Rebecca Rolland: The Linguist Path to Enhancing Relationships

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I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. We're on a mission to make you remarkable. Helping me in this episode is Rebecca Rowland. Rebecca is a talented writer, devoted mother, and accomplished educator. She is currently a lecturer at the prestigious Harvard Graduate School of Education and also serves on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. As an oral and written language specialist at Boston Children's Hospital, Rebecca is also making a great impact on the lives of children. With a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a master's from the MGH Institute of Health Professions, a Master's from Boston University, and a bachelor's from Yale, Rebecca's impressive educational credentials reflect her deep expertise in language and communication. Rebecca has recently authored a book titled the Art of Talking to Children. This guidebook shares Rebecca's journey as a speech pathologist and provides practical insights and strategies for parents and educators to engage in meaningful conversations with children. Join us as we dive into Rebecca's incredible story and explore the power of language to transform lives. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. And now here's the remarkable Rebecca Rowland.

As a speech pathologist and an expert in conversation, how would you rate the typical congressional hearing we're seeing these days?

I would have to say quite low. Unfortunately, yes. I think there's so much talking at each other and very little talking with each other. So I think there's just so many people who have their own agendas and who really struggle to be open to other people's interpretations or opinions and really have a very fixed understanding of their own ideas. So I think that's a huge block to great conversations and we see it there.

Unfortunately, when we see recordings of these hearings, it's pretty apparent that they're not talking to each other. They're trying to get the sound bite in for Fox, right?

Exactly. Yeah. So I think that's what's also really hard in our current media landscape, is that as much as you can make things pithy and quick and snappy, sometimes the nuance gets lost there. And I think that's a lot of.

What we're seeing, hopefully the stuff that's not broadcast that they're really discussing. But yes, I even doubt that that these days that's one plunge into the deep end. Second plunge Is what do you think will happen long term when politicians and school boards are trying to control what teachers are saying to and with their students, they're trying to control the conversation in school. So what's going to happen in the long run?

Yes, I think that's extremely concerning, both from an educational perspective and just from a broader philosophical perspective about who are we trying to raise as young people. We want people who can ask hard questions and who can explore topics that might feel out of their comfort zone. And I think one consequence of this kind of, you know, tamping down of topics and of conversation is that kids are not allowed and helped to process things with a trusted adult. So they're really just getting things from the news, from their friends, from all of these different sources. And yet they're making a lot of assumptions based on what they hear and see, but without the support to navigate those and to think critically about them. So a lot of times, you know, if you watch lots of YouTube videos, for example, they get more and more extreme. So there's research showing that they're kind of being framed in a way that amps up the extreme topics, the. The misunderstandings, all of that. And so when we have children who are shamed into feeling like they can't talk about things, all of this is still discussed on the sidelines, but none of it is processed, really, with the support of an adult. So I think the risk is that we have a lot of really anxious kids who feel ashamed about certain topics and also who are getting the wrong information and who don't really know what to do with it. So I think that's a huge problem for education.

Do you think this concern that we don't want our kids damaged and being ashamed of being white or, you know, something like that, I mean, is that even plausible that this is the issue?

Yes. I mean, I think what is so concerning to me as a misunderstanding is that we think we're protecting kids by not talking about things. But in reality, children are always making assumptions about what they see in the world, and the world is often a very unfair place. So they're making assumptions about how the world is based on these inequalities. They're seeing, for example, and they may think even, oh, these inequalities are natural because they exist and nobody has talked about them. So without someone to say, well, these inequalities are here because of X, Y and Z factor, or because these people have been struggling to get jobs because of, you know, structural issues or anything like that, we have kids who Maybe actually ironically become more biased and more involved in their own circles, more isolated, because they're not able to have these conversations. So I think actually protecting kids means opening their minds and actually talking through these things much more than it does social media. Silencing that.

My favorite story in your book is, I think the guy's name was Michael, where he was watching a video where a kid from Mexico was talking on the video.

Oh, yes.

And he started complaining about the Mexican accent. And, you know, you tell the story. I thought it was a great story.

