Raising Confident Kids | Nadim Saad | Talks at Google

Nadim Saad. Thank you very much, Louise. Thank you for inviting me. And I'm delighted to be back. I'm actually always happy to talk at Google. You have a very particular company culture that I really admire. So I'll give you an example of what happened last time I came here. I had a talk and it was about my previous book, "The Working Parents' Guide to Raising Happy and Confident Children.". And it's all about the parallels between leadership and parenting and the fact that the sciences are very, very similar. So during the talk, I actually explained the importance of rules and sticking to rules. And then at the end of the talk, there's one of your colleagues who says, "Well, this is all well and good, but how do you make sure that our children break the rules?" I'm like, "Okay, this is typical Google thinking." I tried to answer. I say, "You know, it's really important to be independent thinkers." to question the rules, but it's also important to follow rules. And then a few minutes later, I have another colleague who says, but how do you make sure that they do break the rules? Like, okay, I guess I wasn't convincing enough. And so what I came up now, the answer I come up with now is, have you ever heard of brules? So it's Vishen Lakhiani, the founder of Mindvalley, who coined that. And it's basically bullshit rules. So it's important to teach our kids that there are brules. And there are rules. And the rules can be questioned and broken, but there are rules. For example, you know, if they have— you have privacy, you know, content that you don't want them to see, if how many hours of social media or screens they're allowed to— you know, you don't want them to be negotiating with you all the time. And so there are rules and rules. So I won't talk a lot about rules actually today because it's all about confidence. There are rules to confidence, but it's, you know, I'm going to talk more about this. So I got interested in confidence because as I was a parenting coach, I discovered that my eldest daughter was dyslexic, and she wasn't doing well. She was really struggling with reading, and I thought I needed to help her because she was really— it was affecting her self-esteem. So I came across this story of Dominic O'Brien. Anyone's heard of Dominic O'Brien? Yeah, I expected that. So the way Dominic felt when he was around 10 was that he was diagnosed with dyslexia. I failed most of my exams and couldn't concentrate. I had very limited self-belief. And that actually, most of his life, that's how he felt. Until he turned 30. Thankfully, he was watching the BBC, and he saw a memory champion memorizing a pack of cards. He thought, "Wow, that's amazing." And so he actually tried to do the same. He put a lot of effort into it. He ended up managing to do that. He felt really proud. Not something he had actually a lot of experience with. And he ended up just going into that, really loving it, putting a lot of effort into it, and he became 8 times world memory champion. And as you know, at 30, memory starts decreasing actually, for anyone who's in the room, if you feel the same. So it's quite an amazing feat. And his claim to fame is actually he memorized 54 packs of cards. He became Guinness Book of World Records, 2,808 cards. By just watching them once. And so for me it was really amazing because he was dyslexic and he struggled and it took him the best part of 30 years to actually realize, to find his passion. So for me, obviously, the first message I have for you is never lose faith because your children might discover, you know, way after. I know a lot of stories of children going to university where they were really bad in school, and they did amazingly well. And obviously a lot of children who didn't go to university and still did amazingly well. So it is my first message: self-esteem can be transformative, and it can be transformed. And that's what I'm here to talk to you about. So interestingly, then I actually started writing books about it, and I wrote the Raising Confident Kids book because I was convinced that, you know, it was a message worthwhile sharing. Then a year and a half ago, I had my 8-year-old who was like, we call this in French, joie de vivre. So she is very, you know, basically love of life. So always smiley, amazing, you know, doing well academically. She went through a difficult time and I couldn't understand what it was. And she was being very mean to her sisters. She was really struggling. And I, we had a lot of clashes because she was very stubborn. We had a meaningful conversation, and during the conversation she told me, "Dad, I hate myself." So you could imagine that for any parent this is heartbreaking. For a parenting coach who's supposed to know something about relationships with kids and who didn't see this coming, that was a real big shock to my system. And that's why actually I changed. I was basically— I went from Best of Parenting, that was my— and it was all about creating toolboxes for parents and enabling them. And so several of you actually thankfully, you had my books, apparently you came to my previous talks. So thanks for being back. To realizing that it's not just about educating parents, but it's also about educating our children. Because there's metacognition, this ability we have as human beings of analyzing our thoughts, is something that increases significantly at age 7 and 8. And that's a really good time to teach our children about emotional intelligence and how to, you know, and growth mindset, etc. I'm going to run through some of these things. And so now the brand is Happy Confident Me and it's all about confidence. And because my life purpose is now to make sure that no kid on this planet will ever say again, "I hate myself." Because the most important relationship we have in this world is with ourselves.. And we often forget this, particularly when we're young and we're autopilot and we don't really think about these things. So hopefully after this talk you will have a few things that you can share with your kids and they will help you. So the agenda for today, first I'm going to talk about growth mindset versus fixed mindset. I'm sure a lot of you know the science of mindset, so I'll run you through this quickly but adapt to the children. I'll talk to you about common mistakes most of us do and I still make them. Tools to develop confidence and resilience. And so these are going to be how to create and develop a growth mindset, how to deal with mistakes, how to help them discover their individuality, how to give them more control and responsibility and why we should do that, and finally, and help them manage their feelings. So first of all, growth mindset versus fixed mindset. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of this. It's Carol Dweck, professor at Stanford, now Columbia, who coined this phrase, these terms. And it is particularly interesting because she actually used children. Now, mindset is used a lot for adults, but she really used children. So what she did was simple experiments. She took a class of 10-year-olds, gave them a simple test. They all did well. And then she divided the class. To part of the class, she said, 'You did really well on this test. You must be smart. You are smart.' And the other half, she said, 'You did well on this test. You must have worked hard. You must have put effort into it.' Then she gave them a difficult test, and they all failed miserably. And then another easy-medium test. And then actually comparing the results, one group did better than the others. Can you guess who thinks that is the group who was told that they're smart who did better? Anyone? Clearly everyone here knows the science of mindset. So obviously the ones who did better are the ones who were told that they put effort into it and they worked hard. What's interesting is actually identifying what came out of this research is that there are three— when you tell kids that they're smart or amazing or all