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Raising Boys: "Don't Cry" Is Destroying Them · The Parent Tap

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Vanderhorst, in our last session, you laid out a terrifying reality.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: By the time a boy is a toddler, he has been systematically trained to amputate half of his emotional range, specifically sadness, fear, and tenderness.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: He is left with a dashboard that only permits neutrality or anger.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: What happens when that emotionally restricted boy hits 14 or 15 and that buried emotional reservoir collides with a massive surge of testosterone, peer pressure, and an identity crisis?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I can give you an example of what happens in this area where I live.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I live just outside of Washington, D.C.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens when 14, 15, 16 year olds are out of school Friday night, Saturday night, the city has imposed a curfew on teenagers because they get together in large groups.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking 20, 30 adolescents, all right, and they're running through the areas of the city where there are restaurants with outdoor seating, where there are, you know, museums, places that a lot of people are hanging out on the mall in DC, and they just have this intent to run through, knock things over, create havoc, scare people.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: So a very clear example of what happens when we don't help our teenagers, mainly boys, when we really don't help them to take ownership of their emotional lives.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're frustrated, they're irritated, they don't know what to do with their feeling states.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so they act them out.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in acting them out, they are scaring, intimidating other people.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about kids getting together in large groups to rob a store, although those kinds of things are happening too, but I'm talking about just kind of the end-of-the-week experience.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe when you were a teenager, people got together in somebody's basement, they played games, you know, they walked through the neighborhood, but they weren't running around and agitating other people intentionally, right?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And disrupting their evenings intentionally.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: But that is common fare now.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So when we don't help our young children and our boys in particular, to maintain access to the full range of their feeling states, they can't identify with what the other person is experiencing.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So they run down these streets where there are restaurant tables out on the sidewalk, and you know, they'll knock somebody's drink over or pull the tablecloth, right?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't really experience what's gonna happen for the person that they're agitating and the person that they're disrupting.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: What will that person feel like?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have the capability of identifying with the other.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: They just know they have tons of emotional energy, they want to release it, but they cannot identify with what happens when they release it on these other innocent people.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, I had no idea that was taking place in in Washington, D.C.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's just a backstory.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: That was uh where I traveled for business a lot back in the day.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I used to love walking around the national mall and the kind of stuff at night.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I had no idea it was, you know, boys, you know, yeah, that's what you would experience if you came now, that's what what you would run into.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's been a couple years, so maybe that was different then, or I just, you know, I was there so infrequent, I probably didn't notice that.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: But so if um that is the you know, that is the outcome.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so how can fathers prevent the emotional stunting from turning into that self-destructive rebellion, you know, behaviors or or even addiction?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, fathers have to heal themselves first.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, on the airplane, they tell you to put your mask on first and then put a mask on your child.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing is true here.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Our teenagers have lost access to the full range of their feeling experiences.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the adult male, the father in this system, also does not have access to the full range of feelings.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so every parent that I run into, I tell them, you know, go to my website, download this feelings list.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a list of four or five pages.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think there are four columns of feeling words on each page.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone listening can go to my website and do that.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Download the feelings list, right?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's just in a block across the top for freebies.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to be able to increase your own feeling vocabulary before you can help your son.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's magical that your brain can identify a feeling that you are experiencing if you have an opportunity to just run through the names of feelings.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: What you're experiencing will pop off the page.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain has not lost understanding, your brain has not really lost access.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to give it the right pathway to find the feeling that you're experiencing.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the good news, right?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain is capable of identifying the feelings that you're having, but you need help.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: You need a tool, right?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you can't write a letter unless you have a pen or a typewriter or a computer, right?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna write it with your nose.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have the right tool, you can help yourself.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then once you help yourself, you can help your son.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's fabulous.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it happen in families, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Where parents will put those feeling sheets on the kitchen table.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: They'll put them in the family room where you watch television.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when there's some kind of a feeling issue that comes up for anybody, you know, they pull out the sheets and they say, Hey, find what you're feeling right now.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there it goes.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: It pops right off the page.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Then you can have a discussion, then you can understand yourself.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can't identify the feeling, if your vocabulary is limited to, you know, I'm pissed or irritated, you're not gonna develop a conversation with your teenager because they're just gonna throw the same thing right back in your face.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's a great reminder to download that resource.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I will definitely uh call that out in the show notes um and you know, give people a place to find that that's easily accessible.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, Doctor, um, give me the audit.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: What are the three phrases dads say at the dinner table that are quietly emotionally stunting their sons right now?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question, right?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, so the uh there are a couple of directions to go with that, all right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, in talking with families, I hear from teenagers, all right, that mom and dad will sit down at the dinner table and the focus will be on mom and dad.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right, they will start talking, right?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're talking about their work, they're talking about politics, and in essence, the children become an audience, right?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really no fun to be an audience at the dinner table.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and so the child learns to avoid the dinner table in those situations, right?