Speaker 1: You do not solve all of your children's problems. That's
Speaker 1: the heart of love and logic. It's you want kids
Speaker 1: to make mistakes and you want them to pay the
Speaker 1: consequences so they learn.
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Speaker 1: The number one health and well Inness podcast.
Speaker 2: Jay Sheety Jay shetty N. Hey everyone, welcome back to
Speaker 2: on Purpose, the place you come to to become happier, healthier,
Speaker 2: and more healed. Today's guest is one of our most
Speaker 2: frequent guests, actually the most frequent guest of all time.
Speaker 2: He's one of your favorite I know that you love
Speaker 2: diving into the science. I know that you love diving
Speaker 2: into the brain, and today we're going to get to
Speaker 2: put that all together with raising young minds. If you
Speaker 2: have a child or you're about to have a child
Speaker 2: or thinking about it, This episode is for you. If
Speaker 2: you want to know what impacts us, what helps us
Speaker 2: become happier, healthier, and more healed through our childhood years,
Speaker 2: This episode is for you. And if you're wondering about
Speaker 2: your own health and how you got to where you
Speaker 2: are and how you can make shifts and changes, this
Speaker 2: episode is for you. Today I'm talking to doctor Daniel Aman,
Speaker 2: a former infantry medic physician, child and adult psychiatrist, and
Speaker 2: founder and CEO of Aiman Clinics, with eleven locations nationwide.
Speaker 2: Aiman Clinics has built the world's largest database of brain
Speaker 2: scans related to behavior, totaling more than two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty thousand scans on patients from one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: five countries. Doctor Amen has written twenty national best selling books,
Speaker 2: and doctor Aman's new book is titled Raising Mentally Strong Kids,
Speaker 2: How to combine the power of neuroscience with love and
Speaker 2: logic to grow confident, kind, responsible and resilient children and
Speaker 2: young adults. If you don't have this already, go and
Speaker 2: grab your copy right now. You're going to love this conversation.
Speaker 2: Welcome to on Purpose, Doctor Daniel Aiman, doctor Aman, it's
Speaker 2: great to have you back.
Speaker 1: Jay, what a joy. Thank you for helping me spread
Speaker 1: this message of brain health, brain healthy adults, brain healthy kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I've learned so much from you over the years,
Speaker 2: and I think anyone who goes back and listens to
Speaker 2: those episodes, there's so many great conversations, great insights. But
Speaker 2: I love that you're focusing on raising mentally strong kids
Speaker 2: because I know I get this question from our audience
Speaker 2: a lot. Now. Some of our audience are mothers and fathers,
Speaker 2: and some of them are thinking about it, and some
Speaker 2: of them may be years away, but I know that
Speaker 2: it's something that even I sit and think about. I
Speaker 2: talk about it with RADI what does it really take?
Speaker 2: And I think that it's so hard to know because
Speaker 2: there's so many theories. There's the way we were raised,
Speaker 2: there's the way our partner was raised. There's a million ways,
Speaker 2: and in the book you really break it down beautifully.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to ask you a couple of questions
Speaker 2: to get going. So the first thing I wanted to
Speaker 2: ask you about is that you talk about mentally strong
Speaker 2: kids live by clearly defined goals, and I was thinking
Speaker 2: about that as thinking how do you set a goal
Speaker 2: for a kid? And at what age does a goal
Speaker 2: become real?
Speaker 1: Well, the goal starts with parents. What kind of dad
Speaker 1: or mom do I want to be and what kind
Speaker 1: of children do I want to raise? So in raising
Speaker 1: mentally strong kids, I mean the first principle is you
Speaker 1: need to be mentally strong, right, you have to model
Speaker 1: the message and iman clinics are first core value is
Speaker 1: authenticity and what does that mean to be mentally strong? Well,
Speaker 1: the first principle is clarity? Is you want to know?
Speaker 1: So when I was growing up, my mom was great.
Speaker 1: She was present, but there were way too many of us.
Speaker 1: There was seven. Third means irrelevant, at least that's what
Speaker 1: I thought. You know Prince Harry's book spare Well, in
Speaker 1: a Lebanese family, the oldest son is golden and the
Speaker 1: second son's irrelevant. Now there's huge upside to irrelevance, which
Speaker 1: means I could do anything I want. But my mom
Speaker 1: was present and fun and playful and strict, all good qualities.
Speaker 1: My dad was gone. And so when I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: what kind of parent do I want to be, is
Speaker 1: I want to be present? Because that caused a lot
Speaker 1: of bitterness in my life, And if you read sort
Speaker 1: of the latest neuroscience on child bearing, attachment is so
Speaker 1: important to prevent mental illness or mental health problems. And
Speaker 1: so if I want to be present, then that leads
Speaker 1: to the second principle, which is bonding, which is connection
Speaker 1: and how do you connect? And too many parents get
Speaker 1: that wrong and like, oh, well, let me solve all
Speaker 1: of my child's problems, which creates entitlement and disaster. But
Speaker 1: the first one is what do you want? And I
Speaker 1: think is a great question for kids when they're six
Speaker 1: or seven? What do you want in our relationship? Like
Speaker 1: I treat a lot of difficult kids. And one of
Speaker 1: my favorite questions to parents, how many times out of
Speaker 1: ten when you ask this child to do something, will
Speaker 1: they do it the first time without arguing or fighting?
Speaker 1: And seven is the average for healthy kids. So very
Speaker 1: few kids do something every time, right, But for the
Speaker 1: kids who see me, it's zero or less than three.
Speaker 1: And when I ask the children about this, seven, eight, nine,
Speaker 1: I'm like, is that your goal to make your mother cry?
Speaker 1: I'm like no, I'm like, why do you do it?
Speaker 1: I don't know? And the fact is they don't know
Speaker 1: because it's not will driven it's brain driven, and that
Speaker 1: one concept all by itself. On top of which, if
Speaker 1: a child doesn't do what you ask them to do
Speaker 1: and you ignore it or you just repeat it, what
Speaker 1: you're doing is teaching them to do that, and the
Speaker 1: brain is lazy. So this is going to be a
Speaker 1: fun conversation.
Speaker 2: How about the people that would say that that may
Speaker 2: make children obedient, but it doesn't make them free thinkers,
Speaker 2: or it doesn't make them independently thoughtful. I think we
Speaker 2: sometimes feel like these two things work against each other, right,
Speaker 2: Like if we feel where like they listen to everything
Speaker 2: we say and they do what we say, then how
Speaker 2: do they build up their own sense of identity? How
Speaker 2: does that?
