How To Be A Better Parent: A Primer On Mindful Parenting

26:16Increases the rates of substance use, uppers because they're tired, downers because they're depressed, and rates of death from accidents. So like not just automotive accidents, but like all cause accident rates. You know, Facebook would come out and say, we acknowledge what a large role will be playing kids' lives. We're gonna start publishing a very simple set of data each week. It's gonna take us 15 minutes to do like once. And after that, I'll just update over time. And we're gonna say how many kids are online at 10, 11, midnight, 1, 2, 3 a.m. And we're gonna do it every week. If they were doing that, if they were really serious about these problems, that doesn't violate anyone's privacy, but we'd be able to see, did those numbers move when they launched those things?

26:58And as long as they refuse to release even basic data, like we should consider all of these moves marketing. We are running a national experiment on our children. And I think if more people thought about it that way and said, you know, we're running a national experiment on our kids. Like what say should the public have in that experiment? I think we'd have very different conversations.

27:27These statistics are absolutely terrifying, to say the least. And all reason why in May of 2023, the Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, issued an advisory on the effects social media use has on youth mental health. Here's the Surgeon General. even though technically 13 is the age at which many platforms say people can start using them about 40 percent of kids 8 through 12 are using social media so those rules are not being enforced adequately either so you're right i think the concern is great here uh that and this is one of the reasons i issued this advisory is it was in response to a question that parents kept asking me which is, is social media safe for my kids?

28:17And putting all of this together, my two most important takeaways were, number one, we don't have enough evidence to say it's in fact safe. And two, there's in fact growing evidence that it's harming many of our children. And that statistic is one of those data points. And I think this is just for me, a cautionary tale also of how we have to be thoughtful about how we embrace and integrate new technology into our lives. It's not that we should push away technology. Look, I'm a believer in technology. I use technology. I spent seven years building a technology company. I'm a believer in technology, but it's ultimately in how it's designed and how we use it that ultimately impacts how it affects our lives.

29:01And I think particularly when it comes to our kids, I think you can judge a society by how well it cares for and supports and protect its children. I think this is too important for us to get distracted from. We can't, because every year for a child is an extraordinarily important time of development for them. Our kid's childhood is happening right now. We can't say, come back in five years and we'll fix this. We've got to do that because every day, you know, I'm getting stories from parents who are telling me about how their child was harmed, how their child was exposed to content that urged them to take their own life or to harm themselves, how they were harassed, exposed to racist remarks, to misogyny online.

29:51You hear this again and again and again from parents who are saying, why is this happening? Why isn't someone doing something about it? Why doesn't someone have my back? We will put the entire burden of managing this new rapidly evolving technology on the shoulders of parents who never grew up with it. That's not fair. Or on young people who don't have the brainpower skills to rebut its addictive lures. That's right. And what that basically is, is it's pitting the best developers and program designers in the world against parents and kids. That's not a fair fight. And that's why we've got to have the backs of kids and parents on this issue.

30:34And again, I can't think of something that's more important for us to address. Look, when it comes to mental health more broadly, with kids, I've at length spoken about the importance of us improving access to treatment. We got to do that. We're investing more in the last two years in that. That's a good step forward. There's more to do there. But if all we did was focus on treatment and didn't address these deeper root causes like loneliness and isolation, like social media, which are impacting the mental health of youth, that we just can't keep up with the demand. You know, like universities are, compared to 10 years ago, many of them have hired double, triple, in some cases, quadruple the number of mental health counselors, and they still can't keep up with demand.

31:19So we've got to get at the root causes of some of this. And this is why addressing technology and loneliness are so critical.

31:30What's even more terrifying is that this technology is still in its infancy. Once again, here is Lisa Damore on the dangers of the algorithmic nature of social media and what we can do to help our kids and teens form healthier relationships with everyone's favorite appendage, the phone.

31:57The thing that made me nervous and continues to make me very nervous about social media is the algorithm-driven nature of what kids are presented. And so that anything a kid, I think most people know this, but I think it's still worth articulating, actually anything a kid or that we spends time looking at or searches for or likes or comments on, the algorithms driving these social media platforms will pick that data up and then present them more of that in the aim of getting them to not be able to look away. and what I think about with those algorithms are norms, that teenagers are very vulnerable to the norms in their environment.

