10 Best TED Talks for Parents

I had the pleasure of attending TED Talks at two separate venues. TEDTalk Women which was a live TED Talk conference and TED X  which was a local event. Both were incredibly stimulating and inspiring.

For the uninitiated, TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and their slogan “Ideas Worth Spreading” says it all.

Lucky for us, there are tons of TED talks available online to listen to on your own or you can host an event to live stream some of the TED Talks events. You can also queue up several TED talks that might interest your audience and invite them over for an evening to view and discuss.

Here is a list of my top 10 TED talks on parenting, which I consider the best ideas worth spreading. Enjoy, share with your friends and please comment below.

1) 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do 4M

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Gever Tulley, the founder of the Tinkering School, spells out 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do — and why a little danger is good for both kids and grownups. In his humorous and uplifting style, Gever Tulley debunks classic myths of childhood safety. With rampant fear mongering, is it any wonder that children are actually over-protected? Instead, Tulley believes the most effective way to keep children safe is to give them a little taste of danger.

2) Let’s Talk Parenting Taboos 2M

In this talk, Babble.com publishers Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman, in a lively tag-team, expose 4 facts that parents never, ever admit — and why they should. Funny and honest, for parents and nonparents alike. This is one talk which every parent-to-be should watch.

3) Parents, Happiness Is A Very High Bar: 1.7M

It’s not a bad thing to want to be a better parent or to provide circumstances for your children that you find will help benefit them for the rest of their lives.  But Jennifer Senior describes a world in which we start to become overwhelming from all the worldly pressures and ideals that are constantly pressed upon us.  Is that really the best way for us to keep our families happy and healthy?  You be the judge.

4) Play Is More Than Just Fun 1.4M

In this talk, Dr. Stuart Brown, a pioneer in research on play, says humour, games, roughhousing, flirtation and fantasy are more than just fun. Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults — and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age.

5) How to raise successful kids- without over-parenting 1.4M

By loading kids with high expectations and micromanaging their lives at every turn, parents aren’t actually helping. At least, that’s how Julie Lythcott-Haims sees it. With passion and wry humour, the former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford makes the case for parents to stop defining their children’s success via grades and test scores. Instead, she says, they should focus on providing the oldest idea of all: unconditional love.

6) Agile programming — for your family 100k

Bruce Feiler has a radical idea: To deal with the stress of modern family life, go agile. Inspired by agile software programming, Feiler introduces family practices which encourage flexibility, bottom-up idea flow, constant feedback and accountability. One surprising feature: Kids pick their own punishments.

7) Let’s Teach Kids to Code

Coding isn’t just for computer whizzes, says Mitch Resnick of MIT Media Lab — it’s for everyone. In a fun, demo-filled talk Resnick outlines the benefits of teaching kids to code, so they can do more than just use new tech toys but also create them.

8) Molly Wright: How every child can thrive by five

“What if I was to tell you that a game of peek-a-boo could change the world?” asks seven-year-old Molly Wright, one of the youngest-ever TED speakers. Breaking down the research-backed ways parents and caregivers can support children’s healthy brain development, Wright highlights the benefits of play on lifelong learning, behavior and well-being, sharing effective strategies to help all kids thrive by the age of five. She’s joined onstage by one-year-old Ari and his dad, Amarjot, who help illustrate her big ideas about brain science.

9) Parenting in the digital age

How can parents ensure their children have a healthy relationship with technology? Social psychologist Sonia Livingstone suggests that the key lies in embracing technology alongside children — and lays out a practical roadmap for how to get there.

10) How to Raise Emotionally Intelligent Kids 1.4M

This talk explores all these questions along with how the lack of emotional literacy in our culture has significant power when it comes to the way we parent. It explores how compassion, empathy and mindfulness have a place in raising children – as well as in our education system. If connection, listening, and heart were at the center of every relationship, how different could our world be?