Championing Children’s Confidence And Self-Worth In Learning And Life With Marnie David
Building confidence and embracing self-worth are vital for learning and navigating life's challenges. That is why as adults, we need to start instilling these things into our children as soon as we can. In this episode, Marnie David, a Wholistic NeuroGrowth Learning Success coach, teacher, and author, shares her journey from struggling with low self-esteem as a twin to becoming a champion for children's confidence and self-worth. Drawing from personal experiences and professional expertise, Marnie discusses the pivotal role of parental mindset, her transition from teaching to coaching, and the key messages from her books aimed at empowering teenagers. The conversation delves into the importance of communication skills, nurturing self-esteem, and supporting teenagers through academic and emotional challenges. Through candid insights and practical advice, Marnie inspires parents to create a supportive environment for their teenagers to thrive emotionally, academically, and socially.
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Championing Children’s Confidence And Self-Worth In Learning And Life With Marnie David
Hello and welcome. My guest is Marnie David. She is not a teacher. She is also a holistic neuro-growth learning success coach and a writer who helps young children feel better about themselves. Marnie knows what it's like to feel awkward and unsure because she's been there. She has come a long way and now she's using her story to help others find their confidence. She helped many kids and even her own family how to be proud of who they are. Let's dive in and hear all about Marnie's tips and tricks for feeling great about ourselves. Welcome, Marnie.
Hello, Marnie. Welcome to our show. How are you?
I'm great. How are you?
Marnie David’s Why
Very good. Thank you for coming in. Marnie, tell us why you help children and others feel better.
My whole life, I struggled with self-esteem. Growing up, I’m a twin. I have a twin sister and we're only three minutes apart in age. Naturally, I always had someone right there next to me to compare myself to. I compared myself to everything about her. In my head, she was better at math, better at sports, better at making friends, everything. My whole life, I always told myself I wasn't worthy. I always compared myself. I knew that when I became a teacher I did not want my students to ever feel that way. I didn't want them to compare themselves to other people. I made it my mission to work with kids. I’m feeling good about myself. That was the number one thing before even teaching or academics or any of that. I wanted to make sure that they felt good.
This comparison, was it something that you created from a young age, or were your parents also doing that because they had twins at the same time?
I feel like my parents had good intentions. I feel like all parents have good intentions. I also have a brother. When you have three kids and two that are twins, I think it's natural to compare. My parents had a pretty fixed mindset about things. I would hear my mother say that I'm not a math person, or “You're good at this,” and I'm not good at this. I thought everything was always fixed as a kid. Everything is set in stone when you're born. You have this set of skills. You're good at these things and you're not good at other things and that's it. I think it started from how I grew up and having that fixed mindset in the back of my mind.
How was your relationship with your sister while you were growing up? You were always comparing. How was that relationship?
We had a pretty good relationship. Now, we're best friends. As sisters, we were a little competitive, especially when we got older into high school, but we were pretty close. It was just that I had set in my mind that she was good at all these things and I wasn't. We fell into those roles. She embraced that and then embraced being the president of all the teams. I retorted into this awkward person with low self-esteem and low self-worth for most of my young adult and childhood.
Were you looking up to your sister or was it a constant comparison in your mind?
I think a little bit of both. I was comparing myself to her and wanting to be more like her. Why can't these things come easily to me? Now that I talk to her, she says, “I worked hard at these things.” I always thought they come easy to her and I'm not going to try.
This comparison, I always talk about when we're parents we sometimes do it unintentionally. It is never intentional to harm our kids. We're not doing it intentionally, but we say things like you've been saying a couple of times, “I'm not a math person.” It's a big deal for a child to learn that. We're not a math family because I've been working with so many math families myself who come for help or get help from me. That's one thing they always say, “We’re not a math family. I’m not a math person.” All of a sudden, you shut the door. We’re not born with math skills because it’s something that we develop. It’s a concept but it means a lot more than a concept because it all validates in the environment we live in. Still, when we say it to our kids, they take it as meaningful and powerful.
My whole life I said, “I'm not a math person.” Later when I became a teacher, the math staff developer in my school had this beautiful poster. She's now the principal of my school. She had this beautiful poster with pictures of all the children in her class at the time. It said, “How to be a math person? Number one, be a person. Number two, do the math.” That's stuck with me.
Isn't that how we learn anything? If I want to be a piano person, be a person and practice piano.
I do think that it comes naturally to some people. Some people are born with these skills. It's in their genes to be a piano player, but that doesn't mean that you and I can't learn to play piano. It may take longer for us. We might have to work a little harder than people who have that natural talent. It wasn't until I started developing this growth mindset and learning about growth mindset and teaching it to my students that this whole world opened up to me. As I was teaching it to my students, I learned, “Wait a minute. I'm an athlete.” I started going for runs and doing races.
I can be an athlete and I can be a math person. When I became a teacher, I had to teach myself the math that I never understood as a kid. When I learned how to teach it to myself, I learned how to learn. We talk about that as coaches. I do understand this math. I just had to learn it in a different way. The way that I was taught and the mindset that I had was I'm bad at math and I don't understand this. This whole world opened up to me when I realized that I could have a growth mindset. I have to change my perspective and the whole world and all these doors open up.
