Rebecca Rolland: The Linguist Path to Enhancing Relationships

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. We're on a mission to make you remarkable.
Helping me in this episode is Rebecca Rolland.
Rebecca is a talented writer, devoted mother, and accomplished educator.
She is currently a lecturer at the prestigious Harvard Graduate School of Education and also serves on the faculty at Harvard Medical School.
As an oral and written language specialist at Boston Children's Hospital, Rebecca is also making a great impact on the lives of children. With a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a master's from the MGH Institute of Health Professions, a master's from Boston University, and a bachelor's from Yale, Rebecca's impressive educational credentials reflect her deep expertise in language and communication.
Rebecca has recently authored a book titled, The Art of Talking to Children. This guidebook shares Rebecca's journey as a speech pathologist and provides practical insights and strategies for parents and educators to engage in meaningful conversations with children.
Join us as we dive into Rebecca's incredible story and explore the power of language to transform lives. I'm Guy Kawasaki, this is Remarkable People, and now here's the remarkable Rebecca Rolland.
As a speech pathologist and an expert in conversation, how would you rate the typical congressional hearing we're seeing these days?
Rebecca Rolland:
I would have to say quite low unfortunately. Yes. I think there's so much talking at each other and very little talking with each other. So I think there's just so many people who have their own agendas and who really struggle to be open to other people's interpretations or opinions and really have a very fixed understanding of their own ideas. So I think that's a huge block to great conversations, and we see it there unfortunately.
Guy Kawasaki:
When we see recordings of these hearings, it's pretty apparent that they're not talking to each other, they're trying to get the sound bite in for Fox, right?
Rebecca Rolland:
Exactly. Yeah. I think that's also really hard in our current media landscape, is that as much as you can make things pithy and quick and snappy, sometimes the nuance gets lost there. I think that's a lot of what we're seeing.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, hopefully, the stuff that's not broadcast that they're really discussing, but I even doubt that these days. So that's one plunge into the deep end.
Rebecca Rolland:
Sure.
Guy Kawasaki:
Second plunge is, what do you think will happen long-term when politicians and school boards are trying to control what teachers are saying to and with their students, they're trying to control the conversation in school? What's going to happen in the long run?
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes, I think that's extremely concerning, both from an educational perspective and just from a broader philosophical perspective about who are we trying to raise as young people. We want people who can ask hard questions and who can explore topics that might feel out of their comfort zone. I think one consequence of this kind of pin down of topics and of conversation is that kids are not allowed and helped to process things with a trusted adult.
They're really just getting things from the news, from their friends, from all of these different sources, and yet they're making a lot of assumptions based on what they hear and see, but without the support to navigate those and to think critically about them. A lot of times, if you watch lots of YouTube videos, for example, they get more and more extreme. There's research showing that they're being framed in a way that amps up the extreme topics, the misunderstandings, all of that.
When we have children who are shamed into feeling like they can't talk about things, all of this is still discussed on the sidelines, but none of it is processed really with the support of an adult. I think the risk is that we have a lot of really anxious kids who feel ashamed about certain topics and also who are getting the wrong information and who don't really know what to do with it. I think that's a huge problem for education.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think this concern that we don't want our kids damaged and being ashamed of being white, or something like that, is that even plausible that this is the issue?
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes. I think what is so concerning to me as a misunderstanding is that we think we're protecting kids by not talking about things. But in reality, children are always making assumptions about what they see in the world, and the world is often a very unfair place. So they're making assumptions about how the world is based on these inequalities they're seeing, for example. And they may think even, oh, these inequalities are natural because they exist and nobody has talked about them.
So without someone to say these inequalities are here because of X, y, and Z factor, or because these people have been struggling to get jobs because of several issues or anything like that, we have kids who maybe actually ironically become more biased and more involved in their own circles, more isolated, because they're not able to have these conversations. So I think actually protecting kids means opening their minds and actually talking through these things much more than it does silencing them.
Guy Kawasaki:
My favorite story in your book is... I think the guy's name was Michael, where he was watching a video where a kid from Mexico was talking on the video-
Rebecca Rolland:
Oh, yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
... and he started complaining about the Mexican accent and... You tell the story. I thought it was a great story.
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes. Yeah. So yes, I was a speech pathologist working with this student who was watching a video of a child from Mexico who is speaking in English with a Mexican accent. And my student was making fun of this child. I was a very young speech pathologist and I wasn't really sure what to say, so I did the standard lecture of, "Oh, we shouldn't talk like that," or, "That's really rude. He's actually trying his best, and actually he's doing quite a good job," and all of this. It didn't seem to make much of an impact.
