Ep. 205: Dr. William Stixrud - How to Talk With Kids and Build Their Motivation

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It’s human to crave connections. If there’s a silver bullet that comes closest to protecting kids, it’s the art of making meaningful connections with adults in their lives. This provides children with a sense of closeness and belonging ,which in return, contributes positively to their physical, social, psychological, and emotional health. Effective communication is the key ingredient to forming deep connections and parents, teachers and mentors need insights and tools to know ways to communicate that helps create a safe space for children to express themselves.

On this episode, neuropsychologist and coauthor of the books “What Do You Say? Talking with Kids to Build Motivation, Stress Tolerance, and a Happy Home” and “the Self-Driven Child”, William Stixrud, Ph.D. returns to discuss the parenting language of a consultant and ways in which kids benefit when their parents serve as a non-anxious presence in their lives. Family dynamics and effective modeling by parents can lead to cultivating strong Executive Function enabling questioning the validity of one’s decisions, rethinking positions or points of view, and changing one’s own mind with ease, persistence, and courage.

About William R. Stixrud, Ph.D.
William R. Stixrud, Ph.D., is a clinical neuropsychologist and founder of The Stixrud Group, as well as a faculty member at Children’s National Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine.  He is also the co-author, with Ned Johnson, of the national best-selling book, The Self-Driven Child, which is published in 18 countries and 17 languages and has sold more than a half-million copies in China alone.  He and Mr. Johnson have also co-authored a critically-acclaimed second book, What Do You Say? Talking with Kids to Build Motivation, Stress Tolerance, and a Happy Home.

Dr. Stixrud’s work has been featured in media outlets such as NPR, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times of London, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report, Time Magazine, Scientific American, Business Week, Barron's, New York Magazine, and Vogue.  He is a long-time practitioner of Transcendental Meditation, and he plays in the rock band Close Enough. 

Books:

• The Self-Driven Child 
• What Do You Say? Talking with Kids to Build Motivation, Stress Tolerance, and a Happy Home 

About Host, Sucheta Kamath
Sucheta Kamath, is an award-winning speech-language pathologist, a TEDx speaker, a celebrated community leader, and the founder and CEO of ExQ®. As an EdTech entrepreneur, Sucheta has designed ExQ's personalized digital learning curriculum/tool that empowers middle and high school students to develop self-awareness and strategic thinking skills through the mastery of Executive Function and social-emotional competence.

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