EP66: 3 Things Dads Can Do To Help Their Kids Learn

Interview with Charlie Rosier / Founder of Babbu, Childhood Learning Expert

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

What do you do when you want to entertain your toddler with something educational but you don't know where to go or whether the resource you find will be any good? Stuck at home during the pandemic, Charlie Rosier, a single parent with a toddler, pondered this question. The result is Babbu, an early child resource. Listen to 3 ways it can help Lead Dads - and their young children.

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Transcript

00;00;05;00 - 00;00;26;29
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, sublime, silly and strange aspects of being a dad and a world where men who are the go to parent aren't always accepted at work, among their friends, or in the community for what they're doing. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan. Our podcast is just one of the many things you produce each week at the company that we have various features, including the lead dad of the week.

00;00;27;00 - 00;00;50;26
Paul Sullivan
We have our community online, in person. We have a couple of other podcasts in the works. The one stop shop for all of this is our newsletter, The Dad sign up at the Company of dads.com. Backslash the dad That's the company of dads.com backslash the dad. Today my guest is Charlie Rosier, founder of Babbu an online platform full of resources for early childhood education.

00;00;50;28 - 00;01;11;18
Paul Sullivan
We're going to focus on that today, particularly as it relates to what working mothers and fathers can do to be part of their child's early learning. But Charlie is also the founder of Cuckoo's Nest, an on demand on site childcare provider in the UK. It's also just really fun to say Cuckoo's Nest. Her background is in residential real estate development.

00;01;11;19 - 00;01;18;05
Paul Sullivan
She's a single mother of one six year old daughter. Charlie, welcome to the company dad's podcast.

00;01;18;07 - 00;01;24;15
Charlie Rosier
Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for having me on, Paul. What an intro and a lot of illustration.

00;01;24;17 - 00;01;45;17
Paul Sullivan
You started Baboo in the pandemic 2021 is when it launched. What was going on? That this sprang to mind. Were you in lockdown? Absolutely. Losing your mind. What? Your daughter or how did this come about to launch? Sort of, you know, early, early pandemic, early mid pandemic.

00;01;45;19 - 00;02;08;06
Charlie Rosier
So what was going on was obviously a pandemic. So prior to, the launch of the I launched Cuckoo's Nest, which I did on the back of having my daughter six years ago. And I don't know if you know much about the UK and all kind of early is education, preschool sector, but it's a shambles and extremely expensive, the second most expensive childcare in the world.

00;02;08;08 - 00;02;10;03
Charlie Rosier
And mainly.

00;02;10;04 - 00;02;12;29
Paul Sullivan
What's what's the first most expensive is that the US or no.

00;02;13;01 - 00;02;34;13
Charlie Rosier
Spending is the US is probably somewhere random like Japan. But, you know, it's definitely of the US. So I mean, you don't have a great one. I think your problem is that you just so vast. Right. And like, accessibility is, is hard, but, so yeah, so it's really unaffordable. And the kind of quality varies immensely as you go up and down the country.

00;02;34;13 - 00;02;58;07
Charlie Rosier
So, I decided to open my own nursery, with, co-working site next door so parents could bring that baby to work, literally. I was obviously a working mother or self-employed at the time and just thought this was something that really needed to exist. And it was great. We took babies from six weeks, up to three years that they had two separate entrances, but parents would come and go in the nursery.

00;02;58;07 - 00;03;21;04
Charlie Rosier
They could breastfeed, they could put their baby down for a nap. They could take them to the park, whatever. And then the pandemic came and it was, the first time in a long time that I'd been solely responsible for my daughter's, you know, education and daily schedule. Yeah. And and I wasn't the only one. So kind of fielding calls left, right and center from friends and from customers, like, what do I do?

00;03;21;07 - 00;03;42;23
Charlie Rosier
And in the UK here, like primary and secondary school kind of adopted online learning pretty quickly. And continues, you know, children's education even though schools are shut, but for nursery and kind of preschool, as you know, it. I just didn't exist. So it started in June 2020 on a on a back of an envelope, and company was incorporated in 21.

