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Speaker 2: listening and support. Dennis Prager on today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.
Speaker 3: You know, when I think about my stuff, I think
Speaker 3: in terms of Ecclesiastes. There's nothing new under the Sun.
Speaker 3: I'm just a guy who's articulating timeless principles, one of
Speaker 3: which is that denial self denial is good for the soul.
Speaker 3: And a child learns to deny himself by being denied.
Speaker 3: And the very unfortunate thing is that today's parents don't
Speaker 3: deny vitamin end being no the most character building a
Speaker 3: two letter word in the English language. And today's kids
Speaker 3: are not being denied. The temper tantrums that young people
Speaker 3: are throwing all over America because what they wanted to
Speaker 3: happen didn't happen.
Speaker 2: That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Welcome
Speaker 2: to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Here thousands of hours
Speaker 2: of Dennis's lectures, courses in classic radio programs, and to
Speaker 2: purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to Dennisprager dot com.
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, I'm Dennis Prager. Welcome to my show. I
Speaker 1: have on a man whom I respect greatly. I don't
Speaker 1: remember when I first came across his work, but it
Speaker 1: was a great moment because the man has the one
Speaker 1: of the rarest. What is rare. Let's see, courage is rare,
Speaker 1: Intellectual honesty is rare, and wisdom is rare, and he
Speaker 1: has I think he has all three, but it's the
Speaker 1: wisdom that I'm really focusing on. He's John Rosemond, family psychologist,
Speaker 1: and who has a column and who's written fourteen books.
Speaker 1: I believe he's now working on one on the children
Speaker 1: and in Madagascar. His runout of topics after fourteen and
Speaker 1: so he's really now pretty much concentrating on micro subjects.
Speaker 1: You know, that's right? Oh? Is that right? Is that
Speaker 1: what you're oh you mean in suburban and suburban Madagascar? Right?
Speaker 1: You know, thank you, thank you. You know. I just
Speaker 1: want you to know. This is a sort of tactic
Speaker 1: of mine to see if the person I'm about to
Speaker 1: interview was listening, I throw in some absurdity and if
Speaker 1: there's no reaction, I know, oh this is this is
Speaker 1: going to be a problem interview anyway. Yeah, that's right, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's right. Checking his email exactly. This is John Rosemond.
Speaker 1: And John Rosemond has the latest pro university video and
Speaker 1: he uh, it's already one and a half million views
Speaker 1: in two days or three days? What I guess it
Speaker 1: goes up Monday, So I guess it's three days, two
Speaker 1: and a half days and then even I try to
Speaker 1: be precise, and sometimes it trus people and it's is
Speaker 1: your child getting enough vitamin N? And I want to
Speaker 1: just tell you, folks, because I I think you'll find
Speaker 1: this of interest, John, you will find this of interest.
Speaker 1: There is I am a religious person, and in Judaism,
Speaker 1: there is a very famous statement in the Talmud, the
Speaker 1: second holiest work after the Bible, and that is that
Speaker 1: whoever cites a source brings redemption to the world. It's
Speaker 1: a beautiful phrase because it says you, wist all, you
Speaker 1: must never take credit for something that you don't own.
Speaker 1: So I have cited vitamin N in almost every speech
Speaker 1: I have given about children, and of course every single
Speaker 1: time I say from this is from doctor John Rosemond.
Speaker 1: I just want I want you to know that, I
Speaker 1: want the audience to know that because I consider it
Speaker 1: a brilliant insight. Vitamin N. Well, you tell everybody what's
Speaker 1: vitamin N.
Speaker 3: Well. First of all, Dennis, you honor me and you
Speaker 3: humble me at the same time. I'm so grateful for
Speaker 3: what for our friendship. I mean, I really and truly am.
Speaker 3: You've been an inspiration to.
Speaker 1: Me and it's.
Speaker 3: An honor to know that I've been a source if
Speaker 3: you will for.
Speaker 1: You a mutual way.
Speaker 3: You know, when I think about my stuff, I think
Speaker 3: in terms of Ecclesiastes. There's nothing new under the sun.
Speaker 3: I'm just a guy who's articulating timeless principles, one of
Speaker 3: which is that denial self denial is good for the soul.
Speaker 3: And a child learns to deny himself by being denied.
