I'm Dr. Becky and this is Good Inside.
So, some context for this episode.
In the last number of weeks, I've been asked over and over what I think of this new book,
Bad Therapy.
It has definitely been a hot topic in parenting circles around the country.
I've been asked about it over and over, and so rather than reading other people's coverage
of it, I decided to pick up the book and read it myself.
And after I finished it, I really wanted to talk about it.
So I texted my friend Emily.
Emily Oster, the Emily Oster, professor of economics at Brown, author of Expecting Better,
Crib Sheet, a family firm, and host of the amazing podcast, Parent Data.
And because I wanted to talk to her about it, I then decided, hey, why don't we kind of
pause right now?
And instead of having a private conversation, share the conversation with you.
So before we jump in, here's kind of the general premise of Bad Therapy.
American kids are the saddest, most anxious, depressed, and medicated generation on record.
We are seeing a generation of parents simultaneously hyperfixated on the mental health and well-being
of their children.
There has been an increased emphasis in the importance of feelings in parenting and education.
And more kids are in therapy today than ever before.
And what the author of Bad Therapy raises, what Abigail Shryer argues, is, well, all of
these parenting and educational developments seem positive on the surface, is that really
the case.
And in her new book, Bad Therapy, Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up, she argues that these
changes are actually directly contributing to kids' mental health decline.
Okay, Emily Oster and I are going to get into all of this right after this.
Let's be real.
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Emily.
Hi, Becky.
Hi.
Nice to talk to you.
Thanks for texting me.
I know.
When something big is happening in our joint world, I'm always like, I have to reach out to
Emily.
I want to talk to her about this.
It's good.
I've gotten a lot also, probably less than you, but there's out there people want to know.
People want to talk about it.
They want to hear.
Maybe we'll start general then world dive specific.
I'll ask you first, and I'm not happy to answer too.
What was your reaction from reading the book?
I think what's really interesting and really valuable about the book is it comes into this
space that I think a lot of people are now in, which is just recognizing that there is
a pretty substantial trend over time in kids in mental health issues that mental health
diagnoses have gone up a lot over time.
We try to talk about this during COVID, but it's not just COVID.
It's a COVID, it's a continuation of a trend.
You have many people with different ideas about why this is.
People talk about Jonathan Height talks about phones.
To put this at the feet of phones and social media, this book puts it at the feet of therapy
and an over emphasis on feelings.
That's an oversimplification, but that's a big piece of her argument.
What I think is really good about this whole space is that it has gotten people talking
about this problem, which I think we can all agree is a problem.
What's hard, and I'm sure we will talk a lot about this conversation, is when you have
a long time trend, it's really hard to say that it's due to something in particular.
This is my whole life is about talking about things that are correlations and things that
are causations.
One place, not your whole life.
You were more than your dad.
But one of the things that is most challenging is if you see a time trend in something saying
that that time trend is due to something in particular is an awfully large lift, partly
because it's almost certainly true that this is not just due to one thing.
But even if it were just one thing, how would you find that one thing since many things
trend over time?
That's my broadest take on why this is an important question to ask and why it's a hard
problem.
Yeah.
To me, what I see around me too is kids are really struggling and young adults are really
struggling.
I think there's a lot of data to support that.
I think you and I also see that around us, she's highlighting that.
I think that's so important for us to then be curious, well, why is this?
I think it is also interesting.
We have parents who are focused on parenting in a way that I think a lot of generations
before were not.
At the same time, we have these kids who are really struggling.
To me, any gap that can allow us to say, what is going on here is useful.
Yeah.
You know the word parenting was not coined until the 1970s.
Before that, it was child rearing.
This idea, people were more involved.
I think that's what she pulls out that strikes people as like, what is going on?
My parents did not pay, my parents are great.
They're wonderful.
They did not pay the kind of attention I do to my kids or curate the kind of experiences.
I think that's changed a lot over time.
It's like, what am I getting for that?
Shouldn't my kids be really the happiest because of all of my focus on them?
That's right.
Well, let's jump into that one because she talks about that.
I know you and I have probably talked a lot about that too, making our kids happy.
This is definitely a part of her book too, that we are so focused on our kids being happy,
which on the surface, I think a reaction is like, all right, that sounds good.
But it is actually so pernicious.
It's actually a chapter in my book.
In that way, I think maybe our ideas around it are different, but the outcome is similar,
which is that the more we focus on our kids being happy, the more we actually set them
up to feel anxious and very easily incompetent in the face of the distress that's inherent
in life.
What do you think about that?
She has a passage in the book about the idea of being happy and this almost knee jerk,
I statement.
Of course, we want people to be happy.
Then she talks to someone who is like, but really is that your primary momentary goal?
Of course, it's not.
Most of the things, even as adults, that bring us the greatest joy and fulfillment and
that we identify as the greatest pieces of our lives, aren't delivering happiness like
the way a bath does or something.