32:36And so when I think back to the, like the eating disorders finding, where we just saw so many eating disorders in the pandemic, there's a pretty decent consensus that probably what drove a lot of that is that we have kids who are home, they have tons of time on their hands, they have tons of like energy to do something. So they do a little searching for fitness or weight control or whatever, the algorithms pick this up and start flooding their feeds with imagery related to dieting or advice on dieting. And in the absence of leaving the home, doing other things, looking at other people, this becomes the norm.

33:14And it no longer seems strange to ultra diet, do things that are actually really, really dangerous. is. And so when I worry about social media, what I worry about is that it can shift the norms for kids and change what they think to be typical. And so I think, first of all, none of us should have our phones in our rooms. I don't have my phone in my room. And so one thing a parent might do is to say, okay, we're making a family-wide rule. Like it's all coming out for all of us. And of course the teenager will be like, no, no, no, no, no. And the parent might consider saying, look, it's bad for our sleep.

33:52It's bad for your sleep. Sleep is the glue that holds us together. For us to take it out of our room and not ask you to do the same, it'd be like we got in the car and we put on our seatbelts, but we don't ask you to put on yours. So you can make that case. The other thing to try, and again - Does that work? Well, I'm offering these humbly. I'm offering things up because I actually, it means enough to me that I don't wanna just write it off. Yeah, yeah. I think the other thing to try is to say, let's just do a two to three week experiment. Like sometimes teenagers will agree to an experiment. Like let's take it out of your room for a couple weeks and here's a clock radio to replace all of the things that you feel that it does.

34:32And then see if after a couple of weeks, there's not some agreement around this. Here's the other thing. Teenagers like to know the why. And this is getting back to the bullshit detector. Like they like to know the why. Here's the why. We have data showing that you do not actually get as good as sleep in a room with technology in it. And the reason for this that the researchers surmise, and I think this is true, is that we are all so pavlovianly attached to our devices that if they are present, we are deploying a degree of energy to not engage with them. So personally, I found it insanely helpful for my sleep to keep my phone as far away from me as possible in the hours leading up to and including bedtime.

35:24But while my older kids have come to appreciate this practice themselves, let's just say it's been more than a struggle with our teenagers. Compounding the degree of difficulty is the fact that every year, new technology comes out, more savvy than ever at capturing and maintaining attention. and the fight to resist becomes even steeper. For the best of us, it's like bringing a knife to a gunfight. For the young developing mind, it's game over. It's just not feasible or necessarily advisable to raise a Luddite. So what else can we do as parents, educators, and mentors to raise kids to have a healthy or at least a healthier relationship with the digital world?

36:14Once again, here's the Surgeon General. I'll tell you, honestly, this is hard. These devices are so intuitive for kids. My daughter, when she was in preschool, came home one day and asked my wife and I if we could post a picture on a social media platform for her. And we were like, what? How do you even know about this platform? How do you know that a picture should go? We were flabbergasted, but her preschool classmates were talking about posting pictures on social media. So we know we have to be vigilant there. And part of this for us is about protecting time without devices. So we have a curated list, a sort of set of videos that we will allow them to watch in small doses from time to time when we're on an airplane, for example, or here and there.

37:03Things that have some sort of educational or cultural value to them, things that don't have harmful content in them. So we try to limit how much time they spend there, But we also know that as they get older, that we have made the decision that we want to delay their use of social media until they're well past middle school and potentially beyond that. That's not easy to do. It's incredibly hard. But one thing we know is that it'll be easier if we can do it with other parents. And this is something that I've now heard more and more from parents of kids who have older kids, is that this is really tough to do on their own.

37:40But when they find one parent, two parents who are willing to make the same decision for their child, whether that's delaying the use of social media or whether that's creating tech-free zones in their child's life, like not using social media or technology in the half hour before they go to bed and throughout the night or around mealtimes, it becomes a lot easier when you're doing this with other parents. It's still not simple because over the years, I think largely this technology has spread like wildfire without any real guardrails to limit children's use and to healthy use. And so what you're seeing is that it's become this expectation that every child is on it.