Develop A Growth Mindset
When you say growth mindset, even mindset the word mindset is a resulting situation. A growth mindset is a result. What does it take for someone to get to a growth mindset? There's a path. There's a journey to it. You just don't know it’s right there. There's a journey you took there. What was the first step you took to learn math?
Discovering that this is something that I can do. Step one is having a struggle and recognizing the struggle, “This is hard for me,” and then breaking it down and saying, “It's something that I have to unpack and teach myself and then try.” I think it's a process of learning.
It’s learning how we learn. How do I learn? It's very important. It doesn't matter how everybody else learns but how do I learn? That's what is missing in our system and the school system. We don't allow our students to discover how they learn because every child learns differently.
I was amazed when I went to college. College was a time in my life when learning was easy. I realized I had to take all this material and teach it to myself. I sat in my dorm room and I taught myself the math concepts. I looked through the books. I learned how to take notes, highlight my notes, and study everything myself. Once I started doing that, I realized that I could do hard things. I started having this mantra, “This is tough, but I'm tougher.” I say that to students all the time.
I'll be in front of the classroom and I'll be struggling with technology, like setting up a computer to project onto the board. It comes so easily to kids, but as adults, that technology can be so tricky. I'll use that as an opportunity. I'll be in front of the class struggling, feeling myself get hot, everyone is watching, and it’s not working. I'll say, “Miss David, this is tough but I'm tougher. I can do hard things.” I'll stand there and I'll grapple with it for a while and I'll get it and they'll see that. When I see them struggling, I try to remind them of those words, “What do you have to tell yourself? This is tough but I'm tougher. Remember, you got through that tough thing last time. You can get through that tough thing again.”
Becoming A Teacher And A Coach
It's pushing that boundary of what was tough for you earlier is no longer tough. Now the next tough is the next obstacle. When we say, “I can’t do something,” we're raising a wall in front of us or putting a block in front of us. We have to pass through it. As long as we see the wall, we usually tend to blame others. It’s like somebody else said it, but most of the time, it’s our stories that create that wall. If we can break that wall, then we can do tougher things. How did you decide to become a teacher?
I came from a few generations of teachers. Both my parents were teachers and my grandfather was a teacher. That was always in my blood, but I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. That was always something that was in the back of my mind. It wasn't until I was in my 20s when I was in college and thinking about what I was going to do. I knew that I didn't want other kids to struggle like I did. I didn't want children to have low self-esteem like I did. I wanted to become a teacher, work with these kids, and make them feel good about themselves.
Even if that meant we weren't doing academics all the time, I wanted them to learn to feel good about themselves because there was something I always struggled with silently. No one knew about it. My teachers didn't know. I was always very well-behaved and always did the right thing but inside there was this sad low self-esteem kid. I didn't want my students to ever face that again. I wanted to do that.
During that time, what helped you? Internally, how did you help yourself? You're feeling this low self-esteem. You’re not telling anyone. I'm sure you've also made your parents feel like you're okay. You don’t go to them. Did you go to them for support?
No. I always kept everything inside. The way that I help myself feel better is a lot of self-talk. There was a lot of negative self-talk there, but there was also a lot of journaling. I did do a lot of journaling even as a young kid. That was a way for me to express my feelings and feel better. While I was going through things, I had a lot of these big feelings. When I came home, I would write a lot of my feelings down. I still had so many of the journals. I think getting that out on paper is so important.
When we keep it inside, it turns into this toxic energy and it turns into so much anxiety that comes out later as adults. One thing that I do in the classroom is I have a feelings wheel. This is something that can work with any age from elementary school through high school. I noticed that kids have a hard time expressing how they feel. We have such a limited vocabulary. “I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm mad” are the three words that young children have.
When we keep feelings inside, it turns into this toxic energy. It turns into so much anxiety that comes out later as adults.
Even in high school, I have noticed that kids don't have the vocabulary to express their emotions. With the feelings, you can look at, “This is how I'm feeling.” You develop this vocabulary like, “I'm frustrated, I'm feeling inferior, I'm feeling inadequate,” or even some positive feelings as well like, “I'm excited.” Recognizing those feelings and having the language for it takes away from all the anxiety. Putting a label and recognizing it helps with feeling better and knowing where you can go from there.
With this frustration versus I'm sad or mad, frustration goes to the source because there must be something frustrating you. What is that thing that's frustrating you, so we can go to the source of it and dig and fix it? I never thought of it like that. We always talk about a lot of things as the end words. For example, I was earlier mentioning mindset. People say, “Have a positive mindset, have a growth mindset.” I'm trying but I don't know how. It's the end part of it.
What about the journey to it? How do I get to my growth mindset? It’s a process. That's why a lot of students and a lot of kids have trouble with those words since we're talking about the end result, “I know I want to be that but I don't know how to get there. Who’s going to tell me how to get there?” It's the same for the feelings you mentioned. If I say sad and mad, I don't know why are you sad and mad. I need more information.
