Speaker 1think about the habits you currently spend the most energy on with your child getting them dressed in the morning brushing their teeth packing their bag doing their homework tidying their room now ask yourself which of those habits if they had them at 30 would make the biggest difference to their life honestly probably none of them because the habits which predict whether someone thrives as an adult the ones which show up in the research again and again as the real drivers of health happiness and success are not on any of our habit charts they're not the habits we nag about and in many cases they are the very ones we are accidentally preventing them from forming this episode turns the whole conversation about habits upside down start at the end with the adult we're trying to raise and work backwards to what we should actually be building right now i'm dr mary hann this is how not to screw up your kids so let's start with the evidence because this is not opinion okay so there is now a pretty substantial body of research that tells us exactly which childhood skills and dispositions character traits predict adult outcomes and the findings consistently point to the fact that the child's body and dispositions are not the same they are not the same they are not the same so let me go through a couple of the research studies to see why these particular skills that we're going to talk about in this episode are so crucial so there's the dun eden study which is one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies ever conducted longitudinal basically means that they studied the same people for a long period of time so they followed over a thousand children from birth to the age of 32 and the researchers led by terry moffett found that self-control in childhood was a stronger predictor of adult health wealth and whether someone had a criminal record than either iq or social class so not academic results not how well they read at seven self-control the ability to manage impulses tolerate frustration and control the ability to and persist through difficulty now james heckman a nobel prize winning economist reached the same conclusion but from a very different direction so james analyzed the long-term outcomes of early childhood interventions and he found that programs which built non-cognitive skills so non-cognitive is the thinking stuff that we tend to think about the intellectualized things and that our children gain from their sort of their schooling and their academics but actually what he found was that programs which built skills such as self-regulation persistence emotional resilience the ability to get along with others produced dramatically higher returns in adult life outcomes than programs which focus purely on academic skills now james argued that we've been investing in the wrong things and that the evidence is not the same so james argued that we've been investing in the wrong things and that the evidence is not the same so overwhelming character skills outperform intellectual cognitive skills as predictors of success now you've probably heard of angela duckworth's work and her research on grit and grit remember is a combination of perseverance and sustained passions towards long-term goals and what angela's research has shown is that grit not talent and not iq predicted who completed their training at west point who won the national spelling bee and who stayed in teaching in the most demanding schools the children who succeeded were not the most gifted they were the ones who kept going when it was hard and of course albert bandura's research over decades looking at this notion of self-efficacy this this belief that we can be agents of our lives that we can impact our lives and that we have that capability and what albert bandura's research showed was that children who believe that they can figure things out not that they're clever but they are capable of working through difficulty they persist longer they recover faster from setbacks and they achieve more over time and that belief is not innate it is built specifically it is built through experiences of struggling with something and getting through it and it's undermined quietly and consistently every time we step in before they've had a chance to try so when we reverse engineer from the research yeah so we think about what is a capable resilient adult what is that adult and therefore what do we what do they need what do our children need in terms of skills in order to reach that and we reverse engineer it the skills are really clear they are the ability to tolerate discomfort and sit with difficulty without being overwhelmed the capacity to problem solve without needing to be rescued the ability to self-advocate knowing when they need and being able to ask for help emotional regulation so not suppressing feelings but managing them persistence when things are hard and the ability to delay what they want now for something which matters later these are the habits that are worth building and most of them don't appear on a single chart in a single kitchen anywhere so now let's look at how we would be able to distinguish this when we think fine lens and wide lens then we'll talk about the skills that we're going to be building specifically in this episode and then i'm going to tell you what that how that looks in the different ages with a note obviously on neurodiversity and then we're going to move into my five top tips so this is a pretty comprehensive episode but it is such an important subject matter which is why i really wanted to do a thorough job so when we think fine lens remember fine lenses we have we tend to be focused on managing the day getting them out of the house on time making sure homework is done ensuring the teeth are brushed and the bags packed and we do this because it works in the short term yeah the day runs more smoothly when we are in charge now the problem is that these things really don't matter the problem is that when we focus exclusively on managing the day we are building habits of compliance and dependency rather than habits of capability yeah think about it the child who brushes their teeth because we keep nagging or we're standing over them they're not building a habit they're just