38:18In some cases, schools are even assigning homework that requires a use of devices and some cases of some social media platforms. So we have to pull back a bit and get to a place where we can have tech-free zones, where parents can work together and support one another in delaying use. And I think when we're planning to do that until one, we feel that our child is actually developmentally ready to use social media, and two, until real safeguards have been put in place. And I mean, specifically safety standards, like what we did for automobiles that we are now calling for in our advisories to be applied to social media.

38:54And until there's data that actually tells us that these platforms are in fact sufficiently safe for our kids. Like we don't let our kids take medicines that aren't studied to be safe and effective. We don't put them in car seats that haven't been certified to be safe. Yet we're having them use these platforms, which are profoundly changing how they see themselves in others with scanned data to reassure us at all about safety. Yeah, it's a huge problem. I'll be interested to see how that progresses for you as they age. it's almost like an asymptotic curve, like with every year, you know, the pressure to get the device to be online in that way increases exponentially.

39:35And it's a hard problem because on some level, fluency on those platforms is a gateway or kind of a key to having a social life, right? If you can't be a Luddite, you would be a social pariah amongst your peers and your classmates as a young person. who's on the outside. It's sort of like the kid who doesn't get picked for the kickball team is the kid who's not part of the Snapchat group chat or whatever it is, right? So that complicates it from a parenting point of view. Which can I just say that there's two interesting things that I've learned recently. One is that as I've talked to more and more students, like middle school and high school students who are actually building movements to actually get off social media and get offline, they often have, they in the beginning when their parents told them, hey, you can't use this until later, they fought it and they were angry.

40:30But over time, they actually came to feel a lot better because they saw themselves less subject to a lot of the anxieties and struggles that their peers were going through as they engage with bullying or harassment online or constant comparison with other people. But the other thing is, as that community grows and builds, those kids aren't alone, right? And there are more parents I also encounter who are looking for what we use the term dumb phones, phones that don't have the capability of having social media, but have the ability to text, to look up, to make phone calls, to use maps. So good for safety, good for communication with friends, but don't necessarily subject you to all of the other potential adverse effects of social media.

41:10So I think there are additional pathways that we have to build here, but you're absolutely right that it's not simple. And there's a transition challenge here, which is why I think it's so important that we do this together with the support of other parents. I know my wife and I can't do this alone. If it were left up to us alone, we'd probably fail at some point. And we also, I think for adolescents in particular, just have to recognize that they're not just younger adults. They're fundamentally at a different stage of brain development and social development where they are more prone than adults to social comparison and to social influence.

41:42And so you put all of this together and you recognize that what a lot of students are telling educators is true, which is that they may see the challenge, but in some cases, is they need a little help and support in creating the environment where they get an opportunity for them to actually separate. And when they do and experience that, a lot of times they want to build on it, just like the 20-year-olds that you're talking about. And that's the thing that's part of the reason why we're seeing more communities of kids coming together to say, hold on, we're tired of this. We want a different path.

42:11That's not to say we're eschewing technology and putting it at the side. We want to use technology responsibly, but we don't want it to rule our lives.

42:24Ideally, delay a child's immersion into social media for as long as possible. And when kids finally are granted access to devices, it's incumbent upon us to immediately set clear ground rules. Like, for example, initially limiting their functionality to basic communication like texting. And then, and this is really important, following through by actually enforcing those rules, something I admit to having been less than stellar about. If your child already has a device or social media of any kind, the first real step in helping them navigate that responsibility safely is awareness and communication.

43:07The more you understand what kind of content they're being exposed to, consuming, and curating, the better your ability to initiate informed conversations. To create open communication and maintain it requires a suspension of that impulse we all have to approach transgressions punitively. definitively. Instead, what we have to do is lead with curiosity, because young ones, teens in particular, simply are not gonna open up if they feel judged or worse, unsafe. As parents, we should aim to guide our children in developing discernment, a critical eye towards not just social media content, but towards every situation they will face in life.