If you're frustrated, I know something is not working for you. Something is happening that's frustrating. Is it someone or something or is it you, then we can get to it. That's pretty cool to look at it that way. You got into teaching and then now you are a holistic neural growth learning success coach as well. Why did you choose to become a holistic neural growth learning success coach? If parents are listening to this, tell me the difference that you see between being a teacher and a holistic neural growth learning success coach.
As a teacher, most of my classes are between 25 and 30 students. It's a lot of kids. The way that the school is set up is I have to teach to the middle. I have to teach a curriculum that is set for where most of the kids are. It cleaves out the kids who are struggling or children who need to be challenged. Especially with social-emotional work, which is important to me. I didn't have the time in the day or in my schedule to work with that. Maybe a small percentage of the time to be able to work with those students.
I was always teaching to the middle and then those kids who put their heads down during math because they're frustrated, or who are acting out during a lesson because they're bored. It is not challenging. I don't have the resources or time to address that and find out what's going on with those kids. As a coach, I can work with these children one-on-one, customize a plan, and find out what's going on. Getting to the root cause of what's upsetting them and getting to work with them on a holistic level, not just academically.
Most of your job as a teacher is to deliver the curriculum because you have deadlines to meet. You do have tests to do and report cards to send. There's a time frame that you have to run with. You then have to teach to the middle because there's no way you can address everyone's concerns or everyone's social-emotional needs or any of that stuff. Here, this is different from a learning success coach. You're teaching them not only what they're learning but also how to learn, which is a big part of what you do as a learning success coach, which is interesting. Tell me a little bit about that. What does that mean for parents? When you're teaching what to learn versus how to learn and even why you learn.
Children are coming home with homework and they have to complete the assignment and get the answers right. Parents tell them, “This is how I learned math, so this is how you're going to do it. You have to carry the one and you have to add,” but what's the math behind that? I think understanding what works best for the kid, letting them explore the math problems on their own, and maybe trying out different techniques because one technique doesn't work for everybody. Parent has to allow their kid at home to try out many different strategies and see what works best.
As a coach, what we do is get the students or the child to explore that. A lot of the time, it only comes to exploring what works for me because we necessarily don't know what works for me. By exploring and making mistakes, they're going to give us feedback. It will help the child learn more about themselves. Also, mistakes are good because you can teach them how to deal with them, especially with subjects like math.
Most of us shut down, “I got it wrong. I must not be good at math. Put it away. Close the book.” Instead now, let's look at where did we go wrong? Why is this wrong? Why is your answer not right? Sometimes I teach my students to not just take the book for it, but to question it. “I did all the steps. Why is my answer wrong?” It's a valid question. You have to become an investigator and not just give up because the book says it's the wrong answer. Maybe they're wrong.
I feel like that's where you learn the most. It is when you make those mistakes and you understand, “I made this mistake. That's because I was doing this wrong.” When I think about the growth mindset, I always go back to the kitchen and cooking. If I'm cooking something and my meal comes out way too salty, that gives me feedback and I know that next time, I'm going to use a quarter of that amount of salt. If it comes out burnt, I'll know next time when I make this dish, I'm going to put the temperature lower. I wouldn't know those things unless I made those mistakes. It's the same in the classroom. It's the same with math. The best way to teach ourselves is by making these mistakes and knowing where we're struggling, That's going to help us learn how to do things in our own way.
The best way to teach ourselves is by making these mistakes and knowing where we're struggling. That's going to help us learn how to do things in our own way.
Parenting
How do you help your sons? You have two kids yourself. You said your parents did a little bit of comparison that got you started. How about you? Do you protect yourself from comparing them both?
Yes. It's funny because we grow up a certain way and then we tell ourselves as parents, “I'm going to either be the complete opposite,” or we tend to adopt what we learn from our parents. I think I'm doing a little bit of both. If I catch myself comparing my kids, I'll catch that right away because I don't want to do that and I don't want them to feel that way. I use that language with my kids when they're doing their schoolwork. Even when they're not doing their schoolwork, I'll use that language, “This is so hard, but I can do this. I could do hard things,” and when my children are doing their work and getting frustrated.
My older son especially gets very frustrated if he doesn't get the answer correct right away. As parents, it's so hard to do schoolwork with your children. Even as a teacher, I have all these skills in the classroom. I know how to teach, but working with your own child at home is a whole different story because that's where all the behaviors happen. My son will throw his book on the floor or tell me, “I don't know anything.” It's so hard working with your own children with homework. I'm a teacher so I can only imagine other parents working with their kids on their homework. They're not necessarily trained in how to teach these things so it must be even that much harder.
I find it seems to be with my son. I have a different expectation. It's just an expectation. As parents, we have a relationship and we have an expectation of our kids already. Those two are already at the forefront and then we tried to teach. It doesn't matter how much training one has. The dynamic is so different and they also behave differently. Sometimes it's not the way they sit. The way he sits is bothering me. He's not holding the pencil and that's bothering me.
