Speaker 1A quick word before we dive in. This episode is brought to you by Biogland Smart Minds. It's back to school season, they're year six now, top of the school and the pressure is on. The first day nerves of a very different kind, which nobody quite admits to. I remember the feeling so well as a mum. Biogland Smart Minds are tasty sugar-free gummies designed to support growing minds, balanced moods and restful sleep. And they're the ones I'm happy to recommend. Available online and in store at Holland and Barrett. Today I am sharing the key to raising a child who loves learning. And it's not about school, it's not about grades or how much revision they do. It's about building curiosity and resilience from the inside out, so they do not need pushing. I'm Dr. Mary Henn. And this is how not to screw up your kids. Welcome back. If you've been on summer holidays and you're catching this, how are you? Has it felt quite manic with all of the various different bits that you're juggling? Well, I hope that you will find this a really helpful episode and welcome back. So in this episode, I think that this notion about raising children who love learning is, to me, one of the most important things I think that we can do for our children. And it has, it really isn't about anything to do with the school that they attend, maybe the tutors that they may have, how much time they spend at the kitchen table doing homework. For me, it's about raising a child who genuinely loves learning. Not a child who is good at school, though that might follow, but it's not a guarantee. You know, a child who is curious about the world, who can sit with hard things, who tries again when something maybe doesn't work the first time, and who does not need to be pushed to get them to engage with things because the drive comes from somewhere inside them. So this episode is very much about playing the long game. This isn't a short, quick fix. This is really about how can we develop this long game and this curiosity. And it's also, I think, one of those most protective things that we can build in children because a love of learning is not just a school skill. I know that we often get faced with a problem related specifically to do with school, but it's actually a life skill. You know, the adults who navigate change well, who adapt, who find meaning in what they do, they most always have this in common, this love of learning, and that they were curious as children. So here is what I want to start with. A love of learning is not a personality trait. You know, it's not like some children are born with it and others aren't. It's something that either flourishes or diminishes depending almost entirely on the environment around us, which means it's something we have a great deal of influence over. So for those of you who've been listening to the podcast for a long time, you may have heard me talk about this, this notion of the fine lens and the wide lens, but it's something that I'm really talking about a lot more because I found it as an analogy, it's really helpful way to see things. So let me just explain the differentiator in case you need a refresh or you're new to the podcast and don't quite know. When I talk about fine lens, if you just think about it either through a camera or the way that we view things, the fine lens is often what we do as parents in that moment. I've got a problem. How do I get my child to do their homework? How do I get my child to contribute around the house? How do I get my child not, you know, what do I do in the middle of a tantrum? How do I get them to go to sleep? These are fine lens because they're a very specific issue in a very specific way that we need help with. It's a problem that we need fixing. And of course, the podcast will help with lots of those. What I'm trying to encourage you to think about is not just the fine lens, but actually to widen the lens. Because when we look at the wide lens view, instead of looking at what's this behavior that I need to fix in this moment, we adopt a more, what skill is my child missing that means that they're behaving in this particular way? And if we focus on skills, first of all, it feels much more manageable because we know how to help children build skills because we help them learn to ride a bike. We help them to swim. We help them to walk and crawl and run and kick a ball and catch a ball and all of those sorts and read and write. So it feels much more manageable. And actually, when we focus on the wide lens, more often than not, we don't only just fix that issue, but we equip them to be capable adults because we're always working with this reverse engineering in mind. So when we think about the wide lens, we don't only just fix that issue, but we equip them about this sort of love of learning. The problem lands with most parents when they start this sort of learning piece. It often lands as a fine lens problem. So let's think about it this way. You know, our child comes home from school and they switch off. Homework becomes a battle. Reading is a massive negotiation. And the moment they're not being pushed, they stop. And our children, your child might say things like, I'm bored or I'm rubbish at this. They do the bare try things that they already know that they can do. So that is the problem that most parents bring to me, which is like, how do I get my child to engage? How do I get them to get less battles over homework? How do I make learning less of a fight and a battleground? But underneath that presenting fine lens problem is a wider lens issue that tells us something which is much more important. And what we're really looking at when I want us to think about this wide lens is a skills gap. And when it comes with the battles around homework, you know, barely putting an effort into things, battling to get them to do something all of the time, they won't try