Technology Comes To the Jugglers (a.k.a Working Moms!) Rescue

* By Seow Lim*

It was 5:30pm. I was still in the conference room. It was getting late to pick up my kids. I excused myself, left,  and started to drive, dialing into the conference call. At 6pm, I picked up my son. I greeted him, and tried to get off the call so that I could talk to him. Finally, the call was done, I turned to look at my child, and asked: "How's was school?" He looked bored and said, "Ok".

Do you see yourself in this picture? As a busy high tech working mom of two boys, I constantly juggled family and work. I worked hard so that I could give my kids better lives, at the same time I encouraged them to work hard so they could achieve better academic success. I thought that was the ultimate and only goal.

Two years ago, my son's school counselor told me: "Your kid is really smart, but he is not happy." I had tried so hard to be the best parent. So had I done wrong? I started looking for the solution. I took time off from my high flying career. I made sure I was home at 3pm when the kids got back from school. I started reading all the best selling parenting books, and having more in-depth conversations with my children. I joined many parenting groups online to learn from other parents. I started the Emotional Intelligence for Kids group on Facebook and received much support and many ideas from parents like myself.

After much reflection, armed with all this information, I finally found my solution - parents like me need to connect more often and more thoughtfully with their kids. From this realization, was born Povi. A product that I hope will help me and other parents connect and communicate meaningfully with their children.  I built a team and we first launched the Povi Family Connect app - both on Google Play and App Store. This app sends one thoughtful question, fail to registered parents. Our questions are designed by our developmental psychologist and we soon signed up 1k beta users on our app.

After a few months I approached all our beta users for their feedback. The response was the questions are great but they lacked 'context'.  While analyzing the app data, we also found out that kids were answering the question very differently and in interesting directions. No  wonder parents were telling us that they are learning a lot more about their kids than they did before. From this feedback we knew our app was very useful, but to take it to the next level, we needed to solve the "context" issue. This context would help parents ask the question without having to come up with their own context or background. Context, we decided should be built around stories. Not just normal stories but real life stories that kids experience in their daily lives.

Further, with more feedback from parents and teachers, we decided to narrow down our focus to younger children because we want to build the habit of talking with parents about emotions, feelings and problem solving from the early preschool age.

And then, because Povi was going to be sharing real-life stories (something kids and parents loved in our focus groups) we came to the decision that he needed to be cuddly. Povi took the shape of a cuddly plush toy, perfect for a warm and cozy story and conversation session.

Designed to help parents raise happier, caring and confident children, Povi is an EI (emotional intelligence) content platform + app of crowd-sourced content with a huggable storytelling buddy as the delivery tool. In other words, Povi is a connected toy with a mission, for children ages 3-8. Povi shares short stories based on children's everyday situations then engages young listeners and their parents in a discussion on emotions and feelings.




Bootstrapping, we manufactured 20 prototypes and started the Traveling Povi program.

This is a program when we send Povi with 5 expert designed stories to the homes of interested parents for a week. We have the parents and kids test Povi and send us their feedback.

We already received great feedback from parents and kids who have tried out Povi. Some testimonials we received:

• Kids are very excited about listening Povis stories - don’t want to stop at one.
• Povi motivated children to talk about similar personal experiences.
• Parents appreciated that they learned something new about their kids lives and how their kids think through/process experiences.
• The story starter is the most effective as kids jump right into discussion and commentary.

Our biggest issue is that kids in this first round of trial are so possessive of Povi they are reluctant to let him travel! We now need to build more!! Our goal is to build the next 5000 Povis so that there will be enough Povis to go around, helping busy young families connect and communicate.

The team behind Povi is are up of seasoned software engineers, a designer, a journalist, marketing specialists, toy veterans, psychologists and counselors. They all joined me because they believe in Povi's mission to help parents raise happier, caring and confident kids. I want to be able to make Povi a reality. I want to be able to especially help busy working moms like myself - to make it easier for you to get into thoughtful conversations that touch the emotions and feelings of your children every day.

