Speaker 1: We have talked many times now about Jonathan Hate and
Speaker 1: his book The Ancient Think, It's yours in mind new
Speaker 1: It's like most contemporary parenting book, like The Favorite Yeah,
Speaker 1: and specifically The Anxious Generation is about the impact that
Speaker 1: technology has on kids, technology screen, specifically social media, all
Speaker 1: of that stuff, and how we as parents aren't doing
Speaker 1: our kids a favor by allowing them free reign on
Speaker 1: an open market for stupidity or however you want to
Speaker 1: put it.
Speaker 2: He draws a direct core connection in this book between
Speaker 2: the fact that there's instant gratification and constant stimulus, and
Speaker 2: how that the correlation, the connection of when those phones
Speaker 2: smartphones started to phase into teenage society that so went
Speaker 2: this draw or this increase in depression, anxiety, and a
Speaker 2: lot of people, I don't get me wrong, a lot
Speaker 2: of people want to blame social media, and I don't
Speaker 2: know that it's necessarily social media specifically. I think there's
Speaker 2: a bigger problem in that you have the phone becomes
Speaker 2: a distraction where you don't know how to deal with
Speaker 2: being bored, and then you also have this parenting movement
Speaker 2: that makes where people don't know how to deal with
Speaker 2: negative experiences like we pacify children at every turn, with
Speaker 2: any opportunity that we can, and I don't know that
Speaker 2: that's the right thing to do, for whatever it.
Speaker 3: Seems to ourselves now, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: Like it's hard to like it's a weird thing where
Speaker 4: people go. You know what I did. I went on
Speaker 4: a walk the other day and I just want it
Speaker 4: was so nice. Yeah, it was so nice.
Speaker 3: I love standing in a line.
Speaker 1: I don't love standing in line, but I love standing
Speaker 1: in a line without my phone or without you know,
Speaker 1: looking at it, because then I get to look at
Speaker 1: and judge everybody else because no one is looking up
Speaker 1: at me, no, no one.
Speaker 4: I got five seconds. I laughed at myself. I put
Speaker 4: my phone in.
Speaker 2: My pocket because I texted people that I was beating
Speaker 2: for coffee. I set their line for what had to
Speaker 2: be five mississips, and then I pulled my phone back
Speaker 2: out again, and I giggled, and I did it and
Speaker 2: then went about sending emails.
Speaker 3: There's a direct correlation.
Speaker 5: I firmly believe this, and don't think I'm so woo
Speaker 5: woo for saying it, But a direct correlation between battling
Speaker 5: anxiety and having moments of silence and peace. Yeah, whether
Speaker 5: it's meditation or taking that walk without stimulation, whatever, there's
Speaker 5: absolutely a correlation to reducing your anxiety the more moments
Speaker 5: of peace that you have.
Speaker 2: And at its core, I think that's what he's talking
Speaker 2: about in this interview where he points out that kids
Speaker 2: need to be pushed beyond their fear and their comfort
Speaker 2: zone in order to build resilience, and he kind of
Speaker 2: says that he's really calling out dads because that traditionally
Speaker 2: has been their role. He also says it doesn't mean
Speaker 2: moms can't do it. He just said, for whatever reason, psychologically,
Speaker 2: this seems to be the thing that dads do without
Speaker 2: even thinking about it. They're the ones that are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: go do this thing, or they want to play monster
Speaker 2: when the kids are young because they want to just
Speaker 2: scare them a little, but in a fun way.
Speaker 1: There's something very off putting about dads who are the
Speaker 1: careful ones. To me, I'm looking right at you when
Speaker 1: I say this, but I mean, yeah, okay, good.
Speaker 4: I'm not. But maybe emotionally.
Speaker 6: You can't laugh away if you are If you're a
Speaker 6: dude and you have kids and you're the one who says.
Speaker 3: Careful with that, it's sharp that stove is hot. Careful
Speaker 3: all around the stairs, careful, careful, don't touch that, careful
Speaker 3: with that, don't put your hand on the dog's face,
Speaker 3: don't do like that to me is very off putting.