00;03;42;25 - 00;04;08;17
Charlie Rosier
And since then, it's really just been a long journey of discovery. My first time in a tech business. So learning every day about that. And, we've probably spoken to about nearly 2000 parents about what their needs, frustrations, challenges are. For the third version of the app created a hell of a lot of content. So yeah, here we are today after all that.

00;04;08;19 - 00;04;28;22
Paul Sullivan
And actually, all real estate developers with MBAs are, you know, great, early childhood educators. No, that's not true. So you had you had to like every other parent there in the pandemic. You had to sort of figure it out as you went along. What became is there a certain model for bamboo? Is it is sort of a montessori method.

00;04;28;22 - 00;04;36;13
Paul Sullivan
Is there a certain method behind how you use the app to, connect with young children?

00;04;36;15 - 00;05;01;29
Charlie Rosier
So the way the app works is that it? It tailors the content each week to the both the parent and the child. So it follows their journey over time and starts to understand about the child's abilities and their preferences and kind of curate the content accordingly. You mentioned Montessori, so we have Montessori content, and, we're the first app globally to be endorsed by the Montessori organization.

00;05;02;02 - 00;05;24;07
Charlie Rosier
We've got forest School stuff in there because we believe, and I think it's just known, proven that, you know, spending time outside is fantastic for children's cognitive development. Plus, theory is that if you spend time outside and get to love nature, then hopefully you'll, you know, go on to save the planet and kind of, sustainability is kind of really embedded in our curriculum.

00;05;24;10 - 00;05;48;23
Charlie Rosier
We've got some mindfulness stuff. So that kind of came off the back of some of the customer feedback, like what activities can we do just before bed that's kind of winding down rather than hyping them up? So yeah, we've got a real breadth of, educational philosophies and different types of content too, whether it's podcast videos, blogs, just simple tips to get through the day.

00;05;48;25 - 00;06;07;22
Paul Sullivan
Now, yeah. I mean, as you said, the start of the pandemic, we're all trying to, you know, figure this out, you said is the third version of the app. How has it evolve or how is it, evolving? As you know, kids have gone, back to school, parents have gone back to the office, if not full time.

00;06;07;22 - 00;06;18;03
Paul Sullivan
How do you how has it evolved to sort of meet the way? We're changing as parents in the way, you know, children are changing as is. They're learning.

00;06;18;06 - 00;06;40;24
Charlie Rosier
So in terms of the product itself, it's evolved just in terms of like its functionality, like the first the vision and iteration of the app was much broader in its application. But I think what I realized I was trying to do too much. So we've kind of scaled it back to being this kind of really high quality, tailored content platform, essentially.

00;06;40;26 - 00;07;09;20
Charlie Rosier
But in terms of how, parents and carers and children's lives have evolved since the pandemic, I mean, every child under three globally is a pandemic baby, right? Like, they have, have suffered. And and in one way, I know that be it from, you know, being older and and and being in lockdown or being or being born during the pandemic and kind of lacking some of the essential, as I say, the socialization benefits.

00;07;09;22 - 00;07;41;07
Charlie Rosier
So parents are quite rightly concerned about lost learning and, and just I think everything that's coming out in terms of just awareness of how important the first five years of a child lives is. But parents just, you know, we're all full of anxiety anyway. You know, we worry about our kids. So the minute they're born, as we should, it says that we're spending about 37 hours a week worrying about our kids, whether that's about their education, mental health, linguistics, childcare, you know, whatever it may be.

00;07;41;07 - 00;07;57;05
Charlie Rosier
So, I think that's just been heightened since, since the pandemic. And parents just want to do more, which, you know, is a good thing because there is a lot of data that says, you know, nothing beats a parent's involvement in their kids education in terms of outcome.

00;07;57;07 - 00;08;03;17
Paul Sullivan
So 37 hours a week, we're worried about this. So that's, you know, it's like, five hours a day, give or take.

00;08;03;24 - 00;08;06;17
Charlie Rosier
It's like another full time job. Wow.

00;08;06;17 - 00;08;09;05
Paul Sullivan
Now I'm worried that I'm not worrying enough.

00;08;09;07 - 00;08;13;21
Charlie Rosier
Maybe your family's perfect. Well, maybe your wife's doing all the worrying. Well.

