Latest / Raising Daughters / How To Help Kids Discover What Puts Them In Flow

Transcript

How To Help Kids Discover What Puts Them In Flow · Raising Daughters

0:03
Speaker 1: Hello friends, Welcome back to another episode of Raising Daughters.
0:09
Speaker 1: I'm here today with a topic that woke me up
0:11
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night last night from a
0:14
Speaker 1: deep sleep, and so I figured I couldn't get back
0:17
Speaker 1: to sleep. I was thinking about this topic, mulling it
0:21
Speaker 1: over and over in my head, and I've sort of
0:23
Speaker 1: touched on it off and on over the years. But
0:26
Speaker 1: today I want to talk about the concept of flow
0:30
Speaker 1: as it relates to your children. And I'm not quite
0:34
Speaker 1: sure why it woke me up in the middle of
0:35
Speaker 1: the night, but it did, so I figure, well, I
0:36
Speaker 1: guess I may as well go with it. I think
0:40
Speaker 1: in this culture, and I just did a podcast recently
0:42
Speaker 1: talking about how I think kids are being pushed today
0:45
Speaker 1: to know how their whole life figured out by the
0:48
Speaker 1: time they're fifteen or eighteen or whatever. So listen to
0:51
Speaker 1: that podcast. I'm not sure if it came out yet,
0:53
Speaker 1: but it's around. It probably has. And so that pressure
0:58
Speaker 1: and that stress that is on kids, I think is
1:00
Speaker 1: really undue and really unhealthy and unrealistic. I think parents
1:06
Speaker 1: in the educational system has become over focused on externals
1:10
Speaker 1: things like grades and your GPA, your ACT score. The
1:15
Speaker 1: top college, you know, the ranking of the colleges you're
1:18
Speaker 1: applying to. I also think, and I've talked about this
1:21
Speaker 1: in the past, I think we've sort of laid out
1:25
Speaker 1: for our kids just this one path you're all supposed
1:28
Speaker 1: to be walking down, the path of go to school,
1:32
Speaker 1: get good grades, get into a good college. I actually,
1:37
Speaker 1: and this is a line of questions I ask girls
1:39
Speaker 1: all the time in my counseling practice. I'll actually ask them,
1:43
Speaker 1: you know, what kind of grades do you want in school?
1:45
Speaker 1: And they always tell me, well, I want a's. And
1:48
Speaker 1: I'll say, why do you want as you know, I act,
1:51
Speaker 1: And they'll say, because I want to get into a
1:53
Speaker 1: good college. And I'll say, why do you want to
1:55
Speaker 1: get into a good top college. They'll say, I want
1:58
Speaker 1: to go to top college because I I want to
2:00
Speaker 1: be able to go out and get a really good
2:01
Speaker 1: job when I graduate. Why do you want to get
2:04
Speaker 1: a good job? And they'll not say, so I can
2:07
Speaker 1: make a lot of money. That is the line of
2:11
Speaker 1: thinking that our kids, I think, are being put on,
2:14
Speaker 1: being put into their heads. That's the path, the one
2:19
Speaker 1: path that you're supposed to be on, and you're not
2:21
Speaker 1: supposed to veer off. Kids have a lot of pressure
2:24
Speaker 1: to stay on that path. I call it my money mantra.
2:29
Speaker 1: I'm not against them getting a good job. I'm not
2:31
Speaker 1: against anybody getting good grades. I'm not against anybody going
2:33
Speaker 1: to a good college. I'm not against any of those things.
2:37
Speaker 1: I am upset about is that's the path laid out
2:41
Speaker 1: for every kid. It doesn't fit most kids. And I
2:46
Speaker 1: think there's some things that are a lot more important
2:48
Speaker 1: than making a lot of money and doing a job
2:52
Speaker 1: just because it can make a lot of money. There's
2:56
Speaker 1: a concept that called excessive pressure to excel, and it
3:01
Speaker 1: means an environment characterized by extreme pressure to succeed, to
3:06
Speaker 1: do everybody else, to focusing on high standardized test scores,
3:10
Speaker 1: patting your resume in school with extracurriculars and academic offerings,
3:14
Speaker 1: being accepted into top colleges, becoming successful out doing everybody else.
3:20
Speaker 1: And that's kind of relentless pressure to excel like that
3:25
Speaker 1: puts kids at much higher risk for a lot of things,
3:28
Speaker 1: higher levels of stress, higher levels of anxiety, high levels
3:32
Speaker 1: of depression, higher levels of substance abuse. The Robert Wood
3:37
Speaker 1: Johnson Foundation every year puts out a report about kinds
3:42
Speaker 1: of environments that put kids to excessive levels of stress.