Speaker 1: It And as a there are obvious things that I
Speaker 1: would want my kids to be careful about, yes, but
Speaker 1: me telling them to be careful is nowhere near as
Speaker 1: great a lesson as the dog biting their thumb or
Speaker 1: the stove actually being hot, or the knife actually being sharp.
Speaker 2: Yet consequences are awesome. They're great teachers. I say this
Speaker 2: a lot, but one of the top, like I don't
Speaker 2: know themes of parenting that my dad gave to me
Speaker 2: was he would constantly tell the story about him and
Speaker 2: my grandfather where my grandfather would just tell him to
Speaker 2: go do stuff around the farm, and my dad, as
Speaker 2: like a seven eight year old, would go, well, if
Speaker 2: he's asking you to do it, it must mean I
Speaker 2: could do it. But as he got older, he realized
Speaker 2: that these were just tests. These were just him like
Speaker 2: throwing it into a problem and seeing if he could
Speaker 2: figure it out. And my dad learned as an adult
Speaker 2: that that's where his self esteem came from.
Speaker 3: Go fix that head, gasket leak on the tractor.
Speaker 4: You're not exaggerating.
Speaker 2: I mean my dad and my uncle drove a stick
Speaker 2: shift pickup to feed the cattle on the ranch and
Speaker 2: they got in a fight and took out about twenty
Speaker 2: yards of fence and then had to go fix the fence.
Speaker 4: And my grandfather was like, this is just what it was.
Speaker 4: These are all just.
Speaker 2: Natural consequences presenting themselves, and so he talks about like
Speaker 2: and my version of this was my wife hated this.
Speaker 2: We lived on the same block as our elementary school
Speaker 2: and my kids wanted to walk home from school by themselves,
Speaker 2: and I said sure, and she's like, what are you doing.
Speaker 2: I said, they're walking to school and they're walking home
Speaker 2: from school, and she's like, that's not safe. I go,
Speaker 2: there are hundreds of people around dropping their kids off.
Speaker 2: If somebody grabs one of them and they're screaming or something,
Speaker 2: somebody's gonna do something. But also, that's not the time
Speaker 2: to grab a can do us. That's busy, prime time.
Speaker 3: It's lazy.
Speaker 4: They're not even crossing a street, lady like.
Speaker 2: And to me, the best example of this was that
Speaker 2: when I would drop Jacob off at kindergarten, Jack was
Speaker 2: maybe two or three, and he goes, can I go home?
Speaker 2: And I and he loved it. He loved running around
Speaker 2: the corner where I could not see him as soon
Speaker 2: as we dropped him off, because he liked going into
Speaker 2: the door, and he loved being in the house by himself.
Speaker 2: Jacob was not this way, but he just loved all
Speaker 2: of it. And so I was like, great, like knock
Speaker 2: yourself out. And he told me one time this guy
Speaker 2: stopped and said, hey, are you okay? And he said,
Speaker 2: he goes, I know I'm not supposed to talk to trangers.
Speaker 2: So I gave him a thumbs up and I ran
Speaker 2: in the house.
Speaker 6: I buy a.
Speaker 5: Kid outside by himself walking some way in.
Speaker 3: You don't call your wife lady to her face. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all right, rough housing. I've said it before.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Jonathan hate challenges that the dads should
Speaker 1: be willing to challenge their kids.
Speaker 3: Get in there.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe not see how well they can take a punch,
Speaker 1: but you know, understand the kids are going to scrape
Speaker 1: their knees. One of the things we used to love doing,
Speaker 1: and I've mentioned before, is my kids would jump up
Speaker 1: on our bed and we would pillow fight and The
Speaker 1: rule was, we'll do it as long as no one cries,
Speaker 1: and then the first time someone cries, game over, and
Speaker 1: I would hit them harder and harder.
Speaker 3: Your son harder, no, but rarely. He was the first one.
Speaker 5: I don't think i've ever I think I've seen my
Speaker 5: brother cry once.
Speaker 1: It was like six. I mean, it wasn't like he
Speaker 1: was fifteen or anything.
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is your intent, but what
Speaker 2: I like about your example is is that you're not
Speaker 2: saying they can't feel You're just but you're also teaching
Speaker 2: them to push through and manage the emotion. If they
Speaker 2: want the fun to continue, they just got to hold
Speaker 2: it together. Because, in all honesty, I if I'm hitting
Speaker 2: them with a pillow right now, you could you can
Speaker 2: do some damage. But I'm hitting them with pillow and
Speaker 2: they're falling down on a bed covered with pillows, like
Speaker 2: this is the easiest.
Speaker 5: You weren't taking the pillow launching it in their face
Speaker 5: to throw them up against.
Speaker 2: A wall in the first ten minutes, like sibling fights.
Speaker 2: That's like twenty minutes in when Gary's starting to feel winded,
Speaker 2: when I'm starting getting tired, I'm like, I need somebody cry.
Speaker 6: He starts.
Speaker 2: He starts putting onions in the pillow case just to
Speaker 2: get anything, something going, something to get it started.
Speaker 1: But it's upun it's it's incumbent upon dads because just
Speaker 1: by our nature to push that envelope, to push that
Speaker 1: free play, to push the risk taking.
Speaker 2: I love his example. He says, starting at eight years old,
Speaker 2: you should find activities that your kid could do on
Speaker 2: their own. And one of the examples, he says, you
Speaker 2: take up to a science center and you say, go
Speaker 2: roam around and do whatever you want. I will meet
Speaker 2: you in the cafeteria. And here's the I've traveled with
Speaker 2: high school kids for a choir, and what's interesting is
Speaker 2: is that you know, people go, what if the kid
Speaker 2: gets taken and all that stuff. But I think that
Speaker 2: there's also that's a safe environment, right, It's an enclosed
Speaker 2: space that you can also teach your kids to exist
Speaker 2: in that discomfort and if they feel fear, then that's
Speaker 2: going to make them more aware of their surroundings. Like
Speaker 2: one of the young men on the trip, he was
Speaker 2: we were traveling on this metro station late at night
Speaker 2: in downtown Dallas, and he actually said about one of
Speaker 2: the girls.
Speaker 6: He goes.
Speaker 2: These girls have no survival skills, Like they have no
Speaker 2: way looking out for themselves.
Speaker 4: They're not even aware of anything.
Speaker 2: That's because they're like standing on their phones right next
Speaker 2: to the doorway of the train, waiting for somebody to
Speaker 2: write before the closes, just to grab the phone, and
Speaker 2: then the train's gone, and you're like, and they're not
Speaker 2: even thinking.
Speaker 3: About that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And I don't know how you can if you haven't
Speaker 2: experienced any kind of fear or discomfort.
Speaker 1: My wife refers to that as aware bear. Ooh, people
Speaker 1: to be being aware bear if you're ever in an
Speaker 1: environment that you're not sure of, or you know, a
Speaker 1: group of people whatever. It's childish, but it absolutely seals
Speaker 1: the point of just just know what's going on, what's
Speaker 1: aware of what's going on.
Speaker 2: And there's a I think we all could agree too,
Speaker 2: there's a there's a there's a spectrum, right, there's a
Speaker 2: boundary of what you don't want them to live in fear?
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know so far. This is what way I've
Speaker 2: raised my kids, and it seems to be working out,
Speaker 2: is it. I also don't teach them and everybody's out
Speaker 2: to get them somebody's trying to grab them at every turn, like.
Speaker 2: I don't want them to become a rodent where they're
Speaker 2: just constantly looking over their shoulder at every moment like
Speaker 2: that does.
Speaker 3: That's no way to live either, A moment rodent.
Speaker 2: Hoffman's in there rhyming, hmmm, tips, I like a were
Speaker 2: bear in a moment romrote, I gotta work on this.