Most of it is about fulfillment and what Jennifer Wallace would call mattering or something
that brings out our sense of being an important part of the world.
That's not happiness in the traditional way.
We think about what we're delivering for our kids.
I want my kids to feel content fulfilled, but I'm not sure that I would just necessarily
want to describe it as I want them to feel happy because if you expect to feel happy all
the time, this is, she says it directly, like you expect to feel happy all the time,
you're just going to be constantly disappointed.
100%.
This is the idea that came to me right now where I think we have this new definition of happiness
when we're focused so much on our kids being happy because I think saying I want my kids
to be happy, it feels like a throwaway comment so I can kind of get away with saying that.
What I see actually is I want my kids to have an absence of discomfort and distress because
if they're feeling uncomfortable and upset, I kind of have to tolerate discomfort and
upset.
It's just kind of a focus right now on everybody in the family system getting out of there.
There's this phobia of discomfort.
When I think about the way that plays out in families, and then I think about what's
really helpful long term for kids is being able to feel like it is okay to be me when
I'm struggling with this.
I actually have some type of motivation in this moment.
I feel like I can get out of this or I'm going to figure this out.
By the way, the feeling I'm going to get when I finish this puzzle or finish this essay
or even get through this hard period with my friend, that's going to be a really amazing
feeling because it's the feeling of building competence.
When we remove all those and the name of I want my kids to be happy, I often think we
are stealing our kids' learning, we are stealing their sense of competence.
I feel like the word fragility is somewhat bold word, but we are kind of sending them the
message that they're fragile, which is something I think, again, this book Bad Therapy touches
on a lot.
I think she draws a line which I do see between the scaffolding that we provide, that we
may provide that lowers competence when kids are younger, and then the issues that come
up when they're older.
She's right in this space of you need to work on kids being able to do things on their
own when they're eight.
When they're 18, they can do that.
If you don't do that, then when they're 18, they will lack the competence to go to the
store by themselves and purchase a sandwich.
There's some amazing stories in the book in this space of lack of competence.
That's actually the piece of the book that I find most resonant is the idea of limiting
kids' ability to do stuff on their own, whether it's physical, freedom outside the house,
ownership over their own schoolwork, whatever it is, that those are things we've weighed
dialed down to the detriment of a development of competence and problem solving, because
we're afraid that they'll feel sad or we're afraid they'll be scared or we're afraid
that they'll get kidnapped even though there's kind of no evidence for that.
Right.
I find useful and just very practical to say to kids is when they're doing something
for the first time, the second time, the fifth time, it's still considered new.
The way that is supposed to feel is hard and uncomfortable.
There is literally nothing in the world.
We do.
That is worthwhile to figure out.
That is easy and therefore comfortable in the beginning.
Like the first time your kid, you know, doesn't earn on their own, they're going to feel
nervous.
The first time your kid is trying to do some big multiplication sheet, they're going
to feel frustrated and I know saying to myself, wait, like this isn't pleasant and my kid
is feeling this exactly right.
Actually allows me to say to them in that moment, yeah, like you're nervous or yeah, this
is hard and I believe you and it's actually the exact way you're supposed to feel.
Like you're actually feeling this just right, actually brings down the heat in that moment,
whereas the opposite of, okay, I'll do it for you or okay, then you don't do this.
And somebody's what I'm actually saying to my kid is you're not supposed to feel that
discomfort.
So the next time you feel it in different situation, you'll start to hear my voice saying,
oh no, I'm not supposed to feel this way.
Then you think what you're doing is wrong and then you have an extremely limited group
of feelings.
That feel okay.
And you have an extremely limited number of experiences and behaviors you're willing
to take on.
So I find this so interesting because it gets to me exactly where you in this book,
what have a disagreement or where I think she might have a disadvantage agreement, which
is that bring it both have the goal of getting kids to be able to the next time something
comes up, do it on their own, right?
That's the goal.
That's what's interesting to highlight.
It's the same idea, right?
I want the kid to understand that the next time they encounter the hard math problem, they
are going to work through it on their own and in a way or the fifth time or later that
they'll be able to solve that problem or a version of that kind of problem by themselves.
Your approach is in this acknowledgement of like this is hard and that's how you should
feel about, right?
So it's not like I'll do it for you and I just want you to be happy.
It's that's a feeling that you have and that's the appropriate feeling to have here and
you need to do the homework while you have that feeling because that's feeling that you
have when you haven't done something before and that's great.
I think she would come closer to why are we acknowledging that feeling?
Why are we spending time on this adult idea of kind of feelings and emotions just do
the homework because it's your job to do the homework and you do the homework and that's
your job.
And at the end of the day, the homework is done and maybe there's a little punishment
at the other end if you don't do it, but even putting that aside that there's really
no reason to acknowledge the feeling part of it.
You should just do it because you do things and that's what it is like to be an adult.
So I'm curious how you react to that.
Yeah, great.
I love this setup.
Okay.