3:46
Speaker 1: Excuse me, It's always been things in a list like poverty,
3:50
Speaker 1: child abuse, racism, those sorts of things. But they added
3:54
Speaker 1: this topic, this concept excessive pressure to excel a few
3:59
Speaker 1: years ago because they were finding so many kids with
4:02
Speaker 1: high levels of stress and anxiety, depression and substance use.
4:05
Speaker 1: And they and they could and they thought a lot
4:07
Speaker 1: of it was because of this, this whole one path,
4:10
Speaker 1: this money mantra kind of thing. I also think our
4:15
Speaker 1: parents have sort of been pushed, encouraged condition to ask
4:20
Speaker 1: and to focus on, how do I motivate my kid?
4:24
Speaker 1: If I've heard that once in my counseling practice has
4:26
Speaker 1: heard a thousand times. Instead of asking that question, how
4:30
Speaker 1: do I motivate my child? I would rather they learn
4:34
Speaker 1: to ask themselves a different question, which is, how can
4:36
Speaker 1: I help my child learn to find her own intrinsic motivation?
4:43
Speaker 1: How can I help her find it? And how can
4:45
Speaker 1: I support her intrinsic motivation. I heard about this mom
4:49
Speaker 1: one day who was young daughter, She was like a
4:52
Speaker 1: four or five year old, was in the backseat of
4:54
Speaker 1: the car and mom was going to take her to preschool.
4:56
Speaker 1: And this mom was a very high powered position a doctor.
5:02
Speaker 1: And then she saw her daughter get into her black
5:05
Speaker 1: bag in the back seat, and she pulled out the
5:07
Speaker 1: stethoscope and she put put it around her neck like
5:09
Speaker 1: a doctor would, and her mom was beaming with pride.
5:12
Speaker 1: And so she heard her daughter take the take the
5:14
Speaker 1: little stethoscope, the diaphragm, and put up to her mouth
5:17
Speaker 1: and say, welcome to McDonald's. Can I please take your order?
5:22
Speaker 1: That put her in her place pretty quick, the mom.
5:25
Speaker 1: I also remember years ago, I remember talking to I
5:31
Speaker 1: taught a master's level class for teachers at a local university.
5:35
Speaker 1: I remember there was a high school art teacher in
5:38
Speaker 1: that class, and this art teacher was talking about how
5:43
Speaker 1: how discouraged she was with the attitude of her students,
5:48
Speaker 1: and she said she remembers going to a conference and
5:52
Speaker 1: hearing about this concept of maybe it's more important, but
5:55
Speaker 1: why kids love what they do as opposed to what
5:57
Speaker 1: you want and what getting out of it, as opposed
6:01
Speaker 1: to what you think they should be getting out of it.
6:02
Speaker 1: So one day, he said, a high school senior brought
6:06
Speaker 1: a drawing to this high school teacher art teacher and
6:09
Speaker 1: he and the student said, a teacher, you know, do
6:12
Speaker 1: you like my drawing, and instead of gushing over it
6:16
Speaker 1: and saying, oh my god, it's beautiful, I really love it,
6:18
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that's great. Instead the teacher decided to
6:22
Speaker 1: do it different and this time, this teacher said what
6:26
Speaker 1: do you think? What do you think of your artwork?
6:29
Speaker 1: And he said what I found in that moment was
6:32
Speaker 1: amazing because this high school senior, who has been through
6:35
Speaker 1: twelve years of school, was flummixed, didn't know what to say.
6:41
Speaker 1: And the kid says like, well, well, if you don't
6:43
Speaker 1: like it, that's okay, I can do it again. And
6:44
Speaker 1: teacher said, no, I didn't say I don't like it.
6:46
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering what you think of your drawing. And
6:49
Speaker 1: then this kid again stambord and said, I don't know.
6:52
Speaker 1: If you don't like it, I'll do it over. And
6:54
Speaker 1: this teacher said, I realized in that moment that this
6:57
Speaker 1: kid has been through twelve years of school and nobody
7:00
Speaker 1: has ever asked him what do you think about your work?
7:06
Speaker 1: We need to start asking kids some very important questions
7:09
Speaker 1: which I'm going to talk about in this podcast about
7:12
Speaker 1: flow flow, meaning when you're doing anything where you get
7:17
Speaker 1: fully into it, you're totally invested, you lose track of time.