So, I had this understanding of, oh, my student is so biased, I don't understand what's going on, how can I help?
Later, I met with his parents, and I actually realized that they were immigrants themselves. The student didn't speak with an accent, but the parents actually did speak with quite heavy accents.
That was a real turning point for me because I realized, oh my goodness, this student who seems outwardly "American" and very assimilated actually is most likely ashamed of part of his own background and is turning that and projecting that onto this other person who he perceives as foreign and is pushing his anger outward.
For me, that really shows that when we don't take the time to discuss these and unwind our own assumptions about people, it can really take surprising and negative turn. Also, I think just that we nearly need to support children from different backgrounds in feeling worthy and celebrating those backgrounds rather than feeling like they need to hide them.
Guy Kawasaki:
I am writing a book based on interviews of remarkable people like you and that story is going into the book. I think that is a great story. A few months ago, I interviewed someone named Mark Labberton. At the time, he was the CEO of Fuller Seminary. Fuller Seminary is a Harvard Business School... I mean that in a positive, a Harvard Business School of Seminary.
He said, "Guy, instead of asking people, what do you believe about vaccination or what do you believe about immigration or why do you believe it? Instead, the question should be, how did you come to believe this?" So if you asked this kid, how did you come to believe that you should make fun of this other kid with a Mexican accent? You would've learned that he's from an immigrant family and "We've experienced this kind of criticism for not having a pure "American accent.” That would be very educational.
Rebecca Rolland:
That's great. I really like that question also because it's so non-judgmental as well. Rather than saying, "Oh, here I'm going to just immediately push back," in which case you're setting up a child for defensiveness, you're really starting to explore and show interest. How did your history lead you here? So I love that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now I'm going to get you out of the deep end of the pool and we'll go into the personal end of the pool and then we'll really get back to your topic at hand, okay?
Rebecca Rolland:
Sounds good.
Guy Kawasaki:
A question occurred to me as I was reading your book in my personal life, which is, at the end of the day... I have four kids. One's in college, two are out of college, but one's in high school. At the end of the day... the high school one still lives with us, I try to engage and I want to ask him, how was your day? What happened? And all that. I know that's just very suboptimal questions. So my question for you is, what are you supposed to say to your kids at the end of the day to foster a good conversation?
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes. It's so funny that you ask that because I get this question from so many parents actually, that this seems to be a sticking point, is at the end of the day, you come home, you ask your child a million questions, and they say nothing or answer with one word answers.
I think part of it is just this expectation that we have. That's really a check-in conversation and kind of the, oh, expected answer is grunting or fine or can I have a snack or something like that. But we want it to be more than that.
We expect some kind of lengthy discussion of their days, which we're not getting, oftentimes because kids are exhausted or they're overstimulated or they're just not wanting to talk at that time. For me, oftentimes, I first... kids in the car or at home or wherever I see them, just greet them, obviously say I'm happy to see them, and then just check in, see what they need first.
Do you need food? Do you need a few minutes alone? What would work well for you?
For example, my daughter is very introverted and these days she often goes and she immediately wants to get food and take ten minutes or so and be alone in her room. I used to think that was very odd as a person who focuses on conversation because I think, "Oh, I want to sit and want to talk. I haven't seen you all day."
But I came to realize that actually being aware of your children's needs around timing especially and around when they're able to talk is just as important as the questions you ask.
So actually for her, saying, "Okay, here, go take your time, and when you're ready, come back and let's hear." So I actually start often with more specific questions too, often piggybacking of something that happened a previous day or a previous week. For example, "Oh, that story that you told me about two days ago, what ended up happening with that?" Or, "Did you have that picnic you said you were going to have with your friends?" I also sometimes model things, little stories myself.
"Oh, you won't believe this person I talked to in Australia," or something like that, and showing that what we're looking for, what we want is having these specific stories rather than just fine or good. Oftentimes, kids will take a cue from that. But I do think that adaptiveness of just really recognizing that some kids need quiet time before they can reengage is really helpful too in pushing up that guilt.
Guy Kawasaki:
What would your advice be to say to your spouse at the end of the day?
Rebecca Rolland:
That's a good one. I think it really depends on your relationship and on your temperament. I know some people who tend to be more extroverted, they immediately want to jump into conversation, whereas some people want, again, that quiet time or time alone. So I think actually before saying I'm going to recommend this, I would actually recommend having a little chat with your spouse about what type of person you feel like you are at the end of the day and what your general needs are.
