Latest / The Bold Lounge / Talia Kovacs: Beyond Bold- Growing with Resilience and Courage

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Talia Kovacs: Beyond Bold- Growing with Resilience and Courage · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or douse along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be free.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Talia Kovacs.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: She specializes in children's resilience and is going to talk to us all about that today, along with her bold journey herself, so I'm excited to jump in.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome, talia.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you, I'm so happy to be here with you.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: So we've known each other for a bit, you know.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: So it's wonderful to catch up and kind of see where we are now in the bold journey, just even from a couple years ago.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: So we'll start off with your definition of bold and what it means to be bold.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: What I tell the kids and parents that I work with all the time is that you can't be brave if you're not scared, and so I really feel like the definition of bold is around being scared.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Feeling the feeling knowing that it might not work out and then going for it anyway, trusting yourself that you can catch yourself, no matter what happens next.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Excellent definition.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: So you can't be brave unless you're scared.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: There's this sense, or, I think, a myth around being bold, that you're fearless, and I like debunk that in my book.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: That's coming up, because I'm scared all the time, honestly, and I love how you combo those two together, like you can't be brave without being scared.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: So when was the first time, or you one of the times that you remember that stands out, that you were brave and scared and being bold?
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I moved around a lot as a kid and I have three little sisters and a big family and I transferred schools constantly and so I remember going from my public school to a private school halfway through 10th grade.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: I was failing in public school.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I was failing a lot of classes.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: My parents, you know, really, really helped and saw that I was struggling and got me into a different academic environment and I transferred school schools into this tiny private school where all the kids knew each other since kindergarten and I was coming in February.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: That's how bad I was doing in school.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I transferred in February.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Wow yeah.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Not going well and I really had to make new friends and meet these people and kind of make my way into this strange environment where everyone really had their set roles.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And so that's where I really felt myself being extremely scared and nervous and just introducing myself anyway.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: And I remember telling myself then just pretend you're not scared, you know, just pretend you're brave, just pretend you're brave.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I don't have to be brave, I could just pretend I'm brave.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And then I would, you know, introduce myself and made these new friends and I told myself then and I still tell myself now when I'm in groups, I'm like everyone is nervous here, everyone wants to meet someone else.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: So that's really where I learned that skill and that's one of the first times I was able to kind of coach myself through something that felt really scary.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and in addition to like being in a new place and being, you know, schools are challenging and depending on what grade you're in, but high school particularly is challenging.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Middle school and high school, I think, are even more challenging than they were when I was in school.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: So just even having to come into a new group, I just bold and then trying to figure it out and kind of where did you go from there?
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Because it sounds like you were like figuring yourself out there in the sense of what was next for you, was resilience being used in your mind for you at that point, based on what you know of it now.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: And I know about it now.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I know that I had a lot of resilience.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: I was the oldest kid.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: I, you know I moved around.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: I really did have to kind of buck up for my family growing up, but I think that I really I really learned about resilience.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I ended up going to a good college.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: I got into Columbia after I went to that good school and I became a teacher.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: That's a pretty good school.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I know it was a good transition.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: It was my parents did right by me, you know.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, something happened between 10th grade and senior year.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, things worked out.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, things worked out.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And I became a teacher and I saw the same kids struggling like I struggled and I knew what that was like.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: A lot of teachers go into teaching because they loved school and I went into teaching because I love kids but I hated school and that's a totally different perspective.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And so that's you know.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Your first, second, third year teaching.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Any teacher will tell you is like just beyond difficult, no matter how well prepared you were, and I was not that well prepared.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: So I really learned resilience there and I don't think I still defined it as resilience, I just defined it as okay, got to get up for the kids, got to figure this out for the kids.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Really, when I started my own study of resilience was over the course of a few years, my mom died and my mother-in-law died and my grandmother died and I had some miscarriages and it was a lot of loss in a really short amount of time.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And so I started reading everything I could get my hands on on resilience, like how do some people get up and start again and some people just stay down and stay in bed?
