Yahoo Finance Jennifer Aniston reveals the workplace skill kids learn sitting at the adults’ table
We could probably all recall being told to leave the ‘adults’ table’ at dinner as children, or being seated separately on a ‘kids’ table’ to leave the adults to chat to each other.
While it could be, admittedly, more fun for both adults and children this way, Jennifer Aniston has used an acceptance speech after being named one of Variety’s six Power of Women honourees to show what kids are missing out on by doing that.
“I remember a parental figure saying to me around the critical age of about 11, after a dinner party, that I was excused from the table because I didn’t have anything interesting to add to the conversation,” Aniston said at the event.
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“Ouch. It stuck to me, it stuck to me like painfully worded sentences can and if I’m being honest — and I’m being honest because I’m 50 and that comes with the territory — I carried that sentence with me into adulthood.
“I always felt incredibly comfortable giving a voice to the words of others but put me in a table full of strangers and I’d go right back to being 11 years old.”
And while Aniston said working on Friends allowed her to see herself differently, she’s recently been thinking about the messages we send to children, especially young girls, about power.
“These last two years have really made me think a lot about the messages we send young kids — little girls especially; how the things we say and do can either build them up — or tear them down. And make them feel like maybe their voices don’t matter,” Aniston said.
Practicing confident communication with children is key to instilling good leadership skills in them, and it could start with including them in the conversation at the adults’ table.
Warren Buffet’s advice to parents
Teaching children the importance of communication isn’t the only way you can prepare them for their future.
If you want to get your kids thinking about finance, Warren Buffet has some intriguing tips.
“Sometimes parents wait until their kids are in their teens before they start talking about managing money — when they could be starting when their kids are in preschool,” he told CNBC.
Buffet taught his children how to start saving money through activities, like by giving them money jars for savings and spending. When his children received money, he would talk to them about how to split the money between both jars.
Buffet said decision-making activities could help kids understand how different choices impact future outcomes, and parents can assist by talking to their kids about their own decisions as they make them.
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