So, yes, I was a speech pathologist working with this student who was watching a video of a child from Mexico who was speaking in English with a Mexican accent. And my student was making fun of this child, and I was a very young speech pathologist, and I wasn't really sure what to say, so I did the standard lecture of, oh, we shouldn't talk like that, or that's really rude. And he's actually trying his best, and actually he's doing quite a good job on all of this. It didn't seem to make much of an impact. Only later, so I had this understanding of, oh, my student is so biased. I don't understand what's going on. How can I help? And later I met with his parents, and I actually realized that they were immigrants themselves, and the student didn't speak with an accent, but the parents actually did speak with quite heavy accents. And that was a real turning point for me because I realized, oh, my goodness, this student, who seems outwardly quote, unquote American and very assimilated, actually is most likely ashamed of part of his own background and is turning that kind of. And projecting that onto this other person who he perceives as foreign and is pushing his anger outward. And for me, that really shows that when we don't take the time to discuss these and kind of unwind our own assumptions about people, it can really take the prizing a negative turn. And also I think just that we really need to support children from different backgrounds in feeling worthy and celebrating those backgrounds rather than feeling like they need to hide them.

So I am writing a book based on interviews of remarkable people like you, and that story is going into the book. I think that is a great story. A few months ago, I interviewed someone named Mark Laberton, and at the time, he was the CEO of Fuller Seminary. And Fuller Seminary is a Harvard Business School. I mean that in a positive. A Harvard Business School of seminary.

And.

And he said, you know, guy, instead of asking people, what do you believe about Vaccination or what do you believe about immigration? Or why do you believe it? Instead, the question should be how did you come to believe this? So if you asked this kid, how did you come to believe that you should make fun of this other kid with a Mexican accent? You would have learned that he's from an immigrant family. And we've experience this kind of criticism for not having a pure, quote, American accent. And so that's why. And that would be very, very educational.

That's great. And I really like that question also because it's so non judgmental as well. Rather than saying, oh, here I'm going to just immediately push back, in which case you're setting up a child for defensiveness. You're really starting to explore and show interest. How did your history lead you here? So I love that.

So now I'm going to get you out of the deep end of the pool and we'll go into the personal end of the pool and then we'll really get back to your topic at hand. Okay, sounds good. A question occurred to me as I was reading your book. In my personal life, which is at the end of the day, I have four kids and one's in college, two are out of college, but one's in high school. And at the end of the day, the high school one still lives with us. I try to engage and I want to ask them, how was your day, what happened and all that? And I know that's very suboptimal questions. So my question for you is what are you supposed to say to your kids at the end of the day to foster a good conversation?

Yes. And it's so funny that you ask that because I get this question from so many parents actually that this seems to be a sticking point is at the end of the day, you come home, you ask your child a million questions and they say nothing or answer with one word answers. And I think part of it is just this expectation that we have that's really a check in conversation and kind of the expected answer is grunting or fine or can I have a snack or something like that. But we want it to be more than that. You know, we expect some kind of lengthy discussion of their days, which we're not getting oftentimes because kids are exhausted or they're overstimulated or they're just not wanting to talk at that time. For me, oftentimes I first get kids in the car or at home or wherever I see them, just greet them, obviously say I'm happy to see them and then Just check in, see what they need first. Do you need food? Do you need a few minutes alone? What would work well for you? And for example, my daughter is very introverted and these days she often goes and she immediately wants to get food and take 10 minutes or so and be alone in her room. And I used to think that was very odd as a person who focuses on conversation, you know, because I think, oh, I want to sit and wanna talk. I haven't seen you all day. But I came to realize that actually being aware of your children's needs around timing especially and around kind of when they're able to talk is just as important as the questions you ask. So actually for her saying, okay, here, go, take your time and when you're ready, come back and let's hear. And so I actually start often with more specific questions, too often piggybacking of something that happened a previous day or a previous week. So, for example, oh, that story that you told me about two days ago, you know, what ended up happening with that? Or did you have that picnic you said you were going to have with your friends? I also sometimes model things, little stories myself. Oh, you won't believe this person I talk to in Australia or something like that. And showing that what we're looking for, what we want, is having these specific stories rather than just fine or good. And oftentimes kids will take a cue from. But I do think that adaptiveness of just really recognizing that some kids need quiet time before they can re engage is really helpful too. Pushing up that guilt too.