What do you need to feel comfortable and ready to engage? Sometimes it's, "Oh, would you like to go take a walk together?" If you feel like, "Oh, I need some fresh air because I've been in the office all day. What about we go for a walk and chat?"
Or if you have your kids around, what about they play a board game for five minutes and we sit and just say three things that surprised us, for example. One thing we found energizing and one thing we found draining, or something like that.
So sometimes if you talk about these more specific issues rather than just, "Oh, how's your day?" "Oh, it's okay." "Did you go to office?" "Yes." That kind of thing that can get us out of those ruts because I think that can be challenging too at a family dynamic level.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm going to have a lot of homework at the end of today.
Rebecca Rolland:
Yeah, see how it goes. I'd be curious.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'll update you. Now we're going to go truly into your lane. And in this lane, my question is, what makes a great conversation?
Rebecca Rolland:
I'd say a great conversation is one that at some level does two things. It helps bond you and the person or the people that you're with and it changes you and the person or people that you're with. This might mean, for example, that it changes something about the way you think, it changes a feeling that you have, it changes your understanding, or it makes you reflect on something new. It gives you some kind of shift.
This in some ways is what helps you and that person or people you're with grow together because the conversation is not only a bonding experience, but it's an experience and way of learning about yourself and others in the world.
Sometimes it might not feel amazing in the moment. Sometimes great conversations can involve conflict or they can involve discussing a hard topic. It doesn't always have to be something great and philosophical. But I think that even if we're having the smallest of conversations, if it does those two things, that to me is a great conversation.
Guy Kawasaki:
Can you give me some specific elements of how to get there?
Rebecca Rolland:
Sure. One story that's from my book, which I really like, is my daughter when we were sitting in a museum, and she and I were looking at mummies and she actually asked me, "Where did the mummies go?" I said to her, "I don't really know. What do you mean?" And she said, "Where do their spirits or where do they go, their souls?" I kept actually leaving silence.
So, I think that is one key element, to leave silence and space for kids to think and also admitting our vulnerability or things that we don't know.
So I actually told my daughter in that moment, "Oh, I don't know where they went." And she asked one question after another. She asked me, "Where were you before you were born?" For example. She was only five at the time. I really didn't know the answer to that, and I said, "I don't know."
And I asked her, "What about you?" She said to me, "Oh, I was an old man and I got tired of being so old and I turned into a baby again." For me, that was just a really incredible answer and something that sticks with me when I think about what we can do and having these conversations.
I think part of it really is just leaving space for you and a child to go on that kind of thinking journey together, not to shut things down early or feel like you have to have an answer, but to really feel like, "Oh, let me actually take that question and run with it and go with what I really think, which is I really don't know," and admit that to kids. Oftentimes, kids have so many ideas and so much imagination that they'll take that ball and run with it.
Guy Kawasaki:
If you ever go back to the museum and see mummies... We interviewed a guest named Temple Grandin.
Do you know who she is?
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes. Yes, definitely.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. So in her interview, she says that she was at an exhibit or something and the decorations on the mummies as time progressed got more and more crude and less and less artistic.
Rebecca Rolland:
Oh, interesting.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. She said that reflected the degradation of Egyptian society that was getting worse and worse. So the next time you have a conversation about mummies, you can point out to your daughter, "You see how they're getting less and less beautiful.
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes, yes. Oh, that's so cool. I did not know that. That's how I'll bring that in for sure.
Guy Kawasaki:
So you can say you've learned something on our podcast interview.
Rebecca Rolland:
Definitely. I'll bring that home. Yes.
Wouldn't be the first time. That's awesome.
Guy Kawasaki:
What about this concept that a great conversation is adaptive, back and forth, and child-driven?
Rebecca Rolland:
I often talk about the ABCs of rich talk, and those are those three; so being adaptive, back and forth for the B, and child-driven. I think those three elements for me are like a framework that we can keep in mind when having conversations. Rather than saying a script, as in, oh, a conversation should look like this, I actually think there's so many ways of having conversations that are great and so many ways of meeting kids where they are.
I really want to develop a framework that could allow us to have these conversations in a really open-ended way, rather than saying say this instead of saying that. So if we think about the ABCs, I can just go into each one briefly. I think these are elements that you can keep in mind with any age child.
It doesn't have to be a young child or a teenager, it can be any age. The first is adaptive, meaning that when you're with a child, you really think about adapting your conversation to their moods, for example, their temperaments, who they are in the moment.