Speaker 1: Well, that's totally in the book on how to do that,
Speaker 1: and that is you do not solve all of your
Speaker 1: children's problems. That's the heart of love and logic. It's
Speaker 1: you want kids to make mistakes and you want them
Speaker 1: to pay the consequences so they learn agency. It's such
Speaker 1: an important word in lives. So I have six children,
Speaker 1: three of them are adopted. Chloe who's now twenty. She
Speaker 1: has a bit of a helion and argumentative, oppositional and
Speaker 1: I'm a child skiatrist and Chloe was two when Tana
Speaker 1: and I met, and I'm like, Tana, you've done second grade,
Speaker 1: but they would like go at it in a bad
Speaker 1: way for homework for like a couple of hours, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, and then Tana got a program. I co
Speaker 1: wrote the book with Charles Fay, who's president of the
Speaker 1: Love and Logic Institute, So she got parenting with Love
Speaker 1: and Logic and then took everything they ever created. One night,
Speaker 1: when it finally clicked that I've done second grade, she
Speaker 1: told Chloe she'd never again asked her to do her homework.
Speaker 1: She said, hey, I've done second grade. This is on you.
Speaker 1: And if you're okay with the constant quinces of not
Speaker 1: doing your homework, missus mankr teacher will be mad at you.
Speaker 1: You won't go out to recess. And if you really
Speaker 1: decide you're not going to do it, you'll make new
Speaker 1: friends when you repeat second grade. That was that epiphany moment.
Speaker 1: Chloe got upset and said, I never said I wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna do my homework. I'm just not going to do
Speaker 1: it now. She stormed off. Twenty minutes later, she came back.
Speaker 1: No one ever asked her to do her homework again.
Speaker 1: She's gonna graduate with a business degree from Javan University.
Speaker 1: She's bright, she's independent, she has agency. She's a hard
Speaker 1: worker and a free thinker. Because she couldn't push against
Speaker 1: her mother to solve her problems, she had to figure
Speaker 1: it out with of course appropriate support. And oh, by
Speaker 1: the way, to really push on this idea. If Chloe
Speaker 1: forgot her homework, there's no way her mother would bring
Speaker 1: it to school because then she'd only forget it once. Right,
Speaker 1: If she forgot her homework and we brought it to school,
Speaker 1: we'd always be bringing her homework to school. If it
Speaker 1: was cold out and she forgot to bring a sweater,
Speaker 1: nobody's bringing a sweater. She forgot her lunch, nobody's bringing
Speaker 1: her lunch. We're teaching her probably the most important skill
Speaker 1: of mentally strong people. I'm responsible for my life and
Speaker 1: if there are consequences, I'm going to pay it. And
Speaker 1: you so you want them to make mistakes when the
Speaker 1: consequences are affordable.
Speaker 2: What age is that? Is that at a particular age,
Speaker 2: you're always there a time when.
Speaker 1: Four five, six, you know, earlier the better, and of
Speaker 1: course you're always putting you know, think of bowling alley.
Speaker 1: You're putting bumper guards up to protect them. But when
Speaker 1: I was a young parent, I think my self esteem
Speaker 1: wasn't great, and I would get self esteem by solving
Speaker 1: my children's problems. And what I realized is I was
Speaker 1: robbing them of their self esteem, because where do we
Speaker 1: get self esteem. There's this great study out of Harvard
Speaker 1: where they followed four hundred and fifty four inner city
Speaker 1: Boston school kids for seventy years. I mean, think about that.
Speaker 1: I mean one of the longest longevity studies ever done.
Speaker 1: And they looked at what was going you know, with
Speaker 1: mental illness, with addiction, with self esteem, and the only
Speaker 1: thing that correlated with self esteem was whether or not
Speaker 1: you worked as a child, whether or not you had
Speaker 1: responsibility at home, you had a paper route, you had
Speaker 1: an outside job. When I was ten years old, I
Speaker 1: went to work because my dad owned grocery stores. And
Speaker 1: work is good. But for people who are affluent, who
Speaker 1: have helped home, and everything is done for the child,
Speaker 1: you're really setting the child up for struggles in their
Speaker 1: life because they won't develop a sense of agency.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting hearing that I've always felt that I
Speaker 2: started doing I was a paperboy when I was fourteen
Speaker 2: years old, and I remember going around the local streets
Speaker 2: and delivering the papers and it was raining, and it
Speaker 2: was you know, at some time of the year in
Speaker 2: England it would snow during the Christmas period and it
Speaker 2: was hardest because I'm pulling this like you know, this
Speaker 2: trolley we call it, I don't know what you'd call
Speaker 2: it here, but pulling this cart that has all the
Speaker 2: newspapers stacked in it. And then I worked in and
Speaker 2: then I worked in a grocery store, and then I
Speaker 2: worked in retail, and so I've been working ever since
Speaker 2: I was fourteen years old. And I couldn't agree with
Speaker 2: you more. I learned so many interesting skills, I developed
Speaker 2: so many amazing habits because you had to in order
Speaker 2: to do it. And that resonates so strongly with me.
Speaker 2: How do you get comfortable watching your child be uncomfortable?
Speaker 2: Because I can imagine that's the biggest challenge, right as
Speaker 2: a parent who loves, adores, cares for this child, doesn't
Speaker 2: want it to be cold, doesn't want the child to
Speaker 2: be late for school, doesn't want the child to perform poorly.
Speaker 2: Your ego is somewhat attached to the child's ego and
Speaker 2: success level. How do you get comfortable watching a child
Speaker 2: be uncomfortable in a non unemotional way and not in
Speaker 2: an insensitive way.
Speaker 1: Sorry, you have to have the big picture of mind
Speaker 1: and the long game in mind. What do I want?
Speaker 1: What kind of parent do I want to be? Effective? Present?
Speaker 1: What kind of child do I want to raise? Independent, competent? Strong?
Speaker 1: If I do too much, I'm robbing them of their
Speaker 1: self esteem, of their sense of responsibility and agency. And
Speaker 1: that's a disaster you just don't want, and you need
Speaker 1: to see it ahead of time. And that's why you
Speaker 1: know the first principles, Know what you want, and always
Speaker 1: ask your kids, So what's the goal for this year?
Speaker 1: What do you want? Right? It's not you're not telling
Speaker 1: them their goal. I mean an example, when I turned eighteen,
Speaker 1: it was the first time I could vote, and my
Speaker 1: dad told me if I voted for Senator McGovern the
Speaker 1: country would go to health. So in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon's running for reelection. He's a very popular president,
Speaker 1: even though it'll turn out to be a disaster against
Speaker 1: Senator mcgovernor. And I'm eighteen and I don't have a
Speaker 1: relationship with my dad. I mean, we're sort of mostly
Speaker 1: mad at each other. He's trying to have influence on me,
Speaker 1: but because we don't have a relationship, I just as
Speaker 1: soon piss him off right now. It wasn't my conscious thought,
Speaker 1: but I just as soon pens them off. And I
Speaker 1: voted for mc governor and the country went to hell.