Speaker 3: And the very unfortunate thing is that today's parents don't
Speaker 3: deny vitamin end being no the most character building a
Speaker 3: two letter word in the English language, and today's kids
Speaker 3: are not being denied. And to tie this into current events,
Speaker 3: as I was thinking about the show, I was thinking
Speaker 3: in terms of the temper tantrums that young people are
Speaker 3: throwing all over America because what they wanted to happen
Speaker 3: didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Exactly right. It's totally tied into your theme, the video,
Speaker 1: and your general theme. Oh it didn't go my way,
Speaker 1: and I will have a temper tantrum. Now. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you a question, because this, to me is
Speaker 1: as interesting as the concept itself. When I grew up,
Speaker 1: and I believe that I represent most people of the
Speaker 1: baby boomer generation. Although that may not be true. Now
Speaker 1: that certainly my parents' generation and every generation before them,
Speaker 1: let's start with my parents. Don't telling a child no
Speaker 1: was natural to parents? It stopped being So what happened, Well.
Speaker 3: I think it was not only natural. I think it
Speaker 3: was something parents understood to be an obligation because these parents,
Speaker 3: prior to the psychological parenting era which began in the
Speaker 3: mid nineteen sixties, had what I call a wide angle
Speaker 3: view of parenting Dennis. They understood that their obligation was
Speaker 3: not just to the child, which is what today's parents believed.
Speaker 3: Parents in our parents generation, to some degree, although it
Speaker 3: had become considerably diluted and weakened by the time we
Speaker 3: began having children, understood that proper parenting is an act
Speaker 3: of love for your neighborhood. And they understood, as a
Speaker 3: consequence of that wide angle view, that they had an
Speaker 3: obligation to send out into the world, into the community first,
Speaker 3: and into the world children who were accepting of reality.
Speaker 3: One such reality being as articulated by the great twentieth
Speaker 3: century philosopher Mick Jagger, you can't always get what you want,
Speaker 3: and so yeah, it was felt as an obligation that
Speaker 3: you tell your child no, because this was a reality
Speaker 3: of life. And furthermore, it was understood that this is
Speaker 3: the way you produce a well socialized, highly motivated individual
Speaker 3: opened to understand such thing as a valid, entitled right.
Speaker 1: What happened.
Speaker 3: What happened is that the nineteen sixties came along, during
Speaker 3: which time we became a progressive postmodern culture, and the
Speaker 3: psychological community, the new parenting experts began manufacturing these neu
Speaker 3: veaux postmodern parenting memes, one of which is that children
Speaker 3: have a right to express their feelings freely. And so,
Speaker 3: for the first time in parenting, in any generation, in
Speaker 3: any culture, parents began to believe that children's emotional outbursts
Speaker 3: had meaning.
Speaker 1: And when I want, I want, I want that to
Speaker 1: sink in to my audience. There are times when I
Speaker 1: visualize what a person is saying and I'm thinking, are
Speaker 1: people understanding that this would come in italics? So why
Speaker 1: don't you say that again? For the first time? People?
Speaker 1: I mean, let me repeat it, so why I can
Speaker 1: memorize it. For the first time, parents started believing that
Speaker 1: children's children's.
Speaker 3: Anti emotional outright had meaning, meaning, so right that they
Speaker 3: that they had some sort of valid content that needed
Speaker 3: to be deciphered. And so the what was previously, as
Speaker 3: we are told in the Bible and Proverbs, thought to
Speaker 3: be nothing but emanations of the foolishness bound in the
Speaker 3: heart of the child, was suddenly given credence. And you know,
Speaker 3: one of the questions I asked my audiences is this,
Speaker 3: raise your hand if when you make a decision that
Speaker 3: your child doesn't like, and your child reacts very emotionally too,
Speaker 3: you believe that on the basis of your child's emotional reaction,
Speaker 3: you may have made the wrong decision. And it was amazing, Denis,
Speaker 3: I would say, my audiences, and that's a conservative estimate. Hand,
Speaker 3: And this is what's happened to American parenting since ironically,
Speaker 3: American parents began listening to people like me, people with
Speaker 3: capital letters after their names, tell them how to raise kids.
Speaker 1: Well, that's part of my that buttresses my belief that
Speaker 1: college makes you stupid and graduate school makes you stupider.
Speaker 3: Because I heard an interview yesterday with somebody I forget
Speaker 3: who it was, who said, how can these universities be
Speaker 3: so stupid? You know, you pay all this money to
Speaker 3: go to these places that make you dumb.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is exactly right. I'm speaking everybody to John Rosemond,
Speaker 1: the nationally famous and for Rolino, internationally famous family psychologist.
Speaker 1: He has many terrific books. You should absolutely look at
Speaker 1: them and hopefully get some of them. In any event.
Speaker 1: His video is the late Praguer University course Is your
Speaker 1: Child Getting Enough Vitamin N? Is a rare opportunity for
Speaker 1: you to talk to him if you'd like to call.
Speaker 1: This is how children should be raised for their sake,
Speaker 1: for your sake, and for society's sake. You are listening
Speaker 1: to the Dennis Praguer Show one eight Praguer seven seven six.
Speaker 2: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
Speaker 2: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking to John Rosemond, one of my favorite people
Speaker 1: and a magnificent why psychologist. His video is up on
Speaker 1: at Prague University. Is your Child Getting Enough Vitamin N?
Speaker 1: Vitamin N is his terrific term for the word no.
Speaker 1: I was watching yesterday and in passing, I don't get
Speaker 1: to see much TV, but it was on the family
Speaker 1: kitchen and the Little TV and Bill O'Reilly had two
Speaker 1: students on from two different universities and after they were
Speaker 1: talking about all of the protests and what they're about.
Speaker 1: He asked each of them, one female, one male, and
Speaker 1: he said, so are you for open borders? And the
Speaker 1: female says, I have no comment and the male, oh,
Speaker 1: he was from Tufts. I don't remember where she was from.
Speaker 1: And the male said, I let's see. She said, I
Speaker 1: don't wish to comment on that, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, I really haven't studied the issue. So
Speaker 1: they're complaining about cracking down on illegal immigration, but they
Speaker 1: won't say what their position is on open borders. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't. It's like I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about what two and two is, but I won't talk
Speaker 1: to you about one and one is. And I I
Speaker 1: just thought you'd find that interesting. It is it is all.
Speaker 1: It's all emotion, and I think it's rooted in the
Speaker 1: not being told no, your emotions can't direct your life
Speaker 1: any thoughts.
Speaker 3: That's romanticism come to full flower. The individual being driven
Speaker 3: by feelings, and the the and the feelings are are
Speaker 3: such that they can't even explain them. They can't articulate
Speaker 3: why they feel the way that they do. They just
Speaker 3: feel the way that they do. And they have a
Speaker 3: right to feel the way that they do and so, but.
Speaker 1: I don't have a right to say you're wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, and and any evidence to the current because Dennis,
Speaker 3: as you well know, I'm the the When you are
Speaker 3: driven by emotion, you are by definition not intellectually honest.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't matter to this generation of young people
Speaker 3: with the facts are. They're not even interested in the facts.
Speaker 3: That's why, in my estimation, the girl has no opinion
Speaker 3: and the guy hasn't studied the issue enough. But they'll
Speaker 3: get out in the street and they'll scream and yell
Speaker 3: about the fact that Donald Trump is not for open borders.
Speaker 3: But they don't understand the issue at all. It's just
Speaker 3: another opportunity to vent their sacred emotions.
Speaker 1: Life is not ideal, and I will have a temper tantrum.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But to this generation, this generation has been nurtured
Speaker 3: in a way that causes them to believe that life
Speaker 3: has no meaning if life has no soap opera. And
Speaker 3: so this generation of young people takes every opportunity to
Speaker 3: manufacture personal soap operas, collective soap operas out of the mundane.
Speaker 1: That's so true. It's the drama Queen generation produced by
Speaker 1: the parents and by the culture. There are so many
Speaker 1: people who have questions for you. And since it's so
Speaker 1: rare to get to have this opportunity for people, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go to some calls that okay, okay, So
Speaker 1: again I have the family psychologist John Rosemond on and
Speaker 1: we'll be go to Los Angeles and Miriam, Miriam High,
Speaker 1: Dennis Prager and John rosemond.
Speaker 3: Hello, Miriam, show a lot and mister Rosemont, I.
Speaker 4: Saw your video, write him an end. I showed it
Speaker 4: to my husband the other night because he believes, you know,
Speaker 4: if we should provide the technology and whatever, you know,
Speaker 4: the kids need to you know, excel in school and
Speaker 4: then we can't give them everything all the time. So
Speaker 4: I showed him the video and lo and behold. This
Speaker 4: morning we had a disagreement because I find out that
Speaker 4: he gave my kids a dollar to make their bed.
Speaker 4: And I was so upset about it, and I said,
Speaker 4: didn't we just like I showed you this video and
Speaker 4: you know, it made so much sense, and you know,
Speaker 4: I just want to get a different perspective, am I am?
Speaker 4: I upset to be wrong at him. You know, I
Speaker 4: don't believe he said, Oh I like to reward good behavior.
Speaker 4: And they said, I'm not responsibility. That's their duty. It's
Speaker 4: not you know, they're not supposed to get cheap from
Speaker 4: making their bed. He's like, yeah, but it was just
Speaker 4: a dollar.
Speaker 1: I think it doesn't matter, all right, love it. I'm
Speaker 1: very I'm as curious as you are to hear John
Speaker 1: Rosemand's response.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, but I hate to take sides in these
Speaker 3: family disputes, Miriam. But it's more than an issue of responsibility.
Speaker 3: It's an issue of obligation. And that's what today's kids
Speaker 3: are not being taught within their families, is any sense
Speaker 3: of obligation to their parents or their families. And your
Speaker 3: husband's very well intentioned behavior is an example of that.
Speaker 3: I was speaking to I was in Hawaii about a
Speaker 3: year ago, and I was doing a workshop and a
Speaker 3: fella came up and introduced himself as a submarine commander,
Speaker 3: and he said, John, this entitlement attitude has even infected
Speaker 3: the military at the level of submarine command, which is
Speaker 3: the most demanding of all military jobs. That's arguable, but
Speaker 3: it's probably probably true. And he said this, these young
Speaker 3: people who qualify for submarine work, they don't understand that
Speaker 3: they have been given a privilege. I tell them to
Speaker 3: do something and they basically ask me, what am I
Speaker 3: going to get if I do it?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 3: Wow, this is the biggest problem I deal with in submarine.
Speaker 1: His answer should be you get to stay on the submarine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what you get the submarine precisely. But isn't
Speaker 3: that mind blowing?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Now that is where did you hear this.
Speaker 3: In Hawaii from a submarine?
Speaker 1: Com Oh? I see? Okay, great? Are you were speaking?
Speaker 1: Are your workshop in Hawaii? Yeah? All right, I want
Speaker 1: to I want to bounce off the theory. Well, I
Speaker 1: asked you why this is happening, and your answer was
Speaker 1: superb And I agree. Is another possibility, and we just
Speaker 1: take a break and then we'll hear your response. Is
Speaker 1: another possibility that parents want to be loved by their
Speaker 1: children at every moment of their lives. We shall be back.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking to the psychologist John Rosemond. His video course
Speaker 1: is up at pre University.
Speaker 2: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
Speaker 2: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
Speaker 1: Well, I have the man on in that in not
Speaker 1: even three days, they got a million and a half views,
Speaker 1: on YouTube and Facebook and it'll go into the millions,
Speaker 1: and as it should. If every parent saw this, we
Speaker 1: would have a better America and a better world. Vitamin
Speaker 1: N is the word no, and it's the one vitamin
Speaker 1: kids don't seem to be good, and it's been at
Speaker 1: least a generation. So I asked you a question, and then,
Speaker 1: by the way, I want to I want to comment
Speaker 1: on Miriam's call about the paying for the kid a
Speaker 1: dollar to make the bed. But I wanted you to
Speaker 1: respond to this when I asked you why this has happened,
Speaker 1: the coddling, and you gave this excellent response about needing
Speaker 1: to validate every emotional outburst. So is another possibility that
Speaker 1: parents want to be loved too much and too consistently?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's not. I would I'm not disagreeing with that.
Speaker 1: Oh you can. By the way, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just want you to Okay, okay, go ahead.
Speaker 3: I know I can, but I'm not. I just want
Speaker 3: to make that clearer proactively that I would change the
Speaker 3: word to like because I think there is a substantial difference.
Speaker 3: I think that today's parents want to be liked by
Speaker 3: their kids. And one of the things that I talk
Speaker 3: about quite often in my books, newspaper column and public
Speaker 3: President Asians is that over the last fifty years, since
Speaker 3: we began listening to psychologists tell us how to raise kids,
Speaker 3: and this is largely an artifact of a psychological parenting paradigm,
Speaker 3: parents have substituted the desire for relationship with their children
Speaker 3: for the obligation to provide leadership to their children. They
Speaker 3: don't understand anymore that proper parenting is an active leadership.
Speaker 3: They believe now that it's an active relationship. And as
Speaker 3: a consequence of this, Dennis, the norm in American parenting,
Speaker 3: especially in the mother child relationship, has become codependency Today's
Speaker 3: parents when there's no emotional boundary between parent and child,
Speaker 3: and especially mother and child, when the child feels something,
Speaker 3: the mother feels it. The child fails the mother she
Speaker 3: feels that she has failed. The child is bullied, the
Speaker 3: mother feels that she's been bullied, the child gets upset
Speaker 3: about something, the mother feels that herself to be in
Speaker 3: a state of angst. And so the consequence of this
Speaker 3: is that there is lacking in the life of the
Speaker 3: average American child, someone who will represent reality correctly to
Speaker 3: the child someone who will say, when the child has
Speaker 3: a inappropriate emotional outburst, which ninety percent of children's emotional
Speaker 3: outbursts are inappropriate, that this is ridiculous, This has no
Speaker 3: bearing on anything, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You
Speaker 3: and I are members of the last generation of American
Speaker 3: parents of American children, whose parents felt the obligation to
Speaker 3: discipline not only our behavior, but to discipline our thoughts
Speaker 3: and our emotions as well. And today's parents only you know,
Speaker 3: there's another topic entirely, but they think of discipline strictly
Speaker 3: in terms of behavior, and so today's children don't think
Speaker 3: straight and they don't feel straight either.
Speaker 1: That's so fascinating. I tell people, they say, where does
Speaker 1: you learn how to speak? And you know, because people,
Speaker 1: at least people, well many people, obviously not all, but
Speaker 1: many people feel that I have a lot of clarity
Speaker 1: in my thoughts. I do believe I do, and I
Speaker 1: think it's both a gift from God or nature. And
Speaker 1: I also believe that I learned it at the table
Speaker 1: at the dinner table in my house where I was
Speaker 1: the youngest of the two boys by six years, and
Speaker 1: they didn't care if I said something incoherent. They said,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? That's nonsense? And so I got,
Speaker 1: at a very early age a voice in me saying,
Speaker 1: is that nonsense? Did you just say nonsense? So I could?
Speaker 1: I so understand what you said. I just want to
Speaker 1: return to Miriam's point on the dollar for making the bed.
Speaker 1: One possible response I would think is also in addition
Speaker 1: to yours, is because I want as you pointed out,
Speaker 1: the father the husband has only goodwill here. But one
Speaker 1: possibility is that I'll give you a dollar for making
Speaker 1: the bed, and you pay for the food. I'm obligated
Speaker 1: to feed you. You're obligated to make your bed. We'll
Speaker 1: get John Rosebud's response in a moment.
Speaker 2: Are you enjoying timeless wisdom?
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Call eight seven seven two four three seventy seven seventy
Speaker 2: six and leave a review, share your thoughts, or just
Speaker 2: even an encouraging word for Dennis. Your voicemail might just
Speaker 2: make it on the show. That's eight seven seven two
Speaker 2: four three seventy seven seventy six. That's eight seven seven
Speaker 2: two four three triple seven six. Thanks for listening and
Speaker 2: for your support.
Speaker 1: My guest is the terrific. John Rosemond, the family psychologist,
Speaker 1: gives these seminars around America and he as the latest
Speaker 1: prig University course up as your child getting enough Vitamin
Speaker 1: N that's the word. No. So I had raised the
Speaker 1: issue of perhaps saying, well, if we pay you for
Speaker 1: making your bed, you pay us for room and board,
Speaker 1: because as a way of explaining to the kid. Although
Speaker 1: from your perspective, and I agree with you in explanations
Speaker 1: I assume are not always necessary, this is what you do.
Speaker 1: You have a bed, make it. But nevertheless, it would
Speaker 1: be an interesting way of explaining I have obligations to you,
Speaker 1: and you have obligations to the family. Is that fair?
Speaker 3: Today's parents they lack confidence in the legitimacy of their authority, Dennis.
Speaker 3: That's why they don't feel that they have the right,
Speaker 3: if you will, to tell their children this is what
Speaker 3: you're going to do. And then when the child asks why,
Speaker 3: answer with because I said so, you don't need another explanation.