Certain things bother you and you're looking at it and you want to correct it, but that's not the whole point of this exercise. This exercise is for them to get the work done. I can't talk about that. I have to hold myself back. You have to learn this newfound patience, which is so hard to bite your tongue with a lot of different things. I always hire someone for my son to work with him even though I'm a success coach myself because I recognize that I have different expectations for my own son.
It's so much harder working with your own kid at home.
Your patience is very thin. You don’t spank very quickly. You have to be mindful because that's when you can damage your child with whatever you're going to say. You might be triggered by your own parent's parenting. You drop something in and you'll regret it so much after because you dropped something that you would never want to drop. To protect all that, I get him to do it on his own even if I explain something.
That's another thing. I never sit with him. If I explain something, I have to walk away. I will never sit and watch him do it because the speed he's doing is not enough for me. I want him to do it faster and you can't say, “You should do it faster.” Walk away. The whole time, I was coaching myself while I was trying to help my son because I could turn into my dad quickly. My dad was very strict. When I was growing up, if we didn't get something like that, he'd be like, “Are you stupid?”
That's so tough.
If my son doesn't get it, my dad shows up so I have to go walk away. I'm like, “Don't say anything. Walk away. This is different. You're not your dad.” It’s continuous training and that's what I put in my book. One of the chapters in my new book was about how your parent's parenting will affect your parenting.
Your parents' parenting will affect your parenting.
Even though we try so hard to not make the same mistakes our parents made, it always comes up The good thing is all the good things and all the good quality come out also.
It's a very good topic because a lot of parents do help their kids. It is good to help your kids because that's where you're bonding. They're seeing that my dad and my mom care about my work. Having them on the dining table in the evening time and doing that work establishes a routine. They're proud to share their work. Before you get into that, you must tell yourself patience and don't say things that you're going to regret. That’s what I coach myself before I enter the scene.
That's so important, and to not have to control every little. When my son was doing his homework, his handwriting was like, “Come on. You have better handwriting than that.” He’d say, “My teacher doesn't care. Stop it, Mommy.” I have to walk away and pick the things that I want to be helping him with. Is this that important right now?
Handwriting is one of them that upsets me too and I don't say anything. I'm like, “As long as you can read it. Make it that I can read it too a little bit,” and then we're good. I'm going to walk away because I'm going to say something that I don't want you to hear. When we were kids, we practiced handwriting. We needed to practice day after day. I'd love that because when I'm doodling, I go back to those days. I remember and I start doodling my name or something and it's a passive time. It's artistic. You get into the artwork and put it away.
It’s cathartic.
It helps you relax. Now, we don't teach our kids those. That's gone. I like the time that I got to learn how to handwrite. How about the boys? Do they compare themselves? Do you see that?
I don't see that at all. They are like night and day, my two children. There's a three-and-a-half-year difference. That might have something to do with it. They're not too close in age, but I'm lucky and I'm very happy that they don't compare themselves or compare each other. Maybe when they get older, things might change. That's when I'll have to start stepping in or noticing that and trying to help them from comparisonitis.
It is a disease. Because you were shy, do you recommend them to journal? You said journaling helped you. Did you put that habit into their lives or are they doing that?
My older son journals and writes all the time. My younger son is in first grade. He's a little younger. He hasn't started that yet, but my older son does journal. They both pick up on things that they see me doing. They see me journaling sometimes. They see me reading. Some of my behaviors, I don't want them to copy, so I try to pay attention and do the behaviors that I want them to model. They spend time journaling, meditating, and exercising. They see that and I'm hoping that part of them is absorbing that and learning to do that too.
Of course, they do. They are watching us all the time. We need to be careful what they are seeing. My son went to Chile and he's at the homestay now. My mother-in-law said he should take a diary or a simple book with him. She said, “Write every day one thing or something. By the time you come back in July, you will have a whole storybook to tell everyone.” You don't have to tell everyone if you don't want to but at least you have something to write.” That's what she did every time she went traveling. She would take a book and write every day something about that day.
Even one sentence.
She said, “They don't have to be long. Just write something,” because we forget. After you come back from a long trip or long overstay or somewhere, you don't remember. What did I do that day? I don't know. It's all blends.
It blends together. You think looking at the pictures will give you all the memories but it's not the same.
Confidence And Social Skills
Words are different. That makes me want to ask you about your books. You have two books out. Tell us about those books. Why did you write them? What are the names?
I wrote two books about confidence, self-esteem, and social skills. The first one is called The Confident Teen and the second one is called The Social Teen.
Is this for teenagers?
Yeah, this is for teenagers. Most of my work is with elementary school-age kids. I work in elementary school, but I wanted to do something that would impact teenagers or kids as they got older. I remember as a teenager, that's when I had the most trouble. I went into a little bit of depression and tough times. I wasn't teaching at that age, but I knew I wanted to have an impact so I wrote those two books.
The first book talks about comparisonitis. I love that word. I use it all the time now even with my kids, but how that can affect your self-esteem. The big takeaway from that is to be your authentic self even if you think you're awkward or nerdy or whatever it is. It's a filter. Be yourself and the people who aren't your people will naturally filter away. Those who are your friends who are meant to be your friends will like you for exactly who you are.