anything unless they can do it. The skills gap, there are actually two. The first is a gap in curiosity. Yeah. So this is the intrinsic, it's a drive that comes from within that wants to learn, to wonder, you know, I'm curious about how this works. And it comes from that within, you know, to learn, to wonder, to wonder, to wonder. And it's a gap in curiosity. And to wonder and to ask why, and to genuinely care about the answer. And the second gap is a gap in resilience. And that's the ability to stay with something that is difficult, to see getting things wrong as part of a process, rather than the proof that they can't do it. And so these two things, curiosity and resilience, are the foundations of a child who loves learning. Yeah, without curiosity, that's the starting point. So just track back. If you're listening to this with a frustrated about your 13-year-old, an eight-year-old, a 19-year-old, think back to when they were really little, and they were building blocks, and the blocks kept falling down, and then they would keep going. And when they were falling over, and they'd keep going, and then they were pondering about things that they dug up in the garden. That's that curiosity and that resilience. What we often sort of get caught up in, when we talk about that fine lens, is because it becomes often our focus shifts to, there's a problem specifically with an activity that's related to school. So what I'm really encouraging you to do is to broaden that. So it means we're not always looking at building skills within the area which, with the problem, seems to come up the most. So without curiosity, there is no starting point, because a child doesn't do anything if they're not curious and genuinely interested in what the outcome is. And without resilience, there's no power when it gets hard. And when children are missing these skills, what that looks like in practice is they only engage under pressure, and they stop the moment that the pressure lifts. So here is why this matters beyond homework and school reports. Research consistently shows that intrinsic motivation, so intrinsic is that internal drive to learn for its own sake, not for the results, not because they're being pushed, but just because they're curious. That is not the goal of this episode. It's not the goal of this episode. I'll be honest, is not to fix tonight's homework battle or reading. The goal is instead is to build the two skills that lie underneath it, so that we're going wide lens. And if by doing that, we change our child's relationship with learning for life. So before we get cracking with my five top tips on how to build them, I just want to just outline a little bit more about the skills that we are specifically working on and building. And those two skills are, curiosity and resilience. So when we think about curiosity, that's the fuel. That is the state of being genuinely interested, intrigued, curious, not because you have to be, not for a reward, but because something in you wants to know. You have seen it in, you know, we've seen it in our young children, that relentless, do you remember when they were little, that why, why you asked them, you know, they would ask about something, we'd respond and then be why, and then they'll, be another why. That's curiosity at work. that complete absorption in something that they have found fascinating and that curiosity does not disappear but it can get buried under the wrong conditions and resilience is all about and particularly resilience in learning is the ability to stay in that zone where things are hard enough to be interesting but not so hard that they feel impossible it is a child who gets something wrong, takes a breath, walks away, comes back and tries a different approach rather than giving up. And psychologists often call this persistence in the face of difficulty. In practice, it's the child who does not fall apart when they find something hard. Now, because these two things, and yes, homework does get easier, but more than that, you raise a child who does not need you to push them, who finds things that they are passionate about, who is not afraid of failing because they understand that failing is how you learn. And I do, there's something very loaded in that word failing. And every time I talk about it on the podcast, I say, I need to find another way of framing that. And maybe I make a mental note to properly investigate that and have that as an episode. So here are my five top tips on how do we build curiosity and how do we build resilience? And that's, they're not necessarily always directed at the specific fine lens problem that we've got. So number one, follow the spark, not the syllabus. Every child has something which genuinely lights them up. Yeah, might be dinosaurs, might be Minecraft, football statistics, how engines work, why the sky changes colour at sunset, whatever it is. Yeah, feed it ferociously and without condition. And the third tip is that curiosity in one domain does transfer. A child who is deeply curious about dinosaurs is practising the exact same cognitive skills as a child who is deeply curious about mathematics. Asking questions, researching answers, holding uncertainty, wanting to know more. The content is not the point. The state of being curious is the point. So before you worry about whether your child is curious about the right things, celebrate that they are curious at all. Get interested with them. Ask them questions about the things that they love. Show genuine curiosity yourself and then that curiosity becomes contagious and it spreads through proximity to other curious people. And what you can often do in those scenarios is there will be some tentative way that you can use that curiosity in a domain that they're really passionate about. And then instil, whether that's the behaviour that you prompt them in an area that they're