Episode 29: "FELT" The App That Builds & Restores Relationships with Maayan Malka

DJ Stutz  0:13  
You're listening to Episode 29 of Imperfect Heroes, Insights Into Parenting, the perfect podcast for imperfect parents looking to find joy in their experience of raising children in an imperfect world. I'm your host, DJ Stutz. And Maayan Malkaa is an Israeli entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in product design, and development of interactive applications. And he's also the creator and founder of Felt, and something called the Cat Bears. You'll learn about that. And while working on Felt, Mayan also works as one of the lead product designers at Joy tunes, which is a unicorn ed tech startup and brings music to the world with fun and engaging musical learning applications. Things like simply piano and simply guitar, you may have heard of those, there's so much to learn. So let's get started. 

Before we get going, I want to remind you that we have a new website for the podcast. It's www.imperfectheroespodcast.com. And you can follow us there. And it is so easy to leave a review. I'm serious, it will take you less than a minute, you just click on the review button and click on leave a review. And it is super, super easy. Reviews not only helped me know what's going on with my listeners, what they're thinking, what works for them. It also helps other parents just like you find our podcast and so that we can help them as they work through finding joy and parenting. Just so you know, five stars is the appropriate number of stars. And so be sure to listen to the end of the podcast and be one of my linger longers we all have had relationships that need some repairing. And maybe it's a parent or a spouse, a child, a co worker or even a friend. And the reality is that relationships are work. Any relationship that lasts is one that has learned to manage through the rough water, and sometimes the level five rapids. And sometimes things become so toxic, that ties need to be severed. And wouldn't it be nice if we had the skills to improve and preserve our relationships? Before it comes to that? While growing up. My relationship with my parents was strained for a variety of reasons. And that strain continued into my adulthood. And through years of hard work and many fallbacks at the age of 35, I was able to give my dad a hug and tell him I loved him. And it actually felt right for the first time, not something that I was pressured into or felt obligated to do. And I said goodbye to him as he climbed into his plane and headed home with my mom and my little brother. We had that Thanksgiving weekend, moving into a new home and my dad came down to help. And that evening, at 11 o'clock, I got a phone call. And it was one of my brothers telling me that my dad had flown our youngest brother up to college, in his single prop airplane. And then his plane had crashed on the return trip. And my dad was gone. And the last thing I said on this earth to my dad was that I loved him. And you have no idea how comforting that still is to me today. It has continued through

many, many years, that peace knowing that we had come to terms before he left on to the next round. The only thing that I wish for now is just more years of the relationship that we ended with. Minds program is useful to more than adults. And it helps us teach our children To look at a problem from someone else's point of view, how to express their feelings in a way that looks to preserve a relationship rather than damage it, because we're angry. Imagine the power that we can give our children with an early start on understanding the ways and the value of relationships. So mine lets us in on how he developed felt, and what it can bring to your family. Just a heads up. Mayan, as I mentioned before, is from Israel. And he talks during our conversation about having a buddy, but to my American ear, it sounds like body. So just be prepared for that as we listen in. I am joined today with Maayan Malka from Israel, which is so totally cool. And he is actually the creator of a program called Felt. F E L T. And so what I would like to do is just turn it over to you mine and let you introduce yourself and talk about your story.

Maayan Malka  6:13  
Thank you so much DJ. So yeah, so felt is the is an application that I've been working on for a few years. And it basically gives parents a chance to have meaningful one on one quality time with their children. And the purpose is to become more involved in their lives. And specifically, when your child is in a conflict fault, we'll help parents become great listeners, and less judgmental and more supportive. So the relationship can be very warm and very healthy, you know, between the parent and the child.

DJ Stutz  6:55  
That's amazing. It's such a great goal to have. Actually, I've always said that's the greatest gift that you can give your child is those stable relationships between you and your spouse and between you and your kids. So that's amazing. So why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got started in all of this?

