Latest / Beautifully Complex / 267: The Myth of Laziness, with Adam Price, Ph.D.

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267: The Myth of Laziness, with Adam Price, Ph.D. · Beautifully Complex

• 0:03
  So it's really a conversation about motivation, not about laziness. And when you
• 0:07
  talk about motivation, there's so many factors that can affect motivation, and it
• 0:11
  immediately opens up the conversation and the whole perception to one of empathy rather than
• 0:18
  one of judgment. And I think that that's really important. Welcome to the
• 0:23
  Beautifully Complex podcast, where I share insights and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids straight
• 0:30
  from the trenches. I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach,
• 0:34
  author and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey of raising
• 0:38
  your a typical kid. Let's get started. Hi, everyone, Welcome back
• 0:46
  to Beautifully Complex. I'm really excited to be talking to doctor Adam Price today.
• 0:52
  He's a nationally known clinical psychologist and best selling author with over a thirty
• 0:58
  years experience working with and adults. He's the author of He's Not Lazy,
• 1:03
  Empowering your Son to believe in himself and that He's Not Lazy Guide to Better
• 1:10
  Grades and a great Life. Doctor Price also blogs for Psychology Today and has
• 1:15
  written for Family Circle Magazine, Attitude Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.
• 1:21
  He has a private practice in New York City and in Chatham, New Jersey.
• 1:26
  Welcome doctor Price to the show. I'm really excited to tackle the topic
• 1:33
  of laziness because we talk about that so often here and in the work that
• 1:40
  I do with parents as well, because I think we tend to assume laziness
• 1:44
  really easily. So I'm happy that we're going to dive in and tackle this
• 1:49
  topic that can be really tough for parents and educators to navigate. Thank you
• 1:53
  so much for having me, Penny. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk
• 1:57
  to you and to your listeners, and it's a big tip. Yeah,
• 2:00
  It's why I titled my book He's Not Lazy, because I think that there's
• 2:06
  two problems with it. One is, it's very easy to assume that there
• 2:08
  is a personality trait that a child or a teenager is exhibiting, which is
• 2:16
  usually not the case, and we can get more into that. But the
• 2:19
  other thing is it's very judgmental. And if you think judgmentally, I mean
• 2:23
  we all, you know, we can all be frustrated with their kids,
• 2:27
  and in our minds, we can call them all sorts of names because it's
• 2:29
  hard to raise kids you know, but if they perceive us as being judgmental,
• 2:34
  we're going to be less effective with them, and it's going to hurt
• 2:36
  their feelings. And there are many better ways of getting the behavior that we
• 2:39
  want and the outcomes that we want. Yeah, so let's dive into laziness
• 2:46
  and talk about why. I think, first, why do we jump to
• 2:52
  that conclusion so easily? It's definitely sort of a judgment thing. Is it
• 2:58
  human nature? Well, i'll tell you. I'll say something funny. My
• 3:00
  son, who's now thirty one years old and worked in biotech but had ADHD
• 3:07
  it still has it, but you know, it was challenged by that a
• 3:10
  lot when he was a teenager, and in part motivated me to write the
• 3:15
  book because he taught us the hard way of what worked and what didn't work
• 3:19
  as parents. But you know, he said to me not too long ago,
• 3:22
  he said, you know you wrote that book about laziness, right And
• 3:24
  I said yeah, And he said, and you wrote it partly about me,
• 3:30
  right? And I said well, yeah, indirectly definitely. And he
• 3:31
  said, and it's called He's not lazy? And I said yeah. I
• 3:35
  said, well I am lazy, Dad, I am lazy. And so
• 3:39
  the question is is there a trait of laziness? Are some people more ambitious
• 3:44
  and are some people more achievement oriented? With some people rather just lay in
• 3:47
  the couch. I guess that's true. You know, the question is also
• 3:53
  what values you're attributing to certain behaviors. So people are generally motivated to do
• 3:59
  the things that they want to do and that they enjoy. My son included,
• 4:02
  and that doesn't always include school work. School work is inherently boring,
• 4:08
  and you know, kudos to all the teachers who try to make it interesting.