And what would your advice be to say to your spouse at the end of the day?

Ah, that's a good one. Well, I mean, I think it really depends on your relationship and on your temperament. I know some people who tend to be more extroverted, they immediately want to jump into conversation, whereas some people want again, that kind of quiet time or time alone. And so I think actually before saying I'm going to recommend this, I would actually recommend having a little chat with your spouse about what type of person you feel like you are at the end of the day and what your general needs are. What do you need to feel comfortable and ready to engage? And sometimes it's like, oh, would you like to go take a walk together? You know, if you feel like, oh, I need some fresh air because I've been in the office all day, what about we go for a walk and chat? Or if you have your kids around, what about they play a board game for five minutes and we sit and just Say three things that we surprised us. For example, one thing we found energizing and one thing we found draining, or something like that. So sometimes if you talk about these more specific issues rather than just, oh, how's your day? Oh, it's okay. Did you go to office? Yes. That kind of thing, that can get us out of those ruts. Because I think that can be challenging, too, at a family dynamic level.

I'm gonna have a lot of homework at the end of today.

Yeah. See how it goes. I'd be curious.

I'll update you. So now we're gonna go truly into your lane. And in this lane, my question is, what makes a great conversation?

I'd say a great conversation is one that at some level, does two things. It helps bond you and the person or the people that you're with, and it changes you and the person or people that you're with. So this might mean, for example, that it changes something about the way you think. It changes a feeling that you have. It changes your understanding, or it makes you reflect on something new. It gives you some kind of shift. And this, in some ways, is what helps you and that person or people you're with grow together. Because the conversation is not only a bonding experience, but it's an experience and way of learning about yourself and others in the world. And sometimes it might not feel amazing in the moment. So sometimes great conversations can involve conflict or they can involve discussing a hard topic. It doesn't always have to be something great and philosophical. But I think that even if we're having the smallest of conversations, if it does those two things, that, to me, is a great conversation.

Can you give me some specific elements of how to get there?

Sure. So one story that's from my book, which I really like, is my daughter. When we were sitting in a museum and she and I were looking at mummies, and she actually asked me, you know, where did the mummies go? And I said to her, I don't really know. What do you mean? And she said, where do their spirits or where do they go? They're sort of their souls. And I kept actually leaving silence. So I think that is one key element to actually leave silence and space for kids to think and also admitting our vulnerability or things that we don't know. So I actually told my daughter in that moment, oh, I don't know where they went. And she asked one question after another. She asked me, well, where were you before you were born? For example, she was only five at the time, and I really didn't know the answer to that. And I said, I don't know. And I asked her, well, what about you? And she said to me, oh, I was an old man and I got tired of being so old and I turned into a baby again. And for me, that was just a really incredible answer and something that sticks with me when I think about what we can do in having these conversations. And I think part of it really is just leaving space for you and a child to go on that kind of thinking journey together. Not to shut things down early or feel like you have to have an answer, but to really feel like, oh, let me actually take that question and run with it and go with what I really think, which is I really don't know, and admit that to kids. And oftentimes kids have so many ideas and so much imagination that they'll take that ball and run with it.

If you ever go back to the museum and see mummies, we interviewed a guest named Temple Grandin about two. Do you know who she is?

Yes, yes, definitely.

Okay, so in her interview she says that she was at an exhibit or something and the decorations on the mummies, as time progressed, got more and more crude and less and less artistic.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah. She said that reflected the degradation of Egyptian society that was getting worse and worse. And so the next time you have a conversation about mummies, you can point out to your daughter, you see how they're getting less and less beautiful. That reflects how their civilization was going.

Yes, yes. Oh, that's so cool. I did not know that. I'll bring that in for sure.

So you can say you learned something on a podcast interview.

I definitely. I'll bring that home. Wouldn't be the first time. That's awesome.

Well, what about this concept that a great conversation is adaptive back and forth and child driven?