of these evaluative praise that we often use as parents, three things can happen. One, you can become lazy and think, well, I'm smart anyway, so I'm going to wing it. And that's the story of my life. Anyone else, like, basically just was a bit lazy because they were smart? No one else? But you? The other thing that can happen is that you can become— you're very happy with this acronym, with whatever, you know, with, you know, being smart, and therefore you become afraid of not living up to these expectations. So we may be afraid of challenges. And that's a lot of— most of it is subconscious. So you don't actually take on new challenges because you're just very smart. So you'll do the minimum possible to stay in this smart category. The third group, and that's kind of— is actually the ones who already have lower self-esteem. The issue with them is actually they're going to tend to dismiss what we tell them. So they're the group to who we're constantly giving these, you know, praise and you're actually— but come on, you're smart. We're trying to convince them. That they're smart and they can do it, because we see that they're either shy or they're actually not managing, they're not confident. And the problem is the more we tell them this, the less they actually trust our judgment, because they already have this inherent, you know, I'm not actually that good, I'm not that smart. So obviously it'd be good to be able to change this, because this is the group that's more at risk, because they will— well, it's very difficult to change the self-esteem, particularly by just, you know, dishing, giving the praise. So, fixed mindset is intelligence is a fixed trait. With a growth mindset, intelligence is developed through learning and practice. With a fixed mindset, you don't want to lose the label, so you avoid challenges, while in growth mindset, you enjoy effort, stretching, and applying skills. In a fixed mindset, you're afraid of failure and mistakes. In a growth mindset, mistakes are opportunities for learning. And finally, in a fixed mindset, the motivation is linked to praise and rewards. Whereas in a growth mindset, there's an intrinsic motivation to do well. And what's fascinating about the science of mindset is to see how it evolves across time. So children at age 5, most of them have a— well, actually 100% of them have a growth mindset. As they grow, 5 years later, almost half of them have a fixed mindset. And I can assure you that the great, great majority, more than 90%, have a mixed mindset.. And I'm a typical example of mixed mindset. I always felt I'm an entrepreneur. I took a lot of risks in my life. I made a lot of mistakes and failures. And I was quite resilient. But there's one thing that I realized when I discovered the science of mindset is that I have a mixed mindset. I was convinced that I'm not good at drawing. I'm not good at singing. And I thought that was it. Anyone else actually convinced they're not very good at something? Yeah. So it's mixed mindset. And that's what we actually tend to go into even if we have a growth— well, so this category of growth mindset is actually the majority have a mixed mindset. So it's really important to actually explain to our children that they're not good at something yet. The power of yet. I can send you a poem about this. It's really powerful for kids. And what happens is I just didn't practice for the best part of 35 years drawing or singing. I didn't feel I was good at it and therefore I didn't practice it. The reality is if I took courses in either, I could become better. I might not be the best, but I can be good at anything. It's all about prioritizing. And this is what we need to teach children is actually they can be good at anything they put their mind to. They might, again, they might be not world-class, but they can be good at anything. And so it's really important for kids to actually understand how the brain works and neuroplasticity, which is a term that you may be familiar with. And the fact that we have new neural paths as we try new things, we develop neural paths and we strengthen them and things become easier with time. And so I'll show you a graph that you can show your kids that's really useful for that, to explain to them why they need to persevere and why they can actually— they could achieve. So common mistakes most of us make. So I'm reading all this research and I'm thinking, is this true? I mean, I was told I was smart, amazing. And I turned out okay, and I'm pretty confident. So why make such a problem of saying these things? And then I had a revelation. I was playing tennis with a new tennis coach, and so he was a big praiser. So I'm playing, and I'm playing quite well, and he's, "Good, good, good." I'm feeling on top of the world, really playing well. Then about 15 minutes into the game, he probably got a bit tired, and so he started saying "good" about 50% of the time. So I'm hitting a good ball, he doesn't say anything. And then I hit one that I don't feel is that good and he says, "Good." Just like, "Hmm?" And I continue. And I can assure you my game went— I really couldn't play that well anymore. And I became a bit anxious. I analyzed what happened during the session after and I realized that in 15 minutes this coach got me hooked on praise. I was so happy with him, you know, I felt, you know, "Good, good, good, great." And then suddenly I didn't get that, and then I was like, "Oh, am I actually playing well? I'm not sure." So it actually can make us anxious. And the second thing, which is so important, is actually my self-evaluation of my game disappeared. I wasn't actually sure what was good and what was not good anymore. But just imagine our children, 18 years of living with us or more, and receiving our judgment, you know, most of the day. And particularly if it's the praise, you know, and you use a lot of praise. Well, that can happen to them. They're actually— sometimes they might not agree with what you're telling them because they have some self-evaluation. Or sometimes they might think, well, I didn't get anything for this. So praise is a double-edged sword. So I'm going to talk about basically— so what's important is to use other types of praise because using the good or the amazing— even amazing is actually a problem because it sounds great. Oh, you're amazing. You did amazingly well. The thing is when we don't suddenly— they don't feel amazing. Then they wonder if there's a problem with them. So it's, it's a, you know, it's an interesting thing to think. I mean, we're just meaning the best, and it doesn't always come across for children. So the effects of evaluative praise is children end up doing things for the praise, extrinsic motivation, instead of children doing things for themselves, the intrinsic motivation. And so what science shows is that extrinsic motivation supersedes intrinsic motivation. So whenever we give either praise or rewards, it becomes the reason for kids to do things rather than them wanting to do it for themselves. And we are born with a lot of intrinsic motivation. That's why our kids, you know, when we're kids, we fall, we stand up, we learn to do all these amazing things like walking, running, bicycling, etc. And we are not questioning, we're just We're super perseverant, but with time this goes. And that's why it's really important to actually make sure we get it. So there are two experiments that are interesting to share. One, they took children between 2 and 3, and they told them, oh, good sharing, good sharing. They wanted to improve the sharing. And it did work. Descriptive— this kind of praise does work short term because kids are feeling really good about it. Oh, OK, I'll share. The problem is over time these kids became less generous than their peers because they were doing it for the praise in the end. They weren't doing it because they thought sharing is good. Similarly, they took children between 3 and 4. They gave them great pens and they all started drawing, really happy to do it. Then