7:22
Speaker 1: You're doing it because you love to do it, and
7:24
Speaker 1: you people could blow up a bomb nearby, you wouldn't
7:26
Speaker 1: hear because you're so into what you're doing, because you
7:29
Speaker 1: love it so much. So I think we need to
7:32
Speaker 1: start asking kids why they love what they're doing. What
7:37
Speaker 1: kind of grace do they want? Why do they like
7:39
Speaker 1: their sport? If they're doing a sport, why do they
7:42
Speaker 1: want to go to college? If they do they love theater?
7:45
Speaker 1: Why do you like theater? I remember one time, I've
7:49
Speaker 1: told this story a long time ago, I think in
7:51
Speaker 1: a podcast here about this girl and I, my wife
7:55
Speaker 1: and I were at this family's house for dinner one
7:58
Speaker 1: time and this girl, who was in oh I get
8:01
Speaker 1: I think about sixth grade, came came in halfway through
8:05
Speaker 1: the medal because she was at her gymnastics practice, and
8:10
Speaker 1: she had the gymnastics practice five nights a week, and
8:13
Speaker 1: she had tournaments almost every weekend. She was on this
8:15
Speaker 1: high level. I think she was like a level eight
8:17
Speaker 1: or level ten or something. And so she sat at
8:21
Speaker 1: the table looking really tired, and uh so we started
8:24
Speaker 1: talking and we said, we said, that's a lot of
8:26
Speaker 1: time to spend on on gymnastics especially come home. This
8:30
Speaker 1: is like at seven thirty at night, you have to
8:32
Speaker 1: eat dinner, you have to have to do your homework.
8:35
Speaker 1: And we said, why do you like it so much?
8:37
Speaker 1: Why do you do it? And she looked at us
8:40
Speaker 1: and she started to answer the question, said, well, where
8:42
Speaker 1: I like and her dad quickly interjected, hey, honey, go
8:46
Speaker 1: show the Jordan's your hardware. And I looked at each other,
8:50
Speaker 1: like you're her hardware? What what it was like? What?
8:53
Speaker 1: It was kind of weird? And he kept insisting, how
8:56
Speaker 1: do you go show the Jordan's your hardware? So she
8:58
Speaker 1: finally said fine, and she said follow me, and so
9:01
Speaker 1: she got from the table and we followed her down
9:03
Speaker 1: the hallway to her bedroom and we walked in a room.
9:07
Speaker 1: It was lined with all these shelves that were filled
9:11
Speaker 1: with blue ribbons and trophies. I e. Her hardware, that's
9:17
Speaker 1: what the dad was focused on, her metals, her victories.
9:21
Speaker 1: And we looked at her and she had this kind
9:23
Speaker 1: of discouraged look on her face. She said, what do
9:25
Speaker 1: you like about gymnastics? I get what your dad likes,
9:27
Speaker 1: that's okay, but what do you like? And she stopped
9:30
Speaker 1: as she thought for a moment. She said, I love it,
9:33
Speaker 1: especially when I do the floor routine. That's my favorite,
9:37
Speaker 1: and she started beaming. I'll never forget this, she said.
9:40
Speaker 1: When I'm out there on the floor, I'm the only
9:42
Speaker 1: one out there. I'm standing in that corner ready to
9:45
Speaker 1: begin my routine. And when their music starts, she said,
9:50
Speaker 1: I am in full control and all eyes are on me,
9:52
Speaker 1: and I love to entertain people. That's flow. That's why
9:58
Speaker 1: she loved jim Monastics. We need to ask our kids
10:03
Speaker 1: about those experiences so they can explain it, talk about it,
10:07
Speaker 1: get in touch with it, and then we can reinforce it.
10:10
Speaker 1: Let me tell you a bunch of stories about kids
10:11
Speaker 1: I've worked with over the years and the kind of
10:14
Speaker 1: things that they love about what they do right when
10:16
Speaker 1: they're in that flow kind of thing. I did a
10:19
Speaker 1: nine year old one time. She was all stressed out
10:22
Speaker 1: because she was on this new competitive dance team. So
10:25
Speaker 1: her parents brought her to see me for counseling, and
10:28
Speaker 1: she was worried she was going to make mistakes and
10:30
Speaker 1: she then won't be kicked off the squad, and so
10:33
Speaker 1: I said, and when her parents left the room, I said,
10:35
Speaker 1: why do you like doing dance? Competitions and she stopped
10:40
Speaker 1: and she said, my favorite thing is I love the costumes.
