So let's think about emotional regulation because this is a really good schema for understanding emotional regulation.
How upset should you get? and
How do you calculate it? Because if you
make a mistake, you wake up in the morning and your side hurts.
Okay, you, it's the first symptom of pancreatic cancer, you're dead in 6 months.100% chance. Or..
..you know, you pulled a muscle.
Well, which is it? You might say, "Well, the chances of the pancreatic cancer are low, but they're not zero", and like
Infinite x Any Proportion is a very large number
So you might be thinking, "Why
don't you just have a screaming fit any time, EVER, ANY little thing happens to you?", which is exactly what happens, by the way, if
you're 2 years old, right? That is what you do, so and it's because you don't know.
You don't know! Like, things fell apart, what does that mean? Could be anything, well that's no good. Well, so let's say
you're arguing with your partner, you know, and they uh.. I don't know, they make a lousy meal
or maybe no meals and you're kind of sick of it, you know? And so you say, "you're a bad person.", and
what's the evidence? Not only are you a bad person but,
you've always been a bad person, and the probability that you're gonna improve in the future looks to me to be zero.
It's like what's the person's supposed to do? Punch you! Right? Really. Because there's no room in there for any discussion.
You're Done. It's like you're horrible and
you don't change. And you've always been horrible and you've never changed. And you know inferring from that into the Future,
you're gonna stay horrible and you're not going to change. Well, any argument can go there immediately.
It's a really bad idea, and it happens all the time. And this Is why, people can't have a civil discussion
You know, they can't say, uhm..
Here's an example: So you've got your Four-Year-Old you want them to clean up their room, and so it's full of toys.
Let's say, they're three and a half.
You look at it you say "Look, you know, clean clean this up. Clean up your room." So, you shut the door and you go
away and you magically hope that when you come back the room will be clean. But of course, the child has no idea,
in all likelihood, at that age, or
maybe it's Two and a half something like that. They don't know what "Clean up a room" means. That's like way up here man.
It's like you told your child
There's mess everywhere, "Be a Good Person!" you know, and then you come back in half an hour and they're no better a
person than they were. And you get upset. It's like you can't do that. You have to say
"You see that Teddy Bear?" And you know that that kid knows how
to see a Teddy Bear. And they know how to pick it up, because you've watched them see a Teddy Bear, and pick it up.
And you know that the child knows the name of the Teddy Bear, it's Teddy Bear, and so
you point to the Teddy Bear and you say
"Do you see that Teddy Bear?" and they go "Yes" and you say "that's good"
pat-pat and they get a little kick of Dopamine, so that's happy
day for the kid. And then they smile at you, so you feel pretty good about that too. And then you say "You think you
could pick up that Teddy Bear?" and they say "Yeah", and so they go
over there, not every kid by the way, but they go
over there, and they pick up the Teddy Bear, and it's like it's a good
day for both of you. And then you say "You see that little space on the shelf?", because you know
they know what a shelf is, and you know they know what a space is. And you say "Take that Teddy Bear and put it in the
shelf." And they go
over there and they put it in the shelf and then they look at you, and you're smiling, and so the probability that they'll do
that again is now increased.
Because watching you smile produces a dopaminergic kick and you've just
strengthened those circuits. So I would highly recommend that you do that with your children and with your partners.
Right? You watch them, like like a sneaky person, and
every time they do something that you actually want them to do, you notice, and you give them a little pat on the head.
Yeah! And then they like you. That's cool. But if they don't, if you
don't want them to like you because you hate them, and then you won't do that. But and you think
"Well I don't hate them" it's like, "Oh yes you do".
You just think about the last month man. There's been 20 times you absolutely hated them, and maybe that's the predominant
emotion, and that's not so good
over time. So when they do something good, if you really want to screw things up, watch like a hawk and wait til they
do something good, and then punish them.
That's really fun, that is. That really messes with them. And people do that all the time, so if you really want to muck things up..
You can even do it more subtly. You can
wait till they do something good, especially if they've never done it before and they're just kind of tentatively trying it, and then you can
ignore them.
That's a really good one. That's even better than punishing them, because at least when you punish them you're paying attention.
If you ignore them it's like..
that's that's just perfect. It also takes hardly any effort on your part, so that's an additional plus.