Rob Price joins the show to share insights from his extensive experience with youth enrichment programs like School of Rock, i9 Sports, and Nike Sports Camps. They explores the vital balance between building confidence and competence in children, emphasizing the importance of creating supportive communities where kids can thrive.
Rob Price joins the show to share insights from his extensive experience with youth enrichment programs like School of Rock, i9 Sports, and Nike Sports Camps. They explores the vital balance between building confidence and competence in children, emphasizing the importance of creating supportive communities where kids can thrive.
Project Parenthood is hosted by Chelsea Dorcich. A transcript is available as Simplecast.
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CHELSEA: Thank you so much, Rob, for being here. I'm so excited to be here. Chat about everything from balancing competence and confidence and, all of your experience you have, that we just heard. I'm kind of in awe of all the roles you've played and what you've probably seen in those roles.
ROB: It's been a journey and, it's a real joy to be, we have a, we've had a huge footprint where we're affecting a lot of children's lives. I have three of my own. They're grown adults now, but when people ask me how many kids I have, I'd say a million and three.
CHELSEA: Yes, just a million and three. I love that. Yes. Because you, I'm, I'm. I mean, it sounds like you obviously take a lot of pride in, in what you do and just, and I love that you touch on just resilience, mental health, anti bullying, and are able to really incorporate all that into the programs you've served on.
yeah. So let's talk more just like that balancing of competence and confidence. What kind of insight can you give us parents?
ROB: I, it's, as I think about the, some of the themes you talk about in your pod, it's a, these are recurring topics, which is how do you prepare kids for, to, for excellence and for success and for, proficiency. And I think that, the natural balance to that is how do you maintain their sense of self and comfort and confidence?
And, I feel like we've struggled with that as an enterprise in our various businesses, school of rock and U S sports camps and I nine. And what we found is that the two actually can work extraordinarily complimentary, that we think that, that confidence is the ballast. It is the groundwork for competence. And that too many, programs, academic programs, extracurricular programs, are so focused on racing to outcomes on competence. They forget to build the groundwork. And we have not only a, not, only a, philosophy around it's part of our curricular design.
CHELSEA: Okay.
ROB: And we can talk more about how that comes to life.
But, we are voting with our feet in terms of how our business is designed, the architecture of it to start with confidence and to deliver competence as effectively, if not more effectively than other alternatives.
CHELSEA: I love that. So it's, I mean, It's not so much. I guess I'm gonna need to like a little edit this, but I was trying to because I wanted I do want to learn. I want to hear more about the curricula and I want to hear. I'm really just resonating with the idea of having confidence before competence, because if it's it reminds a lot of the growth set model model that we learn from Stanford and that it's really about the process and just how because those that are actually like, really not so focused on the outcome.
Actually are going to do better when things get hard. So if we have that confidence, it sounds like the competence is going to follow. Is that what I'm hearing?
ROB: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I'll use the school of rock is an example and just for your listeners, the school of rocks, an independent physical location and kids will come in and of course we do weekly lessons, individual lessons, but the real point of difference is we'll put them in a rehearsal room every week and they're working.
12 weeks towards a show. So they join a band. And, so how that comes to life in a very practical way is that by putting them in a performance environment on a team and a group and in a rehearsal room where the risks of failure are exceptionally low, but the sense of group accountability and the group dynamics of support around individual development is established as the base architecture.
What that then does is it takes, it lowers the stakes of failure, which increases the likelihoods of success.
CHELSEA: Got it.
ROB: the kid now is working towards this group outcome, is working towards a show. They're competing against themselves more than they are competing against others. And and this is the same logic that we bring to i9 in our leagues.
Is it supposed to be fun?
CHELSEA: Okay.
ROB: we get them on the field immediately. Bye. And the skills training is taught in the context of the field. The teams are never fixed,
CHELSEA: Hmm.
ROB: there's never a situation where folks, there is a sense of, an ultimatum from a result standpoint, that there's always another chance to play.
And so we find by setting that, comfort, building a community and then saying, okay, we're going to learn these proficiencies together, and you're going to actually have the opportunity to demonstrate these proficiencies in supportive environment, we think that's deeper rooting for the competence.
CHELSEA: so having that accountability, that community, that group kind of mindset by, I like what you said, they're competing against themselves really as opposed to others in that sense in that group. And that's where the proficiency is going to, we're going to start to see that proficiency and, I just curious because I think of sometimes groups can intimidate other people, right?
Like if, if you think about some people not pulling their weight, like on a team, right. And I'm trying to, you know, I think it's a little bit different with like group projects versus like a team sport or something like that. Or like you said, a team band or performance,
ROB: it's such a Chelsea. It's such a great observation because you could very realistically critique the case I'm making and say, I could see how that could be devastatingly, Uncomfortable for a student if they're all of a sudden thrown into a group and that group is not actually demonstrating the behaviors of Confidence and so this can't work without cultural architecture in an organization Or in a household or in a
CHELSEA: Right. Right.
ROB: you actually have to have norms expectations Oversight
CHELSEA: Mm hmm.
ROB: Progressive discipline, expectations, physical environment, literally think about what the environment is, the language system, so that, happens in that room is the rehearsal is there to create community.
CHELSEA: Mm
ROB: And that the outcome of that will be an incredible performance as opposed to you are here. we're, driving for, proficiency outcomes today.
CHELSEA: Right.
ROB: so I, I do think that The, the more abstract part of this, the harder part of it is in any organization or cohort is building the culture that this is what we're trying to do.