Please help me make Povi a reality. Support us on Kickstarter on May 24, 2016. http://www.povi.me/waitlist.html. Like us so that you can also share us with your friends.

Why robots are not always the solution

*By Seow Lim, entrepreneur, successful high tech executive with track records of building businesses, a mom of two boys*

Working mom challenges

The first step towards Povi came out of my life as a busy working mom with a demanding career. It seemed like I was always busy going quickly from one thing to the next and juggling my career with parenting. I always tried to pick up my kids from school each day and tried to switch gears from work issues to my kid lives when I met them. But it was not easy. The stresses of work and chores at home resulted in less than optimal connection with my kids on a daily basis. I was always there for them, encouraging them in their academics and extra-curricular activities but something was missing.

Fast forward two years

My parenting has changed. I have more conversations with my sons everyday. I look for ideas from their world to start meaningful conversations. A simple example, when I saw a child crying at the library, I told them this story: "I was at the library today and I saw a little girl crying. She was lost and looking for her mom. I went to help her. Luckily her mom was looking for her too. What would you do if you were this little girl?" After some contemplation, my older son replied, "I would be really scared too but I wouldn't cry."

Another time it was something I heard on the news:  "On the news today, I heard about this old man with Alzheimer who got lost, and somebody helped him find his way home. Have you helped anyone today?" My son younger replied "Yes! I helped my friends chase bees away by throwing the soccer ball at them."

The stories and scenarios are endless and we all know them. But previously, at the end of the day, when my brain was tired, practicing these open-ended, reflective conversations with my kids was not easy. Now in my avatar as a reformed tiger mom, they love sharing their feelings! They both do it so differently and it amazes me.  I was so happy when my usually reserved teenager said to me, "Mommy, you've changed. Before, you just asked me about my school work. Now you really let me do what I am interested in and support me in it."

My 8 year old boy is more direct. Everyday, he asks, "Mommy, could you talk to me when I am taking my shower?" and at bed time if I haven't started a conversation, he says "Mommy, do you have something you want to talk to me about?" or "Mommy, I have a secret to tell you today." It's at times like this that I know that the habit of thoughtful conversation with my kids for the last 2 years have worked.

Others helped me, I can help others too

As I was looking for a solution to help myself to be a better parent, I realize that many parents are facing the same issues. We are too busy with our jobs and our lives, we are not connecting enough with our kids emotionally. 

 

How Povi evolved

The journey of finding the right solution or version of Povi to address the problem facing busy parents and hyper digital kids has been quite an exploration. It has taken us two years of multiple iterations of concept, prototype and user testing. 

 

At first, I was looking for the solution to the 'symptom' of 'dis-engaged kids'

I went to Berkeley Innovation Lab, a club in University of California Berkeley that helps industry do design projects. That's where I met Wendy. For two semesters, together with eight talented students, we idea-ted a design of our prototype 1. 

The problem statement for prototype 1 was: Kids are spending too much time in front of screens. It is affecting their time management, vision and posture. Could we have a solution that encourages kids motivation to develop good habit for to protect their vision and posture. Prototype 1 contains an electronic pet with expression and a Bluetooth earpiece with sensors. 

When we started doing the user research, parents liked the cute little electronic pet, but they didn't like the earpiece because kids would not want to wear it. Parents also mentioned that screen time is affecting the social skills of their kids that they are most concerned about.

 

Without the earpiece, we had to use Computer vision to observe the child to monitor their habit in front of the screen. We idea-ted to our Prototype 2. We developed the design of Povi Learning Robot that learns about kids habits and interacts with the kids. Povi could encourage them to develop good posture habits. Povi teaches them self regulations and time management and get them to interleave physical activities with screen time. 

 

However, as we continued to collect feedback from parents, we discovered the following:

1. There are too many gadgets that kids already have today. They are not looking for another gadget to interact with their kids.