43:51With social media in particular, that means teaching them to discern carefully crafted digital images from reality and understanding the potential implications of constant connectivity. It's less about protecting our kids from the online world and much more about teaching them how to navigate it responsibly and safely. Because again, the digital age is here to stay. Accomplishing this, of course, always goes back to creating a safe environment conducive to open communication. If your kid is shut down, it's probably because you have created, consciously or otherwise, an environment that doesn't feel safe.

44:39And it's incumbent upon you, not your kid, to change that. But even in the best case scenario, the truth is that all we can do is give them the tools they need. And then, and this is the really hard part, we need to trust them. Sit tight. We have a lot more great stuff on the way. But first, a quick break for a word from our partners.

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46:44When my eldest daughter turned 13, suddenly everything I did irritated her. No matter what I said, whether it was something that mirrored her budding personality or something that diverged from it, absolutely everything annoyed her. As parents who adore their kids and remember how sweet they were when they were small, moments like these can be quite painful. They can be gut-wrenching even. And I think we all understand that individuation is a healthy and necessary aspect of growing up. And yet, it still does feel personal even when you know that it isn't. And so the challenge, the Jedi approach to coin my wife's metaphor, is extreme neutrality.

47:35To depersonalize everything and not allow any of this to impact your emotional state of being so that you're not reactive in these situations and instead totally equanimous. But change is inherently stressful, and no change is more pronounced than the transformation from childhood to adolescence. So where do we start in better understanding this crazy rollercoaster ride? Interestingly, psychologists mark the beginning of adolescence much earlier than we might suspect, at age 11. The onset of puberty brings significant changes, both visible and internal, impacting the brain's functioning and leading to a redistribution of power to the emotional centers.

48:30As a result, that sweet child who reliably laughed at your jokes and loved your company may suddenly seem distant and moody. This, unfortunately, is not only normal, it's necessary. Adolescence is a time of individuation. It's a healthy part of growing up. We all experienced it, and despite the painful moments that this stage can bring, it's important for us as parents to detach ourselves emotionally from what's happening and understand that our teen's behavior isn't a personal attack. But trust me, achieving this level of detachment is not easy. If you can manage it even 20 % of the time, you're doing exceptionally well.

49:22With this in mind, I want to share a powerful perspective shift, courtesy of teen whisperer and behavioral expert Josh Shipp. While a kid is trying to become a teen and get that independence, you know, they begin to push away the parent. And the way I always think about this is kind of like a roller coaster. meaning you know when you get in the roller coaster seat they put like the lap bar down in your in your lap and if you're like me you kind of grab that bar and like wiggle the crap out of it see if it's actually locked yeah i'm just i'm a little ocd in general but also like all right i want to make sure like you know this is safe and this is secure and i and i wiggle it and i push it and i prod it not not hoping it will give leading to my inevitable death but i push it and I prod it and I test it, hoping it will hold.

50:15And kids who are going into the teen years are going to do the exact same thing to you. And they're not pushing and prodding and testing, hoping that you will give, but rather hoping that you will hold, you know, hoping that at this time in their life, when so many things are uncertain and so many things are unsure that you're certain and that you're sure.

50:48There's no denying that parenting is a demanding job. And as many parents can attest, the teen years can present some, let's just call them unique challenges. So how do we maintain a meaningful connection with our teenagers, especially when they start to withdraw emotionally? A powerful mantra that I have relied upon and that has comforted me more times than I can count is this. It's your job to love your kids, but it's not your kid's job to love you. This cannot be overemphasized. So let me say it again. It's your job to love your kids, but it's not your kid's job to love you. Do not look to your kids to meet your emotional needs.

51:36it's simply not their responsibility to make you feel okay, period. I want you to think long and hard about if and when you have done this in the past. Journal those occasions. Develop an awareness of what triggers that impulse. Catch yourself when you find yourself doing it and stop it. in terms of creating and maintaining open communication focus on asking questions rather than lecturing lecturing leads to tuning out questions on the other hand promote critical thinking and they open a window into your teen's perspectives and beliefs instead of imposing your views on them, encourage them to express their own thoughts and develop their own viewpoints.