simply following an instruction and the moment the instruction is withdrawn or we're not standing there the habit is not there so instead we want to be thinking wide lens with wide lens we're asking a different question you know what's good what skill is not yet developed or is being prevented from being developed that if if it were there would mean that my child or my teen doesn't need me managing it all and when we ask it this way the answer is usually one of the capabilities that the research points to yeah a child who can't sit with boredom for 10 minutes has not yet built distress tolerance a child who falls apart when something goes wrong and cannot attempt to solve it has not had enough practice at problem solving without rescue a child who cannot tell you what they need or ask their teacher for help has not built self-advocacy they're not personality traits they're simply skills and skills can be taught if we create the conditions for them to grow so let's look at these skills that we're going to be building across this podcast episode and there are three and they sit at the heart of everything i'm going to talk about first is learning to identify which habits actually build long-term capability in our children and which simply keep the day running while quietly preventing that capability from forming second developing our own tolerance for stepping back because watching your child struggle when you could so easily jump in and help is genuinely hard and most parents need permission to be able to do that and third understanding what building these habits look like at each stage of development so we're not expecting a five-year-old to do what a 12-year-old should be doing or missing the window with a teenager because we left it too late so let me let's have a look at what this looks like at the ages and then we will just a note on neurodiversity and then we will launch into my five top tips so with younger children when we're talking about toddlers in the early years these are in fact the golden window for building the foundations of almost all of these skills and we often miss it because we're too focused on surviving the day i say this with love as a reforming in work in progress control enthusiast yeah why do i want my two-year-old who wants to insist on putting on their own shoes when i could just get them on and we can be out so but it's thinking about okay in the moment that gets you through that day you get out on time but over time if we're doing that all of the time we're not building they're not practicing self-efficacy and that the frustration on their faces they try and fail and try again is not something that we should be relieving them of. It is distress tolerance being built in real time. And every time we take over in the name of efficiency and getting out, we skip past a learning moment which cannot be replicated by any worksheets or structured activity. So at this age, the habit to build is not teeth brushing or tidying, it's the habit of trying, of beginning something, persisting through difficulty and completing it. Even if the shoes go on the wrong feet, even if it takes six minutes, the outcome is not the point, the process is everything. And if we can create and cultivate that environment, it will pay dividends beyond expectations exponentially as they get older. Now when we're talking about children that are then sort of between five and eight, by the time they've reached school age, the research on self-efficacy becomes particularly relevant. So children at this stage are forming, they're beginning to form that story about themselves, themselves as learners and as capable people. And the experiences which shape that story most powerfully are not the ones where they succeeded easily, they're actually the ones where something was hard and they got through it anyway. This is the age to begin deliberately building problem solving as a habit. Not by teaching children how to solve problems, but by not solving problems for them. Yep, so when something goes wrong, maybe it's a friendship difficulty, a broken toy, a piece of homework that they can't do, the most powerful question is not, let me fix this, or even here is what I would do, it's what do you think you could try? Sit with the discomfort of not immediately helping, let them think, and they will often surprise you. I find this every single day in the work that I do, is that children are inherently capable when we ask the question and we pause, we wait, we sit that little bit longer in the discomfort of the silence, and they come up genuinely with the most profound things. Self-advocacy starts here too, in the school, early school years, teaching children to say, I don't understand, to a teacher, to ask for help when they need it, to name what they are feeling. They're not small things, they are the foundations of a skill which will serve them in every relationship and every workplace that they enter. Now, as we move up into sort of the mid-primary age, sort of 8 to 12, middle childhood is where grit begins to matter. So children at this age are capable of understanding that effort leads to success. That struggle is not evidence of failure, but part of the process of getting better at something. But they will only internalise that if we model it, if we talk about it explicitly, and crucially, if we allow them to experience it. So this is the age where many parents, I say, and I'm saying this with love, but I think this is where we often make the most costly mistake of removing difficulty. Extra tutoring when something is hard, calling the school or intervening when a friendship goes wrong, completing the project that is not quite right, or doing the answers for them, or telling them what the answers are, or working through an example with their homework all the way through. Every time we smooth the path, we rob them of a chance to discover what they are truly capable of if they sit with the discomfort. And the Dunedin findings, are unambiguous. The self-control built or not built in these years has consequences which last decades. So the habit to prioritise at this age really is sitting with discomfort. Not every feeling needs to be resolved. We don't have to remove them for them. Not every problem