate and theirs. So I was like, you know, he just kind of crept in trying to get his grass.
And then the dog was like, get out of here. And you know, like telling the story. It was what I needed to hear. I needed to make sense of what happened to my cat. Yeah. And so I, by my telling it that way, it's stuck with the kids, right? Because if I believe the story, then they just took it with them and carried it on.
And that's, I think what we all need. We all need to make change. These complex situations make sense for our minds and hearts. And that's what storytelling,
Laura: it does. And you know what you, what, what you did there was for lack of a better word, like co grieving, right? Like you were allowing the children to engage in grieving with you.
And it didn't necessarily look like you sitting there crying, which would be fine too, right? Just sitting there crying, looking at a picture of your cat and saying, I'm sad. My cat died. I'm sad. But you found a way. Mm-Hmm. to engage in grieving with them instead of sheltering them from it. Instead of not opening, instead of not discussing it, instead of, you know, but didn't happen.
You know, putting your personality right. Putting your humanity to the side. Right. People always say, they're like, when you show up at work, you know, you put your, your s to the side, hang it up
Kisa: on the
Laura: door. no. A, when you're a teacher, you cannot. B, we are, you know, we are real humans, but, you know, like you said, that story stuck with her because stories stick and that is, they, they stick, there's something about it.
There's something about it. And they just stick in our brain.
Kisa: Yup. They really do. And I love the idea of co grieving because I did tell my husband that I didn't, at first I didn't think I was going to be able to get through it. But now looking back on it, I don't think I could have gotten through it by myself.
It was like how we model for them. They just came in and they were like, one of my big kids was like, I know you're going to get sad and you might cry, but that's okay. You know? And like, they were what I needed. They showed up for you. Yeah. They showed up. I mean, full on showed up for me. So, It just helped so much.
So yeah, it was, it was co grieving for real. I'd never heard that. And I'm going to use it for that forever.
Laura: Go for it. I don't know. I don't know if I just made it up or what, but that's what I was picturing. Right. You're telling this story and that, you know, it's, it's proof that it did stick with her because here she is and whatever time later, and she's still telling the story and it's still alive and same, you know, we tell stories about our dog that passed away before my daughter was even born and, you know, My daughter talks about Mickey all the time.
Like she knows, it just sticks. Yes. Yes.
That's so beautiful. Well, Oh, this was just such a nice chat. He says, is there anything you want to leave us with? Let us know where people amazingness.
Kisa: You can find me on Instagram at I am underscore still underscore learning. You'll put it in the show notes. Thank you. And I think the main thing is. Don't shy away from the hard stories. Your children need them. They need you to make sense of this big bad world out here. We, there's no such thing as a trauma free world.
If you are alive anytime past 2020, you've been through trauma. We've, we've all been through it. It's a heavy, heavy world and children need to make sense of it and they can make sense of it through stories. So use that, put that in your toolkit. And keep it on you. That's it.
Laura: Beautiful. Absolutely. I totally agree.
And I am so grateful for this chat that we had.