And then also who they are over time, whether they're more active, whether they like to talk after school or at night or after basketball. Also, just even the length and pacing of your conversation.
You really start to notice, oh, my child opens up when we just talk for five minutes and then they go and play, or they open up after they've shown me or taught me how to do something, which is a frequent one for kids. With the A, you're really just becoming more self-aware about when your conversations are working well and then how you can do more of that.
So how you can bring more of that richness into your life. The B, the back and forth, is something that comes out of a lot of research on conversations, which is showing that when we think about conversations as turn-taking, meaning the adult says something, the child says something, the adult says something back, we know that the number of turns that happens in that conversation actually does a lot more to build a child's vocabulary and their social skills than just the number of words an adult is saying.
So actually the number of turns that we have is really critical in building a child's brain, building their skills, and even building our relationship. But we often miss that. We're often talking, I'd say, at kids. We're giving directions or telling them how to do something or lecturing.
We miss that part of the back and forth where kids actually are having their responses listened to, responded to, and are getting a lot of feedback. For the B, I just really invite people to notice, are you more of a talker with children or are you more of a listener, and how can you find that balance between having a child talk and having you talk?
The last one, the C, for child-driven, is really just starting conversations with what is on a child's mind. It might mean something that's exciting to them they really want to talk to you about or something that worries them or that they're scared about. But really, if we can get in and tap into that motivation of something that's already on a child's mind, we can already have much richer conversations than if we start from something abstract or something we pull out of a hat. Those three together are things I found in my own parenting life and in my work with families to be really helpful in having these conversations.
Guy Kawasaki:
Somewhat ironic is that this week's guest on my podcast was Dan Lyons. He wrote a book called STFU and basically why you should shut up, and now I'm interviewing you about how to have a conversation.
Rebecca Rolland:
That's so funny.
Guy Kawasaki:
I tell you that because maybe you're going to be thinking, "Guy, why don't you just STFU about what I'm about to say, okay?" I grant you that.
Rebecca Rolland:
Sure. Sure.
All right, so go for it. It's fine.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm inherently a marketer and an evangelist and I'm always looking for ways to influence and persuade people better. One of them that I've come to in my career is that you just got to make things as short as possible. When I saw your ABC, adaptive, back and forth, and child-driven, I said, "Those last two have two words. There's got to be a way to make ABC three words as opposed to one, three, and then two." So I set my mind to finding those words using Chat GPT...
Rebecca Rolland:
Oh, nice. That's great.
I'm not a marketer by training. So yeah, I love it.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I give you this suggestion, feel free to ignore it. You can even tell me, "Guy, you don't know what the hell you're doing." But anyway, if you say that, we're going to edit it out. Now, if you tell me, "Guy, this is a sheer genius," we're going to keep it in.
Rebecca Rolland:
Okay, sounds good.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I think instead of back and forth, you could use one word, which is bilateral.
Rebecca Rolland:
Oh!
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Then instead of child-driven, I think you can just say centric. Then that will broaden the use of your ABC because I think your ABC for a great conversation is true in any kind of conversation, not just child. So you could say, if you want to have a great conversation, it should be adaptive, it should be bilateral, and it should be centric. Centric in the sense that it's the other person who's the main character here. Anyway, I offer you that for free.
Rebecca Rolland:
I totally love that. I wish I was a marketer because I feel like that'd be amazing if I had written it like that. And I might actually, if you don't mind, I might steal that for the future. Obviously-
Guy Kawasaki:
I would be flattered.
Rebecca Rolland:
... quoting you.
Guy Kawasaki:
I would be flattered.
Rebecca Rolland:
I will quote you. But that's amazing. Actually, it's so funny because I was talking to a podcaster actually who's business related, and he was like, "Oh, I wish we could change child-driven to client-driven or colleague-driven," or something like that. So I think they've all been struggling to figure out how to broaden it and I love that. So thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, centric-
Rebecca Rolland:
I will quote you.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. So centric-
Rebecca Rolland:
Centric, I like that.
Guy Kawasaki:
... can apply to anybody, right?
It could be the child, the colleague, the spouse, or whatever. That's the beauty of centric as opposed to having to find a C word, because C works for clients, C works for customer. C does not work for spouse.
Rebecca Rolland:
Exactly. Not for spouse. No.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. Anyway, otherwise, unless it'll be-
Rebecca Rolland:
I know how you'll get there. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
... it'll be ABS. Why or is or how much better is in-person conversation as opposed to what you call mediated forms of conversation. So how much and why is in-person better?
