The science of raising kids (Part 1): Are you raising anxious kids? with Lenore Skenazy and Mathilde H. Ross

0:02This is TED Health, a podcast from TED and I'm your host Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider. From diapers and lunchboxes to the angst of adolescence, parenting is not a simple job. For parents, there are these questions that follow you around all day. Am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? How do I even know the difference when every corner of the internet has an opinion and most of them sound urgent? And kids carry stress they don't have words for yet. Remember how overwhelming it could feel just learning how to exist and trying to get that right? From my patients to my friends and family, I hear concerns like these all the time.

0:43So this month on the podcast, we're diving into the intersection of health and parenting so we can replace our parenting anxieties, or at least try to, with ideas and actual science to help us understand how to support the kids in our lives. We'll cover everything from neuroscience to nutrition and diving into the fascinating science of growing up. Now, I know how exhausting it can be getting so much conflicting parenting advice from social media, from TV and movies and books, from your parents and co-workers and that neighbor down the street. It seems like everyone has an opinion on how to do this very tough job, and they just can't wait to share it.

1:25So for today's episode, I want to share two talks that offer a path toward a calmer, more confident family life. A life that's not about second-guessing yourself anytime you scroll on your Instagram feed. The talks come at modern parenting from two different angles, but they land in a similar place. In our first TED Talk, author Lenore Skenazy tells us a story from her own life that put her at the center of a public firestorm. Here's Lenore Skenazy. I am here to talk about parenting, which is kind of weird because if you Google America's worst mom, you find me there for 22 Google pages, followed by America's worst Mother's Day gift, which, guys, a lot of you here, we don't want an iron and lingerie is for Father's Day.

2:15So how do you get a name like that? Well, years ago, when our younger son was nine, he started asking me and my husband if we would take him someplace he'd never been before, in New York City, where we live, and let him find his own way home by subway. So we talked about it, me and my husband, who you never hear of as America's worst dad. And we decided, sure. Long story short, I wrote a newspaper column, Why I Let My Nine-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone. And two days later, I was on the Today Show, MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR. Fox News and NPR. Okay? Kind of wild. And I realize that a lot of you would not make the same decision, obviously, but you should have seen our son.

3:08He came into the apartment levitating. He was so happy. So I want you to think back for just a second on something that you absolutely loved doing as a kid, maybe flashlight tag, building forts. And now I want you to raise your hand if your mom knew exactly where you were. Okay, it's an older crowd here. Sorry. It is usually the younger people who raise their hands because that's what's changed. In fact, that's what I wrote my book about, free-range kids. For the last generation or two, kids have been getting so little time on their own, so little time unsupervised. And of course, some of that's good.

3:52You know, togetherness is good. Kids need a strong bond. But, you know, too much is driving us all crazy. There was the Surgeon General report from 2021, which a lot of you probably saw. It said that kids are more depressed and anxious than ever, right? And then he came out with a report like two years later that said, parents are more depressed and anxious than ever. I'm like, yeah, because we need our space, right? The olden days were not perfect, but back then there were three worlds that were absolutely perfectly balanced. There was the kid world filled with, you know, bikes and adventures and playing, and the adult world is so boring.

4:31People were always talking about politics and who was having a procedure. A lot of polyps, polyps, polyps, polyps. And then there was family world, where everyone was together, like on vacation or at dinner. But now they've all been sort of mashed up together, and especially since phones, because now even when parents aren't physically with their kids, they can be texting and talking and tracking to them. So the worlds are not in balance anymore. Fortunately, the reason I'm here, is that there is a sort of easy way to start teasing the worlds apart again, and it just begins with a little bit of deprogramming.

5:08So here goes. We have to realize that we've been sort of brainwashed into believing that any time our kids aren't with us, they're in terrible danger of being kidnapped by a guy in a white van looking for his puppy, or, also tragic, not getting into Harvard. And as a result, terrible, I don't even like to think about it. But the upshot is that we are spending way more time with our kids than our parents spent with us, usually helping them do things that they could do on their own. And the, we'll call it the adult takeover of childhood, because it's so vast that the, what is it, University of Michigan did a study two years ago, and they found that parents want to give their kids independence.