they divided the group in two. One part they didn't say anything and the other part they said, oh, you're going to be judged for your drawings. And someone will get like a prize. And they analyzed the drawings. The ones who weren't told anything were more creative overall. Their drawings were more creative than the other group. More importantly, a week later they gave them the similar great pens. They all started drawing. The ones who drew, who weren't told anything, drew a lot longer than the ones who were told they were going to be judged. And they were going to— so over time You end up doing things for, well, the marks at school. You end up doing things for this extrinsic motivation rather than because you're convinced that this is good for you. So obviously this is a drawback that we have to make sure that we don't fall into. So effective value with praise is that it invites children to change for others and become approval junkies. But what we want is invite children to change for themselves, have an inner direction. And finally, long-term It becomes— evaluative praise gives dependence on others and feel worthwhile when others approve, while what we want obviously for our children is self-confidence and self-reliance and feel worthwhile without approval of others. So let's get into how to achieve this. What Carol Dweck says is, "If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach them to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning." That way their children don't have to be slaves of praise, they will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence. Wouldn't that be great? So let's see how we can achieve this. So first of all, how to praise to develop a growth mindset. So we saw that praise obviously is a double-edged sword. So what can we do to actually still tell our kids that not only do we love them, but actually that they are doing things that are really great? So first of all is focus on self-evaluation. I already said self-evaluation is really important, this inner direction we have. The more we have it, The less we depend on others to tell us that we're doing great, the more stronger, the more resilient we are. So how to achieve this? First of all is instead of the typical, oh, I'm so proud of you, which is really great, it's try first to say, for example, are you proud of yourself? You must be proud of yourself. Or ask a question like, are you happy with the result? Rather than, oh, this is amazing, you got an A. It's like, oh, are you happy with this result? Just imagine actually a kid even with an A who says, Well, actually, not really. So it actually helps you understand where they are so that you can help them wherever they are because they might be overconfident, over-demanding, or not enough, obviously. So I had the other— the second bit is focus on effort. And this is the, you know, very much what Carol Dweck coined is like really you must have worked hard, you must have put a lot of effort into this. This is so much better because it explains to children that the more effort, obviously, the better outcome. So I tried this with my eldest when she was 5 and a half. And I'm like, oh, you put a lot of effort into this. You must be proud of yourself. No, that was easy. OK. Try that for 6 months. You saw the evolution. At 5, they all have a growth mindset. It seems all easy. And then finally, when she turned 6, she comes back from ballet and she says, Dad, I've been made ballerina of the week. "Wow, you must be proud of yourself." She says, "Yes, I am, because I practice hard." I was like, "Yes! Finally!" 6 months. So don't despair. Actually, you can start this with your kids when they're young, but they will not— actually, they're not likely to answer that they've put effort, they feel the effort, until they're 5, 6, because things come easy to them. And that's actually one of the key reasons. For the evolution from the fixed mindset to growth mindset? It's obviously comparison. They start being compared at school. It's an increase between 5 and 10. There's a significant increase in self-awareness and also the awareness of others and social awareness. And that's the reason why we start comparing ourselves and think, oh, actually I'm not as good as this person. So for example, my 8-year-old, her biggest challenge was that she had a friend who's a big ballerina. Actually, she just went to see her Broadway show yesterday. Broadway, like in Haymarket. Anyway, so it's basically a big show, ballet and dancing and singing. And it's just incredible. And her other really good friend is an amazing gymnast. So she just felt average. Since when is average a problem? But actually it has become because there's so much emphasis on being great, et cetera. So it is a big challenge. So the third one is perseverance. And I already mentioned this word "yet." It's when your children say, "Oh, I'm not good at this." Tell them, "Yes, you may not be good at this yet, but if you put effort and you practice, you can get better at it. You have to choose whether you want to do that or not, but you can do it." The other one is progress. This is a really important one. Realize that children are not very good, certainly not before the age of 11, 12, of realizing the progress they make. And it's even us sometimes, we forget to, you know, celebrate our progress. We don't realize the small progress we make. So while an external party can always tell us, oh wow, look at how much progress you made, how much better you've become at this. So help them, whether it's piano practice, academically, anything you can use. Oh, I've noticed that you've really improved on that. And try and tell them what you noticed because they may not be able to. So that really helps to talk about progress and be specific about it. The other thing is strategy. Process. How did you do it? Again, children before being teens and even then, they have the challenge of not realizing there are different strategies. It's often black or white. It's like, oh, there's only one way to do things. And actually the system doesn't help them that much. It's very much around there's one solution to this problem. There's one. And so help them question, help them realize that, oh, well, maybe you could have done this differently. And so make them curious about different strategies, different ways to do things. And finally, description. So instead of the, oh, this is so good, this is amazing, is like, and I noticed that you've done this. So like with progress, I noticed that you made progress in this. I noticed this in your drawing, I noticed this, and they absolutely love being noticed. It's actually enough for them. Just knowing that we notice as parents what they did is already good enough. We don't have to be over, you know, unless it's something amazing. But in general, noticing is more than enough. So hopefully, you know, self-evaluation, effort, perseverance, progress, strategy, and description. Then it's about celebrating mistakes and challenges. It's really important that the whole growth mindset is very much about understanding that mistakes are normal and to learn that failure is feedback. Failure— or we also— children love the acronym FAIL, which is First Attempt in Learning. And then they go, oh, so what's his second attempt in learning? So SAIL. A third attempt in learning is fail, and fourth attempt in learning is fail again. So you shouldn't actually— my kids said, "Oh, you shouldn't fail more than 3 times then." And so it's really useful because it reminds them of the nice— of the importance of mistakes. So lead by example, and by that I'll give you— I'm the typical parent who will go, "I can't believe I made this mistake. I'm so dumb." Unfortunately, it happens to a lot of us, and it's really important to realize that we're the first example. So they will start saying that they're dumb if they made a mistake or they're not— and so it's all about how we take it and the example we give. So now I still sometimes say this, but I immediately catch