Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1201 - Free Range Parenting 101 With Lenore Skenazy

Transcript

#1201 - Free Range Parenting 101 With Lenore Skenazy · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:06
Speaker 1: This is the Happy Families Podcast. Thanks so much for
0:09
Speaker 1: being a part of these in depth podcast discussions. My
0:12
Speaker 1: name is doctor Justin Colson. I'm a dad to six
0:14
Speaker 1: kids and the author of six books about raising happy families.
0:19
Speaker 1: And on this episode we're having a conversation with Lenor Scanes.
0:23
Speaker 1: She's the president of Let Grow, a not for profit
0:25
Speaker 1: organization that promotes childhood independence and resilience, and also the
0:30
Speaker 1: founder of the Free Range Kids movement. Leno was also branded,
0:34
Speaker 1: quite famously the World's worst mum. Let's start at the
0:40
Speaker 1: peak Lenor Scanazi moment where you've got a nine year
0:44
Speaker 1: old son. It's probably what was it about ten or
0:46
Speaker 1: twelve years ago? Now, oh wow, okay, so yep, So
0:51
Speaker 1: you've got a nine year old son and you say, mate,
0:54
Speaker 1: why don't you catch the subway home?
0:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not what I say. First of all, we
0:59
Speaker 2: don't see meat. But more importantly, our son was asking
1:03
Speaker 2: us if we would take him someplace he'd never been
1:05
Speaker 2: before and let him find his own way home on
1:07
Speaker 2: the subway, which is how we get around in New
1:09
Speaker 2: York City all the time. And this was not something
1:12
Speaker 2: that our older son had asked us when he was
1:14
Speaker 2: nine so it was something that we really had to
1:16
Speaker 2: think about, my husband and I before we said yes.
1:20
Speaker 2: But then finally we did say, okay, we'll do this.
1:22
Speaker 2: We'll let you take the subway by yourself.
1:24
Speaker 1: It's kind of independent, really, isn't it. A nine year
1:26
Speaker 1: old aunt usually saying give me a challenge. Let's just
1:29
Speaker 1: let's just drop me somewhere in the city and let
1:31
Speaker 1: me try to get home. So has he always been
1:33
Speaker 1: an independent minded kind of kid.
1:35
Speaker 2: I would say he is. But I think that we're
1:37
Speaker 2: sort of right and wrong on whether kids have always
1:41
Speaker 2: or don't ask this kind of thing. I think that
1:43
Speaker 2: a generation or two before this, it wouldn't have been
1:45
Speaker 2: a conversation because it would have happened naturally. You know,
1:49
Speaker 2: kids would have been either getting on their bikes if
1:51
Speaker 2: they were in the suburbs, or riding the bus or
1:53
Speaker 2: subway if they were in the city, you know, to
1:55
Speaker 2: get to a music lesson, to get to school, to
1:57
Speaker 2: get to grandma's house, to get to a know, an
2:00
Speaker 2: empty lot and start a baseball game and hang out
2:02
Speaker 2: there all day. And so even the fact that he
2:05
Speaker 2: had to ask, as opposed to this just being a
2:08
Speaker 2: normal thing that kids just do on their own is
2:11
Speaker 2: indicative of it being, you know, a more sort of
2:14
Speaker 2: mother may I kind of era than it was before. So, yeah,
2:17
Speaker 2: he was asking him that was unusual, but I don't
2:20
Speaker 2: think his independence would have been unusual in any other generation.
2:24
Speaker 1: When you had the conversation with your husband and then
2:26
Speaker 1: decided that we're comfortable with this, we'll give it a go.
2:30
Speaker 1: We'll take you into the city and we'll go home,
2:33
Speaker 1: and then we'll see you at home in a couple
2:35
Speaker 1: of hours. Hopefully.
2:37
Speaker 2: What we said that's a bigger you're making it into
2:39
Speaker 2: a bigger deal because we were in the city, right
2:41
Speaker 2: We lived in Manhattan at the time, and we were
2:43
Speaker 2: sending him. You know, we just took the subway up
2:46
Speaker 2: to this beautiful, fancy department store, which is why it
2:49
Speaker 2: was someplace he had never been before because we don't
2:51
Speaker 2: usually shot there. And then all he had to do
2:54
Speaker 2: was come back down on the subway about four or
2:56
Speaker 2: five stops, and then we don't live right near there,
3:00
Speaker 2: so he had to take another little bus across town.
3:02
Speaker 2: All together, it might have taken an hour if that.
3:05
Speaker 1: When you went through this conversation and actually got to
3:08
Speaker 1: the point where you're like, okay, let's do this. What
3:10
Speaker 1: reservations did you have? At what point were you thinking?
3:13
Speaker 1: Are we crazy? Is this normal? A generation to go
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Speaker 1: it would have been fine, but it's a different world. Now,
3:18
Speaker 1: what are we thinking? What sort of concerns did you
3:21
Speaker 1: have beforehand?
3:22
Speaker 2: We had the concern that we wanted to make sure
3:24
Speaker 2: that he knew what he was doing. And so even
3:27
Speaker 2: though we are on the subways all the time, and now,
3:29
Speaker 2: some kids love certain things, like there are kids who
3:31
Speaker 2: love cars or dolls or whatever, he loved the subway,
3:33
Speaker 2: loves you know, we'd love public transportation, but we wanted
3:36
Speaker 2: to make sure he understood that. You know that you're
3:38
Speaker 2: reading the map and the green line, which is the
3:40
Speaker 2: line that he was going to have to take. That's
3:42
Speaker 2: the four, five, and six train. For anybody who's been
3:44
Speaker 2: to New York City, that that was the train you
3:47
Speaker 2: would have to take, and you know this is the
3:48
Speaker 2: stock you get off on. And then of course we're
3:50
Speaker 2: always on that extremely slow bus, so he knew that
3:53
Speaker 2: he would have to wait for the bus at the
3:54
Speaker 2: bus stop. I don't recall telling him this that time,
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Speaker 2: but I've always told my kids that you can talk
3:59
Speaker 2: to strain, you can't go off with strangers. So if
4:02
Speaker 2: you need help from somebody, certainly you can ask a
4:05
Speaker 2: question of somebody, but you can't get into somebody's car.
4:07
Speaker 2: You can't go off with somebody. And other than that,
4:11
Speaker 2: we prepared him with a couple of things. We gave
4:12
Speaker 2: him a subway map twenty dollars, just in case you
4:15
Speaker 2: needed something went really terribly wrong and he needed to
4:18
Speaker 2: take a cab or something quarters because even twelve years
4:23
Speaker 2: ago there were still some payphones in the subway, and
4:27
Speaker 2: and a metro card, which is the card that you
4:30
Speaker 2: slide through the entryway to get into the trains to
4:33
Speaker 2: pay your fare. And so I'd say that we didn't
4:36
Speaker 2: think we were crazy because we were preparing him, and
4:40
Speaker 2: because it wasn't something that he was saying, no, Mom,
4:42
Speaker 2: I don't want to do this. This was his idea
4:44
Speaker 2: and something that we had all discussed and decided he
4:47
Speaker 2: was ready for. You know, I'm a reporter by trade.
4:49
Speaker 2: I spent years and years at the New York Daily News,
4:53
Speaker 2: which is if you've seen the Superman movies, it's actually
4:56
Speaker 2: they call it the Daily Planet, but they shoot the
4:59
Speaker 2: movies the Daily News, which is where I worked, And
5:01
Speaker 2: so as a tabloid reporter. I was steeped in the city.