2. The target price point of the robot (~$300) were too high for most families to afford.

Fantastic support from Povi's Facebook Groups

Our Facebook group named Emotional Intelligence for Kids have grown to over 3000 members then. This is the community that has been supporting Povi along the way. With active participation in many Facebook groups and talking to psychologists and teachers, reading tons of best selling parenting books on Amazon, and also working with my own children to figure out what's the 'root' of my issue, I realized that self regulation, time management, good vision and posture habits are all trying to correct the 'symptom'. The 'root' of my issues was I need to develop the connection with my own kids beyond "How's school?" "Did you do your homework?". I need to develop that habit that my kids want to share their deeper thoughts with me.

At the same time, with the help of many helpful parents online, I had conducted a successful survey that parents today are most concerned about social emotional development of their kids and they are looking for a better solution in. Our research shows that Social Emotional Learning in schools are showing results. But many parents believe that social emotional learning should happen at home.

So we created a Povi App that sends one question each day to parents. After we have signed up 1000 beta users on our app, I approached each and everyone of them to ask for feedback. Most of them thanked me for the expert designed questions. They found them really useful. However, they mentioned that it was weird to just ask the question, without any context. They found that they were having to come up with context before asking the question. This did not work for them. 

Additionally we learned that quite a few parents are writing their conversations with their kids into the journal but said that it would be much easier if we could just let them record the audio on the app. We found that how each child answers questions was very unique to them and extremely interesting. No wonder parents were telling us that they are learning a lot more about their kids using Povi's App questions.

Despite the positive feedback to the Povi App, we had the "context" issue to resolve. How do we provide the context so that our parents don't have to think hard to ask a thoughtful question? We talked to many psychologists, teachers and counselors. 

We learned a few key things from these final discussions:

1. Kids learn better with a physical object that they can hold and touch. 

2. Kids are much more open to discuss issues and emotions of others sometimes instead of their own issue directly.

3. We need to focus on specific age groups as kids' emotional need vary dramatically by age.

After much brainstorm, we decided on the following:

1. Focus on 3-8 years olds to build the habit of talking with parents about emotions, feelings and problem solving from preschool age. 

2. Context for questions should be built around stories. Not just normal stories but real life stories that kids experience in their daily lives. 

3. The physical form should take the form of hug-gable plush toy because that feels warm.

That's how Povi The Storytelling Buddy with the Emotional Intelligence Content Platform was born.

We take all the features that our users like in the Povi Family Connect app, marry that with a well-designed talking plush toy, and open our platform to content providers who have lots of experience with kids to help us bring more real life stories into parent-child thoughtful conversation.

We have iterated multiple times with the plush toy design; have tested our designs with over 300 parents and kids in person and 500 parents online. See the family of Povi we have made!

 

The yellow big eye Povi won the user test! And that's how Povi looks like today.

Robot is COOL, but Povi is WARM!

In the beginning, I had thought that the solution would be a really smart robot with computer vision and voice recognition capabilities that would get kids to open up. But a lot of user research and my gut feel made me question whether interacting with another digital device or robot was the solution. No, I want my kids to talk to me, interact with me and connect and share human emotions.

That's why Povi is cuddly, furry and soft and he speaks like another child!

There are still many features we want to add to Povi, our app and the content platform, including messaging to consult expert teachers and psychologists on the platform.


Our plan is to make 5000 Povi and sell them on Kickstarter on May 24th. Please help me make Povi a reality. Support us on Kickstarter. http://www.povi.me/waitlist.html

Written by The Povi Team

P.S.: Seow Lim was joined in her mission for EI by a bunch of us who are inspired by her. She took a personal parenting challenge and actually created a product to help solve this. And what's more this is a problem that is so relevant today where a lot of us parents are so busy and our kids are precariously digitally inclined.

We are seasoned psychologists, counsellors, software engineers, a creative designer, a journalist, a user research specialist and toy industry veterans and we are hoping you will love Povi and Povi's mission as much as we do!

Write for Povi and Become a Partner

@povi_me is happy and feeling accomplished! He has practiced and practiced a #song on the #piano and had mastered it. Thanks for your help.