myself and say, "Oh no, actually I'm not dumb. It's normal. I made a mistake and I'm going to learn from it." You know, and so catching yourself doing that is really useful. And we can also share our mistakes. This is a great way to lead by example. For example, at dinner time we sometimes do mistake sharing. So, oh, today I made this mistake and I learned this from it. The kids are like, what? You don't even imagine that you make mistakes. So it's really useful for them to hear that you failed and you learn from it, and it's okay. Because the biggest problem with mistakes is actually what it makes us feel as human beings. We don't feel good enough. We don't— and obviously, particularly when we're younger, we feel that actually we might not be lovable, we're not good enough, if we're not, you know, great, particularly if we've been told we're amazing, which is why I mentioned this. It's really important to try not use this too much, although of course we'll do it, because, you know, children, you know, need to feel that it's okay to make lots of mistakes. How to give feedback is an important one. Is first focus on the positive before talking about improvement. And that's quite normal, I guess, in, for example, English cultures. But in French cultures where I come from, in the French system, it's all about fault-finding. And some of us have this tendency to just go after, oh, well, basically it's not always, so what happened? You know, immediately you go for the Bs or Cs. And obviously I have a dyslexic child, so obviously there were Bs and Cs in the reports. So it's really important to focus on the improvements, on the, oh, there are a lot more As than last time. And then obviously you can talk about the negative, but in the negatives it's actually really important to the self-evaluation I talked to you about. So focus on future rather than past and ask them, are you happy with this result? Which is the next bit, self-evaluation. So are you happy with this result, or what can you do differently, or what do you think you could have done differently? And that's where we go into strategies, realizing that there are learning strategies we can help them think about learning differently, about, you know, using different— so for example, when they revise, there's research that shows that the most important way to memorize things is to really do active recall. So test them, you know, constantly test themselves rather than just reading. So there are so many things we can teach our children, and obviously it's okay— well, then it's okay to fail. Help them discover their individuality. And this is a big one, obviously, because my daughter felt just average. And reality is she's improved incredibly since because we really focused on that and the fact that she is actually pretty good at several things. And for example, we play a lot of speed games or board games and she beats most of us. I mean, she actually beats us regularly as a family. And that's pretty good for increasing self-esteem. She basically— there's a lot of things. I won't just talk about my daughter. But it's really important to help them realize that they can be good at several things. And sometimes it's just values. She's a good sharer. You're a really kind person. That is already more than enough. Because my 8-year-old felt like she was a bad person because she was being mean to her sister. So actually it was not easy to make her realize that her— because often children mix their behavior with their persona. And so when we tell them that they said they did a bad thing, and I used to use things like, oh, it's unacceptable, it's unimaginable that you did that. Not very helpful. Because that really made her feel that she was just a bad person. It's unimaginable that someone ever could do that. Not great, but it happens. And so it's really realizing how our words can really have such impact. And therefore focusing on the positive and the reality is so important. And find things they're good at, because whatever we're talking about, growth mindset is great that we can be good at anything, but the reality of life, we can all see that we have— who has more than one child? Great. Well, you see, obviously they're so different, aren't they? And obviously each of them has their strengths, and ideally you shouldn't compare them. And you should really help them discover what their strengths are. And try and make sure that they really practice things and do things that they're good at. Why? Because this is going to happen. I'm going to explain what happens when you learn something new. This is great for— it's applied to languages, applied to when they go bicycling, or anything basically, when you learn anything. So on the left you've got confidence and fluency, and on the right you've got time. What happens is, first of all, you feel rewarded when you start. So that's exactly what happened to me when I started the piano at 40. I was like, "Wow, I can play 'Ode to Joy.' This is great. I love it." Then, so I understood the basics. But then it felt harder when I wanted to play Einaudi and did things that are not as easy. I really felt the difference, and I felt not confident anymore. I thought, "Oh my God, it's going to take me years to actually do what I want to do." And so guess what happens there? You want to give up because it really— you feel like your confidence is at an all-time low. And I— that's exactly what happened to me. I stopped piano after a year of practice. And it's really a shame because had I seen this, I'm gonna start again, obviously. But so that's what happens to most of our kids. Now what you want is actually to— for them to really like what they do. So try and find things they really like because that will make it more likely that they won't give up. At this point. Because that's— and actually, and show them that this is what happens. That's what we teach children actually in our workshops at Happy, Confident Me. Because then they start feeling the difference again if they persevere, and they start feeling it gets easier again. Then it plateaus slightly, but finally they start doing it well. And as you can imagine, at this point of feeling the difference and this curve is where you develop your perseverance, resilience, and confidence. Because Brazilians' confidence comes from overcoming challenges. You know, there are a lot of things we can praise as much as we want. The reality is overcoming challenges is what really builds this resilience and confidence. And so it's finding things that they're good at, that they have more ability to do. This way they won't stop, they won't give up, and they will overcome the challenge and really feel good about themselves. Give more control and responsibility. This is an important one. Just imagine going to a friend's house and they tell you, oh yeah, please, here's a glass of water, sit on the couch, and then, oh, dinner's ready, please have your broccoli and your fish, and oh, you have to finish your dinner because children are starving in Africa, and oh, you need to go to sleep now, I need to go to sleep because I have an important meeting tomorrow. So obviously this is not what happens to us when we go to— but this is what happens to our children most of the time. When we go to a friend's house, we get, "Oh, do you want a glass of wine or water or whatever? Do you want to sit here on the couch? Do you want broccoli or carrots?" We get choices. And this makes us feel really good. So the issue, our challenge with our kids is actually they get very limited control over their lives. So giving them an impression of control and responsibility is really important. So to do that, we recommend using limited choices, not unlimited choices. No, what do you want to eat tonight? But would you rather do this or that? Would you rather leave now or in 5 minutes? Would you like— so typically as parents, we'll go, oh, we need to leave in 5 minutes. And we think, oh, okay, we told them, so obviously in 5 minutes they're going to be ready. Guess