less resilient and curious in, or whether there is a really direct link, it helps them. But if we don't help fuel that curiosity and help build that and just that reinforced learning and that neuroplasticity that happens within the brain because they become so passionate about a specific area, it helps them in other areas. So definitely follow the spark, not the syllabus. And it may well be that the spark for your child is an area that you're not particularly interested in or that you find incredibly boring. Maybe the spark for your child is tech related. But when we engage, when we demonstrate curiosity and we ask questions, which encourages them to do the same, then that helps them across domains. So that's number one. That's top tip number one. The second is, and you'll know this one because I've said it, praise the process, not just the outcome. And you know that this comes from Carol Dweck's research on mindset. And it is one of the most replicated, as in they've done it in research again and again and again and got exactly the same results every single time. It's one of the most replicated findings in developmental psychology. When we praise children for being clever, you are smart, you're a natural, you're brilliant at this, we inadvertently tie their identity to the outcome. And if my identity is sort of tied to that outcome, why would I risk doing something where that outcome is fragile and might not be the case? It might question my capabilities. And children who believe their cleverness is fixed, they do become fragile. They start avoiding challenges because if they try something hard and fail, it threatens the identity that they've been given. Children, on the other hand, who are praised for their effort, maybe their strategy, maybe their persistence, you kept going even when that was hard. I noticed you tried a completely different approach, develop a fundamentally different relationship with difficulty because their identity is built around what they do, not what they innately are. And that is the child who will try harder things, who recovers from setbacks, who is not destroyed by a disappointing result. Switch the prey. From who they are to what they did. Sounds like a small shift, but it changes everything. And if you've fallen into the trap, and let's, I will be really honest, I fell into that trap really, really early on with my first and did a lot of that. We can unravel it, but it just means being intentional, even if one more time a day, we praise effort rather than outcome. And then once we start doing it, it feels much better. And I think that's a really good point. I think it's much more natural to us. At first, it may not feel particularly natural to you. But when we do that, and again, and again, and again, it does have such a profound effect, because that's fundamentally, there are so many things our children are going to do, where actually, there is no guarantee of the outcome. We don't know, in particular, as our children sort of move up through the academic years, and they're taking subjects that we've got no idea how to help them with. If we've instilled that curiosity and that resilience to persist, and that it's about, effort, we fundamentally set them up for life. Because that's, that is what the skill that they're going to need when they enter into adulthood. So that's number two. Number three, as you'd expect from me, is let them see you get things wrong. Children learn how to relate to difficulty by watching the adults around them. Yeah, children are much more likely to do what they see than what we say. Now, if they never see a parent struggle, if all they see from the adults around them is ease and competence, they'll conclude, you know, the conclusion that they come to is that getting things right effortlessly is what normal adult life looks like. And let's face it, we know that that's nothing like what adult life looks like. And when they find things hard, that gap for them will feel like failure. So narrate your own learning, not in a lectury kind of way, but just those moments where we're able to, you know, well, maybe we're trying something new. Say it. When we make a mistake, name it and stay calm. I got that wrong. Let me think about what I will do differently. DIY is a great one for that one, or trying to resolve an issue. You know, this is not about when we talk about these things and when we talk about the things that we find difficulty, it doesn't undermine our authority as their parent and that confidence and competence that we want to instill in that safety that we want to give for our children. We're just showing our child that struggle is what adults do too. It's not just, struggle isn't just related to childhood. If you think back to your own childhood, I don't know if you're anything like me, but I was desperate to be an adult. It was like, oh my goodness me, when I'm not at school and I'm an adult and I get to choose everything so much easier. And the reality is, as we know, it's a whole other ballgame. We would swap being a child and being a child in a heartbeat so often with all of the challenges. But so often we try to kind of protect our children from the and this is not about overburdening our children, but allowing them to see us fail, allowing them to see that we find things difficult and we've had to approach it in a different way is a really helpful way because that persistence in the face of difficulty is a skill, not a sign of inadequacy. And when they see us doing that, they then make that connection that it is that skill as well. And it's the most powerful modeling we can do for a love of learning is to be someone who loves learning ourselves and in front of them. So that's number three. So number one is follow the spark, not the syllabus. Number two, praise the process, not just the outcome. Number three is let them see you get