So one of the things that I think deeply relates to that is do we have a hyper focus
on feelings?
Is there such thing as a hyper focus of feelings?
And to me, I would say, of course there is.
Like that, of course, is a real thing.
But to me, it's about the how and to me, the nuance is really important.
And I also think there's always a middle between extremes and that's often that often is
something to consider and there's often something right about that.
So let's say back in the day, someone was like, okay, if I told my parents, I don't know
how to do this math problem.
And I was kind of whining, they'd be like, go to your room, finish math.
And the next time you whine, you're not going to get dessert.
I don't know, something like that.
Okay.
And this is not in her book.
So let's just, we're just riffing here.
So to me, there's an extreme.
That extreme is go produce the outcome.
The feeling you're having, I'm just kind of ignoring to some degree, I'm saying it's
not real.
I'm just saying, I don't freaking care.
Right?
And go figure it out.
Okay.
That's one extreme.
I just want to model the other extreme because I just want to be clear.
But I do think a lot of parents have over corrected.
And I would say it is, I don't know, equally, I don't know about the exact equivalence,
but it is similarly unhelpful to get this math homework is so hard.
And I know when the things they give you, it's cool.
Like they don't know how busy you are.
And look, I'm going to do this for you or, right, or maybe the kids like, I don't know
how to do it.
I don't know how to do it.
Like, okay, stop, stop, stop, I'll just, let me just finish this part of you.
I'll make your flashcards.
I'll do it.
And now you're okay.
Right?
Okay.
To me, there is that extreme.
I have never said those words myself.
I have never encouraged parents to say those things.
I think that is extremely unhelpful.
In that case, while the first thing is outcome that I expect from you without any acknowledgement
about what's going on for you or by the way, what's probably blocking you, which is
the overwhelming feeling, the other extreme is complete focus on what's blocking you without
any, not only pathway toward the outcome, but without simultaneously letting my kid know
I both see your feeling as real.
And I also know as an adult, the feeling isn't forever.
And you're going to be able to get past this because you're a competent human being validating
feelings over and over without in some way absorbing your belief in that person's
competence or your hope that there's going to be another version or another side.
I do think can create a tunnel vision into yourself and you become the feeling instead
of the feeling being a part of you next to the competent version of yourself.
That to me is the middle ground to be able to say and to make it super simple.
This feels really hard to you and I believe you.
I wouldn't say that's the right feeling.
The only reason I'd say that's the right feeling to my kid is because they're having it.
That's happening in their body is what it is.
It's not right for me to drop my phone, but if it happened, it's just reality.
That's what I mean.
That's right.
So this is hard and I know you can do hard things.
This is a really tricky puzzle and I'm not going to finish it for you because I know the
feeling you're going to get when you finish it on your own is going to be so amazing and
I will not steal that from you.
I know it's hard to go to the store for the first time.
And if it feels so hard to walk eight blocks by yourself, you know what I'll do?
I will walk you one or you can walk one and you can come back.
You know why?
You're going to have a great opportunity to make progress and I know the biggest thing
getting in your way is just not taking one step.
And so I know if you take a few steps over the course of the next two weeks, you will
be able to go and do that and you're going to feel so freaking proud of yourself and I
can't wait for that moment.
That is the approach that to me is in that middle feelings matter feelings block our ability
to get things done.
And we need someone to acknowledge those feelings as real while simultaneously seeing a more
competent version of ourself than we can often access in the moment we're overwhelmed
by a feeling.
I don't know.
Does that make sense?
No, I think it does make sense.
I mean, I think part of it is exactly this, like it's very easy to take character to
sure both side, you know, sort of extreme.
The extremes and neither of the extremes is right and most people would not sort of push
in either of those push in either of those extremes.
Although one can arrive in extremes in adversity.
But here's the thing, one of the things that I think that we'll get to more parts of
her book.
There was so much about it, I liked enough I want to talk about it, right?
And it really made me think.
One of the examples she has in her book, and to me this is where we fail to find the
middle.
And most of us, me too, by the way, we have a hard time holding two things as true, right?
That's why that's like such a core part of what I tried to do.
Two things can be true at the same time.
So she talks about this example where empathy can lead us to make bad decisions.
And she says, for example, you're empathizing so much with a really poorly performing employee
that you fail to fire them.
And the truth is the organization would be better, probably even that person would be better
to have a, you know, fresh start somewhere else.
This to me stuck out so much and I see this all the time with parents.
They're like, oh, so you want me to empathize with my kid that they can't join a birthday
party like, by the way, I'm still taking my kid to the birthday party.
I can empathize with my employee and I can fire that employee like I don't know why this
happens all the time.
So empathy with a poor performing employee is not a dangerous thing.
If that empathy gets in your way of making a solid decision, I think it's really unfair
to blame empathy for that.
To me, that would be a failure of empathy and having boundaries at the same time.
I mean, I think this is where we get the slide from, you know, authoritative parenting to
permissive parenting.