Maayan Malka  7:14  
Yeah, sure. I love to do before I always I tell about tell that do bring up my personal story, which is how everything started. It goes way back, it was when I was a kid, I had a lot of relationship problems and conflicts with my parents, specifically my father. And growing up was very difficult for me, I was doing good at schools, but I always felt like I didn't belong there, that the system wasn't made for me. And growing up this way, really brought up a lot of conflicts between my father and my father wanted me to do well at schools, I didn't like school. So eventually, it brought up a lot of explosions. And we never learned how to fix these problems. Until by the age of 30, I had a really big explosion with my father and I, we didn't talk for one year. And at the time, it was very painful for both of us. And one day, my father just told me my listen, you have to fix it. I don't know what or how you just need to find a way and fix these problems because I didn't want to talk to him. We only say hi. And it was really, really hard. And when he told me this, he told me that he gave me like a mission, a new way of thinking about the same problem. And as a profession, I am a designer. I'm a product designer, I create applications and websites. And when my father told me this, I started thinking in my designer voice starting to think about what's the problem and not being this disappointed, frustrated son. But thinking about the same thing in the designer point of view. And I started asking myself questions like, why are we fine? What's what's the problem between us and Nansel start coming. I started saying to myself, well, I mean, basically triggered, talking to my father, I get angry really fast. And he always cuts me off in the conversation.

So I asked these questions more and more, and I figured out that the problem is communication, or main problem is we can't have a really good discussion about anything. And so then I say, I think I said, Okay, let's say we find a solution. We change the discussion. What's next? Will this fix everything and understood that? No, because there's so many things that are wrong. Where do I start? And these two problems when I realized them, a month later, I create did a very rough prototype, which I used cardboard and felt to create it and hot glue. And I call it felt because it felt right. And why did I created this way to quickly map how I feel? And what's the problems that as I see them? And what do I need in this relationship, I used Velcro and little stickers that I created, each capturing an emotion or a need. I did that everything were very intuitive. I didn't study about it at the time. And I felt like Okay, now that I know, what's the problem in this relationship, I can map it, I'm going to drive to him and give this felt bored to him. And just before I did that, I felt like it's not okay that I'm just sharing my side of the story. So I turned this cardboard upside down. And I quickly mapped his point of view as I'm seeing it, so he won't be threatened, you won't feel like I'm pointing my fingers at him. I wanted him to see me also that I'm seeing him. So I decided to drive to my parents house. And I gave him the board. And for a few minutes, he just looked at it and didn't know what it was. And then he started to look into it. And he saw that there were emotions there and feelings and needs and what I thought about him, and he started asking me questions. And he started saying things that I've never heard him say before, I remember telling myself at that moment, I didn't know he had this vocabulary. He talked about his emotions. And something really amazing happened there. And it opened up a door to, basically to our relationship. From that moment, we had a really healthy discussion about all the problems in our relationship. And we had a few more discussions like that afterwards. And from that day, it's not like everything's solved. We didn't fix the problems, but we were prepared. When they came, we know there's an alternative to talk. And until this day, today, we will tell them, Hey, we are fighting right now let's stop, let's do felt, let's stop fighting. And let's start listening to our needs into our problems into our feelings. And you know, my father is over 70 to 75 years old. I never imagined this could happen between us, you know, from my point that we can be in the same room to the point that he's involved in my life is the is the grandfather now. And he just helped me buy an apartment for my children, which is like, things like this could cause so much frustration and fight over things so much stress, buying an apartment, and I can honestly say he's he's amazing in these things. And he's helping me so much. And it's amazing for me, I'm so thankful for felt that I could have a relationship with my father. Something that I was in this point of time that I was already I gave up on it in a way I said it could never work. And we solved it somehow. And from the time I told this story to a lot of people around me. And everyone said, Hey, maybe you should do something about it. You're a designer, maybe other people could enjoy something this. So I started showing the felt board the prototype to a lot of people. And they got really amazing feedback about it. People said it could be something very useful for educators for a psychologist for marriage. consultors Yeah. And moving in time to today, though, it's been like, eight years since then. Felt has been evolved into something which I'm very proud of. It's now focused on children, and trying to help children develop their social and emotional skills in a practical way. And it's trying to help parents, just like me and my father getting touch, revive the relationship. If they are having a conflict, find solutions. Educate them, give them the right tools to express what they need, what they feel. So yeah, and that's what we're doing today.

DJ Stutz  14:44  
That sounds just amazing. I am. I love your story. I love the fact that your father was surprised when you brought the felt board to him. And I thought that it was really interesting that you in included, how you are interpreting what you thought his point of view was. And then he could look at that. And he asks, it sounds like some great questions. But I think that helped him understand you. Even better than you saying, your point of view.