5:59They recognize its importance. But the majority of parents of kids age nine to 11, which is tweens, right? Kind of old, will not let them play at the park with a friend, will not let them walk to a friend's house. And if they're at the, you know, the store are shopping together, only 50 % will let their kid go to another aisle. Okay? That's the real statistic. That's University of Michigan. So sending your kid for a can of peas is like sending them to NAMM. Okay? It's just crazy. We've got to get braver than that. We've got to get brave enough to send our kids to the canned food aisle or to the park before their voice changes.

6:41So So how? Well, I've got two helpful facts and three solutions. Helpful fact one is this. Your kid is not going to be kidnapped, okay? If for some reason you wanted them to be snatched off the street by a stranger, statistically, how long would you have to keep them outside?

7:04750 ,000 years, okay? It's a while. And after the first 100 ,000, they're not even kids anymore. They're not even cute. They're like dust. Fact two is that when our kids aren't with us and all our teachable moments, they're actually learning more. And let me explain. When adults organize a game, we are efficient, right? We decide what they're going to play and whether the ball was in or out and who gets a trophy, which is easy because everyone, right? But when kids are organizing a game, it is a total mess. You've got, especially if you've got like a bunch of kids of different ages, like the Peanuts gang, well, they have to decide what they're going to play, and then they have to make the teams kind of even, a lot of negotiating, and then you have to keep the game going, even when there are arguments, which there will be.

7:56So along the way, they're learning, hmm, how to make something happen, how to get by an executive function, focus, compromise, you know, communication, just all the skills they need to be a functioning human being. And if, if like a 12-year-old ends up pitching to a five-year-old, which would never ever happen in adult organized sports, well, there's, there's no glory in striking out a kindergartner, right? So the older kid throws the ball kind of gently and the little kid taps it and the older one goes, my God, it's a home run! And the little kid is so ecstatic, right? But the older one is too, because he's doing something new.

8:43He is learning how to empathize and how to be generous, how to be an adult. And that's the most teachable moment of all. When we take those experiences out of our kids' lives by always being with them to help them and high-five them good job, good buddy, you know, they get anxious because they don't see how much they can do, how much they can handle on their own. And we get anxious because we don't see it either. And so we're all feeling way more anxious than we have to. What can we do? Here's the deal. About eight years ago, the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and I and two others got together, and we started a nonprofit to make it easy, normal, and legal for parents to let go and let grow.

9:40Okay? In fact, we call our organization Let Grow. And because a collective problem, which is nobody letting their kids do anything, needs a collective solution, everybody doing it at the same time so they don't feel guilty or weird or judged, God forbid judged, we came up with two school programs that are free and one new law. The law is this. The law says that it is not illegal to let your kid play at the park with a friend or walk to the store or do all sorts of things on their own. We call it the Reasonable Childhood Independence Law. And so far, as of last month, it has been passed in nine states.

10:23Yes. Right. Thank you. Yeah, it's a great law. And actually, they're voting on it in Florida tomorrow. Anyways, and then our two school programs are these. We would like schools to stay open after school, not just for chess and homework help and soccer and all these adult-run activities, but for actual mixed-age, no-devices, free play. You put out some balls, some chalk, cardboard boxes, and there is an adult there crouching in the corner with an EpiPen. But they don't solve the arguments. They don't organize the game. They're like a lifeguard, okay? And I know everyone thinks that kids just want to run home.

11:07They really want to be with their phones. They really want to be with each other. They really want to be having fun, playing, having adventures, maybe flirting. and if the only place they can do that without constant adult supervision is on their phones, of course that's where they go. But if you give them back a place that's free of phones, filled with kids, a swath of time, they love it. I've gone to these play clubs. It is so great. I consider them a wildlife sanctuary for childhood, right? Simple. Just keep the schools open for free play, right? The second thing we suggest is that schools do the let grow experience.

11:51And that's when teachers give kids the homework assignment that says, go home and do something new on your own with your parents' permission, but without your parents. You can climb a tree, walk the dog, make pancakes, doesn't matter, anything, depending on your age and your neighborhood, etc. And it's in just over a thousand schools so far. And last year we heard of one kid who was 10 or 11, and he decided for his let-grow experience, he would make dinner for his family. So he went to get the ingredients at the store, and he's shopping and he's getting everything, and then he can't find the hot sauce.