52:32For example, instead of telling them what they did wrong and what they should have done, this is every parent's impulse, instead, replace that impulse with these three words. Tell me more. Tell me more. You may not like the answers they give, but I gotta tell you, It's a lot better to know what they think than to be kept in the dark. It's essential to remember that as your child grows up, your role shifts. It shifts from control to influence. By asking questions and fostering an environment of open communication, you not only build trust, you help your teenager to think critically and make wise decisions independently, consistently, skills that will serve them well throughout their life.

53:26Once again, this is Josh Shipp. Think of yourself as a coach and think about what a good coach does. Coach prepares the athletes before the game. Let's run drills. Let's go through scenarios. What's that? You're being bullied at school emotionally. You know, some kids being, you know, jerked to you verbally. Let's go through that. You know, let's talk about how you're currently responding. Right. Hmm. Do you think that kind of perpetuates the situation? Do you think they're getting a rise out of that? Like they like to see you snap or cry or yell or whatever. Like, let's go through the different scenarios you're going to be in just like a coach does before the game.

54:03Let's run the drills. Let's go through the stuff. Great job here. You know, watch that. That's, there's the thing that's going to get you. After the game, the coach, great job on this. Let's work on this. Let's review. here's what went well, here's what didn't. But during the game, it's all on them. We can't step on the court. That's not how it works. And I think that's really the game when we talk about influence versus control. That's what it looks like to have a teen, is that you're not out there on the court. You're not out there on the field. You don't, sadly, have control, but you have influence, which means even if you can't control in that moment, because you're not there or they're at school or they're out with friends or they're out God knows where, you do have that influence before and after to try to train them to execute appropriately.

54:58During the teen years, by far, the single most powerful force for adolescent mental health is a strong relationship with caring adults. But it's not just about caring. It's about knowing how to channel that care in a way that resonates with them. It's about meeting them more than halfway, not constantly imposing our expectations or judgments on them. Guilt and fear don't make us better parents, but you know what does? Understanding, patience, and of course, love. Especially when it comes to discipline. By far, one of the most challenging aspects of parenting. To further complicate matters, our children's actions often draw the watchful, judgmental eyes of the public.

55:47We're scrutinized, our parenting styles dissected, and our actions critiqued. The fear of disapproval, coupled with our own confusion, often paralyzes us, leaving us feeling helpless and stressed. K.J. Delantonia, a former New York Times reporter and author who has dedicated her career to studying and understanding family dynamics, is quite wise when it comes to navigating the turbulence of discipline.

56:20So one of the pieces of research that I did myself was to work with a professor at Fordham University and we created an academically peer-reviewed appropriate, I would call it a survey, but I think there's a better word for it, study in which we got a thousand people who were demographically reflective of the United States, not a thousand of my closest Facebook friends, to respond to questions around happiness and parenting. And we use the academic measure for happiness, which is, it's called efficacy. And it's how good do you think you are at this thing? And so one of the things we had on there, as well as lots of questions about, well, how do you decide what your kids have to eat?

57:04And how do you feel about how much homework they have? And how do you feel about your involvement? We had this open-ended question. We actually had two. And one was, what do you like most? And the other one was, what do you like least? And you could just write. So many people responded with some variation of the word discipline that I went back and read through our survey to make sure we weren't secretly cuing them. Like, did we use the word discipline 46 times or something? There was nothing, you know, I couldn't find anything. Like a third, about a third of the answers accumulated around this idea of, I hate disciplining my kids.

57:38I hate making my kids follow the rules. I hate it when my kids do something wrong and I have to punish them. I hate having to come up with consequences. Like there was this real consensus that that was the thing. And I really think that if you had surveyed our parents, they would not have said that. I don't know what they would have said, but I don't think it would have been that. So that was really interesting. It didn't bother them to discipline. No. Right. So what do you make of that? I mean, what does that mean? Well, my theory is that one of the things that's hard is that we are expected to have disciplined kids who behave in public spaces and, you know, act like disciplined kids, but there's no consensus anymore on how we're supposed to get there.