00;08;13;21 - 00;08;35;10
Paul Sullivan
Man, it's his company of dads. I'm the lead dad. We we we. You know, I lead the worrying, in our house. You know, I think about every every baby under three is a pandemic baby. But, you know, my youngest daughter, will be six in May. So subtract three years. Meaning she was almost three when this happened.

00;08;35;10 - 00;08;57;05
Paul Sullivan
And, you know, it's had she does fairly so she has a few friends of of all three of my daughters. Not that she doesn't need not really crave plate. She got sicker than anybody else when she went back to school and took the mask off. But she's also probably the most tech savvy. But I remember, you know, when it all started at the nursery school, she was going to.

00;08;57;05 - 00;09;16;10
Paul Sullivan
They did their best. I said, okay, what are we going to do? You know, the older kids asked for a lot of stuff online and they tried to do something. And it didn't really it wasn't it wasn't good or bad. It just wasn't super successful. How do you, you know, how have you created Baboo in such a way that, you know, children are able to get something?

00;09;16;10 - 00;09;36;12
Paul Sullivan
Parents and children are able to get something from, from an app when they are as, as young as they are. Yeah. I mean, you get your you're targeting kids before age five into these are not, you know, high school kids. How have you created the app to make sure that it's really connecting, in an effective, positive way with younger our youngest learners.

00;09;36;15 - 00;10;09;15
Charlie Rosier
So I guess the big kind of, caveat open, I think, to, to make clear, is the app itself is for for an adult, it's for a parent or carer. It's not directed at the child, it's not another game that they can engage with. That's an it helps them with maths. It is a content platform which provides activity ideas to the parent, which covers seven areas of learning and are actually broken down into about 560 different, milestones between the ages of zero five.

00;10;09;17 - 00;10;34;06
Charlie Rosier
And so the idea is it's from 15 minutes a day you can play with your child is about being a present parent, about spending quality time with them that that always remember using stuff around the house. It doesn't cost much or anything at all. And, and it's just meant to be like bringing the joy back into being a parent and bringing fun to early learning, basically.

00;10;34;08 - 00;10;42;01
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Any idea what the breakdown is between, fathers who are using the app and, and moms who are using the app?

00;10;42;04 - 00;11;08;26
Charlie Rosier
I'm actually super surprised when I can tell you right to my head and statistics, but I would say almost 5050. We're seeing a really strong take off from that. I mean, we are we are conscious of dads. And again, you know, so much research that shows the impact of dads involvement in that child's. And if they're active and that present, then that has a beneficial part, which I guess you could say is obvious if two parents are actively engaged.

00;11;08;26 - 00;11;31;18
Charlie Rosier
But, you know, father definitely brings something unique to to a child's development. So pleased to see the uptake from dads. And I think, yeah, that's especially working dads who might not be the lead dads, you know, their working patterns have changed. They spend more time at home with their kids and they enjoy that. Funny enough, and, wanting to be more involved and, you know, pushing for more time off.

00;11;31;18 - 00;11;49;00
Charlie Rosier
I mean, paternity leave here in the UK is two weeks for dads. Which is just so insignificant compared to what mums, dads. And so there's a big push at the moment to make it kind of six weeks as a minimum, as a statutory requirement. But we'll say.

00;11;49;02 - 00;12;07;15
Paul Sullivan
When you think about, you know, the ideas that you had when you were creating this, you know, surely being back sometime in 2020, since it launched in 2021, what was the difference between, you know, the idea that you had this is what it's going to be. This is what I believe. You know, the research shows that we should give to it.

00;12;07;15 - 00;12;20;19
Paul Sullivan
And what is it? Reality. How has it evolved in that? You know, when you see like, how people are actually using it, how are they using, you know, better?

00;12;20;21 - 00;12;43;26
Charlie Rosier
I mean, it's worthwhile saying that we're still super early in our journey. So like, even though version one, which is, you know, what's out there currently and available to use is super basic, like, I'm very surprised by the actual engagement by people. I think when you're so close to a product and you live and breathe it every day like it's quite, it's quite easy to be critical.