10:44
Speaker 1: I love being on stage because there's so much room
10:46
Speaker 1: to dance and I feel so free. And she was
10:51
Speaker 1: glowing when she said that's that was her flow experience.
10:55
Speaker 1: That's why she was doing dance, not about the ribbons
10:58
Speaker 1: and not about being on the highest level team. I
11:01
Speaker 1: asked another ten year old girl one time why she
11:03
Speaker 1: liked her dance so much, and she said, I love
11:06
Speaker 1: how graceful it is and calm, especially when I do ballet.
11:10
Speaker 1: She said, the music and the dancing really calms me down.
11:15
Speaker 1: Seventeen year old high school girl was really into musical
11:19
Speaker 1: theater in her high school and outside of high school.
11:21
Speaker 1: I said, what do you like about it so much?
11:24
Speaker 1: It takes up a lot of your time and she said,
11:26
Speaker 1: I love to sing, I love to dance. I love
11:29
Speaker 1: to tell stories. I love to take the audience on
11:32
Speaker 1: a journey. And she says, I also love how close
11:35
Speaker 1: I get with all of my teammates on when we're
11:37
Speaker 1: doing a play. That's why she loves her activity. A
11:42
Speaker 1: sixteen year old girl said one time that she loved
11:44
Speaker 1: dancing theater because she said, I love communicating with the
11:47
Speaker 1: audience and telling a story. Fourteen year old girl one
11:51
Speaker 1: time told me she was like a pre professional tap
11:54
Speaker 1: dancer and she taped danced, you know, five days a
11:57
Speaker 1: week and tournaments out of town, all this stuff. I
11:59
Speaker 1: asked her, why do you do it? Why do you
12:00
Speaker 1: love it so much? And she said, I love dance
12:03
Speaker 1: because it's fun, and I love their workout and the creativity.
12:07
Speaker 1: And she said, after a while, when I'm out there
12:09
Speaker 1: doing my thing, I can do whatever I want with
12:12
Speaker 1: my feet and I feel so free. She was describing
12:17
Speaker 1: her flow feelings. Another ten year old told me why
12:21
Speaker 1: she loves acting. She said, I love to get into
12:24
Speaker 1: the character's shoes and empathize with them. And she said
12:28
Speaker 1: it's fun to be another person for a while and
12:30
Speaker 1: be in their story instead of being caught up my
12:32
Speaker 1: own life all the time. Interesting right. A sixteen year
12:37
Speaker 1: old synchronized skater high level skater. I said, what do
12:41
Speaker 1: you love about it so much? And she said, I
12:42
Speaker 1: love the feeling of competing. She said, I feel so alive.
12:47
Speaker 1: It feels like I'm flying around the ice. I get
12:49
Speaker 1: this huge adena adrenaline rush. And she said, I love
12:53
Speaker 1: how the team feels like one. She said, we're so together,
12:56
Speaker 1: We're always supporting each other. And then she said, where
13:00
Speaker 1: I don't like about is when the coaches don't give
13:03
Speaker 1: a a positive reinforcement. And she said, every time the
13:06
Speaker 1: coach talks to me, I die a little bit on
13:09
Speaker 1: the inside, which was crushing to me to hear that. Right,
13:16
Speaker 1: let me tell you about a couple of people you
13:18
Speaker 1: might know, more famous people, not high schoolers and grade scorers.
13:22
Speaker 1: This was a dancer, Suda Chandra. She was a classical
13:25
Speaker 1: Indian dancer and she was cut off in the prime
13:28
Speaker 1: of her career when she was in a car accident
13:30
Speaker 1: and she had her right leg amputated and she was told,
13:35
Speaker 1: you know, she would never dance again. But she was
13:37
Speaker 1: fitted eventually with an artificial leg, and she returned to
13:41
Speaker 1: dancing and she quickly made it back to the top.
13:44
Speaker 1: And when someone asked her, how did you manage to
13:46
Speaker 1: do that with an artificial leg, she said, quite simply,
13:50
Speaker 1: you don't need feet to dance beautiful, right, She's talking
13:55
Speaker 1: about flow, that feeling on the inside, not the exterournal
14:00
Speaker 1: of the internal. There was a girl in the nineteen thirties,
14:04
Speaker 1: an eight year old girl was taken to a psychologist
14:08
Speaker 1: due to poor performance in school, late turning in her assignments,
14:12
Speaker 1: a poor test taker, she was always fidgeting and disrupting
14:15
Speaker 1: the class after they got a history. This psychologist got
14:20
Speaker 1: the history and observing this little girl, the doctor said
14:23
Speaker 1: he needed to talk to the mom in private, and
14:25
Speaker 1: so they left the room and left her in the
14:27
Speaker 1: room by herself. But as they left, he turned on
14:30
Speaker 1: her radio to a station that was playing dance music.