Speaker 1: But it had nothing to do with mcgovernor. It was
Speaker 1: all nextcell on, water good, so on. But it was
Speaker 1: that lack of relationship. And if people do what I
Speaker 1: talk about in the book, you have more influence with them.
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Speaker 1: And that leads to So the first principle is goal setting.
Speaker 1: The second one is bonding. It's attachment. If you want
Speaker 1: to have influence with your children, if you want them
Speaker 1: to seriously consider your values, you have to be connected
Speaker 1: with them.
Speaker 2: And what does that take?
Speaker 1: Time Like actual physical time where you're not on your phone,
Speaker 1: but you put the phone away and you spend twenty
Speaker 1: minutes a day with a child. So there's an exercise
Speaker 1: I talk about in the book that I love so
Speaker 1: much that you know all the things I've recommended to
Speaker 1: my patients over the last forty five years. When I
Speaker 1: decided to be a psychiatrist forty five years ago. Special time,
Speaker 1: it's magic and twenty minutes a day do something with
Speaker 1: your child. Child wants to do that's reasonable, you can
Speaker 1: do in twenty minutes. So it's like, not take me
Speaker 1: to Nordstroms. And during that time, no commands, no questions,
Speaker 1: no directions, It's just time to be together. And it's
Speaker 1: money in the relational bank. And I remember when I
Speaker 1: first figured this out. My literary agent had a child
Speaker 1: later in life. We were talking on the phone and
Speaker 1: he's like, my daughter, Laura doesn't want to have anything
Speaker 1: to do with me, and she's two, and he said,
Speaker 1: that's like a girl thing, right, a mother daughter thing.
Speaker 1: They don't want anything. I'm like, no, Carl, you're ignoring her.
Speaker 1: What what do you mean I'm ignoring I'm like, you're
Speaker 1: ignoring her. Do this and he said that won't work.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, great, you represent an idiot. My own
Speaker 1: literary agent won't do what I say. Do it. In fact,
Speaker 1: I'm going to put you in my schedule for three weeks.
Speaker 1: I'm going to call you get the party started. And
Speaker 1: so three weeks go by, I call them up. Carl Daniel.
Speaker 1: She won't leave me alone. As soon as I walk
Speaker 1: in the door, she grabs my leg and wants her time.
Speaker 1: All she wants to do is be with me. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's a problem. That's what we want, right, that's what
Speaker 1: we're after. So actual physical time. And now parents are
Speaker 1: so busy they're not spending this one on one alone
Speaker 1: time listening. So that's the second part of it. So time,
Speaker 1: actual physical time, and shut up. It's so important. You
Speaker 1: love them so much you want to pour all of
Speaker 1: your knowledge, all of your wisdom that you worked your
Speaker 1: whole life on and downloaded into their head. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: Listen to them, and therapists learn this technique called act
Speaker 1: of listening that whenever someone says something, you don't interrupt
Speaker 1: and tell them how to think. You repeat it back,
Speaker 1: and you listen for the feelings behind the words. So
Speaker 1: if my son came home and said, Dad, I want
Speaker 1: to have blue hair, I don't know what your father
Speaker 1: would have said, but I know what mine would have said. No,
Speaker 1: when el, as long as you live in this house,
Speaker 1: so you can have blue hair. But what does that do?
Speaker 1: It just stops the conversation or it starts a fight.
Speaker 1: Active listening teaches you repeat back what you hear, oh,
Speaker 1: you want to have blue hair, and then be quiet
Speaker 1: long enough for them to explain what's really going on.
Speaker 1: And he might say all the kids are wearing their
Speaker 1: hair blue. Now I've been to his school, I know
Speaker 1: not everybody's blue headed. And if I would have said
Speaker 1: that to my dad, I don't know what your dad
Speaker 1: would have said, I don't care what anybody else is doing.
Speaker 1: As long as you live in this house, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna have blue hair. If they're going to jump off
Speaker 1: a bridge or you going with.
Speaker 2: Them that you I've had that plenty of guys, And
Speaker 2: what does it do?
Speaker 1: Stops the conversation or it starts a fight. Sounds like
Speaker 1: you want to be like the other kids. Completely different conversation.
Speaker 1: But that's and he might say, Dad, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: I feel like I don't fit in. Now, my mother
Speaker 1: would have said, what do you mean you don't fit in?
Speaker 1: Of course you fit in. You're a good boy, you're
Speaker 1: a good looking boy, you're a nice boy. And that's
Speaker 1: not helpful either. What's as helpful as so sometimes you
Speaker 1: feel like you don't fit in? And then give it
Speaker 1: a breath. So they're the one solving their problem. Now
Speaker 1: at the end of half an hour, he says, I
Speaker 1: still want to have blue hair. I'm gonna tell them,
Speaker 1: no way in hell, as long as you live my house,
Speaker 1: because it's not cool to look weird. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you look weird, you're going to hang out with weird people, right.
Speaker 1: It's o to have boundaries around behavior. Some parents they
Speaker 1: have like no boundaries, and I think some boundaries are appropriate.
Speaker 2: What does no boundaries lead to, like from a neuroscience
Speaker 2: and from a study perspective of what is what happens.
Speaker 1: If you at least to mental health problems? So there's
Speaker 1: this great study out of the University of Oregon. We
Speaker 1: looked at ten thousand families and they looked at parenting
Speaker 1: along two dimensions. Parents who were firm versus permissive and
Speaker 1: then hostile versus loving. And if you take those two dimensions,
Speaker 1: you end up with four types of parents permissive and hostile,
Speaker 1: permissive and firm, loving and permissive loving infirm. And they
Speaker 1: looked at what were the con sequences or the outcome
Speaker 1: of each parenting style. Do you have a sense what
Speaker 1: would be worse? What would be the worst one that
Speaker 1: creates the most trouble?
Speaker 2: You would think that it's hostile and permissive.
Speaker 1: Hostile and permissive the worst. What do you think is
Speaker 1: the second worst? Loving Impomis it loving and permissive? Shocking?
Speaker 1: Because children need boundaries and the loving and permissive ones
Speaker 1: had more mental health challenges than the hostile and firm.
Speaker 1: Now that's not helpful, right, that creates anxiety, But children
Speaker 1: need boundaries. Often say God gave us parents until our
Speaker 1: frontal lobes developed, right the front third of the brain,
Speaker 1: the most human part of the brain focus for judgment,
Speaker 1: impulse control, and that's why you need parents to help
Speaker 1: behind you. And one of the big mistakes we make
Speaker 1: as a society is we abdicate parenting before their frontal
Speaker 1: lobes are developed. So I'm like, not a big fan
Speaker 1: of sending children away to college because you're going to
Speaker 1: take their undeveloped prefrontal cortex and put them in a
Speaker 1: dorm with a whole bunch of other undeveloped prefrontal courtesies.