A photo posted by Povi Buddy (@povi_me) on Jan 15, 2016 at 7:17am PST

If you have experiences to share with the rest of the world,  believe in the power of emotional intelligence to help kids succeed and is passionate about story-telling, join us for a fun adventure that can turn into a job. Your child-related experiences contributed in the form of anecdotes or stories will help build a product that builds emotional intelligence (EI) and teaches kids how to navigate social situations.

We are looking for stories to use as Conversation Starters on the Povi product. Povi helps kids discuss social-emotional topics. Contributions will be curated by an expert panel (teachers and psychologists) who will select the best stories to load onto the beta version of Povi. If your story gets selected to be a Povi Conversation Starter you earn a percentage off every Povi content package sold once we actually launch the product for sale.

Tired of products that build only kids’ academic achievements and IQ? Povi’s mission is to revolutionize EI development. Draw on your experience in social emotional development to help kids navigate the social and emotional challenges in the lives. As POVI"s CEO and POVI creator says: "I have always been a busy working mom. I pay lots of attention to my kids' development. I buy toys and educational products for them. Two years ago, my son's school counselor told me, “Your child is really smart, but he is not happy.” How painful can that be for a mom! That’s how Povi was created, as you can read in the whole story here.

Satisfy your dream as a writer. Early Enthusiast offer of $10 Amazon card to the first 25 stories contributed! Click here to find the form and more details about the partnership. Povi's goal is to revolutionize family playtime for EI development. Povi is a smart, story-telling toy and app on a platform developed by Antwish, Inc. Kids and parents interact with Povi to build emotional intelligence in a fun and engaging manner.

The Povi platform consists of a smart and cuddly story-telling buddy, an app for parents and an online forum for families and experts to connect on the topic of EI. The Povi Buddy is a smart toy programmed with endless story-starters on social-emotional topics. And this is where you can play a part in developing this next-generation fun platform to enhance family interaction. If you want also help us to choose which Povi is the best looking cuddly toy, please take a look in our Instagram page and make part of this this survey.

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!

Povi has its own Instagram! Please help us to pick your favorite buddy.

Would you like to follow Povi's adventures? It's easy: Follow him on Instagram. As part of our campaign to launch our new interactive smart story-telling toy, Povi will be traveling to far away lands and to everyday places. We also would be delighted if you can share with us which of the Povi models you prefer. For that you can also visit our POVI page at Facebook or our Instagram page below. We have three options for how Povi will look. You can help us decide by picking the one you (or your child) prefers here.

How would the world be without books? Povi loves to read out loud.

A photo posted by Povi Buddy (@povi_me) on Jan 13, 2016 at 5:47pm PST

Zero to Twenty: My Ups and Downs with Parenting and Building Emotional Intelligence

By Mallika Sankaran*

At home this meant simple but dedicated conversations to develop the 5 traits of successful people: self-awareness, self-motivation, self-regulation, empathy and social skills. But this happened only when we discovered, after some eureka parenting moments, that when it comes to EQ not everyone is born equal.

The pre-school soccer field is a good place to observe these five emotional intelligence traits at various levels of development: You’ll see the emotionally mature kids _ born with higher EQ (yes, this can happen – just like higher IQ) and by 4 they have the social-emotional skills of an adult _ they get the rules and play by the rules. They interact smoothly with the kids, the coach and the parents and everyone just loves them. Think Oprah Winfrey or Matt Damon. Oprah is strong, decisive and has a great intuition on what her audience wants and how to make people open up on the most personal issues. Matt Damon, plays socially awkward guys but his real-life personality is exactly the opposite! His marriage is one of the most stable in Hollywood, his friendships last for decades and he is caring and humanitarian*. (source: camomileq.com)

Then there are the lost kids on the soccer field _ running or walking around _ aimlessly; not sure what they are supposed to be doing and why they are on the field. But, they have age-appropriate social-emotional skills _  they know how to get through the game without getting in trouble!

