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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Family's podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent. They just wants answers.

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Speaker 2: Now, good day and welcome. Thanks for joining us on

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Speaker 2: the Happy Families podcast today. I'm really excited for a

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Speaker 2: special guest joining me. Rebecca de la Foy. Beck runs

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Speaker 2: a substack called Lessons Learned. Beck is a homeschool mum

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Speaker 2: three kids, well obviously various ages, because that's how kids work.

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Speaker 2: They come along at different times. I don't know. I

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Speaker 2: don't know why I said that. I'm a bit nervous. Actually,

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Speaker 2: there are very very few people whose work I read

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Speaker 2: and think, oh, everyone needs to know about this. I

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Speaker 2: guess because I've got a PhD in the area. I

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Speaker 2: kind of it's diminishing returns. I only get so much

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Speaker 2: value from reading other people's parenting content. But when I

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Speaker 2: stumbled across Rebecca's substack, I knew that I'd found somebody

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Speaker 2: who's got some insights that are fabulous. And Beck joined

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Speaker 2: me right now, Hey, what are we talking about today, Beck?

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Speaker 2: What's the topic for your podcast content?

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Speaker 1: Oh? Well, today about how we want to raise good humans.

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Speaker 1: That's kind of the goal of parenting, is that we

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Speaker 1: want to raise our kids to be good people, but

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Speaker 1: how sometimes we get out in the way of doing that.

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Speaker 2: I love it. How old are the humans that you

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Speaker 2: are raising?

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Speaker 1: Seven five and two and a half.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so two of them homeschooled, and obviously the baby's

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Speaker 2: just hanging around everyone's knees and making it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, making it more difficult. But it's fun. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Fun is not the word that I would use to

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Speaker 2: describe our homeschooling experience so far. But that's a podcast

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Speaker 2: for another day. All right, Beck, let's hear it from

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Speaker 2: your lessons learned sub Stack, raising good humans?

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Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. So I actually studied psychology and neuroscience university,

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Speaker 1: and so I don't have quite as much experience as you,

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Speaker 1: but I still know a fair bit about child development

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Speaker 1: and about the brain and about neuroscience and all of

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Speaker 1: these things. And one day I was just thinking about

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Speaker 1: all of that, all of that I had learned, and

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Speaker 1: I had this sort of light bulb moment about how

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Speaker 1: these things that psychology is, which is the study of thoughts, feelings, behavior,

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Speaker 1: really relates to exactly what we're trying to do as parents.

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Speaker 1: So we think about thoughts and that's teaching morals. It's

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Speaker 1: teaching values. You think about feelings, and we're trying to

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Speaker 1: teach emotional regulation, and we think about behavior, and like,

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Speaker 1: we're trying to teach this acceptable behavior. And when we

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Speaker 1: do those three things, we're kind of getting to our

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Speaker 1: ultimate goal as parents, which is to raise good humans

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Speaker 1: who can make good decisions and can control their emotions.

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Speaker 1: And that's really what we're trying to do as parents.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm not even looking at raising good humans. I'm

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Speaker 2: just trying to get through the day. GENRE mean, like,

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Speaker 2: you look at the kids some days and you think,

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Speaker 2: I'm absolutely crazy about you. I love you so much,

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Speaker 2: but could you just leave me alone? Because I don't

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Speaker 2: know if I'm going to be a good human if

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Speaker 2: you stay around me. That's what I love so much

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Speaker 2: about this blog. So tell us a bit more about

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Speaker 2: this idea of how we're supposed to raise good humans,

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Speaker 2: because historically, I don't think we've done it particularly well

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Speaker 2: in our culture, in our society.

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Speaker 1: No, we definitely haven't. Like we've I think we've always tried,

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Speaker 1: but I think we've kind of got in our own

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Speaker 1: ways sometimes. So there was this huge movement from the

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties nineteen forties where we started to apply these

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Speaker 1: behavior as principles to parenting, and these were based on

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Speaker 1: research done on dogs and pigeons and other animals like that,

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Speaker 1: and we started to do it to parenting as well,

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Speaker 1: and we said like, well, if we just give them

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Speaker 1: the right reward or inflict the right punishment, we can

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Speaker 1: get them to do whatever we need. And it kind

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Speaker 1: of kind of works. So if we inflict a punishment,

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Speaker 1: is actually very good at securing this immediate compliance, but

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Speaker 1: has these unintended long term consequences. So there's this one

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Speaker 1: research shar called Constance Cami who argue that punishment these

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Speaker 1: to these three possible outcomes in the long term, and

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to quote what she said. So she

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Speaker 1: said that the most common one is a calculation of risks.

