Shirley Mangiameli 

INSPIRATIONAL TALK BY 7 YEAR OLD, MOLLY WRIGHT about the power of adult interaction and communication with children.

Molly Wright  

Recently I had the opportunity to watch and amazing TED talk by a seven-year-old girl called Molly Wright. She has become one of the youngest people to give a TED talk  for 'Thrive for Five', in which she discussed what life is like for young children. Her message was that every child can thrive by the age of five if the adults who influence their lives do a few things right.

Molly Wright, from Queensland in Australia, gave her speech to an audience of hundreds. She was accompanied by her friend one-year-old Ari and his dad Amarjot to help illustrate her points.

At seven years old, Molly’s talk demonstrated such incredible insight into the importance of adult interaction with child development that we can all learn from.  She highlighted the importance of teaching kids about life skills and doing five things - connecting, talking, playing, healthy home and community - can give the kids a great start. 

She demonstrated what can happen when parents don't engage with children. Molly asked, "What if I was to tell you that a game of peek-a-boo could change the world?"  She provided an example of a parent engaging in the peek-a-boo game with their young child, Ari. They were laughing and enjoying the interaction. 

Suddenly the parent then stops and chooses to ignore the Ari, paying more attention to his iPad than his child. The child clearly doesn’t understand what has changed. “That was fun why have you stopped?”

Ari tries to re-engage with his dad climbing on him, whimpering and upset. 

“I want to play with you, why won’t you play?”

Once the parent chooses to put the iPad away and play again, Ari is happy once more. He is too young to speak, but he is communicating his feelings and emotions the only way he knows how.

It her incredibly powerful, seven minute talk Molly shares "Every moment together is an opportunity to connect, talk and play. Imagine the difference we could make if everyone did this - to us, to children.” 

This is true for children of any age, enjoy your time together, they grow up very fast. Take the time to listen to the message of this inspiration talk by someone we may hear from more in the future. It is quite amazing from someone so young. The link is TED talk.

Remember it is so important to continue to connect, interact and be interested in our children of any age or stage of life – they are the future generation!