And last, the kids who seem ‘so out-of-it’ as described by the smug parents on the sidelines. These kids seem to have their own agenda and it’s definitely not the team or soccer. They’re climbing up the nets, kicking the ball ‘at’ the other kids not ‘to’ them, questioning the coach – and generally being un-cooperative.

What’s going on? Is it that they don't like soccer? Is it that after a day of having to follow the rules in school they just need down-time to play and not have more rules and boundaries? Is it that they are mad at their mom? The coach? Their teammates? Who’s to know, unless you talk to them, and by talk I mean chat in a back and forth, non-confrontational, non-lecturing manner – which is a building block towards higher EQ.

Now, I’m thinking back to my days as a new and short-lived soccer mom. My son had just turned 4. He had never expressed interest in soccer or martial arts or baseball or playing the piano or in learning French or in the numerous other activities I wanted him to pursue. It wasn’t like he didn't have his own passionate interests: he loved reading (taught himself how to read from with Pokeman books), watching movies and repeating pitch-perfect dialogues (my favorite was Han Solo) cooking (he learned how to make California Rolls at age 5 from a Japanese friend) and building houses (we never threw away a cardboard carton, ever and always had a construction in progress.)

 I loved all this about him, but for me it wasn’t sufficiently mainstream – I wanted him to be on the local soccer team, get a black belt in Taekwondo and star in the local production. Without knowing it I was being over-aspirational - not just happy that my son had his own unique interests and talents, I felt that I was short-changing his development if I did not give him ALL the opportunities to “be the best” a “Renaissance Man”. Putting a lot of pressure on him and myself in the process.

The term Renaissance Man is used for a very clever person who is good at a great many different things. The idea comes from a time of history called the Renaissance which lasted from about 1400 to about 1600. One of the most famous people alive during this time was Leonardo da Vinci. Not a bad aspiration in itself, but in today’s world one that can quickly lead to over-scheduled kids and stress, especially for kids who’s EQs have not quite caught up with their IQs. Too many activities, too many challenges and too little time for something really important - parent-child conversations.

Today my son loves soccer – playing for his high school and college, he makes and keeps good friends, works constantly on different teams as part of his film major and he is passionate about his many interests. To a proud (and now wiser mom) that’s sufficiently renaissance. His most defining traits are his confidence and his ability to engage and interact with people productively – vital social-emotional skill needed for success in life. Perhaps he just figured it all out as he grew up. Or perhaps what worked is that when we discovered this new (to us) world of EQ and social emotional learning when he was 4 – we began to work really hard at it as a family.

We used every opportunity (to the point of being bores) to talk about “what happened”, examine feelings, discuss alternate courses of action, use specific kid-friendly words and language – something that at first seemed deliberate and contrived and was difficult for someone like me, who likes things spontaneous. We read books that taught us “how to speak so your child will listen” and played board games that taught “self-awareness”. We used a system of rewards and stars to motivate “self-regulation” We tried many things and one can’t say for sure what worked or didn’t. May be it was just part of growing up. But at the end of the day it all added up to the fact that we spent time a lot of family time talking and listening – which creates a parent-child connection that stays on and says “we have your back”.

As Alvin Rosenfeld, author of The Over Scheduled Child,  says, “Don't coach them on how to better throw a baseball – jus throw the ball around. Don't always teach them to be better just teach them to be themselves - research shows that might be the real ticket to success after Harvard. …it was whether they had one good relationship with someone when they were growing up…someone who accepted them for who they were and not for whether they could hit the long home run.”

Today I feel roles are reversed – when I’m having issues with persistently troubling interactions with someone, I find that my son is usually the voice of reason who helps me see the other person’s point of view – which is usually a good way out of negative situations.


*Mom of a 15 year old and a 20 year old.

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 mallika@povi.me to catch up anytime!

Survey Result Redefines Parents and Children Quality Time

By Mallika Sankaran*

These are the results from our “100 Moms” Survey on Quality-time, Conversation and EQ.
The good news: moms and kids are playing and talking, a lot! Half of the moms surveyed tell us that they spend 2 or more  hours of quality time with their kids every day! Despite the fact that over two-thirds of our sample are moms employed outside the home.