Speaker 1: Bad idea. And you know, I'd learned this as a child.
Speaker 1: Psychiatrists send kids away to school, the incident's anxiety goes up,
Speaker 1: depression goes up, suicide goes up, addiction goes up, and
Speaker 1: it's not a good thing.
Speaker 2: How were you able to go get around that with
Speaker 2: your kids going to college as well? Well?
Speaker 1: I mean, one of my daughters wanted to go to
Speaker 1: the University of Virginia, So always across the other time,
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, you have to go to somewhere I
Speaker 1: can drive to see you in three hours.
Speaker 2: Wow. Wow, So yeah, that's it's really interesting this limits
Speaker 2: and rules building mental fortitude that you talk about, because
Speaker 2: it's hard to know, I think as a parent, and
Speaker 2: it comes back to the earlier point that you were
Speaker 2: saying that we're just dealing with so much ourselves. Like
Speaker 2: people are busy, they're stressed, they are on their phone,
Speaker 2: just trying to decompress after a long day. And what
Speaker 2: I liked about what you said was twenty minutes of
Speaker 2: no questions, no commands, and no directions. That I think
Speaker 2: is really powerful and a special takeaway for people because
Speaker 2: it may be really hard to give quality time. But
Speaker 2: I love the definition of quality time becoming no directions,
Speaker 2: no commands, and no questions, because it seems like that's
Speaker 2: what our relationship becomes about with children. And what do
Speaker 2: all of those do If your relationship is just giving
Speaker 2: the kids commands, directions, questions, what ends up happening to
Speaker 2: the relationship?
Speaker 1: They shut down and if you're just in their space,
Speaker 1: and you know, as a child psychiatrist, you know, I've
Speaker 1: seen thousands of children over the years, and often parents go,
Speaker 1: he won't talk to you, he doesn't want to be here,
Speaker 1: he won't talk to you. I go, yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to be me and I just sit there and
Speaker 1: I'll play games with them. But while I'm playing a
Speaker 1: game with them, in a game they choose, they chat.
Speaker 1: You know, they talk about what's going on in their dreams,
Speaker 1: what goes on at home, what goes on.
Speaker 2: What game would you play with them?
Speaker 1: I mean, we'll play cards, we'll play shoots and ladders,
Speaker 1: we'll play Monopoly, We'll play all sorts of different games.
Speaker 1: And one of my favorite games is the storytelling game
Speaker 1: where all they'll start a story and all they'll have
Speaker 1: a sentence, all of a sentence, all of a sentence,
Speaker 1: and you really get to see how their minds work.
Speaker 2: Why does that work? Why is that a great interaction
Speaker 2: point that allows them to open up?
Speaker 1: Because kids, if you just say tell me your problem,
Speaker 1: they'll have no idea and they'll freeze. If you play
Speaker 1: a game with them, or you go for a walk
Speaker 1: with them, then they begin to open up if they
Speaker 1: know you'll listen. And we just were in a society
Speaker 1: that's talking over each other. Parents are anxious and they
Speaker 1: want to solve things, and they talk too much. So
Speaker 1: if I can get people to use less words and
Speaker 1: be more present, it's gold for them.
Speaker 2: How do you know if a child is becoming more
Speaker 2: mentally strong or more mentally weak as you're practicing some
Speaker 2: of these methods, What do you notice? What are the
Speaker 2: habits or the core traits of a mentally strong child
Speaker 2: and a mentally weak child.
Speaker 1: So mentally strong kids don't believe everything they think. This
Speaker 1: is so important before another episodees, we've talked about killing
Speaker 1: the ants, the automatic negative thoughts. Actually have a child's
Speaker 1: book called Captain Snout and the Superpower Questions. I wrote
Speaker 1: specifically to teach kids to question their automatic thoughts. And
Speaker 1: so a vulnerable child, so maybe wouldn't say mentally weak,
Speaker 1: which to say vulnerable is you notice they have stinking
Speaker 1: thinking that they mind read, they fortune tell. They focus
Speaker 1: on what's wrong rather than on what's right. A strong
Speaker 1: child still have those thoughts, but they'll question them. They
Speaker 1: just won't attach to what I call the different kinds
Speaker 1: of ants. And blame is like the worst an you know,
Speaker 1: it's you blame other people for your life. You become
Speaker 1: a victim and you become powerless. What is it I
Speaker 1: can do today to solve this problem? And that's the
Speaker 1: essence of the book, along with love and logic, What
Speaker 1: is it I can do today to solve this problem?
Speaker 2: Obviously none of us are perfect, and I think every
Speaker 2: parent is already judging themselves in how they are a parent.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people carry that weight around
Speaker 2: and they carry that stress around. If I'm not a
Speaker 2: good parent, I wish I could have handled that bad
Speaker 2: I shouldn't have said that. I should have said that.
Speaker 2: What's a healthy way to repair a mistake you've made?
Speaker 2: Maybe you've said something you were should in, say you
Speaker 2: did something you shouldn't have done, and you've done it
Speaker 2: a few times. What's a healthy way to repair that bond?
Speaker 1: Well, there's a guilt cycle that people get into. They
Speaker 1: overreact and then they feel bad about it. So they
Speaker 1: don't react and they let bad behavior go, and they
Speaker 1: let it go and they let it go, and then
Speaker 1: they can't stand it and then they explode and then
Speaker 1: they feel guilty, and so they don't react and they
Speaker 1: don't react, and then they don't react and then they overreact.
Speaker 1: And so the trick is when there's behavior you don't like,
Speaker 1: deal with it as opposed to let it go. It's like,
Speaker 1: deal with it in the moment, and you're going to
Speaker 1: make mistakes. Lord knows, I've made lots of mistakes, but
Speaker 1: every day I win or I learn. Right. I'm working
Speaker 1: with an Olympic athlete that I just love so much,
Speaker 1: Alicia Newman. She's a Canadian record holder for pole vaulting
Speaker 1: and it's just such a mess when I saw her,
Speaker 1: she did my show Scam my Brain. And now she's
Speaker 1: so mentally strong because every tournament she wins or she learns.
Speaker 1: And as a parent, that's the mindset is, you know,
Speaker 1: we had a really great day, And when you don't
Speaker 1: have a great day, why didn't we have a great day?
Speaker 1: And you think about it in the book, there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of brain reasons why you didn't have a great day.
Speaker 1: You didn't sleep, you went too long without food. There's
Speaker 1: the time chain, you know that has more bad days
Speaker 1: just because you know, as a society we become jet
Speaker 1: lagged all the ones. So if you can just be
Speaker 1: curious rather than being furious, it helps you so much.