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: And I was staying in bed, you know, and I really, I really studied.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: I studied for my own self and I just realized how so many of these skills apply to kids who are struggling, kids who feel really perfectionistic parents who, you know, don't love making mistakes either in their work lives.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: And so I started to apply my own personal, very personal study on resilience to the work that I was doing with kids.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, from your study that you did.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: What were some of the key things that you learned from it?
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: In my class that I teach for parents, I talk a lot about this.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: There's three core themes of resilience that are true in every single story that you will read about somebody overcoming something hard.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: And the first is a body first mindset understanding that you are a person in a body Like.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: You'll often start to hear people saying like, well, then I started running, or I started exercising, or finally I was able to take a shower every day, you know, just caring for your physical body.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And then the second is optimism.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Gloria Steinem says optimism is a form of planning, and so, really, this is a good quote, it is I know.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: And really this idea that we can get through things and that things might look better soon, you know, and this idea of working towards something that might look better soon, and then the converse of that.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: The third thing is really just doing the next best thing.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: It's not about I have this plan for how I'm going to get out of this, like when I was in 10th grade and I had to figure out how to get to college.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I wasn't like here, so I'm going to get into Columbia.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: I was just like, all right, I have to figure out how to study.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, you got to take them, you know.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: And it's really about what's the next step I can take.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: So, being optimistic about the future, but really thinking about I just have to do this one thing.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I actually don't have to know where I'm going 20 steps ahead.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: When you start a marathon, you cannot see the finish line.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: So, really understanding that you're at the beginning of something and that it's okay to take one step, and trusting yourself that once you're in that next phase, you'll figure out what to do from there.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that last one probably hit home a lot, with a lot of people listening, because a lot of us are planners and we have step one through 50 there and we sometimes get overwhelmed.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I'll just speak personally of all 50 steps, but if I'm just focused on what do I need to do today to meet my goal or to work towards my goal, like that's what you should be working on, whether it's your health or relationships or your career, whatever it may be, it's like what do you do today?
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Because it's these micro steps that lead to your success and I think, even though we all have heard it, I don't know if it syncs in with everyone.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: And so then what happens, unfortunately, is like people stop, you know, because it's too big of a chunk of something to figure out, and then they start from zero again, or they just don't move very forward, or they might even, unfortunately, change their goal altogether, if it's something that's really good but seems really, really hard.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: So I think you know those things that you just talked about really important for people to hear, as adults, as parents and, as you know, people who are just trying to kind of move forward with the next step towards their goals.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: When you think about resiliency and the different moments in a child's life, do they need it more so in elementary, more so in middle?
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Like in your experience, in your research, is there a moment as parents like we should be, like have a resiliency radar up of, like, okay, do I need to do anything extra here?
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, as with everything, kids, the earlier we start, the better for our kids, and so a lot of the early signs of, and let's define resilience for a minute.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I think, that I think that resilience is really about trusting yourself, and I think that what you were just describing about people you know being scared to take the next step or feeling too overwhelmed by the whole process that happens when we don't believe that we could take on whatever comes next, when we're like, oh my gosh, I'm not equipped for this.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: And kids have that feeling all the time.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Childhood anxiety is like through the roof right now.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: We are in epidemic levels of mental health crises for kids, and the reason why one of a few reasons why is because kids don't have a lot of opportunities to build that self trust.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: And so for defining resilience is you know that you can handle hard things, you trust yourself enough to put yourself in a situation and trust that you'll figure out what to do next.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: And for a lot of kids, they don't have the independence or the ability to fail and see if they can catch themselves, because either they are being caught right or just through our school system and through us as parents, we're trying to clear the way for them.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: And because school and outside of school, like playtime, is not really built how it used to be built for kids to really fall down and figure out how to get back up, and so, in the absence of that, there are things that we can do as parents.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that your kid has to be, you know, outside running around until dusk, like maybe you are when you were a kid.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: I am saying that there are things that we can do to help build up our kids internal trust.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: So kids who have huge meltdowns, kids who feel really perfectionistic and hate to make mistakes, kids who, like start trying and then give up the minute things get hard, or start to read a book and then stop reading the minute they get to a word they don't know, those kids need a deeper level of trust in themselves.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: They actually don't need to keep trying.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: They need to start trusting first and then they will naturally continue to try.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's go down this road for a second.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: So how, when we see that if we have a child that is kind of getting frustrated or having a meltdown or you know I'm thinking of adults who do this, but let's talk about they get to a certain point where they just give up because it gets hard, Is there an equation or a process or what's the ingredients that go into trusting or helping your child trust themselves more?