These were parents (mainly moms) from across Facebook’s diverse parenting groups, including our discussion group Emotional Intelligence for Kids, where we asked them questions to help us understand how parents are thinking about developing their childrens’ emotional intelligence. We’ll share the rest of the results with you over the next few weeks.
Moms’ top three choices for ‘quality time’:

• Playing together – 93%
• Chatting with their kids – 87%
• Reading together – 83%

I was very surprised by the amount of quality time reported. 2 or more hours a day, when parents are are busy and stretched, that’s a lot of time. My kids are older now but I tried to think back to when they were younger and how I spent time with them. Our favorite activities were: going to the park (we checked out a lot of parks for the novelty of their play structures!) and reading at bedtime (our favorites were Bernstein Bears, Rainbow Fish and Teddy Bears Picnic.  By the way, the first two were great books for our discussing social-emotional issues. We also did a lot of building together activities. like Lego, race cars and tracks and trains.

For me now, quality time with my 15 year old is mainly chatting in the car, eating dinner or watching TV together. I count TV time as quality-time because we take turns picking the shows and chat while we watch – right now we are watching Season 2 of Gilmore Girls.

Please share with us what you do for quality time, how much quality-time you manage to average per day and give us your suggestions of books and products. More next time!

*Mom, researcher and community builder

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 mallika@povi.me to catch up anytime!

From Tiger Mom to Emotional Intelligence Advocate (III): A Date With My Teen Son

Art by Lim's son, when he was still a pre-teen

By Seow Lim*

I was a full time high tech corporate employee for over 15 years in the Silicon Valley. A very ambitious product strategy executive. I worked very hard. I was a classic tiger mom. In my world, there was no room for failure. I was very strict. No compromise. Everything, for me, had to be perfect. I was always busy running around - juggling work and kids. My kids were always busy driven around - to lessons, classes, mostly by the nanny. We were all so busy.

When we sat down for dinner or after dinner, the conversation mostly evolved around accomplishment of tasks. "Did you finish your homework for lesson A, B, C?",  "When is your next belt promotion test for your martial art lesson?",  "How did you do for your tests this week?", I would ask.

Then, something happened. It was November 2013, and it marked a significant turning point for me and my family, as you can read on my first post on this blog. That's no longer me today.

As a 'transformed' mom, I make time to have one-on-one time with my teen son, without the interruption from his chatty little brother who is always fighting for attention. That's our mother-and-son- dates. That's our time alone. No screens, no other family members present.

We usually go to his favorite snack bar, to have a snack and a cup of his favorite tea, and sit and chat. Sometimes we go walking. There's something about favorite food and drink, and music TV in the background that appeals to teenagers. The environment is conducive for him to want to talk. I like to choose Friday afternoons because that's when we are both more relaxed.

Just last Friday, I went to pick him up after school, brought him to the cafe, and started spending high quality time having conversations, discovering his thoughts and feelings.

We talked about many things. First, as soon as he got into the car, he was excited about how he did a Math proof that got him a special compliment from the Math substitute teacher.  I was listening carefully, looking into his eyes, showing lots of interest in my body language. But, frankly, I had returned a lot of my algebra back to my teacher from so many years ago. While he was talking, I wasn't really paying attention to what exactly he said about the Math facts. I was carefully thinking about how should I craft my response to this conversation? Do I praise him? Do I encourage him? Do I ask him to tell me more about the different Math topics that he knows?

I reminded myself that my husband kept telling me that "you can't compliment him too much for results, have to praise him for efforts and hard work; or better still challenge him to do better". I also went through my mind what I learnt from reading about Professor Carol Dweck, Stanford University, Mindset, and re-affirmed by Trish Shaffer's "Raising a Resilient Child".

After all that has gone on in my mind, I delivered a positive response, "That's great. That's because you always work hard and interested to learn more".

Before I picked him up, I was thinking about what topics I should be talking about. I had opened my Povi app, and picked one question. Well, my memory now can only memorize one thing at a time. The question I memorized was "How're you silly?"