That was the first one. My second book is about social skills and conversation skills. I feel like that's a lost art, especially now that everybody is on social media. Everybody is on the computer. We don't know how to interact with each other. We're not talking on the phone anymore. We’re just texting each other.
I think you have an even bigger message there. During those ages from puberty, getting into 13 and 14, I think we shut down. We are trying to find our voice. I don't know if it happened to you. I lost completely myself and I don't know. I was scared to talk many times because I wasn't sure if I had the adult language. I didn't have this young person's language anymore. I wasn't in the middle zone.
You try to figure out who you are and it's so confusing.
I was unsure if I was going to be accepted. My dad said, “Phone this office,” I had the biggest fear of calling any office. “What do I say? What if they ask me this?” All these scenarios, I will play out and I freak out. I pick up the phone and then it's all right and it'll be fine. Any phone calls were the worst thing in my life at that time. Did that happen to you?
Yeah, because making a phone call, you have to be asking for something specific. There are certain languages that you have to use. That's not something that we use every single day, like having to ask or something.
I would pick up and I would not give any background. I will just ask the question because my dad said, “Just ask the question.”
“One pizza, please.” “What? Do you want something delivered?” There was no introduction. There was no background information. It was like, “Here's my question. Answer me.” They’re like, “Who are you?” I'm like, “I have to start with my name.”
I told my son who is now seventeen, but earlier when I would tell him he would not call the person he would say. Yeah, I'll call I'll put it on my list then I started joking with him, is that on your list? Because he started creating this list for everything I was telling him.
It’s the never-ending list of things that you say you're going to do.
He had a fear of calling. When they get their first job, do they have to drop the other resume or their application? Do they have to speak to a stranger for a job? That was hard for him because he's like, “What do I say? What if he has that?” I was like, “Just go to the appointment and relax and be yourself. Answer the question that he asks. You don't have to prepare because you're not lying. It’s the truth. Whatever the truth is, just tell them that. Be who you are.” That's how he got his first job. He came back saying, “That was not that bad.”
The next time, it'll be even easier.
That's a very important book for teenagers. Do you talk about different conversations?
I have different scenarios. If you're in school or if you're at a family gathering or even a church setting, community setting, and all different kinds of situations. How to start a conversation, how to end a conversation, even how to make friends.
Did you go into the body language too?
Yes. Our body language is a huge one, open and close, eye contact.
That's another one for teenagers. They don't look at you.
Often, especially teenagers and young adults. They’re looking down or looking at their phones. In my book, I talk about looking someone in the eyes, having open body language, not slouching, and standing with your arms by your side confidently. That'll help the other person you’re talking to feel more comfortable too.
Confidence is so important to the conversation you're going to have. Your body posture is so important too and it changes your volume too. I've been practicing that because when speaking on podcasts and stuff, I've been speaking from my diaphragm more.
That's what they tell singers to do.
That's what my training has been. Where can parents find these two books? Where are they?
They're on Amazon. They're also sold online in stores like Barnes & Noble and Target, but mostly if you go on Amazon, you can find them in hardcover and paperback.
How do you suggest the parents use it? Do the parents have to read it too or is it just for the child? When you wrote it, what did you have in your mind?
I wrote it for teenagers. The voice that I use is a voice that I speak to with teenagers. I also think parents, teachers, any kind of caregiver, and counselors, I think that book would be helpful for them as well, even just to skim and see what is being taught in the book. They can use those skills to teach the kids that they're working with as well. It is written for teenagers, but it could be for anybody.
What if a parent buys it and the teenager says, “No, thank you.” It can happen. How do you suggest they bring this book or any book? Sometimes I have recommendations for my son because we're so consumed with other stuff now and in society as well. Reading has become less and less. If we don't, As parents, if we don’t bring the book to our kids and say, “Let's read,” and we don't model as you earlier said, there's a chance that they'll never read a book. We do have to make sure they are reading. Let's say I'm going to take it to my seventeen-year-old, how do I introduce it?
You can say, “I found this great book and it's about somebody who struggled as a teenager.” It's not the stuffy book written by this academic, even though I do consider myself a little bit of an expert.
You are. What I’m saying is sometimes people talk down like they don't share the vulnerabilities that you've already shared. You’ve already shared your vulnerability. It’s so important. That's what I meant.
All these are from my own life that are shared in the book. It's like getting down to earth with them and being like listen I’ve been there. I know exactly what you're going through. It's like a companion to their lives. It's not a kind of academic textbook. It’s a social skills book that has a lot of quizzes also to see what's my personality like and how am in social situations.
It's good for them to get to know themselves. I do this myself. I try to set goals for reading because I fell out of the habit of reading and I'm trying to get back into it. Having a goal like a chapter a day and even if that's too much, maybe a chapter a week even, but having that goal. You don't have to read the whole book but let's try with a chapter and see if you like it. Give it a chance, but break it up.