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a whole class that I teach on this and a framework that I teach that I came up with around teaching kids resilience.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: And there's three components of this much larger framework.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And that's really about starting with yourself knowing your own stories of resilience, knowing what makes you resilient.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Finding those stories if you don't have them off the top of your head.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Delighting in your kid like you, enjoying your role as parent.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Figuring out a way to enjoy your role as a parent.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Then creating the right conditions at home.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: If we picture our kid in almost like a dollhouse, right, figuring out what color are the walls and how smooth is the carpet and what is it smell like in there and what's the temperature.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: How do we surround our kids with the conditions so that they can start trusting themselves and start to build up that self-trust in the safety of our home.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: And then, finally, the last step is building our kids capacity.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: So many parents come to me like I need to build up my kids resilience, and that's actually steps eight, nine and ten.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: You know this larger ten-step process and so really thinking about how do we create the conditions for resilience.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: That has a lot to do with who your kids sees themselves as at home.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: We all grew up in families.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: We understand what our you know that roles in a family can come, no matter what, whether they're defined or not.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: You kind of know what your place is in a home as a kid, and so if we get really intentional about that and use our kids strengths to help them build up their role in the family, actually I have a resource for anybody listening who wants to figure out use a questionnaire to figure out a joint family mission statement and that really covers what each kid's role is.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: How do we let them shine at home?
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: How do we give them a positive role?
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Because a lot of the kids I'm talking about they're in the troublemaker role, they're in the oh gosh, I hope they're okay today role, they're in the what's the mood going to be like when they get home from school role and instead, how do we turn that around and give them a more positive role?
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: And I think one of the things I've been thinking as you're talking through it is like what if the parents are either unaware, you know, like they don't even know this is an issue, and they just keep saying try harder, do it again?
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: You know and I'm guessing someone can relate to that, who's listening of a parent who just kept wanting you to do it over and over and again or felt like maybe you weren't applying yourself.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, I heard that as I was going up I wasn't applying myself Me too, which honestly, I wasn't.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: But I think you know, for different reasons I guess.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: But I think, in that sense, what if the parent this is kind of an aha moment for someone listening I was like, oh my gosh, like I just have them.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Keep trying again, try harder.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Because our definition of resilience as adults may be like you just keep going, chin up, keep going, like, don't stop.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: What do we do if we're like right now, having that moment of like man, I've been doing it wrong?
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: How do we get started or get righted?
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, First of all, there is no I've been doing it wrong.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: It's we get new information and we try something different, and you are in relationship with your kids for the whole rest of your life.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: So we've got.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: There's always time, and if you've been, you know, pushing your kid who hates to do homework, say just try.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: You know, let's just do five minutes.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: You have to keep going.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: What I want parents to really think about, and what we talk about a lot in my course, is that our kids are wired to please us.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: It doesn't always feel that way, but they have evolved to please the people who care for them, and so if they're not pleasing the teachers and pleasing the parents, there's a really hard, one Hardwired reason for it.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: It is not.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: It may look like they're just not trying and it may look like they just don't feel like it, but usually there's a deep seed of shame in there.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: There's a deep seed of if my mom, if my dad sees that I can't read this word, I don't want them to see me fail, and it's not that you're not a supportive parent because they feel that way.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: It's just the natural thing that you don't want the people around you seeing you in less than a stellar light Right?