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Speaker 1: The childhood is punished will repeat the same act, but

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Speaker 1: try to avoid being caught the next time. The second

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Speaker 1: possible outcome of punishment is the opposite of the first one,

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Speaker 1: blind conformity. Some compliant children become perfect conformists because conformity

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Speaker 1: assures them of security and respectability. When they become complete conformists,

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Speaker 1: children do not have to make decisions anymore, as all

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Speaker 1: they have to do is obey. The third possible outcome

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Speaker 1: is revolt. Some children are angels for years, but decide

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Speaker 1: at a certain point that they are tired of pleasing

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Speaker 1: their parents and teachers all the time, and that the

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Speaker 1: time has come for them to begin living for themselves.

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Speaker 1: They may thus even begin to engage in various acts

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Speaker 1: of delinquency.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't it funny how when there's not an intrinsic

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Speaker 2: desire to do it, we struggle so much when it

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Speaker 2: comes to our children's motivation and behavior. Listening to what

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Speaker 2: you're talking about reminds me of that great John Watson quote.

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Speaker 2: So for people who are not familiar with psychology, John B.

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Speaker 2: Watson was one of the fathers of the modern psychology movement.

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Speaker 2: He was responsible for the essentially the destruction of the

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Speaker 2: life of a young boy called Little Albert, because he

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Speaker 2: taught him to be afraid of a white rabbit and

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Speaker 2: then eventually everything white. It's just a tragic story. But

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Speaker 2: he has this quote where he says, give me a

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Speaker 2: dozen healthy infants, well formed, and my own specified world

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Speaker 2: to bring them up in, and I'll guarantee to take

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Speaker 2: anyone at random and train him to become any type

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Speaker 2: of specialist. I might select doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant, and

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Speaker 2: yes even beggar, man and thief, regardless of his talents, pensiance,

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Speaker 2: tendency's abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. In other words,

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Speaker 2: Watson saying this behavioral approach, if I punish and reward

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Speaker 2: the right way, I can make anyone do anything. And

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Speaker 2: that guy literally formed the foundation of the modern psychology

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Speaker 2: movement right through until the nineteen seventies eighties, even I mean,

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Speaker 2: his legacy still stands today in too many corners.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're definitely grateful for him in many ways, Like

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Speaker 1: I don't think psychology would be what it is without him.

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Speaker 1: But I also don't trust what he says about raising

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Speaker 1: kids at all. In that I think might be getting

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Speaker 1: it wrong. But I'm pretty sure three of his four

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Speaker 1: children attempted suicide.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, several of them. Several of them died by suicide,

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Speaker 2: and they had a miserable life. The documented record is

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Speaker 2: tragic around Watson, and.

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Speaker 1: We definitely find that, you know, inflicting these punishments, trying

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Speaker 1: to secure compliance, trying to shape behavior in this way,

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Speaker 1: it's definitely not what we're going for. So when we

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Speaker 1: think about what constants Cammi, we're saying about those three consequences,

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Speaker 1: we can kind of tie it back to those three

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Speaker 1: things that we're trying to do with our kids. So

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Speaker 1: she said that the first one was calculation of risks.

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Speaker 1: And when I think of that, I think about, you know,

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Speaker 1: when we're taking away these privileges, when we're taking away

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Speaker 1: all these things, when we're saying that you're going to

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Speaker 1: miss out on dessert or that you're not going to

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Speaker 1: have screen privileges, we're trying to shape their behavior, but

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Speaker 1: it's not really working. We're just shifting the timing of

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Speaker 1: the behavior.