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes. I think obviously mediated conversations, so conversations through technology, through Zoom, et cetera, have their place. I would say that they are at best adjuncts to in-person conversation, but that in-person conversation offers a few really key things, especially with kids, that mediated conversation can't.
One of them is that you're simply involving all of the senses. Zoom at best obviously involves only two senses; so you can see the person and you can hear them, but you don't have their presence.
You can't actually sit next to them, you can't notice, touch, you can't use gesture in the same way. For kids who often depend so much on the warmth and closeness of touch and learning from a person's body language and even from their closeness in terms of how they're sitting, they're missing out a lot if they're not able to get all of those signals from another person in person.
Other things are that, for example, when you're in person, you have the chance for these really minor signals that actually can say a lot.
So things like sitting next to a person in silence, doing nothing together, or just sitting and actually doing something quiet together, so you're knitting while a child is playing next to you. These conversations would likely never happen over Zoom because we would say, "What's the point in this meeting?"
But when you're in reality, when you're with a person or with a child especially, you can let conversations unfold in a much more natural and relaxed fashion when you are doing these things.
Or even, for example, you may have noticed when you are driving a car and the child is sitting next to you, you're not necessarily facing each other head on, you're both maybe looking out at the road, but that in person but not in your face situation can lead to a lot deeper conversations, especially about harder topics that a child might not have brought up.
So, I think that Zoom and mediated conversation for sure has its place, especially now, but I think our bedrock should really be that embodied, in-person conversation.
Guy Kawasaki:
I really think that some of the best conversations I've had with my kids are while we're driving. For sure, the driver shouldn't be texting or reading email or being on Zoom-
Rebecca Rolland:
Exactly. Hopefully not.
Guy Kawasaki:
So at least half of the conversation is focused. It may be an unintended consequence of Tesla drivers using full automation, that they're going to have less good communication with their kids.
Rebecca Rolland:
That's interesting for sure. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
But I would make the case that Tesla drivers are really weird people anyway, so it doesn't matter. But I digress.
Rebecca Rolland:
There you go.
Guy Kawasaki:
So let's suppose that you're listening to this conversation and you say to yourself, "Oh, shit! That is me. I am guilty as charged." So now what are baby steps that one can take to become a better conversationalist?
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes. I love that question because I think so often parents hear the idea of this and they use it as something where they're like, "Oh, I feel guilty. Oh, I should have been doing this." Or, "Oh, I wish I had done this." That's really not the intention of this work. It's definitely, as you're suggesting, even starting with baby steps, just really thinking about how much richer your lives can be if you bring in these kinds of conversations.
I really think about just even taking say five or ten minutes to be really concrete a couple of times a day sitting with your child. Even if they're not talking, you can sit with them. Just really sit, observe what they're doing quietly for a little bit of time, see if they have something to say.
If they're quiet, maybe ask them, "Tell me what you're doing." Or, "This looks interesting," if you notice something of curiosity. "Can you tell me more about that?" And just having these opportunities, these open invitations to a child to talk.
Often, we forget that kids have so much to tell us, but that we may be in a rush, we may be just having lots of things to do, and we often don't take the time to offer those invitations. So, I think even so often, young kids, they get moved from one place to the other, our questions are often about how many are there of these or what color is that?
But oftentimes, they're thinking about really big things. So having the chance just to ask them, "What are you thinking?" Or, "What do you like best about that?" You'll get really surprising answers. So I would start there.
Guy Kawasaki:
I fully realized that one's public persona may not reflect reality, but are there any people in the Rebecca Hall of Fame of conversational ability that you would like to hold out as good models?
Rebecca Rolland:
Do you mean public figures or people in my personal life, or both?
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm looking for public figures so people can say, "Yeah, I should be more like Oprah." Or, "I should be more like Elon Musk," to stretch the truth.
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes, I won't go there. But I would say for me Barack Obama is really one of the best conversationalists that I've heard.
Whether he's having one of the reality shows he has been on where he talks to people about his life, or if he's having more of an oratory type of style, I think he's able to shift in his way of talking depending on the person he's with from very formal to very informal.
Even for someone who's so well known and so eloquent to be able to laugh at himself I think is something I've always appreciated when I hear his conversations. I also just really appreciate it, just as a side note, he always releases his favorite books and things like this.
And I always read his book list because I find they're in quite good taste. So I think, for me, having that dialogue with the public even about your likes and dislikes is something that I admire very much. So I would say he's the top.
Guy Kawasaki:
May I point out that the first thing you mentioned about him is being adaptive, right?