5:06
Speaker 2: You know, I went everywhere on stories hither and Yon,
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Speaker 2: and I had a very i'd say realistic view of
5:12
Speaker 2: the city based on being very much part of it.
5:16
Speaker 2: And that's very different from I think the way the
5:19
Speaker 2: story obviously resonated around the world because if you watch
5:23
Speaker 2: you know, TV shows, especially Law and Order Geez set
5:28
Speaker 2: in New York City, you think there's a murder every second,
5:30
Speaker 2: and there are always children, and they're always raped beforehand,
5:33
Speaker 2: and they're always cut into pieces. And in fact, the
5:35
Speaker 2: crime rate, the crime rate right now is crazy because
5:38
Speaker 2: of COVID, but for since the nineties, the crime rate
5:41
Speaker 2: has been going down, down, down, down, down. So given
5:45
Speaker 2: all that, I didn't think we were crazy, And in fact,
5:48
Speaker 2: there are a lot of things that I wouldn't let
5:50
Speaker 2: my nine year old do, and that I'm sorry that
5:51
Speaker 2: my twenty two year old does. I absolutely I am
5:54
Speaker 2: terrified of cars, but I guess he has to drive.
5:56
Speaker 2: But taking the subway did not strike me as crazy.
5:58
Speaker 1: Every now and again, also kids off to play in
6:00
Speaker 1: the park, or I'll tell them to go for a
6:03
Speaker 1: walk around the block, or jump on their bikes and
6:05
Speaker 1: ride to school or whatever it might be. And as
6:08
Speaker 1: they leave the driveway, my heart goes with them, and
6:12
Speaker 1: I think to myself, I know what the crime statistics are. Loosely,
6:15
Speaker 1: I know that I live in a pretty safe area.
6:18
Speaker 1: I know all of these things. But there's this part
6:20
Speaker 1: of me that just seizes up and thinks, what have
6:22
Speaker 1: you just done. You've sent the ten year old on
6:24
Speaker 1: a bike ride with a twelve year old. What's going
6:26
Speaker 1: to happen? Now? It's a challenging thing. And then you know,
6:29
Speaker 1: maybe the six year old says, can I go too?
6:32
Speaker 1: And I think to myself, well, can I send a
6:35
Speaker 1: six year old in the care of a ten and
6:36
Speaker 1: a twelve year old? And at this point the answer
6:38
Speaker 1: is no, because she's six. But it's a really, really,
6:42
Speaker 1: really big challenge to kind of encounter and work through
6:46
Speaker 1: these things, even when you know rationally that it should
6:50
Speaker 1: be just fine.
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Speaker 2: I've just said the last This weekend, my kids were
6:53
Speaker 2: visiting me and they're now twenty two and twenty four,
6:55
Speaker 2: and when they were driving home together, I was like,
6:58
Speaker 2: both my kids are in the carriage. Oh no, oh no,
7:01
Speaker 2: which is just normal. But here's what we're talking about.
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Speaker 2: You're saying is it rational or irrational to worry this way,
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Speaker 2: to calculate the odds as we're doing. I'd say that
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Speaker 2: there's no way to be a parent without being worried,
7:16
Speaker 2: or at least I haven't figured that out yet. But
7:19
Speaker 2: what I think is different from our about our generation.
7:22
Speaker 2: I'm actually I'm older than you, so about your generation,
7:25
Speaker 2: and then our parents are grandparents or anybody before that,
7:30
Speaker 2: is that when my mom let me walk to school,
7:34
Speaker 2: and it was age five, and she didn't do it
7:36
Speaker 2: because she was a free range mom or a crazy person.
7:39
Speaker 2: She was doing it because everybody let their kids walk
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Speaker 2: to school at age five in the suburb where I
7:43
Speaker 2: was growing up outside of Chicago. She was a nervous mom.
7:47
Speaker 2: You know, she was a regular mom. But back then
7:49
Speaker 2: you let kids do that, and when you let the
7:51
Speaker 2: children go, you weren't sitting there going, oh my god,
7:54
Speaker 2: I hope she makes it. It's going to be about
7:56
Speaker 2: a six minute walk, and she's only five, and she's
7:59
Speaker 2: so well and the world is such a terrible place
8:01
Speaker 2: and if anything terable happened to her, I couldn't live
8:03
Speaker 2: with myself. Forget it. I'm gonna go get her and
8:05
Speaker 2: drive her myself and that simply wasn't the catechism Back then,
8:10
Speaker 2: you didn't have to go through what about you know?
8:13
Speaker 2: And then name you know? What about you know? Elizabeth Smart?
8:16
Speaker 2: What about you know? Maddie McCann. You weren't thinking that
8:20
Speaker 2: a normal mom, a normal good mom, should be thinking
8:23
Speaker 2: about the murder of their child every time the child
8:27
Speaker 2: was out of their sight, or the death on the
8:29
Speaker 2: bike on the walk on you know. So that is new,
8:34
Speaker 2: and it feels normal because we it is normal to worry.
8:38
Speaker 2: But I feel like these new extravagant worries are super
8:42
Speaker 2: imposed on us by a culture that I've seen up close,
8:47
Speaker 2: in part because of the question that was asked to me.
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Speaker 2: You know, I let my son ride the subway. Okay,
8:52
Speaker 2: most interviewers at the very beginning, and I'd say the
8:55
Speaker 2: very beginning. For the first four years, I would say,
8:57
Speaker 2: we're saying, okay, you know, he had a good time,
8:59
Speaker 2: you're proud, he's elated, he feels grown up. Great, that's
9:03
Speaker 2: all great, But what if he hadn't come home? Framing
9:06
Speaker 2: it in the negative? I never had a good answer.
9:09
Speaker 2: How would I have felt? Funny? You should ask, I'd
9:13
Speaker 2: feel great because I don't have to feed another kid.
9:15
Speaker 2: I mean, there was like no normal answer that you
9:18
Speaker 2: could give to that question other than this is how
9:22
Speaker 2: I'd feel. And in a way, this is what they
9:25
Speaker 2: were trying to make me feel. They were trying to
9:28
Speaker 2: take a positive story and turn it back into the
9:31
Speaker 2: story that television loves, which is he never came home.
9:34
Speaker 2: So the fact that he did come home, Okay, let's
9:36
Speaker 2: ignore that and think about how terrible a mom she
9:39
Speaker 2: would have been if that had happened. And why wasn't
9:41
Speaker 2: she thinking that way? You're always supposed to be thinking
9:45
Speaker 2: in this extremely dark, dystopian way about your kid if
9:50
Speaker 2: they're beyond your sight, and that's what's new, And I
9:53
Speaker 2: feel like it's superimposed by questions like that. When an
9:57
Speaker 2: interview would say, well, how would you have felt, it's like,
9:59
Speaker 2: you know how I feel. I would feel lower than hell. Okay,
10:03
Speaker 2: but why are we talking about it? Why? You know,
10:06
Speaker 2: why can't we celebrate when a kid does something normal
10:09
Speaker 2: that I'd say, you know, most nine year olds could
10:12
Speaker 2: do if they felt like it. Worry is normal, but
10:15
Speaker 2: us worrying when the kid goes around the block worrying.
10:18
Speaker 2: I would say, even if a six year old is
10:20
Speaker 2: with a ten and a twelve year old who love
10:22
Speaker 2: him or her and care about them. That's new.
10:26
Speaker 1: What I'm interested in is this, You've been doing some
10:28
Speaker 1: work with let grow dot org with one of the
10:31
Speaker 1: best thinkers in the world of psychology, Jonathan Hate and
10:35
Speaker 1: actually two of the.