Maayan Malka  15:17  
Yeah, I think it brought light into something very, very painful. And it's changed the entire fabric of the communication. And so that moment really changed my life. And now I'm trying to find ways to help more and more people have the same effect, you know, and, and also, not only when things are so bad, or broken, can educate our children. That's what I'm trying to do now as a parent, to give them and to equip them with a set of skills that I never had when I was growing up. I think that we have a really amazing opportunity today, using technology in the right way to really fast forward a lot of learnings which are very hard to gain. So that's, that's felt today. And I can tell you a little bit about how it's working. Yeah, I'd love to hear. So as I said before, felt is a practical way to learn these skills. And what I mean about by practical is, I'm now looking at conflicts, not as something really bad that you should avoid, but as an opportunity for you to learn and to become a better person. And specifically, when children are in conflicts, and children are all the time in conflict, there's so many different things changing around them all the time, we need to help them understand how they need to resolve their conflicts, we don't need to do it for them, we need to take this opportunity to educate them. So felt has two roles. The person who is in a conflict we call the filter, which is the child that's having the conflict. And then the second role is usually the parent, the soul, the body, body is the person who's there with the filter, he's a companion. And his job is to help the filter, unfold their own story, and find their own solutions to the conflict. So these two roles used felt together. For example, if a child has conflict, his father or his mother can sit with him, it takes like 10 minutes. And in these 10 minutes, another thing happened. Felt is based on a lot of study today, it's really changed since the eight years ago, I've consulted with a lot of experts in a lot of fields, like social emotional learning, and nonviolent communication, children's psychology. And I created this journey, that when you are in a conflict, you can go through a few questions, such as what just happened between you two? Can you describe it to him? And what do you feel about this person? What do you feel about this conflict? And when you ask the right questions in the right order, and using the right interface, you give the children a very quick way to answer these questions. You basically can educate them in a very practical way that their minds can change about what they just thought in the beginning and what they feel. And think in the end of this journey. Their mind change, and they also they come up with their own solutions. And they also bring up things that are not there in your day to day. We have a lot of amazing stories about parents who used felt with their children and heard a lot of things that they were not aware of the children don't bring up you know, when you ask your kid, how was school or how was kindergarten? It's a very hard question. It's not therefore that they only say it was good, or should they even respond at all? There's so many things there. It's hard to bring this all up when you ask the question. And also they don't know. Usually they don't know. It's a skill to ask someone. How do you feel right now? To come up with a good answer is a skill and it's really hard for them to answer. Another thing that felt does is their approach. Felt is very playful. If there's a lot of illustrations, the child needs to find the right animal for them and the animal for the other person was that with they are in a conflict with and this immediately creates something very special. They become instantly engaged

They imagine becomes their own story. It's very beautiful to see a child using felt they bring the world to life. So why do we need the body? Why doesn't the child just do it by himself, the body is there to support because felt can bring up a lot of hard things. So it's important to have a person next to you an app doesn't doesn't matter how advanced it is, it can comfort, you know, it can put his his or her hand on their shoulders at that moment. So when there's another person, which the child trusts, that's amazing can really heal, you can really make a really big change there. And so that's what we're trying to do. We try to educate parents to become great bodies. By the way, there's a really good way to explain what a good body is. I use the book The rabbit listens. Yeah, yeah, by Corey door filled, which I was also I love this book. And this book really shows what's a good body and what's not the greatest body, and gives examples of trying really hard to help the child there. But they're too loud, or they're too judgmental, and they have their own ideas. And the child can't really solve their own problems. And what what did the child need just need the rabbit who listened, you know, he didn't do anything, the rabbit he was just there, he was just giving his warmth, and comfort. And that's a great body. So I love this book as a metaphor to what Phil is trying to do for parents, and for their children.

DJ Stutz  21:49  
One of the things that I really love about, what you're talking about is that this is a journey that the parent and the child take together. And that the parent, I love that you call him a buddy, in that he's not a boss, he's not really even an authority necessarily, but someone to help you along the way on the journey in the child's mind. And I just love that approach that you've got going on with that.