Like, this is where we get into the kind of like into I want you to be happier.
I want you to be like unbothered at all times and that that somehow is, is the goal.
And then you're not setting boundaries.
That's right.
And then you're letting the feelings be more important than they are, right?
I mean, there are so many experiences with our kids where we make them do something.
They don't want to do because that's what the family is doing.
And yeah, there's a question of to say, you know, well, we're going to go on this hike
because dad and I have decided like, that's what we are doing this morning.
And you know, we do this a lot with my kids and they frequently say, I don't want to go
on hike, you know, I just say, you know, I hear, I hear, I feel, but like we're going
on the hike and partly, you know, you do that as a parent because, you know, later they'll
say, oh, that hype was, was great.
Or because that's the obligation that the family has in some other way.
So I think this is a hard, this is a hard balance.
And I think she's kind of wanting, she wants to push, there's a, to some of the book that's
about really pushing in the direction of kind of very much away from the idea of permissiveness.
And thinking about the idea of acknowledging feelings as perhaps over, over acknowledging
them, which I think is kind of what you're getting at there.
I think that's exactly right.
Like our kids feelings are real and they shouldn't dictate our decisions.
I think those things are very true that our kids feelings are worth noting and they're
not in charge, right?
Like I know I always go to town on the pilot analogy.
Like my passengers who are nervous and turbulence, I think it's helpful for a pilot to say, I hear
everyone screaming, like you guys are all nervous and it's important to say, like I'm the pilot
and I'm in a landess and like we're going to be fine.
We're going to get through this.
That's actually the pilot you want, the pilot who's like everyone shut up back there.
You're making a big deal out of nothing.
I actually, the irony isn't to me, I'm, you know, man, I'm like an absurdly practical
person.
Like you're going to actually do a better job getting the people to be quiet by validating
their feelings.
Now if you then say, and I'm nervous too, and I guess I don't know how to find this
plane and maybe we should just make an emergency landing even though it's just a little turbulence,
you know, like I would agree that would be a horrible pilot.
But again, those are two extremes.
And so I think, you know, the thing that we're touching on here Emily is something she
talks a lot about too.
And I agree with her here that parents have forgotten to me a language I use a lot of
good inside is parents need to embody their authority.
There's a lot of reactions to this.
Ooh, ooh, that sounds a little, you know, it, it, it, sentence to me like the truth.
We are the authority.
Perennial authority is a real thing.
Now I think we've learned about authority to me in almost every area but the family one.
Like I think we know the most effective CEOs are in telling their employees.
That's not a big deal.
Just get it done.
Like I actually don't think anyone thinks that's effective there on the sports field.
I think people have evolved a little bit too, right?
You connect with your players and you don't let them make all the decisions you can do
both.
And I do see as she was writing how many parents in the name of caring about their kids'
feelings have lost touch with their own authority.
And I'm guessing you've seen that too.
Yes.
You can, you can see in her writing that that's right to some extent and that it has these
longer term impacts for how kids expect to be treated, how they expect the world to engage
with them and for their competence.
And I think that's, you know, it's not just a kind of then kids grow up to be spoiled
and disobedient.
I think it's much more actually about kids growing up to not have the confidence to
solve their own problems or to think if I have these big feelings, I can't, like,
the way that you react to feelings is sort of just by kind of giving up as opposed to
seeing the feelings, not only the feelings, but still trying to accomplish the thing that
you're trying to accomplish.
And your hiking example to me is a perfect example of all of this, right?
Where my kid who's protesting hiking because they're like, I really don't like it.
And let's say I believe them that maybe they really don't like it and, you know, they're
tired and it's a hard hike.
And I believe, you know, maybe I'm not making my like two-year-old do some major hike.
I'm like, I do really believe my kid is capable.
They just don't want to do it.
By the time they're 18, 30, whatever it is, to some degree they've learned how many
times have I felt annoyed?
How many times have I felt like this thing isn't what I would want to do?
How many times have I said, I don't even know if I could do this and then watched myself
do it successfully?
And get through it anyway.
And the more we take our kids' protest and discomfort, and I actually think they're
just like a lot of preference.
Like, okay, you don't want to do it?
Great.
Like I do a whole lot of things.
I don't want to do like that's most of my freaking life.
Like literally.
That's what it means to be a parent, okay?
You're welcome.
But the more times my kids, obviously not to some toxic level, but are like, this is not
my preference.
I don't really like this.
I don't even know if I can do it.
And then I help them as a coach, not as a pure dictator, watch themselves do it.
Maybe they don't love to hike, but they're like, wow, I actually did hike these number of
miles.
I think about when they're 18 and 30, and then they're going to scan their body when their
boss asks them to do a project that they've never done before.
They are not responding based on that project.
They're responding based on their circuit of how many times have I initially felt like
I don't know if I can do this.
I've never done this before.
I don't know if this is for me.