10:36
Speaker 2: Best thinkers in the world of psychology, Jonathan Height, and
10:39
Speaker 2: also Peter Gray, doctor Peter Gray.
10:41
Speaker 1: Now you're just showing off genius. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well,
10:44
Speaker 1: I just want to talk about John at the moment
10:46
Speaker 1: because his research is what has fascinated me the most,
10:48
Speaker 1: because Peter really focuses on the play aspect of life,
10:51
Speaker 1: and John has always focused so much more on the
10:54
Speaker 1: I guess, on the social psychology and the data and trends.
10:58
Speaker 1: And what I'm really curious about is what as you've
11:01
Speaker 1: worked as a trio, what have you discovered in the data,
11:04
Speaker 1: what's the data showing in terms of this, Well, is
11:07
Speaker 1: there a trend? And everybody's you know, getting so excited
11:10
Speaker 1: about the outlaws the unusual stories.
11:14
Speaker 2: First of all, I do think there's something. I'm happy
11:18
Speaker 2: you mentioned the outliers and the unusual stories because I
11:20
Speaker 2: feel like they are driving so much of our regular
11:24
Speaker 2: life based on the saddest, worst, most anomalous, unpredictable stories
11:30
Speaker 2: that if there was some way we could get rid
11:32
Speaker 2: of the story of one horrible accident or one horrible crime,
11:37
Speaker 2: or one horrible shooting, I think we would all be
11:41
Speaker 2: at a much better set point rather than using those terrible,
11:44
Speaker 2: outlying stories as the norm from which we decide how
11:49
Speaker 2: we should live our lives. But the thing that son,
11:52
Speaker 2: Jonathan Heyde is a big fan of free range kids,
11:55
Speaker 2: and he's raising his free range kids, and I feel
11:58
Speaker 2: great about that. But he came to me a couple
12:01
Speaker 2: of years ago, and his hypothesis was that young adults,
12:08
Speaker 2: and by young adults re meets college age and a
12:10
Speaker 2: little bit beyond were becoming fragile. And as it turns out,
12:15
Speaker 2: doctor Peter Gray had noticed this too. That you know,
12:19
Speaker 2: I think it's great when kids go for you know,
12:22
Speaker 2: the psychological services they need. And believe me, I live
12:24
Speaker 2: in New York, I'm a Jew, I'm a woman. I've
12:26
Speaker 2: been to as much therapy as anybody could posibly have
12:29
Speaker 2: because of these demographics. So I love therapy. However, it
12:34
Speaker 2: seems like at this point on the college campuses, and
12:36
Speaker 2: I'm talking about before COVID because COVID is just so
12:39
Speaker 2: weird that the colleges could not keep up with the
12:44
Speaker 2: number of kids who were seeking therapy and who seemed
12:47
Speaker 2: to be falling apart and not falling apart after a
12:51
Speaker 2: breakup with a girlfriend or a boyfriend or something very large,
12:55
Speaker 2: but often after a bee like a not a bee
12:58
Speaker 2: like this, like a bee, or after an argument with
13:02
Speaker 2: the roommate, after a mouse in the dorm. And John
13:08
Speaker 2: and Peter were thinking, where is this fragility coming from?
13:12
Speaker 2: Why do the kids think they need to talk to
13:15
Speaker 2: either counselor or they have to talk to their dean
13:17
Speaker 2: because they're so worried about their grades, or they're calling
13:20
Speaker 2: their parents as they walk across the campus because they
13:22
Speaker 2: feel afraid to walk without talking to somebody while they're
13:25
Speaker 2: crossing the campus. This seemed new, and it seems sad.
13:30
Speaker 2: You know, here it is this blossoming time of your life,
13:33
Speaker 2: and yet a lot of kids were very, very anxious
13:36
Speaker 2: and depressed. And if you're asking about the data, the
13:39
Speaker 2: data are that anxiety and depression among young people has
13:44
Speaker 2: been going up for the last several decades. And I
13:48
Speaker 2: you talk about it, but so suicide. So it's not
13:51
Speaker 2: just you know, choosing to call more things depressed or
13:55
Speaker 2: kids saying I'm depressed because there's a certain social cachet
13:59
Speaker 2: to it. It really does seemed to be weighing on
14:01
Speaker 2: the kids. And so John came to me and said,
14:05
Speaker 2: I think this is starting younger. You seem to be
14:07
Speaker 2: the only person. I'm not the only person who is
14:11
Speaker 2: trying to fight the over protection that seems to be
14:14
Speaker 2: undermining kids. And let's work together and start a nonprofit
14:19
Speaker 2: that tries to overthrow the over protection that is not
14:23
Speaker 2: helping kids, it's hurting kids. And so I said, no,
14:27
Speaker 2: I didn't want to start a nonprofit. I'm a journalist
14:30
Speaker 2: by trade. I liked just being a lone wolf on
14:33
Speaker 2: my free range track. But a couple of years later
14:36
Speaker 2: he persuaded me. And also by then, I've found somebody
14:38
Speaker 2: who actually knows about how to start a business. And
14:41
Speaker 2: so together the three of us plus Daniel Stuckman, who
14:45
Speaker 2: used to be the chairman of Fire, which fights for
14:47
Speaker 2: free speech on campus, also worrying that there was a
14:50
Speaker 2: trend on campus where kids were saying that if somebody
14:54
Speaker 2: came to speak whom they didn't like or whom they
14:57
Speaker 2: disagreed with, rather than saying why'd they invite this jerk?
15:01
Speaker 2: Or rather than reading up on that person's work and
15:03
Speaker 2: then coming and raising your hand at you know, in
15:06
Speaker 2: the Q and a time and you know, offering a
15:08
Speaker 2: piercing critique and the question to boot. Instead they were saying,
15:11
Speaker 2: don't let them come on campus. They I'm not safe
15:15
Speaker 2: if this speaker is coming to campus. And we're not
15:17
Speaker 2: talking about a rabble rousing, you know, machette wielding speaker.
15:21
Speaker 2: We're talking about a speaker with a difference of opinion
15:23
Speaker 2: or often in a different political party. And so Daniel
15:28
Speaker 2: was worried that free speech was going to die because
15:33
Speaker 2: if it seems like it's actually hurting somebody, actually physically
15:38
Speaker 2: harming someone, how could you fight for it. How can
15:43
Speaker 2: a president of a college say no, we're going to
15:44
Speaker 2: have that person come speak anyway if the students feel
15:47
Speaker 2: like that is literally putting them in danger. So there's
15:51
Speaker 2: this idea of the sort of through line too. All
15:54
Speaker 2: this is seeing a normal situation that everybody has doubt
16:00
Speaker 2: in the past, whether it's a speaker you don't like
16:02
Speaker 2: or a walk to get your cricket magazine, and instead
16:05
Speaker 2: of seeing it as just something that either is okay
16:08
Speaker 2: or maybe even good. It was all seen through the
16:11
Speaker 2: lens of risk and danger. And so we've started let
16:15
Speaker 2: Grow with the desire to start so young with kids,
16:20
Speaker 2: getting them used to being part of the world, being challenged,
16:23
Speaker 2: standing up for themselves, having fun, being curious, following their interests,
16:29
Speaker 2: organizing a game without some adult deciding whether you're in
16:33
Speaker 2: or out and moves on what team, just doing some
16:35
Speaker 2: of these age old things that seem to be since
16:38
Speaker 2: time immemorial part of childhood, giving them back to children
16:42
Speaker 2: and making parents feel that it's a good idea, that
16:45
Speaker 2: it's not crazy dangerous, and that actually you're doing something
16:49
Speaker 2: that you know. Not only does let Grow approve a bit,
16:53
Speaker 2: but these extremely vaunted social psychologists and other psyche moral
16:57
Speaker 2: psychologists think it's good for your kids. So we want
16:59
Speaker 2: to to renormalize the idea of giving kids back some independence.