58:19Like when our parents were parenting and when we were being raised, there was this more authoritative culture, authoritarian culture, where the idea was if your child does something wrong, there is a consequence, and that will teach your child not to do the wrong thing. And whether, actually, that didn't necessarily work, and it's got its problems, but it was a thing. Like, there was an expectation. So when your child didn't do the right thing, you knew what you were going to do. You know, you were going to ground them, or you were going to take away the television, or you were going to, you know, not let them go to the dance.

58:54You knew. But now we don't really have an agreement around that. Now it's sort of, well, you know, do you have a conversation with them? Is this a learning experience? Do you try to, you know, do you try to talk to them? What works for your kid? And that's actually, I mean, it's a better space. But it's confusing. But it's confusing. There's no social consensus. It's upsetting. And if you, well, I have a kid who's tough and who has emotional challenges. And one of the things that we discovered for her with this, the consequences just completely backfired. So we would be in a public space and this child would do something, you know, horrific that would cause everyone else to sort of turn and stare, waiting for you to impose some form of, you know, terrible consequence and, you know, and would observe us sort of just standing there and watching the, and it feels terrible.

59:47You know, everyone around you expecting, sort of waiting for you to do something and you knowing that the something that they, that your best choice is to ride this out, but maybe it's the right thing for you. So anyway, I think that makes that lack of a consensus around what we are supposed to do and what we're expected to do and what the people around us will approve of our doing makes that a really stressful thing. Yeah. And so we second guess every move that we make. Yeah. You know, we just don't have an answer. As KJ alluded to, it's important to remember that there's no one size fits all solution.

1:00:24What works for one child might not work for another. This has been the case in my own personal experience. The usual consequences of bad behavior backfired with our most emotional and strong-willed child. Took some time, but I realized that the best course of action with this person was to simply ride it out to let the storm pass and talk about it with them later when we both weren't emotionally charged. The ability to pause in these tough moments takes superhuman amounts of patience. I try to constantly remind myself that these tough moments aren't the end of the world because let's be honest, the ultimate goal isn't to raise perfectly disciplined children.

1:01:07It's to foster emotional resilience, to equip them with the tools they need to face the world with confidence. Once again, let's hear from teen whisperer, Josh Shipp.

1:01:21To parent a teen well, you need to do two things, consistent encouragement and consistent consequences. At the end of the day, if you can do both of those things consistently, your kid's going to be fine. Not perfect, not without issue, not without, you know, fault or flaw or whatever. They're still going to be human. But for the most part, you will have an independent, responsible, caring young person on your hands at the end of that. And with most parents that I see that I've worked with, they tend to err on being really, really good at one or the other, but not so much both. So, you know, sometimes we can be in the media and such very harsh on parents that sort of coddle their kids.

1:02:13And we could say, oh, you're raising entitled kids and don't you realize what you're doing? But that so often comes from a good place of like they want to be encouraging and maybe they weren't encouraged as a child. And it was like a very sort of insanely strict like home with all tough and no tender. And so they're like, well, I'm not going to make that mistake again. Right, they're compensating in the other direction. Yeah. And so, you know, there has to be that encouragement, but there also has to be consistent consequences. And the consequences side can sometimes be the thing that's tricky because to really do it well, the consequences need to be premeditated, predetermined.

1:02:55The entire family needs to be on the same page, not at the time of war, but the time before war. Like meaning before. Because once you're in the war, you're reactive and you're impulsive and emotional and suddenly you're saying things that you didn't sort of plan out ahead of time and that creates inconsistencies. Right. You flip in or you flip out, you know, depending on your personality type. Like you either snap and the punishment is too harsh or you say things you look back at and go, oh, that was so stupid. I wish I wouldn't have said that. That could cause some kind of pain or whatever. Or you flip in because, you know, you're not sure what to do.

1:03:33You're exhausted from your day, the stuff going on in your own life. You don't have a game plan ahead of time. So you just flip in and you go, yeah, it's not a big deal or it's not something I really need to worry about. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of disciplining your children, you're not alone. Every parent grapples with this challenge. They second guess their decisions, and sometimes it just feels like we're failing and failing and failing again. Here's Lisa DeMore's take.