And then watch myself build confidence through the act of doing it anyway.
And if that number is basically zero, because they were used to people saying, fine, forget
it.
Fine.
One of us will stay home with you, find the whole family will change just because we
walk on eggshells around you and you have the biggest tantrums.
Then why would I expect my 30 year old just because there are certain age to respond
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I want to talk about a group of kids that I'm particularly passionate about.
Why?
Because I think these kids are some of the most misunderstood kids in the world.
I see these kids as deeply feeling kids and the world tends to see these kids as oppositional
defiant kids.
What are the kids I'm talking about?
They're the ones who have explosive meltdowns.
They're the ones who tend to yell, I hate you, go away when you know they actually need
your help.
They're the ones who will trip and fall and then blame you even though you were not
around them at the time.
These kids are misunderstood because they're seen for their difficult behaviors.
They're the ones who are ahead of or their underlying core struggles.
And because of this difference, I really went to work a while ago and created a completely
different approach for these kids.
And approach that parents tell me leads to the first time they've ever understood their
kid and then the first time they've ever seen productive change in their home.
I want to make sure you know about my upcoming live, deeply feeling kid workshop.
You're going to get an approach that makes you say, oh my goodness.
This is my kid and then you're going to get a set of strategies that actually work.
First things first, follow the link in show notes to see if your child is a DFK and see
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I can't wait to connect with you inside.
The other piece of this, which I resonate with quite a lot.
I think other authors have written about as well, is the physical autonomy piece of it,
which you know, it's one thing to kind of make you go on the hike with me.
And then there's the kind of letting you problem solve activities be physically away from
me in a place where I am not standing over you.
And this has changed quite a lot over time.
And it is, I agree with her to a large extent, the fault of parents because people are afraid
to let their kids go do stuff out in the world.
And that is actually pretty important for kids to learn about their own competence.
And she has some stories in the book and there are other stories about kids who were
like 14 who have never gone down the block by themselves.
And that's not a way to develop someone who then at 18 is going to be able to navigate
their way around an adult world.
I'm so glad you're bringing this up.
I just recorded my workshop for parents of teens.
And this literal thing was a huge, huge focus because I mean, I think this should be happening
before the teenage years.
But really the teenage years are just a bridge between being a kid and being adult.
They're, they're, you know, identity exploitation all the time, but all those things too.
But they're just a bridge.
And one of the things as my kids, even when they are young, but especially as they've gotten
older, I keep thinking about her, what jobs do I have as a parent with them that I want
to hold on to?
And what jobs do I actually want to work myself out of so they can take those jobs on?
And in general, in the patterning of my decisions, am I working myself out of those jobs so they
can figure out how to take them on or am I locking myself further into those jobs, right?
And walking my kid to their friend's house a couple blocks away as an example, I'm like,
yeah, I don't, like, I've got a lot of stuff to do.
Like that's actually not something I want.
And I think this duality, and Jonathan Heitz says in his book, kids need so much less oversight
in the physical world and actually so much more oversight in the digital world.
And somehow the opposite.
I got it reversed.
We got it wrong.
So let's talk about this a little bit because I think there's a lot of factors at play
with letting my kid walk, go to the playground, check themselves into a routine that's actually
happened.
My son recently, he's 12, fully on his own, did his orthodontist appointment.
He figured out what bus he needed from school, we're in Manhattan, right?
So he's like, okay, well, it's not near my house.
So what bus would I take there?
Okay, and then how do I walk there?
And then on my own, I'm going to check in.
I'm going to wait.
And actually took a little while.
He realized, I'm going to go and ask, okay, I did it.
And then he got himself home.
The whole thing, right?
And I really mean this Emily.
He does well academically.
This is the proudest thing for me.
And I think is the thing that sets him up in life more than anything that he tells me
about his grades.
I'm like, yeah, that is going to be fine.
You have to be yay, yay, grade smart to do, okay, in life.
But you have to be able to participate in the grittiness and the problem solving part
of real life.
And I talked to a lot of my friends, right?
Who I hear a lot of things that I understand become barriers.
And so how do you approach this?
Let's jump into this.
I think it matters so much.
So I think you and I are very aligned in terms of I also have a 12 year old.
And she does a lot of stuff on her own.
She goes running by herself.
That's like kind of one of the main things.
And I think what is scary for parents about this is then your kid is out.
In the world, they're on the bus.
They're at the orthodontist, probably not such a big deal.
But they're out running and there's cars or other people.
What if they get lost?
What if they don't take the right bus?
And yeah, they have a phone.
But what if they drop their phone?
And it's easy for that to sort of take over because we're afraid of things.
What I will tell people often is you are not thinking about the other things that are
happening if you don't do this.
You are focusing on safety in this kind of narrow idea of physical safety in this moment.
But you are not thinking about the fact that if you don't give them those opportunities,
there's all kinds of stuff that's lost in the future, all kinds of other risks.