needs an adult to solve. Sometimes the most important thing a parent can do is just to stay close while their child works through something hard without taking it over. And then when we move into the teen years, at this point, the window for building these foundations is not closed. It is narrower, but it is not closed, and the stakes are much higher. Adolescence is when self-regulation is tested most severely, because the teenage brain is simultaneously at its most reward-seeking and its least equipped for impulse control. Yeah, the prefrontal cortex, the bit behind the forehead, the part that weighs up consequences and regulates emotions, will not fully develop until mid-twenties. Now, that's not an excuse. It's simply an explanation, which is why if you're listening to this and you've got pre-teens, you've got younger children, you really are in that golden window. If you've got teens, please do not worry. It is not the end of the world. You just have to be much more intentional in what you're doing. And it matters. Because it tells us that teenagers, as they're going through that stage, need more scaffolding around these skills, not less, even as they simultaneously need more independence. So for teenagers, the habits which matter most are emotional regulation and self-advocacy. A teenager who can name what they are feeling, tolerate the discomfort of a difficult emotion without immediately acting on it, and they can ask for help when they need it, now that teenager is equipped for what adulthood is actually going to ask of them. They're not things which happen automatically. They are practiced in thousands of small moments in the years before they leave home. Now, before we move on to my five top tips, I want to have a note on neurodivergent children. And for children with ADHD, the skills that we've been discussing, self-regulation, distress tolerance, persistence, are not simply underdeveloped. They are genuinely harder to build because the neurological architecture which supports them works different. So executive function, which is the ability to kind of initiate and start tasks, to regulate attention, to manage impulses, is a core area of difficulty with children with ADHD. And it is not a matter of just simply trying harder. Now, this does not mean that these skills, can't be built. It just means that they need more scaffolding, more time, and a different approach. External structure does the work that internal regulation cannot yet do. So that external structure might be post-it notes, might be visual timers. They make things more concrete. Maybe they need checklists to reduce that load on their memory. Body doubling, this sort of doing a task alongside someone else who's doing something different, something similar, that provides the stimulation the ADHD brain needs to engage. And crucially, the expectation of what sitting with discomfort looks like must be calibrated to the child. A shorter window with more support still builds the skill. It just builds it more slowly. For children with autism, many of the skills we have discussed, particularly emotional regulation and distress tolerance, may be developing a barrier to their mental health. This is something that I think we need to be working on. And I think we need to be working on this in the future, as well. I think we need to be working on this in the future, as well. And I think we need to be working on this in the future, which makes the everyday environment genuinely more difficult for them to navigate. So what looks from the outside, maybe like failure to regulate, may in fact be a nervous system, which is already working extremely hard, just to be in the room. Think of the bucket. It's already overflowing and at full capacity. So what we want to do here is we want to approach it, not by lowering expectations, but being able to understand their baseline much more accurately. And then we can build in more recovery time, because that's how the bucket gets emptied, because that reduces the sensory load where possible, and where can we adapt and modify a situation so that we can begin to do that. And we want to use our child's strong preference for routine and predictability, actually, as a scaffold, as a positive, the same routine in the same order becomes automatic over time, which over time then reduces the executive demand, and then frees up the capacity for other things. So it's being aware of how we approach these things so that we can give them the best chance. Just a word on PDA, pathological demand avoidance. For children with a PDA profile, the standard approach to building habits, which relies on structure, action, and consistent routines, will often fail, because demands themselves trigger an anxiety response, which makes compliance feel impossible, regardless of your child's desire to comply. So this includes the demand to regulate, the demand to persist, and the demand to try. So instead, the shift here is away from building habits through expectation, and toward building habits through consideration, and low-demand invitations. So Ross Green's collaborative problem-solving approach in which the child is a partner yeah we partner with them we have this more adult to adult conversation in figuring out how something might work rather than the subject of an instruction and that's one of the most effective frameworks available for this particular profile the skills are still the goal the path that we take there are just different so hopefully that is helpful I think the fundamental thing to remember here whether you're parenting and creating habits with someone with a child that has a neurodiverse profile or whether you've got a child who's neurotypical our children fundamentally are unique to themselves they have their own subtle nuances and how they go about it and what I would sort of encourage you to think about as I go through my five top tips is how might this particular skill and building that skill using this particular strategy work most effectively for my child how might I optimize our chances specifically for them and the way you approach it with one child may be completely different to the way that you approach another child even if they're both neurotypical or both neurodiverse so here