What can we teach our children about a happy life

[Music]

[Applause]

good evening

my name is tan and i am the

product of my parents generation

so as a vietnamese and as an agent

growing up our parents usually tell us

okay you need to be obedient you need to

listen to other people

yes you need to to do well in class

sorry

sorry i can’t get this done

yes you need to do well in class do a

score

you need to find a good job right and

then you need to find a person and get

married

that’s all your life right pretty simple

right

and i did all that yeah i listen to

people

i i score well in school i got a good

job

i marriage i thought my life is done

it shouldn’t be yeah uh along the way

somehow i find that it’s not that easy

and and then many things happen and

sometimes i feel that i am

kind of fat stressed and depressed but

that’s not okay

i think okay my my parents would tell

that there’s

reason for them to tell me that and this

is just part of life i’m okay

is it part of the package view so

sometimes you are good

sometimes you feel stressed that’s fine

but things start to change when i

am repairing myself and i have a kid

and i start to ask myself okay should i

tell myself the same thing and she

should be

do a be a good student and find a good

job and things like that

but the more and i also an educator so i

have to teach children

about about languages about art so i

have the duty to think more

what kind of questions i can ask

how you i can tell our children so the

more i think so that’s why i start to

bring out my crystal ball

i need to look into the future in the 10

15 20 years from now how our children’s

life would be different from us

and the more i look into it the more i

will say like

whoa this is they are totally different

from our life now

so the message that i my parents told me

would not work this is why

in 20 years from now one single computer

can do the tasks of all 10 billions

brave

combined so whatever you can calculate

whatever you can think

they can do it faster than all the 10

billions of

us so whatever you need they will give

you

whatever you want to complete the

machine will do it better

it’s a good thing right you don’t need

to do any thinking that’s good

second thing how can you compete and the

machine has done

so much better than all the jobs that we

know in 10

15 years may then have been gone and

we have to uh there may be not the

accounting job

anymore right there may not be a human

resource job anymore

i don’t know it may change but the good

thing is

my child’s never gonna never have to

entertain the thought of hunger

everything the food will be ready yeah

and

they never may never be entertained the

thought of

no condition air conditioning or

entertainment at the fingertip

all of those are solved right and my

child gonna be happy

they’re gonna live in a box eat from a

box

watch from a box and the light will be

from home to shopping mall

couldn’t be that happy

and however my conscience told me that

there’s something wrong

and i was in singapore i was in asian

countries that

are few years ahead of us in terms of

development

and life can be pressure life can be

stressful

and there’s a lot of pressure for

children to learn

and to get better grades get into better

school to find a job

and in korea in japan that is a very

strong stressful point for young people

and the array is is skyrocketing

and and really how can they be happy

if all they need is another better job

and or whether they they be happy

everything will just speak to them

by a machine they’re not going to be a

happy life

so that’s why i have to think and i have

to dig into my

learning dig into what i know to find

some way

for us to change the conversation we

talk to our

our kids and what can make them

a different way of growing up so i’m

going to share with you three things

that i think our children or some of us

can learn

to incorporate into our life so that we

feel

happier and we can cope with the change

that is so

crushingly fast coming to us

the first thing i want to share is to

nurture your child

superpower i’m not talking about the

superpower that we

we say okay you’re going to be the the

top student in the class

are you going to get the top the best

job in the market

it’s not that kind of superpower

is the superpower that is inside of each

of us

inside of each of the child that is so

beautiful when we look at it

it doesn’t need to be good at math or

good at

english or whatever it’s something

that’s so unique

of that person and

i can share two things that is make up

of that power

one is the natural gift of the ability

and second is the character strength

so growing up i was doing well in school

i went to overseas to study i get job

but along the way i didn’t know what

what i’m really good at

i’m good at scoring in school that’s all

i’m not really sure what i’m really good

at and i just do whatever

people give me the job to do that’s all

i didn’t feel really happy about what i

can do

then along the way when i was 20 28 30

along the way i got some job doing

translation

interpreting and i realized i got the

ability

of my listening my listening skill

my ability of my ear i don’t know what

it is but it’s

it’s something that’s strong there i can

listen i can understand the person

so quicker than any other interpreter so

i can

interpret better or faster it’s just

something so small but it takes me 30

years to realize

during my kid needs 30 years for him to

explore that

i know that someone here they have the

natural ability to roar

but no one tell them that my parents

never tell me that you have a good

listening ear

never told me that you just you you have

to listen to other people and things

like that

right we do that so the first thing

is to find the natural talent and the

second thing is character strength

character strength is something that is

inner

is ourselves that is more only values

across

cultures something like courage

something like curiosity

kindness love for beauty these are

things that make our heart light up

and they feel happy when we start to to

find this thing in ourselves

also leadership these are the things

that really touch ourselves

and the more we do and help our children

to do this they will feel

confident determined tolerated

enthusiastic and this is the size of the

quality of life

so some of the action for parents or for

you guys

can do is that you should be a strength