He was nodding and thinking about my response, while I started on the next topic. "Do you have any teachers in school this year that act silly or funny in class? ". He then told me about his Language Art teacher who likes to joke a lot. He then started sharing with me that he had written an essay recently that he thought was awesome.

It was about "Sexism against boys". He felt that in today's world, boys and girls should be equal but girls are given too much advantage that's it is unfair to the boys. An example he gave was with physical fitness education grading scale in schools being different for boys and girls. The grades of girls on the scale, are one entire one above the grades of boys with the exact same performance, on the same scale.

The next example he told me was that it’s considered immoral for a man to evacuate a sinking ship before all the women and children are off. “If a man is ever out on the water on a large boat, there's a chance that boat might sink, and if that happens he might be encouraged to wait before he gets on a lifeboat.”

Another example he gave was that most war and work casualties applies to male soldiers. According to American government statistics: “Men accounted for more than 97 percent of the combat deaths and

a similarly high proportion of combat injuries.” Furthermore, “93 percent of workplace fatalities are males.”

I listened carefully to all his points, nodding my head. Once in a while, I added positive comments like you do seem to have done a lot of research on this topic, I believe in the facts you have provided, but I disagree with you. I think there are bigger problems that cause inequalities against women that you haven't seen from your viewpoint.

This subject is interesting to me. I am a 'feminist'.  I turned this conversation into an active debate. I gave him a lot of my own examples including women get paid less for doing the same job, women are expected to do more household chores even if they work etc.

It got pretty heated, but was a lot of fun. In the end, I have taken this opportunity to tell him that, "I respect your viewpoints. I also appreciate that you have listened to my views as well. Everyone has their own opinion. It is important that you respect other's opinions because you can always learn from them. Taking other's perspective is a critical skill you can learn."

It was time to go home. We went back to the car.

He said, "Mommy, you had really changed. Now I find that I can really talk to you without you getting mad, or surprised, or negative about what I tell you. You are calmer, positive and receiving about everything. Can you tell me what made you changed?"

I took this opportunity to tell him, "It is because of you. I had spent more time with you. I had read a lot of parenting books. I want to make sure that I am open enough to have conversation with you like this so that you would continue to share your thoughts and opinions with me. You have improved greatly. I prefer to let you fly".

He replied: "Mommy, I think your expectation of me has also changed. You used to just want me to follow a very strict schedule before. It was really stressful. Now I get a lot more time to do a lot of things that I really enjoy."

I took the opportunity to ask, "Are you happier now?"

"Yes, I think so."

That made my day.

* Lim is the CEO and founder of Povi.me.

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!

Raising A Resilient Child

Photo from Trish's personal archives

By Trish Shaffer*

Have you ever met someone who is always positive and sees the glass “half full?” No matter the challenge or adversity, he or she always seems to be able to rise again and succeed. Are these people just lucky? Born with an innate gift of optimism or special genetic trait? Believe it or not, resiliency is a skill, not a gift. The true gift is that we, as parents, can teach our children the skills need to get back up each and every time they fall down by making some simple changes to the words we use and what we praise can help our children have the skills.

First, helping your child develop the outlook that opportunities are skill based, not talent based, is known in the scholarly literature as a “Growth Mindset”. The concept of a Growth Mindset has been made famous by Stanford University professor, Dr. Carol Dweck . Essentially, Dweck identifies there are primarily two types of people; those who have a fixed mindset and those who have a growth mindset.

People in a fixed mindset believe their basic qualities, like intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. For example, if you asked a person with a fixed mindset to run a 10k with you in three months, their response might be, “I can’t do that – I’ve never a runner.” If asked to tackle a new challenge professionally that required higher levels of management, “I don’t think I am right for that position. I’m not a natural leader or a type A person”.

Conversely, people with a growth mindset, believe that even their most abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. So, asked the same questions, the answer may be – “You know, I’ve never run a 10k. What does the training schedule look like and when should I start?” or “Taking on higher levels of management will be a new challenge for me. Who has been successful at this in our company and how do I get an appointment with him/her?”