17:04
Speaker 1: There are so many things that I want to pull
17:05
Speaker 1: out of there, and time is going to get the
17:07
Speaker 1: better of us because there's still so much that I
17:09
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about. Maybe I've just made
17:12
Speaker 1: three notes as I've listened to everything that you've said,
17:15
Speaker 1: and I'm going to ignore the rest of it. Not
17:16
Speaker 1: because it's not brilliant to discuss, but simply because timeline
17:20
Speaker 1: allows us to discuss all of that. The first thing
17:24
Speaker 1: that I want to highlight is something that you prompted
17:26
Speaker 1: in my memory. As you talk about the trends and
17:28
Speaker 1: the data. I've been looking into perfectionism recently, and my sense, yeah,
17:35
Speaker 1: my sense is that perfectionism is following the same trend
17:37
Speaker 1: and is probably linked here. The idea with perfectionism is
17:41
Speaker 1: that I either expect a lot of myself or I
17:44
Speaker 1: feel like everybody else expects a lot of me. And
17:48
Speaker 1: it seems that the most complex and debilitating form of perfectionism.
17:53
Speaker 1: There is another form as well, by the way, and
17:54
Speaker 1: that's when you expect perfection of those outside you. So
17:56
Speaker 1: there are three forms of it, but the one that
17:58
Speaker 1: seems to be most debilitating is the one where we
18:01
Speaker 1: have an expectation that everybody around us expects so much
18:06
Speaker 1: of us and we can't possibly live up to it.
18:08
Speaker 1: And what I'm hearing as I think about John and
18:11
Speaker 1: Greg Lukenof's book The Coddling of the American Mind, and
18:14
Speaker 1: I think about the things that you've just talked about,
18:16
Speaker 1: is there seems to be this desire on the part
18:19
Speaker 1: of parents to create a perfect world for their children,
18:24
Speaker 1: a world where their children don't have to take risks
18:26
Speaker 1: and always do feel safe, because if we can create
18:30
Speaker 1: that instagram worthy perfect world, and I know that, I
18:32
Speaker 1: guess I'm relying on tropes and stereotypes a little bit
18:35
Speaker 1: as I summarize a whole lot of things here. Parents
18:38
Speaker 1: feel like they can control everything to give their kids
18:42
Speaker 1: the best outcomes, and aligned with that, the data doesn't
18:45
Speaker 1: just show the points that you've made around safetyism, I guess,
18:52
Speaker 1: but the data also shows that what we would call
18:55
Speaker 1: autonomy supportive parenting, That is parenting along the lines of
18:59
Speaker 1: what you've just discidribed with your son when he called
19:02
Speaker 1: that subway tryin as a nine year old. That is,
19:04
Speaker 1: you sit down and you put the scaffolding in, You
19:06
Speaker 1: do the pre work, You make sure that they're going
19:07
Speaker 1: to be okay, and say, all right, it's your life.
19:10
Speaker 1: If you go, I'm with you.
19:13
Speaker 2: Now, I just have to jump in. There's som much
19:15
Speaker 2: to say. First of all, you can never say you're
19:17
Speaker 2: going to be fine, because that's that is the idea
19:19
Speaker 2: of control, I mean, the illusion that we can control
19:23
Speaker 2: for every variable. It leads to bureaucracy pickup.
19:27
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and.
19:28
Speaker 2: I think it leads to extreme nervousness on the part
19:32
Speaker 2: of parents because there's no there's no acknowledgment that like,
19:37
Speaker 2: we can't control everything. We aren't God. You know, we
19:39
Speaker 2: think we are. We have the phones, we can track them,
19:41
Speaker 2: we can see who they texted, we can you know,
19:43
Speaker 2: there's cameras everywhere. But in fact we're not in complete control.
19:47
Speaker 2: And you know, if you think you are, you will
19:49
Speaker 2: never be able to let go at all because you
19:52
Speaker 2: will think if anything bad happens, there will be no grace.
19:56
Speaker 1: So it's really no, it's more it's more about not
19:58
Speaker 1: saying you be fun. It's more about saying I feel
20:00
Speaker 1: like we've done everything we can to help you to
20:02
Speaker 1: have a good experience. I hope you'll be fine, but
20:04
Speaker 1: if you won't, we'll do what we need to, or
20:06
Speaker 1: you'll do what you need to to make it fun eventually.
20:09
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, part of it is, yes, trusting
20:12
Speaker 2: that your kid can roll with some punches. Yeah, I mean,
20:14
Speaker 2: part of it is that we're told that the kids
20:16
Speaker 2: are as fragile, so we treat them as gradual and
20:18
Speaker 2: it becomes this sort of princess and the pe you
20:21
Speaker 2: know exercise where we keep making things safer and better
20:24
Speaker 2: until they expect too much more. But back to perfectionism,
20:29
Speaker 2: you know you're mentioning. It makes me want to actually
20:32
Speaker 2: research it more because I think it is like a
20:35
Speaker 2: third almost disability that we are imposing upon kids. And
20:40
Speaker 2: I say this because there's this one seventh grade teacher
20:43
Speaker 2: I just love who did the Lecro project, which is
20:46
Speaker 2: sending kids home with the homework assignment. You must do
20:49
Speaker 2: something on your own without your parents that you haven't
20:50
Speaker 2: done before. You know, walk the dog, make dinner, you know,
20:53
Speaker 2: run an errand babysit whatever. She was talking about. One
20:58
Speaker 2: of the reasons she decided to do the project with
21:00
Speaker 2: her class is that she'd never seen a group of
21:03
Speaker 2: kids and this was a year ago as nervous as
21:07
Speaker 2: the seventh grader she had. And one of the one
21:10
Speaker 2: of the sort of ways she explained to me what
21:13
Speaker 2: was going on is she'll say, I'll say, okay, take
21:16
Speaker 2: out your paper and you know, put your name on it.
21:17
Speaker 2: We're going to have a quiz. And they would be like,
21:20
Speaker 2: we put her name in the right hand side or
21:21
Speaker 2: the left hand side, and it's like the left hand side, Yeah,
21:26
Speaker 2: but just the last name, you know, do you need
21:28
Speaker 2: the date on it? And and to me that that
21:32
Speaker 2: bespeaks perfectionism or a fear, and fear is at the
21:35
Speaker 2: bottom of it. It's like if I do one thing wrong,
21:38
Speaker 2: if I get a bad grade, if I disappoint the teacher,
21:41
Speaker 2: if I look stupid. The thing that she kept saying
21:45
Speaker 2: that the kids kept saying to her is I don't
21:46
Speaker 2: want to get out of my comfort zone. And the
21:48
Speaker 2: comfort zone is extremely narrow, to the point where she
21:52
Speaker 2: said that one kid came to her class it was
21:56
Speaker 2: actually an extra class at lunchtime, a little late kid
21:58
Speaker 2: didn't have time to get her lunch. So the teacher said, okay,
22:01
Speaker 2: just go get your lunch and you know, well, you
22:03
Speaker 2: know when you come back, you'll just jump right in.