00;12;43;26 - 00;13;05;07
Charlie Rosier
Or maybe that's just me, but, you know, in many respects I'm like, well, this is not what I want you to be like. It can be just so much greater. But, yeah, I mean, pretty, pretty sticky, if that's the term to use in terms of you know, users coming back in each week and say the average uses in about three times a week.

00;13;05;09 - 00;13;22;08
Charlie Rosier
And yeah, so far reviews have been good, but in terms of where I want it to go, like as I said, it, it can it can be so much more. You know, we're we're starting to build our own community where you can kind of ask experts anything. And then we kind of respond with a two minute video.

00;13;22;11 - 00;13;38;25
Charlie Rosier
And what I would really like to see is kind of we progressed more into being a diagnostic tool for some early learning disability and challenges like autism. But that requires, you know, scale and data jam. We're not there yet.

00;13;38;27 - 00;13;45;16
Paul Sullivan
What are what are some of the most popular things that people the parents are downloading? What are the things that you know are working, you know, really well?

00;13;45;19 - 00;14;04;26
Charlie Rosier
So our own podcast series, I think, is proving successful. We've just done a whole range of interviews with dads, and I think it's just really useful to, you know, shine a light on everyone's experiences and make you feel less alone. I think loneliness is a big part of parenting, especially in the early years. Don't.

00;14;05;00 - 00;14;19;27
Paul Sullivan
Tell me how many. Don't tell me how many hours I'm lonely as a parent, okay? You've already told me I should. I need to worry 37 hours a week, which I'm not worrying enough, so. All right. Don't even tell me how many hours I need to be, like, okay, the podcast is doing well, but.

00;14;19;29 - 00;14;53;04
Charlie Rosier
The podcast is doing well. And it's mainly the activities. You know, I think that the thing that, is unique to us in many ways, you know, Montessori is kind of globally recognized is is good quality education, if you like, but also many families are priced out of it. So we're trying to make the inaccessible accessible, you know, and I think the way that it feels so personalized, like, you know, each week it says, you know, if your child loves getting messy, we'll give you more messy activities to do.

00;14;53;05 - 00;15;12;02
Charlie Rosier
You know, that's kind of how it works. And so, yeah, I think and I think that that's actually I've done a lot of customer feedback, like a lot of the dads who speak, they take the morning shift and, they'll be like, I'm sat there in the dark like 6:00. And I'm just worried that he's bored, but I don't know what to do.

00;15;12;05 - 00;15;30;13
Charlie Rosier
You know, how to stimulate him. So this is an easy way that I'm like, oh, yeah, I've got some boxes and tampons over there. I'll do this. So, yeah, I think it's just we're trying to just, as I said, kind of be your wing parent, be there by your side, kind of giving you some support when you need them.

00;15;30;15 - 00;15;52;07
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. You know, years ago I interviewed, James Heckman for my second book, and, he's an economist who won a Nobel Prize for something quite esoteric, but he's really best known for his work on the economic and societal benefits of early childhood education. And he's argued that the highest rate of return comes from investing, in kids when they're young.

00;15;52;07 - 00;16;21;24
Paul Sullivan
Yet so many families in the US and, you know, in the UK to, focus on where their child goes to college or university. And in the UK, you've got these exams that sort of determine your, your fate. How can you know Baboo flip that equation or at least make them parents, you know, working parents in particular, more aware of the value of high quality education early on.

00;16;21;26 - 00;16;40;14
Charlie Rosier
It is a challenge and it's definitely something we've got here in the UK as well. The, Duchess of Cambridge. So Princess Catherine did a big research project and she's like nine out of ten people in the UK don't know the importance of the early years. So that's definitely like a barrier, I guess you could say in terms of, you know, market awareness.

00;16;40;14 - 00;16;59;15
Charlie Rosier
But I think that is that is changing. As I said, the data definitely suggests, and I guess the other big thing is like millennials, like 83% of millennials are parents and they've all grown up with tech. And it just is a natural adoption of tech for parenting, as you would use for food delivery or holiday accommodation or whatever.

00;16;59;15 - 00;17;23;22
Charlie Rosier
So, I think consumer behavior is changing, but I guess our way of tackling it is kind of, like making it fun, like not making it like learning because, like essentially in the early years, kids under five and probably to some extent even primary. And now, they learn through play. That's how they learn. And so you're right that the first few years are important.