And my sense is trying to get people to take a wider view of the idea of risks and benefits
is pretty helpful in having them recognize.
So the phrase I use is no option is completely safe.
Like keeping your kid in their room all the time is not a completely safe option.
And yeah, letting them go on the bus to the orthodontist is also not a completely safe option.
But it is the thing that is developing all these other, it has all of these enormous
benefits in the future.
And I think if we just got people to reframe that a little bit, I also, the other thing
I will say is doing this the first time is always the hardest.
And that's the most important thing for people to understand.
You won't feel like this the second time.
You won't feel like this the third time.
The first time they go out, you'll be watching the window, watching the window, watching
the window, the third time they go to the store, you forgot that they went.
You're doing something else.
Having a bath.
You know.
God, the baths, I don't know, I'd be talking about baths.
I'm not gonna get a newbie.
Maybe I'm just sore for myself.
Yeah, I think you're sore from your run.
I'm sore from my run.
Okay, there's so many things I want to double click on here.
And okay, number one, one of the things I say a lot to parents, especially when our kids
are young, right?
Like, my kid is hitting someone, but I don't want to ruin the play day.
I'm like, your number one job is to keep your kid safe and right now safe, do you mean
picking up your kid and making them lose the play day?
But when I say my number one job is to keep my kid safe, I think there's so many ways
to think about safe.
When I think about safe and what I mean that, I want my kid to feel safe in the world.
That is really different than always maximizing safety, ironically enough.
And to me, I think there's something deep going on.
And I actually think it's related to COVID.
And I'll explain what other things too.
I think to some degree, we unconsciously think that being a good parent is minimization
of risk.
Yes, totally.
And I think we had practice during COVID times.
But minimization of risk was a life strategy in a way that it, I don't think for my lifetime
had ever been.
I mean, there were periods right during COVID where it was like minimization of risk was
your sole focus for survival.
And I think, you know, it's amazing to me sometimes.
I'm like, remember COVID, like, remember those at least a couple of months?
That was really messed up.
Like, oh my God.
Why is no one talking?
No one talking about it.
Okay.
We were like wiping down our groceries.
Did you?
Let your groceries.
Oh, I'm.
I'm not going to finish for three days.
Yeah.
It's like a little.
I remember when someone was grocery store shopping wiping it down, but not wearing a
mask.
And then I remember cloth mass.
I'm like, what, what do we think those are doing?
But there was just, it was scary.
And it was minimization of risk, minimization of risk, minimization of risk.
And I actually think that's probably had a bigger effect on us than we think because that's,
that is, that's not a parenting strategy.
It's not a life strategy.
You cannot have a life that's worth living with a minimization of risk approach.
And I think for us to be able to say to ourselves, like you're saying that's opening the aperture,
what is my job?
Right?
Like, this is always my focus.
I couldn't say I just be very long-term greedy.
My job is to prepare my kid for life because obviously raise adults.
It's like the same.
That's what it is.
That's what it is.
And there's moments we all take shortcuts because we need to.
But overall, 80% of the time, 50% of the time, whatever it is, that's, that's our goal.
And why would my kid feel comfortable emailing their professor?
In college to tell them about an issue?
If when my kid is sick from school, I don't say to them, no, I'm not emailing your teacher
sweetie because I know, I actually know you can do it.
That's why I just don't want to do for things for you that I know you can do for yourself.
Why would they not call me when they're 20 and say, can you call my, my English professor?
And then I'm like, this is ridiculous.
But it's actually just a natural continuation of everything that happened, right?
Totally.
Yeah.
And at higher stakes, right?
I mean, this is an opportunity this time when we have kids who were in elementary, middle
school, you know, high school, it's an opportunity to make them do those things and have them
learn to do those things and have them forget their homework when the stakes are low.
That is right.
And that piece matters because learning is messy.
There's nothing anyone has ever learned that hasn't been messy.
And like when you learn how to tie your shoes, like if you don't do it the first time,
it's messy when you learn how to bring your water bottle to soccer practice by yourself
without your parent or put your homework in your backpack.
Like you are going to forget.
And that's not a mistake.
That's not lazy.
That feeling that happens when you forget and remembering how thirsty you are is not the
only thing, but it's definitely part of the road to remembering.
Like it is.
And if we steal that, and I love that word, because I think parents are like, I don't
want to steal anything for my kid.
So it's aggressive enough that it's like, whoa, you know, but when we steal that moment
from our kid, we are stealing their sense of competence and their learning.
We're stealing their growth, right?
Totally.
And what I just want to prepare parents for though is when you see the homework or when
you see the water bottle and you stop yourself.
I really mean it's for me.
It's excruciating.
It's like, I actually feel like I need to get in bed after like, I'm like, wow, how
was very hard?
So it kind of actually reminds me of what we're saying with kids, like to say to yourself,
this feels hard because it is hard.
I am feeling this right.
It doesn't mean I need to act and do anything different.
I am competent.