The good news is that we can all go from a fixed to a growth mindset; and even better news for parents is that we are able to foster a growth mindset in children by using some very simple strategies.

First, a very powerful three letter word can change everything for your child. YET. A common scene for parents might be hearing your child struggle with homework, “I can’t do this! It’s too hard.” Help them by rephrasing, “You can’t do this YET, but we will work hard together until you understand it.” You can even start using the word yourself. Just this past weekend, I had the “opportunity” to fix a broken sprinkler head. When my seven year-old son heard me muttering to myself something like, “Oh great! I have no idea even where to begin! I am not handy or a landscaper!” he quickly replied, “Mom! You don’t know how to fix it YET, but I bet you can figure it out.” Such a valuable reminder that little ones often mirror our attitudes, what we say, and how we respond to challenges and adversity. You can see Dr. Dweck explain the power of YET in this video here.

Another powerful, yet relatively simple way to help your child develop a growth mindset is in how and what you praise. When praising our children, most of us say things like “great job!” “Well done on finishing your homework!” or “It is likely is that we attach our praise to an outcome or the end game. “Way to go! You earned an “A” on your test!” “You did great! Congratulations on winning the game!” “You did it! Thank you for cleaning your room!”

What we might not realize is that we are praising the outcome, not the effort. And, by continually praising just the outcome, we are unintentionally setting our kids up for failure.
Think of it like this: If your entire life you are praised for how great you are in a particular area; you begin to identify yourself as being equivalent to that outcome. For example, if you are always the top scholar in your class, and are praised by adults all around for your academic accomplishments, you likely will identify yourself, and get much of your self-esteem from, your ability to achieve academically. It is expected by you and others that you will in the top percent in academics. But, what happens when you are accepted Harvard, amongst peers who are as smart or smarter, and end up in the bottom half of the class at Harvard? Are you a failure?

Children who are not prepared to accept they may not always succeed at first, or have the skills to cope when meeting adversity, may experience irreparable damage, thoughts of suicide, engagement in risky behaviors, or at best, failure to succeed in many aspects of their lives. There are many well-recognized studies on this phenomenon, including Paul Tough’s book, “How Children Succeed.”

To encourage a growth mindset, or to raise children who will get up every time they are knocked down, we need to praise the process, not the outcome. By praising the effort needed, or steps taken, to achieve the outcome, we can help our children understand that it is the effort that results in success. More importantly, give our children the skills to accept and try again when they first do not meet their expectations. Teaching them that when they try and are not met with immediate success, that does not equate to failure, it is a lesson that only informs next moves along the path of achievement. And, when they do succeed, it is not the result of some innate talent, but rather the process that brought them to the success. The effort and steps taken to meet their goals. Watch the video capturing Dr. Dweck’s research on praise.

Our greatest gifts to our children are not ensuring they succeed at everything they attempt or saving to get them into the best school, it is ensuring no matter where their path leads, they have the skills to stand up each and every time they are knocked down.

*From Povi team: we tirelessly make Povi family connect app (link to App store and Google Play) available to parents, families and friends because we believe that there is nothing more important than cultivating wholesome, happy and successful children. Love to have you signed up as beta users. 

 *Our guest blogger Trish Shaffer is a strong voice and leadership of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in the Nevada community. She is a mom of two boys and loves to spend (lots of) time with her family and enjoys all types of outdoor activities. She recently received the Mary Utne O’Brien Award for Excellence in Expanding the Evidence-Based Practice of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) from the CASEL/NoVo Collaborating Districts at the 2013 CASEL Forum in Chicago. Trish is the Coordinator for Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) for the Washoe County School District (WCSD).   -

See more at: http://www.tedxuniversityofnevada.org/portfolio-item/trisha-shaffer/#sthash.s7r9dVhA.dpuf

Povi team also support the facebook group Emotional Intelligence for Kids. Join our community.

We 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!