detector

you should be seeing this goodness in

your cheek and your children right

and if any person have the kid here

yes a few of them yeah yeah we should

look at them and say oh

why don’t you do that that is messy it’s

not not right no

if we think and we change the length and

we look at our kids

we’re gonna see that there’s a lot of

things so beautiful in there

and they want to feel that you accept

them you see them

as they are yeah like and then

and then we can offer them phrases like

if the child have

a strong tendency for kindness

we can say wow i think that you you you

try to

to be kind to someone when you have the

opportunity to do so

and that’s a great thing and i really

like that and i’m proud of you

would you be able to see that and tell

that

i think that makes a huge difference

in your children’s life maybe some if

someone tell you that

at the college it’s also make a

difference to your life as well

and the third thing is we have now we

have time

so we don’t spend time on our phone we

should spend time to

mindfully cultivate those strengths yeah

if your child has the kindness tendency

a kind of strength

then we can bring them to events or

something

some activity that can trigger that or

if he has the curiosity

strength we can do and find a way to do

that and that will bring so much

more and along the way he learns and we

we feel that he are confident

he is confident and he he will use that

in in the future yeah

and that will bring happiness according

to psychologists

the second thing is resilience so when

your child

have something like anger or sadness or

envy

what do you what do you want to do

usually

you say don’t cry just smile

is that something you do right or do we

just okay

this other phone is not your fault yes

oh i will help you so we immediately

help our child

and do not let them handle the

depression

or we just comfort them okay come here

it’s okay baby

is that so would your child be happy

then

would they be they do they do

they do for that moment they do for that

moment

but then along the way when they grow up

when things is

much harder happen they can’t control

they can’t cope with it

they can’t so that’s why resilient now

is so important it’s one of the most

valuable

skill for a person to leave and

within this rapid race of technological

change so you see

all the machine is is is doing much

better

so every day now one day is good next

day is not good

the next day can be worse how can your

child deal with that

yeah how can you charge it with that

they need resilience they need to have

to deal with difficulty

they need to experience they need to

overcome the challenges

and like when they can do that they can

enjoy the happiness

longer because they know okay everything

is easy i can overcome that

yeah so some of the things that we can

instill in our children

is that to step back and let them handle

the fresher

the challenges secondly is give them

situations that challenging

but manageable yes and the third thing

is very important and i learned so much

about it

that’s something that countries like

singapore america

is putting into school from age of

six is that they help the children to

learn about

emotion to recognize their emotions

there are some emotions that are

that make you feel good and they have

emotions that make you

not feel good and it’s it’s your job and

it’s your skill

to recognize that and get over it for

example

if the child will be angry we have to

try to recognize that okay if you feel

that

negative emotion that not feel good

emotion

you can go to a corner by yourself

just take some deep breath

and it will go slowly go away

because emotion is not you that anger is

not your friend

emotion is just something that’s come

and go

so these are the skills that it taught

across

across the world now some of the

countries they are doing and i think

that

is very useful for our kids

the third thing is gratitude gratitude

is is something that makes you happy

very long

who who wants that who wants to feel

to do an act on the behavior and make

it you feel happy for a long time

and if yeah yes yeah

do you have an experience that you you

feel so grateful for someone who had

done something that

touched or changed your life and and you

remember that

so much or do you have

an experience that someone came to you

and

thank you for what you did that changed

their life

how long this is slacks you remember

you remember it for like months or

few years that’s a good right

it’s much better than going to the

cinema and enjoy a little bit and forgot

about it

in the next few hours yeah so

gratefulness gratitude is something that

is very

very important so children learn that

from the age of

five and the more they learn the more

they grow they do better in school

they are more optimistic they can be

able to feel happiness

and overcome challenges so that’s the

good things i want you

to learn and share to your path to your

children

so what we can instill gratitude we can

talk about gratitude

we can learn about how we can thank

someone

daily what we are thankful for daily

we can ask our children what they are

grateful for during the day

and we can discuss how and where and who

we can thanks or some acts of kindness

that we can share with others so these

are the things we should do as a habit

we don’t do it when we like it

yeah we we talk to our children the more

we do that

the more they feel confident about

themselves

so so

with that i would like to to say that

in this life i have been

become the person that my parents want

to be

but somehow i didn’t find who i am

what’s my strengths

i didn’t find the the ability it took me

a long while

to for me to overcome some of my

difficulty

and i now i start to learn to be

grateful

to what have come to me because life

happened for me

not to me so it took me 30 years to

learn these

these things start to learn

and have a long way to go but we have

the opportunity right now

to instill that in our kit when they

were fought

with five or maybe ten have 10 years

20 years for them and they will feel

much more confident

they were able to deal with any hardship

like

deal with them and they will become a

better person

and they won’t be

and they won’t be just

say like this they won’t be a person

with just with curiosity

with vitality with love of life and with

happiness

with that thank you very much