12:27And the idea of asking a clerk for help, going up to an adult, like a moron, an idiot. He just felt so tiny. He couldn't do it. He ran out of the store. He literally left his cart and all the other groceries there, and he bolted. And then he went back in, and he talked to the clerk, and he got the hot sauce. And in one sense, it's just a simple errand, right? But in another sense, it's the hero's journey, right? Because he had been defeated and humiliated. He actually abandoned his quest, just like they say in those Hero's Journeys books. But then he went back in and he did it himself. I did it myself are childhood's magic words.

13:19I did it myself is the original anxiety buster. And in fact, if I ask you right now, and probably we'll talk about it later, to remember something that made you really proud of your own kid or your grandkid or your niece or your student, nephew, whatever, it's usually something like, you know, he was on an overnight last night and the other mom called to say he cleared the table. Really? Or we were on vacation and she got lost, but she found her own way back to the hotel. Or my kid took the cousins out last night and let the five-year-old get a home run. We're most proud of our kids when they do something on their own.

14:02And our kids are most proud of themselves when they do something on their own. So the solution to the parent anxiety crisis and the kid anxiety crisis turns out to be the exact same thing. You've got to pull apart those worlds again. You've got to put the kid world separate from the parent world. put them back in balance. You've got to let kids do something on their own in the big, wide world, maybe without even tracking them or talking to them or texting them, just trusting them to do something on their own. And if you can do that, if you can let go, I can guarantee your kids are going to end up less anxious.

14:44Your kids are going to end up smarter. And your kids are going to feel really proud. proud, but not as proud as you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

15:05That was Lenore Skenazy at TED 2025. Next up, another talk, this time from psychiatrist Mathilde H. Ross. Have you ever read a parenting book at 1 a.m. or watched a parenting reel? that made you question your instincts? If so, you might recognize yourself in this talk. Turns out it's easy for conscientious, dutiful parents to give into their anxieties and absorb endless advice, as if it's a checklist for being a good parent. Dr. Ross is here to remind us that maybe there's another way to frame our approach to parenthood. And now, Dr. Mathilde H. Ross. It's not that there's anything wrong with parenting books, per se.

15:49It's just that they can be risky when they fall into the wrong hands. And when I say wrong hands, I mean parents. Specifically, conscientious and dutiful parents, which is most parents. Here's the problem. If you're a parent, you're probably just fine the way you are. All you need to hear is, you've got this. But everywhere you turn, experts tell you how complicated parenting has become. You should follow their advice on everything from putting your child to sleep to feeding them to playing with them, even though humans have somehow been doing this for millennia. Parenting books run the risk of turning conscientious and dutiful parents into anxious and obsessive parents.

16:43What do I mean? I'm a psychiatrist, and I have worked at Boston University's Counseling Center for nearly two decades. There's been a lot of hand-wringing about increasing anxiety among kids over the past decade or so. Experts have been lining up to explain why. It's cell phones, or social media, or maybe an over-reliance on therapy? Maybe? But what if there's a reason hiding in plain sight? What about parenting trends? The experts have got parents tied up in knots, so much so that the aftermath trickles into my office. Here's what I mean. Students tell me about parents monitoring their location on their cell phone and calling if they've ventured off campus or slept through class.

17:36They tell me about parents calling several times a day, then getting mad or worried when the busy student doesn't pick up. You can probably imagine how that goes. A generation ago, the experts told parents to get more involved. The pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that it's causing new problems. So now we have experts telling parents the importance of being less involved. What if all these experts just told parents to trust their instincts and do what feels right? Wouldn't sell many books. When it comes to managing teenagers, the relationship is everything. They need to feel like they can trust you with an important life decision or with a crisis.

18:29But they might not turn to you if they think it will cause an argument or make them more anxious. All the chatter is making parents more anxious. Clinicians like me think anxiety is contagious and is particularly transmissible to small children. Conflict mostly comes later. And these days, it's not just coming from books. Everywhere you turn, there's a social media influencer who's been a parent six months longer than you have who is happy to sell parenting advice. Just click this link and pay 10 bucks, and you can watch her put her toddler down for a nap just a little bit better than you do. Does anyone remember how editing works?

