How to Raise a Self-Driven Child

Hi, I'm Dajana Yoakley.

0:03

I'm a peaceful parenting coach and mom of three.

0:05

And I'm delighted to give you the latest science-backed research on child development, parenting, and to support you in showing up as the parent that you want to be.

0:16

Welcome, everybody.

0:17

Thanks for joining me today.

0:19

I'm here today with the famous Ned Johnson.

0:22

He's famous in my book because we all need to learn about the self-driven child.

0:28

And what do we say?

0:29

You know, like we need we need help.

0:30

I think in parenting, what do we do and what do we say when we're in these tricky, tricky situations?

0:36

You know, being a parent myself and all of you guys listening that are parents, I know that's where the rubber hits the road is like, how do we show up day to day?

0:46

So, yeah, thank you, Ned, for joining me here today.

0:48

I know that your passion and your expertise is really needed in today's world.

0:54

Well, thanks.

0:54

Thanks for having me.

0:55

Ideally, between the two of us, we'll come up with a couple of good ideas.

0:59

I think so.

1:00

Yeah, I'd love to wrap it up with some practical takeaways.

1:02

So stay with us through the end about, you know, what you can take away starting today.

1:07

But let's kick it off with a little bit about, you know, what is a self-driven child and how does that kind of fit into the framework of parenting?

1:16

Yeah, in some ways, a self-driven child, you think about the opposite.

1:20

Kids who are only motivated out of fear, not self-driven.

1:23

Kids who are only motivated because someone's bribing them, not self-driven.

1:27

When we think about a self-driven child, it is really two things.

1:30

One, a kid who is intrinsically motivated

1:34

to think about and and pursue meaningful goals now the challenge there of course is parents so i want them to be motivated to clean the room or to get right right what i want but um my goals not their goals right and you know we always try to remind ourselves of whose life is this right and it's our right our job as parents um gosh i was talking with a family last night who you

1:58

complicated, but mom, she said, I literally went to school to learn how to become a mom.

2:02

And it was parenting and consumer finance or something like this, literally how to be a mom.

2:07

And so I was going to have the perfect kids.

2:10

And I said, well, that's great, but we have a kind of silly...

2:14

metaphor in the self-driven child that that at least we're in dc where i reside in you know new york and all kinds of places parents are a little like edward scissorhands if people have ever seen that movie kind of going at their kids like a topiary we've got to have everything be perfect the only small challenge is we don't know what kind of tree we got right so you know love the kids you have to grow the tree that you've got so

2:36

Self-different child is one who is intrinsically motivated to get up and do the work of building their own life.

2:45

And they're tolerant of the stress that comes along with being a human on this planet.

2:51

And I know we're going to dig into this a bit, but when we wrote The Self-Driven Child, because this book came out in 18, and so this was before COVID and things have, of course, only gotten worse since then.

3:03

What we saw is these two epidemics of stress-related disorders of anxiety and depression and avoidance and suicide attempts and completed suicide and substance abuse and on and on it goes.

3:14

And disordered motivation, meaning kids who are either obsessively driven and will sacrifice everything, their health, their mental health, their integrity, blah, blah, blah, to get that brass ring, whatever that brass ring thing is.

3:26

Or kids who figure, what's the point of even trying?

3:28

If I can't beat top 10% of my high school, I know I'll never have a successful life.

3:33

So chuck it.

3:34

Who even cares?

3:35

Right.

3:38

And these are both problematic.

3:40

And when we got at it, it turns out that a healthy sense of control is core, it's crucial, it's pivotal, right at the center of good mental health.

3:52

Not that this is easy, but that I can handle this, that I can tolerate this, that I can get through this and not shy away from anything that'll be a bump or bruise that stands between me and the path that I want.

4:05

A sense of control is one of the three legs of the self-determination theory, probably the most, not probably, definitely the most supported model for intrinsic motivation that exists in all of psychology.

4:19

So, yeah, a self-determined child feels a sense of control of their own life.

4:23

They have a sense of autonomy and the sense that they can do things, right, a sense of agency.

4:28

And the brain state, this is important, the brain state that supports that, meaning that the prefrontal cortex, all those executive function part of the brain, right, handles things, kind of runs the show, including regulating the stress response, the amygdala, so that when intense things happen, you don't freak out or just hide under the covers.

4:48

You say, this is hard and...

4:51

right it's not either or you know courage is not the lack of fear it's being fearful right and doing that and doing the hard things anyway because it's these are things that i need to get through that stand between me and the life that i want yes there's so much there yes there is

5:09

Oh, and the first thing I'd probably ask if I was a parent, which I am, is how can parents start to give their kids more control?

5:15

If that's one of the foundations, how do we give them more control without letting them be in control of parenting?

5:24

You know, it's interesting where there's a researcher who's studying the autonomy in two year olds.

5:31

If you think of, there's a story in one of the books I wrote where my daughter aged, she was, do it, right?

5:35

You're not supposed to be in all this kind of language.

5:38

This need for autonomy is a foundational psychological need, not of neurotypical kids, not of adults, not of affluent, no, every single human being, and many and most animals, particularly complex ones, have this need for autonomy.

5:56

And so kids are wired to want that.

5:58

Now it's, it's, it's, it's child dependent and the, and the dose matters, right?

6:04

We don't put a four-year-old in charge of the household because it's, it's overwhelming to them.

6:09

But with a four-year-old, you know, hey, do you, do you, do you want to read a story and then have a bathroom?

6:12

Do you want to have a bed and a bath, read a story?

6:14

Do you, do you want to read this book tonight or that book tonight?

6:17

You know what, you know, and we just, we give them choices.

6:20

Curiously, curiously,

6:22

I see parents oftentimes and caregivers and anyone else, when kids who seem to be bad kids, right?

6:30

And they're acting out and we give them less control.

6:35

I just need to show them who's boss kind of thinking.

6:38

And if we remind ourselves that...