14:34
Speaker 1: When they got out of the room, they looked into
14:36
Speaker 1: the two way mirror and he said, watch your daughter
14:39
Speaker 1: through the two way mirror, and as they did, they
14:41
Speaker 1: saw her start to dance. And as she gracefully danced
14:45
Speaker 1: as if she was in her own little world, the
14:47
Speaker 1: doctor turned to this girl's mom and said, she's not sick,
14:52
Speaker 1: she doesn't need she doesn't have a problem. She said dancer.
14:56
Speaker 1: Take her to a dance school. And on her first
14:59
Speaker 1: day the dance school, Jillian saw a room full of
15:02
Speaker 1: kids just like her, who couldn't sit still, kids who
15:06
Speaker 1: just had to move. She had many years of dance
15:10
Speaker 1: training and eventually she joined the Royal Ballet. She works
15:13
Speaker 1: as a choreographer as an adult with Andrew Lloyd Weber,
15:16
Speaker 1: and she's the one who created the dance moves for
15:18
Speaker 1: shows like Cats and Phantom of the Opera. That was
15:22
Speaker 1: Jillian Lynne, famous choreographer, famous actress, Betty Davis. She said,
15:28
Speaker 1: she remember when she was seven years old and she
15:31
Speaker 1: was at school and she was playing Santa Claus in
15:33
Speaker 1: the school play. And she bumped into the Christmas tree
15:37
Speaker 1: which had real candles because back then Christmas trees had
15:40
Speaker 1: real candles, and her outfit, her Santa outfit, caught fire
15:45
Speaker 1: and she started screaming in terror, and she felt herself
15:47
Speaker 1: being wrapped in a rug to put the fire out,
15:50
Speaker 1: and when the rug was taken off, she decided to
15:53
Speaker 1: keep her eyes closed and make believes that she was blind.
15:57
Speaker 1: And people cried out, oh my god, her eyes she blind.
16:01
Speaker 1: And she said, I remember a shudder of delight went
16:03
Speaker 1: through me. I was in complete command of the moment.
16:09
Speaker 1: She's describing her flow feelings. I think what helps kids
16:14
Speaker 1: get into those moments are several things. One of them
16:17
Speaker 1: is having the autonomy to choose what they're doing, to
16:20
Speaker 1: choose their activities, to choose the sport, to choose theater,
16:23
Speaker 1: to choose whatever it is that they love to do.
16:26
Speaker 1: Because anytime any of us choose it has a choice
16:28
Speaker 1: in doing what we're doing, we have the autonomy to
16:30
Speaker 1: do that. We're more engaged in what we're doing because
16:33
Speaker 1: we chose it. We chose it because we like to
16:35
Speaker 1: do it. We're drawn to it. And if we're drawn
16:38
Speaker 1: to it and we and we're engaged in it and
16:41
Speaker 1: we chose it, we're much more likely to stick with it.
16:44
Speaker 1: When things get tough, we're more likely to persevere. And
16:48
Speaker 1: we're also more likely to experience fulfillment. And they own
16:54
Speaker 1: the results. It's their touchdown dance. I've read a book
17:00
Speaker 1: a year or two ago called Dark Horses, who talked
17:04
Speaker 1: a lot about this concept of autonomy and engagement and fulfillment.
17:09
Speaker 1: And what this author found when he studied successful people
17:14
Speaker 1: was they weren't fulfilled by being excellent at something, but
17:19
Speaker 1: by being deeply engaged with their own thing. It was
17:24
Speaker 1: doing it that cause of fulfillment. It wasn't the end results.
17:27
Speaker 1: It wasn't being successful, it wasn't the money, it wasn't
17:30
Speaker 1: being on top, it wasn't winning, It was just doing it.
17:33
Speaker 1: That's where the joy and the fulfillment came from. And
17:36
Speaker 1: they started out picking things that fulfilled them. That's the
17:39
Speaker 1: key autonomy, and the fulfillment came right from the start
17:44
Speaker 1: because they loved doing it. So I think when you
17:48
Speaker 1: start asking our kids some questions to help them discover
17:51
Speaker 1: their passions, things that they're drawn to, things that will
17:55
Speaker 1: allow them to get into flow, so that when they're
17:59
Speaker 1: in flow, they give it. They're all they persevere, they're fulfilled,
18:03
Speaker 1: they're deeply engaged. We need to figure out in what
18:07
Speaker 1: area our kids would choose to feel successful. So ask
18:13
Speaker 1: questions to your daughter our son, like, what would you
18:16
Speaker 1: do if you didn't have to worry about making a
18:18
Speaker 1: living and didn't care about what other people think, if
18:21
Speaker 1: you weren't worry about being judged? What would you do?