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Speaker 2: I remember one time my dad said to me, if

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Speaker 2: I ever catch you doing that again, justin so help me,

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Speaker 2: there'll be trouble. And I distinctly remember thinking in my head,

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Speaker 2: don't worry, Dad, you won't ever catch me doing that again.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to be so sneaky next time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, It's exactly what happens. We kind of we

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Speaker 1: see that all the time, like we don't actually see

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Speaker 1: our child drawing on the wall, but you know, we

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Speaker 1: know it. They did it. We can see their name

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Speaker 1: on the wall. It's not being well. They learn, they

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Speaker 1: get sneakier as they go up. I'm sure right. So

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Speaker 1: then the second one, the second consequence was blind conformity.

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Speaker 1: And when we think about that, we might think that, hey,

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Speaker 1: punishment worked, they're acting the way we want, they're being

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Speaker 1: a good child, they're being obedient. But when that's happening,

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Speaker 1: they're not actually being moral, like they're just doing what

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Speaker 1: they're being told instead of doing what they feel is

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Speaker 1: actually right.

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Speaker 2: There's also a tremendous risk associated with that as well.

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Speaker 2: Beck When we did parental guidance and how to look

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Speaker 2: at the way parents were, the different parenting styles and

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Speaker 2: what was going on with the kids. We did a

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Speaker 2: stranger in the park with a puppy experiment where somebody

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Speaker 2: literally tried to bribe or encourage children to leave the

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Speaker 2: care of their nanny and follow them as a stranger

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Speaker 2: to see some more puppies. And it was the kids

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Speaker 2: that came from families that really emphasized strictness and compliance

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Speaker 2: conformity to rules. They were the ones that were most

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Speaker 2: likely to follow the adult that is the authority figure,

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Speaker 2: even though it was a risky thing to do that

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Speaker 2: and they shouldn't have been doing it. The conformity was

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Speaker 2: so strong, So it has a really frightening side to

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Speaker 2: it as well. It's not just about conformity and a

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Speaker 2: lack of morality, no internalized morality. It can lead to

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Speaker 2: really dangerous consequences.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so true. And I think, you know, we

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Speaker 1: really emphasize this obedience in the classroom and obedience at home,

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Speaker 1: but we don't think about how that looks outside of

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Speaker 1: the classroom and outside of home.

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Speaker 2: And what was in the third one again, the third one.

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Speaker 1: Was revolt and we definitely hopefully don't see that too

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Speaker 1: much in our children, but we definitely see that around

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Speaker 1: the world, Like when there's this continued regime of injustice

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Speaker 1: and control, we see people rising up and pushing back

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Speaker 1: against that. And like we do see that in our

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Speaker 1: kids sometimes, you know, when they explode, when they push back,

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Speaker 1: when they become rebellious, when they ignore us, when they

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Speaker 1: intentionally act out, and it's because they haven't had this

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Speaker 1: chance to learn emotional regulation. They've just been pushing down

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Speaker 1: these negative feelings. They've been pushing down, you know, all

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Speaker 1: these negative thoughts, and you can only hold so much

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Speaker 1: into you at one time, and then it's going to

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Speaker 1: burst out.

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Speaker 2: So we have centuries of unhelpful patterning. We've got at

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Speaker 2: least one hundred years of John Watson's legacy in this area.

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Speaker 2: That undermines what we're trying to do, which is to

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Speaker 2: raise good humans, raise moral humans, raise humans that are

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Speaker 2: not going to revolt because they're buying into wise decision

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Speaker 2: making and living a moral life. Tell me about what

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Speaker 2: you wrote in your blog to help us to move

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Speaker 2: in that direction.

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Speaker 1: Yep Son. I linked it back to those three areas.

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Speaker 1: So one was fostering acceptable behavior, and I think we

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Speaker 1: really do that by, like you say, exploring, explaining, and empowering.

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Speaker 1: So when we explore why they're acting a certain way,

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Speaker 1: and we explain what we would like to see instead,

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Speaker 1: why we feel a certain way about something, and then

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Speaker 1: we empower them to find a solution that works for

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Speaker 1: both of us, that helps them behave acceptably to us,

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Speaker 1: but also something that's acceptable to them. The second thing

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Speaker 1: was with moral development. We actually don't get moral development

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Speaker 1: by you know, telling them what to do all the time,

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Speaker 1: by bossing them around. It's by allowing mistakes, Like we're

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Speaker 1: not going to see them learn what it means to

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Speaker 1: be kind if we're always telling them what to do

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Speaker 1: and how to be kind. They learn by behaving unkindly

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Speaker 1: and realizing that that didn't feel good, and I don't

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Speaker 1: want to feel that way again. I want to be

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Speaker 1: kind to my brother because I like the way it

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Speaker 1: feels when I choose to be kind. Or they learn

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Speaker 1: to be honest because they steal something and they realize

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Speaker 1: that that didn't feel good and they don't want to

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Speaker 1: do that again.