22:06
Speaker 2: And the kids said, by myself. And so that struck
22:11
Speaker 2: me as like you've developed so little self confidence that
22:16
Speaker 2: you don't think you can handle anything, whether it's you know,
22:19
Speaker 2: what if you put your name on the paper wrong,
22:21
Speaker 2: what if you're walking by yourself to the cafeteria and
22:24
Speaker 2: it's scary or lonely. This is your school. You're seventh grader,
22:27
Speaker 2: you're thirteen years old, you know, in some countries you'd
22:29
Speaker 2: be dragooned into the army by then, which I also
22:32
Speaker 2: think is a bad idea, but to raise these kids.
22:35
Speaker 2: And so then she had them write down what they
22:37
Speaker 2: would like to do for their you know, what was
22:39
Speaker 2: their thing that they were hesitant to do, but they
22:41
Speaker 2: wanted to do for theirlet Grow project. And the answers were,
22:44
Speaker 2: I want to walk my dog, but what if he
22:45
Speaker 2: gets off the leash. I want to go and run
22:47
Speaker 2: an errand, but the store is filled with strangers. I
22:51
Speaker 2: want to use a knife, but I'm afraid of cutting
22:53
Speaker 2: off my fingers. So everything was was so terrifying to them,
22:59
Speaker 2: the simplest things, And parents have kept them from walking
23:03
Speaker 2: to school because it might be dangerous. And don't use
23:05
Speaker 2: the knife, you might hurt yourself, and I'll run the
23:07
Speaker 2: errand with you. You don't know this, you know, you
23:09
Speaker 2: don't know where the stuff is in the store. You've
23:11
Speaker 2: never made change for yourself, you don't know how to
23:14
Speaker 2: talk to the cashier. Well, of course they don't know
23:15
Speaker 2: how to do anything if you've done them for them
23:18
Speaker 2: the whole time, and you've created the very ineptitude that
23:22
Speaker 2: you're worried about them having and in the in the
23:25
Speaker 2: absence of doing anything on your own and succeeding, in
23:28
Speaker 2: the absence of taking that long walk and getting the
23:30
Speaker 2: cricket magazine because you say for it, you walk to it.
23:34
Speaker 2: It was too far and you did it anyway. Without
23:36
Speaker 2: that Jenga piece, kids are falling apart. And all I'm
23:41
Speaker 2: saying is, let's remember that there's no such thing as
23:44
Speaker 2: I want a zero risk childhood for my kid. It's like,
23:47
Speaker 2: when you're taking away all that risk, you're raising the
23:49
Speaker 2: risk of depression, anxiety, perfectionism, despair because all you've raised
23:55
Speaker 2: is a person who looks like a person, but there's
23:56
Speaker 2: nothing inside. It hasn't been knitted together by life. You
24:00
Speaker 2: have to take a step back for your kids to
24:02
Speaker 2: step up. That's it.
24:04
Speaker 1: I love your passion. I'm thinking so many again, so
24:14
Speaker 1: many thoughts. Let me uh, let me, let me go
24:16
Speaker 1: back a quick step. You know why kids love kids
24:19
Speaker 1: books because they're always about the kids. The parents. The
24:23
Speaker 1: parents are vanished. Where are the parents? The kids are
24:24
Speaker 1: living their lives and they're they're exploring the woods, or
24:27
Speaker 1: they're climbing the trees, they're having their adventures and.
24:29
Speaker 2: The and then yes, there's so.
24:32
Speaker 1: Much joy to be had when the parents run around.
24:34
Speaker 1: I've heard you talk about the difference between risk and risky, right, risk.
24:41
Speaker 2: Is inherent and everything. I mean, boy, I don't watch them,
24:44
Speaker 2: but a friend who watches the home improvement shows, you know,
24:48
Speaker 2: I wish I had a better looking pass. Obviously, I
24:50
Speaker 2: don't watch the home improvement shows look at this place,
24:53
Speaker 2: but those who do tell me that they keep hearing
24:56
Speaker 2: a couple of things, parents that are saying that they
25:00
Speaker 2: seems like it's a normal desire. Right now, there's parents saying,
25:03
Speaker 2: I don't want any walls in the you know, I
25:05
Speaker 2: want to be able to have a clear sight line
25:07
Speaker 2: to my kids at all times. It's like those poor kids,
25:11
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes you just want to get away from
25:13
Speaker 2: your mom and sneak the comic book. You know.
25:15
Speaker 1: Oh, it's like social media, right. The kids have discovered
25:18
Speaker 1: that parents are always watching what they're doing because social
25:20
Speaker 1: media is risky. And let's face it, there is risk
25:23
Speaker 1: in anything that happens online and everything, but the kids.
25:26
Speaker 2: There's also risk in not doing it and being the
25:28
Speaker 2: only one who doesn't have a you know, a way
25:30
Speaker 2: of communicating and planning. But I wanted to say, the
25:34
Speaker 2: idea of risk and risky and so so the parents
25:36
Speaker 2: want to get rid of the site, you know, any
25:38
Speaker 2: any blocks to sitelines and then a lot of times
25:40
Speaker 2: and I haven't seen these, so this is heresay. They
25:43
Speaker 2: don't want a house with stairs. And what's interesting about
25:47
Speaker 2: that is that of course they're afraid of their kids
25:49
Speaker 2: falling down the stairs. How do you learn not to
25:53
Speaker 2: fall down the stairs? Got to you gotta climb some
25:56
Speaker 2: The stairstairs are not like a weird part of life
25:58
Speaker 2: that you could avoid like oysters, you know, or or
26:02
Speaker 2: esque argo or something. It does like why I'm only
26:04
Speaker 2: thinking about shelled fish, I don't know. But the point
26:06
Speaker 2: is that stairs, like the actual contours of the earth
26:10
Speaker 2: are sort of like stairs. There are hills, there are mountains,
26:12
Speaker 2: there are valleys, there are streams, there are rocks, there
26:14
Speaker 2: are trees. The idea that you should have a completely flat,
26:19
Speaker 2: no stairs, no you know, blockades between you and the
26:24
Speaker 2: child effort is like setting a prison. I mean, you're
26:27
Speaker 2: trying to create a panopticon where you see the child
26:30
Speaker 2: all the time, you can be in control all the time,
26:33
Speaker 2: and parents are unashamedly asking for that on these home
26:38
Speaker 2: improvement shows. Which I feel is why we feel so
26:42
Speaker 2: scared as parents. If this is the norm to the
26:44
Speaker 2: point where it's like houses are being built to accommodate
26:48
Speaker 2: these parents, then you start feeling like it is normal
26:52
Speaker 2: to worry about your kid walking up and down the stairs,
26:54
Speaker 2: walking out the door, ever, riding a bike, doing anything
26:59
Speaker 2: on their own. And that just keeps reinforcing the idea
27:02
Speaker 2: that you should be you know, always seeing, all knowing
27:05
Speaker 2: and hovering, which then leads to us doing that and
27:09
Speaker 2: leads to the things you were talking about before, the
27:11
Speaker 2: depression of the anxiety. So there's no no risk because
27:13
Speaker 2: if you're taking out the risk of climbing the stairs,
27:16
Speaker 2: you're instilling the risk of like stairs, ah, which you
27:19
Speaker 2: don't want either.
27:21
Speaker 1: There's a difference, though, between excepting that there is risk
27:24
Speaker 1: in heron in law and actively pursuing risky things.
27:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, risky things, yuck, franky, you know, I'm just as
27:34
Speaker 2: I mean, I believe in Look, put on your seat belt.
27:36
Speaker 2: Seat belt does not change your experience at all. Right,
27:39
Speaker 2: You're still in the car going where you're going, getting
27:42
Speaker 2: there at the exact same time. Put on a helmet,
27:44
Speaker 2: you still get to ride your bike. Put on a mouthguard,
27:46
Speaker 2: you'll keep all your teeth while you're playing soccer, rugby, football, whatever.