6:42

Many kids who are tantruming, who are acting up, they simply have a more sensitive stress response.

6:48

So for them, feeling controlled is even more stressful and terrifying than it is for the rest of us.

6:55

And so what we wanna do is support kids as much as they can,

7:00

in letting them make decisions for themselves, letting them make choices, you know, within, obviously, within limits, right?

7:08

We're not letting them, putting them in charge of everything, but we want to support that as much as we can.

7:13

My wife is a wonderful human and a great mom.

7:17

So the occasional mistakes, mistakes, my word, that she makes really stick out in my memory.

7:22

And so my son was like four or something.

7:24

We'd had a,

7:25

we'd had a staff barbecue for my for my company and we made like eight gazillion ice cream sandwiches you know toll house cookies and smashed the ice cream between threw them in the freezer and we had roughly a million of them left over so my son knows about this he comes down and probably wasn't breakfast but later they say can i can i have one of those and she opens up the freezer and hands them to him and he says no that one she's oh no take this one he said well and i want i want that one and back and forth it goes and she says she said matthew they're all the same

7:55

and part of me is going, if they're all the same, why, why, why not let him have the other one?

8:02

Right.

8:02

And it's not, it's not a big deal, but we want to get kids as much choice as they can and give them as much, as much kind of leeway as it feels, seems like they can handle it.

8:13

And if they freak out or they panic by it, or you realize that so much, you can always, you know, this is not, it's not a one-way valve, right.

8:19

You can always back it up, back it up a little bit, but I'm,

8:22

There's a wonderful book called Hunt, Gather, Parent, Michaelene Duclaff.

8:27

And I love it.

8:28

And it just talks about how we so often, we don't let kids kind of do anything except for, you know, clean the rooms and do their homework, which is terrible.

8:38

I did a young age, but, and then, you know, when they want to help, because we know that a three or four year old trying to help and clean up will make more of a mess than they'll actually clean up.

8:49

But it really is that spirit of their wanting to help and contributing to the family that we really, really want to honor.

8:56

So there are a million different places to give kids more choice.

9:01

Yeah, so it sounds like we really need to look at it kind of developmentally appropriate.

9:05

And also maybe what the child is saying to us, you know, maybe there's like an ongoing kind of back and forth conflict with the parent about something that the child wants.

9:13

And this can get tricky, like with preteens, teenagers, maybe there's some things that you still want to set limits on, but they're really feeling the peer pressure and wanting to belong to their peer group.

9:22

And you might still end up saying no, but is there a way that, you know, in peaceful parenting, we always say they can have all their feelings like we always we never control their feelings.

9:32

We just put limits on behavior.

9:34

So in a sense, it's like, you know, you know, if they want that cell phone and you're not ready to get them one.

9:42

You can empathize, validate, but you might still say no.

9:46

Any other thoughts around kind of these?

9:49

I love that.

9:50

I love that point you just made, the cell phone.

9:52

I was talking with Sarah Rosa Sweet, who made Another Peaceful Parenting, and she made the point.

9:58

In this case, she was talking about natural consequences, but I think it applies to the cell phone.

10:02

As well that, you know, but everybody else has a cell phone.

10:06

Well, it's just, you know, you're just not ready.

10:07

And, you know, it's just too expensive.

10:09

And we'll do this two years later and you'll get it like your brother did.

10:11

And all the reasons why.

10:14

But Sarah's point is we can emotionally take their side, even as we hold the limit.

10:20

Sweetheart, I know how much this matters to you and all your friends have it.

10:23

And I know that that's enormously frustrating.

10:27

And I'm sorry that there's going to be another year of this without a cell phone.

10:30

That's going to drive crazy.

10:31

But it's just, this is the line that I've drawn.

10:34

And so we can really take their side emotionally, but not give in to the thing they want.

10:37

You're so unreasonable.

10:39

I get it.

10:40

I get it.

10:41

And this is just the decision that I've made.

10:43

And I may revisit this in six months.

10:45

This is where I am.

10:46

And then we use really principles of nonviolent resistance, right?

10:50

And we don't, you know, now you're being disrespectful.

10:52

Now I'm going to take, you know,

10:55

Because we take their side emotionally.

10:57

It actually that's what calms hard feelings rather than the logic.

11:01

Right.

11:02

And actually brings them around and makes them more flexible in their thinking and figuring out for themselves why maybe they can deal without a phone for the rest of their lives.

11:12

Mm hmm.

11:13

Mm hmm.

11:14

Mm hmm.

11:14

Yeah, because I can see it being a little bit of a of a challenge for parents to figure out, like, am I letting my child have autonomy or am I being like overly strict about this?

11:24

You know, and there's a lot of societal pressures nowadays.

11:26

It's like, well, if other parents are doing this, you know, and and then, of course, we want to support parents and having their own family values, which are going to be unique to their home.

11:35

But how do you balance that with child developmentally appropriate values?

11:39

limits and the child's desire for autonomy when they don't have a fully developed prefrontal cortex to know better like we do.

11:48

I know that's a weird question, but...

11:51

Well, and the good news, evidence shows that by the time they get to be our age, we never make mistakes.

11:56

So obviously, right.

12:01

It's never trial and error, right.

12:03

The thing about autonomy, of course, is that it's not the kids have to have a say in every single situation.

12:11

It's just that when they increasingly feel like they have no autonomy anywhere, it's going to burst out.

12:17

It's going to burst out someplace, right?

12:19

Uh-huh.

12:20

And we can we can say no and we can sort of and we can push on them as educators, as parents or whatever, but do it in autonomy supporting ways, which would really just be doing this in a way that is respectful.

12:34

And in one of the points that you made of they're allowed to feel what they want to feel.

12:42

Right.

12:42

They're allowed to feel what they want to feel.

12:43

I mean, I have a dear friend who's a who's a psychologist that, you know, in the 50s, they say, well, we're going to grandma's house and I'm sorry, that's just that's just what we're doing.