Yeah, so I often talk about sort of the ABCs of rich talk. And those are those three. So being adaptive back and forth with a B and child driven. And I think those three elements for me are kind of like a framework that we can keep in mind when having conversations. So rather than saying, you know, a script, as in, oh, a conversation should look like this, I actually think there's so many ways of having conversations that are great and so many ways of meeting kids where they are. So I really want to develop a framework that could allow us to have these conversations in a really open ended way, rather than saying say this instead of saying that. So if we think about the ABCs, I can just go into each one briefly and I think These are elements that you can keep in mind with any age child. So it doesn't have to be a young child or a teenager, it can be any age. So the first is adaptive, meaning that when you're with a child, you really think about adapting your conversation to their moods, for example, their temperaments, who they are in the moment, and then also who you know they are over time, whether they're more active, whether they like to talk after school or at night or after basketball. And also just even the length and pacing of your conversation, you really start to notice, oh, my child opens up when we just talk for five minutes and then they go and play, or they open up after they've shown me or taught me how to do something, which is a frequent one for kids. So with the A, you're really just becoming more self aware about when your conversations are working well, and then how you can do more of that, so how you can bring more of that richness into your life. The B, the back and forth is something that comes out of a lot of research on conversations, which is showing that when we think about conversations as turn taking meaning, the adult says something, the child says something, the adult says something back, we know that the number of turns that happens in that conversation actually does a lot more to build a child's vocabulary and their social skills than just the number of words an adult is saying. So actually, the number of turns that we have is really critical in building a child's brain, building their skills, and even building our relationship. But we often miss that. So we're often talking, I'd say, at kids for giving directions or telling them how to do something, or lecturing. We miss that part of the back and forth where kids actually are having their responses listened to, responded to, and are getting a lot of feedback. So for the bee, I just really invite people to notice. Are you more of a talker with children or are you more of a listener? And how can you find that balance between having a child talk and having you talk? And the last one, the C, for child driven, is really just starting conversations with what is on a child's mind. So it might mean something that's exciting to them they really want to talk to you about, or something that worries them or that they're scared about. But really, if we can get in and tap into that motivation of something that's already on a child's mind, we can already have much richer conversations than if we start from something abstract or something we pull out of a hat. So those three together are Things I found in my own parenting life and in my work with families to be really helpful in having these conversations.

Somewhat ironic is that this week's guest on my podcast was Dan Lyons, and he wrote a book called stfu and basically why you should shut up. And now I'm interviewing you about how to have a conversation.

That's so funny.

So I tell you that because maybe you're going to be thinking, guy, why don't you just STFU about what I'm about to say? Okay, I grant you that.

Sure, sure. All right. So go for it. It's fine.

I'm inherently a marketer and an evangelist, and I'm always looking for ways to influence and persuade people better. And one of them that I've come to in my career is that you just got to make things as short as possible. So when I saw your abc, adaptive, back and forth and child driven, I said, those last two have two words. There's got to be a way to make ABC three words as opposed to 1, 3, and then 2. So I set my mind to finding those words using chat GPT.

Oh, nice. That's great. I'm not a marketer by training, so, yeah, I love it. Yeah.

So I give you this suggestion. Feel free to ignore it. You can even tell me, guy, you don't know what the hell you're doing. But anyway, if you say that, we're gonna edit it out.

Okay?

Now if you tell me, guy, this is sheer genius, we're gonna keep it in.

Okay?

So I think instead of back and forth, you could use one word, which is bilateral.

Yeah. Okay.

And then instead of child driven, I think you can just say centric, and then that will broaden the use of your abc, because I think your ABC for a great conversation is true in any kind of conversation, not just child. So you could say, if you want to have a great conversation, it should be adaptive, it should be bilateral, and it should be centric. Centric in the sense that it's the other person who's the main character here. Anyway, I offer you that for free.

I totally love that. I wish I was a marketer, because I feel like that would be amazing if I had written it like that. And they might actually, if you don't mind, I might steal that for the future.

I would be flattered quoting you.

I will quote you, but that's amazing. And actually, it's so funny because I was talking to a podcaster, actually, who's business related, and he was like, oh, I wish we could change child driven. To client driven or colleague driven or something like that. You know, I think I've been struggling to figure out how to broaden it and that I love that. So thank you. I will call you.

Yeah, I like that. Can apply to anybody, right?

Exactly.

It could be the child, the colleague, the spouse, whatever. That's the beauty of centric, as opposed to having to find a C word. Because C works for clients, C works for customer. C does not work for spouse.

No.

