It was end of November 2013. I just had a meeting with my kid school counselor. What I didn't know was that the meeting would trigger the beginning of a new era for my family. She told me: "Your kid is really smart, but he seems unhappy”. My ‘perfect’ life image and ‘perfect’ mom self-confidence shattered. You can read in this story, that made me change my career. In my process of finding my new parenting directions, I had found so much help from other parents online. A strength-giving force able to make me keep going and transforming my parenting style.
I am so grateful to the support I received and continue to get from all the mom groups I had joined, all the blog and magazine pages I follow. In this 1 ½ year, my child had grown so much happier since I had let him “fly”. The world is not beautiful if it is all receiving and not giving. I wanted to find out a way to contribute to help other parents in their parenting challenges. As a high-tech professional at Silicon Valley, the first thing I thought of was how could technology help in optimizing parenting experience. Starting from October 2014, I conducted a couple of surveys online to see where the needs are.
The surveys have been answered by parents from all around the world. It became extremely clear that parents are looking for solutions especially in the area of social emotional development, good habits and time management. Not academic, not physical and motor skills…
How could I contribute? I first started by starting a Facebook group called Moms for Emotional Intelligence. We have since changed our name to Emotional Intelligence for Kids to make the group more inclusive. We now have about 2300 members within a short 3 months. We have very active members sharing articles daily about social emotional development for kids; and also helping to advise each other in this specific developmental area. We are also inviting more parents who like to guest blog for us about your parenting experiences to contact us. Through our Facebook group Emotional Intelligence for Kids, we have met lots of new friends. For example Sharmi from Stepping Stone Psychology in the UK has blogged about the Mighty Power of Empathy; and many others in the pipeline.
Hopefully we will get more parents,grandparents, educators, psychologists to join us in our group.
The top few most interactive recent posts include:
1. Sharing of this video that shows how the world can be made beautiful by emotions like empathy
2. Researcher Carol Dweck, PhD showed that kids who were given one line of empty praise about being "smart at this" were actually less likely to tackle more difficult challenges the next time around than kids who were told, "You must have worked really hard."
3. Raising Smart Learners through rich conversations . This article shows a study conducted by researchers at the UCLA School of Public Health and published in the journal Pediatrics found that two-way adult-child conversations were six times as potent in promoting language development as interludes in which the adult did all the talking.
4. Why Emotional Learning May Be As Important As The ABCs . A growing body of research — shows that mastering social skills early on can help people stay out of trouble all the way into their adult lives.
5. The Conversation I Almost Missed & the Future It Could’ve Cost About how critical parents and children "conversations" are - “Listen,” I said firmly. “No matter what mistakes you make today, tomorrow, or throughout your life, I will always love you. I will never turn my back on you. Okay?”
All of the above are the inspiration behind Povi Family Connect app. Povi Family Connect app is available for download from the Apple App Store and Google Play. Emotional Intelligence for Kids Facebook became one of the tools that is helping us to improve POVI Family Connect app and is also its inspirational forum, as we can share thoughts and experiences. Once again, personal experiences are enlightening the path to improving our connections with our children.3. Raising Smart Learners through rich conversations . This article shows a study conducted by researchers at the UCLA School of Public Health and published in the journal Pediatrics found that two-way adult-child conversations were six times as potent in promoting language development as interludes in which the adult did all the talking.
4. Why Emotional Learning May Be As Important As The ABCs . A growing body of research — shows that mastering social skills early on can help people stay out of trouble all the way into their adult lives.
5. The Conversation I Almost Missed & the Future It Could’ve Cost About how critical parents and children "conversations" are - “Listen,” I said firmly. “No matter what mistakes you make today, tomorrow, or throughout your life, I will always love you. I will never turn my back on you. Okay?”
* Seow Lim is the founder and CEO of POVi.
I would love to give you a heads-up that we will be running a Kickstarter campaign on Tue, May 24, 2016. We would greatly appreciate your help to be one of our early backers to make Povi a reality.
You can choose to back our project for your family, a school, your team members at work or even non-profits.
We would greatly appreciate you also sharing this important message with whom you know will benefit from joining our community!
Thank you very much! Do email me at seowlim@povi.me to catch up anytime!
I would love to give you a heads-up that we will be running a Kickstarter campaign on Tue, May 24, 2016. We would greatly appreciate your help to be one of our early backers to make Povi a reality.
You can choose to back our project for your family, a school, your team members at work or even non-profits.
We would greatly appreciate you also sharing this important message with whom you know will benefit from joining our community!
Thank you very much! Do email me at seowlim@povi.me to catch up anytime!
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