what? Rarely does it happen. So actually giving them the choice of when to leave, or do you want to leave in 5 minutes or 10 minutes, even better for children who obviously have sense of time, because this way they really sense they had a choice. It's not now, it's like in 5 or 10. And you'd be surprised because sometimes they go, "Oh, 5 minutes is good." And they're much more likely to do it just because they made the choice. And this is the— I mean, for the ones who've come to my talks before, I mean, I always use this example because it is very useful. Yeah, you seem to agree. I mean, choices is really the easiest tool in your book. And it gives such a really— even— and that's what I— it's funny because when I talk to parents of teens, I'm like, We'll give them more choices like, but why would I? I mean, they're supposed to brush their teeth. What am I going to tell them? Do you want to brush your teeth now or in 5 minutes? It's like, no, maybe not, but it's still better than go brush your teeth. You still didn't brush your teeth. So it's still more respectful to use choices or questions, which is the next. So other types of choices is would you like to wear this one now or once you're outside, for example, because often our kids don't want to wear coats and we think they're going to get cold or whatever. So it's— the other one is ask questions. We rarely do enough of this. How many times do we actually say the same things to our children? Probably at least 90% of the time. So instead, if you feel you're gonna repeat yourself once more, try, "What did I just say?" And you'd be surprised because they'll probably know exactly and they'll repeat it. Like, okay, so "What did I just say?" is much more respectful. Or What are you supposed to do next? So for example, for the brushing teeth, instead of telling, oh, you still didn't brush your teeth, you have to go to sleep. So what are you supposed to do next? So when the kids are younger, you can use routines and do a routine with them or create their routine if they're too young and make sure that instead of telling them all the time you're supposed to do this and this and that, ask them what are you supposed to do next? Finally, what are you going to do about this? This is really responsibility. So instead of, you know, they spill something on the floor, instead of, oh, go get the mop, do this, do that, it's like, oh, what are you going to do about this? And at the beginning when you ask this question, often you'll get, "I don't know." So obviously you teach them and next time, you know, you make sure they know and they'll feel a lot more responsible and they'll do things. So I would recommend that instead of ditching orders, in 90% of cases, try and ask a question instead. And you'd be surprised by the result, particularly because actually research shows that this increases IQ, which obviously we were talking about all kinds of intelligence, and it's rare to actually be able to boost IQ, but you can. And putting our children in the prefrontal cortex, in their thinking brain, as much as possible does increase IQ. Finally, I want to talk about help them manage their feelings. And this is— I'm convinced after all the research and all the books that are now coming out on the subject that the world would be a much better place if we realize that, you know, instead of just trying to reassure our children— so actually, let's take an example of us. Have you ever come back at home and you had a really horrible day, you got really angry at work, and your spouse— you're telling your spouse about it and they tell you, "It doesn't sound that bad. How do you feel?" Do you feel good? No, obviously not. Same for kids. Or just imagine telling your friends about something that you found quite difficult and you're sharing and you're expecting a bit of empathy, but what you get is like, "Oh my God, that's terrible." "Oh really?" "Oh my God, it must be horrible." And you're just like, "Actually, it wasn't that bad." Suddenly you feel they're really exaggerating. So it's all about meeting adults or children where they are. This is what's really important. And so first of all, validating children's feelings allows them to trust themselves and better deal with their emotions. And I'm gonna give you an example of how to do that, by the way. So for a child to gain confidence, they need to believe that all their feelings are okay. So one of the reasons for lack of confidence is often that as children grow up, that they hear, "Oh, come on, it's not that bad," or, "Come on, pick yourself up, you have to be stronger." Particularly with boys, we're constantly telling them, "Come on, don't be so sensitive, stop crying." Reality is that makes them feel that they're not okay. So because, as I was explaining, they feel that their behavior is the same as their persona, and therefore if we're telling them that their feelings or their behavior is not okay, they will just feel that they're not okay. And so it's considerable, and this is all the research is pointing to the same thing now. So I'll teach you a technique in a second. So when you acknowledge a feeling, you're not reinforcing behavior. This is a problem of a more authoritarian parent like me. I used to think that If I'm allowing a strong tantrum or strong, you know, I'm like reinforcing a behavior, so I need to cut it out. Well, actually not true. Actually, first of all, you connect and then you change the behaviors. I'm going to explain in a second. Well, actually I've got a good example to share with you on this. So my 7-year-old has become pretty good at board games because we play quite a few of that. And we were playing a speed game and she was actually beating her 12-year-old sister. But I was still winning. And so it happened 3 times. Third time she starts like crying. And I got— unfortunately I didn't react the best way because we have a huge emphasis at home on the importance of playing and not winning. And so I was like, oh, if you don't want— if you're not feeling good about this, just stop playing. So guess what? Of course she continued crying and she was like— and we all stopped. Stop playing. The next day, thankfully, she did want to play again. Same situation, after 3 times of losing, she starts crying. This time I had visualized myself, which actually visualization is a really useful tool that I highly recommend, is if you feel you've done something that wasn't great, see yourself doing it. Actually feel the pain of like of your daughter and you and the pain that actually causes you of like feeling, oh my God, this really didn't deal very well with the situation. And then you reprogram it by actually visualizing yourself doing something differently and the way you think it would be much better to do it. By doing that, the probability of you doing next time in the right way is much higher, and it works with everything actually. So I really recommend visualization. So on this occasion, I told her, "Ah, it really frustrates you to lose against your dad." maybe even now you seem to be pretty sad. Suddenly I had like a bit more attention. She's like, yeah. And so then I tell her, but do you know that some parents actually let their children win? Suddenly it stops crying. She says, oh yeah. I go, well, would you like me to let you win? What do you think she answered? She said, no, that wouldn't be fair. And I wouldn't learn anything. I said, okay, well, let's continue playing. So obviously, is that a better outcome? Obviously. And so it was just by the ability to connect with her and acknowledging her feeling, it allowed us to go completely in a different direction. Now she beats us, by the way. So help children feel unconditional love whatever they say or do. And finally, the tool is called name it to tame it, and it's Dan Siegel, a great neuroscientist, who coined this. Because they did research on the brain and they realized that when you name a feeling, what you're doing is— so for example, even if they're in pain, for example, they fell