Speaker 1: So if we have a really great day, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: why did that happen? And just be thoughtful. And the
Speaker 1: default is always firm and kind, and the softer you voice,
Speaker 1: the more they pay attention to it. If you're screaming,
Speaker 1: they tune you out and they get mad.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting as I'm listening to im thinking, as
Speaker 2: you gave in the example of the Olympic athlete, we
Speaker 2: need this for ourselves right now at this age because
Speaker 2: our child self didn't probably get this kind of parenting
Speaker 2: or wasn't exposed to this. And so even that statement
Speaker 2: you just said that I either win or I learn,
Speaker 2: I think that's a habby that any of us listening
Speaker 2: to this right now need to develop, because I think
Speaker 2: just as we're harsher on children or harsher on someone else,
Speaker 2: it comes from a fact that we're harsh on ourselves.
Speaker 2: Like there's this inner critic and this inner voice that
Speaker 2: breeds negativity, and as you said, the guilt cycle that continues.
Speaker 2: It seems that that then becomes the externalized version is
Speaker 2: how we treat the kids, and then again we feel
Speaker 2: guilty for doing that because we know it's wrong. When
Speaker 2: you're trying to become mentally strong yourself, but you feel
Speaker 2: like you don't have time. Your kids need dinner cooked,
Speaker 2: you need to do their homework with them, Like I
Speaker 2: feel like there's a massive loss of time balance the
Speaker 2: ability to cater to this. What do people do when
Speaker 2: they're like, Jay, I'm just surviving, Like I'm just putting
Speaker 2: food on the table with just about even surviving for
Speaker 2: myself to be able to switch on the TV in
Speaker 2: the evening after the kids are asleep, like I get
Speaker 2: no time for myself. How do we balance that time.
Speaker 1: That's why special time is not two hours with the child.
Speaker 1: It's doable, your plan, the law game. And too often
Speaker 1: parents love their children so much. It's we're going to
Speaker 1: do soccer and we're going to do dance, and we're
Speaker 1: going to do music and we're going to and it's
Speaker 1: like stop that. You need time to spend with each other.
Speaker 1: And you're like, well, but I have to do my
Speaker 1: homework with the children. It's like, please don't. That's not
Speaker 1: what the schools want you to do. They want the
Speaker 1: children to do the homework and if they don't do it,
Speaker 1: let the kids pay the consequences. But then what parents
Speaker 1: do is they get into this fortune telling thing. It's like,
Speaker 1: well then they won't get into the best preschool, and
Speaker 1: they won't get into the best school, and they won't
Speaker 1: go to Harvard, and their life will be terrible and
Speaker 1: like I went to a junior college, a community college.
Speaker 1: I'm actually in the Hall of Fame at Orange Coros College.
Speaker 1: I actually think many people. Mark Cuban actually said that
Speaker 1: it's like those people should go to a community college
Speaker 1: because it's such a low cost and it's the same education. Right,
Speaker 1: But people have this idea of prestige is attached to
Speaker 1: myself esteem, and prestige is a French word comes from
Speaker 1: a French word for deceit. Right that I mean, I
Speaker 1: went to a community college. My life's just awesome because
Speaker 1: I work hard. Right, And ultimately another point, you never
Speaker 1: want to tell a child they're smart. I mean, parents
Speaker 1: get so proud of yourself smart. Don't ever do that.
Speaker 1: Go you work hard, because if you tell them they're
Speaker 1: smart and they can't learn something, their self esteem drops.
Speaker 1: If you go, I really like how hard you're working,
Speaker 1: and they come up with something hard, they work harder.
Speaker 1: And you also teach kids because mentally strong people ask questions.
Speaker 1: Then too often it's like I want to ask questions,
Speaker 1: so I don't want to appear dumb. It's like, mentally
Speaker 1: strong people they ask questions. And so when I was
Speaker 1: in elementary squad, and never ask her question. And then
Speaker 1: I realized because I was in the army and I
Speaker 1: took three years between high school and college and I
Speaker 1: was able to grow up, and I'm like, oh, you
Speaker 1: have to ask questions, right. I learned that in the army,
Speaker 1: if you ask a question, somebody says no, ask somebody
Speaker 1: else because they're more likely to say yes. Right. So
Speaker 1: I learned that don't just accept no. But in school
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, let me ask questions. But I don't
Speaker 1: understand something. Odds are people don't understand those? One?
Speaker 2: What are some of those other statements that parents say
Speaker 2: to kids that they think they're saying the right thing,
Speaker 2: but they end up backfiring because they make it harder
Speaker 2: for the child to live up to that. What are
Speaker 2: some of those other statements?
Speaker 1: It'll be okay, like or I'll take care of it
Speaker 1: for you. They're having problems with another child at school,
Speaker 1: they immediately in the principal's office. They're not listening to
Speaker 1: the child and going, so, how do you think you
Speaker 1: can handle that? Or what did they go? And they
Speaker 1: fix it and that's that to their self esteem. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, if it's dangerous or bullying or abuse, you
Speaker 1: have to step in and take care of it. But
Speaker 1: for the day to day stuff, how do you think
Speaker 1: you can solve this as opposed to well, I had
Speaker 1: that problem when you were when I was your age,
Speaker 1: and this is what I did, and this is what
Speaker 1: you should do. Don't do that because it steals their
Speaker 1: self esteem, it steals their agency. What is it you
Speaker 1: can do? I'm rooting for you rather than well, that's
Speaker 1: a dumb decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I know I'm rooting for you. That's so
Speaker 2: huge in our friendships, it's so huge in marriage, it's
Speaker 2: it's huge with kids. I think it's so easy to
Speaker 2: just say this is what I did, this is what
Speaker 2: you should do, this is the right way to do it.
Speaker 2: This is easy. And we think we're basically doing a
Speaker 2: shortcut because we're not listening, we're not actually bonding, we're
Speaker 2: not connecting, and we're trying to jump to a conclusion
Speaker 2: that hopefully we think solves the issue. And a lot
Speaker 2: of this comes back to what we both mentioned in
Speaker 2: this conversation is that there's this subconscious ego attachment to
Speaker 2: the child succeeding as being a reflection of our self esteem,
Speaker 2: our self worth. Our self esteem gets wrapped up in
Speaker 2: our child's self worth and self esteem, and now you know,
Speaker 2: subconsciously we're living our dreams through them. That's not as
Speaker 2: basically as saying I want my kid to be a
Speaker 2: doctor because I am. But there's other more subtle versions
Speaker 2: of that. How do people disconnect from that ego? Because
Speaker 2: it seems to be so subtle and so hidden, but
Speaker 2: it's there, and I think everyone notices it with their
Speaker 2: parents when their parents are acting in that way, but
Speaker 2: almost when we become parents, we we're completely oblivious to
Speaker 2: that ego.
