How to Talk to Kids, According to Mister Rogers

Richard Chance for Fatherly What would Mister Rogers say to kids in these strange, difficult, and uncertain times? It can be hard to grasp how a child’s mind works: I’m often thrown by the way my 3-year-old makes logical leaps that are alternatingly brilliant and disjointed, with wild emotions, good and bad, clouding her perception of the world. It can be hard to know what to do with all those knotted feelings and ideas, especially in times of universal stress, with all normalcy temporarily knocked down by the coronavirus pandemic. How can we talk to our kids when we’re feeling some child-like fear and frustration ourselves ? How do we make kids feel safe and secure , while giving them space to share their feelings? How do you speak to a child in their language? And, perhaps more important, how do you understand them when they speak back? Mister Rogers knew how to talk to kids, in part because the brilliant child psychologist Dr. Margaret McFarland was his mentor. Operating in the shadow of Benjamin Spock during his Pittsburgh tenure and afterwards (and whose work would not age nearly as well), McFarland focused on meaning. She understood that, to a child, a bee is not just a bee. It’s an existential threat. She offered Fred Rogers these insights and a view into the complex interplay of language and feelings, as they’re experienced by children (which she drew partly from her study of mothers’ interactions with their babies). McFarland helped rework most of the scripts for Mis…