and it really hurts, everything is in the right brain, the feelings and the feeling of hurt. When you actually connect it with left brain, thanks to using words and saying, "Oh, wow, okay, you must feel— it must have hurt. Does it feel—" Does it hurt a lot or medium or low? And reconnecting this left and right brain, suddenly the emotion considerably calms down the brain. So it's name it to tame it. So when you name a feeling like what I did with my daughter, it just helps significantly. And so I want to— so what I want to teach you is what's called the behavioral change stairway model. I call it stairway to heaven because I love the song and because Wouldn't it be great to be able to influence and have behavioral change in our kids? Can you guess actually where this model comes from? I'm really surprised because most audiences guess. Someone? Who do you think uses this? Come on, Google, I'm sure Google. Any guesses? Okay, well. It's the FBI Hostage Negotiation Unit. So I'm not in any way comparing our children to terrorists. But the reality is this is proven because it is what we're learning. And that's the same with the science of leadership and parenting. Reality is it's very similar. And so first you actively listen and you use empathy. So you name it to tame it. Then you're building the rapport that allows you to influence and create behavioral change. So do not expect to be able to change their behavior by just telling them, you know, "Hey, come on, pick yourself up. It's okay." I have this example of this mom, a 3-year-old, 10 times in front of everyone, she was like, she kept shouting, "Stop crying! Stop crying!" And the boy, like, he stopped for like 2 seconds and cry again. Then finally stopped and he had a swimming lesson. Goes into the water, she leaves. Guess what happens? He starts crying again. So we're actually— we make it more difficult for our kids to do what we're asking them to do if we're doing it without empathy. So for example, stop crying, calm down, all these things send them in fight or flight. So their prefrontal cortex stops working and it's their primitive brain that takes over and they cannot actually operate properly. So it's really important to use this. So how do we do active listening? The final tool I want to share with you is first, many problems can just be resolved by listening to our kids. So acknowledge feelings with empathy, and that's the same as I already explained, is rephrase what your child is saying or describe with a few words that sounds like you're feeling sad or you're feeling frustrated, etc. And then refrain from judging, giving advice, and solutions. And this is probably the hardest thing we can do as parents. And there's a great— if you have— anyone's got children, teens? Probably not many of you. Almost. So there's a great movie called Scavengers. Sorry, I'll remember. And it's all about— it's actually a therapist who has real challenges with her daughter who goes into depression. And she literally films that and she analyzes not just her, but actually she analyzes teens and what they go through and why it's so difficult for them. And one of the things that her teen tells her like halfway through the movie is, I don't feel understood and I feel you're constantly just giving me solutions. You're just constantly telling me telling me what to do. And that's a real challenge, is actually to realize that we have to make our children responsible. We can just listen to them and it solves 50% of the problems often, because they can come up with their own solutions. But if they can't, if they're not managing to, what you can use is, what can you do about this? And often children will go, particularly if they're like 3, 4, from the age of 4 or 5, they totally capable of doing, but the answer is going to be, I don't know. And if you get the I don't know, offer a choice of solutions. Try and actually give a bad solution first because they will tend to go for the first solution you offer. So I've got this example. I was in Malta doing a presentation. We did family meetings with— that's another, you know, unfortunately I don't have time to talk about this, but We did a family meeting and they all gather as a family and then there's this like 8-year-old kid who's crying. So the parents call me like, "Please come in." And they tell me, "Look, it's the first time we ever let him cry really, you know, instead of reassuring him and say, 'Oh, it's okay, we'll organize this thing with your friends, etc.'" So we didn't give him a solution. So they were proud of themselves. The problem is they had no idea how to deal with it. And so I'm like, "Okay." So, and I just give him empathy. And I asked him what he can do about it. I know he doesn't know. And so the problem is his friends went to a great football match while he's doing this family meeting with his parents because they organized this great seminar with me. I'm feeling bad for this kid. And so I actually gave him— so I said, what can you do about it? No idea. And so I offered him a first solution. He's like, oh, well, maybe you can stop seeing these friends because there was a challenge with the two friends who had gone to the football match. Would that work for you? Because that's what you add after. He looks at me like, no, obviously not. And then I gave him a couple of other solutions, and then he said, well, how would that— so you add, how could that work for you? How would that work for you? And suddenly he was like, he started feeling better. So yeah, actually, yeah, I could totally do that. And then he called me Because he was jealous about his friends, he said, "I'm the jealousy buster." Felt really proud. So his parents just had an incredible demonstration of how for the first time ever they allowed him to go through his strong feelings, not reassure him, and come out with a solution and feeling really strong about, "Wow, actually I can do that. And I'm the one who decided." Although we gave him the ideas, the simple fact that he decided and he said, "Oh, yeah." Actually, I'm going to do that. Make him totally responsible for it. And that's where you add, let me know how it goes. And you let them. And ideally, they come back and tell you. You don't even have to ask them. Of course, sometimes you're like, how did it go? But they're the ones who are supposed to apply, obviously, what they decided. So finally, how to foster a growth mindset and confidence in summary. Make it about your child, not about you. This is so important. We want so much for our children, for good reasons, but they feel it. And they feel sometimes that we want too much for them. And they stop wanting it for themselves and doing it for us. And that's not very confidence building. So hopefully self-evaluation and using, you know, focusing on self-evaluation is so important. And this intrinsic motivation. To want to do things. Second thing is focus on effort, progress, perseverance, and strategy, and less on outcome. So it's not just about the A's, or the— it's about the process and about feeling good about what they did. Then focus on their skills and things they have control over. The more we focus on making them feel they have control over things, the better, obviously, the outcome. Lead by example. Celebrate mistakes and challenges. Help them discover their individuality. Share more control and responsibility by giving choices and asking questions. And finally, use empathy to help them better manage their feelings and listening actively. I'd like to also leave you with a few things that you can do with your children because since we created Happy Confident Me, it's all is all about what we can also teach our children, how to give them a toolbox. So you can teach them the following skills: self-awareness, realizing that they actually can better know themselves and that they are good enough. Managing strong emotions. So for example, teaching them about using empathy, you're helping them manage strong emotions. And you can explain to them what happens in the