18:25
Speaker 1: What are you most drawn to? What kind of activities
18:30
Speaker 1: do you do voluntarily? You're not made to do it.
18:32
Speaker 1: You're doing it because you want to do it. You
18:33
Speaker 1: choose to do it because it's fun, because you feel
18:37
Speaker 1: drawn to it for some reason, your gut says, I
18:38
Speaker 1: want to try this. What do you have a talent for?
18:42
Speaker 1: What are you good at? I think a couple of
18:45
Speaker 1: questions that even more important are what absorbs you the most,
18:50
Speaker 1: what puts you in that zone were you when you're
18:54
Speaker 1: doing it, and you'll lose time. You're so invested, you're
18:57
Speaker 1: so focused because you love doing it. What absorbs you?
19:01
Speaker 1: What puts you in that zone where you're in flow?
19:06
Speaker 1: What are you most curious about? What are you passionate about?
19:11
Speaker 1: What are you interested in? Also ask them what moments
19:16
Speaker 1: up till now have produced moments of flow for you?
19:20
Speaker 1: When you were totally into something and you were loving it,
19:23
Speaker 1: and you're into it, and again, you could blow up
19:25
Speaker 1: a bomb, you wouldn't have heard it because you were
19:27
Speaker 1: so focused and so invested and so in the moment.
19:31
Speaker 1: And then once they go back and remember what those
19:34
Speaker 1: moments were, ask them where were you, what were you doing,
19:39
Speaker 1: what were you working on? Who were you with? Is
19:43
Speaker 1: there a certain time of day that was more flow friendly?
19:47
Speaker 1: It helps for them to start becoming aware of the
19:49
Speaker 1: context when they're in flow. I think that those are
19:54
Speaker 1: things you can do. Those are questions you could ask
19:57
Speaker 1: them to help them all along the way to tuning
20:00
Speaker 1: into what's my thing, what's my passion? I remember it
20:06
Speaker 1: right when I look back in my life, right from
20:10
Speaker 1: the start, I worked with kids. It started with I
20:14
Speaker 1: had two older brothers, but then I had five younger
20:17
Speaker 1: sisters and the youngest two were were nine and ten
20:21
Speaker 1: years younger, so there's a big gap, and so I
20:26
Speaker 1: took care of them a lot. I babysat, I played
20:29
Speaker 1: with them. I loved it. I remember going to hockey
20:32
Speaker 1: games with my friends in high school and we would
20:34
Speaker 1: sneak them into the games. We put them on our
20:36
Speaker 1: shoulders so they looked like they were little kids and
20:39
Speaker 1: they would get in for free. So it started, I
20:42
Speaker 1: think there with my little sisters, I baby sat a
20:45
Speaker 1: lot in the neighborhood because it was fun. I worked
20:48
Speaker 1: at a bunch of camps when I was a kid.
20:50
Speaker 1: I worked at a day camp for like young grade
20:53
Speaker 1: school aged kids for one summer, worked at a camp
20:57
Speaker 1: at the Unitedsboro Cerebral Polsy Associated, one summer working with
21:01
Speaker 1: kids with disabilities. I worked at a camp for boys
21:07
Speaker 1: at a local high school and it was it was
21:10
Speaker 1: a residential camp. They had some dorms there and the
21:13
Speaker 1: first two years I worked in the stables and took
21:15
Speaker 1: the kids out on horse rides and I took care
21:17
Speaker 1: of the horses. The third year, I worked with groups
21:20
Speaker 1: of boys and you know, taking them around to things.