are the top five tips number one resist the rescue yeah and if you do nothing else if you are someone like me who's a bit of a control enthusiast if you can focus on resisting the rescue first you're going to be doing a lot in terms of taking those really important first steps so when your child hits a problem something they can't do something that has gone wrong something that is making them frustrated upset angry jealous our instinct will be to fix it and I'm simply asking you to resist that instinct not forever and not completely but for long enough to ask what do you think you could try and then to wait the way that I sort of do it when I'm being intentional with this is to wait that little bit longer past my discomfort and then I know I've waited long enough that single question does more for problem solving and this sense of self-efficacy I can do things than any structured activity it communicates that you believe they are capable of having an idea you're not asking them what is the best thing you're just asking what they could try it gives them the first experience of attempting a solution and it plants the seed of the belief that Bandura's research identifies as one of the strongest predictors of lifelong capability I can figure things out so with really young children keep it very simple what do you think might help or even just have a go while we're close by we're not abandoning them we're staying present while they try. We might give them a little bit longer before we step in sit with their own discomfort while they sit with theirs so we sit with our discomfort while they sit with theirs and if they genuinely cannot make progress offer one question not a solution what have you already tried with teens bring them into the problem solving explicitly this is a tricky one what are your options treat them as someone capable of working it out they almost always are and I always think about it almost think of it that you're trying to have a bit the sort of conversation that you would have with an adult you know no that's tricky what are your options number two build boredom back in okay I know this is hard and if you're listening to this episode as it comes out we're not far away from half term so embrace the boredom unstructured time is not wasted time and I think as parents we we fundamentally know this but the challenges it creates are the ones that are the most important and the ones that are the most important and the drama at home that it creates often means that we just find it easier just to step in and give them something else but I really would encourage you to persevere with it because that unstructured time is where self-regulation creativity distress tolerance are built you know a child who's always occupied always entertained always moving from one structured activity to the next never has to develop the capacity to make it happen and I think that's a really important thing to be able to manage that inner state you know sit with those thoughts sit with that dysregulation because that capacity they've never needed it because they've gone from one thing to the next to the next the research is clear that children who have regular experiences of unstructured time so this is time with no agenda no screen no adult-led activity they build stronger executive functioning more creative thinking and greater capacity to tolerate boredom and frustration without falling apart this is not about withdrawing from your child it is about deliberately creating the conditions in which the right skills can form now with our really young children 20 minutes of unstructured play with no adult in direction is enough to start you don't need to entertain them you just need to be nearby and let them figure out what to do with themselves when we start getting to primary school we just want to protect pockets of time which are genuinely empty no clubs no play dates no screens no plans the complaint of I'm bored is not a problem to solve it's the beginning of self-regulation the answer is I wonder what you'll come up with I wonder what you might try so we just create that curiosity question with teenagers downtime is genuinely restorative for the adult-led activity adolescent brain are not the same as screen time a teenager who can sit with their own thoughts go for a walk pick up a book do some cooking whatever it is engage in something creative without being distracted is developing exactly the self-regulation the Dunedin research identifies as predictive of adult health and well-being number three let discomfort last for a while and let discomfort last for a while and let discomfort last for a while and let and then connect there is a difference between rushing to comfort your child and being present while they feel something hard the first rushing into fix removes the experience the second simply being with them while they go through that hard thing accompanies it and it's only that that builds distress tolerance when your child is upset frustrated angry jealous disappointment or struggling or overwhelmed the most valuable thing that we can do is not make it better not fix it but to sit with them and communicate that we can bear to be with them in it that sounds really hard full stop not but it will be fine not here is what you should do just I see you I'm here and this feeling will not destroy either of us that experience of feeling something difficult and survive is something that we can do and it's something that we can do and it's something that we can do and it's something that we can do and it's something that we can do and it's something that with someone close by is how children learn that their emotions are manageable are survivable that they come out the other end and the child who has learned that their emotions are manageable is the child who at 15 and at 40 can regulate themselves under pressure now with really young children we want to name the feelings before anything else you're so frustrated right now not don't cry or it's not that bad name it stay close and don't cry and let the wave pass for primary school children we want to resist the urge to fix the friendship that went wrong or call the school about the fallout ask what happened listen fully and trust them to