brain because it's really important for them to realize that when they're in fight or flight, and they have uncontrollable emotions where they think that they're not okay, teaching them that it's okay and that's how the brain works and it's actually their primitive brain that takes over and that thinks that there's an incredible, you know, their fear, it's fear that takes over and that there's a danger because that's how we were built as, you know, cavemen having to be careful of, you know, the bear or whatever that's coming out of there and that's why we have this primitive brain, and teaching them about this is really useful to make them realize they're okay and strong emotions are okay. Positive thinking, so the whole— it's realizing that we can repurpose our thoughts and how our thoughts influence our behavior. Growth mindset, and so you know a lot about it already, so actually teaching kids about the growth mindset is really useful. Perseverance. Learning from mistakes, mindfulness, so actually realizing— so mindfulness is a big thing. You all think— often we think meditation. Here we're just talking specifically, particularly about realizing how important it is to be in the now and not be anxious about the future or regretting the past that they didn't do this, they didn't do that, or oh my God, what's going to happen tomorrow, next week? Well, who cares? Actually, the important thing is really now and just being. And there's a huge thing about being versus becoming. And this is something I'm actually looking at it more and more and realizing that one of our biggest roles as parents and the hardest role is, and as human beings actually for all of us, is this balance between being and wanting to become and becoming. And how much do you focus on the future and the fact that we want them to be amazing and how much we want them also to focus on the present and being and just enjoying their childhood. So there'll be more on this. Kindness and their impact on others and how kindness actually— the science of kindness shows that the kinder you are, the happier you are, and that sharing more is actually just a self-reinforcing prophecy. And you can change the world by just being kind to a few people, they will be kind to more. And there's a great— it's called the kindness boomerang. I really recommend this. There's a great YouTube video. And finally, gratitude. And gratitude is a huge one, and I recommend doing gratitude each evening with your kids because all the signs of gratitude, both for adults and children, shows that just being grateful in the evening makes you happier, particularly if you journal around it. So there's positive psychology research that shows that you're happier a week after. After doing a week of journaling, you're happier. But even 6 months, if you stop journaling, you become still happier. So your happiness is increased over time without having done anything other than a week of journaling. So no surprise, actually, a bit of self-promotion. That's exactly what we teach children at Happy Confident Me, either through workshops or online courses. And the online courses happen between parents and children.

So thank you very much. Parenting. I've got 3 children, 14, 11, and 6. And I think time pressures change our behavior massively. With two working parents who spend maybe an hour in the morning or two hours in the evening with their children, how would you try and incorporate these things? Because I think, yes, if you spend a lot of time with your children, these things are very doable. But when you're under time pressure and, you know, you're reacting very quickly to situations, it's really hard. Have you got any sort of coping strategies to try to put that in?

That's a great question. That's the million-dollar question. Because it's very true that time pressure— I realize that the biggest stressor is definitely lack of time. As soon as you have limited time, suddenly like the whole family dynamic can change significantly. So it's not an easy one. But the biggest recommendation here is it's very much like leadership in parenting as well. And I go back to— It's anticipating and it is being more organized that will really help you. So for example, you can decide, oh, I'm going to use one of these tools this week. So I can't do everything, that's for sure. Even if you have all the time in the world, you still can't do everything. But focus on one or two things that you want to do more of. So set your intention for the week. And just doing that— so use these tools. You're going to hopefully use all of the tools across time. But you just focus on one and you say, I'm going to be more, for example, I'm going to praise in a different way this week. I'm going to change that. Or I'm going to be really focusing on their emotions. Or whatever is— or I have this challenge. Or your child comes with a challenge where I'm going to do active listening. I'm going to do problem solving. So try and identify this one or two things you want to focus on and do more of this. And then feel proud of yourself for having done it. You're already changing the dynamic. So rather than, oh my god. I didn't have time to do this or that because that's the problem we all have. It's actually instead of focusing on that, it's the opposite. You focus on the positive. It's positive thinking. So, wow, I actually really changed this, this week and this is great. And your children will acknowledge it and that's what's great, particularly if you do gratitude in the evening and things of what they're proud of. And gradually things will change for the better and so the small steps are going to make a huge difference. So it's all about being more strategic and vision, have a vision for what you want to do, more intention. More conscious, and this is actually the key to parenting, becoming more intentional and more conscious. Good luck with that. 3 kids, 2 working parents. Yes, I know. Yes, sure. So we had, should I try to help my 3-year-old to be less shy when meeting new people, or is it better to accept the shyness? This is a tricky one because obviously we want our kids to be more open, but the reality is they have their own character. And so finding the balance between— I recommend using the tools. So the answer is use the tools of how to develop a growth mindset, how to praise, and then the shyness will gradually evolve. But not try and tell our kids, "Oh, you're so shy, don't be shy," because then we don't make them feel good about them. So it's finding this balance of giving them the tools for themselves to become, to have this self-esteem, and then changing in inherently and from the inside out, rather. So I hope that answers that question. And the second one is, I'd love to get some thoughts on how to encourage confidence in a child that has a stronger, more outgoing sibling that they compare themselves with. And obviously this is a very challenging one because often siblings have very different characters and some will take over, and I'll come back then to help them discover their individuality. And this is really important because even if a kid who doesn't have the same abilities as a stronger sibling, older sibling, helping them find sometimes in values and character. So develop these particular traits and character where they are different than their sibling. So it might not be sports or academics, but there are so many things we can help them discover. And then the confidence comes. And so for my 8-year-old, now 10 already, What happened is she was afraid of skiing, she wasn't very good at gymnastics, she wasn't— and things have completely changed. So now she's taking a lot more risks and becoming a lot better at everything. So she's still not world-class, but she's really good at most of the things she tries. So just having focused on, you know, her individuality and what she— the few things that she's already good at helps really considerably change over time. I hope that answers. Any other questions? Yes. Do you need a microphone?