Maayan Malka  22:21  
Thank you so much. And I really believe in it, you know, it's very hard for us as parents, especially when you use felt and you hear things that you're not aware of, to become the parent and authority, as you say, this is right, this is wrong, you should do this, don't do that. And with all this great intentions, we sometimes really take the responsibility from them, even even young children need this responsibility, to take care of themselves to find their own solutions. I really believe in that. So what the buddy could do is a guide and give ideas, but don't take the responsibility from their hands. That's so

DJ Stutz  23:07  
important. And I think too, you mentioned getting started early with young children. And if we start giving them the tools, at a very young age, a three year old could do this with you. And then they're developing those skills so that when they move along in life, maybe they're in a conflict with a sibling or a friend, or maybe even a teacher at school that maybe doesn't get them or they're upset for whatever reason. They now because you've worked with them at such a young age, it's going to be almost second nature for them to start looking at it in a way of let's solve this problem rather than I'm just really angry.

Maayan Malka  23:51  
Right. This is what I'm hoping. And also seeing a little bit with we are seeing parents that are tell us about their children who are in a conflict. And after 10 minutes of using felt, I just heard about a story about a nine year old girl who was in a really bad conflict with a friend from her school. And the parents were involved. It was really big conflict there. And they didn't know what to do. And after 10 minutes, she said, she wants to stop fighting with him. And she thinks she knows what she needs to say to him and things like that, you know, it doesn't matter if she resolved the conflict, yes or no. But even the fact that you start thinking this way, and not being in the perspective of being insulted and being in a hardship, but seeing the opposite side. I think this is amazing. And I think this can resolve the conflict this way of thought conflict resolution is a very problematic term, as I see it, because it implies that the conflict needs to be resolved. And it needs to be like everyone should be friends. And that's not true. A conflict is, first of all, in your, it's something that you need to resolve. And it's your responsibility to do whatever you need to do. It's not about them, it's about you.

DJ Stutz  25:26  
Well, that's such a great point to that. It's nice when you can resolve the conflict with the other person, and things go well, but it's also more important, I think, for you to put that conflict in its right place. So that you're understanding what's going on, you're responsible for you, we try to make the lives of others as best we can. But sometimes the other person may not necessarily be interested in resolving the conflict for whatever reason,

Maayan Malka  25:59  
right? Yeah, exactly. I think that this is an amazing skill, that there's a line between you and the other person, if you issue start assuming all the time, what's on their mind, and why are they angry at me? Why are they not doing this or that that's a very slippery slope there, you know, you can go and ask yourself these questions. And I think a person needs to stop this kind of thinking, and look into themselves and figure out what's going in them, and find the best way they can to reach out to the other person, if it's asking for forgiveness, if it's giving feedback, if it's giving ideas, but from that point in time, it's not their responsibility anymore, they're giving it to the other person. And whether the conflict is resolved or not, is just if this other person is aware, as they are aware. And so this is the vision, if we can help more and more people understand this lesson, this life lesson, I think that this can really create change with how people are understanding what conflict is, and how they can resolve it. My vision is, if I felt was some kind of tool at schools, and a language so children would know, and grew up with these values, I think it can help a lot going up in the future.

DJ Stutz  27:29  
You've mentioned this a couple of times as you've been talking about it, but that you don't take the responsibility away from whomever, for coming up with solving the problem and having that determination and putting in the work to it, you're there to guide them through it. But the work is still theirs to do. Right. Yeah,

Maayan Malka  27:52  
that's true. You know, our children are now in this ecosystem, this social and emotional ecosystem of schools, then now developing these skills for life, these skills will be used everywhere in their when in the workplaces, in their relationship, in their, when they will become parents, they have the skills. So now is the time, it's the best time to practice them. So even if they fail, you know, that's the best way to learn. Yeah, now when it's safe, it's a safe environment for them. And hopefully, they'll build from these failures, fail fails, failures,

DJ Stutz  28:38  
failures, failures, I'm Israeli,

Maayan Malka  28:41  
so and they will learn by doing, they won't learn by us preaching or telling, I really, this is something fundamental that I truly believe in. And it's also not something that I've invented. There's a lot of research in social emotional learning, when you educate your children with the right set of tools and the right set of skills, naming emotions, for example, building empathy. These are amazing skills that you can teach your children to do, and to master. And once they do that, so many things they can do in this time, other than being stuck in a conflict. And I don't