things wrong. Number four, and this is a really big one, is protect unstructured time. And this one maybe runs against the grain of modern parenting where children's time is often packed with clubs, activities, lessons, and so on. And so I think it's a really important thing to do. And I think it's a really important thing to do. And I think because we want to afford them every opportunity to flourish and to find their passions and to learn across multiple different skills. But the research behind this protecting unstructured time is pretty robust. So structured activities teach children to perform. Unstructured time teaches children to be curious. It affords them the opportunity to be bored because children need to be bored. They need space to follow their own thoughts, to invent games, to build things that no one asked them to build. Curiosity does. in a schedule that leaves no room for wondering. And I would really encourage you to do a little bit of an internal audit. If you're listening to this episode as it's come out, we're early in September, so we can reconsider some of those activities and after-school clubs that we've got them signed up for. Do we have unstructured time? Are we protecting it? If every moment, if every free moment is filled, either with organized activity or with passive screen consumption, children never develop the capacity to direct their own attention. And I would also say one of the aspects of that unstructured time as well is to be able to sit with their feelings, to sit with their thoughts. And the ability to direct their own attention is basically at its core what learning is. So this does not mean no structure and no screens. It means protecting some time in your child's week, which belongs entirely to them. With no adult agenda attached to it, and then leaving them alone to do what they will with it. So that's number four is protect unstructured time. And number five is resist the rescue. Yeah, when a child is stuck on a problem, a piece of writing, a task they find hard, our instinct is to help, to explain, to simplify, to take some of the weight. And sometimes, particularly with very young children, that is exactly the right, best thing to do. But here is what we know neurologically in terms of the brain. The moment of struggle is the learning. Yeah, when your brain is working hard, making mistakes, testing and discarding approaches, it is forming connections that do not form when information is simply handed over. The struggle is not a problem to be solved. It is the point. So before you step in, wait maybe just a little bit longer than feels comfortable. Yeah. Five seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds, a minute. Start where you're at rather than where you need to be. And when you do engage, try a question before an answer. Yeah. So maybe try this question. What do you think you could try? What have you already tried? What would happen if you did it differently? Yeah. You're not withholding help. You are simply giving your child the most powerful help there is. The experience of working something out for themselves. And there is nothing that makes them beam with joy more than when they've worked through that, because they almost have to, you know, optimal learning is done when they're being asked to do something that is just outside their comfort zone. And so when they get stuck, and we know what they're capable of doing, asking those questions, being there to support just in our physical and emotional presence is often enough. And that's what we're doing. And that experience is what builds both curiosity, I can figure things out, and resilience, hard things are survivable. It is the foundation of a child who does not need to be pushed, because they have learned to push themselves. And what I would say with all five of these tips is that this is a process. It's not going to happen overnight. But it is if you're able to stay in that lane and really have that confidence that in time, you'll hit a tipping point. And you will suddenly see this when you focus it in a broad sense of the skills. And looking at all the opportunities, there are not just the opportunities specifically related to a tangible task that your child's been given from school, then what happens is, you suddenly find so many more opportunities. And when you do that on a regular basis, you'll begin to see this ripples out in the areas of academia, but start first in terms of the skills gap of curiosity and resilience. And then you will see that that then helps fix that fine lens problem. Now, as we close up this episode, and I'll just give you a bit of a teaser in terms of what's coming on Monday, I just want to take an opportunity, if you have enjoyed this episode, if you listen to the podcast regularly, or you are just new to how not to screw up your kids, could you just take a moment to rate and review the podcast? Other parents find this podcast through the reviews and ratings that you've given them. So if you're a parent, if you're a that you put on whatever platform you listen to your podcast. So if you could do that, I would be eternally grateful because it helps spread the love. Now just a teaser on Monday, I'm giving you five questions that will completely change the conversation when your child comes home from school, because how was school? How was your day? Almost never gets you anywhere. And there is a very good reason for that. So I will see you on Monday, be as kind to yourself as you're trying to be to your children. You don't have to get it right every time. And the fact that you're here, learning and growing already says a lot. For more episodes and all of the resources to support you, head over to drmaryhan.com forward slash library. I'm Dr. Mary Han. Take good care of yourself, and I'll see you on Monday. you
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