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And both boys and girls are gonna find other things that they need to take care of so that they avoid dinner.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, right, so many families today have their kids over programmed that they're not eating dinner, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: When I was a kid, we sat down at the dinner table, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Every night, rain or shine.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's not happening anymore.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Families are putting sandwiches in the car because you're going from school to this practice to that practice, then back home in order to finish homework.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're not eating together.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that families could do is really start eating together.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: The other system that is used quite frequently is much more of a child-focused system where every child is expected to come to the dinner table with something to contribute, all right?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: A story about their day, a concern about something that they've heard on the news, something that they've read in a magazine, something that they've heard about in school or in a class, that they have the expectation that this is a forum where their parents are interested in the things that are concerning them, and their parents want them to share so that they can get guidance, so that they can be heard, so that they can be valued, right?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that system is because it does validate that the child is important and the child gets listened to.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: But once again, those are happening infrequently because of all the busyness that's available for kids nowadays.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And with two working parents, they want to keep their kids busy because they need opportunity to engage each other, and they also need opportunity to follow up on their work responsibilities.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we have really overprogrammed our kids, and they don't have an opportunity to just be kids and explore the backyard or the woods and make up things.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, don't do that stuff anymore.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, totally true.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm guilty, I'm guilty a little bit of that overprogramming, unfortunately.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I I just like tonight we got to take our kids to swim, and it's very chaotic, getting them home and like getting them in their swimsuits, getting them to the place on time.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I mean, we do that constantly where we're always on the go.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think, yeah, like you said, just taking time to sit down at the dinner table, talk.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get into something you talked about last time a little bit, and this is more about the husbands, you know, from the husband's lens.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you you said that wives often shut down husbands' tenderness.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: So what's the exact script a wife should use the next time her husband opens up, even if it makes her uncomfortable?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think every female needs to ask themselves, what would I be doing if this were my best girlfriend?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you will be surprised, right?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because if this were your best girlfriend, you would be focused.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: You would be interested.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: You want to take time.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's possible that you don't have time right now, all right?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So your husband has shared something truly emotional and distressing, but like you have said, all right, we have to get kids to swim class.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't have time right now to pursue that, but to validate that this is important, all right?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is a critical piece of information that I want to follow up on and actually schedule the time to do it.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: When the kids are in bed, I'm not gonna do my normal stop of go reading my book or play games on my phone.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to hear what your concern is, what you experience today, and I want us to process through that.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it takes time to hear someone's emotional experience.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't done in five minutes, right?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: It should not be done long distance either.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: It should be done face to face because the majority of communication is nonverbal, right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to see your face, I want to see your body, right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be able to experience the impact of this event on you, and your body's gonna show me much more than your words show me.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to be in front of you and see all of you when we have this conversation.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and you mentioned a 15-minute daily connection time for couples in the previous episode.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Can you break that down operationally for us?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: What are the rules?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: What's banned, and what happens if one partner just refuses that?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Good questions.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, the process is the two of you agree that this will be valuable for your relationship and you work together to find that time.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be the same time every day, it just has to exist.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So even in the morning, you might set that time.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Some couples set a regular systematic time every day.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: We'll do it 15 minutes before we go down for breakfast.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have our time together, all right?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or after the kids are in bed, we're gonna make sure we take that 15, 20 minutes and have time together.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: It can move around, it doesn't have to be exactly the same time, but it has to exist, all right?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you get into a process where the only thing you're doing with your spouse is transactions.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Who needs to pick up this one?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Who needs to go make sure that the car oil gets changed, you know, who needs to stop by the grocery, who needs to go to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's all transactional.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you could you can actually live for, you know, months and months on transactional interactions, but that's not relationship.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's problem solving, right?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Good for you.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's great that you have a system for problem solving, but that's not relational, right?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be able to take time to share with each other what are the puzzles you're working on, what are the stressors you're experiencing, what are the things you're daydreaming about?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because we all do that, right?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: When I retire, I want to, right?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or this summer, you know, I would just love to take one of those cruises to Alaska or whatever it is, right?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: We all have daydreams, we all have hopes for the future.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to be able to talk about those.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: We all have histories, right?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And quite often a history piece will jump into the present.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be able to share that as well, right?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I need to redigest that history piece and not let it keep leaping into the present and throwing me off track.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: So this time for a couple is incredibly valuable.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I've said it, it can be small, all right?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: It can be 15 minutes, but you will be shocked.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you took that 15 minutes every day with your spouse, the bond will grow, it will increase, all right.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: You will feel supported, you'll feel closer to each other, and you'll want more of that.