Speaker 1: And it's so important. It's often so toxic if someone
Speaker 1: is living an unrealized life that they pour a lot
Speaker 1: of it into their child, and it makes these kids miserable,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't give them a sense of agency. It
Speaker 1: constrains them, and they often rebel against it as opposed
Speaker 1: to what do you want to do? It'll make you
Speaker 1: a good living, so I don't have to support you.
Speaker 1: And I love my six children, but I never want
Speaker 1: to have to live with them, right, So I want
Speaker 1: to create competent people who can care for themselves. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: go live your dream, whether or not you can take
Speaker 1: care of yourself and that's going to set them up
Speaker 1: to be miserable. If you're dependent on someone else, you're miserable.
Speaker 1: Entitled people are never happy. Another thing is and I
Speaker 1: posted this on TikTok and a guy like seven million
Speaker 1: views hallmark of mental strength. I don't do things for
Speaker 1: people who do not treat me with respect. WHOA. So
Speaker 1: you know your child misbehaves, you love them so much,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter you you know, give them everything they
Speaker 1: want anyways, death. I don't do nice things for people
Speaker 1: who I feel don't treat me with respect. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you don't feed them. Of course you feed them,
Speaker 1: but you're not taking them to the store, and you're
Speaker 1: not doing nice things for them. I mean you need
Speaker 1: to teach them their consequences. So the third part, so
Speaker 1: it's goal setting bonding so much there and so many
Speaker 1: mental illnesses are attached to attachments that become broken.
Speaker 2: Could you woke us through this?
Speaker 1: So? John Bowlby's sort of the famous attachment psychologist, and
Speaker 1: he said that if we're not connected to our moms
Speaker 1: or dads, it puts us a great risk for mental
Speaker 1: health problems. And he's absolutely right. And often the break
Speaker 1: in the bond between your mother or your father, or
Speaker 1: it can be any primary care ticker. Caretaker creates this
Speaker 1: rage inside of you, and then you feel guilt about
Speaker 1: the rage, and so you attack yourself. And you know,
Speaker 1: many people who live with this negative chatter in their head,
Speaker 1: and it's often that specific dynamic that they're furious at
Speaker 1: their mother, their father, you know, perhaps a divorce happened
Speaker 1: when there were four or five, or they had a
Speaker 1: sibling die when they were for something happen. They get
Speaker 1: really angry, but that's not appropriate because these are the
Speaker 1: people that feed me so rage, guilt about the rage,
Speaker 1: and then self attack and they live with that their
Speaker 1: whole lives. I can't tell you the number of people.
Speaker 1: And when you're four or five or six, you think
Speaker 1: of yourself at the center of the world, and so
Speaker 1: if something good happens, you sort of think it's because
Speaker 1: of you. If something bad happens, you think it's because
Speaker 1: of you, and you end up with this chronic sense
Speaker 1: of being bad. And there's a specific type of therapy
Speaker 1: I like, it's called intensive short term dynamic psychotherapy, and
Speaker 1: it's often getting too the feelings underneath and rage and
Speaker 1: attachment and guilt about the rage are often a significant pace.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 2: It sometimes it's hard because I feel like a lot
Speaker 2: of people maybe feeling like, you know, I don't understand
Speaker 2: my child, like they're angry, they're upset, they you know,
Speaker 2: they kind of want to disconnect. What do you do
Speaker 2: in that situation? Where do you start?
Speaker 1: Well? I think you first start with the simple things.
Speaker 1: Time and look at what they're eating, because that matters.
Speaker 1: I have one patient who would go in a rage
Speaker 1: whenever he got red dye and people go red dye, yeah,
Speaker 1: red dye number forty and.
Speaker 2: Like every sweet and candy.
Speaker 1: To think of red vines, yeah, and it's even in
Speaker 1: coughs orp for children or hard candies red dye number forty.
Speaker 1: And he would go in a rage. And when they
Speaker 1: would take away red dye, fine, but sometimes you get
Speaker 1: it accidentally and head rage. And so I actually scanned him,
Speaker 1: you know, that's what I do. I look at people's brains,
Speaker 1: and so we scanned him no red dye for a
Speaker 1: month and his brain was healthy. We gave him red
Speaker 1: vines that have red dye number forty in it, and
Speaker 1: his brain went like it exploded, that dramatic hyperactivity in
Speaker 1: his brain. And so if you're really struggling with your child,
Speaker 1: and you use the principles doctor Fay and I talk
Speaker 1: about in this book, and you're still struggling, is probably
Speaker 1: a good idea to get him assessed. And on average
Speaker 1: it's years between the time a child first has his
Speaker 1: symptom anxiety depression OCD ADD between they have a symptom
Speaker 1: and they get assessed. And so many bright people go
Speaker 1: and never give my kids drugs. And it's like, he
Speaker 1: is diabetic, you give them drugs. If you had heart disease,
Speaker 1: you give them drugs. It's like, and I'm not advocating drugs, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I own a supplement company, but I'm not opposed.
Speaker 1: If I do all the things I know how to do,
Speaker 1: then I use medicine to do it. People like don't
Speaker 1: really see the brain as an organ, right, they have
Speaker 1: to get the progression your brain, physical function of your
Speaker 1: brain creates your mind. And if your brain's not right,
Speaker 1: your mind's not right. And so what are all the
Speaker 1: ways that a mind can be troubled? Right? So if
Speaker 1: you have a child that's not sleeping, that has nightmares,
Speaker 1: that has tantrums that won't go away, they don't socially connect.
Speaker 1: They're obsessive. It's like, at some point you have to
Speaker 1: go what's going on in their brain? And there's a
Speaker 1: whole section in the book on brain hell four kids.
Speaker 1: Of course you got to model it as a parent,
Speaker 1: but what you feed them matters. How much sleep they
Speaker 1: get matters. I have another really fun book called Time
Speaker 1: for Bed, Sleepyhead, which is a hypnotic bedtime story for children.
Speaker 1: I actually used to do it with my daughter Brian
Speaker 1: when she was three. I did from three until eight.
Speaker 1: She loved the story so much. And think of your
Speaker 1: kids in four big circles. They have a biology, so
Speaker 1: we talked about their brain, they have a psychology, how
Speaker 1: they think, they have a social circle, what their environment like.
Speaker 1: And there's a spiritual circle, which both child Skyatrists wouldn't touch.
Speaker 1: But it's sort of like why do you care? You know?
Speaker 1: Why do you think you're on the planet? What's your
Speaker 1: sense of meaning and purpose? Because purposeful people are happier.
Speaker 1: Purposeful people What am I on purpose?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: They live longer, And so nurturing those four circles so
Speaker 1: important for the kids.