• 4:12
  But you know, I remember being quite bored in high school, and
• 4:14
  I talked to a lot of kids who are It's not something that we want
• 4:17
  to do that kids want to do. You don't want to come home to
• 4:19
  your homework. And if you have a learning difficulty or you know, ADH,
• 4:25
  then it's even more of a challenge because it's not reinforcing. You don't
• 4:28
  feel good about doing it, you don't get better at it necessarily over time.
• 4:32
  You do, but it's hard. So I think, you know,
• 4:35
  it's it's important to just circumvent the whole idea about laziness. It's irrelevant to
• 4:41
  the conversation because that's not what's holding kids back. It is. It is
• 4:45
  maturity, it's development, it's a learning issue. It's something emotional, you
• 4:50
  know, which is either related to their own situation or just finding it difficult
• 4:56
  to get motivated when you, as I said a minute ago, when you
• 4:59
  s struggle and kids around you aren't struggling. Maybe your big brother or little
• 5:02
  sister is whizzing through school, and it's hard to be motivated. So it's
• 5:06
  really a conversation about motivation, not about laziness. And when you talk about
• 5:11
  motivation, there's so many factors that can affect motivation, and it immediately opens
• 5:15
  up the conversation and the whole perception to one of empathy, yeah, rather
• 5:21
  than one of judgment. And I think that that's really important. I love
• 5:25
  that you brought up empathy. I have a similar kid. He's twenty one,
• 5:28
  and he also calls himself lazy. And I think, you know,
• 5:31
  it's different, it's relative in how we define it. You know, different
• 5:35
  people define it in different ways. And I think that, you know,
• 5:40
  because of our culture and we make that assumption so often, our kids get
• 5:45
  that message and then it's ingrained in them. I don't think my kid is
• 5:48
  lazy. You don't think your kid is lazy, but that's probably the messaging
• 5:53
  they're getting culturally, you know, from people around them or from social media.
• 5:58
  Right, this hustle culture which drives me insane, it tends to make
• 6:01
  people who are less driven feel like they're lazy, I think, and you
• 6:08
  know, I always drill into why. So let's talk about that motivation and
• 6:13
  how do we determine what's really going on for individual kids who seem to be
• 6:19
  lazy. Well, it's you know, I don't think there's one why.
• 6:24
  I think, you know, there are many many reasons. It's specific to
• 6:27
  individual kids. It's specific to their brain, how their brain functions, as
• 6:31
  specific to maybe their set of teachers that year. You know, there's a
• 6:34
  lot of different factors. So I don't know if there's one why, but
• 6:38
  there are some fundamental issues about motivation. The key to motivation is really autonomy.
• 6:44
  You know, in the book, I talk about the three c's,
• 6:46
  control, competence, and connection, and you know, so control is really
• 6:50
  about autonomy. We're motivated to do things that we choose to do and that
• 6:55
  we want to do. You know, your son or your daughter may not
• 6:58
  be motivated to make their best but That doesn't mean that they're not driven.
• 7:01
  It's just they're not driven to make their bed in the morning, you know,
• 7:04
  not so much fun, especially when your mom is telling you you need
• 7:08
  to. So part of it is to understand what is motivating for that kid.
• 7:14
  And I think there's two parts to this, Penny. The first part
• 7:15
  is, and I really like what you said before about you know, kids
• 7:19
  end up identifying with these negative traits about themselves. That's why labels have very
• 7:26
  mixed feelings about labels. You know. I used to think that, you
• 7:29
  know, tell the kid that they have ADHD because they're add because then they'll
• 7:33
  know it's not them, it's something other than them. But then the problem
• 7:36
  is they stop thinking I have ADD and they start thinking I am add you
• 7:42
  know, or I have a motivation problem. It's more I am lazy.
• 7:46
  And so I think that that's something that we have to combat so that they
• 7:48
  have a better sense of themselves and a different story that they tell themselves about
• 7:53
  themselves and that they begin to identify with. Because there's lots of ways that
• 7:57
  we can all find in our kids where they weren't lazy, weren't or they
• 8:00
  were motivated and you know, again it may not be to do math homework,
• 8:03
  but there are plenty of ways. The other is to build in as
• 8:05
  much autonomy as you can't, give them as much choice as you can.