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So naturally, you'll also begin to plan more opportunities for the two of you just to hang out and increase your bond.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And as you strengthen your relationship, your children are watching this, and the children get the benefit because you're in a better mood, right?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna snap at them as easily if your emotional needs are being met.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna push it downhill and attack your children.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's incredibly valuable, small, but incredibly valuable.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I get caught in the transactional part of life so often with my wife of like, oh, I did this, you need to go do that.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't spend, we don't take those 15 minutes.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: I know it sounds easy for 15 minutes, but sometimes we don't.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, it's hard.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: It does, yeah, and it and it does add up into like fraying the relationship and not building and like you said, we don't talk about what what could our date nights be, or what could our summer trip be, or let's go on a cruise to Alaska?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: I agree with you there, let's do that.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds amazing to me.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, no, I it totally resonate with that, and that's why I was nodding the entire time you said we're talking there.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to get into like, you know, a man, so a husband right now, he wants to be vulnerable, but I think society has told us that makes you look weak, unstable, or sure, right?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: To your co-founder.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, how does he initiate those conversations without feeling like a burden to his partner?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you've just done it, right?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: To be able to say to your partner, right?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I would really like to share more of the stuff that I carry inside of me, but I'm not comfortable doing that.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe I can describe the degree of discomfort, right?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: For some people, it's, you know, it's just like kind of I'm not really that comfortable with it.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: For others, it's I'm terrified to do that.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: All right, because the last time I opened up to anybody, you know, I got devastated.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the first step is to own it yourself, is to be able to say to yourself, I would like to be known.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I would like my spouse to be really interested in who I am, the complex person that I am, and to understand the pieces of my history that jump into the present and also make me the person that I am today.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that takes time and curiosity, right?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it is tough because as a boy, the message that nobody's really interested in your feeling states on a deep level gets sent to you as a toddler, right?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's real early.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And once that gets planted inside your head, it is an absolute, it just takes over.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot uproot it unless you are consciously choosing to do that.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna go away on its own, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be able to look at yourself and say, yes, that's true of me.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to disclose, I don't want to use feeling words, I'll avoid them every opportunity that I get.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And once you can recognize where the door is closed, then you can choose to start opening it.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the first thing is just to unlock it, right?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is just to admit, all right, that I have been stifled.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I am in this locked position and I do want to unlock it.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, that that makes so much sense.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to get into like, you know, you talked about how uh, you know, the the typical or standard marital routine is when the guy comes home, the the father comes home, drops a headline about a bad day, caught got caught in traffic, you know, the podcast didn't record or something like that.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the case.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is recording.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: But his wife then gives the headline apology back, right?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: They immediately pivot to the logistics of the kids, the house, dinner schedules, all that stuff.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do we train a spouse to stop trying to immediately fix a husband's distress?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And conversely, how do we train, you know, a dad to stop speaking exclusively in status updates?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we could have that authentic 15-minute connection.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: So the male has to be able to recognize the need and then ask for it, right?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: The spouse is not going to magically draw you out.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: You have to take responsibility for yourself, recognize that you have this need and ask for the opportunity, ask for the time, ask for the attention, and understand that it's gonna start out awkward, right?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna feel bizarre.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, maybe you're gonna just kind of sit there for 10 of those 15 minutes and look at each other, all right, and then laugh about the fact that you just sat there for 10 minutes and looked at each other.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great beginning.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I would say to any couple, that's a good start, right?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because you actually focused on each other for that 15 minutes, and the next 15 minutes is gonna be different from that.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: The one after that is gonna be different from that, right?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And like learning.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Anything, right?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: We start out not really understanding or knowing how to engage in this skill.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: But if we stick to it and we practice, we will learn how to engage in this skill.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like anything else that you have to learn.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: You start out naive and then you pick up information and skill.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so we spent part one on exclusively sons, and I have one of each.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: I have a son and a daughter.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I have a four-year-old daughter.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: She was just uh, she's on the spectrum.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: We just found out in November.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going through the process of that and and figuring out what that's even going to look like because we're still getting to this.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: What's the equivalent emotional stunting pattern parents do to girls that no one's talking about?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we stifle the girls' sexuality, right?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we start doing that from an early age so that they don't end up really taking ownership of their own sexuality.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's difficult, right?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's so important that both men and women really appreciate how they're constructed and what the importance of those sexual urges is and how to talk about them, how to relate to them, how to manage them.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the disservice that we do to our girls is that we treat them as sexual objects.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: We don't really educate them about their own sexuality and we shame them for having an interest in being sexual.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: We've got all kinds of language to put them down if they have an interest in how look and how attractive they are and whether they can engage with the opposite sex.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: We shame them and make fun of them.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's too bad.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: My daughter's getting into the beauty phase for sure, and she loves her nail polish, she loves her hair done in a certain way, she loves going to the beauty collar.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's like wired in her genetically, like she's just made up that way.