1:04:07So when we look at the research and when we distill all of it on like what kids need at home, it's two things. They need warmth and they need structure. So I think you can actually bring both. So say a kid does something really that they should not have done. You can have the structure of saying, all right, that comes with consequences, right? You know, it's a breach of trust. We got to be able to trust you to let you go out and about. So you will be hanging out with us for the next couple of weekends. and then the warmth can come and be like, what happened? Like, that's so not like you. It's not an either or.

1:04:40Right. And I would just say, you know, if parents are like, where am I supposed to be in all of this? If they just keep going back to that idea, you wanna be warm. They wanna, you wanna feel, you want your kids to feel that you both love them and also actually like them. And you wanna have structure, that there should be a predictability to family life, that the rules should make sense, that the rules should be enforced. that kids are gonna know what's gonna happen. And kids do like rules. Teenagers do like rules. They don't like loosey-goosey adults. I think all the time about moments in my practice where a teenager would float in front of me something like, oh, we were over at Susie's house and Susie's mom will buy for us.

1:05:20And they put it out in this way like, you know, and I would go, really? And they go, I know, it's so weird. I don't know why she does that. And I've learned that they'll often present something kind of neutrally to like check to see how you respond. And even when they seem to be neutral to like positive about it, if I've stayed with my gut and been like, what? They're like, thank you, right? They're so glad. Here's the thing about teenagers. They are like so able to detect dishonesty and hypocrisy, like so much better than at any point in life, like better than kids, better than adults. And they really, really respect honesty.

1:06:06Like they really respect it. And so sometimes if I'm doing an intake with a kid who's in my office because they've gotten themselves in trouble with drinking or something like that, I will say, are you worried about your drinking? Like that's usually how I'll start by asking. And sometimes kids will say actually yes, you know, and then we're off to one conversation. And sometimes they'll say, no, or I don't know. And I will say, I don't know yet how I feel about your drinking. I'm just gonna keep you posted. But based on what you're telling me, I'm not so sure that this is working for you or that this is safe, what you're describing.

1:06:44And I'm amazed by how accepting they are of that. They would so much rather you play your cards face up, even if they don't like your cards, than have it seem like you're bluffing. Mm-hmm. It's okay to accept that you won't always have the answers. And I want you to really hear that. It is okay to be uncertain. Use these moments as learning experiences for both you and your children. As difficult as it is, don't let societal expectations dictate your parenting style. Again, each child is unique and requires a unique approach. So don't feel pressured to conform to the norm. And whatever happens, remember, it's not the end of the world.

1:07:30Our children's mistakes aren't life-threatening. They're learning experiences that will help them grow into resilient, confident individuals. And finally, remember the importance of self-care. Because at the end of the day, if you're not taking care of yourself and your own personal needs, it's really gonna be exceptionally harder for you to care for your child and their needs.

1:07:58Unfortunately, our society often commends the sacrificial parent. It's as if we're socially wired to believe that a good parent is one who relentlessly sacrifices for their children, often to their own detriment. While we are hardwired to prioritize our children's needs over our own, this selflessness often leaves us drained, leaves us unfulfilled, or worse, blaming our children for our own unmet needs. Now, it may feel selfish or indulgent to even consider ourselves when there are lunches to pack, homework to help with, and endless loads of laundry to do. But in reality, our wellbeing directly impacts our ability to parent effectively, our ability to communicate well, and to maintain that all too important equanimity in the face of stress and conflict.

1:08:53Yet, even as we discussed this, I couldn't help but notice a twinge of guilt creeping in because after all, isn't it almost sacrilegious to even consider our own happiness in the face of our children's needs? Isn't our role as parents to bear that brunt of sacrifice and selflessness for their sake? Well, KJ Delantonia has a few thoughts on this. It's actually much better for them to see the adults in their lives having a productive, happy, pleasant, joyful experience. Otherwise, how are they going to learn to do that? But this is like, this is our time, right? We've got 20 plus years of raising our families and being with them and being all together in that same house and sort of having this experience of being a family.