12:53

And the kids could sit in the backseat of the car unbuckled, I'm sure, and just rumble like, oh, man, he's such a jerk.

12:58

But but now in the modern day, well, oh, you know.

13:02

we haven't seen grandma and she always sent you such generous birthday gifts.

13:05

You know, she's not getting older.

13:06

And this might be the last time we see it.

13:08

And we guilt kids into doing things.

13:10

Right.

13:10

And is that actually better?

13:12

You know?

13:14

Right.

13:14

Right.

13:14

It's not a little bit of gaslighting.

13:17

So no, I think you're right.

13:21

I think, um, yeah, I think the whole point of autonomy too, is that we're on their side.

13:26

It's like, I'm on your side.

13:27

And within reason, I will give you kind of permission, um,

13:31

as the adult, as the parent in charge to have some, so I guess it's more of a balance.

13:35

Like if you're going to set limits about some things, find some other things that you don't really have firm limits about that you're okay with, where you can give them more freedom, where it doesn't matter to you.

13:44

Yeah.

13:46

And to your point about things being developed and incorporated, this isn't set in stone.

13:50

This is not black and white.

13:52

One of the things that helps people feel a sense of autonomy or at least a stronger sense of control is if they believe that the authorities, in this case parents,

14:05

are not rigid and, you know, and utterly inflexible, right?

14:08

So that we can revisit this.

14:09

I mean, if there's a, if there's an appeals process, right?

14:12

So there may be things that are, you know, are just, they're set in stone.

14:15

You're four years old.

14:16

You don't cross that busy street by yourself.

14:18

You can fit and have tantrum all you darn well, please.

14:21

But if you're not going to hold someone's hand, then I'm just going to pick up and carry across the street and full stop.

14:27

But this sort of rots green stuff.

14:29

But the kind of three baskets.

14:31

And then there's some things that don't matter at all.

14:33

Your socks have to match.

14:33

I don't think so.

14:35

But most things are in between where it's collaborative problem solving.

14:39

There aren't really anything that my wife comes down on.

14:43

Heck no.

14:44

I will walk out the door, divorce you if you don't do that.

14:48

And I don't do the same thing either.

14:50

But there are things where she feels pretty strongly about it and I see it differently.

14:55

And then we have to work and we have to work it out.

14:57

Right.

14:58

And so I have from the youngest possible age of my kids made it the youngest possible age, really tried to think about how do I treat them?

15:08

You know, how do I talk with them respectfully?

15:10

Because the more that they feel like I'm honoring that and hearing what they have to say, like they've got a brain in their head and I'm not the expert.

15:18

I'm not the expert on them.

15:19

They're the expert on them.

15:21

The more likely it is that I get their buy-in because, again, when their stress is lower and then amygdala doesn't flare, we keep that prefrontal cortex and the executive functions online.

15:33

And it makes it much more likely that they're persuadable when they're flexible and when I'm not sort of jamming things down their throats.

15:45

And for people who don't know Ross Grimm, he worked with a wonderful book, The Explosive Child, right?

15:50

With kids who were just, you know, if you don't do this, you know, Jan, I'm going to nail you to the wall.

15:55

And you walk downstairs and get the hammer and nails and say, go for it.

15:59

And so for those, you just couldn't make kids do things.

16:03

And honest to gosh, we don't really want to try to make kids do things because then nobody's winning in a power play.

16:09

Nobody's winning in a power play.

16:11

Certainly not peaceful as you would have.

16:13

Right, right, right.

16:14

You know, well, right.

16:16

And it's just not in my experience, it's just not effective.

16:18

I mean, you know, I sit there and like every time I drive on the street and someone with a don't tread on me bumper, you know, license plate or bumper sticker and say, you know, because adults too don't like to be told what to do.

16:32

And somehow we that to work beautifully with children who don't yet have the same executive functions that ideally we have.

16:40

My free gift to you is access to my parenting membership with a free 30 day trial where you'll find bite-sized video and audio strategies, scripts, masterclasses, a private community with parents just like you and weekly group coaching calls directly with me and so much more.

16:57

Go to delightinparenting.com backslash membership to learn more.

17:02

Yeah, it's definitely Yeah, because yeah, we're, we're, we're the parents, they're babies when they're born.

17:07

And it's like, oh, they're so they're so dependent on us.

17:09

And we kind of get used to doing everything for them.

17:11

But then it comes, like, as they become toddlers, it really begins this kind of like, disconnection, reconnection, disconnection, and the autonomy really starts.

17:20

So yeah, we kind of have to catch up with their it's almost like the parent hasn't caught up to the developmentally appropriate level of the child, just because we're

17:27

We're thinking, oh, they're still kind of like babies.

17:29

They need us to do everything.

17:30

And then it goes into the teen years and here you are like, oh no, we should have been doing this way long time ago, giving them more control over their lives.

17:38

And the challenges, and this is probably, it's true for tots as it is for teens, that that drive to want to do more

17:45

that motivation is going to get in front of their ability to do it well, full stop.

17:52

Of course it is, of course it is.

17:55

But I would say, no, you can't handle this.

17:56

I always think about the Finding Nemo, right?

17:59

When that is like, no, you can't, you know, you can't.

18:02

And that drip feed message, if you can't rather than, well, let's, let's, let's explore.

18:07

Let's see if we can figure this out.

18:08

I love Guy Vertelli's, you know, 50 dangerous things, right?

18:13

Let them play with fire and all that jazz.

18:14

And I remember my son was, he was three or four.

18:18

And for whatever reason, he'd been watching, watching, watching mostly his mom.

18:22

because I get home a little bit later in the evening, you know, cooking dinner, playing with knives and he, you know, playing, working with knives and he wanted to cut things.

18:29

And she goes, no, Matthew, no, it's not safe.

18:31

You'll cut yourself.

18:32

And she's right.

18:32

It's sharp.

18:33

Right.