27:51
Speaker 2: But those are risks that can be mitigated. And I'd
27:54
Speaker 2: say that certainly in the case of a car, they're
27:56
Speaker 2: real risks. The number one way kids die is as
27:59
Speaker 2: car pass. But to rewrite using a sharp knife as
28:04
Speaker 2: a risk because there is a teeny tiny risk, not
28:07
Speaker 2: even a teeny tiny risk, there's a somewhat risk that
28:09
Speaker 2: you might nick yourself. But I keep wanting to do
28:11
Speaker 2: a video and nobody wants to do this with me
28:13
Speaker 2: where it shows like you're worried about your kids chopping
28:15
Speaker 2: off their finger. Let's see how much it takes. And
28:17
Speaker 2: I'm not willing to do this video, but I think
28:19
Speaker 2: it would take a lot of chopping, you know, with
28:22
Speaker 2: a serrated knife that you're using for your cucumbers, to
28:24
Speaker 2: actually chop off that finger. And so to call that
28:27
Speaker 2: risky when it's simply a risk, and in the meantime,
28:30
Speaker 2: your kids are getting adept at making a meal, being confident,
28:34
Speaker 2: being trusted, being part of the economy of the house
28:38
Speaker 2: as opposed to just the king. I think that you
28:42
Speaker 2: can't say that that's only a risk. It's a risk
28:45
Speaker 2: in not letting.
28:46
Speaker 1: Your kid use a knife in a recent podcast, and
28:48
Speaker 1: by the way, so let grow has You've got a
28:52
Speaker 1: brand new podcast that you've been doing, and I'm I'm
28:54
Speaker 1: already caught up on it. The name of the podcast
28:57
Speaker 1: is Supervision Not Require Love This. And in one of
29:01
Speaker 1: your more recent episodes, you said, and I quote fear
29:05
Speaker 1: it doesn't prevent this, but life.
29:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it prevents life. Yeah, And I wish I could
29:11
Speaker 2: take credit for it, but it's probably from a fortune
29:13
Speaker 2: cookie or something. I mean, I heard it elsewhere, but
29:15
Speaker 2: it's so true. I Mean, sometimes it feels like worrying
29:20
Speaker 2: is a substitute for doing or for anything else. It's like, oh,
29:24
Speaker 2: I'm doing something great, I'm worried, and believe me, I'm
29:26
Speaker 2: a worrier. So I know that that's a major time
29:30
Speaker 2: suck and also a joy suck. But worrying doesn't change things. Yeah,
29:34
Speaker 2: if you're gonna, if you're gonna worry about your kids
29:36
Speaker 2: and you are, teach them the things that we've just
29:38
Speaker 2: been talking about. Teach them to cross the streets safely,
29:41
Speaker 2: teach them that they can talk to strangers, they can't
29:43
Speaker 2: go walk with strangers. Teach them never to get into
29:45
Speaker 2: anybody's car. Teach them to look both ways, actually three times.
29:48
Speaker 2: When you're at the corner're supposed to look left, right,
29:50
Speaker 2: left again. I don't remember why, but I learned it
29:53
Speaker 2: in kindergarten and then I just read it again recently,
29:55
Speaker 2: so it must be true. You know, teach them the
29:57
Speaker 2: things that parents have always taught their kids. It's about life.
30:01
Speaker 2: But until recently, it wasn't that we assumed that we
30:06
Speaker 2: were going to be with them every second. And then
30:08
Speaker 2: the way they don't even have to learn anything because
30:10
Speaker 2: we're always going to be with them or watching them,
30:12
Speaker 2: and that's it. Assume that it's safer for your kids
30:17
Speaker 2: to gain some independence and to have some you know,
30:21
Speaker 2: not horrible experiences, but a couple of you know, things
30:26
Speaker 2: that were thwarted, some disappointments, some frustration. My kid got
30:29
Speaker 2: a trophy for eighth place in bowling out of nine leagues.
30:34
Speaker 2: I'm insulted on his behalf. Are you thinking that he
30:37
Speaker 2: can't tell that, you know, he's second to last out
30:40
Speaker 2: of nine teams. I mean he can handle. He can
30:43
Speaker 2: handle the frustration, and if he wants to get good
30:45
Speaker 2: at bowling, well, now he knows he's got a long
30:48
Speaker 2: way to go, so he can either practice or accept
30:50
Speaker 2: the fact. But the idea of pretending like there's there
30:52
Speaker 2: should be no frustration ever, and you still got a trophy,
30:55
Speaker 2: that's an insult to the human spirit.
30:58
Speaker 1: I have a couple of questions before or I get
31:00
Speaker 1: to my final five that we whizz through very quickly
31:03
Speaker 1: to learn a bit more about it.
31:04
Speaker 2: But I know you sent me the final five before,
31:06
Speaker 2: and I don't know the answer, so we'll probably actually
31:09
Speaker 2: have to creep through them very slowly. As I said,
31:11
Speaker 2: I guess myself, but we'll.
31:12
Speaker 1: See how we go. So a couple of quick ones
31:14
Speaker 1: just to just to try to I guess, distill and
31:17
Speaker 1: break down into really simple steps what we're dealing with
31:21
Speaker 1: when it comes to this idea of letting our kids grow,
31:24
Speaker 1: you know, let grow dot org a free range parenting
31:27
Speaker 1: our kids. In that podcast that just made me laugh
31:31
Speaker 1: out loud, you use the line we want to give
31:33
Speaker 1: our kids freedom, and then you said not so much
31:36
Speaker 1: freedom that they're hitchhiking to the crack house, but we
31:40
Speaker 1: want to give them freedom. So how do we how
31:43
Speaker 1: to parents who are really wrestling with some of the
31:45
Speaker 1: things that we've talked about today identify where do they start.
31:51
Speaker 1: How do they get to the point where they say, Okay,
31:52
Speaker 1: I will let my child walk or ride to school,
31:55
Speaker 1: or I will give them this freedom in this way
31:57
Speaker 1: or that way. How do they do that? I know
31:59
Speaker 1: that Let's got some resources to help with this, but
32:02
Speaker 1: what guidance would you give?
32:05
Speaker 2: Well? Yeah, first, I do have to put in a
32:06
Speaker 2: plug for our Let Grow project because it's free, and
32:09
Speaker 2: so is the elect Grow Independence Kid. Pretty Much everything
32:12
Speaker 2: that we do is free. And the reason I'm mentioning
32:16
Speaker 2: it is because it is very hard to be the
32:18
Speaker 2: only parent who is doing something that goes a little
32:21
Speaker 2: bit against the grain. If nobody is letting their kid
32:24
Speaker 2: ride their bike, you know, more than two blocks, and
32:27
Speaker 2: you say, I think you can go all the way
32:28
Speaker 2: to the you know, to the drug store, not the
32:30
Speaker 2: drug store, the pharmacy, you know, the candy store whatever,
32:34
Speaker 2: oh my god, candy. If you're saying that your kid
32:36
Speaker 2: can do something and other parents aren't, it is harder
32:40
Speaker 2: to do. And so when schools do the Let Grow
32:44
Speaker 2: project where all the teachers are sending all the kids
32:46
Speaker 2: home with the assignment they have to do something on
32:48
Speaker 2: their own, then you're not the only one. And in fact,
32:51
Speaker 2: then your kid and your neighbor's kid can go together
32:54
Speaker 2: to the park or together to the store. So the
32:57
Speaker 2: reason I recommend the Lectro project, and it's corollary for
33:01
Speaker 2: distance learning time the Elecro Independence kid, is because you
33:05
Speaker 2: don't feel alone, and that is a much easier way
33:08
Speaker 2: to go because you are changing the norms together. Right.