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Speaker 2: It's so critical here. I listen to what you're saying.

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Speaker 2: It's so critical that they have a wise adult beside

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Speaker 2: them who can engage with them around these ideas. Otherwise,

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Speaker 2: stealing the thing feels really good. It's like I got this,

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Speaker 2: And if they don't have that opportunity to to workshop

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Speaker 2: this and figure it out, then they don't have the

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Speaker 2: same learnings. But when I hear you say allowing them

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Speaker 2: to have the opportunity to make mistakes, this is something

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Speaker 2: that we struggle with so much as parents. We don't

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Speaker 2: want our kids to make the mistakes. And I keep on,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to say this in my workshops all the time.

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Speaker 2: If you are going to learn a language, you are

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Speaker 2: going to make a million mistakes before you master that language.

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Speaker 2: If you're going to learn a musical instrument. Same again,

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Speaker 2: you actually have to make the mistakes.

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Speaker 1: We see, Like with learning a language, it's so much

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Speaker 1: easier to learn a language when you're young than when

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Speaker 1: you're old. You're going to make way more mistakes when

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Speaker 1: you're old. But it's the same with learning morals. Like

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Speaker 1: if we're leaving it to when they're older and they're

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Speaker 1: teenagers or that young adults who have moved out of home,

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Speaker 1: the mistakes they're going to make a bit much bigger

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Speaker 1: than the mistakes they're going to make if they're just

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Speaker 1: two or three. I'm much rather allow those mistakes young.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Wonderful story. An apocryphal, metaphorical, allegorical kind of story

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Speaker 2: about a master and the apprentice. They're walking through the

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Speaker 2: woods and the master points at a tiny little well.

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Speaker 2: It's a baby tree, just sort of growing out of

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Speaker 2: the soil. It's only about five centimeters tall, and he

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Speaker 2: asks the apprentice to pour it out by its roots,

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Speaker 2: and of course the young man reaches down and pulls

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Speaker 2: it out, no problem at all. Then they come to

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Speaker 2: a sapling. This one's about two meters tall. It's only

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Speaker 2: a thin sapling, but it's already shooting up towards the

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Speaker 2: top of the canopy, and the Master says to the

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Speaker 2: young man, I want you to pull this out, and

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Speaker 2: the young man he grunts and groans for about five minutes.

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Speaker 2: I mean, the roots have sunk deep into the soil

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Speaker 2: and it's hard to get this thing out. But eventually,

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Speaker 2: ten or fifteen minutes later he's able to wrestle it

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Speaker 2: from the soil, and it feels like he's really accomplished

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Speaker 2: something other than destruction of the environment. And then the

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Speaker 2: master points to a grand tree it's hundreds of years

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Speaker 2: old in front of him. It's several meters in diameter,

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Speaker 2: and this is a huge tree. And the Master says

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Speaker 2: to the apprentice, now, I'd like you to pull that

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Speaker 2: one out. I mean, this one's not going to come

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Speaker 2: out without earth moving equipment, right, It's going to take

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Speaker 2: a lot of work and probably many many hours with

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Speaker 2: the right machinery. And of course the young man says, well,

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Speaker 2: I can't do that, to which the Master replies, our habits,

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Speaker 2: our behaviors, our morals, all those things, they're the same.

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Speaker 2: We can deal with them. We can remove the bad

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Speaker 2: ones much easier when they're only young, but the longer

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Speaker 2: that they are allowed to take root in our soul

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Speaker 2: or in our personality or our psyche or whatever. The

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Speaker 2: harder it is to extract them. Anyway, I didn't mean

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Speaker 2: to digress, but I just love that as we're talking

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Speaker 2: about raising good humans, it's up to us to be there.

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Speaker 2: What was the third thing?

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Speaker 1: So the third thing was building emotional regulation. So I

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Speaker 1: really love the metaphor I guess of doctor Tina Paine

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Speaker 1: Bryson and doctor Daniel Siegel in their book The Whole

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Speaker 1: Brain Child. So they talk about the upstairs brain and

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Speaker 1: the downstairs brain and how there's a staircase between them,

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Speaker 1: and that that staircase gets blocked when our children become

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Speaker 1: reactive and tantruming. And it's not that they're choosing to

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Speaker 1: behave that way. It's to say, literally, don't have that

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Speaker 1: access between their logical part of their brain and they're

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Speaker 1: reactive emotional part. And they talk about that the way

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Speaker 1: to unblock that staircase is through coregulation. So we just

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Speaker 1: sit calmly with our children. We are there calm and

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Speaker 1: we're inviting them to join us, and so we might

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Speaker 1: just use some breathing exercises, use physical comfort, use soothing tones,

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Speaker 1: whatever it is that works best with each individual child

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Speaker 1: to help them calm down. And then once they're feeling calmer,

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Speaker 1: once they're collected, that's when it's a time to teach

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Speaker 1: them how to do reparations, how to say sorry and

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Speaker 1: make it better. We can't teach that until they're ready

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Speaker 1: for that.

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Speaker 2: And so often as parents, we get in and we

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Speaker 2: try to fix everything on the spot when emotions are

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Speaker 2: high and intelligence is low, lids have been flipped, all

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Speaker 2: that kind of thing. Okay, So as we move towards

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Speaker 2: a conclusion, and there's so much more in the article

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Speaker 2: that you've written, we've really sort of skimmed the surface

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Speaker 2: of it. What would be the central take home message

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Speaker 2: for parents if they want to really hear this conversation

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Speaker 2: and say, oh, that's that's what I'm trying to do,

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Speaker 2: but my kids just won't listen or it's like I'm

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Speaker 2: tak looking to the wall instead of instead of a human.

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Speaker 2: I'm just not getting through. What do you recommend that

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Speaker 2: parents do here?

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Speaker 1: I think we do our worst parenting when we're focused

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Speaker 1: on our children. So what I mean by that is

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Speaker 1: we sometimes see them acting out, we see them doing

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Speaker 1: these things that we don't like or they're tantruming or

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Speaker 1: just feeling overwhelmed with what they're doing, and we worry

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Speaker 1: about it, and we think, well, if they're behaving this

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Speaker 1: way now, how are they going to be tomorrow, how

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Speaker 1: they're going to be next to you, how they're going

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Speaker 1: to be twenty years from now, And we focus on

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Speaker 1: their behavior and their feelings to the detriment of thinking

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Speaker 1: about ourselves. Where the best parents we can be when

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Speaker 1: we focus on staying calm ourselves, when we focus on

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Speaker 1: regulating our own emotions, performing acceptable behavior ourselves, And that's

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Speaker 1: I think when we're actually good parents, that's when we're

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Speaker 1: more likely to raise good humans.

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Speaker 2: I love I love that line. I think I'm going

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Speaker 2: to have to borrow, slash steal that line. We are

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Speaker 2: better parents when we're not focusing on our children, but

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Speaker 2: when we're focusing on ourselves. I misquoted that. You said

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Speaker 2: it way better than that, but that really really stood

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Speaker 2: out to me. Okay, Beck, we need to wrap things up.

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Speaker 2: If people want to find out more about the work

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Speaker 2: that you do, tell us about the substack and where

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Speaker 2: people can find you.

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Speaker 1: Yep. So every week Ish I write an article on substack,

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Speaker 1: where I share the things that I'm learning about parenting,

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Speaker 1: where I'm thinking about child development, neuroscience, kind of putting

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Speaker 1: that all together. It's called lessons Learned, and you can

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Speaker 1: just search Beck Delavay or lessons learned on substack or

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Speaker 1: just on Google and it should pop up.

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Speaker 2: And we will link to that in the show notes.

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Speaker 2: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rawland from

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Speaker 2: Bridge Media. So much wisdom, so many great ideas to

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Speaker 2: be found at that lessons Learned substack. Please check it

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Speaker 2: out and we'll be back tomorrow with more on the

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Speaker 2: Happy Families podcasts.