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: None of us do.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And so for our kids, if we translate it not to oh my God, they're just not trying, they need to try harder.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: But rather, how can I give them the self perception to know that they're okay even if they fail the spelling test?
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: How can I give them the positive self direction to understand that when something feels hard they can try and do something again and again until it's better?
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: And that has a lot to do with uncovering and relieving our kids internal shame and giving them a positive role at home, and actually very little to do with trying again.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Trying again is a symptom of a much larger self perceptive issue.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things as a parent is you were raised a certain way and sometimes that's the way you raise your kids right.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And a lot of the times, sometimes you break a cycle of something that wasn't you know, that was dysfunctional.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: You realize, like I am not doing that to my child or whatever it may be.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Do you find that, as you're working with parents and children, that there is a cycle of that's how the mom and dad learned, so that's how they thought learning was supposed to work for their kids?
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of the parents that I work with have a different learning actually learning style than their kids.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: A lot of parents that I work with they were like either, like you know, stellar students in school and then their kids are really struggling, or sometimes the reverse.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: But mostly it's like parents who kind of did well, followed the rules, were good to their parents, and then now they've got this kid that's really struggling.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: And what we do in the course that I teach is we actually define our legacy values versus our current values.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Like, what are the values that we grew up with?
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: That we maybe either did or didn't question that our parents, you know, when we tell our kid sit up straight, or when we tell our kid you know you have to do all your homework, is that really a value that you have or is that a value that's left over?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Is that your parents' voice, is that your mom's voice or dad's voice, your aunt's voice, saying that in out of your mouth, or is that really you?
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Do you really think that that's important?
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: And a lot of the rules that we have around talking back or around finishing your plate or around, you know, walking a certain way on the sidewalk these are rules that we have because we either don't want to be embarrassed or we hear our parents' voice being like you're gonna let them talk to you, like that, you know, and maybe not something that we truly believe is right, and so we really get clear on what are our own values and our own value system and what can we actually really let go of, because it's not serving me as an adult and my kid as the person in front of me that I'm trying to help.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: What role does confidence play in resilience?
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: resilience breeds confidence and not the other way around.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: And so when we think of confidence, we don't have to think of it as like someone who's really outgoing and social and friends with everybody.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: It can really be just somebody who knows themselves and knows their body and knows what they want and don't want, and that is confidence.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: So when we trust ourselves to try again and when we know who we are at home and we have an understanding of what our strengths are and we have an understanding of what is not only expected of us but how we also want to contribute, that's something that I can also give to folks.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: I'll put in the show notes around contributions, around.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: How do we actually let our kids contribute at home In a way that's beyond chores, not just loading the dishwasher, but really how are they serving everybody else in the family, just like the parents actually serve the kids.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: How are we helping our kids contribute actively at home?
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: And when our kids feel that they are positive contributors at home and that they have a role within the family and that they can try hard things and that when something doesn't go well, they have an opportunity to try again, all of those things help build up resilience and once you have that internal trust.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: You have that confidence to know okay, no matter what comes my way, I trust myself to handle it.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: As we get older, I think we still continue to want to have acceptance of our parents and connectedness and want to be doing good things that make them proud.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm 51 and I feel like I still do that right.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: So like I don't know it doesn't go away and I don't think I'm not saying it should, but I'm just saying I think maybe we become more in control, or like realizing that I know I'm doing my best and even though I might get criticized for X, Y or Z, I know I'm doing everything that I can right.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: You get to a point as an adult versus a child, where you can control it more.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: As a child though it probably just plays on a loop Was that fair to say?
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: It almost compounds, like if they're not doing something well, like it can compound and create anxiety or create fear, that's right, Something negative for them.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: So if you're a parent, is there anything that you can do?
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I obviously have great courses and all the information about that is below.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Like just in, almost in a way, just give them a break If they're having a challenge, like with a math problem, like go outside and play or switch to reading a book or switch to something they're good at, right.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: So I think, is it, is it sometimes just kind of getting their mind off of it as well?