33:12
Speaker 2: We've heard from towns that have done this project that afterwards,
33:16
Speaker 2: like the principal went around like two weeks after her
33:19
Speaker 2: school had done the Lecro project and she saw two
33:22
Speaker 2: kids on bikes, a kid on a roller skate, and
33:24
Speaker 2: a kid on skateboard in just her little ride home,
33:26
Speaker 2: and she said she'd never seen kids outside on their
33:28
Speaker 2: own before. So it changes the norms. It's much easier
33:31
Speaker 2: to be brave when everybody else is bringing brave to
33:34
Speaker 2: the point where it doesn't even feel brave anymore. It
33:36
Speaker 2: just feels normal. Just like we were talking about at
33:38
Speaker 2: the beginning of this our discussion, when your mother would
33:41
Speaker 2: let you walk home at age seven and get yourself
33:43
Speaker 2: a snack and walk back to school. She didn't have
33:46
Speaker 2: to be an evil and evil brave. She was just
33:49
Speaker 2: part of the norm, and so were you. So it's
33:51
Speaker 2: easier when you do it together. But I would say
33:55
Speaker 2: this if you you know, if you want to do it,
33:58
Speaker 2: do it with a friend. You don't have to do
33:59
Speaker 2: it with entire school. Send your kids to do something
34:03
Speaker 2: together without you. And the thing that is so reinforcing
34:09
Speaker 2: and makes it so easy is the first time you
34:12
Speaker 2: do it. Because the first time you do it and
34:14
Speaker 2: your kid comes home and they walk through the door
34:16
Speaker 2: and they've taken the subway or they got you the milk.
34:19
Speaker 2: There's that great commercial that you guys have, I think
34:21
Speaker 2: either New Zealand or Australia about the kid who goes
34:23
Speaker 2: and gets the milk for the first time, or when
34:26
Speaker 2: they've done anything on their own and they come in
34:28
Speaker 2: and they're so proud. You will be out of your
34:31
Speaker 2: mind with pride and diddy, and that's reinforcing to yourself.
34:37
Speaker 2: You know, this delicious feeling of seeing your kid blossoming
34:41
Speaker 2: really helps you take the next step. Really, the first
34:44
Speaker 2: time is hard, and after that it just keeps getting
34:46
Speaker 2: better because it feels normal and you're proud.
34:50
Speaker 1: So obviously a quick reminder this needs to be developmentally appropriate.
34:54
Speaker 1: We're not suggesting that we let the two year old
34:55
Speaker 1: go and click the milk on their own, or even
34:57
Speaker 1: the four year old. They need to be big enough
34:58
Speaker 1: to handle them selves in a reasonable fashion. But we
35:03
Speaker 1: can just ease off on the pressure list.
35:07
Speaker 2: Actually, I'm sorry I should have jumped in one second
35:08
Speaker 2: and said do the things that we were talking about
35:10
Speaker 2: before too. If you're sending your kid off, you'll feel
35:13
Speaker 2: better if you teach them how to cross the street
35:15
Speaker 2: and you walk across with a couple of times, and
35:17
Speaker 2: then you say when would you go and you say, yes,
35:18
Speaker 2: that's right, and then you let them do it. Once
35:21
Speaker 2: you see that your kids are not you know, they're
35:23
Speaker 2: not kittens, they're humans, and they will get some information
35:27
Speaker 2: into them and absorb it, that will give you a
35:30
Speaker 2: lot more calm to Yeah.
35:31
Speaker 1: The practice runs and the appropriate scaffolding and necessary so
35:35
Speaker 1: that you can see that each child does have the
35:36
Speaker 1: developmental capacity to pull this off on their own. Last
35:41
Speaker 1: question for you before we dive into these five how
35:43
Speaker 1: can we promote free range parenting?
35:46
Speaker 2: Well, this independence kit that I'm recommending, the Let Grow
35:50
Speaker 2: Independence Kit, is the same thing. I mean, there's certainly
35:53
Speaker 2: a lot of things that they can still do by themselves.
35:55
Speaker 2: They can go outside, they can be making dinner for you.
35:58
Speaker 2: They can be in charge of their own homework, they
36:01
Speaker 2: can be finding new interests. You can give them freedom
36:04
Speaker 2: sometimes to play video games, and you know, not worry
36:07
Speaker 2: so much about that.
36:08
Speaker 1: You just imagine, imagine.
36:10
Speaker 2: That, Imagine that. You know. The thing is that when
36:13
Speaker 2: they're home and when you're home, there's just too many
36:16
Speaker 2: hours in the day to entertain or educate them yourself
36:20
Speaker 2: the whole time. So I'd say, you know, we just
36:23
Speaker 2: did a giant survey of sixteen hundred kids and sixteen
36:27
Speaker 2: hundred adults in the States here, and we ask the kids,
36:30
Speaker 2: what are you learning anything new? Just for fun, you know,
36:33
Speaker 2: not for school, just on your own, And the answers
36:37
Speaker 2: were just outrageously charming. I'm learning about fuses, I'm braiding hair,
36:41
Speaker 2: I'm studying gangsters. I learned that my sister has a boyfriend.
36:47
Speaker 2: There are just all these interesting things that once they
36:50
Speaker 2: were bored, you don't have to cure their boredom all
36:53
Speaker 2: the time, because they will migrate to something that interests them.
36:58
Speaker 2: And when they do, that's edu. You know, if they're
37:00
Speaker 2: studying everything about cars or everything about worms, reading up
37:04
Speaker 2: on it, watching videos, maybe doing a podcast or whatever.
37:08
Speaker 2: Fake thing on it. That's education. So everybody who's worried
37:11
Speaker 2: about their kids filling their time, and everybody who's worried
37:14
Speaker 2: about are their kids getting enough education, When they find
37:16
Speaker 2: something that turns them on and they pursue it, that's
37:20
Speaker 2: that's focused. That's research. That's frustration tolerance because you've got
37:25
Speaker 2: to learn how to do it better and better and better.
37:27
Speaker 2: And that's education. So don't be so concerned about the
37:30
Speaker 2: schooling maybe going down a little bit.
37:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, so good, Okay, thank you. So five questions to
37:35
Speaker 1: wrap up. Every single person on this podcast gets the
37:38
Speaker 1: five questions and the first.
37:39
Speaker 2: One technical difficulties.
37:42
Speaker 1: Repid fire really easy. If we ask your two boys
37:45
Speaker 1: now age twenty two and twenty four, what their favorite
37:48
Speaker 1: thing to do with you is, what would they say?
37:52
Speaker 2: Lick the ball? You know, I make a lot of brownies.
37:56
Speaker 2: They still fight over who gets.
37:57
Speaker 1: The ball when they're around the brownies and the beta
38:00
Speaker 1: have the same issue. When I go back to mom
38:01
Speaker 1: and dads as well, what's been your trickiest parenting moment?
38:05
Speaker 2: Every parenting moment? Can I just go with that? You
38:09
Speaker 2: know everything about the car. We discussed this before. Do
38:13
Speaker 2: you have to drive in the rain? I literally didn't
38:15
Speaker 2: want my son, the twenty two year old, to drive
38:18
Speaker 2: back up to college and the rain. I was overruled,
38:22
Speaker 2: and I'm really glad I was overruled by husband and
38:25
Speaker 2: son saying are you kidding? Aren't you the three range mom?