Speaker 2: Is what does loving discipline look like? Because I think
Speaker 2: it's it sounds good like we were all like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I would love to be disciplined, but I'd love to
Speaker 2: be loving. And often we don't even figure out what
Speaker 2: that means in the workplace, let alone with kids. We're
Speaker 2: either loving or disciplined, but we're not.
Speaker 1: I think it should be both. What does it look like, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we haven't gotten to rules. I think families
Speaker 1: should have them. Anxiety has rules, so like tell the truth,
Speaker 1: So do it, mom and dad say the first time.
Speaker 1: I love that rule because you know your chance of
Speaker 1: abusing the child. If you tell a child to do
Speaker 1: something five times, your chance of abusing that child just
Speaker 1: went up significantly. And so if you have the expectation
Speaker 1: they'll do things the first time, it's like, Caitlin, you
Speaker 1: know I want you to take out the trash, like
Speaker 1: in the next half hour, and if she doesn't, it's like, sweetheart,
Speaker 1: you have a choice. You can take it out now.
Speaker 1: We can have this consequence and then you can take
Speaker 1: it out. I don't care, it's up to you. And
Speaker 1: I love that part of not being attached to it.
Speaker 1: I love her, I'm really clear, and she's getting that
Speaker 1: consequence if she doesn't move, like stop threatening them and
Speaker 1: then not following through because you teach them that you
Speaker 1: have to tell them and get angry and be a
Speaker 1: bit crazy in order for them to do what she
Speaker 1: asked them to do.
Speaker 2: And I like the rules and rhythms and routines. I
Speaker 2: remember in my home after dinner, me and my sister
Speaker 2: were clean up and we had a little rotor of
Speaker 2: who washed up that day and who cleaned the table
Speaker 2: that day. It's just something that went around every day.
Speaker 2: We take it in tens and my sister was four
Speaker 2: years younger than me, and we just do it together
Speaker 2: and it became this thing that we just did, and
Speaker 2: it became natural. It became a habit, and it made
Speaker 2: us accountable and responsible to each other as well as
Speaker 2: well as our parents. And it was a really neat
Speaker 2: way of kind of giving us that rules. And you know,
Speaker 2: I think sometimes we think of rules as like strict
Speaker 2: rules and guidelines, but actually it can be just a
Speaker 2: rhythm and a routine and.
Speaker 1: Building competence and skill and you're part of the family
Speaker 1: rather than you're entitled to live in that family.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the earlier you start, the better it is.
Speaker 1: For kids. I mean, it's it's hard if you not
Speaker 1: spend any time with children. By the time they're fourteen,
Speaker 1: their friends are more important than you are. And that's
Speaker 1: the heartbreaking thing I've learned is if you're not spending
Speaker 1: time with them, their friends will take your place, and
Speaker 1: they may not have the advice, they may not have
Speaker 1: the right ear for you, and it makes them more
Speaker 1: vulnerable to all the scary stuff that's on social media.
Speaker 2: Well, I was going to ask you about that. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of challenges that parents have today are
Speaker 2: my child is addicted to social media. They're addicted to
Speaker 2: their phone. Forget spending time with them. I can't even
Speaker 2: get them to look up and make eye contact. What
Speaker 2: have you seen? What have you experienced?
Speaker 1: All section on technology, Yes, is you can have technology,
Speaker 1: and I recommend you delay it as long as humanly
Speaker 1: possible because it's not in their best interest. But you
Speaker 1: can have technology as long as it's not creating a
Speaker 1: problem in the family. And if we're not connecting, that's
Speaker 1: a problem in the family. If you're at dinner now,
Speaker 1: you can't be on your phone all dinner and tell
Speaker 1: your child that can't be on theirs, right, So probably
Speaker 1: everybody should put their phones away so you can connect. Right.
Speaker 1: Modeling mentally strong parents ultimately raised mentally strong kids. But
Speaker 1: the problem with social media and you're on social media,
Speaker 1: I'm on social media. It creates the toxic level of
Speaker 1: self absorption. You know, who's looking at me? Who am
Speaker 1: I looking at? Who's following me? And self absorbed people
Speaker 1: are never never happy.
Speaker 2: But that's become such a challenge now right that it's
Speaker 2: it's the thing everyone's addicted to. It's the thing everyone wants.
Speaker 2: It's like you said, parents are on their phones. They're
Speaker 2: not going to stop straight away. What do you see
Speaker 2: being the silver lining or the light and at the
Speaker 2: end of a tunnel that's going to have that breakthrough
Speaker 2: with a child, Like what do you think that would be?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'd go back to delay it as
Speaker 1: long as you can, even you know, if the child's
Speaker 1: like everybody's doing it, because everybody's not doing it, but
Speaker 1: it's like, I love you so much, I'm going to
Speaker 1: protect you. All the studies, all of them say that
Speaker 1: it makes kids more vulnerable to bad things. And then
Speaker 1: when it's.
Speaker 2: Doing to our brain, what social media doing to our brain?
Speaker 1: Well addicting. Man. There's a book I love called Thrilled
Speaker 1: to Death. It's continually pressing on your nucleus cuccumbence that
Speaker 1: produces dopamine, continually pressing on the pleasure centers in your brain.
Speaker 1: But the problem with that is the more you press
Speaker 1: on them, they begin to become numb. And you need
Speaker 1: more and more excitement, more and more stimulation in order
Speaker 1: to feel anything at all. And you know, I see
Speaker 1: it with the wonderful famous people I've been even blessed
Speaker 1: to see. I see it in kids who are I mean,
Speaker 1: they're actually programs sent And I've sent a number of
Speaker 1: kids away to video game internet addiction program and when
Speaker 1: they get away from it, they become sweet again. I
Speaker 1: had one kid who parents took away video games. He
Speaker 1: broke up all the furniture in his room, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: needs a program. What we decided to do? Take away
Speaker 1: all the gadgets? Good? And I scanned him a month later,
Speaker 1: and then I scanned him while he was playing one
Speaker 1: of the violent video games he was addicted to, and
Speaker 1: it deactivated his frontal lobes and his left temper lobe,
Speaker 1: which is an area is often involved in violence. Like
Speaker 1: not a good thing?
Speaker 2: What what about parents that are you know, parents that
Speaker 2: are going through a divorce, going through a difficult time.
Speaker 2: What's the healthiest way to communicate that to a child.
Speaker 2: I know couples that are staying together for the children.
Speaker 2: They don't want to get divorced, even though they don't
Speaker 2: have a healthy relationship. I know others who had the divorce,
Speaker 2: but they're so scared about how that impacts the child.
Speaker 2: What have you seen through the neuroscience and research around
Speaker 2: when you're staying together or break So it's not good.
