Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #133 Meet The 'World's Worst Mom' (Featuring Lenore Skenazy)

Transcript

#133 Meet The 'World's Worst Mom' (Featuring Lenore Skenazy) · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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