When I read The Atomic Habit, I wanted my son to read it. I knew he wasn't going to read it because I asked him and he said, “It's on my list, Mom.” I said, “That list is never going to be done. I'm going to make that item on that let's come up at the beginning of the list.” When we go on a trip, I always find that we have so much time. Me too because we're busy parents too.
We went on our trip and in the evening I would read. I would say, “I want to share something with you,” and he wasn't going to read it. “I want to share this page with you. Can you read it and then I want you to tell me because I have something I thought about I wouldn't tell you.” I make it exciting that you want to find something in there, “What is she talking about?” When he got hooked up on a couple of different pages, then he said, “That's interesting stuff, Mom.”
It's so interesting. I love that book.
He wasn't going to read it if I gave him the whole book. It's pretty thick too. It's never going to happen. We didn't end up finishing it, but we took the majority of it that I read. I gave him to read it, and then we had a conversation. That's another way to introduce a book. Your child is not going to read it because teenagers these days, even those days when I was young, if my dad gave me something, I wouldn't have read it. I’m going, “No, I'm not reading it,” because we are rebellious.
I think that's such a great tip for parents to read it in front of them and to have a conversation about it. It's funny that you mentioned Atomic Habits because that's the book that I'm finishing up reading right now. My ten-year-old asked me when I was going to finish it because he wanted to read it next, I was thinking to myself, I don't know if it's for his age group, but I'm not going to fight that if that's something that he's interested in. He's looking up to me in the most amazing way. I'm so happy. With The Social Teen and The Confidence Teen, even having parents reading it in front of their kids and talking about it is a start. Maybe they'll pick it up when you're not looking and start to read themselves without you forcing them.
That's why we have to have magazines, books, and newspapers around the house because when our kids get bored and there's something there, they will look and they might even be glad to say, “I didn’t read it.” It's important to have that if they're bored. That's why I had always had paper everywhere in my house. My son still makes me hand-drawn birthday cards and all the cards. He never buys them. He always had crayons. I even have them now.
Writing Skills
He's seventeen. For my last birthday, he drew a card for me. That's because I left them around. I think some schooling parents also do that because it's natural. You do it as a natural thing around it and that's what they will go for. It's a good idea too. As a learning success coach, what do you offer now to students? What kind of programs do you offer?
My main focus is on writing skills because it's a passion of mine. I help students who are struggling with writing, getting their ideas on paper, and organizing their thoughts, even with the younger children starting basic sentences. That's one of the areas that I'm working with kids on. Also, mindfulness is another one of my areas of expertise. Teaching kids to identify their feelings and doing breathing activities before we start our sessions is something that I work on, as well as reading.
If a parent is listening right now and their child is having writing issues, what's one tip you can share with them? Let's go with the teenagers because that's what we're talking about here. We have a teenager who doesn't like writing. Their essays are not handed in. They're getting low grades and they don't want to write. How can they help them?
They can help them by being supportive. I think that's the number one thing, and listening to them and finding out what's going on, why they're having trouble, or why they're not wanting to write. You could find out a lot by being there and listening. You could find out what the root of the problem is. Maybe the topic is something that they're not familiar with. Maybe they're worried about their spelling. Maybe they're worried about their handwriting, or they feel like they have so much to say and not enough time to do it.
I think finding out the root cause of the problem is a start, then seeing if you could fix one problem at a time. If it's spelling, what can we do to help you figure out how to spell some of these words? Can use a dictionary or can you spell it the best you can and we can go back and try to work on fixing those words and circling them? Figure out what the problem is or what is holding them back and trying to tackle one problem at a time.
What if teenagers tend to not want to respond to their parents? They turn to push them away. The minute teenagers start struggling, what they do is push their parents away because they don't want them to know. They don't know how to tell them they're struggling. That's why I always say to parents that start conversations early, like your sons, where they are. If you have always had a conversation, they're not going to push you away because they already know how we had those conversations.
My son will never push me away. Even if he’s mad or even if he knows that I'm going to say something that's going to make him mad, he'll still tell me. It was just a matter of days that he would wait. He said, “I don't think I can hold this anymore because I'm not telling you the truth, so I have to tell you. I'm not doing well in this. I did this. I don't think it's right. Can you help me?”
That's only happened because, since the day he was born, I've always talked to him. I never judged him. Whenever he said something, even saw my dad wanted to come out of me and say things, I would stop it and I would swallow it and say, “That's not who you are. Don't say it.” You have to start early. It's important. Your son's age is so precious where they are right now. If you can do that, they will come to you.
They can feel like it’s okay to tell me you’re struggling or tell me that something is wrong.
Even with my son having that relationship with them, he says to me, “I can’t share feelings.” As he gets older and older and he’s seventeen, he would tell me, “I can’t tell you my feelings. I don’t want to deal with my feelings.” That’s one thing he would not do. I asked him, “Where did you get that? Why do you say that? What do you mean you can’t share your feelings?” He says, “Mom, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t need therapy.” Somewhere, he feels like if you share feelings, it's supposed to be therapy. I'm like, “No one is giving you therapy. I'm not even a therapist.”
