Raising confident daughters with public speaking...in front of adults

Motivational Children's books and stuff for girls: A Girl Named Pants!

I believe that public speaking could be the most important of all life-skills. Public speaking skills apply to almost everything. Teaching. Being a student. Sports. Business. Sales. Politics. Research. Law. Medicine. Operations. Living in a neighborhood. Clubs. Relationships...young and old. And yes, public speaking skills also apply to public speaking.

Being able to stand in front of a few people or a few thousand people and be calm enough to make your point...to articulate your message, is a powerful tool...or weapon. And knowing that you can do it is a tremendous source of confidence. Mostly because so few people are confident enough to do it. Being good at this is an immediate differentiator. The one if front of the room is the expert (even if they're not much of an expert). Being at the podium elevates the speaker.

Now, my plan has been to have my children do show-and-tell at home with me to build their public speaking skills. We do it often. And, my daughters are very confident while standing in front of the crowd...that is, as long as the crowd is comprised only of me and their siblings.

I went to my daughter's last-day-of-Kindergarten show. With all our practice at home, I expected my daughter to be one of the more confident speakers. I was wrong. She spoke so softly I could barely hear her. She stared at her teacher the entire time. No eye contact with the crowd at all. I was really surprised.

I spoke with her teacher about it afterward. She said that my daughter is confident with the other kids, but seems to have a hard time speaking in front of adults.

With that in mind, I have a new program I am preparing to implement. I am going to offer the opportunity for other parents in the neighborhood to have their kids practice public speaking in my living room. The only catch for the parents is that they have to be there as the adult crowd. In this way, all the kids will get exposure to speaking in front of adults; adults that are not their parents.