Rebecca Rolland:
Exactly. That's funny. Yes. I didn't do that intentionally, but yeah, that must have been on my mind.
Guy Kawasaki:
See, I'm the marketer, you're not, what can I say?
Rebecca Rolland:
Yeah, exactly.
Guy Kawasaki:
Let's talk about reading to our kids, because when I read that section... We've had four kids, and I'll tell you, the first kid we read a lot to, the second kid, we read a little bit less, to the third kid, we read a little, the fourth kid, oh my God!
Rebecca Rolland:
It's okay.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I've been feeling guilty. How should one read to our kids?
Rebecca Rolland:
I would say in many ways, if I can be as open-ended as that. I would not emphasize there's one right way to read to your kids. I actually think it's great to read in many different ways to your children.
For example, read books to them that are at their reading level while they read along. You can read stories to them that are above their reading level while they listen, and you can really encourage them often to interrupt you, to stop the book and ask questions, to wonder and predict, what do you think is going to happen next?
Or to even stop and laugh and say, "Oh, that was so weird." Or, "Oh, I've never had anything like that happen to me." Oftentimes, I see so many parents feeling anxious about, "We need to get through this many books," or "I need to read this really hard book to my child."
We don't recognize that books are really jumpstarts for conversations. If we can have a conversation based on a book, even while we're reading, we're doing a lot more to help a child than we are simply by reading the words on a page.
There's actually a lot of research showing that kind of reading, which is called dialogic reading, where you're letting a child stop and interrupt, actually builds their vocabulary a lot more than if you just read the book.
So even though it might seem strange, and it might feel awkward if you're used to just this very, "We started at page five and you have to be quiet," kind of reading, I think it is really beneficial and often a lot more fun I found to do with children.
Guy Kawasaki:
When should this start?
Rebecca Rolland:
I will say that I started reading to my daughter when she was about four days old. I do think you can start any time. It's funny, there's a picture of her and she was about one and a half sitting on the couch with a newspaper open pretending she was reading it, like my husband would do.
She obviously couldn't read at the time. But I do think that is so telling because part of reading isn't just about learning to read.
So that is obviously a big part of it. But another huge part is getting the habits and the sense that, oh, reading is a fun activity. I can learn more the more I read. I can have fun. I can feel like it's an enjoyable time.
If you can establish that feeling even more than the actual book, then you have a child who's much more likely to be a reader long-term.
So I think it really doesn't matter your child's age if you can do it like bath time is reading time now. Even some of those early sensory books where kids are able to feel the fuzzy bear or whatever, it's making reading feel like a really interesting thing.
So, I would say start early.
Guy Kawasaki:
We had a guest on named Dana Suskind. She's a pediatric cochlear implant and ENT expert out of the University of Chicago. She has this concept that learning begins the moment you're out of the womb. I forget the name of... There's some study that found out that kids who have poor development and stuff and come from less fortunate circumstances, by the time-
Rebecca Rolland:
Oh yeah, the Thirty Million Words study.
Guy Kawasaki:
Exactly. Yeah. So we had her on. It was very interesting that... It doesn't begin at preschool is her point, right?
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes. You can argue it begins in the womb actually. Kids can recognize voices, yeah, even third trimester. So yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Dare I ask what you think of things like Baby Einstein and parking your kid in front of a DVD that's supposed to be developing their minds.
Rebecca Rolland:
It's obviously not horrible for your child, but it doesn't really do much for them. A lot has shown that technology can be useful for learning, but especially for young kids, they really do need that interaction to be able to learn. There's been some studies showing that young kids exposed to say Mandarin videos, so much less than even if they were doing Mandarin online with someone who was responding to them.
It's not to say that the technology is necessarily the problem, but it's more of the lack of bilateralness, bilaterality, that's the problem. So you can do it. I wouldn't say it's a horrible thing to a child. They might enjoy it, but they're not going to learn very much from it.
Guy Kawasaki:
See, you're already using the word bilateral instead of back and forth.
Rebecca Rolland:
Exactly. I have to figure out how to use and incorporate it. There you go. You see, you're already changing my dialogue. That's great.
Guy Kawasaki:
In my case, I have a particular appreciation. Obviously, I'm loving this conversation of our conversations, but because I'm deaf... What happens if the kid is deaf or the parent is deaf? What do you do? You can get a cochlear implant, like I have. What do you do if your kid is deaf or you're deaf?