• 8:09
  And that's tricky. It's tricky because you know, our public school system is
• 8:15
  not meant to individualize our approach to every student. That would be great,
• 8:18
  that would be millions and millions of dollars, you know, and part of
• 8:22
  our private schools, which can do that more, charge so much and it's
• 8:26
  not accessible to everybody. Most people can't afford that. Yeah, the idea
• 8:28
  is to educate everybody, you know. So there's kind of a cookie cutter
• 8:31
  approach, curriculum, etc. Which makes it more difficult to help each kid
• 8:37
  become more independently motivated. And so I think then parents also have to keep
• 8:43
  in mind something which I stress over and over again I finds so helpful,
• 8:46
  which is that these kids are developing, you know, and we need to
• 8:50
  set structure as parents. We need to set guidelines. You know. My
• 8:54
  metaphor is that they're pulling the train. They're the engine of the train,
• 8:58
  and they're decide which direction it goes. But we have to keep them on
• 9:01
  the tracks. We have to set structure and rules, not to micromanism,
• 9:05
  but to give them as much latitude as we can, but to keep them
• 9:09
  going in the same direction. But to realize, and I think this is
• 9:11
  very reassuring if you can remember it, that development will happen. We kind
• 9:16
  of expect them to be all grown up by the time they're eighteen, and
• 9:20
  we're afraid, you know, if they're not all grown up by the time
• 9:22
  to go to college, you know, then their their life is they're going
• 9:24
  to fall apart. And that's just not true. It's not true at all,
• 9:26
  because you know, if they're lucky enough to go to college, that's
• 9:30
  a huge time to grow and to develop and to continue to mature. And
• 9:33
  if they don't and they ender the workforce, they're still going to grow and
• 9:35
  develop and mature well, maybe even faster. So I think that it's important
• 9:39
  to remember that, you know, they're still young and that they're growing and
• 9:43
  developing. And I think that's very helpful and it can be very reassured.
• 9:46
  But you do have to crowd out the noise that you were talking about in
• 9:50
  terms of you know, do it faster, do it better, do it?
• 9:54
  You know, you got to be all grown up and everything because it's
• 9:56
  just not going to happen now. Way, I always teach parents to add
• 10:07
  the word yet on the end of their statements. Yeah, that's the most
• 10:11
  powerful word in the English language. Yeah, it really is. Yeah.
• 10:15
  Yeah, So if we know that, you know, our kid isn't ready
• 10:18
  to be independent yet, it takes that fear out of it in a lot
• 10:24
  of ways to help us to be more calm about them getting there in their
• 10:28
  own time, you know. And school is so not open to kids getting
• 10:31
  there in their own time, you know, as you were talking about,
• 10:35
  it's really tough to individualize, and so I think that's where a lot of
• 10:39
  these assumptions are made, just because our kids aren't fitting with what's typical a
• 10:46
  lot of times. Let's talk about the second piece then, the competence piece.
• 10:50
  Yeah. So competence is kind of we were talking about it. It's
• 10:54
  feeling like you're good at something, like you can do it. And I
• 10:58
  mean there's certain many strategies for kids who have learning issues, in terms of
• 11:01
  breaking work down, in terms of bringing it down in small chunks, in
• 11:05
  terms of creating some accommodations so that they can manage the work, so that
• 11:09
  they can feel more competent and so it's within there in their reach. So
• 11:13
  I think that's important. But I also think it's important to find other areas
• 11:18
  that kids feel competent that maybe aren't in school, that they feel good about
• 11:22
  themselves. And any of that includes video games. I'm sorry to say.
• 11:26
  You know, video games have to be monitored and they can be all absorbing,
• 11:30
  but they're not a waste of time. You know. It's a time
• 11:33
  where so many of the boys that I've worked with feel a sense of competence,
• 11:37
  feel like that I'm really good at that. Yea. And not only
• 11:39
  am I really good at that, but it's also a place where they feel
• 11:41
  like my peers see me as good at that. Yep. You know that's
• 11:43
  really important. And you know, the kid who's into musical theater or music,
• 11:48
  you know, I think they'll feel that. But especially if they're a
• 11:50
  boy, their peers are not necessarily going to go, wow, you play
• 11:54
  the violin beautifully. You know, they throw football, they're going to say,
• 11:58
  wow, you throw a football, you know, really far if they're
• 12:01
  funny, but if they do well in video games, and it's also a
• 12:03
  social outlet for kids, you know that many parents don't realize. So I
• 12:09
  think there's different ways, different places for kids to feel confident, competent,
• 12:13
  and also just when more point competence, it doesn't mean it doesn't mean you
• 12:16
  have to excel at it. It doesn't mean you have to be the best.
• 12:20
  I don't know where this came from, but I hear it so many
• 12:22
  times from the young people I work with, college students, teenagers. I'm
• 12:24
  not the best at something, I have to be the best at something,
• 12:28
  you know, I don't know. I didn't feel that way. I wasn't
• 12:31
  the best at much when I was in school, but I didn't feel the
• 12:35
  pressure to be the best you know. I know I had to get good
• 12:37
  grades, etc. Etc. But there's this sense of I have to stand
• 12:41
  out. I think social media plays a big role in it, but I
• 12:43
  have to somehow, you know, be spectacular. And that's not what competence
• 12:48
  is about. The Other thing that competence is about is struggling when you don't
• 12:52
  know something to get to where you know. That's that's where Carol Bleck's word
• 12:56
  yet and work on mindsets comes in because as adults, we don't you don't
• 13:00
  try new things, we don't learn new things. You know, when was
• 13:01
  the last time you took up a new sport or a new hobby or some
• 13:05
  new language. You know, it's good for your brain. But we don't
• 13:09
  do that as adults. We kind of get good at what we do and
• 13:11
  we just keep doing it. And kids have to learn to be able to
• 13:15
  struggle and manage the anxiety and struggle and manage the self doubt, you know.
• 13:20
  And that's the difference between having a fixed and a growth mindset, between
• 13:24
  what I call I think I can metaphor obviously I think I can mindset.
• 13:28
  Obviously I didn't think of that. It comes from the children's book, you
• 13:31
  know, the Little Engine that Could. But the idea is it's not what
• 13:35
  happens when you get to that crossroad and you don't think you can do it.
• 13:37
  Everybody gets to that crossroad. Everybody gets to that point where do I
• 13:41
  think I can do this? Can I do this? The question is are
• 13:43
  you able to tolerate the feelings that come up and keep going or do you
• 13:48
  say no, this anxiety, this feeling means I can't do it. I
• 13:52
  should shut down. Yeah, right, And so what we really want to
• 13:54
  encourage kids to do to become competent in anything is to struggle with that,
• 14:00
  to manage those feelings so that when they get overwhelmed and they get to feeling
• 14:03
  self doubt, that they can manage that feeling so that they can keep going.
• 14:07
  Because if you do manage that feeling and you can keep going, you
• 14:11
  will get better, you will get smarter, you know, you will figure
• 14:13
  something out. Yeah, and we run into so often in our neurodivergent population
• 14:20
  of kids shutting down thinking they can't or thinking it's too hard or it's too
• 14:26
  uncomfortable. I call my own kid a serial avoid er because it is instinct
• 14:31
  is just to avoid or shut it down when he comes to discomfort, and
• 14:35
  it's been something that we've really had to focus on for years to help him
• 14:39
  through that anxiety and discomfort. But I think parents get really sort of stuck
• 14:45
  there, and that's so easy to translate into laziness. Right, Well,
• 14:48
  my kids just won't do it. You know, it got hard, so
• 14:52
  they were done, and we want to equate that to laziness. But it's
• 14:54
  not laziness. There's a million other things that could be driving that, and
• 14:58
  one could be that struggle with discomfort, just getting through the hard things and
• 15:05
  knowing that you can, So what do you do in that situation? So
• 15:09
  going back to empathy, empathy is not just understanding how someone else is feeling.