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: And my son, you know, he's just like he wants to play with the ball and tumble over the couches, and so it's like this very clear distinction of the two uh, you know, boys versus girls.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I want that, I appreciate you sharing that.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um beyond that, is there anything else that fathers are doing that's destroying their daughter's future relationships and how and you know, they have no idea that they're even doing this, perhaps?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's true both with boys and girls that fathers are not comfortable with the the younger part of being a person.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: We we tend as males, males tend to defer to the female, the partner in the house, to manage early stages of development rather than getting interested, getting involved, taking responsibility themselves on doing some of the basics, right?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Helping a kid get dressed, getting the kid up in the morning, putting the kid to bed in the evening, right?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Having some special time that you set aside, that you're gonna focus just on this child so that they always know that you would choose to engage them.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that means in the future, when they actually need engagement, you will be a resource that they think about.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to initiate that, all right?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: You have to kind of plan that program that I'm available to you, I'm interested in you, I'm accessible to you.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to spend some individual time with them.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then once again, just like we talked about with your spouse, all right, we're talking about 15 minutes, right?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a huge chunk of time.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if that is special time that I invest on a daily basis, it becomes huge.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes really big, right?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: You end up as a girl saying, you know, I could always depend on my dad to fill in the blank, right?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Pick me up from school and, you know, take me out for a soda and we would chat for 15, 20 minutes, or put me to bed at night, all right, and we would chat for 15 or 20 minutes.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: We don't just read a book.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Reading a book is great, but we don't just read a book, right, is really interested in me, all right, and wants to connect with me.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't have to be a huge chunk of time.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking again at 15 minutes and we're looking at consistency.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's the the human aspect of that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's more than because I could put a book on tape, I could, I could play something on her speaker and she'd get kind of the same effect.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, actually delving into her day, asking how things are, how her interactions at school are, you know, things like that, like really just taking an interest in her life and you know, really makes a difference.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, for my kids especially, I try to do that as much as I can because you know And I would I would shift that a nudge, right?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: In that it questions are threatening.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: So how is your day?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Seems like an innocent, but it's a question, and questions imply there's a right answer.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I gotta be fishing.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: What does he really want to hear about my day?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: But tell me about your day is not a question, and it gets to the same information.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about your day much better than what's a great distinction because I do fall into the bad habits of interrogation, because I am the father, right?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like you don't want to be interrogated.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the implication is there's a right answer to this, right?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what happened in your day, there is no right answer.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it is, you know, tell me about the day.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm interested in your day.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about your day.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: They are statements, not questions.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a quick fix, too, for just our just our language.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really phrasing it differently so the kids are more open to answer and there's less, you know, accusations almost where it's like, well, you know, what you know, like looking for the correct answer, supposedly.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's that's a great distinction.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you pointed that out.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so in the first episode, too, you pointed out a fascinating generational shift.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this was the most the thing that I took away the most.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: So in the 90s, parents let kids run free on bikes, they they had the free range, right?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Which built the national natural emotional resilience through risk.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Today, kids are completely overprogrammed, and you just talked about that.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're locked into their screens from age one.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you even noted instances where local police will pick up kids just for walking to coffee shops alone.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Which is which is wild.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: So if society actively outlaws or punishes free range exploration, how does a modern modern father intentionally manufacture healthy risk, autonomy, and emotional emotional resistance inside the household boundaries without turning into a micromanaging warden?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question, right?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say that you have to be creative, right?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to take time and distance outside of your normal day-to-day routine.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it is, you know, a Saturday trip to some other place where I can give my children more free range.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's planning a vacation someplace where there's exploring to be done.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to a museum, right?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lovely couple with two toddlers, all right?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: They take their kids to museums on the weekend, all right?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that they're trying to educate their kids so much as give them the opportunity to go exploring because the kid can, you know, run from one exhibit to another exhibit and back to you.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're safe, home base, right?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Take them to the park.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: They can run, they can explore, and back to home base.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to give opportunities and be very conscious about giving those opportunities.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Where can my audience find your books, your feelings list, and follow your work?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: The easiest place to go is to the book website, which is Gloria's Books, all one word, smash together.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: G-L-O-R-I-A-S-B-O-O-K-S.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that will take you to accessing the books.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: You'll also be able to access the website, and the website is www.d-r-a-n-d-e-r-h-o-r-st.com.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's www.drvanderhorst.com.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: But those two websites will get you connected, and I'm happy to talk with anybody, help anybody, support anybody in their journey of really uncovering more of their own emotional lives.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're just the best.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: I look forward to hopefully we can do a part three in the future because there's so many questions I still have for you.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate you, Dr.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Gloria Vanderhorst.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Have a good rest of your day.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks again.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: And all right.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Ryan.