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: So and that's really hard for parents Exactly what you're saying is like do I let them off the hook?
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Do I let my kid off the hook or do I help them keep trying?
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: I want a kid who tries hard.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: I want a kid who doesn't just stop doing what they're doing, you know, because it's hard.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: And so really, what you're talking about is is this loop of our kids being stuck in a role that we didn't define for them and then they didn't define for themselves.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: And for kids it's I am, as I am seen Whoever they don't have a prefrontal cortex developed yet.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Whoever we say they are subtly and out loud, is who they think they are.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: And so one of the big parts of the first third of the class that I teach, starting with yourself, is really about how can I see the positives in my kid.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: And this is not, I mean, I am all about warm and fuzzy, but this is not actually just some like nice little warm, fuzzy thing.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: To see the positives in your kid.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: It's.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: You can't teach somebody until you know where they are, and so if we don't see what's good, we don't know where we're starting from.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: That we can then build off of.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: There's a term in education called the zone of proximal development, and what that means is, if you don't know if someone can add, you're not going to start teaching them calculus, right?
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: You have to see what can you do, and then how can I give you one step, and then one step more, and then one step more.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: And so if we always see our kids from the lens of here's what they need and here's what they need and here's how I need to help them and here's what they can't do yet and here's how I need to support them, then we're not actually noticing what they can do and our teaching is worse and our guidance of them is worse.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: So it's not just nice to feel nice about your kids, which it is, and there's worth in just feeling good, like there's worth in that in this world, but also it's about how can I see what my kid can do and what their strengths are and what is good in them and what they've got going on really well, so that I know where we're starting from.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: How do the current school systems support resilience versus potentially not help it a lot?
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm formerly the CEO of a large international literacy consulting firm, and so I have been in almost every single type of school in the country.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: I've worked with many hundreds of school districts.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: I know American schools large, urban, suburban, small suburban, small, rural, large, rural all the schools and what I can tell you is that schools are extremely effective for a large minority of children.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: There is a minority of kids who go to school and do well and hear good things from the teacher and feel good about themselves and learn by sitting down and writing and trying.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: That is true for some kids.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Many kids go to school and feel like they shouldn't be doing what they're doing.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: They should be sitting more still.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: They should be studying more or differently.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: They should be learning more or differently.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: They can't talk to their friends Like there's a lot of rules in school, even in the most supportive school environments, that naturally, by having 15 to 35 kids in a room together, there has to be some structure.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: For a lot of kids, if they don't have another outlet, school can become this all-consuming thing.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Let me paint you a picture of, and a lot of us will feel familiar with this A kid goes to school and they're not doing that well, and so their teacher calls their family and is like hey, they need to really study their spelling words or they need to really learn how to behave better.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Then the kid comes home and the parents are like hey, let's study these spelling words.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: I want to help.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: The teacher told me that my job is to make sure that you're a better speller.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Let's practice the spelling words.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Then the kid comes home and they still have to keep practicing the spelling words.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Then it's maybe too late and so they don't get to go outside, because first they have to finish their homework, then they go on their iPad and then they go to sleep.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Something like that happens.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: For me and you I mean you and I both left our large corporate jobs and here we are, but when we were working bigger jobs, you go to work and you have a boss that you don't really get along with.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: You're not maybe not killing it at work, You're not doing amazing at work and you come home and what do you want?
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: You want to not talk about work.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: You want to not continue to be at work.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: You want to not be who you are at work.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: What we're doing for our kids is we're basically saying, hey, get back on slack and slack the boss.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, have a Zoom call.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Have a Zoom call before dinner because you didn't do enough today.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the kids who most need a break from school, who most need to be somebody actually completely different at home, are the kids who get the most school.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: What do we do for kids who aren't doing well?