As teenagers, they don't like to share feelings too. That they tend to. That's why asking them to write, as you said, journaling would help. They don't have to tell us but they can write. They could dump it onto a piece of paper. No one has to read it again, but by allowing that, they are speaking out because sometimes they may not tell us. Some feelings that a seventeen-year-old has that he doesn't want to tell his mom. It's okay to write it down. Having a structure like that you recommended would be a great thing to start early. Now, they have a tool they can go to.
That could go with schoolwork. I hate my writing teacher and I don't want to do my writing assignment, even the journaling about that.
“I hate her but I still have to work with her because she's my teacher. What do I do now?” I had so many conversations with my son about that. He would say, “I don't like the teacher, Mom.” I said, “We can't change the class now. You're in it. How are we going to problem solve?”
That's something that we're going to have to deal with our whole life, working with people that we don't like and learning to work around it. They can't be protected when they're in school from teachers that they don't like because they need to learn how to work for people and work with people that they don't like.
If you are a parent who has a teenager, I'm saying go back, but you cannot go back if you're already a teenager. I think your tool is number one, asking them to do some journaling, get their feelings out, and go talk to their teacher. Even if you cannot get in there and help them and they're shutting you down away from you, just say, “Have you gone to talk to the teacher? Can I come and talk to her?” They will say, “No, you’re not getting close to my teacher.”
“Do not embarrass me, Mom.”
“Don’t ever do that. I can handle it.” Be very proactive and give them the instructions to go talk to them and ask them what you can do. Sometimes if they fail something and if they don't go talk to the teacher, they can redo it. They might have a chance to redo it. This is the time for a communication part. How do you go talk to your teacher?
You have to use those social skills and those conversations starters with your teacher.
It is a tough time for many parents right now because the phone does have a lot to do with our teenager's life. It's part of it. There's been quite a bit of time on it, but as parents, we need to guide them to control the usage. They still need guidance. I think every child needs guidance and they like it, even if they push it.
Yes, because you're showing that you care. If you say, “Go on your iPad. I'm going to do my own thing. Get out of my way and be quiet.” Even if you're not saying that, it's showing them that's how you feel if you don't set these boundaries. It's so much easier to let both my sons be on their iPads or watch TV so I can have quiet time, but what is that showing them? That does happen. I'm human.
I see that happening sometimes, and that's when I have to set the boundaries. They'll fight with me and it's so much harder. My little one will cry and even my older one will get upset with me when I set those boundaries with their screens. I think in the back of their mind, they're seeing, “She cares about me. She's setting boundaries and she wants to spend time with me, and she doesn't want me to be in my room on a screen the whole night.”
It's very important to set those boundaries now and the balance. Otherwise, they're going to grow up not knowing what that is too. This is the time to learn. Anything else you want to add?
The Importance Of Self-Esteem
No, this was wonderful to talk to you. I think self-esteem is so important with children and teenagers and it's something that's not spoken about so much in schools. I think getting social-emotional learning, getting to the root cause of our feelings, and learning social skills are so important. It's something that we shouldn't overlook as teachers, parents, and coaches.
Self-esteem is so important with children and teenagers, and it's something that's not really spoken about so much in schools.
Social skills, especially as we go more and more online and not being in present with others and in school too. Not being around others, manners and stuff changed. Communication patterns have changed. One of the things I look for is a smile. It's such a beautiful thing. During COVID, we couldn’t see anyone smile. I got into depression because I received energy from people smiling at the time. I started taking pictures of flowers during COVID. I would go outside and find flowers. I have an Instagram with all these pictures of flowers during that time. Otherwise, I was going to get depressed. I needed to see something beautiful. Human smiles are important for kids to know. Tell me, before we go, what are some ingredients for self-esteem?
For self-esteem, it is positive self-talk, accepting yourself or your flaws and everything, being your authentic self, and accepting yourself for who you are.
Also for me, I think vulnerability. I just wanted to be me. This is me. There’s nothing different. I'm not going to pretend to be something else or someone else. This is me. Sometimes I speak like this. Sometimes I say some things stupid to other people but this is me. As you said, whoever accepts us will stay with us. Whoever doesn't want us will go away. That's the whole point. You can't be with everyone.
That's a natural filtering system that we have through vulnerability, being authentic, and not comparing ourselves.
Self-talk, acceptance, and not comparing. Thank you so much, Marnie.
Thank you, Kohila.
This is lovely. This is an awesome conversation. I think parents have lots of tips to help their teenagers because teenagers are so important and it's also hard. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Be well.
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There you have another episode with Marnie. We learned a lot from that episode. I took some notes so I don't forget some of the talking points. I remember this very well, “This is tough, but I am tougher than this that I'm going through.” This is so important to not give up. Never give up. We are going to face hard things but we have to say, “I'm going to do it.” I have talked many times about saying, “I'm not a math person. I'm not an English person.” I used to say that I'm not an English person until I started in my attitude.
I had to say, “You know what? I can write. I can read. I can do things. I love English.” Replacing those words is so powerful. It's so powerful for our children and ourselves. If you were struggling with math when you were young, as a parent, don't share that with your child, “Because I'm not a math person, you don't get the genes. You're going to be also bad at math.” You can share that I struggled, but I didn't try hard enough. Maybe I didn't have the best teacher. Maybe I shut myself down. Maybe by sharing those, you will motivate your child to try.