Rebecca Rolland:
Yeah. Yes, obviously there's cochlear implants and there's other ways of lip-reading and so on. But I do really emphasize that if the child is learning sign language, that the parent, if the parent is not deaf, also learns sign language, because obviously the most important thing is language, it's not necessarily speech, and sign language is a language like any other.
So I think if you can give a child access to language as early as you can, and that really does mean as many people as possible in the child's circuit or immediate family and friends being able to communicate with them, that gives them so much more in terms of their vocabulary, their later reading skills, and just their relationships to let them feel like they're part of a community.
So I do think that if parents can and have the time and energy and are able to, I think it's so valuable to be able to go on that journey with a child and actually learn sign language along with them. Obviously, the cochlear implant is another story.
Guy Kawasaki:
I have been more or less deaf for about nine months. That's completely deaf. But prior to that, I was deaf on my right side for about a decade. And I'll tell you, cochlear implant is a miracle. It is just-
Rebecca Rolland:
Really?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. It's literally life-changing. There was a time where I was deaf and I was trying to be a podcaster, so I would be having to read live transcription, which I'm still reading, but now I can really hear what you're saying. It was very difficult to be a deaf podcaster, let me tell you.
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes, I imagine. No, I can imagine. That's wonderful that's worked out so well for you. That's great.
Guy Kawasaki:
Your discussion of empathy in the book was just absolutely world-class to me. So can you just talk about developing empathy?
Rebecca Rolland:
Yes, and I do. That's one of my favorite topics to talk about because I think it's so important. And we have so many misconceptions about empathy. To me, empathy is something that is present in all people as a possibility, but it needs to be nurtured. It needs to be grown in children.
Sometimes in our culture, I think we so often think, "Oh, this is an empathetic person," or "This is an unempathetic person." But we often don't think about the fact that empathy develops over the course of conversations. And it actually can be separated into three parts.
So it's not just that empathy is this vague feeling of I care about this other person. There's actually the feeling part, so feeling what another person feels. There's the mental part, so sharing another person's perspective, and there's a third part called compassionate action, which means I care about you, I understand you, and I want to be able to help you.
I think the compassionate action part is also so important because I talk a lot about understanding the mystery of a person, meaning that... Empathy in part means that we know we can't fully enter the other person's mind.
So what we're trying to do is understand that everybody is going to be different from ourselves. And it's different from helping. So, helping might mean, "Oh, I'm going to bring my grandmother flowers," but compassionate empathy might mean, "Oh, I know my grandmother doesn't really like flowers because she finds them smelly.
So, my grandmother wants me to come over at midnight and play cards with her, and that's what I'm going to do because I know or I'm getting to know my specific person in front of me, what they really need."
I think that is so important to teach kids, is how to understand that person in front of you who may be very different from you and how not to just make assumptions about them, but to really care and love them.
Guy Kawasaki:
Another Temple Grandin example, although it is a little out there, in her interview, she told us about how early in her career she was at these cattle yards, and these cattle would not walk up a ramp, maybe because they know they were going to die.
But anyway, these cowboys would be yelling at them and hollering at the cattle and using prods and all that. What Temple did is instead she got down on the ground at the height of the sight of the cattle and looked at what they were seeing and saw all the spooky stuff that would make them hesitate to go up the ramp. It's not exactly empathy, but I mean, it is about going and being and experiencing.
Rebecca Rolland:
Yeah, it's very much taking another person's perspective or another animal in that case. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. I'll give you another example so that when you're talking about empathy... One of the best examples of empathy I ever heard was when Martin Lindstrom came on this podcast and he said he was working with a large pharmaceutical client who wanted to get "closer to the customer", which usually means hire McKinsey. But in his case, what he did is he took the executives into a room and he made them breathe through only straws. So you couldn't breathe through your mouth or nose-
Rebecca Rolland:
Wow!
Guy Kawasaki:
... had to be a straw. Obviously, they had a hard time and they complained. He basically said, "You're a pharmaceutical company, you have products for people with asthma. That's what it's like to have asthma every day, twenty-four-seven" I thought that was a great example.
I'm going to give you a speed round, but I'm going to give you the most difficult speed round in the history of podcasting, okay?
Rebecca Rolland:
Awesome. Okay.
Guy Kawasaki:
You ready? Okay.
Rebecca Rolland:
Sounds good. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
In a sense, I'm going to ask you to be Carol Dweck, Angela Duckworth, Jane Goodall in real time briefly. Okay?
Rebecca Rolland:
Sounds good. Okay.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. So I want you to explain how to build these qualities as succinctly as you can, because I know you can do it because I read your book. Okay?