Anyway, otherwise it'll be abs. Why or is, or how much better is in person conversation as opposed to what you call mediated forms of conversation? So how much and why is in person better?

Yes, I think obviously mediated conversations. So conversations with, through technology, through zoom, et cetera, have their place. I would say that they are at best kind of adjuncts to in person conversation, but that in person conversation offers a few really key things, especially with kids, that mediated conversation can't. And one of them is that you're simply involving all of the senses. So zoom at best obviously involves only two senses. So you can see the person and you can hear them, but you don't have their presence. You can't actually sit next to them. You can't notice touch. You can't use gesture in the same way. And for kids who often depend so much on the warmth and closeness of touch and learning from a person's body language and even from their closeness in terms of how they're sitting, they're missing out a lot if they're not able to get all of those signals from another person in person. Other things are that, for example, when you're in person, you have the chance for these really minor signals that actually can say a lot. So things like sitting next to a person in silence, doing nothing together, or just sitting and actually doing something quiet together so you're knitting while a child is playing next to you, these conversations would likely never happen over zoom because we would say, what's the point in this meeting? But when you're in reality, when you're with a person or with a child especially, you can let conversations unfold in a much more kind of natural and relaxed fashion when you are doing these things. Or even, for example, when you may have noticed when you are driving a car and the child is sitting next to you, you're not necessarily facing each other head on. You're both maybe looking out at the road. But that kind of in person, but not in your face situation can lead to a lot more deep conversations, especially about harder topics that a child might not have brought Up. So I think that zoom and mediated conversation for sure has its place, especially now. But I think our bedrock should really be that embodied in person conversation.

I really think that some of the best conversations I've had with my kids are while we're driving. And for sure the driver shouldn't be texting or reading email or being on.

Zoom at that point. Right.

So at least half of the conversation is focused. It may be an unintended consequence of Tesla drivers using full automation that they're going to have less good communication with their kids.

Interesting, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

But I would make the case that Tesla drivers are really weird people anyway, so it doesn't matter. But I digress. So let's suppose that you're listening to this conversation and you say to yourself, oh, that is me. I am guilty as charged. Right, so now what's like the baby steps that one can take to become a better conversationalist?

Yes, and I love that question because I think so often parents hear the idea of this and they use it as something where they're like, oh, I feel guilty. Oh, I should have been doing this, or oh, I wish I had done this. And that's really not the intention of this work. It's definitely, as you're suggesting, like, even starting with baby steps, just really thinking about how much richer your lives can be if you bring in these kinds of conversations. So I really think about just even taking, say, five or 10 minutes to be really concrete a couple of times a day. Sitting with your child, even if they're not talking, you can sit with them and just really sit. Observe what they're doing quietly for a little bit of time. See if they have something to say. If they're quiet, maybe ask them, tell me what you're doing. Or this looks interesting. If you notice something of curiosity, you know, can you tell me more about that? And just having these opportunities, these open invitations to a child to talk. So often we forget that kids have so much to tell us, but that we may be in a rush. We may be just having lots of things to do, and we often don't take the time to offer those invitations. So I think even so often, young kids, they get kind of moved from one place to the other. Our questions are often about, how many are there of these? Or what color is that? But oftentimes they're thinking about really big things. And so having the chance just to ask them, what are you thinking? Or what do you like best about that? You'll get really surprising answers. So I would start There I fully.

Realize that one's public Persona may not reflect reality, but are there any people in the Rebecca hall of Fame of conversational ability that you would like to hold out as good models?

Do you mean public figures or people in my personal life or both?

I'm looking for public figures so people can say, yeah, you know, I should be more like Oprah or I should be more like Elon Musk to. To stretch the truth.

Yes. I won't go there. But yeah, I. I would say for me, Barack Obama is really one of the best conversationalists that I've heard. Whether he's having one of the reality shows he's been on, you know, like where he talks to people about his life, or if he's having more of an oratory type of style, I think he's able to shift in his way of talking depending on the person he's with, from very formal to very informal. And even for someone who's so well known and so eloquent, to be able to laugh at himself, I think is something I've always appreciated when I hear his conversations. And I also just really appreciate. Just as a side note, he always releases these, his favorite books and things like this. And I think those are ways. And I always read his book list because I find they're in quite good taste. And so I think for me, having that dialogue with the public, even about sort of your likes and dislikes, is something that I admire very much. So I would say he's kind of the top.