• 15:13
  It's understanding how it makes sense to them, how the world makes sense
• 15:16
  to them, how that particular moment in time when they have shut down,
• 15:22
  when they're a serial of I was a serial of vorder last week because it
• 15:24
  was passed over and I could need cereal. But that's not the kind that
• 15:26
  you're talking about. But when you're a you know, mister avoidant, you
• 15:33
  know, what do how do you talk to gus at that particular moment?
• 15:35
  And the first thing is to say, you know, well, what's going
• 15:39
  on? How are you feeling? Let me understand this from your perspective?
• 15:43
  Well, how does it make sense to you that you can't do this?
• 15:46
  How does it make sense to you? Not why? Because why is going
• 15:48
  to shut them down? You know that that puts, you know, them
• 15:52
  on the defensive. But you know, but it's an easy work erround.
• 15:54
  How is this making you feel this way? You know? And it's not
• 15:58
  going to be one conversation, you know, the first time it's going to
• 16:00
  be leave me alone. I don't want to talk about this, you know,
• 16:03
  it's gonna make them anxious or frustrated, but it's over time. Let's
• 16:07
  talk about what happens when you get to that. That's why I like that.
• 16:08
  I think I can metaphor because every kid knows it and it's a great
• 16:11
  story. But what happens when you get to I think I can't? You
• 16:17
  know? And let's not talk about whether you can get the math homework done
• 16:21
  it. Let's don't worry about whether you're going to be a mathematician or you
• 16:23
  ever gonna understand that. I don't understand. I'm talking virtually, I don't
• 16:26
  understand math. Let's talk about something that's more important than anything that you do.
• 16:32
  And that's how you get through that bad, yucky feeling that no one
• 16:36
  wants to have. I can't do this, I don't want to do this,
• 16:38
  I don't want to face it. Because let's help you just to manage
• 16:41
  those feelings and maybe you can get another problem done. Let's you know,
• 16:45
  and so what are you worried about? What is on your mind about that?
• 16:48
  And then you know, you ask the questions and then you say so
• 16:52
  you feel you know, it seems to me you feel that you know you're
• 16:56
  never gonna you know, when you face these feelings, you're never gonna amount
• 16:59
  to anything whatever they say, and you validate and give credence to that,
• 17:02
  because you know, unless they know you've heard them, they're not going to
• 17:04
  listen to you. So that's the part that I would work on more.
• 17:08
  Then let's get your you know, let's get it done. Parents have to
• 17:11
  do that to a certain extent, but I think that that's really important,
• 17:15
  especially for neurodi divergent kids who are just struggling with us every day. Yeah.
• 17:18
  Yeah, I talk a lot about the fact that kids need to feel
• 17:22
  seen, hurt, and understood. I feel like everything sort of comes back
• 17:26
  to that, and really all of us as humans need that, but I
• 17:30
  think neurodivergent individuals feel it less in general than neurotypical people might, and so
• 17:37
  we really need to keep an eye on that with our kids, with our
• 17:41
  students, do they feel seen, heard, and understood. I mean,
• 17:45
  that was the one of the biggest drawbacks to school for my own kid.
• 17:48
  He didn't feel like anybody understood him. They were constantly pressuring him, telling
• 17:52
  him he could do things that were really, really, really super hard for
• 17:56
  him, and they just didn't get it. You know, and so is
• 18:00
  so important as the adults in their lives to make sure we're taking time to
• 18:04
  make them feel validated, to make them feel like we're at least trying to
• 18:08
  understand. We may not get it, but we're at least trying to understand.
• 18:12
  Right, Well, you get a lot of points for trying. And
• 18:15
  now you've entered into the next sea, which is connection. Right, that's
• 18:19
  just all what we're talking about, you know, is connecting. And I'll
• 18:23
  say something about that in a minute more. But the other thing is that
• 18:26
  you know, and I think we realize that, but it's easy to forget.
• 18:30
  These kids are working harder to get through the school day than their big
• 18:33
  brother or their younger sister who find it easier, or their friend. It
• 18:37
  takes more energy, it takes more focus, it's more it can be more
• 18:41
  humiliating or bring up negative feelings more. So they come home and they're done.