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: We give them more of what's important More to do.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, really, I left.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: I really left my work with schools because, I mean, I have a really deep respect for teachers and a really deep respect for learning.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: What I now know is that parents, as the biggest guardians of kids and of kids time, the biggest guardians of their children's time and how they spend it it's really up to us to decide.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: My kids having a lot of trouble in school.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Instead of giving them more school, I'm actually going to give them something completely different at home so that they can develop another muscle, think of themselves more highly, and then that'll translate into their schoolwork.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: That's what I help parents do, because it's not just about okay, never talk about homework again, but it really is about how do I structure my kids' home life so that they're able to succeed, even in places that are hard for them, oftentimes like school.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I go back.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: I think I had a time and I worked in a K through 12 environment and my job was really to work between tech data and classroom curriculum directors of how do we use testing data to help understand each of the children's opportunities and areas of expertise and to work at it, because test scores in K through 12 environment are a big deal and are this marker of like can you go on to the next grade, can you do what's next?
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Then we have the next level of tests at the end of high school of like your SAT and all the other things that go into that and who knows what new thing there is.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: And then you have another one in graduate school, whether it's a GMAT or whatever.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: You're consistently tested.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: We seem to use that as a marker for ability and I know this is a whole controversial topic.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Most likely, but in elementary school I think the first time you take one of the tests is in their grade, and it might even be earlier now, but that was one of the first times that you were taking kind of a standardized test when it comes to resiliency and how you want to work with your child, but then you know they're going to be measured against something that I'm not sure is the right measure of their ability.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: How do we work with that as parents when we get those test scores or we're not really sure how they're going to do?
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of pressure, I think, on the kids too.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I remember the environment of testing week and it builds.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: It's like even as a parent you're like oh, it's testing week, make sure we get a good breakfast, make sure we get out the door, all that jazz.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: How do we work with that, knowing it's a marker and going to happen and we can't keep it from?
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: happening.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: This might be a really controversial answer, but I will answer you honestly.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: One of the things that I work on with folks is practicing failure.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: A lot of the kids that I work with are really hate to get anything wrong, and that's because of exactly the environment that you're describing in schools and we as parents are like okay, we want them to do well on the test and we want them to then get into a good middle school and get into a good high school and get into a good college.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: And how can I help them, set them up for this?
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: And even if you're not really focused on that, it's still in the air.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: And so for a lot of the young kids outside of standardized testing because standardized testing is for the teacher and that's what parents and kids really need to know is like those scores don't even come back until the next year.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: So you're not.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: No one is determining whether or not you stay back based on standardized tests.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: That's for the teacher, it's for the school.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: It determines a lot of other things.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: It does not determine a kid's future until high school, and then we start talking about SATs and regions and things like that, but early on in elementary school, all the standardized tests are for the school and not for the kids.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: And so we start to and the kids never even know their scores from them, by the way it's like.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: So what we start to practice is controlled failure.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: For kids who are really perfectionistic, we for a spelling test at the end of the week or for a math quiz, we tell the teacher in advance, we say, hey, we're going to have them fail this one.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: And the kid just writes every single wrong answer.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: It's a breath of fresh air for them, because they've been so stressed about all the spelling tests and now, finally, they just get to write whatever letters they want, whatever numbers they want, doesn't matter, because they know they're supposed to fail this week.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: And then they submit the test and they get it back and it's a zero.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: And this is something that is really a practice.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: And it's a practice of the kid seeing okay, I failed, now what?
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: And we check in with our body Is my body still here?
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: And we check in with our optimism Do I think I could do better next time?
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: And we check in with what's our next step?
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Okay, what might I do now?
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: And we check in with the parents, because failure is for kids.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: The parents are the biggest determinant of how they feel, and a lot of parents do not want to fail a test and do not want their kids to fail a test, and so it's a test for parents too, because Harvard is not checking your fourth grade report card, you know.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: And so how can we really help practice this thing that feels so big and scary and overwhelming, and actually just do it and try it and then see where we go from there?