And may I point out that the first thing you mentioned about him is being adaptive. Right?

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah.

That's funny. Yes. I didn't do that intentionally, but yeah, that must have been on my mind.

Well, see, I'm the marketer, you're not. What can I say?

Yeah, exactly.

So let's talk about reading to our kids, because when I read that section, you know, we've had four kids, and I'll tell you, the first kid we read a lot to. The second kid, we read a little bit less to the third kid, we read a little less. The fourth kid, oh my God. So, like, I've been feeling guilty. So how should one read to our kids?

I would say in many ways, if I can be as open ended as that, I would not emphasize there's one right way to read to your kids. I actually think it's great to read in many different ways to your children. So, for example, you know, read books to them that are at their reading level while they read along, you can Read stories to them that are above their reading level while they listen. And you can really encourage them often to interrupt you to stop the book and ask questions, to wonder and predict what do you think is going to happen next? Or to even stop and laugh and say, oh, that was so weird, or oh, that was like, I've never had anything like that happen to me. Oftentimes I see so many parents feeling anxious about, we need to get through this many books or I need to read this really hard book to my child. And we don't recognize that books are really jump starts for conversations. So if we can have a conversation based on a book even while we're reading, we're doing a lot more to help a child than we are simply by reading the words on the page. And there's actually a lot of research showing that that kind of reading, which is called dialogic reading, where you're letting a child stop and interrupt, actually builds their vocabulary a lot more than if you just read the book. So even though it might seem strange and it might feel awkward if you're used to just this very, you know, we started page five and you have to be quiet kind of reading, I think it is really beneficial and often a lot more fun I found to do with children.

And when should this start?

I will say that I started reading to my daughter when she was about four days old. And I do think you can start any time. It's funny, there's a picture of her and she was about one and a half sitting on the couch with a newspaper open, pretending like she was reading it like my husband would do. She obviously couldn't read at the time. But I do think that is so telling because part of reading isn't just about learning to read. So that is obviously a big part of it. But another huge part is getting the habits and the sense that, oh, reading is a fun activity. I can learn more the more I read. I can have fun. I can feel like it's an enjoyable time. And if you can establish that feeling, feeling even more than the actual book, then you have a child who's much more likely to be a reader long term. So I think it really doesn't matter your child's age if you can do it like bath time, you know, it's reading time now. And even some of those early sensory books where kids are able to feel the fuzzy bear or whatever, it's making reading feel like a really interesting thing. So I would say start early.

We had a guest on named Dana Suskin and She's a pediatric cochlear implant and ENT expert out of the University of Chicago. And she has this concept that learning begins the moment you're out of the womb. I forget the name of it. There's some study that found out that kids who have poor development and stuff and come from less fortunate circumstances.

Yeah, the 30 million words study.

Exactly.

Yeah. And so we had her on. It was very interesting that it doesn't begin at preschool, is her point, Right?

Yes. You can argue it begins in the womb, actually. So kids can recognize voices. Yeah. Even third trimester.

Dare I ask what you think of things like Baby Einstein and parking your kid in front of a DVD that's supposed to be developing their minds?

I mean, I think it's obviously not horrible for your child, but it doesn't really do much for them. So a lot has shown that technology can be useful for learning, but especially for young kids. They really do need that interaction to be able to learn. So there's been some studies showing that young kids exposed to, say, Mandarin videos so much less than even if they were doing Mandarin online with someone who was responding to them. So it's not to say that the technology is necessarily the problem, but it's more of the lack of bilateral ness, bilaterality the problem. So you can do it. I wouldn't say it's a horrible thing to a child. They might enjoy it, but they're not going to learn very much from it.

See, you're already using the word bilateral instead of back and forth.

Exactly. I have to figure out how to use incorporated. There you go. You see, it's already changing my. Changing my dialogue. So that's great.

In my case, I have a particular appreciation. Obviously I'm loving this conversation about conversations, but because I'm deaf, what happens if the kid is deaf or the parent is deaf? What do you do? You can get a cochlear implant like I have. What do you do if your kid is deaf or you're deaf?