18:33

And of course what happened is when, when she wasn't there, you know, he goes in the kitchen, grabs a knife and starts trying to cut something.

18:39

He doesn't know what he's doing and he cuts himself.

18:42

Well,

18:43

So was the lesson that we should have locked up all the knives or was the lesson that we should have shown him how to do this?

18:47

So I come in, you know, he hadn't cut himself bad.

18:51

I've done emergency medicine stuff.

18:52

So we go over the sink and show him how to, you know, get a little blood coming out to, you know, get any microbes out, how to wash his hands, how long to sit there and, you know, sing happy birthday, sing at the 20 seconds, whatever, how to put a bandaid on.

19:05

Then we've got everything cleaned up and calmed down.

19:07

Go back.

19:08

So let me show you about knives, right?

19:09

And so people who don't know, I've worked in commercial kitchens for a while.

19:12

People tend to hold things like this.

19:13

And that's a terrible way because then you cut off the end of your finger, right?

19:16

They've said, if you do this, watch what happens.

19:18

And you hit your finger down and it protects your fingers, right?

19:21

Good tip.

19:22

Right?

19:22

Yeah, good tip on holding onto your fingertips, right?

19:26

And so we ran through that and talked about knives and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

19:31

And so it was this beautiful opportunity to educate kids, right?

19:34

You don't let kids...

19:36

drive a car until they've had training right but you don't say well you know until your prefrontal cortex is fully developed you can't drive a car that that doesn't to me that doesn't make sense because that drive is there that drive is there and we can lean into that drive knowing that they're not competent but then autonomy and then this is back to where you said you know what's developmentally appropriate what's our plan for that what here's the things that the three things that i need to see you

20:02

To be able to do so, let's make a plan for this and we'll practice one, we'll practice two, we'll practice three.

20:07

And so we build towards that.

20:08

We've got a plan for that.

20:09

So, again, then we're not constantly trying to be gatekeeper, gatekeeper, gatekeeper, keeping them safe, keeping them safe.

20:16

Instead, we're working with them to teach them how to keep themselves safe, because it seems to me that's that's our job as parents.

20:24

Right.

20:24

We can't.

20:26

become hyper-vigilant all the time, protecting them of everything.

20:30

That's not a winning play for us.

20:33

Yeah.

20:34

Yeah.

20:34

It's that scaffolding that we're doing along the way and until they can kind of learn it's teaching the skill really.

20:39

It's like supervising.

20:40

If you've ever been a supervisor, that's basically what we're doing.

20:43

Right.

20:43

For a long time.

20:44

Yeah.

20:45

And I wanted to ask, like, what about for parents that have been a little bit overprotective or just a little bit more controlling than coaching where they have been doing more restrictions and now maybe the child has gone into this kind of on the spectrum of like, you know, perfectionist overachiever, like driven by rewards.

21:01

Yeah.

21:02

On the other side is like the, maybe the label of lazy, which I think there's no such thing as lazy, but just that unmotivated, like what's the point?

21:11

Yeah.

21:11

And kind of giving up on their own passions almost in a way, like how can parents kind of revive that child back into a little bit of motivation and try to give them some autonomy starting, you know, and maybe a little bit later in parenting too.

21:25

Yeah.

21:26

So here's the interesting thing.

21:27

Perfectionism that looks great on paper is rooted in anxiety.

21:33

Avoidance, avoiding work of apparent laziness is also rooted in avoidance.

21:38

And so I'll talk through both of those.

21:40

Perfectionism, you know, this I have to be, you know, everything has to be perfect all the time or something terrible will happen, is rooted in this abject fear of really not knowing what that thing will be.

21:52

And this could be, sometimes it's the way kids are wired, this could be parental pressure, but it could also just be the world that they live in.

21:58

So if you've got a kid who's perfectionistic, I encourage you not to beat yourself up and that this is somehow your fault, but I would really encourage you to lean into

22:08

Being part of the solution, right?

22:11

It is hard to talk kids out of perfectionism because if it's rooted in fear, it's hard to talk people out of being fearful.

22:18

What we can do instead, though, is use our energy to help them be less perfectionistic or help them be less fearful.

22:26

There's literally just emailing back and forth with mom yesterday at kids at kind of the independent private girls school here in D.C.,

22:33

And she write, you know, I mean, I tell her every day, you don't have to get an A on everything.

22:37

It's not that big a deal.

22:38

And I said, well, it's 100% right.

22:41

And I love that energy.

22:43

If I may, I'd offer you sort of approach that might be a little bit more validating because if you're saying you don't have to get an A on this, her fear is going, oh my gosh, mom has no idea.

22:55

Of course I have to get an A. This is a school that I go to.

22:58

I'll never get into an elite college, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

23:02

And the validation could be something like, boy, I see how hard you're working.

23:07

And I love how committed you are to to to excellence, you know, for what it's worth.

23:13

You know, the way the way that, you know, the value, it must be hard to feel like you have to be perfect all the time on everything you do day after day, week after week.

23:23

and pause and in a perfect world that creates an opening where it goes, you have no idea, my God, I mean, we're doing like five hours of homework a week and we never sleep and blah, blah, blah.

23:34

Because you're looking to get buy-in, you can use reflective listening and repeat this back.

23:38

And these are tools that you obviously know well and repeat that back.

23:42

So what you're saying is that most girls are doing like four to five hours of homework at night and that's about how much they're sleeping.

23:49

Holy smokes, that's a lot.

23:51

Yeah, oh, it's miserable and blah, blah, blah, blah.

23:54

And then you can simply ask something very gently like, would you like that to be a little better?

23:59

Oh, I do, but there's nothing you can do about it, mom, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

24:02

Now you have an opening.

24:04

Say, well, you're probably right.

24:06

I don't go to your school.

24:07

I don't live your life.

24:08

But my hunch is, you know, because I don't want to take away from you the high expectations you have for you and your life because this is your life.

24:16

But golly, I'd love to talk with you about some ways that we can, you know, can get this just slightly more in the direction they want.

24:23

Oh, and if I may, for what it's worth, you know, I see things a little bit differently.

24:27

For what it's worth, and I always use this very tender language, right?

24:31

I don't think that people have to be perfect all the time to build successful lives.

24:35

You know, I know you may think that I'm perfect.

24:37

You're this month, this mother of yours.

24:39

And of course the laugh at that.

24:40

Right.

24:41

But in my experience, I try to focus on a few things and do them really well.

24:45

The valedictorians at high school to do that, you have to be equally good at everything, but that's not what people do in the real world.

24:51

So what I'm really interested in as your mom is seeing you lean into the things that you really like to do and that you're already good at and get better and better at them.

24:59

But an honest to gosh, if,

25:00

If you never end up getting a PhD in history because you complain about it all the time, I don't think you're going to be too upset about it.

25:06

I think the world will have to get over too.

25:09

And so just kind of very tentative language.

25:11

We're not telling kids you have to think about this differently, but they make them feel safe that there's another way to think about this.

25:18

With kids who look lazy, this is very important.

25:23

In case people don't know, the major manifestation of anxiety is avoidance, is avoidance.

25:30

So kids who look like they're doing nothing say, dude, you've got to get, you're just the lazy son of a gun.

25:36

How are you ever going to, how are you ever going to be successful?

25:38

If you're never going to get to college, you're going to fuck on, blah, blah, blah.

25:41

as though fear is going to motivate kids to step it up.

25:45

And it will short term.

25:46

But long term, it literally causes brain damage, right?

25:52

Brain damage, right?

25:52

It shrinks the memory center, right?

25:55

Your medulla becomes more reactive, right?

25:58

The prefrontal cortex shrinks.

26:00

The connection between those, I mean, it's just a disaster, right?

26:03

Left unchecked, anxiety, depression, and everything that goes along with that.

26:08

So a lot of times kids who look like they're doing nothing and therefore it looks like they don't care, they actually care deeply, but they're taking this posture because especially for a kid who finds school challenging, and if they're below the 50th percentile, and by definition, that's about 50% of people, right?

26:27

And that's how the math works, right?

26:29

Go to school feeling incompetent and feeling constantly under threat.

26:35

And it's just hard.

26:38

And so rather than leaning to tell them how important it is, how important it is, how important it is, and I do this work and Bill does this work, say, listen, you know, for what it's worth, you know, again, valedictorians 10 years later out of high school, they're no more successful than other people, right?

26:53

What I care about, what I care about is you developing you.

26:56

And so one thing I want you to do is to pay attention to it.

26:59

What are things you're better at than most people?

27:01

You don't have to be the best, my friend.

27:02

What are you better at than most people?

27:04

And kind of lean into that.

27:05

And so a lot of times that is things outside of school where we really try to take an interest in their part-time job or their rock climbing or their art or their music or whatever, knowing that those, that passion to pursue their pastimes, as Reed Larson describes it, is really what can wire their brains to be motivated.

27:24

And when they're in a different environment,

27:27

If they if they've wired the brain to work hard on something and, you know, the EMT, whatever, they can then apply that when they find an academic interest or when they find a learning environment where it's challenging to them.

27:40

Because honestly, kids under under under work because they're bored as well as because they're stressed.

27:46

Right.

27:46

Where they feel challenged, but they don't feel threatened.

27:49

And sometimes that's just they need to be in a new they need to be in a new school.

27:52

But I've had this conversation.

27:54

I can't tell you with how many kids.

27:57

And when I rather than saying, this is a really big deal, but actually the story in the book, Bill's in DC, there are a lot of K through eight schools.

28:06

At the end of eighth grade, then they have to apply to go into school for high school.

28:10

And so there's a boy and it was learning disabilities and ADHD and the whole thing's kind of a mess.

28:15

And he's really kind of doing nothing.

28:18

And all these adults, the parents, the principal himself went twice to this kid and kind of take him to the woodshed kind of lesson.

28:25

You've got to step this up.

28:26

This is the next four years of your life.

28:28

And unsurprisingly, it wasn't working.

28:31

And Bill said, he said, I really like this principle.

28:34

He said, respectfully, I see this kind of differently.

28:37

It's probably not lost on that kid that if he worked harder and got better grades, all the adults in his world would be happier, at least less stressed, right?

28:45

His teachers wouldn't think he's a dope.

28:46

His parents wouldn't be on them all the time and at least give him his darn cell phone back.

28:50

His friends wouldn't treat him like he's a dope.

28:52

but it but he's ambivalent and this we talked about this quite a bit in the book because it's also not lost on him that he may have tried really hard in the past and it didn't make much of a difference or he really doesn't like mr johnson he's just kind of a jerk as a teacher or and this is the really important one for parents to think about that he could work super hard as diligently as he could and take grades that are pretty sucky technical term to sucky plus

29:20

And then he might actually know the limits of his ability.

29:25

And that's a pretty scary thing.

29:27

And so what kids do instead is handicap themselves, meaning they put in minimal effort and then they tell themselves, I mean, if I wanted to, I could, I mean, I can do that stuff, but it's stupid and who cares anyway, because they're protecting themselves emotionally because it's a really scary thing to put yourself out there and fall short and know that I can't, even when I wanted to, I can't meet the expectations that other people have for me and that I have for myself.

29:51

So we're just kind of back to it.

29:53

loving the kid that you got and actually going the opposite direction on the pressure.

29:58

And I have done this and seen this over and over and over with kids because most kids don't want to go to school and feel unsuccessful.

30:09

They kind of want to burn the thing down to avoid the fact that there's even a test today where they're going to underperform.

30:14

But when we back way the heck off on the pressure,

30:17

almost always kids turn it around and start to work harder because they want to feel like they're competent.

30:25

They want to feel like their teachers know that they're working hard.

30:27

I mean, they want to, but when we push, push, push, they actually lean away from the things that are in their own best interest rather than assuming the kids have a brain in their heads and they want their lives to work out, right?

30:39

Rather than using fear as a motivator.

30:43

Yeah.

30:44

And when they feel so much pressure and they've felt failure before and they don't want to feel it again, when they do go back into that battle zone to try to do a better job, they're under stress and they can't even learn as effectively as they would if they were, if we were more relaxed about it and then they're more relaxed about it.

31:01

Yeah.

31:02

Parents are like, you got to focus, man, which is guaranteed to make it impossible for someone to focus.

31:07

Right.

31:09

Other than that, it's great.

31:10

Yeah.

31:12

Yeah.

31:12

It's again, back to like, just, you know, it's, it's so hard.

31:15

Parenting is so hard, but the expectations sometimes we put on our kids are higher than we put on ourselves just out of, you know, just unconscious, like, you know, we love them and we want the world to be their oyster.

31:27

And then we have this idea that, that this is the, because we come up with a path for them to get there, we can easily fall into thinking that this is the only path to get there.

31:36

And, and it was funny, this, this, these parents that I was telling you, I was talking to you last night, um,

31:41

So one of the things that makes it a lot easier for us to support the autonomy of our children is for us to be what we describe as a non-excess presence, for us to be just more tolerant of letting them make messes in the kitchen or in their lives and not jumping in and being overly controlling and giving them the chance to sort of try to fix it for themselves because it's so good for developing brains.

32:06

And so talking about this, I said to the mom, I said, what do you do to sort of relieve your own stress?

32:14

And she said, be controlling.

32:17

And I said- We have found the enemy and it is us.

32:22

Right.

32:23

And I'm like, what else?

32:25

And it's true because-

32:27

A low sense of control is stressful for anyone.

32:30

And so when our kids are not doing well, we have this tendency to lean in and become even more controlling of them and then expect them to want to work harder.

32:38

And it's just not how it works.

32:42

And so, so much of the work, there's a humorist who Bill had as a client 30 years ago.

32:49

And she said, we really shouldn't call it raising parents.

32:53

We really shouldn't call it raising kids, we should call it lowering parents, because so much of it is right, you know, and everything for our kids, but if we can be open to the idea that this is their life, it's their life, and they get to make of it what they will, it is our job to offer help, to offer support, to be unconditionally loving.

33:15

to share our wisdom, but not to act like it's our job to dictate our kid, you know, of who they're going to be and more importantly, how they're going to get there.

33:26

Because I've never seen it work.

33:27

I've never seen it work.

33:28

Or when on paper it works, then you have people who, you know, I had a kid, she's in the second book.

33:35

And I asked her, she's going into her senior year, I said, what do you like to do most?

33:40

Because, you know, knowing what you want to do and then you build a life around the things that you're after, right?

33:44

And she looked me dead in the eye and she said, I have no idea.

33:48

I spend all of my energy and time trying to meet, live up to the expectations that other people have for me.

33:54

I have no idea what I want.

33:56

And I thought, you're about to leave the house and go off this four-year adventure of college with a freaking suitcase full of your parents' money and you don't know what you want.

34:05

at all.

34:06

I mean, not just like Virginia study.

34:07

I'm like, Holy smokes.

34:09

We could, we can probably start that process earlier.

34:12

Right.

34:12

Right.

34:13

No, I mean, I think you're right.

34:14

Like we're so hyper-focused on like getting through the next report card and like, and we ask kids like, what do you want to be when you grow up?

34:21

And they throw out like random things that they've heard on TV shows or like, you know, some magical thing like video game tester, you know, like modern day childhoods, but it's like, well, are we really building?

34:34

Are we really like building?

34:35

as the parent are we really kind of helping them with the strength-based uh focus like what are this kid's unique strengths and how can we draw their attention to it without controlling them and just invite them to consider what are they good at and is this something that might be a future passion right and then letting go of the outcome like you said like non-attachment to the outcome

34:55

I mean, that's where Ken Robinson, the element, right?

34:57

That we tend to build successful lives when we figure out what is that we're good at that we also like to do that needs to be that the world has, right?

35:06

Yeah, yeah.

35:07

You know, I also, I don't know if you know the story about John Lennon.

35:10

When he was a boy, he said, my mom always told me that the goal in life was to be happy, right?

35:17

And he said, I went, so you can imagine my surprise when I go to school and the first day or month or whatever, we have this writing assignment about what do you want to be when you grow up?

35:25

And he wrote down happy.

35:27

And the teacher came to me and said, clearly you didn't understand the assignment.

35:30

And I looked at him and said, apparently you don't understand life.

35:35

You know, the video game tester does sound like a fun job for a kid.

35:41

bunch of kids right right right yeah yeah and kind of just yeah as i'm thinking like i was thinking of the word growth mindset for the parent um whereas we're supporting the child in the process of their life yes we're we're like fear-based about what's going to be the outcome of this child because we're so like we're so uh invested in this baby that or this you know even if it was an adopted child like this child came to us we feel this big responsibility to

36:10

to make sure it's a good outcome, you know, whenever we're done parenting, but kind of that mindfulness, the presence is really where that's kind of the initial framework is the perfectionist.

36:23

Again, it's that anxiety fear phase, whereas we want to move more into mindful and present parenting and the growth mindset of like supporting them day to day through connection and safety and whatever the results are, the results are, it's, it's that letting go of it is their life, not ours.

36:37

And our role is to be there.

36:39

Yeah.

36:40

on the journey alongside them, right?

36:42

That is like the, yeah.

36:44

It's so true and it's so well said.

36:46

I mean, I'm not going to be a big fan of Silicon Valley, but they, you know, folks out there, but they talk about the pivot, right?

36:52

You know, and then, you know, sort of choose your, okay, now which way do we go, right?

36:56

And it's an interesting thought experiment for people to think about, for parents to think about the life that they're currently living.

37:04

And is this the life that they'd planned?

37:09

How much does it resemble the plan that they had five years, 10 years, you know, when they were in school?

37:14

And chances are, it is some of the things they thought about because they knew that that was something that they wanted and they spent a lifetime building that.

37:23

But it's also quite likely that it looks different than they imagined.

37:28

But they found out a way to build lives that are, you know, when we talk about a happy and successful life,

37:33

It's just having a life that you want, you know, and just like, you know, and so, you know, all of us, you know, probably our life has some overlap to that perfect thing, but it's not perfectly that.

37:45

And so when you put those two things together to your point about the growth mindset, you know, we have a plan and then we pivot and we grow and we grow in ways and into spaces that

37:56

that we couldn't imagine, right?

37:58

I mean, the, you know, the idea.

37:59

You can't plan for it.

38:00

You can't plan.

38:01

Because it's evolving constantly.

38:03

Correct.

38:04

Correct.

38:04

My, my daughter, I overheard this conversation with my, with my wife some years ago.

38:10

And my, there was a conversation being had about cleaning up the room and my, my daughter, a little bit frustrated, turned so that of course it's not perfect.

38:18

I have to live in here.

38:20

I thought, oh, my gosh, that is a perfect metaphor of life.

38:23

Of course, my life doesn't look perfect because I'm living it.

38:27

And they're constantly, constantly under construction.

38:32

So do you want perfect and freeze frame it or do you want it to be growing in ways that typically involve a bit of mess?

38:38

Right.

38:39

Right.

38:40

Yeah.

38:40

And that is the whole point anyway, right?

38:42

That's the whole point of life, right?

38:44

Is to just be more present moment to moment because it is just a bunch of moments at the end of it.

38:50

Anyways, it's not a destination to somewhere.

38:53

Yeah, so many resources and expertise shared.

38:57

Any other kind of final words?

38:59

And I know we didn't talk about your second book, What Do You Say?

39:02

But you did give us some examples about how to go about, especially like the word used, I think was tentative, which I love that.

39:09

Tentatively, like after you hear them out, throwing in some of these reflective questions for them to consider.

39:15

But yeah, any other thoughts?

39:17

It's really, yeah, on that point, I mean, Bill uses language a lot all the time.

39:21

And the metaphor that I have in my head,

39:23

is that if I'm on one side of a wall with a person and they're on the other, and I'm pretty sure that I'm right on my side of this thing, but the higher I build the wall, the more difficult it is for that other person to come around or to climb over to my side.

39:37

So what I want to do is just keep it so it's like...

39:40

and taking a half step over there because I just, I don't like, I've never found it effective to have power battles with people because really nobody, nobody wins.

39:50

I guess the last thing I'm saying, this gets a little bit to the language that I was talking about, that story of that girl who's perfectionistic is this.

39:58

We as loving parents, as human beings, really, have something called the writing reflex, meaning that when people bring us a problem, our brains just, our prefrontal cortex goes into overdrive.

40:09

They're like, what about this?

40:10

What about this?

40:10

And so if you tell me about a problem, I'll say, well, what about this diet?

40:13

And you can try this.

40:14

Have you thought about this other thing, right?

40:16

Or, you know, if you're really spun up, it's easy for me to say, oh my gosh, well, I get it.

40:20

But gosh, I mean, you know, it's only one, it's only one speaking gig, right?

40:23

You know, you'll get it.

40:24

And you're so good as you'll have other ones.

40:26

I don't worry about them.

40:27

They're kind of a bunch of jerks anyway.

40:29

And that all sounds like a great advice coming out of my mouth.

40:32

It sounds brilliant, right?

40:33

But on the receiving end, it's kind of invalidating because it'd be like, well, if only you had done these, one of these four things that immediately popped in my mind, you dope, you wouldn't be in this situation.

40:44

Sure.

40:45

That's probably real good.

40:47

Or, you know, saying, well, it's not that big a deal.

40:49

These people aren't that nice.

40:50

Anyway, I'm effectively saying you really shouldn't be upset about this thing, which again, is a little invalidating.

40:57

And so we start the first chapter of What Do You Say?

41:01

with this idea of empathy and validation, in part because we've been interviewing a whole bunch of, you know, all kinds of groups, but this one group of teenagers from a local public school, and Bill had asked them, who do you feel closest to in the world?

41:15

And sometimes my mom, she's just the best, my dad, but sometimes my grandma, my coach, my older sister, my cousin, blah, blah, blah.

41:22

So what is it about them that makes you feel close to them?

41:25

And there are two answers.

41:27

One, they listen to me without judging me.

41:31

And two, they don't tell me what to do all the time.

41:34

So that judging, well, you really shouldn't be feeling this way.

41:37

Tell me what to do.

41:37

Here's what you should do.

41:39

And we say this, and so the whole first chapter is all really about how do you do this?

41:44

And here's why.

41:46

Several reasons.

41:47

One is that we want kids to bring problems to us because we can't help them solve problems that we don't know about.

41:54

And that's kind of how we're wired as parents.

41:56

And so we want to keep bringing them in rather than having them turn away from us.

42:01

Two, when we naturally jump into that problem solving thing, we're in some way saying to them that we want to move you out of this problem or these difficult feelings, that this is not kind of what we want you to have, which it's intended because we don't want them to suffer, right?

42:18

But it can lean into that perfectionist, right?

42:22

Or that you're kind of only okay in my book when everything is shiny happy.

42:26

And that's not what we're trying to say, but it's just what people feel.

42:29

And the last and probably the third, the last and the most important point is this, that close connection can bring problems to Diane.

42:38

And she's going to listen and say, boy, man, you've had a day, huh?

42:42

You know, and then you may pivot into, I got a couple of thoughts on that.

42:46

Would you like to hear them?

42:47

And like, no, now is not the time.

42:49

Maybe another time in a way that's peaceful and effective and respectful.

42:55

A close, and this is important in my view, the close connection that a child has with a parent or another caregiver is the single most powerful protective factor against the effects of stress on developing, especially developing young brains.