Speaker 1: Divorce is not good for the child, But staying in
Speaker 1: a chronically unhappy, conflicted, negative relationship is worse. So neither
Speaker 1: is good. I often say to the people I see,
Speaker 1: the best thing you can do for your child is
Speaker 1: love your spouse. The best thing you can model a
Speaker 1: healthy relationship. But you know, there's no education in school
Speaker 1: on how to have a healthy relationship, right, so there
Speaker 1: should be that would be helpful. When you go through
Speaker 1: a divorce, be really careful not to talk bad about
Speaker 1: the other person, because that child is half you and
Speaker 1: half them. If you're talking bad about their mother, they
Speaker 1: feel bad about themselves plause it increases cortisol in their
Speaker 1: body and makes it much more likely to be sick.
Speaker 1: So bad thing often if you're going to get divorced,
Speaker 1: go to counseling together and figure out how we are
Speaker 1: going to parent together. Raising mentally strong kids is great, Like,
Speaker 1: we're going to parent this way. You know, we have goals,
Speaker 1: we have time together, we have rules. One thing we
Speaker 1: didn't talk about yet is notice what you like more
Speaker 1: than what you don't. Right, there's my whole Penguin story
Speaker 1: is in there, which I think I'll probably here before,
Speaker 1: but I'd love that notice what you like every day.
Speaker 1: You're shaping your child by what you notice. You're shaping
Speaker 1: your partner, you're shaping your employees, you're shaping everybody by
Speaker 1: what you pay attention to. And so notice what you
Speaker 1: like more than what you don't, and that really solidifies
Speaker 1: the kind part of effective parent.
Speaker 2: I've also been thinking a lot about I was sharing
Speaker 2: with some families over last week when I was doing
Speaker 2: some events. This idea around how mindfulness and meditation can
Speaker 2: look very different for children, and so I don't think
Speaker 2: all kids need to be forced to sit in one
Speaker 2: place and close their eyes. I also think that mindfulness
Speaker 2: can be an activity of Hey, when you're outside today,
Speaker 2: see if you can find as many red things as possible.
Speaker 2: When you go outdoor today, come back and give me
Speaker 2: a list of things that you found that were read
Speaker 2: or can you find as many leaves that look like
Speaker 2: stars or any stones that look like stars today when
Speaker 2: you're out and about. And I think mindfulness can actually
Speaker 2: become alive when we're actually living it and breathing it
Speaker 2: when they're out and about as opposed to this feeling
Speaker 2: of kids need to learn it in a set and way.
Speaker 2: What have you seen with.
Speaker 1: Well and they don't sit well?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, exactly, that's what.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean they have ADHD. It may mean their
Speaker 1: nervous system isn't fully milinated. Right, it's not fully milind
Speaker 1: for people that don't know what that means. When you're born,
Speaker 1: you actually don't have much myelin in your brain. As
Speaker 1: we develop, our neurons get wrapped with a white, fatty
Speaker 1: substance called myelin, and a milinated neuron works ten to
Speaker 1: one hundred times faster than an unmilinated one, and are
Speaker 1: when we're two months old, our occipital lobes in the
Speaker 1: back vision become milinated. And so when you look at
Speaker 1: a baby and smile, they smile back. They don't do
Speaker 1: it as newborns, because their visual cortex is in working
Speaker 1: fast and then slowly. Myelination goes from the back and
Speaker 1: comes to the front when finishes about when we're twenty
Speaker 1: five and so, expecting the child to act like an adult,
Speaker 1: bad bad, But you can teach them self soothing techniques
Speaker 1: from the age of four. I think, take a big breath,
Speaker 1: really slow, slow as you can, breathe it out as
Speaker 1: slow as you can, and that'll come when they get anxious.
Speaker 1: So you know, yeah, what.
Speaker 2: I'm hearing from you today, it's really helping them develop
Speaker 2: the tools that they're going to need long term, the challenges.
Speaker 2: We need to know what those tools are ourselves, do
Speaker 2: them for us them for ourselves to really believe in them,
Speaker 2: because otherwise we, like you said, we rush to solve
Speaker 2: their problems. We try and make up for their losses.
Speaker 2: They never get to become independent, resilient individuals. And talk
Speaker 2: to us about where love fits into all of this,
Speaker 2: like what does love look like with your child? Beyond
Speaker 2: time and beyond certain things you've said today, What does
Speaker 2: love really look like? What does love mean? Because I
Speaker 2: think when you think about what parents ultimately want, they
Speaker 2: want to be loving parents. That's what everyone wants to do.
Speaker 2: They want to love their child, but love overcomes is overcompensating.
Speaker 2: Love often translates as oversolving, overfixing, overdoing, and overwhelming and
Speaker 2: forcing them to be overachievers. And so even though we
Speaker 2: love them, we end up doing all these things that
Speaker 2: cause them pain.
Speaker 1: So love is when you want to bring their homework
Speaker 1: to school, it's not because you love them and you
Speaker 1: want the best for them, which is becoming mentally strong.
Speaker 1: That's love. Love is putting away your phone and spending
Speaker 1: time with them. Love is when they go and when
Speaker 1: they're ten and go, oh, my friends have a phone.
Speaker 1: What if a school shooter comes and I can't get
Speaker 1: a hold of you. Children are manipulative, quite frankly, all
Speaker 1: of us are manipulative, and it's like, you know, they're
Speaker 1: just too many risks with that. That's love is setting
Speaker 1: boundaries in a kind, consistent way. And ultimately love is
Speaker 1: you developing these tools so you can be firm and
Speaker 1: kind at the same time.
Speaker 2: Beautiful doctor Daniel Lahman. Everyone in the book is called
Speaker 2: raising Mentally Strong Kids. How to combine the power of
Speaker 2: neuroscience with love and logic to grow confident, kind, responsible,
Speaker 2: and resilient children and young adults. If you don't have
Speaker 2: a copy already, go and grab yours right now. Doctor
Speaker 2: Dane Laman, what a gift to talk to you again
Speaker 2: about this subject. Like we've said, you've had come on
Speaker 2: many many times, first time that we've really doven into
Speaker 2: kids and raising them. And I'm so grateful that you
Speaker 2: put this book together for everyone else to read and share.
Speaker 2: And I hope that parents will develop book clubs around it,
Speaker 2: communities around it, because I think there's conversation of raising
Speaker 2: mentally strong kids needs to be at the center of
Speaker 2: our schools, our homes, our families because it's going to
Speaker 2: set them up and set our society and world up
Speaker 2: for so much success. So thank you so much for
Speaker 2: doing this. Honestly, thank you, my friend, thank you. If
Speaker 2: you love this episode, you'll love my interview with Dr
Speaker 2: Gabor Matte on understanding your trauma and how to heal
Speaker 2: emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.
Speaker 1: Everything in nature goes only where it's vulnerable. So a
Speaker 1: tree doesn't go over it's hard and thick, does it.
Speaker 1: It goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable.