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so let's say a child would want you want
a child to be able to to read more they
have the behavior the capability they
were taught correctly but what about the
beliefs and the values meaning the
beliefs around that or maybe they want
to maybe they believe they're not smart
enough or maybe they don't value
remembering what they're studying one of
the reasons why children don't learn is
because
what does this have to do with life
exactly they're not curious about it at
all except exactly i mean even now he is
adults so you look back in high school
and you think about what we were taught
like parallelograms right like like
instead of doing like like how to do
your taxes
right and you know that like there's no
parallelogram season you know but tax
season there there is right so we're not
taught how to be able to do that and so
part of the the values is relevancy you
know taking information that a child's
learning and showing them how they could
apply it towards their life so beliefs
and values like even when we teach
people how to remember names maybe for
example that's the behavior and maybe
they've been taught how to remember
names but maybe they don't value
remembering someone's name or maybe they
believe that they have a horrible memory
so all behavior is belief driven so that
needs to be addressed and then the level
above belief and values are this level
this level called identity
like who does that child think that they
are you know we've all heard in this
community that the two most powerful
words in the english language are i am
yeah right because whatever word you put
after that
is your is your life is your destiny
exactly very much so and so here's the
thing let's say
at a behavioral level you want your
child to stop doing something
even if you think about the adults like
they struggle with i want to stop
smoking right and maybe
they were maybe even taught how to do it
like they went through some kind of
seminar list some kind of podcast about
it or you know maybe they have a belief
maybe around it but maybe the identity
is i am a smoker yeah so that's gonna be
really difficult or maybe so you want
somebody as a child to study but their
identity is i'm
stupid well yeah and let's go deeper
into these labels that can be really
dangerous i am dyslexic
i have adhd right yeah right i mean this
is a really big issue and a lot of times
it's imposed on children in a school
environment or by the parents themselves
right exactly and here's the thing
adults have to be very careful of their
external words their external words
because they become a child's internal
words you know when i was nine years old
and a teacher pointed to me in front of
the class saying that's the boy with a
broken brain
that became my inner speech so every
single time i did badly on a quiz which
was a lot often every time i was a pick
for sports i would always say oh it's
because i have the broken brain and that
became my inner voice
but here's what you want to remember as
adults and even with your children is
that your brain is like a super computer
and your self-talk is a program it will
run so if you tell yourself
you're not good at remembering names you
will not remember the name of the next
person you meet because you program your
super computer not to
your mind is always eavesdropping on
your self-talk your mind is always
eavesdropping on your self-talk and so
when people come to you or your child
comes to you and they say oh i'm not a
good study or i have a horrible memory
you have to remind them if you fight for
your limitations you get to keep them
if you fight for your limitations you
get to keep them
if people realized how powerful their
mind truly was they wouldn't say or
think anything they didn't want to be
true
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so i think a lot of relationships in
general but especially new parents kind
of beat themselves up and yeah it's not
working and this is supposed to be
perfect and for us we really it's how we
look at it it's like okay cool this is
going to be an opportunity for growth
this is going to be an opportunity for
us to learn more about each other to
learn more about each other's boundaries
and preferences and
really kind of just dive deeper into
this so we can become a better
foundation for our son and that context
changes the whole game because if we're
like resisting the communication
challenges
then there's no way you can come out of
that because you're already making it
wrong versus going ah this is
interesting we have an opportunity to
grow and to learn and to really come
together in a deeper way
i think what's most important in all of
it is is just stepping back into the
room
and and i mean that literally and
metaphorically and energetically i think
that um
back to this idea this fantasy standard
of always getting it right and always
having things working
that's gonna like things are going to
blow up
actually you know stan tactin he's a
psychologist he talks about
how our neurobiology is actually
completely connected you know for a long
time a lot of relationship theory
thought oh you know i'm responsible for
my consciousness you're responsible for
your consciousness deal with it but now
actually science is proving that we're
totally interconnected and when he's
anxious or stressed out right i'm a part
of that and my biology is feeling that
too and guess what our children are no
different
right so our children are feeling our
anxiety our stress our frustration
they're feeling when we're stuffing it
down and sweeping it under the rug they
can sense all of that so truthfully like
transparency for us has been huge and
not taking things personally like in a
very tactical sense
those two things plus having really
clear intentional agreements on how we
communicate like for instance every
sunday we do this like transparency talk
where it's like anything during the week
that's come up
that we had a thought about or that you
know we kind of were resentful about we
just bring it into the space and how we
do it is we start with an
acknowledgement
and we say hey here's what i want to
acknowledge you for from this week
now here's what came up for me and we
make sure it's in responsible
communication right like i made up the
story that you yeah you know uh my
wounded self believes or the frightened
person frightened part of my personality
thinks that
and then he would just receive it and go
okay great i hear you awesome not taking
it personally but being an objective
listener so that we just have the space
to clear all that crap that otherwise
would just stack stack
and cause a lot of neurobiological
frustration
that the child can feel now for those of
you listening to this going so you're
saying i'm responsible for everything
that that my wife or boyfriend or
whatever is experiencing
no
what we're saying is is that
we get to keep each other in mind yeah
we get to protect each other's
love yeah personality
life like the same way that we care for
our child if we even did 20 of that for
our partners
the game would change
and i think that
um
yeah it's just really important
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yeah and i want to start by saying that
uh these you know invisible secondary
losses are more catastrophic for teens
um and children than it is than they are
for adults so when it when a when a teen
has a breakup um and
you know they they spent
time with that friend that that they
were in a relationship with and all of a
sudden that person goes and rejects them
i would be very concerned if we didn't
um emphasize and validate and
acknowledge
that the depths of loss that your child
is experiencing
i am going to
come across as dramatic in this part
because i want to make sure that
parents are aware that suicide is um
is very present at this age
when there is a breakup when there is
bullying at school
i've had parents write to me
um
the hard things about the suicide of
their children they didn't know um they
were not aware of the losses
the bullying the rejection the
abandonment their child was experiencing
at school
these losses are so invisible that the
child will do everything they can to
appear normal that's right or stronger
or strong or that everything is fine
that they have a social life um that the
in in in in
the breakup conversation um
most parents would say don't worry
sweetheart um
you'll meet someone there's plenty
you're young still we we say that i have
said these things we all say those
things i have made that mistake as well
but for them that is their whole world
that is everything to them
and i always say divorce
or separation or breakup
is like death but
it's like the person is dead for us and
alive for everyone else
wow
yes and i've said this to
a lot of people who have been divorced
and separated and say
the person is supposed to be dead for
you you're not allowed to have this
person in your life but you see them
with that person and that person and
that person you're not allowed to go
there which is even worse and more
painful
than anything else talking about death
loss and disappointment with your kids
should not be avoided in fact it
provides a wonderful opportunity to bond
with your child
your child is going through an emotional
experience that is strange and even
unsettling make sure you don't dismiss
their experience
validation is crucial at a time like
this
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here we are we're at the end of our day
we're kind of like we might be tired
ourselves and we and and then we've got
this intention which is loving to create
connection what can we do how much can
we actually influence on this now the
first thing and we've been talking
around this is really ourselves
how are we coming into the moment you
know how have we have we settled our
anxiety have we taken a little breath
for ourselves have we reconnected with
the reason we're doing this now the
reason we're doing this is to create
this opening to create loving
connections so first that's it we can
connect with ourselves
second we have some influence over our
child and the state that they're in when
they get to bed now you know
from
maybe as early as six o'clock in the
evening we're moving towards
sleep
right have we over energized and
overstimulated them with some activities
are they are they on a sugar high um you
know have we missed the window is it is
it nine o'clock at night and they're too
late and so so
you know they're not going to let go of
i want a story but it's like better
better but and you like it you're almost
too tired for a story so we've got a
little bit of influence over that
getting that sweet spot right for them
um then we get some influence over the
environment that they sleep in um you
know turning lights off having a
nightlife maybe maybe it's it's putting
a uh a particular music on in the
background that is this
salt lamps
you know the really ambiant like
lighting that's a shift from going to
the bright lights and the sun going down
he knows that when our ambient lighting
comes on that we're getting prepared to
close out the day
and we we're kind of tracking that that
sunset process that you name it like
we're leading you through a transition
this is a transition it's not like like
awake asleep
it's not a switch so so we want to do
the journey of the transition each time
and the fourth thing that you've got
some control over is the content
it's like what is it that we're choosing
to engage with at this time um
we might add even the medium that the
content is delivered on these days you
know whether you're choosing a hard copy
book or whether you're choosing right um
an an electronic screen lcd lighting
effect yeah it's a stimulant
right so we have to be aware that that
stimulant is at odds with that
transition journey that we're trying to
create for the little ones yes
absolutely i mean one thing we
personally practice is we do
shut down the screens if we do have them
on towards the end every now and again
motown magic gets left on a little bit
late after his bedtime and then when it
comes time for the bedtime and saying
goodnight to the toys and helping him
helping turn the lights off he's he i do
notice that if the motel magic's gone a
little bit late yeah he
doesn't want to say good night
that's early
and i love that that little example
saying goodnight to the toys right yes
so there's a there's a little uh tribal
belonging happening um for osiris in
in his community his community his
environment has these characters in it
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name it to tame it right name your
emotions to tame your emotions so this
is a very basic practice that you can do
outside of the moment another thing that
really is important is to create is to
we fuse everything together we fuse our
feelings and our thoughts with our
identity right and i'm always telling
kids you have a very strong light
not force
you have a very strong light inside of
you an essence inside of you strengths
inside of you that have nothing to do
with the experience you're going through
and they're like okay well that sounds
cool what do i do about that
and i say start to remove the words i'm
or i am
i'm
i'm anxious right i am this you're
fusing what's supposed to be a temporary
experience remember it's a message
that's being sent to you the emotion is
a message and it's temporary so don't
fuse it and create permanence around it
so what you can say is i'm noticing
i'm feeling worried
or i'm having the thought
that this is happening yeah this
separation this diffusion right in
psychological terms they call it
cognitive diffusion is simple to do and
very powerful you start to become an
observer of your experience something
that happens in meditation right and
these things that sound oh my goodness
this sounds so sophisticated right how
can a kid learn this this is the work
that i do i'm most of the people the
humans that i work with are little
humans i work with six to ten year olds
and trust me
they come into this world mindful yeah
they are mindfulness teachers right
whereas we might see them sometimes as
distracted they're not distracted they
are licking the crevice on the ground
they are smelling the flowers yeah try
to take a walk with a little one and you
will notice the amount of mindfulness
that they have
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always asked me how do i raise a happy
and successful child how do i raise a
healthy child how do i raise someone
who's self-actualized in their life well
one minute how can you possibly teach a
child or raise a child or create an
environment for them to become those
things if you haven't cracked that code
for yourself
the key mistake that we make is
misunderstanding our role as parents
just misunderstanding the job
description and i think the most elegant
and eloquent
you know kind of cohesive outline of
this is alison gopnik's book the
gardener and the carpenter and i won't
do it justice but what she outlines is
the difference between being a gardener
and a carpenter and basically our uh
kind of modem operandi of parenting in
in this culture is a carpenter role a
carpenter takes a chunk of raw wood and
has an end game in mind he knows that
this raw wood is now going to become a
chair right and he's going to work and
mold and carve and shape and nail and
hammer out that wood sand it clean
smooth it finish and put on the
polishing layers until it looks exactly
like the other three chairs he's just
created yes this is the factory line
parenting right and we all are products
of the industrial revolution and
industrial era so we all think of many
processes in terms of efficiency
productivity and lemons right oh this
one's a lemon this one came out wrong
yeah
this creates a very kind of
predetermined right one-size-fits-all
dogmatic approach to people now it's
wonderful when it comes to chairs
unfortunately it just doesn't work when
it comes to humans yes
we want our chairs to be flawless but
humans are complex they're complex
organisms complex systems and there are
many different factors that go into what
makes a human quote unquote successful
and the biggest factor in my opinion
which we're missing is self definition
of success
what does it mean to be successful for
you what does your child view as
successful right
and so i think misunderstanding our role
as a factory line worker or a carpenter
who's working on our product and if that
product doesn't look exactly the same as
we've pre-determined it to look or as
the spec right then we have a lemon
right then we need to medicate that
person or put that person in therapy and
all sorts of tutoring and shape them and
prod them until and we can fit them into
the box well this is super stressful
yeah like how how do we overcome that is
it by being
the gardener of which i'm super curious
to hear this because i haven't read this
book which sounds amazing but now i want
to know about the gardener
so exactly so the opposite of the
carpenter in this context is the
gardener now the gardener knows that
they don't create the rose yes they
don't create they might plant the seed
okay but then the gardener's whole job
is to create an environment with which
the seed can grow okay the rose the
gardener realizes that the rose is no
lesser rose in its seed form
as it in it as it is in its sapling form
as it is in its full blossom
yeah it always has the dna of the rose
its rosiness is always within it
the gardener's job is to offer and and
to provide the needs the basic needs
really basic needs okay this does not
include montessori manipulatives
although i love that
exactly
what does a gardener do he waters he
makes sure that they're exposed to
sunshine that the soil is nutrient rich
and he might ward off predators right
you might make sure that there's no you
know nasty weeds around etc right so
there's a little bit of protection not
over protection and then he lets b
and then he allows that rose to blossom
and he just enjoys it so the difference
between the carpenter and the gardener
in this case is really the difference of
am i doing am i controlling am i shaping
moulding creating an image that i have
predetermined or am i just kind of
clearing the soil
providing the water letting the sun
shine and and sitting in a deck chair
you know and and enjoying the fruits of
of of nature's labor
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