43:11

And so, yes, as a parent, you want to feel like your brain goes into overdrive.

43:16

How do I fix this?

43:17

I get it.

43:18

I got it.

43:19

But the most important thing we want to do is foster and nurture and hold on to that close connection, because among other things, when we do that and that lowers the stress back to that prefrontal cortex, it brings the kids decision making part of the brain problem solving part of brain back online.

43:34

And simply by using empathy and validation, we can help the kid then go on and solve problems for themselves, which is even better than obviously than our solving things for them.

43:45

We don't get to wear our cape, but they get to feel like they're wearing the cape and they're not the damsel in distress with the superheroes.

43:53

Let them be the hero in their own story instead of saving them from their own distress.

43:57

Yeah, exactly.

43:59

Yeah.

43:59

So, yeah, I really I mean, we the what do you say is really all the language of kind of how do you put it in place?

44:07

And including as a parent consultant of how to be a non-existent presence.

44:11

So, yeah, that that that be mindful of that writing.

44:14

reflex.

44:15

And if you're starting to talk people out of their feelings, or trying to give them solutions before you really paused, use reflective listening, expressed empathy and validated where they're coming from.

44:27

Just please have that wonderful advice that you're just dying to share.

44:30

Have that B-step too after you've gotten by.

44:32

Right.

44:33

By empathizing about it.

44:34

Yeah.

44:35

It's almost like a little bit of impulse control for the parent and self-soothing at the age of adulthood where we expect kids, again, to have all these impulse controls.

44:45

But then in adulthood, we basically don't hold back half the time when we're lecturing and trying to problem solve and just practicing a little bit of that self-restraint.

44:53

And it's just, and the thing about this, that impulse to solve and to soothe, it's wired in us as mammals.

45:01

And so this idea of, to your point of that impulse control of holding back, it's just, it's counterintuitive, but it's such, it's so effective and such a learnable set of skills.

45:15

I kind of naturally did this, but I never really thought about it.

45:18

And when we're researching this book and say, go, oh my gosh, that's exactly it.

45:23

and I make this mistake and sort of jump into giving advice particularly my daughter and she to her credit says not now but it's amazing when done well if I mean it can feel like a freaking Jedi mind trick it's just it's just it's stunning um and because you know parents and teachers are are effectively emotional first responders in our kids lives

45:48

Having this as a tool, it's pretty good.

45:52

I hope that people will take a look at that and to your point, make this a practice because you want to be effective with your kids, obviously.

46:02

We didn't make this up, obviously.

46:04

It's a pretty good tool and I encourage people to give it a try.

46:07

Yeah, I love that.

46:08

And I know you practice just to wrap up, I know you practice meditation.

46:12

And I think that's really an exercise in impulse control and concentration and being with what is without judgment, which is what we're trying to teach our kids, but we first have to role model it.

46:26

And if we weren't wired and raised like that ourselves, we have to relearn it, right?

46:29

So we have to kind of

46:31

practice this mindful presence with ourselves and our own experience in order to offer it to our children.

46:36

And then they can learn it to have it themselves.

46:39

It's true.

46:40

You know, it's true.

46:40

And I practice a type of meditation called transcendental meditation.

46:44

And I'm a big fan of both mindfulness and also TM.

46:48

And TM has a practice that is basically, and so people can think about how this generalizes in their own life.

46:54

It's a practice simply designed to pull stress out of people's nervous system.

46:59

And you can get this also by effective exercise, by getting plenty of sleep and lots of things.

47:03

But effectively, if there's more stress coming into your nervous system or your family or school, or I don't know, the whole darn country,

47:11

then is let then and then is pulled out of your nervous system in a healthy way, then bad things happen, substance use, domestic violence, on and on it goes.

47:19

But also, the more anxious I am as a parent, as a teacher, the more naturally controlling I'm going to be.

47:28

And I am less anxious.

47:30

It's so much easier for me not to have an inclination to control or over control.

47:36

And we go back to all these good, good outcomes we want for kids where they can control their lives because I'm, I'm supporting them.

47:42

I'm offering all the wisdom that I can, but I'm doing it in a way that supports their autonomy rather than controlling them.

47:47

So yes, being mindful, being non-anxious, getting all your sleep people, holidays are coming up and now's the time to do it.

47:56

So,

47:57

Yeah, I love that.

47:58

Great conversation.

47:59

Thank you so much.

48:00

I think we've definitely come full circle in terms of how we best support our kids.

48:03

And we start with ourselves.

48:05

And then we move into coaching versus controlling once we

48:10

Once we're able to show up as a non-anxious presence.

48:13

Do you want to share a little bit about where people can find you?

48:16

Sure.

48:17

So, you know, the website for Bill and for me is theselfdrivenchild.com.

48:23

I clutter up TikTok.

48:25

Sorry for that.

48:25

I'm sure your kids are on that.

48:28

And I am the other Ned Johnson.

48:31

The Ned Johnson was the founder of Fidelity.

48:32

So just a few billion dollars between the two of us.

48:36

Your past brother.

48:38

Yeah, with golly, I wish I could just sort of say, anyway, I'm teasing.

48:42

So I'm the other Ned Johnson on TikTok.

48:45

Just kind of do some fun stuff over there.

48:47

Yeah, that's great.

48:49

It's great to hear your advice and experience.

48:51

Thank you so much for joining me here today.

48:53

Really appreciate it.

48:54

It's always so much fun to talk with you.

48:56

I'm grateful for all the ways that you help parents be the parents that they want to be.

49:00

Thank you.

49:01

Appreciate it.

49:04

If you enjoyed this podcast and would like additional resources to support you in your parenting journey, my free gift to you is access to my parenting membership with a free 30 day trial where you'll find bite-sized video and audio strategies, scripts, masterclasses, a private community with parents just like you and weekly group coaching calls directly with me and so much more.

49:26

Go to delightinparenting.com backslash membership to learn more.