All they need to do is try to do math and they'll become math person. As Marnie says, “To be a math person, you have to be a person and you have to do math.” To be an English person who's good at writing, I have to be a person and I have to do reading and writing. It's easy when we put it that way. I love what she said. She does have two books for teenagers and I wanted to ask her how we get our teenagers to read. I do have a teenager myself and I had other kids too. I know how hard is for them to receive a book and start reading, especially in this electronic world with the phone in their hand.
I find with my son that if I read it and I ask him, “Can you read this paragraph here?” I will give him a little chunk to read, and then I will discuss that with him. He would have never read the whole book The Atomic Habit by himself because I knew he wasn't going to do it. He said he was going to put it on the list and I know if you have a child who puts their stuff on the list. After I showed him these paragraphs, he read them and he was very excited to read more of them. We have to bring to our children’s attention that something is interesting here, read this.
It's like showing them a newspaper and saying, “Look at this news,” because we all get excited about the latest news. It's the same way. I'm doing it in the book. Have books around your house, in the bathroom, and the living room. Everywhere, leave books and even papers, pens, crayons, coloring pencils, and markers because when they're bored, they will pick that up and they will draw. It doesn’t have to be something big they do, but we're building that little habits. That adds up to the habit that they're going to have in the future.
If you do have a child who is already a teenager and they're not sharing their feelings with you, they are struggling in reading or writing, helping them as a parent is hard. We talked about that because the patience level that we have as parents in helping our own kids is different than when we're helping others. I've been thinking about that myself. What is it that changes in me when I'm with my son versus with all the thousands of kids that I helped in my life? I have pinpointed that it's always been my expectation.
For some reason, as parents, we have different expectations for our kids versus what we have for other people's kids. We have way bigger bandwidth of patience with other people's kids versus our kids. There are some things that will trigger something that happened to you when you were young. That's why if you had a trauma growing up or if you had parents who were tough and strict and they said some bad things to you, these can be triggered when you're working with your child. You have to be very careful not to hurt them. Sometimes when we're triggered, we could hurt our kids.
That's why helping your kids especially teenagers is very hard. What is the solution? Ask them to go talk to their teacher, teach them communication skills, buy Marnie's book and bring it into your home, and teach them communication skills and self-esteem so that they can start doing it by themselves. You can just be that guide to them or the guiding force, but you can sometimes do it with them because might push you away. We all did that too. When we are teenagers, we are very rebellious.
At the end, I asked Marnie three things about self-esteem. We talked about having positive self-talk. It's so important. This is all my methodology as well. I always have said that how we talk to our brain is how our actions and results are. We're talking it in a negative language. We're talking and saying all these negative things. We never say anything positive. Why would we expect any positive results or actions?
It's important to have positive self-talk, then it is acceptance of who I am, “I am this person. I'm okay. It's okay. I am who I am. I'm beautiful. I am this person. This is fine.” Whoever I'm attracting, those are the people that I'm supposed to be with. Whoever I am reflecting are the people who I don't need. As she said, that is the filter that we all have. It's important to honor that filter and then be you.
We talked a lot about comparison. This is one thing that I want to leave you as parents tuning in to this. Do not ever compare your kids to anyone, anything, yourself, your other kids, or other people's kids because I don't know about you, I grew up with my dad comparing me to everyone and everything. It took me so long to get out that I didn't need to compare myself.
I'm not competing with anyone. I don't need to be compared. I have to be myself and I have to have positive self-talk. I have to be myself and be vulnerable and authentic. When I learned that, the comparison thing that my dad had implemented in my head or implanted in my head left and I felt so relieved.
If you had parenting like that, those are things that we tend to follow. I suggest that you be mindful and careful when you advise your children. Do it from a place of who they are, not from a place of, “You're this, they're this, why aren't you like this?” If we start talking like that, it's a constant comparison. They are like, “I don't want to be them. I am me.” We need to honor that. Thank you so much for watching and listening. I'll see you on another episode.
Important Links
Marnie David - LinkedIn
About Marnie David
Marnie David is a teacher, coach, and author of self-help books for young adults. She describes herself as a ‘recovering awkward person’, and has struggled with self-esteem issues most of her childhood and young adult life. When she became a teacher nearly 20 years ago, it became her mission to ensure that her students and her own children have a better experience with their self worth than she did. Through teaching her students, she grew her own confidence. Marnie's work and coaching practice is aimed at inspiring young people to grow their confidence and self-worth.
Today, we welcome Marnie David to the podcast —She's not just a teacher, but also a Wholistic NeuroGrowth Learning Success coach and a writer who helps young children feel better about themselves. Marnie knows what it is like to feel awkward and unsure — she's been there. But she's come a long way and now she's using her story to help others find their confidence. She has helped many kids and even her own family how to be proud of who they are. So let's dive in and hear all about Marnie's tips and tricks for feeling great about ourselves!
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