19:16I could make a T-Rex look like a baby whisperer if I controlled the editing. So, if parenting culture turns dutiful parents into anxious and obsessive parents, what's a busy psychiatrist to recommend? Luckily, the perfect antidote to parenting angst already exists. In a different section of your local bookstore, puppy manuals! That's right. A puppy manual is practically the perfect gift for a first-time parent. They contain everything a new family needs to know. They usually start with a section like this. Prepare your home. Create a space where they can explore safely, removing any items that might be damaged by body fluids.

20:05See what I mean? I couldn't have said it better myself. Puppy manuals usually emphasize the importance of making the bonding process go well. Like this. Don't be afraid to be yourself. A puppy can accept any human or any family structure if they feel safe and loved. Being consistent and predictable helps. Your puppy might have difficulty breeding you at first, so use effusive displays of affection. Love them with abandon. It might seem like they don't love you back, but that's OK. They've got a lot to get used to, not to mention an undeveloped brain. This also applies when they are teenagers. Use positive reinforcement.

20:59Reward desired behaviors clearly, and just ignore everything else. Puppies don't understand punishment or criticism, and these may interfere with the bonding process. Dogs are descended from pack animals. If you leave your puppy alone too much when they are little, they might become sensitive to abandonment and never frighten your puppy. Frightening your puppy might make them anxious or aggressive. Huh, these puppy people are really on to something. Puppy manuals have quite a bit of information on growth and development, like this. Development is a biological imperative. It mostly just happens.

21:44Obsessing about developmental timelines is unlikely to be fun for you or your puppy. Expose your puppy to new things gradually, but do expose them to new things. They must learn to adapt to the human world, which is not a natural environment. And make sure your puppy gets plenty of sleep. They can't grow normally, learn well, or regulate their behavior without it. Plus, sleeping puppies are super cute.

22:14Here's some guidance on your relationship with your puppy. Barking is normal. Some dogs are loud. Just take a break from them if you need it. You will eventually love them for their barking. Your puppy will probably never be interested in stories about your job or your views on politics. Don't worry about it. Play games with them. Isn't that why you got a puppy? There's also helpful guidance about managing a puppy in contemporary society. Like this. Dogs have existed for millennia. Your puppy can probably survive without that plastic gadget being pushed by a social media influencer. Your puppy will probably never be chosen for the Westminster Dog Show.

23:12Most aren't, so don't worry about it. the Westminster Dog Show is mostly about having the right breeding. Besides, those competitions can make dogs neurotic and high-maintenance. Someday, your puppy might feel like chasing a bunny or playing with another dog. They will eventually prefer other dogs to you. That's okay. it doesn't mean they don't love you. It means they have a secure attachment. A secure attachment is the foundation for healthy exploration during puppyhood and optimal mental health during adulthood. There you have it. Everything new parents need to know can be found in a puppy manual.

24:00Happily, it's mostly stuff that reasonable people already know. You are the only parenting expert your child needs. You are quite literally evolved for this. So I'll say it again. You've got this. Thank you.

24:19That was Matilde H. Ross at TED Next in 2024. I hope these two talks have offered you a little reset on popular ideas about modern parenting. A gentle reminder that kids need chances to do things for themselves, even when it's messy. and that parents need permission to trust themselves even when the internet is loud. And as it turns out, raising healthy kids might mean doing less instead of more. How's that for knocking some things off your to-do list this week? Next time, we'll talk about food health and the daily realities of feeding kids. We also will learn about the minds of newborns and what babies are really taking in, even in the earliest days.

25:14And that's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. TED Health is a podcast from TED, and I'd love to hear your thoughts about this episode. Send me a message on Instagram at ShoshanaMD. This episode was produced by me, Shoshana Ungerleiter, and Jess Shane. Edited by Alejandra Salazar and fact-checked by Vanessa Garcia-Woodworth Special thanks to Maria Lages Farrah Degrange Daniela Balarezo Constanza Gallardo Tansika Sangmarniwang and Roxanne Highlash

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