It Takes a Village!
HAVE YOU EVER…
heard someone say “it takes a village to raise a child”? It’s an expression that speaks to the positive influence community and belonging can have on a child’s upbringing. It’s usually said to celebrate the diversity of social experiences (from the cheerful to the cranky) that shape the way we see ourselves in the context of the people around us.
Yet children are less exposed to different people than ever before. This might seem strange when we hear so much about population growth and online connectivity – but it’s these very factors that could be forming part of our isolation.
The more we’re able to curate the people we surround ourselves with, the more we end up surrounded by like minds. This is a natural bias for sure. We’re a tribal bunch by nature and most of us would rather avoid conflict where possible.
The downside of this, though, is you miss out on developing the skills to navigate trickier social situations.
THAT’S WHY…
you’ll notice some of our Epic Fail challenges encourage us all to reach out and connect with people outside of our usual crew. How might a shop keeper, waitress or stranger you see out of your car window respond to you?
It’s also why we hope the whole family will get involved with playing the game. So grown-ups can role model different reactions and vulnerabilities – and reinforce our support for full-flight failing.
The more you try to test your boundaries (in a safe and respectful way, of course) the less surprising or scary you’ll find other people’s reactions to be. And the more curious you’ll be about the sparks that happen when new people connect.
You Need to Find your Edges Before you can Stretch Them
IN THE ‘OLDEN DAYS’...
of not-too-long-ago, children would find their limits on the playground, in their neighbourhoods and their communities.
They’d explore their physical environment by climbing trees, riding bicycles or maybe even operating heavy machinery – training their bodies to explore their physical limitations. They’d hone their motor skills using a kitchen knife to carve spears. And their understanding of physics would be tested by jumping off rocks or building billy carts.
Their social skills were tested in a similar way, by interacting with their local community, the kids on the street and the playground. It’s through this that they could also sharpen up their negotiation skills (or risk spending more time on their own).
STATISTICS SHOW
We’ve gone from spending 80% of our time outdoors to spending 80% indoors – with the average number of hours children spend on technology making up more than 6 hours per day.
Unfortunately, evolution hasn’t kept pace with these extreme changes - and our brains and bodies don’t process digital interactions the way they do the physical. If you survive in a computer game, it doesn’t translate to confidence in the real world. And if you get likes on social media, it doesn’t mean you’ll get lasting self-esteem.
That is why the Epic Fail game encourages real life activity, reading real-time responses from others and building social resilience. The ‘good old fashioned’ way.
Our Brains are Like Plasticine
WE’RE LEARNING…
so much about how our brain functions on two speeds. About how it can be wonderfully elastic – and entirely lazy at the same time.
Think about a baby’s brain like a newly planted cornfield. You can see for miles all around and walk easily between different points. That’s why it seems to us that small children can learn things like language or skiing so effortlessly.
As they grow and the corn gets higher, we find it easier to revisit pathways we walked over and over, until eventually we can only see these trails.
You can still create new pathways of course – but it takes effort. First, you’ll need to visualise it and trust that it’s there (because the corn’s too high to see your destination). Then you’ll need to repeat the new experience over and over again until a new trail eventually forms.
IN A NUTSHELL…
this is the theory behind rewiring the way your brain responds to anxious situations.
One thing we’ve learnt when looking at anxiety is that rational dialogue alone won’t solve how your kid’s feeling. Emotions that are imprinted through experience can only change through experience.
By gently nudging your responses to certain experiences in a new direction, you’ll eventually find plenty of different options for how you might react to something that made you feel nervous or scared before.
Which is exactly why we’ve designed the Epic Fail game as a physical and social experience, rather than a story or text book.
Our aim is to replace disappointment with a laugh and fear with fierceness.
Growing Up Never Gets Old
IT WAS…
psychologist Carol Dweck who first developed the theory of ‘growth mindset’. The central idea behind this theory is that our mindsets (the lens we view the world through) can either be fixed or moveable.
People with fixed perceptions believe they’re born a certain way – and that their ability to learn or change depends on the ingredients they start off with. They’re either smart or creative, good at maths or not. On the flipside, people with moveable mindsets are more likely to believe these skills can be grown.
One of the most interesting parts about Dweck’s work is that she discovered people who perceived they could grow and learn new skills were much better at it. So simply believing you can be good at something meant you did a much better job of studying, practising and trying to do it. You draw on power from within yourself to make things happen. If you believe your skills are limited by external forces, you’re more likely to give up faster.
PARENTS AND…
educators are starting to work out that the way they teach and speak to kids can have a huge impact on whether these kids feel empowered to change or not. For example, instead of praising kids for being ‘smart’ or ‘creative’ (which are immovable labels), try praising their effort or actions – these are linked to concepts that are seen to be controllable.
Like, “I’m so impressed by how you tried new ways to get that outcome” or “you must be proud of how you didn’t give up on that problem”.
To get started, try simply putting “yet” at the end of any self limiting thought you may have. With this one word you can shift even the most stubborn mindsets.
The Power of Reframing out Stories
HAVE YOU EVER…
really thought about the difference between how you feel when you look forward to something, how you feel while you’re actually doing it – and then how you feel about it after? Like how cold it was when you jumped in the ocean but you remember it way after as being really great?
It turns out the way we experience something and the way we remember it might be completely separated. This is what some academics like Daniel Kahneman and Yuval Noah Harare describe as our experience self and our memory self (or narrating self).
Basically, the way we think about our experiences (whether they’re happy, sad, scary or something else) are framed by how we tell the story back to ourselves after the experience has happened. This story then helps us make decisions about things that haven’t happened yet – and the loop goes on.
NOW FOR THE…
good news. We can consciously change our experiences by choosing how we tell our stories. In a similar way to how we program our brains to have new responses - by repeating and building on our stories, the way we experience things and make decisions starts to change too.
For example – let’s say we stop telling ourselves that what happened in maths last week was a super embarrassing failure. Instead, we said it was a turning point in how we want to be seen by our math teacher. Or we tell ourselves that being proud of our effort is more important that being applauded by others. How might these story changes start to influence the way we make decisions in the future?
Some of the Epic Fail challenges are designed to give us practice in reframing stories to find new perspectives.
The Future is Fast
THE FUTURE IS FAST
The rate things change in the world of work is only getting faster. The World Economic Forum suggests that 65% of children starting primary school now will end up in jobs that don’t even exist yet!
The changes are forcing many of us to rethink how we get our kids ready for a way of life nobody has really known before.
Educators across the world are grappling with new ways of teaching – with concepts like STEM and STEAM on the top of the agenda. But equally-important education happens outside of the class rooms too.
Big businesses across every industry sector are starting to embrace the idea of failing fast and learning. What’s known in the workforce as ‘agile methodology’ or ‘design thinking’ is all about becoming more comfortable with trying, failing, learning from mistakes and trying again.
The other shift we’re seeing is swapping out individual achievement for more and more teamwork (or ‘scrums’ as the business speak goes).
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR OUR KIDS?
It means we should be encouraging their continuous curiosity and adaptiveness – so they’re fluent in approaching ideas in new ways.
We should encourage their social skills to get the best out of very different people, with different ways of thinking.
And we need to supercharge their ‘bounce-back’ness – because in a place where your ideas are always being tested and you’re often in front of new people, resilience will be the best safety net you can give them. That’s when they’ll really flourish.
And that’s where we hope the Epic Fail game can help.