It comes back to this.
Of having this feeling and not having it take over me exactly.
And I think that's a parallel process.
I think it also gets back to this question of, is your, like, is our job to keep our kid
happy?
Like when my kid doesn't have their computer at school and then like, they can't
do the assignment or their teacher yells them or they get a miss or they don't have their
water bottle and then they're thirsty.
They're not happy.
They're thirsty.
They're annoyed.
And they might come home and be like, I'm really unhappy that I didn't have my computer
and my day was terrible because of that.
It's like, yeah, that's okay.
And you like me.
Do you get like a, after those comforts, do you get like a sick joy because you're like
this is going to be a good learning.
Yeah.
I shouldn't maybe we'll cut that.
We'll cut that part of an hour, you know.
But why?
But why?
I think, but I actually think it matters.
Why is a part of me?
I think it's because it feels, I think it's sick joy is maybe, well, but I think there's
a feeling there of, I did a hard, I did a hard thing and I, I followed through on something
that I found hard.
It's not dissimilar from how I feel like if I do like a, like a hard, like I could
help with a hard thing at work or like I run fast.
And so it's like, so this feeling of like I did this thing and I didn't know that I could
do it because honestly, my instinct was to pick up the water bottle and take it and drop
it with the person at school because I'm like right there.
Like, my two blocks from my kid's school, I could totally bring them the water bottle.
I could have brought the computer, but I pushed through and I didn't because I knew that
that was the right thing to do.
And that's, that's the same feeling of accomplishment.
I want my kids to have when they like push through the algebra problem.
And the reason I have a sick joy and it's not, I just want to be clear.
Like I'm not like, so like I love me.
Like our kids are unhappy.
That's not.
Yeah, I'm not like laughing.
I'm not pointing fingers.
I'm not like, you know, texting all my friends, you know, my son, for out his water bottle,
how amazing is this?
None of that happens, okay?
But going back to this long term focus, I think a lot about how we misunderstand confidence
in kids and like very, very amazing kids who can be adults and resilient and it's the
thing all of us want.
We all want that.
But if we don't understand it right, we definitely can't be on the pathway.
So to me, confidence, true confidence, like adult confidence is not built when we're successful
at something.
Because if you actually think about someone who's only confident when they're successful
at something, I think we would actually say that person is very fragile, extremely fragile.
To me, confidence comes from the moments where something didn't go your way.
And honestly, it's not fancy.
Like you just kind of figure out how to survive them.
Like you, you watch yourself get through that from like, it could be, my mom always
packs me a bagel for lunch and oh my goodness, this is the one time she didn't.
I was supposed to make it myself and I didn't and I have lunch today.
I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to figure out something.
And I really believe that is going to build my internal sense of confidence.
Just I am someone who when things don't go my way, I have built up an arsenal of experiences
that tell me those moments aren't fun.
And I am capable of getting through them.
I mean, I know when the workplace, that is the only thing.
It helps people.
It's just like when something goes hard, I can get through it.
There's nothing fancier than that.
You don't know how to get through it, but knowing that you've had the experience of getting
through bumps is like the ultimate flex in life.
And so I don't know who said this, maybe you did, but don't prepare the road for your child,
prepare your child for the road.
And you cannot say that, but that's a good thing.
It's a good one, right?
I don't know.
I like that.
I don't say that either.
But I think that kind of sick joy comes from like, I have a decision.
I can prepare the road or I can prepare my kid.
And yes, they're going to hit that bump because I didn't prepare the road.
But I don't want the job of road smoother over forever.
Slash, that road doesn't exist and is such a disservice to my child's internal capability.
And so that sick joy is like, wow, this is one of those bumps today that I know is
survivable.
It's okay if they're thirsty.
It's okay if they're a little cold.
It's okay if in eighth grade, 10th grade, whatever they forget their homework, that's
what it's okay in college too.
And them watching themselves just survive it is going to help them in a kind of exponential
way going forward.
And I love that for them.
So I want to ask you a question.
So we talked a lot about what we like, what we like about this book and the things that
it made us think about, which is what I hope we do in this conversation.
But you're a therapist and this title of this book is bad therapy.
So there's got to be stuff that you didn't agree with.
A hundred percent.
I mean, look to me, there just really wasn't enough nuance.
Like there really wasn't enough nuance and it felt a little fear mongery.
It felt a little kind of focused on people who kind of want to hear the narrative anyway
and then there are the people most are like, yeah, we knew it.
There are kids who are really struggling so many.
And I think as much as we work on things, there are parents who see their kids struggling
and are like, I don't really know how to help my kid.
And to me, when a parent sees their kids struggling and they simultaneously think, I actually don't
know how to help my kid get out of this.
To me, it's like a sign of strength in everything that's right in a family when they just say,
who are the teammates I can bring on to help?
And I would hate to think that this would stop people from doing that.