00;17;23;23 - 00;17;55;18
Charlie Rosier
It's what shapes you as a person, you know? And the biggest thing that we're trying to instill is independence, kindness and empathy of others and a love of learning. And I think if you can instill those three things in your child very, very early on, then you probably don't need to worry about college and, you know, their future career or what's going to happen in their life, because you can set in, embedded some really strong values which will carry them throughout their life.

00;17;55;21 - 00;18;19;14
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I agree completely. I mean, this is what, you know, James Heckman found in his research, in Michigan, where, you know, the skills that were most needed were not teaching your kids, you know, baby, more Mozart or, you know, alternately yelling at them and, you know, Mandarin and Spanish to sort of increase their language capacity. It was these life skills because of those life skills of of the kindness, the sort of attention, the focus.

00;18;19;21 - 00;18;38;09
Paul Sullivan
Those are the ones that carried anybody through, whether they were, you know, became a physicist later on in life or, had a sort of, you know, hourly wage job. It got them to, you know, show up at work, be engaged, you know, be kind to their coworkers, work hard. You know anything? This one.

00;18;38;09 - 00;18;52;11
Paul Sullivan
Great. I want to come back and, ask you what is going on with Cuckoo's Nest. Is that, has it come out of the pandemic okay? Is it a co-working space, or are you focused most of your time now on, B&B?

00;18;52;14 - 00;19;26;11
Charlie Rosier
I took the decision in 2021 to just fix a baby. Cuckoo's nest was like a beautiful business that, had a real feel good factor just because of the community we built and the fact that we were offering just such value to people. But it ultimately is challenging to scale, and I think especially here in the UK, like, it's not only that childcare so expensive, but we have a huge problem with, staffing following Brexit.

00;19;26;13 - 00;19;47;29
Charlie Rosier
And then the pandemic, like we just are not attracting good quality staff into the sector. They can get more money working at McDonald's. So to some extent that was going to be a very challenging business. And I just felt ultimately that with a digital product, we could help so many more families and ultimately scale this across the world.

00;19;48;02 - 00;20;05;02
Paul Sullivan
Charlie Rose, thank you for being my guest on the Company of Dads podcast. I always give my guests the last word so you know, final thoughts for, you know, working moms and dads listening to this and how, you know, Baboo can can help them and help their children.

00;20;05;04 - 00;20;25;21
Charlie Rosier
Thanks for the last word. I guess my, like, one piece of advice to parents is like, try not to overthink it. Like, that statistic about 37 hours a week. You know, I, I definitely worry. And I did the mind map with my worries, the other day, and it's, like, insane where you can take yourself, you know, with the worry.

00;20;25;21 - 00;20;46;14
Charlie Rosier
Like, I can always have kind of completely contradictory thoughts at the same time about your child. Like, I worry that sometimes she's, like, too confident and, like, gregarious and annoying. And then I'm like, is she too shy? And she's an only child. I should never have any friends. Like at the same time, I can think these thoughts. So I think it's, you know, there's a saying about being a good enough parent, not a great power.

00;20;46;14 - 00;21;06;11
Charlie Rosier
And I think that's really, really true. And I say the other thing, when it comes to your child's learning is like, just try and spend that 15 minutes a day without any distractions and give the TV, the oven, the phone, whatever else, and and get on that level and, and play. That's the best thing you can do for them.

00;21;06;13 - 00;21;08;28
Charlie Rosier
So don't worry and play more.

00;21;09;00 - 00;21;30;21
Paul Sullivan
Charlie. Thank you. And good or bad, I'm an only child, so somehow I've made it, far. I think, you know, speaking about, like, children. I'm not lonely. I think you're will be just fine. Charlie Rosier, founder of babble. Thank you again for being my guest on the Company of Dads podcast. Becky, thank you for listening to the company, that podcast.

00;21;30;23 - 00;21;53;12
Paul Sullivan
I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do at the Company of Dads. Possible. Helder Moura, who is our audio producer, Lindsay Decker. And as all of our social media, Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition, Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me.

00;21;53;12 - 00;22;11;02
Paul Sullivan
And many of the things that we do here at the Company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're, we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad. Sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.