DJ Stutz  29:29  
know if this is a phenomenon that is just taking place in the United States, or if this is something that you see in Israel, we often see what we call a helicopter parent, where the child has a conflict or just simply maybe doesn't get what something they wanted or whatever, or they get in trouble. And the parents swoops in to do everything for the child. So you can't get my child in trouble for this or, you know, it's always the other kids fault or whatever, and instead of really taking the time to, because it does take time, and it's not the easiest, well, it is easier than what dealing with the repercussions down the road as they get older. But it's putting the time in when they're young, and giving them those skills rather than the parent coming in and solving everything for the child. They never get practiced in how to resolve conflict at all. I don't know if that's happening in Israel, but it's a pretty common thing right now going on in the United States.

Maayan Malka  30:34  
Yeah, of course, it happens in Asia, I think it happens everywhere. I think it's something that where we'll, you know, it's it's an it's the nature of being a parent, you want to help your child, you want to do everything, to stop them from the suffering, you know, and having a difficulty. But sometimes the best intentions is something that I tell myself all the time as a parent, the best intentions can, if they don't have the right method, they can create the opposite. I look at my relationship with my father. You know, when I used the felt board, the one illustration that I created there really made the biggest change with our relationship with was a little fox, I picture my father as a fox, and myself was a little duck. I don't know why I did that. But that's what I came up with them. So I pictured him as a little fox that has this bag, and he plants, flowers. And instead of flowers, what's growing is fears. And I wrote below it, you are planting fears. And this emotion, you're planting fields is this concern of a parent who's trying to be protective, and tells to his child, you shouldn't do that. And this, this could happen, this can happen. These fears are really blocking my way through. So as a child as a son, I told my parents that. And it really made a huge difference in our relationship. And now as a parent, I'm telling myself the same thing. Let him find his solutions, let her find her solutions. I have four years old son, and two years old daughter, and when they are having a hardship, I use felt with them. I'm trying my best to help them understand what they're going through. I'm not trying to help them solve it. That's a really big difference.

DJ Stutz  32:46  
Huge difference. It's a huge difference. It sounds just amazing and wonderful resource for parents to use in raising their kids and making their homes strong. In that relationship. Yeah. So I want to go ahead and ask you the question I asked all of my guests, and I'm wondering how you would define a successful parent?

Maayan Malka  33:19  
That's a really good question. Okay, so I talked a lot about me and my father, I didn't tell you about my mother. My mother was a kindergarten teacher, all that life. And when I was very little, she learned by her profession, that you shouldn't tell a child how to draw, you should give him the freedom to draw whatever on their mind. And she used to tell me this, if I wanted parents to draw a chi or something like a dog, she would say, you can draw whatever is on your mind. And I think this is something really important as a parent, not to give your children the freedom to draw their own drawings and tell their stories, and live their lives and just be supportive there without putting too much effort. Yeah, hope it makes sense. No,

DJ Stutz  34:20  
it does. Actually, it makes a lot of sense. And I love how you say, just allowing them to draw whatever they want. That can continue on into their lives. It's their life to live. And in your terms, were the buddies that help them through, but without pushing them into a certain slot, given them the tools to manage and create their own life. That's amazing. Thank you so much for everything. So if our listeners want to get in touch with you or find out more about felt, what do they do?

Maayan Malka  34:54  
Okay, and first of all, I didn't say that felt is Right now being developed, and it's not open to the entire world to us, we, we create it very carefully. And so we invite a very specific group of parents that we get a lot of feedback from. Because when, when, you know, asking children to to open up and share their worlds, you need to be extremely responsible there, you can just hand it over to everyone to use. And so, if parents would like to be a part of this effort, I would love them to reach out to me, you can just write me an email at my yawn@catbirds.com my yawn is M double Ayan at ket bears, ca t, b e, ar s.com. Okay. Now you should ask what is Catbirds and Cadbury's is the name I gave for the entire concept, try to imagine yourself putting a cat and a bear in the same room and having them become great friends. So I think that felt is the is the first thing that I want to do. But there's so many things you could do there to bridge these two characters, these two animals together. That's why I call it cat bears. So that's one thing we would love to get more parents involved. Okay, another thing, we're we're always looking for people to give us feedback, like people who are experts in their fields, such as psychology, educators, all kinds of fields, we always get a lot of feedback there. And I also should say that the catbells is a social startup, it's run by me. And we have a lot of people helping us a lot of developers and experts. As I said, educators, we're not doing it for profit, we don't measure our success. By profit, we measure our success by change by bringing change to the world. And I really love it this way I can imagine felt being a company that's trying to grow. And so if anyone is interested in helping, we'd love for them to reach out and we have so much things to do.

