Why School Works for Some Kids and Fails Others

Dr. Elaine Kim spent years in palliative care sitting with people in the last days of their lives. What her patients kept saying at the end changed everything about how she thinks about the beginning. By age seven, a child's trajectory is already largely set. 90% of brain development happens in the first five years. And 250 million children around the world never get access to quality early education during that window. Elaine left medicine to do something about it. She built Trehaus, a preschool redefining early education in Singapore and Jakarta, and Little Lab, an AI powered platform bringing that same education to communities that have never had access to it, including 10,000 children in rural Pakistan. She is also a mum of four. In this conversation we dive into the science of early brain development, what AI actually means for the skills our kids need, why empathy is not just a feeling but something that can be taught, and what it means to raise children for a world being reshaped by forces neither of us fully understand yet. This one will stay with you. Press play. ### **About Elaine** Dr. Elaine Kim is a medical doctor, former palliative care physician, co-founder of Trehaus (Singapore and Jakarta) and Little Lab, an AI powered early education platform. She is a mum of four and a former UN ambassador for initiatives against the oppression of women. - Treehaus:https://www.treehouse.edu.sg/https://trehaus.co/ - Little Lab:https://www.littlelab.com/littlelab.com ### **What You'll Take Away** - Why a child's trajectory is largely predictable by age seven (and what that means for the years before school) - The Nobel Prize winning economist's finding on early education RO - What 250 million children not having access to a classroom actually costs the rest of the world - Why empathy is a skill, not a sentiment, and how it can be deliberately taught - The one question we should stop asking children (and what to ask instead) - What dying patients kept wishing for at the end, and what Elaine decided to do with that - Why female empowerment, to Elaine, now means something deeper than it used to ### **Chapters** - 00:00 — Cold open - 01:00 — Welcome to Growing Pains - 02:40 — From palliative care to preschool: connecting the dots - 04:50 — What the dying taught her about what matters - 06:30 — Why a child's future is largely decided by age seven - 09:10 — 250 million children, one window, and why it closes fast - 11:00 — What Little Lab actually does (and why it is not replacing teachers) - 16:50 — Raising kids for an AI world: what skills actually matter - 23:10 — Why empathy is the most important thing above everything else - 25:00 — The question we should stop asking children - 27:55 — Climate, AI, and what they talk about at the dinner table - 29:00 — How to hold the heaviness of the world for your kids without breaking - 32:55 — What Elaine wants her daughter to know about being a woman - 35:20 — Quick fire - 37:28 — The reconciliation moment that got Steph in tears ### **Connect with Growing Pains** Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia's podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed. - YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@growingpains.honeykids@growingpains.honeykids - Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/honeykidsasia@honeykidsasia - Website:https://honeykidsasia.com/honeykidsasia.com Hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. If this one moved you, share it with a parent who needs to hear it. *Growing Pains is produced in partnership withhttps://www.poddster.sg/Poddster, Singapore's podcast studio.* #EarlyChildhoodEducation #ParentingPodcast #BrainDevelopment #ChildDevelopment #EarlyLearning #AIinEducation #Empathy #ParentingTips #EducationInnovation #FutureOfEducation #RaisingKids #PreschoolEducation #DrElaineKim #Trehaus #LittleLab #GrowingPainsPodcast #HoneyKidsAsia #ParentingJourney #EducationForAll #Podcast