• 18:47
  You know, they're tired, They're done in a way that other kids
• 18:49
  in the family or other kids who don't have those issues might be. And
• 18:53
  so I think it's really important factor that in two expectations. And it's hard
• 18:59
  because you know, you still want them to do their homework, and I'm
• 19:00
  not saying that we should not have them do their homework, but you know,
• 19:04
  they may need more of a break or make sure they have a snack
• 19:07
  or do something physical or whatever it is, or take more breaks. You
• 19:11
  know, it's different for your family, and there's you know, there's all
• 19:12
  sorts of techniques out there. We'll push ups for younger kids or whatever it
• 19:17
  is. But I'm just to kind of acknowledge that the thing about connection is
• 19:21
  as I said before, you know, it's connection and empathy from parents,
• 19:25
  but it's also about other people seeing you do what you do well. And
• 19:29
  that's why extracurriculars are so important, I think for kids, and it doesn't
• 19:33
  have to be baseball, it doesn't matter what it is. It could be,
• 19:37
  you know, for a kid who's you know, an indoor kid who's
• 19:40
  not as athletic. It could be you know, magic, the gathering for
• 19:42
  boys, which is you know, takes a lot of brain power, a
• 19:45
  lot of planning, a lot of money in terms of buying those cards,
• 19:49
  but you know, other kids get to see them do it, and it's
• 19:52
  a whole social thing. So there's all sorts of options out there for making
• 19:56
  connections. You know, for the kid who doesn't want to be on stage,
• 19:59
  you know, the stage group. The thing that I really push my
• 20:02
  patients to do is to make sure they're involved, you know, the younger
• 20:06
  ones is in some sort of school after school activity. A job is a
• 20:10
  great thing to do. You know, kids don't work as much as they
• 20:12
  used to, I don't think. And it looks great on a college application,
• 20:17
  and it's so much more rewarding in school. You know, most kids
• 20:21
  that struggle in school, they find it so much more rewarding. And not
• 20:25
  just the paycheck, but also like you know, if I do a good
• 20:27
  job, the customer is happy or my hopefully boss is happy, and they
• 20:32
  see it and it's just a whole different way of growing and developing. Yeah,
• 20:34
  it's rewarding. My kid loves to be a helper, you know.
• 20:38
  Any project that he can go and help somebody with something, it just lights
• 20:42
  him up for weeks afterwards. So doesn't even have to be something paid necessarily,
• 20:48
  just getting out and doing something that has value I think is really really
• 20:55
  helpful to our kids. Anything else you want to make sure that we talk
• 21:00
  about before we wrap up. I just think that parents have to remember that,
• 21:03
  you know, parenting is in a skill, it's a relationship. I
• 21:07
  love that. And if you trust the relationship between you and your kid,
• 21:11
  you know everything is going to work out. I love that so much.
• 21:15
  Yeah, we're there to guide, not to direct. That's how I feel,
• 21:19
  and we're shifting that way, which is great. Thank you so much,
• 21:23
  doctor Price for being here, for sharing some of your wisdom and some
• 21:27
  of your own personal story too. It really is so valuable to others,
• 21:33
  and I know to everyone who's listening. I want everyone to make sure that
• 21:37
  you have the information that you need to connect more with doctor Price and his
• 21:44
  work, and that is all available in the show notes for this episode.
• 21:48
  I'll have a link to it's his books, website, any social media anything
• 21:53
  like that, as well as the resources that we have mentioned in this episode.
• 21:59
  All of that is at PARENTINGADHD and Autism dot com Slash two six y'
• 22:03
  seven for episode two hundred and sixty seven. Thank you again. It's been
• 22:10
  a pleasure to talk with you, and I know that this episode is just
• 22:14
  going to help so many out there. Thank you so much for having me
• 22:17
  at six seven. That's the number to be proud of. Oh, thank
• 22:19
  you, Thank you so much. Happy Spring to everybody. Take care.
• 22:22
  Yeah, we'll see everybody on the next episode. Take good care. Thanks
• 22:27
  for joining me on the Beautifully Complex podcast. If you enjoyed this episode,
• 22:33
  please subscribe and share, and don't forget to check out my online courses and
• 22:37
  parent coaching at Parenting ADHD and Autism dot com and at The Behavior Revolution dot com.