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: And so I know that this is not the answer that a lot of people want to hear about, like how to help.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: I help my kids do well on tests, but a lot of the time, the thing that takes away the pressure is doing the big scary thing first.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, what if I fail Now?
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, what if I fail?
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Is not this big looming question?
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: It's okay, I failed last week and look, I'm still here.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you normalize it right, you normalize failure.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I honestly think like a lot of adults listening could just extrapolate this, a lot of the things we're talking about with children, to their own lives, because I think we, you know, as women, particularly talking about perfectionism and I'm sure there are men that battle these things too but obviously lived experience as women, just talking about wanting to be perfect and make sure, you know, we don't make any mistakes and make sure all that happens, that comes from like not having a normalization of failure.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: You know, like I grew up with, my mom say, as long as you do your best, if you get a D, you get a C, as long as I know you've done your best.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Now how she determined whether I did my best and I don't know, but you know that was kind of the thing for me.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: So I did know like it was okay to get a C, but I was going to have to talk about why I got the C and you know what did I do or what could I do differently.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: You know, I remember my daughter, maya, like she got a 50 on one of her exams in college and she was really just kind of taken aback by it, like it was really hard and I want to say it's like organic chem or something which we all probably relate to a 50 and organic chem.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: But I went to Whole Foods, put a 50 on a cake and put a K and all we like, we celebrated it, like yeah, you know.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, we're gonna stop, like this is not something that we're going to stop us in our tracks, right?
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: So like just thinking about, you know, normalizing that it's okay to fail, I assume, helps a growth mindset be, you know, planted to kind of be nurtured in a child, and the sooner the better.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, that didn't work.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: You know, you, you fell down, you're going as far back as you can go, like failure is okay and you're still here after it happens.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: And, you know, I like that idea of like seeing what you can do in partnership with your school or your teacher, and maybe they won't.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes you get a teacher that is by the book, right?
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: And yeah, but even those teachers who are by the book.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: You tell them my kid's going to fail this test and they say I really rather they didn't.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: And you say okay, and then your kid goes and does it anyway, and yeah you have the control, as the parent, to say, hey, you know you're going to fail today.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Like it's good, I'm happy you just go do your thing and we know this is going to be okay, and so it is a different way to kind of operate in that sense.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: So, as we kind of finish out wondering if someone's curious about where to start, like whether they have a ninth grader, a third grader or a first grader, or maybe they just have someone that's not even in school yet, where do they start when thinking about building resiliency at the place where their child is now?
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Is there something that they can do to understand it or know where to start?
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Like you know, someone may be a different place based on where they are in age, or maybe, like a ninth grader is far you know, maybe farther behind than a second grader.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the best place to start is really in seeing your kids and helping them figure out their strengths, and so that's number one, because we don't know where to go until we know where we are.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: I have five steps to help you use your kids strengths to help them solve problems, and that is really an effective way of figuring out what is my kid able to do.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: And then, how do I take what they're able to do and help advise them on how to interact with the world?
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: Because we are advising our kids on how to interact with the world from the moment they're born and until the moment we stop talking to them.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: You know we're constantly advising them on what to do, and so when we come from a place of strengths, of well, here's what's so special about you and here's where you shine, and so let me take what you do well and help you figure out what to do next.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: That is such a different thing than saying here's what I would do or here's what I think works from what I've read, because you're really talking about the person in front of you and parenting, which is unlike teaching and unlike other work with kids.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Parenting is really about the one or two or five or seven people in front of you that you are in charge of, and actually not about what another kid should do or what another person might do.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: It's only about the people in your household, and so I hope and that's why I created this resource is that's a really, really strong place to start.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, excellent.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: So all these fabulous resources down the episode notes and I just want to mention that you are working on the book for parents that you know eventually, hopefully we see in the next couple of years of kind of taking all these concepts with the research and putting them all together.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: So look for that potentially in the future as well.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: We'll have you back once your book's out there.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge and for sharing these great resources and helping us understand the connection between resilience, confidence and success for our kids.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others Through their unique and important story.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.