Rebecca Rolland:
Okay. Sounds good.
Guy Kawasaki:
Question number one, how do you build grit?
Rebecca Rolland:
Grit is really a combination of passion and persistence or perseverance. To build it, I would suggest helping a child decide on their goals and then guiding them through the obstacles and the challenges of those goals, checking in with them and helping them understand the journey.
Guy Kawasaki:
How do you build self-confidence in a child?
Rebecca Rolland:
Self-confidence is really this ‘I can’ reaction. So when children are faced with failure, they feel like I can get over it. Building self-confidence really means helping a child check the way they talk to themselves and helping them feel like, after failure, what do I do next? We're going to make a plan and we're going to make an optimistic plan about it.
Guy Kawasaki:
How do you help a child build a growth mindset?
Rebecca Rolland:
Growth mindset is really this sense that you can grow in your intelligence over time, that intelligence is a result of your effort and not your innate being. To build that, we want to think about moving away from comments that talk about an innate smartness or, "Oh, you're so good at that," or "You're so bad at that," and start to move toward conversations that are about your effort or your growth.
"So, I see you've gotten seven out of ten right this time. Last time, how many did you get?" Or, "I see how hard you worked on that." So if we can move away from the being side and towards the doing side, I think that's a big step in that direction.
Guy Kawasaki:
Carol Dweck would be proud. How do you build a sense of independence in a child?
Rebecca Rolland:
Yeah, so for independence really involves a child feeling ‘I can do this with increasingly less help from the person next to me.’ Part of that really means scaffolding, meaning seeing how much a child can do right now by themselves and guiding them to do just a little bit more than that.
You give them a little challenge, you step away, and then you see how the child responds. Obviously, if the child is flailing and unhappy and uncomfortable, you step in. But if the child's struggling a little, trying to work through it, talking themselves through it, you let them do it, and you check your own sense that you need to come in and rescue them.
Guy Kawasaki:
You steal bilateral from me, I'm going to steal scaffolding from you. Okay? Deal?
Rebecca Rolland:
Awesome that works.
Guy Kawasaki:
Last speed round question. How do you help a child build social skills?
Rebecca Rolland:
Building social skills really means, for parents and caregivers, acting like a guide and a coach. So we're not going to be in with kids at every conflict, you can't be denying them their friendships, but to really reflect with them on things like, is this a good friend for me? How do I know? How do I feel after being with this friend?
By providing guiding questions and comments, you can be your child's social coach rather than being in the midst of every conflict. So we're going to find the balance between getting in there, fixing everything, and not caring at all, which is this coach aspect.
Guy Kawasaki:
Rebecca, they're not other a lot of people who could have answered those six questions.
Rebecca Rolland:
I'm used to teaching, so maybe that's part of it.
Guy Kawasaki:
One last question for you, as advice for parents. What's worse, under-helping or over-helping?
Rebecca Rolland:
I would say, for the most part, over-helping. Because under-helping, a child can always ask for more, and they probably will, but over-helping, a child often doesn't know that they can do it themselves, so they don't think to ask you to step back. Start with under-helping and then see if more is needed.
Guy Kawasaki:
Madisun, can you think of anything else I should ask? I've gone down my checklist.
Rebecca Rolland:
Oh, awesome. Those are great questions. Thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
I want to leave you with the impression that I'm a great conversationalist. This is a big challenge for this particular episode. I had to ramp up my game for this one, so...
Rebecca Rolland:
That's awesome. I appreciate it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Give a plug for your book so everybody buys your book.
Rebecca Rolland:
My book is really designed to help kids build skills in seven key areas, so I talk about the seven pillars. If you're interested, it goes chapter by chapter, so you can really pick it up, read a piece, put it down. It has lots of specific conversation starters by age and stage of kids, which parents have often found really helpful.
If you're wondering, "How do I specifically do this for my two-year-old or my twelve-year-old?" The book really does lay all of that out. Obviously, couldn't go into full detail here, but that's available if you're interested.
Guy Kawasaki:
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Remarkable People with the remarkable Rebecca Rolland. I hope you enjoyed this insightful conversation as much as I did. If you want to learn more about how to become a better communicator, check out Rebecca's book, The Art of Talking to Children. Reading it will make you a better communicator for sure.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, this is Remarkable People. My thanks to the Remarkable People team, Jeff Sieh, Peg Fitzpatrick, Shannon Hernandez, Madisun Nuismer, Alexis Nishimura, and Luis Magana.
We're all trying to make you an even more remarkable person. Mahalo and aloha.