Yeah. So, yes, obviously there's cochlear implants and there's other ways of lip reading and so on, but I do really emphasize that if the child is learning sign language, that the parent, if the parent is not deaf, also learn sign language. Because obviously the most important thing is language. It's not necessarily speech. And sign language is a language like any other. And so I think if you can give a child access to language as early as you can, and that really does mean as many people as possible in the child's circuit or immediate family and friends, being able to communicate with them, that gives them so much more in terms of their vocabulary, their later reading skills, and just their relationships to let them feel like they're part of a community. So I do think that if parents can and have the time and energy and are able to, I think it's so valuable to be able to go on that journey with a child and actually learn sign language along with them. And obviously the cochlear implant is another story.

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When children are faced with failure, they feel like I can get over it. And so building self confidence really means helping a child check the way they talk to themselves and helping them feel like after failure, what do I do next? We're going to make a plan and we're going to make an optimistic plan about it.

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Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki. I have been, you know, more or less deaf for about nine months and but before that's completely deaf. But prior to that I was deaf on my right side for about a decade. And I tell you, cochlear implant is a miracle. It is just really. Yeah, it's literally life changing. There was a time where I was deaf and I was trying to be a podcaster, so I would be having to read Live Transcription, which I'm still reading, but now I can really hear what you're saying. And it was very difficult to be a deaf podcaster, let me tell you.

No, I can imagine. That's wonderful. That's worked out so well for you. That's great.

Your discussion of empathy in the book was just absolutely world class to me. So can you just talk about developing empathy?

Yes, and I do. That's one of my favorite topics to talk about because I think it's so important and we have so many misconceptions about empathy. To me, empathy is something that is present in all people as a possibility, but it needs to be nurtured. It needs to be grown in children. So sometimes in our culture, I think we so often think, oh, this is an empathetic person, or this is an unempathetic person. But we often don't think about the fact that empathy develops over the course of conversations and it actually can be separated into three parts. So it's not just that empathy is this vague feeling of, I care about this other person. There's actually the feeling part, so feeling what another person feels. There's the mental part, so sharing another person's perspective. And there's a third part called compassionate action, which means, I care about you, I understand you, and I want to be able to help you. And I think the compassionate action part is also so important because I talk a lot about understanding the mystery of a person, meaning that empathy, in part, means that we know we can't fully enter the other person's mind. So what we're trying to do is understand that everybody is going to be different from ourselves, and it's different from helping. So helping might mean I'm going to bring my grandmother flowers, but compassionate empathy might mean, oh, I know my grandmother doesn't really like flowers because she finds them smelly. So my grandmother wants me to come over at midnight and play cards with her, and that's what I'm going to do, because I know, or I'm getting to know my specific person in front of me. What they really need. And I think that that is so important to teach kids is how to understand that person in front of you who may be very different from you, and how not to just make assumptions about them, but to really care and love them.

Another Temple Grandin example, although it is a little. It's a little out there.

She.

In her interview, she told us about how early in her career she was at these cattle yards and these cattle would not walk up a ramp, maybe because they know they were going to die. But anyway, these cowboys would be yelling at them and hollering at the cattle and using prods and all that. And what Temple did is instead, she got down on the ground at the height of the sight of the cattle and looked at what they were seeing and saw all the spooky stuff that would make them hesitate to go up the ramp. It's not exactly empathy, but, I mean, it is about going and being and experiencing.

Yeah, it's very much taking another person's persp. Or another animal, in that case.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll give you another example so that, you know, when you're talking about empathy, one of the best examples of empathy I ever heard was when Martin Lindstrom came on this podcast, and he said he was working with a large pharmaceutical client who wanted to get, quote, closer to the customer, which usually means hire McKinsey. But in his case, what he did is he took the executives into a room and he made them breathe through only Straws. So he couldn't breathe through your mouth or nose. Had to be straw. Obviously, they had a hard time and they complained. And he basically said, well, you're a pharmaceutical company. You have products for people with asthma. That's what it's like to have Asthma every day. 24 by 7. I thought that was a great example. I'm going to give you a speed round, but I'm going to give you the most difficult speed round in the history of podcasting.

Okay, awesome. Okay.