DJ Stutz  37:29  
Yeah, I know about that. Trying to get things up and going. So what a great idea. I am excited to hear how it goes. And actually, I'd love to hear how things are moving along. Maybe in a little while, we can talk again, and you can share your updates. I'd love to, that would be great. Well, thank you

Maayan Malka  37:51  
so much. Thank you so much for what you're doing. When I just heard about the name of your podcast, I immediately you know, I felt like this. So true, perfect heroes. I don't see myself as a hero. But I do see myself as imperfect when it comes to parenting.

DJ Stutz  38:11  
And trust me, your hero just asked you.

Maayan Malka  38:15  
Actually, you're right. When I look at my father, I see a hero. So it's really you got it so so right. And what you're doing is so important. I wish you know, we have these kinds of things when I grew up, that could help my parents. So I really imagine a world that parenting can be a lot less stressful and a lot more conscious. And I really see so much things we can do there to build a better future for our children.

DJ Stutz  38:49  
Well, thank you. I really appreciate those thoughts. That makes me feel wonderful. So my end Maayan Malka just thank you for taking the time and for being involved in the work you're in. So I hope to talk to you again soon. Thank you so much. Bye, bye. 

I really like what Maayan has to offer. And it's not just in the app. I think his promise and his hope and his desire for a world where people are able to step back and look and say, Oh, wait, here we are. And we need to maybe make some adjustments. Talk to one another. Another thing that I thought was super, super interesting was when he talked about or when we talked about that. It's not your responsibility necessarily to fix the relationship. Your responsibility is to fix it in your heart and in your mind. You do what you need to do and the reaction or the response to that is going to belong to the other persons that we've had the conflict with. So even if they are not open to restoring the relationship, at least at that time, you know that you've got it in the right place in your heart. So you're not harboring bad feelings or ill will, toward anyone, that's just where they are. So much conflict could be avoided, if we could just remember that, that my response is my responsibility. And theirs is their responsibility. So I thought that was just so amazing. If you have a story of overcoming a family challenge, I would truly love to hear it. So just email me at djstutuz@LittleHeartsAcademyusa.com and become one of my imperfect heroes. I've included Maayan's email that he gave. And I also included where you can get more information on the book, The Rabbit listed on Amazon. And so you could order that book. And I will tell you, this is a book that I currently have in my classroom, and that I use with my kids when they're upset, or even when they have a friend that is upset that they're worried about, we will use that book. It's a great little book. And so it was kind of fun when he mentioned it. I'm like, Oh, I have that book. That's pretty cool. Before we go, I just want to invite you to listen to our Tuesday night lives. It's at seven o'clock mountain time on Facebook. And that's on the Little Hearts Academy USA page. And if you miss it, we're starting to get them posted on my YouTube channel, which is Little Hearts Academy USA. So you can always find it there you do a search for that you can do a search for Imperfect Heroes, podcast or even just DJ Stutz and you'll be able to find us on YouTube. So if you enjoy the podcast, I would love for you to post about it on your social media, and tag me @imperfectheroespodcast on Instagram, or @LittleHeartsAcademyUSA on Facebook. And we're starting to grow we're getting more and more listeners in more and more states and countries we are internationals that makes me feel pretty happy and to know that my outreach can include people from other cultures and other locations in this world. In my next episode, I'm talking with Deanna and Max Maxwell of Moving with the Maxwell's and if you're wondering Can teaching your three year old to play the drums help them learn to read. You may be surprised by the answer. Learn what I mean by tuning in to the next episode. And until then, let's find joy in parenting

Linger longers How you guys doing? Do you guys have a relationship that seemed hopeless but somehow you managed to patch it all together? I'd love to hear about it. Contact me at djstutz@LittleHeartsAcademyusa.com and share your story or post it on your social media and tag imperfect heroes podcast. Okay, I'm gonna go now. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai