Speaker 1: Welcome to Go Ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio hi em Eli
Speaker 1: went Worth, And you're listening to Go Ask Ali. Where
Speaker 1: this season I'm asking the question how do you grow
Speaker 1: a teenager in a pandemic? Today we're talking about rejection
Speaker 1: and failure and how it's a constant battle and it's
Speaker 1: not just teenagers. We all go through this and we
Speaker 1: all face these scenarios at some point in our lives.
Speaker 1: This is a time where parents can help. Whether our
Speaker 1: team didn't get into their dream college, they got a
Speaker 1: low grade on a test, or recently were dumped for
Speaker 1: the first time. I think, particularly in a pandemic, all
Speaker 1: these things are magnified. And here to speak with me
Speaker 1: on this topic today is Jessica Lahy. She is a teacher,
Speaker 1: a writer as speaker. She is also the author of
Speaker 1: the New York Times bestseller The Gift of Failure, How
Speaker 1: the Best Parents learned to let go so their children
Speaker 1: can't succeed. Jessica, thank you for joining me on today's
Speaker 1: ten hour episode I Have with You and Go Ask Gali.
Speaker 1: So welcome. I know it's a scary title. It is
Speaker 1: a really scary title. I mean, I like that you
Speaker 1: put a gift and failure in the same sentence, so
Speaker 1: it gives it some optimism, which which clearly caught my eye. Um,
Speaker 1: so tell me right now we are we're in a pandemic. Um,
Speaker 1: we're kind of quarantined. What is your mom's situation at home? Where?
Speaker 1: What are the kids? How old? What are they doing?
Speaker 1: Mom's situation is such that when this all started, actually
Speaker 1: we had to rush to get everyone home. We had
Speaker 1: a kid who was across the ocean and had to
Speaker 1: somehow get back to this country and get all of
Speaker 1: his stuff out of his dorm room. So he did
Speaker 1: one of those things where a friend of his went
Speaker 1: through on FaceTime and appointed the camera at things and
Speaker 1: said should I pack that? Is that yours? And then
Speaker 1: essentially shipped. It was a mess. But luckily now my
Speaker 1: older son is at a very small college in a
Speaker 1: very small town in rural Vermont, so they're able to
Speaker 1: really create an island, which is the only way that
Speaker 1: this really works for colleges these days. Um. And then
Speaker 1: my younger son just turned seventeen and he's in school
Speaker 1: part time. The school set it up so half the
Speaker 1: kids are in school Monday, Tuesday. The other half are
Speaker 1: in school Thursday Friday, and then everyone is on Zoom
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays together. For him, it's working out pretty well
Speaker 1: because there aren't any cases at his school and yet
Speaker 1: he gets to be in his boy cave and it's
Speaker 1: a little of everything, and it seems to work pretty well.
Speaker 1: So I have two teenage daughters who are both remote learning.
Speaker 1: So right now they're in their rooms in case you
Speaker 1: hear a scream. One of them is with the college
Speaker 1: counselor and the other one is is in math class.
Speaker 1: But it's been an interesting journey here being with them
Speaker 1: while they're in school. Right well, we're in Vermont, so
Speaker 1: luckily our numbers of the lowest in the country right now,
Speaker 1: so we're able to at least breathe a bit of
Speaker 1: a sigh of relief. Our kids can be in school
Speaker 1: and be fairly safe. And you know, in places where
Speaker 1: kids are all remote all the time, it's just so
Speaker 1: much more difficult. Because as a teacher, I was a
Speaker 1: teacher for twenty years. I've taught every grade from six
Speaker 1: to twelve. The secret source of teaching is not about
Speaker 1: that face to face time as much in class. It's
Speaker 1: in all those moments when a kid is walking past
Speaker 1: you in the hallway and said, dude, that chemistry problem.
Speaker 1: I really didn't understand that. Can I swing by and
Speaker 1: ask you about that? Or you know, those moments when
Speaker 1: you just are having these casual conversations with kids while
Speaker 1: you're helping them deal with the total morass that's in
Speaker 1: their locker. Those are the moments where the really great
Speaker 1: communication and um connection happens between teacher and student, and
Speaker 1: without that UM it's a very different picture. With Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting because I'm thinking about the pandemic
Speaker 1: and kids that are at home or sometimes at home,
Speaker 1: and how parents responses are right now. And I have
Speaker 1: some friends that are sort of homeschooling or sitting next
Speaker 1: to their kid and they're becoming real helicopter parents. And
Speaker 1: then I have other friends who are like, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna let them go lock themselves in the room and
Speaker 1: they'll do their work, and I'm just going to be
Speaker 1: very hands off. And so it's particularly interesting to me
Speaker 1: to talk to you about the subject because of the
Speaker 1: pandemic that the idea of the gift of failure in
Speaker 1: a pandemic is a little bit more charged. I think
Speaker 1: there are huge downsides, there are also massive opportunities. And
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm not a Pollyanna, but I am
Speaker 1: really optimistic about education. I'm optimistic about teenagers. I love that.
Speaker 1: In earlier episodes of your podcast, your guests in particular,
Speaker 1: have made it really clear how the teenage brain works,
Speaker 1: and the opportunities that are available there and the things
Speaker 1: we need to protect about their brains. Anyone who's optimistic
Speaker 1: about teens, frankly is on team Jazz. I'm thrilled. I
Speaker 1: love it. But there are some really important opportunities right now.
Speaker 1: And part of those have to do with the fact
Speaker 1: that um, one of your guests talked about when you're
Speaker 1: with your kids more often and maybe not making as
Speaker 1: much eye contact, conversations can happen. You also know better
Speaker 1: than anyone what your kids are interested in. So that
Speaker 1: brings me to outcome love because particularly uh in our
Speaker 1: little bubble in New York City, I see a lot
Speaker 1: of that. I see a lot of When a child
Speaker 1: does really well on a test, they get love. They
Speaker 1: might even get a shiny star on the fridge, as
Speaker 1: you say, they might even get like a new iPhone
Speaker 1: or the shiny enticements you talk about. And then I
Speaker 1: have also seen kids doesn't do as well as their
Speaker 1: parents want. And you see them not only withdraw their love,
Speaker 1: but the look of disappointment on their face, and it
Speaker 1: makes me want to run over and hug their kid.
Speaker 1: So talk to talk to us about upcome love. So
Speaker 1: oka love, and there's it's also love and exchange for performance.
Speaker 1: It's there's so many different ways you can talk about it,
Speaker 1: but overall it's a elite damaging thing that you can
Speaker 1: do to your kid emotionally. And not only that, it
Speaker 1: is a form of extrinsic motivator, a motivator that comes
Speaker 1: from outside of you. If you're studying chemistry because you
Speaker 1: want your parents love, you are not likely to persist
Speaker 1: with the studying of chemistry, for example. So we know
Speaker 1: for a fact, based on forty years of really good research,
Speaker 1: that extrinsic motivators, especially with teenagers because of some of
Speaker 1: the things you guys have talked about on this podcast,
Speaker 1: like they're not fully formed frontal lobes, it's difficult for
Speaker 1: teenagers to keep those sort of long term goals of
Speaker 1: you know, I will get ext reward if I just
Speaker 1: do why and we know for a fact that with
Speaker 1: human beings, extrinsic motivators, with very few exceptions, um, in
Speaker 1: order to get people to get motivated just don't work.
Speaker 1: So sticker charts generally speaking don't work with one exception, um,
Speaker 1: which would be potty training, because being out of diapers
Speaker 1: is actually sort of its own form of reward. Um.
Speaker 1: Being paid. We gave our kids eminem's when they were
Speaker 1: when they did in the being paid for grades. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, all of that sort of love and exchange
Speaker 1: for performance kind of stuff, but also the negative stuff like, um,
Speaker 1: you're under threat of being uh grounded if you don't
Speaker 1: keep a certain g p A or surveillance, surveilling your
Speaker 1: kids on their phones, surveilling your kids when they drive places,
Speaker 1: and watching where they go. Um. I've had kids tell
Speaker 1: me their parents actually critique the roots they take. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, all of that quote unquote surveillance. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying we can't do those things, but we have
Speaker 1: to understand what they are, which is an extrinsic motivator,
Speaker 1: and they do not work long term if we want
Speaker 1: kids to be motivated. So what we want is intrinsic motivation.
Speaker 1: Because there are long term mental health effects of the
Speaker 1: of the reward kind of right, yes, right, So let's
Speaker 1: talk about how not to do it, because it's please
Speaker 1: really simple, so simple. First of all, let's stop putting
Speaker 1: report cards on the refrigerator, stop face timing them and
Speaker 1: put with grandma and instagramming them and more as you
Speaker 1: or as you say, the portal refresh. Yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 1: the kids come home with the report card, well I
Speaker 1: guess now, they don't even come home with it. They
Speaker 1: just open it up on the computer. Um, let's say
Speaker 1: they have an A. Let's say they have a C
Speaker 1: or a D or an F. Um. You know the
Speaker 1: joke now is that, um, you know B minus is
Speaker 1: the NEWF. And so anyway, we get these grades home
Speaker 1: and we look at them, and we we have an
Speaker 1: emotional reaction, right, because of course we do. We want
Speaker 1: our kids to be successful, We want our kids to
Speaker 1: have opportunities. But when we talk to them about those grades,
Speaker 1: if we can keep it about the process unless about
Speaker 1: the end product, then number one, you'll be more effective
Speaker 1: in communicating with your kids about how to do better
Speaker 1: next time. But they'll also believe us when we say
Speaker 1: what we care about is the learning because right now
Speaker 1: they don't they know that what we really care about
Speaker 1: are those precious a's and those precious gold stars and
Speaker 1: you know, all that kind of stuff. So if we
Speaker 1: can have a conversation with them about like, for example,
Speaker 1: you know, interesting grades, So what did you do to
Speaker 1: get this grade? What are you going to do next time?
Speaker 1: What are you going to leave behind and not do
Speaker 1: next time that you did this time? What didn't work?
Speaker 1: Did you get enough sleep? Did you use flash cards?
Speaker 1: Did you highlight everything and just assume that you could
Speaker 1: memorize it all the night before the test? All of
Speaker 1: these process questions help them really buy our messaging about
Speaker 1: the fact that every step along the way as it
Speaker 1: was a process toward the next thing, and you know,
Speaker 1: making them feel bad about something that's happening right now
Speaker 1: is not going to help in a conversation about how
Speaker 1: to do better next time. So essentially you're treating an
Speaker 1: A and A and a failing grade the same and
Speaker 1: the sense that it's all about process and less about product.
Speaker 1: They're doing that enough on their own, and talk to
Speaker 1: anyone who works with kids um and anxiety. They're circling
Speaker 1: the drain over and over. Why was it any eighty
Speaker 1: nine and not a ninety one? Why was? So the
Speaker 1: more we can pull the conversation back, it helps kids,
Speaker 1: especially who are perfectionists. That helps kids who have really
Speaker 1: high anxiety levels, who are neuro atypical, who have learning issues.
Speaker 1: The more we can drag that conversation away from the
Speaker 1: product and back to the process, the better we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: And when does praise and and self esteem work? Okay,
Speaker 1: so two different questions. So praise the any t as
Speaker 1: any teacher can tell you, the more specific the praise,
Speaker 1: and the more oriented towards the process, the better. So,
Speaker 1: for example, sweetie, I am so proud of you for
Speaker 1: sticking with that problem, because you know, a year ago
Speaker 1: you would have just freaked out, gone boneless, how to tantrum,
Speaker 1: given up whatever. I'm just really proud of you for
Speaker 1: handling that. The self esteem question is really tricky because
Speaker 1: we were told during the six seventies, early you know,
Speaker 1: late sixties, early seventies, that the more we told our
Speaker 1: kids how wonderful they are, the better their self esteem
Speaker 1: would be. But what we know from research on self
Speaker 1: esteem is that actually the opposite can be true, especially
Speaker 1: for kids who have low self esteem the more we
Speaker 1: tell them you are so great, you're so wonderful, you
Speaker 1: just fell out of the wound good at math, and
Speaker 1: it just comes so easily for you, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: For kids who are struggling at school, the more we
Speaker 1: tell them those sort of like intrinsic you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you're just so great, you're so perfect, the worst they're
Speaker 1: going to feel, the lower their self esteem goes, because
Speaker 1: what we're telling them is, oh, sweetie, that reality that
Speaker 1: you're conveying to me about how you feel dumb in
Speaker 1: algebra class, that's not that couldn't be true because you're
Speaker 1: so smart. And what we're telling them is your reality
Speaker 1: is not valid. Let me tell you what your reality
Speaker 1: should be. And when those two things don't jive, it's
Speaker 1: really troubling for them. So let me let me ask
Speaker 1: you this so and tell me if I'm completely off base.
Speaker 1: What I try to do is the praise comes for
Speaker 1: from me to my children in the realm of who
Speaker 1: they are as people. So I'll say, I'm really proud
Speaker 1: of you as a person. Um. I love that you
Speaker 1: asked without me saying so, like, how can I help
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff? And I try to keep
Speaker 1: the grade and the school stuff. Like you said, more
Speaker 1: about the process. So I say to my kids all
Speaker 1: the time. They you know, if I sell a TV show,
Speaker 1: they go, when's it going to be on on HBO?
Speaker 1: You know? And I'll say, I don't care about that
Speaker 1: so much. I'm really enjoying writing this TV show, even
Speaker 1: though I could take my own life. But I'm trying
Speaker 1: to teach them that we sometimes overlook the process and
Speaker 1: go right to the end result. Right. Um, Now, that's
Speaker 1: that sounds fantasy. That's perfect. And as a parent, and
Speaker 1: especially as a teacher of kids who have been made
Speaker 1: to feel stupid their whole lives, either because they've had
Speaker 1: untreated learning issues or whatever, my telling them you're so smart,
Speaker 1: you're so talented, is going to do very little for them.
Speaker 1: My showing them how far they've come in their writing
Speaker 1: over a month or six months. That is concrete evidence.
Speaker 1: And what's really interesting about this, And since you have girls,
Speaker 1: you'll be interested in this. I was talking to Rachel
Speaker 1: Simmons has written about this beautifully in her book. One
Speaker 1: of the interesting differences between girls and boys when it
Speaker 1: comes to failure is this, boys are particularly good at it.
Speaker 1: Let's say they fail a test or a project just
Speaker 1: goes awry. They're pretty good at putting that thing over
Speaker 1: there and saying, oh, look at that thing that I
Speaker 1: failed at over there. I'm I'm cool, but that thing
Speaker 1: over there, I really failed at that. A girl is
Speaker 1: more likely to say, oh, I am a failure. I
Speaker 1: not that thing over there, but I am a failure.
Speaker 1: And what's worse is that when presented with evidence of
Speaker 1: their success, of their of their competence, they're more likely
Speaker 1: to push that evidence off as due to luck, due
Speaker 1: to oh I had a good lab partner, good timing,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. That wasn't me. That was lucky.
Speaker 1: I was fortunate there. So girls internalize it. The failures
Speaker 1: tend to internalize. Boys tend to be a little bit
Speaker 1: better at, you know. But then there's all sorts of
Speaker 1: other you know. Let me ask you a question about
Speaker 1: failure and success in athletics, because that see to be
Speaker 1: the place where they, in my humble opinion, really sort
Speaker 1: of test their success and failure. What do you say
Speaker 1: to those parents that are standing on the side of
Speaker 1: the field yelling at their kid. Because I've been in
Speaker 1: situations where it makes me so uncomfortable. But also I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: I don't think they should be allowed to like, I
Speaker 1: don't think that's allowed, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a whole chapter in Gift to Failure about sports
Speaker 1: that I found really interesting, mainly because I'm I wasn't
Speaker 1: a big sports parent until pretty much when Gift to
Speaker 1: Failure was happening and my son did cross country. But
Speaker 1: there is this really interesting survey. I looked at this
Speaker 1: guy who works with really high level athletes asked them
Speaker 1: about their experiences in youth sports. He asked them about
Speaker 1: their favorite part of it and their least favorite part
Speaker 1: of it. Their least favorite part of youth sports was
Speaker 1: the ride home with their parents from the big game.
Speaker 1: I believe that. I believe their favorite part was when
Speaker 1: their grandparents came to watch them play. So my message
Speaker 1: for parents is almost always be more like a grandparent
Speaker 1: and less like a parent. Be there for the joy
Speaker 1: of watching your kid participate in something that they love. UM.
Speaker 1: I also I have to throw back to um one
Speaker 1: of my very favorite pieces of advice ever that came
Speaker 1: from a friend of mine, UM Glenn and Doyle and
Speaker 1: wife Abby Wambach. So there was a wonderful Instagram post
Speaker 1: ages ago that um Glennan put up there where she said,
Speaker 1: you know, Abby, as a professional soccer player, has a
Speaker 1: lot to say about how everyone should play soccer. And
Speaker 1: yet when their daughter was playing soccer, Abby would ask
Speaker 1: her two questions when she got off the field. Number one,
Speaker 1: did you have a good time? And how do you
Speaker 1: feel about how you played? And she said, if you
Speaker 1: know more about soccer than my wife, Abby, feel free
Speaker 1: to ask lots of other questions, but I highly doubt it.
Speaker 1: And those are the two most important questions you can
Speaker 1: ask a kid. And what essentially those parents screaming on
Speaker 1: the sidelines are doing is ruining their child's joy for
Speaker 1: that sport. They are torpedoing that joy and essentially it
Speaker 1: becomes like that extrinsic motivator thing where you are going
Speaker 1: to undermine your kid's interest and joy in the sport
Speaker 1: over the long term. And and tell me about autonomy parenting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: autonomy supportive parenting. I aspire a woman named Wendy girl Nick.
Speaker 1: She has written a couple of books about the way
Speaker 1: we parent and how that affects kids. And she did
Speaker 1: this cool experiment where she brought mother infant parents to
Speaker 1: her lab, and she gave the kids a task that
Speaker 1: would be frustrating for them. It was challenging, it was
Speaker 1: maybe even a little bit beyond their ability level. And
Speaker 1: she watched the mother and the child as they completed
Speaker 1: this the task. And then the next time the kids
Speaker 1: came back to the lab, she separated the kids from
Speaker 1: their parents because she wanted to see how the kids
Speaker 1: would deal with a frustrating task when the parent wasn't there.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that kids who have highly directive
Speaker 1: parents and the word there's another word for highly directive parents.
Speaker 1: It's controlling, but directive tends to go down a little easier,
Speaker 1: you know, don't get us upset. Directive is are things
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, don't do it that way, do
Speaker 1: it this way or here, step one, step two, step three,
Speaker 1: no no no, don't ask any questions, no wise here,
Speaker 1: just do it the way I said. That's directive. Someone
Speaker 1: who's always there with the next step before you even
Speaker 1: think to ask the question, and so the kids never
Speaker 1: really have a chance to get frustrated and deal with
Speaker 1: their frustration. That's directive parenting. Autonomy supportive parenting are parents
Speaker 1: who give the kids opportunities to struggle a little bit
Speaker 1: and will help redirect, but won't give any answers, won't
Speaker 1: take over that kind of thing. The children of the
Speaker 1: directive parents were unable to complete the task on their
Speaker 1: own when their parents was not present. They just didn't
Speaker 1: have the emotional wherewithal to stick with it. When they
Speaker 1: didn't have someone right there at that second, they got
Speaker 1: frustrated to tell them the next step. Whereas the kids
Speaker 1: of the autonomy supportive parents who let the kids do
Speaker 1: it the way they wanted, how they do it in
Speaker 1: what or do they do it in what color? Inc
Speaker 1: they want to do it um those kids almost all
Speaker 1: of them completed the same task. So there's a huge
Speaker 1: difference there. And then you think about what happens when
Speaker 1: those kids go to school. The ability to sort of say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a breath, I'm gonna walk around the
Speaker 1: room a few I'm going to get a snack, and
Speaker 1: I'll come back to this and maybe i'll see it
Speaker 1: from a different angle when I sit back down. Those
Speaker 1: kids who can do that, they're gonna learn a lot
Speaker 1: more in a classroom than a kid who gives up
Speaker 1: because they get frustrated We're going to take a short
Speaker 1: break and we'll be right back. Welcome back with more.
Speaker 1: Go ask Gali, because so many parents look at their
Speaker 1: kids as an extension of them. You must see so
Speaker 1: many parents that have a really hard time not being
Speaker 1: directive parents, particularly when it's around an area that is
Speaker 1: that they are sort of geniuses or have perfected or
Speaker 1: work in. You know, I mean, I have to tell
Speaker 1: you there were times when when my kids were younger
Speaker 1: and they had art projects or they had charts, what
Speaker 1: I had to do to stop myself from getting the
Speaker 1: ruler and all my great colored pens and my glitter
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm like, presentation is everything. So I mean,
Speaker 1: so how could a parent know if they're being too
Speaker 1: directive or not directive enough with their team? Let's see,
Speaker 1: that's a really great question. Think about take a breath
Speaker 1: when you're answering a question for a kid, and think
Speaker 1: about whether or not it would be beneficial for them
Speaker 1: to have a minute to think about it themselves. For me,
Speaker 1: as a teacher in my classroom, I tend to have
Speaker 1: a ten seconds of silence rule. Um if I put
Speaker 1: a question out to the class, especially if it's about
Speaker 1: a complicated question. I really don't allow anyone to sort
Speaker 1: of you know, O, I know the answer, or oh,
Speaker 1: I have a question until we've had really ten seconds
Speaker 1: to sort of think about it. Um that buffer space
Speaker 1: of silence often give kids the opportunity to reflect on
Speaker 1: the question before they just assume they don't know it
Speaker 1: or assume they do without thinking through the question itself.
Speaker 1: And maybe they're going in the wrong direction. So just
Speaker 1: let there be a little bit of quiet. And if
Speaker 1: your kid gives up really easily when they can't do
Speaker 1: something right the very first time they try, it might
Speaker 1: be an indication that there has been some directive parenting
Speaker 1: going on in the past. And then the way you
Speaker 1: fix that is to just allow for some more time.
Speaker 1: And even if that means that your kid is in
Speaker 1: the next room and they're like yelling for your help
Speaker 1: and you say something like, you know what, I'm chopping
Speaker 1: some green peppers right now for dinner. Just give me
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes. And in the meantime, why don't
Speaker 1: you go back and reread the instructions or think about
Speaker 1: it another time, or switch to the next problem and
Speaker 1: come back to this one. Just start creating that comfortable
Speaker 1: space to feel frustration so that your kid can become
Speaker 1: more acquainted with it, and you know at a certain
Speaker 1: point that there's a certain amount of just being there
Speaker 1: to listen. And by the way, when kids are working
Speaker 1: independently in my classroom and they raise their hand and
Speaker 1: they start freaking out, of the successes I experience in
Speaker 1: those moments have to do with my standing there and
Speaker 1: listening while they repeat what they think the problem is
Speaker 1: before they say, oh, oh, never mind, figured I just
Speaker 1: figured it out on my own, forget it. So try
Speaker 1: to do a little bit more of that being Um,
Speaker 1: why don't you describe the problem to me? How did
Speaker 1: your teacher talk about solving this problem? Have you read
Speaker 1: the Why don't you go back and reread the instructions
Speaker 1: and make sure you're not forgetting anything. Um, it looks
Speaker 1: like you've got numbers one through ten. Okay, what's different
Speaker 1: about number eleven that makes it so that you feel stuck?
Speaker 1: And if worse comes to worse? Right now, we're in
Speaker 1: a period where there's a lot of communication between teacher
Speaker 1: and student because you can email, you can text, there's
Speaker 1: the zoom thing, there's all kinds of ways you can
Speaker 1: do it is incomplete homework can actually be of great
Speaker 1: benefit to a teacher and a student because it conveys information,
Speaker 1: especially when that student writes a no to explain, Look,
Speaker 1: I did number ten this way. Number eleven is just
Speaker 1: not working this way and I don't understand it. But
Speaker 1: if you fix or do number eleven for them, the
Speaker 1: teacher has no idea that it's a problem. So when
Speaker 1: that kid goes on to the test on the material
Speaker 1: that number eleven was on, of course the kid is
Speaker 1: still not going to understand it and not be able
Speaker 1: to manipulate that information in novel ways. So your job
Speaker 1: as a parent when it comes to homework, especially for
Speaker 1: older kids, is redirecting, reiterating, listening, um, and have some
Speaker 1: patience with the struggle. So I was just going to
Speaker 1: add one thing to this, which is doing college essays. Now.
Speaker 1: My husband and I will not help. We won't. And
Speaker 1: it's it's excruciating because it's very important that my daughter,
Speaker 1: it's her voice, it's what she has to say. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's hard when you know it's going to
Speaker 1: an Ivy League school and there's a sentence that's like, um,
Speaker 1: like the thing about me is and you go anyway,
Speaker 1: let me say, just really quickly, since it came up college,
Speaker 1: you're gonna write, You're gonna write my daughter's essays. You
Speaker 1: are not the best person to help with the college essays.
Speaker 1: Often UM, Often English teachers will help with that. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, if there is ever a time to get
Speaker 1: a tutor just to read something, UM, this is a
Speaker 1: great opportunity. Having their friends read it. A lot of
Speaker 1: peer reading can really be helpful because, as someone who
Speaker 1: has helped kids with college essays, I can spot parents
Speaker 1: writing in a college essay from thirty paces. It is
Speaker 1: so easy to spot. Kids who are applying to college
Speaker 1: are expected to sound like kids who are applying to college.
Speaker 1: And at a certain point, UM, the kid needs to
Speaker 1: come through. And so that's just just for background, having
Speaker 1: the kid come through in an essay like that's magic
Speaker 1: when that happens, and the minute a parental hand is
Speaker 1: on it, it's over. You know, would you say that
Speaker 1: about UM learning in general, that this should go to
Speaker 1: their peers if they don't understand an assignment, or I mean,
Speaker 1: should they work together with other students as opposed to
Speaker 1: go right to the teacher the parent first. Does that
Speaker 1: seem to work? It depends on it depends on the age. UM.
Speaker 1: I will tell you that after I learned about the
Speaker 1: research and how the brain actually learns best, I did
Speaker 1: switch to a lot more peer to peer teaching. UM.
Speaker 1: It changed the whole dynamic in my classroom. It will
Speaker 1: allowed kids to feel competent about their own learning when
Speaker 1: they could teach it to someone else. Any teacher will
Speaker 1: tell you you don't really know something until you teach
Speaker 1: it to someone else. Anyway, it'll it also one of
Speaker 1: which this the counselors at school loved and my school loved,
Speaker 1: which is um peer to peer teaching requires kids to
Speaker 1: really practice some perspective taking an empathy because they can't
Speaker 1: just give the right answer. They have to be able
Speaker 1: to understand why so and so got the wrong answer,
Speaker 1: what was his thinking behind that answer that he got
Speaker 1: that wrong? So in my classroom anyway, I did a
Speaker 1: lot more sort of letting the kids um work on
Speaker 1: each other's work. And in fact, my husband teaches medical
Speaker 1: school and residents and he was working on a test
Speaker 1: the other night while we were reading before bed. It's
Speaker 1: it's a very exciting household around him, and he said,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I am loving this test because Essentially,
Speaker 1: what it comes down to is a lot of peer
Speaker 1: support for the learning, as opposed to one person from
Speaker 1: up high, the so called stage on the stage saying
Speaker 1: here's how it should be done. Um. It's learning cooperatively
Speaker 1: and in small groups. We know for a fact is
Speaker 1: more effective than lecture learning. So um. When it comes
Speaker 1: to the parents, though versus appear, there are times for both.
Speaker 1: And I say that from the perspective of someone whom
Speaker 1: my husband has spent the past two nights with our
Speaker 1: high school kid working on a subject that's particularly difficult
Speaker 1: for him right now. And sometimes it goes great, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's hard to hear it from a parent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we've been had we've had some big fights in
Speaker 1: the past, and uh we've also luckily, my husband George
Speaker 1: and I get to say to our kids all the time,
Speaker 1: we don't know how to do your math, Thank God,
Speaker 1: because we don't know how to do their math. Um. Now.
Speaker 1: There's a great book, by the way called Common Core
Speaker 1: Math for Parents for Dummies, written by a guy named
Speaker 1: Christopher Danielson, and it's essentially for parents who would like
Speaker 1: to be able to stop saying that. Well, any any
Speaker 1: title that says Dummies as a book for me UM
Speaker 1: and getting away from the academics. How can a parent
Speaker 1: be more patient with their teens if they fail, particularly
Speaker 1: during a pandemic. So if your kid sneaks out and
Speaker 1: sort of risks the family from some kind of COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen UM infection. I feel like I'm quote unquote more
Speaker 1: educated about the academic process, but it's more about the
Speaker 1: life stuff that I'm worried about in terms of parenting
Speaker 1: and failure and how do you how do you talk
Speaker 1: about that? I think the first place to start is
Speaker 1: with our own thinking about teenagers, and we tend to
Speaker 1: just blame everything on hormones, but it has to do
Speaker 1: with the fact that teenagers have very different brains from hours.
Speaker 1: We used to think kids were finished developing at age
Speaker 1: ten because they're a brain reached adult size, But as
Speaker 1: we now know, thank goodness for the fm R I,
Speaker 1: we now know that they're nowhere near fully cooked, and
Speaker 1: that they actually won't be until their mid twenties at
Speaker 1: the earliest UM, mostly because the stuff that needs to
Speaker 1: come online the frontal lobe between UM, this process called myelination,
Speaker 1: just that wiring up that front part of the brain
Speaker 1: that's the part that thinks about risk, that's the part
Speaker 1: that thinks about long term consequences, that's the part that
Speaker 1: thinks about long term goals. If we give ourselves a
Speaker 1: break by remembering that we are not dealing with fully
Speaker 1: formed adults, that will help us give our kids a
Speaker 1: slight break. Um. But one of the things we can
Speaker 1: do is help be their training wheels and help lead
Speaker 1: them through consequences. Okay, I know you want to go
Speaker 1: to this party, but let's talk about some of the
Speaker 1: things I'm worried about when it comes to this party.
Speaker 1: And a lot of parents automatically think that kids can't
Speaker 1: weigh risks very well. Parents will say, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is about teenagers. They just
Speaker 1: don't get it. That's not true. Actually, teenagers are really
Speaker 1: good at weighing risks and consequences, but they tend to
Speaker 1: value the possible positive outcomes more than the possible risks.
Speaker 1: So our job as parents is to help guide them
Speaker 1: toward thinking that is more adult, that is more in
Speaker 1: line with the real risks versus benefit equation, having more
Speaker 1: of those conversations about the why of what you're concerned about.
Speaker 1: Teenagers are really interested in the why and less so
Speaker 1: in the because I said so and so? Those why
Speaker 1: conversations not only give them more immunition ammunition for their
Speaker 1: brains to consider, it also helps them know that we
Speaker 1: trust them with being able to handle these wise, that
Speaker 1: we're actually seeing them almost as equals, because we can
Speaker 1: have these kind of conversations with them, because we too
Speaker 1: often just dismissed teens as not able to function, and
Speaker 1: that we do that at our own peril, because they're
Speaker 1: going to have less respect for us and we're going
Speaker 1: to underestimate their abilities. Do we let our kids quit?
Speaker 1: Should they quit music lessons? Should they quit the school play?
Speaker 1: I know they shouldn't quit school, But at what point
Speaker 1: do we let them relinquished? It definitely comes down to
Speaker 1: a couple of things. This is one of the hardest
Speaker 1: questions I ever have to answer, because it really comes
Speaker 1: down to your priorities in your home. In our home,
Speaker 1: for example, um, music is something that's lovely, but it's
Speaker 1: not a priority in our home. In my friend Sarah's house,
Speaker 1: she told her kids, you will take lessons in an
Speaker 1: instrument until you leave this home. I don't care what
Speaker 1: instrument it is. You could change it up weekly if
Speaker 1: you want. But you were playing an instrument until so
Speaker 1: if you've been playing cello since you were six and
Speaker 1: you suddenly want to switch it up to violin, fine
Speaker 1: with me. When the pandemic started, some local stores ran
Speaker 1: rental um specials and her kid was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: for the pandemic, I'm going to switch to mandolin, and
Speaker 1: he did. So. It really depends on your family's priorities. UM,
Speaker 1: I will tell you that this story has been it
Speaker 1: happens to be a favorite of mine. So I thought,
Speaker 1: because you know, there's research that shows that kids who
Speaker 1: are good at music tend to also have an affinity
Speaker 1: for maths. So I'm like, great, perfect, my kids are
Speaker 1: gonna learn piano. Darnett. I'm gonna make it happen. So
Speaker 1: our friends up the street rolled there, used piano down
Speaker 1: to our house. Luckily they were uphill it moved into
Speaker 1: our house. Um. We had a honeymoon period of a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, and then it became the thing we
Speaker 1: thought about the most in our home, and it was
Speaker 1: undermining my relationship with my kid, and I was not
Speaker 1: willing to go there. It wasn't that important to me.
Speaker 1: I wasn't willing to sacrifice our relationship for the piano,
Speaker 1: so we found another sucker further down the hill willing
Speaker 1: to take the piano. A couple of years later, my kid,
Speaker 1: my older kid, who rejected the piano, picked up guitar
Speaker 1: on his own. Um, we found out one of the
Speaker 1: things about him is he doesn't like taking lessons face
Speaker 1: to face with someone. He likes using a service called
Speaker 1: jam play or YouTube to sort of learn things online
Speaker 1: by himself, valuable information I hadn't had before. Once he
Speaker 1: learned guitar and became really interested in guitar, he came
Speaker 1: to me sheepishly and he said, so, UM, if you
Speaker 1: see a used keyboard like on our town list server
Speaker 1: or something, I think I might really like to teach
Speaker 1: myself piano the same way I learned guitar. And of
Speaker 1: course we made sure that we found a used keyboard,
Speaker 1: and he taught himself rather tirelessly how to play piano
Speaker 1: and got his younger brother interested. And now my kid,
Speaker 1: who I never thought would be interested in music and
Speaker 1: certainly would never take a music lesson if it there's
Speaker 1: no possibility, he's upstairs in all of his free time
Speaker 1: producing digital music that's what he does, that's what he
Speaker 1: wants to do. That may even be what he wants
Speaker 1: to go to school for. So the very thing that
Speaker 1: I decided to keep my nose out of because I
Speaker 1: knew the minute my mom stink was all over it,
Speaker 1: it was out. It's like my I wanted my kids
Speaker 1: to read A Wrinkle in Time more than anything in
Speaker 1: the whole entire world. And the one book neither one
Speaker 1: of my children will read is A Wrinkle in Time.
Speaker 1: My mom stink was on it. And so at a
Speaker 1: certain point comes down to our priorities, and it comes
Speaker 1: down to letting our kids have goals that are their
Speaker 1: own and not our goals. A kid said to me recently,
Speaker 1: can you please tell my mom that I don't want
Speaker 1: to learn how to play piano? She wants to learn
Speaker 1: how to play piano, So bagush, darn't it? Why doesn't
Speaker 1: she take lessons in piano? Our kids are not our
Speaker 1: mini knees. Now. A quick word from our sponsors, welcome
Speaker 1: back to go ask Gali. Let's get back to the discussion.
Speaker 1: What kind of free resources can parents give to teens,
Speaker 1: you know, recommended apps or something to help them understand
Speaker 1: that rejection happens and that they are not failures. Besides
Speaker 1: me telling my kids, are you telling your kids or
Speaker 1: a listener telling their kids? For me? The best resources? UM.
Speaker 1: One of my kids favorite shows growing up with Miss
Speaker 1: was MythBusters. We watched every single episode and when I
Speaker 1: finally got I got to interview Adam Savage UM for
Speaker 1: the Atlantic, and my son getting to meet Adam Savage
Speaker 1: was like it was the event of his lifetime. And
Speaker 1: MythBusters was all about the repeated iterations of trying something,
Speaker 1: figuring out what goes wrong, leaving behind the parts that
Speaker 1: go wrong, and taking forward with us the parts that
Speaker 1: go well. Resilience is not a matter of just pushing
Speaker 1: forward when you do something wrong, because that makes no sense.
Speaker 1: It's about learning what to take forward with us and
Speaker 1: what to leave behind and how to do better next time.
Speaker 1: So I'm all about, you know, showing kids real examples
Speaker 1: of people who have tried and failed and pushed forward.
Speaker 1: And there's all kinds of iconic examples about it. But
Speaker 1: you know, things like Miss MythBusters and other adults in
Speaker 1: their lives that have had big failures and yet have
Speaker 1: managed to come back as smarter and stronger. UM. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm all for those stories and and our own stories.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, we don't even tell our kids when
Speaker 1: we screw up at work. If we were to come
Speaker 1: home and say, oh my gosh, I hit reply all
Speaker 1: on this email and now everyone is pissed because I
Speaker 1: said some things I shouldn't have said, and I don't
Speaker 1: know how to fix this. What do you think I
Speaker 1: should do? Opening up that we make mistakes and that
Speaker 1: we hope to get better and learn from them. And frankly, Alie,
Speaker 1: what you're doing is going to experts and saying how
Speaker 1: do I do these things better? And if your response
Speaker 1: is to go back to your kid and say, you
Speaker 1: know what I've been giving. I've been paying you for grades,
Speaker 1: and I found out from this person who has researched
Speaker 1: this stuff that meant that may not be the best
Speaker 1: way to keep you engaged in school. And so I
Speaker 1: have these other ideas. I'll still give you allowance, but
Speaker 1: that learning from your mistakes and doing better next time,
Speaker 1: that's modeling for them exactly what we want to see
Speaker 1: from them. So if we do that, if we model
Speaker 1: that behavior for them, that's like the best parenting we
Speaker 1: could ever do. It's funny because you know, my husband
Speaker 1: and I sort of come from parenting from two completely
Speaker 1: different points of view. I was he was very academic.
Speaker 1: I was very creative. And what we learned and what
Speaker 1: our kids absorbed like sponges, was our failures or are
Speaker 1: things that were hard for us, you know. For me,
Speaker 1: I've always been very open with my kids about like
Speaker 1: I had a depression in my twenties, but I got
Speaker 1: through it and I'm stronger. Or um, I failed biology
Speaker 1: and I went to summer school and I failed it again.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to counteract the fact that my husband
Speaker 1: never got below and A. But you know, but he's
Speaker 1: had he's had failures himself, and they seemed to light
Speaker 1: up the most with that stuff, much more than our successes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was asked to write about my greatest failure after
Speaker 1: Gift to Failure hit the best seller list, and um,
Speaker 1: I told my students what I was going to write about,
Speaker 1: which was getting a D on a law school exam
Speaker 1: and and and going. And I heard that story. That's
Speaker 1: not the real story. And my student has looked at
Speaker 1: me and they said, that's not your biggest failure. Why
Speaker 1: would you tell that story? And I realized that I
Speaker 1: had told my students a story that I was unwilling
Speaker 1: to share with anyone else, which was that the first
Speaker 1: draft of the Gift of Failure was quote unquote unpublishable,
Speaker 1: as per my editor. And so they talked about getting
Speaker 1: a ghostwriter to help me, and I begged for um
Speaker 1: probationary chapters. I said, you tell me everything I did wrong,
Speaker 1: and I will take these two chapters that you've given
Speaker 1: me as a gift to try to get it right.
Speaker 1: And if I get it right, then this is just
Speaker 1: two chapters, and blah blah, we can move forward and
Speaker 1: I can have more. And two chapters turned into four,
Speaker 1: which turned into six, which turned into no ghostwriter for me,
Speaker 1: and a New York Times best selling book for me. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing is, if my kids just saw the success
Speaker 1: and they hadn't seen me cry about the editing I
Speaker 1: had to do, if they hadn't heard me talk about
Speaker 1: it at the dinner table, you know, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: my structure was just all wrong and I didn't understand
Speaker 1: the organization of this book. If they hadn't heard that thing,
Speaker 1: then it's like, yeah, mom had a New York Times
Speaker 1: bestselling book. Yeah, that's that's great overnight success, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: But they know that's not the whole story. What they
Speaker 1: know is is that that was emotionally just devastating to me.
Speaker 1: And I had to hear all of that really difficult
Speaker 1: feedback in order to learn how to write my next book.
Speaker 1: And they were here when the edits for The Addiction
Speaker 1: Inoculation came back, and there were very few edits because
Speaker 1: what I had done with my feedback from my first
Speaker 1: book was make a giant checklist of what not to
Speaker 1: do next time. And so my editor on this new
Speaker 1: book said, well, you learn some stuff, because we really
Speaker 1: the editing on this is going to be light. And
Speaker 1: I shared that information with my kids, and they know
Speaker 1: that this the success of this book in the process. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'll be thrilled if it does well. Yes I'll be
Speaker 1: thrilled if it hits the best sello list. But I've
Speaker 1: already succeeded with this book because I learned how to
Speaker 1: write a book out of the process of writing the
Speaker 1: gift of failure. And I'm really proud of myself, and
Speaker 1: I know they're proud of me for the right reasons.
Speaker 1: That is such a great story and it's not only
Speaker 1: a great story for teenagers, is a great story for adults,
Speaker 1: for anybody. Once I told that story, I'm telling you
Speaker 1: the writers came out of the woodwork and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: thank goodness you told that story because I was feeling
Speaker 1: so bad because that happened to me too, and this
Speaker 1: was my process of learning. You are such a incredibly bright, educated,
Speaker 1: um energetic, amazing human being. The fact that the gift
Speaker 1: of failure was a failure in its first try is
Speaker 1: makes all of us feel a little bit more comfortable.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and thank you for being a
Speaker 1: go ask Alli. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast
Speaker 1: Go ask Alli. You can find us wherever you subscribe
Speaker 1: to podcasts and follow me on Instagram, the Real Ali
Speaker 1: Wentworth or Twitter Ali e Wentworth. Go ask Ali is
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