Now the thing that I hope happens simultaneously to that is, and it's why I 100% believe in
child therapy, big believer, and the reason I stopped myself doing child therapy and decided
to focus so much on parents was kind of like practical math.
I was like, wait, this person's in my office.
Maximum 45 minutes, one hour a week, they're in their family home.
So much more than that.
Plus, I'm not going to have the influence on them.
I can't.
Then their caregivers are.
So if I can help the caregivers feel a little sturdier, help them understand their kid
in a different way, help them see the situation differently, help them understand this balance
of seeing their kids' experiences real.
And by the way, still being a parental authority with boundaries from a place of loving and
protecting my kid and knowing they can be competent, I feel like that could be like a lot
of bang for my buck.
And so I think the messaging is like, yes, if our kids need that space, that is so important.
And of course, due diligence on the providers, like I know all parents do, parents care.
Simultaneously, we can't outsource that completely.
And to me again, like the biggest flex as a parent is saying, what's going on with my
kid is definitely not my fault.
I am the CEO, like I am the coach of this team.
And so I can get my player.
I can get that junior employee help if I level up my skills, even just a little.
That could have more impact on my kid.
And by the way, I'm just going to feel better myself also, like what an amazing opportunity
that is.
And so I think that's how I see it.
It's funny how strong I think the parallels, I mean, I did read a book called The Family
Farm, but I think some of this, the parallels to how you manage at your job, you know,
the kind of some of how I try to help people in my on my team succeed better or try to
like have coaching myself.
So I do a better job as a leader.
And so I figure out how to navigate whatever I'm doing better.
And sometimes you will say, you know what, this person could use some coaching from outside.
And I'm going to try to facilitate that because like it's not like what I'm able to do is
it's not enough.
And I think that I mean, that happens in the workplace and you wouldn't think of it as,
you wouldn't think of it as failure in the workplace.
That's exactly right.
And I think that like, yes, our kids can need help.
And if the family system, which is kind of like the work culture, doesn't change at all.
And I'm expecting things to get better because my junior employee is getting help.
That that that just doesn't even make sense.
So I think parents can feel so much shame.
Like it's so easy to be like so saying it's my fault.
No, it's so interesting.
And I don't know if it's just American.
We go to fault so fast.
So it's my kids fault.
I don't like, I don't know why it has to be anyone's fault.
Like I don't know what our obsession with fault is.
You know, I don't know if I enjoyed this story, but I'll never forget a while ago,
something happened.
My husband got a little annoyed at my son and kind of, and my son was like, it's not my fault.
And my husband's like, so it's my fault.
And my son said to him, why does it have to be anyone's fault?
Sometimes bad things happen and it's no one's fault.
And we both looked at each other.
We're like, damn, we just got like played by like,
you don't have to play this thing.
But it's actually a life philosophy.
Like for anyone listening right now, who's like my kid's struggling?
And I'm probably also struggling because I'm not really sure
even what's really driving this or what they need.
Okay, so let's just say that's happening in a ton of homes.
What if I said to myself, this is not my fault?
This is not my kids fault.
I'm not a bad person.
My kid's not a bad kid.
There's no fault.
There's no internal badness.
There is struggle.
If I just had that, we are struggling.
What would I do?
And I think our options feel a lot less heavy.
Oh, well, maybe I can get help just because this is what I
was saying.
I don't want to put my kids change in my kids' hand only.
Like I have faith in myself more than I have faith in my toddler
or my teen.
Like I feel like if I can have more clarity and I can level up
and maybe my kid too, that's like an additional, well, how
empowering is that?
That to me is such an empowering approach.
And so look, I think you and I, we see things so similarly.
And I always loved when we see things differently.
We've such amazing discourse about it.
And I think this book got us both thinking.
I think I got a lot of people thinking.
And I hope it just gets people thinking like anything new,
toward feeling more empowered, you know, to make the changes you
want to make.
Yeah.
I think there are no book that one is going to read, not our
books, not this book, not any book is going to be every point is
going to feel like I want to operate my life like this book is.
And that shouldn't really be the point of this.
I think almost all of these books about how you operate as a
parent, about how we operate as parents to society.
We should read and think about them as, what do I want to take
from this?
And there were some things that I really took from this that I hope
other people will take.
And other pieces, which for me were not as resonant.
And I maybe wouldn't take from it.
But you know, that's why you have conversations.
And I think that I think to get back like she has really hit on
something which a number of people have hit on the last year or
so in various books, which is this idea that kids are kids are
having a hard time and that it's not, you know, not just 12
year olds and 15 year olds, it's 18 year olds and 23 year olds
and that there's something going on where we need to help kids and
young adults develop work of a sense of competence.
For me, that's like the core.
I think that's the core too.
Thanks to Airbnb.
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Thank you for listening to share a story or ask me a question.
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I would also like to thank Erica Belzki, Mary Panico, Brooke
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And one last thing before I let you go.
Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding
ourselves even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time
on the outside.
I remain good inside.