21:26
Speaker 1: When I was in college. I got a little brother
21:29
Speaker 1: through the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program. For the
21:31
Speaker 1: last two years of college, I remember there was I
21:34
Speaker 1: went to a Catholic university and there's a little church
21:37
Speaker 1: on the edge of our campus where a lot of
21:39
Speaker 1: poor kids came. And I remember my last two years
21:43
Speaker 1: of college, I taught a catechism class for I can't
21:45
Speaker 1: remember if it was uh grade, first grade, or maybe
21:49
Speaker 1: it was kindergarten, but I taught a catechism class. So
21:52
Speaker 1: I've got I can go on and on, but there's
21:55
Speaker 1: right from the start, I didn't know I was in flow,
22:00
Speaker 1: but I was. It was It brought me great joy
22:02
Speaker 1: to work with kids, so I always knew I was
22:04
Speaker 1: going to work with kids. Somehow, I didn't know how
22:08
Speaker 1: I thought about being a teacher. I thought about maybe
22:10
Speaker 1: being a pediatrician. In my life has taken lots of
22:13
Speaker 1: twists and turns since then, doing all the different kinds
22:18
Speaker 1: of things I do with kids. But in the end,
22:21
Speaker 1: I counsel girls. I work. I'd run weekend retreats for girls.
22:25
Speaker 1: I run summer camps for girls. I have a school
22:28
Speaker 1: program for classrooms of girls. I run a high school
22:31
Speaker 1: group every two weeks for high school girls. So I'm
22:35
Speaker 1: still working with kids, you know, forty years later, and
22:40
Speaker 1: that's because that's what gives me the greatest joy. And
22:44
Speaker 1: luckily for me, I had opportunities to do that when
22:47
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and so I just kept doing it.
22:51
Speaker 1: So you can see what are the kinds of things
22:53
Speaker 1: that seems to attract your son or your daughter. The
22:57
Speaker 1: other thing I've read about in books is that successful
23:02
Speaker 1: people tended as they were working on their thing, they
23:08
Speaker 1: tended to struggle in certain targeted areas. They would struggle
23:12
Speaker 1: and practice at the edge of their abilities, where they
23:14
Speaker 1: would make mistakes. And making those mistakes actually was a
23:18
Speaker 1: good thing. It made them smarter. It forced these people
23:21
Speaker 1: to slow down, make more errors, errors, correct them, and
23:26
Speaker 1: that process is what people call deep practice. Successful people
23:32
Speaker 1: will practice different moments of slow kind of fitful struggle.
23:37
Speaker 1: If they make a mistake, they stopped, they look, they
23:39
Speaker 1: think carefully before taking the next step. So progress becomes
23:45
Speaker 1: for those people a matter of small failures. That's deep practice.
23:50
Speaker 1: You're much more likely to keep at it when things
23:54
Speaker 1: get tough and you make those mistakes. If again, you
23:58
Speaker 1: had autonomy and choosing that, then you've been drawn to it.
24:01
Speaker 1: You get fulfilled by it, despite the mistakes, but it's
24:05
Speaker 1: fulfilling for you right from the start. You're much more
24:07
Speaker 1: willing to get through that part, the deep practice. And
24:12
Speaker 1: by the way I remember reading in books years ago,
24:16
Speaker 1: our brains whenever we practice anything, whether you're hitting a
24:20
Speaker 1: tennis ball or a golf ball or whatever, dancing, wherever
24:24
Speaker 1: you're doing it. Whenever you're doing something and you're practicing,
24:29
Speaker 1: every time you hit a tennis ball, a little bit
24:31
Speaker 1: of a substance called myelin responds by wrapping a layer
24:36
Speaker 1: of it around that neuro circuits they have to do
24:39
Speaker 1: with hitting a tennis ball or a golf ball or
24:42
Speaker 1: whatever is that you're doing, and that insulation that myeline
24:47
Speaker 1: becomes insulation so that the impulses travel faster, there's less leakage.
24:55
Speaker 1: Each new layer adds a little bit more skill and
24:57
Speaker 1: speed to whoever it is that you're doing. Thicker than
25:00
Speaker 1: milin gets, the better insulates, and the faster and more
25:04
Speaker 1: accurate are our movements and our thoughts. That's what deep
25:07
Speaker 1: practiced does. It helps you build myelin and thus makes
25:12
Speaker 1: you more. It makes you better at whatever it is
25:15
Speaker 1: that you're doing. So Besides asking kids those questions, a
25:20
Speaker 1: couple other quick things and I'll wrap it up. Have
25:23
Speaker 1: them read biographies. I'm a huge believer in the power
25:27
Speaker 1: of reading anything, but I think reading biographies is a
25:31
Speaker 1: really important thing for our kids. Read about people who
25:35
Speaker 1: might be doing something that they have an interest in,
25:38
Speaker 1: just to hear their story and how they got to
25:40
Speaker 1: where they are, their process. If you will, even better
25:45
Speaker 1: maybe is to interview people like your parents' friends. There
25:50
Speaker 1: are their parents' friends, anybody they see who is doing
25:54
Speaker 1: something that they may have an interest in, to sit
25:57
Speaker 1: down with them, have a cup of coffee, or if
25:58
Speaker 1: you're younger, just to sit down and just say tell
26:01
Speaker 1: me how you got to where you are, what was
26:03
Speaker 1: your path, and what they would find. I think is
26:07
Speaker 1: that nine nine times out of one hundred it wasn't
26:09
Speaker 1: a straight line path, which we were telling kids as
26:11
Speaker 1: they need to do. It was a zigzag path for
26:13
Speaker 1: them finding their thing. My wife and I watched a
26:18
Speaker 1: special last night. I think it's on Netflix, and it's
26:22
Speaker 1: Brian Williams, who used to do a lot of reporting.
