How to Raise Kids Who Can Handle Hard Things | Kathryn Hecht | TED

I've walked a lot in these shoes today . These souls have ground into the pavement of downtown Minneapolis , the rubber mats of my car, the lenolum of a gas station bathroom , and the play-doh crusted carpet of a daycare . Embedded in the tread, smear a toddler booger . Yeah. Little leftover neuro virus . Maybe maybe if I'm really lucky. Little flucky dog poop . Makes you sick just thinking about it, right ? [cheering] [applause] So yeah, that happened . And while you may not have tasted what I just tasted , you felt what I felt. Your . Your sympathetic nervous system activated, increasing your heart rate and tensing your muscles . Your anterior insula flared, creating a feeling of disgust . Little nausea, slight gag reflex . Am I going to get sick now ? I don't know . But I do know this . I am so glad you're uncomfortable . [snorts] Congratulations truly because that discomfort, that is the first essential step to creating confident kids . And you can trust me on this one . I make kids uncomfortable for a living . This week, I had an 8-year-old stab me with a needle twice, took a kid into a basement on a spider safari, and played Uno on the bathroom floor with an understandably reluctant teen . It's only Wednesday . Now, I'm not doing this stuff because I'm an evil psychologist . I'm doing this because, as a pediatric , I'm a professional bravery coach . I'd like to tell you about a kid that I worked with years ago named Sammy . Sammy was this sweet little third grade string bean who lived for adventure . Bright, curious, optimistic, could tell you everything you honestly never needed to know about airport design . But Sammy had a fear . Bees. . His brain appreciated bees, vital pollinators