You ready? Okay.

Yeah.

So in a sense, I'm gonna ask you to be Carol Dweck, Angela Duckworth, Jane Goodall, in real time, briefly. Okay, Sounds good.

Okay. Okay.

So I want you to explain how to build these qualities as succinctly as you can, because I know you can do it because I read your book. Okay. So.

Okay, sounds good.

Question number one. How do you build grit?

Grit is really a combination of passion and persistence or perseverance. And to build it, I would suggest helping a child decide on their goals and then guiding them through the obstacles and the challenges of those goals, checking in with them, and helping them understand the journey.

How do you build self confidence in a child?

Self confidence is really this I can reaction. So when children are faced with failure, they feel like I can get over it. And so building self confidence really means helping a child check the way they talk to themselves and helping them feel like, after failure, what do I do next? We're going to make a plan, and we're going to make an optimistic plan about it.

How do you help a child build a growth mindset?

Yeah, so a growth mindset is really this sense that you can grow in your intelligence over time. That intelligence is a result of your effort and not your innate being. And so to build that, we want to think about moving away from comments that talk about an innate smartness or, oh, you're so good at that, or you're so bad at that, and start to move toward conversations that are about your effort or your growth. So I see you've gotten seven out of ten right this time. Last time, how many did you get right? Or I see how hard you worked on that. So if we can move away from the being side and towards the doing side, I think that's a big step in that direction.

Carol Dweck would be proud. How about, how do you build a sense of independence in a child?

Yeah. So for independence really involves a child feeling like, well, I can do this with increasingly less help from the person next to me. So part of that really means scaffolding, meaning seeing how much a child can do right now by themselves and guiding them to do just a little bit more than that. You give them a little challenge, you step away, and then you see how the child responds. Obviously, if the child is flailing and unhappy and uncomfortable, you step in. But if the child's struggling a little, trying to work through it, talking themselves through it, you let them do it and you check your own sense that you need to come in and rescue them.

You steal bilateral from me, I'm going to steal scaffolding from you. Okay, sounds good. Steal. Okay. Last, last, you know, speed round question. How do you help a child build social skills?

Building social skills really means for parents and caregivers, acting like a guide and a coach. So we're not going to be in with kids at every conflict. You can't be denying them their friendships, but to really reflect with them on things like, well, is this a good friend for me? How do I know? How do I feel after being with this friend? So by providing guiding questions and comments, you can be your child's social coach rather than being in the midst of every conflict. So we're going to find the balance between getting in there, fixing everything, and not caring at all, which is this coach aspect.

Rebecca, there not have a lot of people who could answer those six questions.

Well, I'm used to teaching, so maybe that's part of it.

One last question for you. As a parent or advice for parents, what's worse, under helping or over helping?

I would say for the most part over helping, because under helping, a child can always ask for more, and they probably will. But overhelping a child often doesn't know that they can do it themselves, so they don't think to ask you to step back. So I would go on the start with under helping and then see if more is needed.

Madison, can you think of anything else I should ask? I've gone down my checklist.

Oh, awesome. Those are great questions. Thank you.

I want to leave you with the impression that I'm a great conversationalist. This is a big challenge for this particular episode. I had to ramp up my game for this one.

That's awesome. I appreciate it.

Give a plug for your books. Everybody buys your book.

My book is really designed to help kids build skills in seven key areas. So I talk about the seven pillars, and if you're interested, it goes chapter by chapter. So you can really pick it up, read a piece, put it down, and it has lots of specific conversation starters by age. And stage of kids which parents have often found really helpful. So if you're wondering how do I specifically do this for my 2 year old or my 12 year old, the book really does lay all of that out. Obviously couldn't go into full detail here, but it's available if you're interested.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Remarkable People with the Remarkable Rebecca Rowland. I hope you enjoyed this insightful conversation as much as I did. If you want to learn more about how to become a better communicator, check out Rebecca's book the Art of Talking to Children. Reading it will make you a better communicator for sure. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. My thanks to the Remarkable People team Jeff C, Peg Fitzpatrick, Shannon Hernandez, Madazan Nismer, Alexis Nishimura and Luis Magana. We're all trying to make you an even more remarkable person. Mahalo and aloha.

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