38:28
Speaker 2: That always works.
38:29
Speaker 1: I love that you struggle with it, just like anyone
38:31
Speaker 1: else with with your issues. You know, everyone's got their triggers,
38:34
Speaker 1: and for you, that's the thing, and I just love
38:35
Speaker 1: the fact that you're you're actually struggling with it. Question
38:39
Speaker 1: number three. If you could spend an hour with your
38:41
Speaker 1: boys at any age at all, Let's say, you know,
38:46
Speaker 1: tomorrow afternoon they wander into the living room three o'clock
38:48
Speaker 1: and they're at that magical age that you're envisioning right now.
38:52
Speaker 1: What age would you pick them? Why would you pick
38:53
Speaker 1: that age?
38:55
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to say it's I'm going to pick
38:58
Speaker 2: like this weekend because they were visiting us, the both
39:01
Speaker 2: of them together, which I really see, especially during COVID.
39:04
Speaker 2: And I'm saying that in part because I think nostalgia
39:08
Speaker 2: is my bet mair And if I start wallowing in
39:11
Speaker 2: like I can't even look this is like me being crazy.
39:14
Speaker 2: I hate looking at pictures of when they were like
39:16
Speaker 2: six and eight. It just makes me so sad because
39:19
Speaker 2: I will never see that moment again. And I don't
39:21
Speaker 2: think I'm the only one I would like to tear
39:23
Speaker 2: from your listener's, viewers or whatever. I think there's something
39:27
Speaker 2: too painful about nostalgia. So I'm just going to say, oh,
39:30
Speaker 2: I wish it was yesterday. We took a funny picture
39:32
Speaker 2: in front of we bought a lousy new car. I
39:35
Speaker 2: mean it runs, but it's really ugly, and we took
39:37
Speaker 2: a picture in from the car.
39:38
Speaker 1: Okay. Interesting. Well, even if you could be really happy
39:42
Speaker 1: right now and say that this is what you want
39:44
Speaker 1: to focus on, what are you looking forward to as
39:47
Speaker 1: a mom?
39:50
Speaker 2: You should realize, like the crazy person you're talking to,
39:53
Speaker 2: am I looking forward to anything? I look forward to, Like, oh,
39:57
Speaker 2: one of the suns is coming back to visit us
39:58
Speaker 2: again on Wednesday. You know, I really you know, people
40:03
Speaker 2: think that I'm this daredevil and this non worrier. If
40:07
Speaker 2: I imagine them getting married, I shut myself down and say,
40:11
Speaker 2: you know, don't jinx it. So I'm just looking forward
40:14
Speaker 2: to I think Wednesday tonight is Sunday. For the record,
40:18
Speaker 2: I'm looking for Wednesday. Okay, okay, wait, night Monday. I'm
40:22
Speaker 2: looking forward to two days from now. Yeah.
40:24
Speaker 1: Sure, well, you never know what, you never know what
40:26
Speaker 1: might happen. They say that we teach the most what
40:29
Speaker 1: we need to learn, or we teach best what we
40:31
Speaker 1: most need.
40:32
Speaker 2: To that's so funny. Oh that's so interesting. We hate
40:36
Speaker 2: most and others what we eat most in ourselves. It's like,
40:38
Speaker 2: why is is so grave? Yeah?
40:40
Speaker 1: Interesting? Okay, last question for you, if you could go
40:43
Speaker 1: back to yourself, and now I know that there's no
40:46
Speaker 1: there's no nostalgia in this one. Okay, this is this
40:49
Speaker 1: is the advice question. If you could go back to
40:51
Speaker 1: you when you were a brand new mum having one
40:53
Speaker 1: of those really tough moments with your children where things
40:57
Speaker 1: just aren't working out right and you've got no experience
41:00
Speaker 1: this parent thing at all. What advice would you give
41:02
Speaker 1: to yourself if you could go all the way back
41:04
Speaker 1: to the beginning twenty odd years.
41:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it would be about perspective. And actually
41:12
Speaker 2: this is one that I'm stealing from Wendy Mogul who
41:16
Speaker 2: wrote The Blessing of the Skin Knee, and she said
41:20
Speaker 2: it's normal to think that other kids are better than
41:24
Speaker 2: yours because you don't see them all the time, and
41:26
Speaker 2: if you look at anything close up, you will see
41:28
Speaker 2: the flaws. And so to not envy my friends when
41:34
Speaker 2: they were having a perfect day with their kids or
41:36
Speaker 2: what looked like a perfect day, and I was like,
41:39
Speaker 2: you know, glum thing along and they were crying and
41:41
Speaker 2: I or you know, hitting each other. It's just good
41:45
Speaker 2: to remember that nobody really has the perfect kid or
41:48
Speaker 2: the perfect answer, and that's that's reassuring to this day.
41:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that'll bring a lot of peace to
41:55
Speaker 1: a lot of parents listening to that, Lon, This has
41:57
Speaker 1: been such a delightful conversation. I've I've learned well, I've
42:01
Speaker 1: enjoyed your energy and your passion for free ranging. If
42:04
Speaker 1: people want to learn more about you, whether they want
42:06
Speaker 1: to grab your books, so they want to get hold
42:07
Speaker 1: of the resource. So you've talked about what's the best
42:09
Speaker 1: way for them to do that. What would you like
42:11
Speaker 1: people to know more than anything right now so they
42:13
Speaker 1: could get more in fun.
42:14
Speaker 2: So first of all, come to let grow dot org.
42:16
Speaker 2: Oh my god, we have so many articles, we have principles,
42:20
Speaker 2: we have videos. If you want to talk to your
42:23
Speaker 2: fellow parents who are sort of working their way through this.
42:26
Speaker 2: We're on Facebook at both let Grow easy Enough, Let
42:29
Speaker 2: Grow Org, I guess or. We also have a page
42:31
Speaker 2: called No More Helicopter Parenting. And believe me, I don't
42:35
Speaker 2: blame helicopter parents, because as you heard, I'm part helicopter
42:38
Speaker 2: and so it's just it was just for SEO purposes
42:41
Speaker 2: to make it easy to find search engines. But at
42:44
Speaker 2: No More Helicopter Parenting, it's just parents asking each other questions.
42:47
Speaker 2: I can't get my kid off the couch. You know,
42:49
Speaker 2: I'm worried about you know, something terrible happening. You know.
42:53
Speaker 2: Can you reassure me? It's just a conversation. And then
42:56
Speaker 2: my book is Free Range Kids, but I just got
42:58
Speaker 2: a contract that I signed, which means i'd better start
43:01
Speaker 2: writing it to update it. So I'm adding a chapter
43:04
Speaker 2: on anxiety, and a chapter on probably on technology, people
43:09
Speaker 2: are very concerned about that, and then one for schools
43:12
Speaker 2: for school teachers and administrators.
43:14
Speaker 1: Well, what a great conversation diving into the early years
43:17
Speaker 1: of the free range Kids movement with Lenor SKANESI, Leno,
43:20
Speaker 1: I would love it if you would come back and
43:22
Speaker 1: tell us more about Let Grow. You're not for profit.
43:25
Speaker 1: Organization about promoting childhood independence and resilience, and maybe a
43:29
Speaker 1: bit more about free range kids as well. The Happy
43:32
Speaker 1: Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland for Bridge Media.
43:34
Speaker 1: We hope you have a great weekend. More information and
43:37
Speaker 1: more resources though to make your family happier. You'll find
43:39
Speaker 1: them at happy families dot com dot au