Not just that it's not, it doesn't go on autopilot by any means. I think a lot of team based activities would claim they are doing this, but their culture is around the team winning,
CHELSEA: it.
ROB: opposed to the team thriving.
CHELSEA: Got it. Yeah, so that can be translated into the household, like you said, in terms of the household culture or values and, like, really thriving on that. Confidence and that, right, that team, like the community within your family versus, so much as maybe outcome or like you said, like, I know it's, I'm trying to see if there's similarities where we can apply this in our household versus
right.
ROB: I think there are, and I think about that, I thought, think about that all the time as [00:09:00] a parent, even with my kids now being, grownups, the, it's the, analogy that I think of is, let's say you've got a family of three little ones, and, so you've got a band. you've got the band, you've got, whether it's a one parent household or two parent household, you've got the, the two adult units and the three young units.
And, there's a big difference between saying to those three kids who can clean up their room fastest,
CHELSEA: Okay.
ROB: which in instantaneously makes it oppositional. it will drive. You'll get the Darwinian effect. But another great way to do it might be to say, okay, we're a band. How could we do this in the most creative way?
How could this be the most epic room cleaning experience we could ever have? Whose room should we start with?
CHELSEA: Right,
ROB: or Hey, let everyone switch rooms or, or come up with the craziest idea to organize, to, organize your tasks. it's always outcome oriented, but it's the idea of winning as a team,
CHELSEA: Got it.
ROB: and that the community is the thing that can't be violated.
CHELSEA: I love that. Yeah, I love that. Cause it's so that I think can be such a natural instinct to put some natural competition to the household to just kind of get things done. But what a way to actually just spin it and say, we're still striving for the same outcome and a fast outcome if we can, but we're going to do it together as opposed to racing against each other.
ROB: I think the other part of this confidence challenge, confidence and competence paradox in a household setting is indeed what we see on one of our sports teams and, Nike sports camps or what we see at school of rock and one of our bands is that every one of those children presumes they are not the favorite. They presume that the mechanism to demonstrate to earn favoritism and regard Is performance and honestly, if we're honest with each other as adults, we do have favorites and we, the, so a lot of this is about ensuring that our language system and our cues don't inadvertently elevate one versus the other.
Who gets to speak first? Who gets to speak last? Who gets the most vibrant, body language response, et cetera. So the point about culture, the point about norms in any unit, whether it's a family or a school classroom, or it's a sports field, is that you really have to say that the unit of analysis is the community, is the cohort, is the team. And that, you want to make sure that there isn't a loss of confidence that emanates from people feeling as if they are, they don't have a role to play on the team. They're not equivalent. They're just the base player. they're, which many base players sometimes will complain. It's I never get to do a solo.
I never get to stand in front.
CHELSEA: But it doesn't sound the same without the bass player.
ROB: No. and so you just, I think you just demonstrated a great mechanism by which to build confidence. Amongst that, one of your kids is going to be in a household is going to be the bass player. One is the guitar. One is the drums, lead singer, keyboard player. They are fundamentally different roles.
CHELSEA: Yeah.
ROB: Proficiency in each of those skill, in each of those dimensions are radically different. the, the drummer, you don't want to be seen. You want them to be keeping time where the lead vocalist needs to have everyone feeling as if this is a group work that we're building towards an outcome that is more perfect through everybody's unique contributions. And by the way, I think, by, means of talking about analogies, I think using the analogy for a family. Of a band or a sports team is an epically awesome way to do it because they can see a band on TV. They can see a sports team on field local, and they can say, notice that the goalie and the person in the front are doing really different things.
CHELSEA: integral. They're both right. They both have a very specific role, but it's also. Like you said, it's, it's apples and oranges there. It, you can't necessarily compare them, but there's still without one, your team isn't the same. So,
ROB: right. We've got two kids, two kids. They're really not kids anymore. two former students at School of Rock who are up for Grammys right now. and, they're behind the scenes. They're working with Willow Smith. and, and, they did production and performance and they were on Saturday Night Live, but no one's watching them. They're watching Willow. Now, Willow's got that badass grill, and she's Willow, for heaven's sake, but, I think that's, a conversation that we can have with our kids, which is that you need to be confident enough to be a follower, to be a great team member.
CHELSEA: Yeah.
ROB: as a supporter emanates from your being comfortable to sometimes being in the background.
CHELSEA: I love that. yes, sorry, Brandon. I think you're not on mute. Cause I keep picking up. Okay. Sorry. Rob, I really appreciate it. Especially. I love that kind of just want to end with that beautiful analogy of just, yes, you can actually look at your family unit as that band or as that sports team and really drive home to them, each person's, each child's integral part and contribution to the family.
how else can our listeners either reach out to you if they need, you know, more, what, more good information or how can they find. Hmm.
ROB: Oh, yeah. certainly anybody wants to reach out to me for, any professional exchanges. LinkedIn is a great way. Rob Price at Youth Enrichment Brands and, and to learn more about. are the various businesses that we have in youth enrichment come to Y. E. V dot com. And, my, my, advice to everybody is that, as, you're thinking about this as parents is that, we have to have the confidence to be patient with, our kids.
growing competence more slowly. and, so I'm always eager to talk to people more about this topic, whether it's academic or, or professional, whether it's nonprofit or for profit. And thanks for including me in the dialogue.
CHELSEA: Yeah. Thank you, Rob. I appreciate all of your experience and knowledge for coming to the table. Appreciate it. Thank you.