26:25
Speaker 1: He's got a show where he interviews people he interviewed,
26:29
Speaker 1: like Tom Hanks. He interviewed the comedian Jim Gaffigan, and
26:34
Speaker 1: the one we watched last night was he interviewed the
26:38
Speaker 1: famous author Harlan Coben. I've read several of his books.
26:42
Speaker 1: Are using mystery books that detective kind of books are
26:44
Speaker 1: really good. He's a great writer. I think he's written
26:47
Speaker 1: thirty books or something. But anyway, he was talking about
26:51
Speaker 1: his process of how he writes books and how he
26:55
Speaker 1: gets ideas for books. Would I would. I think that's
26:59
Speaker 1: a great kind of show for your kids to watch.
27:02
Speaker 1: They can start hearing how people who are good at
27:05
Speaker 1: what they do, how they got there and what they
27:07
Speaker 1: had to put into it and what their process was. Otherwise,
27:10
Speaker 1: it's a mystery and he's interviewing different kinds of people
27:15
Speaker 1: in different walks of life. So I can't remember what
27:18
Speaker 1: the title of the show is. That's Brian Williams interviews
27:21
Speaker 1: people on Netflix. So reading biographies, reading about other people's
27:26
Speaker 1: lives and who may be doing something. They might have
27:29
Speaker 1: an interest in interviewing people and asking about their stories
27:33
Speaker 1: and how they got there. Watching shows like the one
27:35
Speaker 1: I just mentioned, I think those are ways that they
27:39
Speaker 1: can start to learn and start to piece together some
27:42
Speaker 1: ideas about finding their way finding their passion, finding their thing,
27:47
Speaker 1: finding what puts them in flow. Those questions I mentioned
27:53
Speaker 1: a little while ago are really important. What absorbs them most,
27:57
Speaker 1: what puts them in the zone, are they most drawn to?
28:03
Speaker 1: I think those are questions I want our kids to
28:05
Speaker 1: be asked and for them to think about, and that
28:08
Speaker 1: may change along the way, but that's part of the process, right.
28:13
Speaker 1: I want your kids to find things that put them
28:15
Speaker 1: in flow and to invest themselves in those things so
28:19
Speaker 1: they get that level of fulfillment that you only get
28:21
Speaker 1: when you're doing things that you love to do. I
28:24
Speaker 1: think that is something that will help them become happy
28:28
Speaker 1: and productive adults. It's not excessive pressure to excel. It's
28:32
Speaker 1: like supporting kids in their own intrinsic motivation. If this topic,
28:40
Speaker 1: if this podcast was of interest to you, maybe pass
28:42
Speaker 1: on to your friends, because every one of them, every
28:45
Speaker 1: one of your friends who has kids, I think, needs
28:47
Speaker 1: to ask their kids these questions and to help them
28:49
Speaker 1: learn about going inward and learning about who they are
28:55
Speaker 1: and what they love and what they're passionate about, and
28:57
Speaker 1: what they're drawn to and what puts them in flow.
29:01
Speaker 1: I will put a couple of related podcasts in my
29:06
Speaker 1: show notes at www dot Dr tim Jordan dot com.
29:12
Speaker 1: That's my website. Just click on the podcast page and
29:16
Speaker 1: then have the show notes on there. I'll be back
29:19
Speaker 1: here again as always with the brand new podcast next week,
29:23
Speaker 1: so keep listening in. I really appreciate it. Passes on
29:27
Speaker 1: to your friends and hopefully you also are living a
29:31
Speaker 1: life where you're doing something that you love to do,
29:33
Speaker 1: where you're in flow moments as well, because that's great
29:36
Speaker 1: modeling for your children as well. I'll be back here
29:39
Speaker 1: in a week. Thanks so much for stopping by.