1:09:47I just want us to make it great for everybody. So one of my mantras is that you can be happy when your kids are not. And that definitely makes some people kind of go, whoa. Yeah, it makes people nervous. A little step back there, wait. No, I can't. I can only be as happy as my unhappiest kid, right? That's the saying. I can't be happy when they're not. But let's parse this out. So if you're the kid and things are going wrong for you, like you didn't get invited to the birthday party and you're 11, and your mom is losing her mind because you didn't get invited to the birthday party, a couple of things are happening.

1:10:27First of all, you're like, whoa, maybe this is a big deal. I I mean, I was thinking it was an 11-year-old birthday party, but maybe it's huge. Secondly, our kids don't actually want us to be unhappy. I mean, all right, sometimes it feels like they do, especially at 2 o 'clock in the morning or whatever, but they really don't. So here's your child going, hmm, when I tell my mom that things like that happen, she gets really upset. Maybe I shouldn't tell her. Or, oh, my dad got really, you know, like when I didn't make the team, it really freaked him out. So maybe I should either pretend it doesn't matter to me or not try out because I don't like to upset my parents.

1:11:07So those are some unintentional consequences that they are feeling. Plus, you know, our kids don't need the burden of our happiness on top of theirs because we are worthy of putting time into ourselves and making our own decisions about like sort of how we want to spend Saturday and where we want to go for vacation and even what we want to have for dinner. It doesn't have to revolve around somebody else, whether that's your kids or your parents or anything. I'm sorry, your parents, your partner or anything. It's just I feel like I talked to this great expert, Rick Hansen. You probably know him.

1:11:50He's a neuropsychologist. He's the author of Hardwired for Happiness. And he's written a lot about how human brains are really kind of they're wired to look for the bad stuff, right? Because bad stuff is dangerous. And we've got to look for those tigers. We got to remember where the tigers are. And his idea is that the more time we spend soaking in like the good stuff, the more we can train our brains not to freak out about imaginary tigers because there aren't that many. But the point, the reason I'm sort of telling that story is that at some point he said to me, you know, sometimes I feel like Americans are afraid to be happy.

1:12:23And that really soaked in for me. Like, I don't want to be afraid to be happy. I want to, I want to go for it. I want to, like, grab all the happy that I can. And that doesn't mean, you know, everybody else out of my way. I'm going to get my own happy. It means, you know, let's build something that's wonderful for all of us. Ultimately, being a happier parent is all about our mindset. It's about how we choose to look at our experiences, how we interact with our kids, and what we choose to pay attention to. We can make a conscious decision to focus on the moments of joy and happiness, even in the mundane routines of daily life.

1:13:11As KJ aptly put it, a significant part of being happier is about choosing to pay attention to the things that bring us happiness. Being a parent isn't about achieving perfection. It's about nurturing our children. It's about guiding them through life's challenges. And most importantly, being happy. After all, happiness isn't just the destination. It truly is the journey. Whether you're a parent, a guardian, a teacher, or simply someone who interacts with children on a daily basis, your happiness influences those around you. Kids pick up on our moods and our emotions, often mirroring them. If we radiate joy and positivity, they are likely to do the same.

1:14:02It is in this vein that parenting offers a huge challenge and a gift. It pushes us to be the best, most authentic version of ourselves, more than any other experience in life. we have a duty to lead by example and to be mindful about the messages we convey and the values we embody. It's about proving that it's possible to live a fulfilling, successful, and happy life while also staying true to who you are and what you believe in. Because in the end, the most powerful message we can impart to our children is the importance of being yourself.

1:15:03Today's masterclass was packed with a battery of resources, and my hope is that they serve you on your parenting journey. While I can't offer you a prescription for parenting, I hope this primer has given you some perspective on how to parent more consciously. A reminder that links to the full episodes for each of the individuals excerpted today can be found in the show notes at richroll.com. And if you want to check out our past Masterclass episodes, those too are linked in this episode's show notes and available at richroll.com or your favorite streaming platform. Thank you for spending this time with me and my guests.

1:15:43I hope you found it both helpful and instructive. Until next time, peace, love, namaste.