navigate it with you available if they need you with teenager they absolutely do not need us to solve it they need to know that we can handle hearing about whatever it is that's affecting them or overreacting the parent a teenager will come and talk to you regularly is the one who has proved that they can sit with the hard things calmly and that reputation is built over years in exactly these moments number four teach self-advocacy as a daily practice self-advocacy is one of the most under discussed and probably underdeveloped skills in childhood one of the most consequential in adult life the adult who cannot name what they need ask for help or speak up when something is wrong is at a significant disadvantage in their relationships their work and their health and it starts much earlier than we think a three-year-old learning to say i need help rather than dissolving into tears is practicing self-advocacy a seven-year-old putting their hand up to tell the teacher that they do not understand is practicing self-advocacy a 12-year-old telling a friend that something that they said was unkind is practicing self-advocacy each of these moments is a building block none of them happen without practice and practice requires us to create the conditions and step back enough to let them try and home is such an easy place for them to begin that so with our young children we want to teach the words can you say i need help with this model it yourself i'm finding this tricky i'm going to ask someone for help they're watching how you handle not knowing what to do primary age children maybe we can role play difficult conversations before they need to have them. What would you say to your teacher if you didn't understand? What words would you use if someone was being unkind? Rehearsal reduces the barrier to doing it in the moment. And of course, that practice builds that brain, those neural connections in the brain. So it becomes much easier for them to do in the moment. With teenagers, we want to step back from advocating on their behalf, wherever it is safe to do so. The email to the teacher about the grade, the conversation with the coach, the complaint to the school. Ask first whether they want to try it themselves with you in the background. Every time they do, they build the muscle. Every time you do it for them, they don't. And recognizing that in the teen years, this idea about self-advocacy often comes very loaded with this notion of what might other people think of them. So it's a double whammy. So the more we give them the opportunities to self-advocate when they are younger, the more practiced and skilled that they become at it when they become teenagers. And finally, number five, praise the struggle, not the result. And it sounds simple, this one, and it's genuinely hard to do. We're wired to celebrate outcomes, the grade, the goal, the finished piece of work. But Heckman's research and Duckworth's grit findings point to the same things. What builds persistence and long-term capability is not being praised for succeeding. It's being recognized for the effort, the persistence, the grit, the determination, and the willingness to keep going when it was hard. A child who is praised for being clever learns to avoid challenges because challenges risk proving that they're not as clever as everyone thinks. The child who is praised for working hard, for trying something difficult, for not giving up even when it felt impossible, now that child seeks out challenges because the challenges where they have been told, they shine. It's a small shift in language with an outsized long-term effect. I'm so proud of how hard you kept trying. You stuck at that even when it was really hard. That is the thing that matters. I noticed you did not give up even when you wanted to. These sentences are building grace. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. And grit, the research tells us, is more predictive of life outcomes than almost anything else we could be building. And with toddlers and young children, you kept trying even when it was tricky. Look at that. Make the effort visible. Make persistence the thing worth noticing. With our primary age children, be specific about what you observed. You know, this descriptive praise. Not well done, but I watched you try that four times and not give up. That's exactly the kind of person who gets good at things. And with teenagers, they are acutely sensitive to inauthenticity. So do not overpraise. Be specific, be genuine, and be sparing enough that it lands when you say it. I know that was genuinely hard and you did it anyway. I want you to notice that about yourself. Now, hopefully that will be super helpful and give you some really tangible things that you can start to build on and identify which of those things are those five top tips you're really going to focus on first. On Monday, I talked about food, specifically fussy eaters and the one shift which changes everything in the battle over what your child will and will not eat. And when you listen back to it, you will hear today's episode underneath it. Because the shift is the same. Wide lens over fine lanes. Long game over short game. Don't miss it. And the habits that matter most in childhood are not the ones on the chart on the fridge. They are the ones the research has been pointing to for decades. Self-regulation, persistence, distress tolerance, problem solving, self-advocacy, the power to struggle with something and keep going. The belief that you can figure things out. These habits are not built by managing your child's days more efficiently. They're built by stepping back, tolerating your own discomfort as a parent and trusting your child with enough difficulty to discover what they're capable of. The five things resist the rescue, build boredom back in, let discomfort land and then connect. Teach self-advocacy as a daily practice and praise the struggle, not the result. If this episode has been useful, please share it with a parent who is working hard to raise a capable, resilient child, which is everyone you know. And if you have a question you would like me to tackle, drop me an email. Contact at Dr. Mary Han. I'll see you on Monday.
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