Speaker 3: You're on the dole here. I pay for your life.
Speaker 3: I am not obligated to justify any decision that I
Speaker 3: make in your life. I am not oblige gated to
Speaker 3: justify any instruction I give you. And you know, parents say, oh,
Speaker 3: that's mean, that's say you know, that's heartless. I say,
Speaker 3: it's very, very traditional. And the interesting thing is that
Speaker 3: the mental health of children who heard that our generation, Dennis,
Speaker 3: is statistically ten times better than the mental health of
Speaker 3: today's kids who don't hear that. So I'm not saying
Speaker 3: our mental health as children was entirely dependent upon because
Speaker 3: I said so. But I am saying that it was
Speaker 3: dependent largely upon a clarity that existed in our relationships
Speaker 3: with our parents and other adult authority figures during our childhoods.
Speaker 1: Milwaukee lacking today, Yes, totally, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Vince Hi, Vince,
Speaker 1: you're on with Dennis Pragrin, John Rosemond.
Speaker 5: High Well, I would even like to know how the
Speaker 5: doctor would recommend countering behaviors like this when when you're
Speaker 5: dealing with the situation where somebody has told the child
Speaker 5: that they have anxieties and dealing with their issues like that,
Speaker 5: how do you you know the things that are used
Speaker 5: as an excuse and so I like to hang out
Speaker 5: and listen to hear them.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know who it is that's told your
Speaker 3: child since that he has anxieties, but this is. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, there are certain anxieties that are legitimate. Certain
Speaker 3: anxieties are the results of legitimate trauma, etc. Etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 3: I use the word legitimate because a lot of what
Speaker 3: is a lot of what people and especially young people
Speaker 3: are claiming to be traumatic, is by historical, traditional rational standards,
Speaker 3: not traumatic at all. It's just that we raised the
Speaker 3: generation of children who have no emotional resiliency.
Speaker 1: But forgive me, that's why they have safe rooms at colleges.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why they're giving them therapy dogs and letting
Speaker 3: them curl up in corners and suck their thumbs collectively,
Speaker 3: and so on and so forth. It's just absurd what
Speaker 3: has happened to today's kids, and tragic at the same time.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, a lot of what I talk
Speaker 3: about when I talk about today's kids can be interpreted
Speaker 3: as criticisms, and really, I'm not criticizing today's children. I'm
Speaker 3: trying to help American parents understand that our obligation to
Speaker 3: God and America is to raise competent human beings, and
Speaker 3: competency is largely a fact not of your IQ. It's
Speaker 3: a largely a function of your emotional resiliency and the
Speaker 3: manufacturing of personal soap operas such as I Have Test
Speaker 3: anxiety is rampant in American youth culture today. You know,
Speaker 3: I hear this. You know my child has test anxiety.
Speaker 3: I had to pass a written exam on the United
Speaker 3: States Constitution in the eighth grade in order to go
Speaker 3: to high school. I mean, talk about test anxiety. Today's
Speaker 3: kids don't understand what test anxiety is. You know, anything
Speaker 3: that provokes a little distress is suddenly a reason to
Speaker 3: go to a therapist. It's it's absurd.
Speaker 1: Yeah, think of distress parents as a vaccine. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's a. I think it's an analogy that
Speaker 1: works for me. And in any event, all right, let's say,
Speaker 1: let's go on. Let me let me summarize some calls
Speaker 1: and callers. Please forgive me. I'll try to get to somebody,
Speaker 1: get more done if I do this. So let's see.
Speaker 1: Aaron in Los Angeles makes it, I think a very
Speaker 1: important point in such a wealthy society that people find
Speaker 1: it harder to say no to kids they already have
Speaker 1: so much. Any thoughts on the affluent society.
Speaker 3: Well, it's but it's not just affluence. Dennis, it's what
Speaker 3: you raised earlier, and that is that today's parents, you know,
Speaker 3: number one, they want relationship with their children. And you know,
Speaker 3: another way of looking at this is that they have
Speaker 3: no long term vision. It's very interesting when I ask
Speaker 3: parents to write down ten word and phrase description of
Speaker 3: the adult they want their child to be when their
Speaker 3: child is thirty years old. They always write down things
Speaker 3: like emotionally resilient, compassionate, responsible, you know, good sense of
Speaker 3: work essays, et cetera, et cetera. But when I ask,
Speaker 3: what have you done specifically purposefully in the last week
Speaker 3: to promote anything?
