Founder

Hi! I'm married, with two kids and live in the UK. My story begins with a bedtime story I was reading to my eldest daughter, Mia, one evening. It was my favourite fable - The Wind and the Sun.
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You might know it. A man was walking and the Wind challenged the Sun to see who could get the man to take his coat off. The Wind tried first and blew very hard to make the man cold. But the man just tugged his coat even tighter to him. Then the Sun tried. It shined brightly and made the man warm. The man took his coat off straight away. Moral: Use kindness, not force, when dealing with people.

Obvious, right? Not so to my young daughter, because she immediately asked me: “But why daddy? The wind is really strong. Can’t he just blow the coat off the man?” And this led very naturally into a discussion around people and how we need to use kindness not force to motivate them. It only lasted five minutes or so, but I knew it was a lesson that she would remember for life. This little “coaching moment” done simply through conversation took just five minutes and required no preparation or materials .She went to soundly to sleep after that and I went to bed also with a high five parenting feeling of a job well done.

But I couldn’t sleep.

Because I suddenly had all these questions rushing to my mind, that would be amazing to ask my daughter the next day. Questions to help build other key skills like communication, critical thinking, empathy etc. At the time I was leading the UK division of an Education publishing company, and I’d seen first-hand the skills required to have a successful career. Rarely was it just being good at math, English and other academic subjects! More often it was being able to communicate well, think critically, and be empathetic towards others etc - so called “21st century skills.”

I was so excited to create more “coaching moments” for all parents to build these in al children. For example, that evening I remember writing: On communication – “How would you describe a car to an alien?” which gives practice talking about something obvious to you but unfamiliar to someone else! For critical thinking – “Would chocolate rain be a good or bad thing?” which is a fun way to think about pros and cons to anything, and being balanced in your views. And on empathy– “What would you say to a friend who is nervous to go to party?” to consider other people's perspectives and how to help them out.

I went on to write loads more of these and I wanted to share with other families. So I knocked together a quick website, loaded up the questions and shared in lots of Facebook parenting groups.

Parents loved them – I remember I had 200 parents signing up for more questions in the very first month! Talking to them I discovered that they really appreciated that someone else had done the hard part already, and they could just sit back and enjoy the conversation with their kids, especially after a long day at work.

It is actually quite difficult coming up with the questions that work, especially the follow-on prompts we give to deepen conversations. I seemed to have a knack for this however and I really enjoy doing it, so was super happy to keep doing so for other parents!

Since those early days we have been able to reach thousands more parents, built the KidCoachApp to put the questions in for parents of 6-12 year olds, and even been featured by the BBC for the work that we are doing!

Hi, my name is Kavin 👋

Try the KidCoachApp now!

Try the KidCoachApp now!