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How to Raise Kids Who Can Handle Hard Things | Kathryn Hecht | TED
Subtitles (305 segments)
I've walked a lot in these shoes today.
These soles have ground into the pavement of downtown Minneapolis,
the rubber mats of my car,
the linoleum of a gas station bathroom
and the Play Doh-crusted carpet of a daycare.
Embedded in the tread, a smear a toddler booger.
Yeah, a little leftover norovirus maybe.
Maybe if I'm really lucky,
a little fleck of dog poop.
Makes you sick just thinking about it, right?
Audience: Ooh!
(Laughter)
(Cheers and applause)
So, yeah, that happened.
And while you may not have tasted what I just tasted,
you felt what I felt.
Your sympathetic nervous system activated,
increasing your heart rate and tensing your muscles.
Your anterior insula flared, creating a feeling of disgust.
Little nausea, slight gag reflex.
Am I going to get sick now?
I don't know.
(Laughter)
But I do know this.
I am so glad you're uncomfortable.
Congratulations, truly.
Because that discomfort,
that is the first essential step to creating confident kids.
And you can trust me on this one.
I make kids uncomfortable for a living.
This week I had an eight-year-old stab me with a needle, twice,
took a kid into a basement on a spider safari
and played Uno on the bathroom floor with an understandably reluctant teen.
It's only Wednesday.
Now I’m not doing this stuff because I’m an evil psychologist.
I'm doing this because as a pediatric anxiety and OCD expert,
I'm a professional bravery coach.
I'd like to tell you about a kid that I worked with years ago named Sammy.
Sammy was this sweet little third-grade string bean who lived for adventure.
Bright, curious, optimistic,
could tell you everything you honestly never needed to know
about airport design.
But Sammy had a fear: bees.
His brain appreciated bees, vital pollinators.
His body, however, reacted like they were flying yellow needles
with some anger issues.
As soon as those leaves turned green,
Sammy would initiate his own personal bee safety protocol.
No sweets outside, social distancing from the flowers,
even staying inside during his family's cabin trips.
When Sammy got to me,
he and his parents had tried everything to get rid of this anxiety.
Deep breathing, distraction.
No luck.
They had also debated the fear endlessly.
His parents would reassure him,
"You won't get stung."
Sammy reminded his parents they were not fortune telling wizards in four words:
"How do you know?"
This phobia was stealing Sammy's childhood
one sunny summer day at a time.
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