Speaker 1: Oh good, I want to hear that this is this
Speaker 1: is awesome. John Rosemond, my guest, back in a moment.
Speaker 2: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
Speaker 2: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless Wisdom.
Speaker 1: I could have John rosemand on for all three hours
Speaker 1: and then do it again tomorrow and then the next day.
Speaker 1: The only problem is he's going to send me a bill.
Speaker 3: I would not do that.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, good, I'm glad you. No, no, no, that
Speaker 1: was important that I would love it too. John Rosemond,
Speaker 1: his books should all be read, and his video is
Speaker 1: up this week, and of course obviously forever at the
Speaker 1: pre university dot com and it's already past the million
Speaker 1: and a half years. And I believe it's a moral
Speaker 1: obligation for people to have people raising children. See it, anyway,
Speaker 1: you have this brilliant thing that you were just saying.
Speaker 1: Almost everything you say is so sharply focused. So you
Speaker 1: ask parents, why would you like your child to be
Speaker 1: at thirty? And then you ask them, so, what have
Speaker 1: you done this week in order to foster that? Is
Speaker 1: that correct? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I'm trying to illustrate to them that intuitively, they really
Speaker 3: do want to raise their children according to what we
Speaker 3: are told, what God tells us in Deuteronomy chapter six,
Speaker 3: Versus six and seven, to paraphrase, that it's all about
Speaker 3: your child's character. I tell parents all the time, Dennis.
Speaker 3: God does not care what your child's grades are in school.
Speaker 3: God does not care how many trophies your child wins
Speaker 3: on the athletic field, care what college your child goes to.
Speaker 3: God wants you to raise children who love him, and
Speaker 3: that is all about character. And I tell people, you know,
Speaker 3: there are two two pressing obligations, and the raising of
Speaker 3: a child. One is to honor God and the others,
Speaker 3: to make America a better place. And so as part
Speaker 3: of this, this whole diatribe that I do, this whole exercise,
Speaker 3: I have people write down a ten word and phrase
Speaker 3: description of the adult they want their child to be
Speaker 3: when their child is thirty. And interestingly enough, every descriptor
Speaker 3: is a descriptor of character. Nobody puts in there. I
Speaker 3: want my child to be the governor of California.
Speaker 1: Or brilliant nobody, or even brilliant, or.
Speaker 3: Even brilliant, nobody puts that down. It's all character. And
Speaker 3: I say, okay, now now that you understand what your
Speaker 3: job is, and you understand that, you intuitively know what
Speaker 3: your job is, visa this exercise. Write down something. I
Speaker 3: give you five minutes. Tell me one thing you have
Speaker 3: done purposefully intentionally to promote any of these character values
Speaker 3: in the last week.
Speaker 1: All right, we got to leave it at that. That's awesome.
Speaker 3: We can't do it.
Speaker 1: That's right, That's exactly right. See his video, Go to
Speaker 1: his website. It's at Dennisprager dot com. You see his website,
Speaker 1: read his books. I give you a big hug, sir,
Speaker 1: I'm a big thank you, thank you, so much. Please
Speaker 1: see the video and give your child vitamin.
Speaker 2: End tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Speaker 1: The missing tile syndrome is when we focus on the
Speaker 1: one thing we don't have. No matter how much you have,
Speaker 1: you focus on what is missing. I do too. By
Speaker 1: the way, it's not when I say you, I am
Speaker 1: a member of this group of humanity if folks, if
Speaker 1: I didn't have these issues, I couldn't have written my book.
Speaker 1: That book was as much about me as it is
Speaker 1: about you. The only difference is I've thought it through
Speaker 1: and I have tried to put these principles into practice,
Speaker 1: and they work.
Speaker 2: Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with
Speaker 2: Dennis Prager. Visit Denispragger dot com for thousands of hours
Speaker 2: of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to
Speaker 2: purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. We want to take just
Speaker 2: a second to thank the team at Life Audio for
Speaker 2: their partnership with us on the podcast. Go to lifeaudio
Speaker 2: dot com to find dozens of other faith centered podcasts
Speaker 2: and their network, including shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting,
Speaker 2: and more.