Yes. I really like all that talk, and I think I'm trying to apply a lot of that already.

What do you do about well-meaning grandparents who are almost doing the opposite?

I get this question a lot, and I do think that it's very difficult to change grandparents. You can give them some tips. So grandparents are hopefully, if they're open, to a few suggestions, like choices is so easy, things that are easy to apply, or explain to them, for example, that praise, oh my God, you know this research on praise, we're gonna ruin our children, so why do you do this, like 2 or 3 things instead. I think they'll be open to that. And so I'd recommend doing that. But do not, like, just feel bad because they're doing the opposite, because actually children are pretty good at seeing the difference. And as long as you do it at home and you're teaching the important things, don't worry too much about even teachers and things. I mean, you can't change all the system. But already changing things that you can do at home makes a significant difference.

Thank you for that. Sorry. Regarding praises for young kids, so I have a year-and-a-half-old. Obviously, we're very excited about everything he does. Is that wrong? And also, I cannot focus on, you know, I see you've put a lot of effort. How do you find the balance and how do you do that when there's a lot?

It's a great question. And I get in some cultures, I don't know what culture, but some cultures like applauding every single thing they do. And it's so cute and it's okay, but it's finding this balance where they're, I mean, you can focus on the progress at this age already. It's like, oh wow, you've made so much progress. You now can walk well. You can now run. More than, oh, it's so amazing, it's so amazing. And that is so— but don't, until the age of 4 or 5, just don't be obsessed by it because it's obvious that you're going to come back to your natural stuff. But try and be conscious that Don't overdo it. Because what happens with time, and it's fascinating, and I'm sure you've all realized that, is as your children grow, suddenly all this amazing and all this praise disappears. So just imagine, like the story of the tennis coach. You get a lot of it, and suddenly you don't get it. It's like, oh, am I actually— I'm not that good anymore. You just suddenly feel that you're not, because you're not getting all this praise. So it's finding this balance from the start will really help.

My second one is tantrum. It's just tantrums literally for everything, all the time, screaming a lot all the time. And I'm trying to appreciate her character individuality and just screaming is the answer to everything. But it's killing me softly, or not softly, but in accepting that feelings are okay, but it's kind of not okay to scream all the time, or maybe it is, I don't know.

But how do you help? Wow. How old? 3. Oh, 3. OK, so normal age of tantrums. Can we have a support group? Actually, support group is a great idea, by the way. Yes, honestly. So look, my third one was tantrum, tantrum, tantrum. And it was really difficult to— because the first— it's acknowledge that, wow, you are really having a bigger reaction to this. But then redirect. Then it's not OK. So it's not like— no one said, oh, tantrums are totally OK, do whatever you want. What we did, because she was so stubborn, is we'd acknowledge the feeling and then we'd say, I'm here for you if you need me, but really, it's hurting my ears, so I've got to. So you rarely leave the room completely at 3, but you show that it's not OK and you're not going to react to this. Because the problem is with tantrums, it's like whining and arguing. It's like, I love the analogy of a slot machine. When you put money in a slot machine and it gives you money quite a few times, guess what? You just continue. And the problem is tantrums are winding. If you actually give in once or twice, she's like, oh, well, I'm going to continue because you're going to end up giving in. And you end up giving in probably because you don't have much time and you want to get rid of the tantrum. So it's all about how to deal with it to make sure that they don't get what they want when they're tantruming and they get it once they calm down. It's like, oh, I can listen to— I listen to children who actually ask calmly. Things like that really help. And then they learn. If you're consistent, suddenly they learn, like, okay, you're very right about sleep. I mean, actually, I talk usually after the basics, which are sleep, very important for tantrums. I mean, often our kids react very negatively when they're tired, and obviously hunger as well. Two very important things that have to be sorted before you even look Final question.

Is that OK on timing? My question is just that it's the season of giving, and I think we've really tried to install in our kids gratitude, but they're 1 and a half and 3 and a half. And so with the same vein of shyness, is I don't want to force my kids to say thank you in a moment that they're feeling overwhelmed. It's a lot. But at the same time, sometimes we say, OK, well, let's go later. We say, oh, we didn't get to say thank you. Let's write a card or draw a picture. But any thoughts around teaching gratitude in a less forceful manner? Especially when there are grandparents who are looking at you being like, why is your child so inconsiderate?

Thanks for the great question. Yes, and actually I have a big thing about gifts, and it's a challenging one because they receive so many often because of big families or things like that. So in terms of gratitude, it's really important to actually try and do it outside of the moment. And they are still young, with the 3 and a half certainly. You can say, oh, what are we going to say when we receive the gifts? So it's all about anticipating so that then when it happens, it's the same. Ask questions. Oh, what do we say when we receive a gift? Or do you remember what we talked about the other day? Instead of, oh, say thank you. This thing that is quite shaming actually. So we want to make sure we don't shame our children. That we're just reminding them of something we taught. So once we teach them, then it's all about reminding rather than forcing it on them. So I hope that, you know, it's all about anticipation often. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nadim.

That was brilliant. It was a pleasure to be here. Great questions. And any questions, please ask them. Thank you.