BTC Sessions - STOP Overprotecting & Under Preparing! Raising Bitcoin Kids | Lenore Skenazy

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Mentor Sessions Ep.011: Lenore Skenazy onFree-Range Parenting, Bitcoin, and Raising Self-Sovereign Kids Did you know 80% of kids today are tracked like FedEx packages by their parents? Eight out of ten—crazy, right? But what if all that hovering is turning our kids into anxious, incapable adults who can’t think for themselves? We’re sitting down with Lenore Skenazy, the fearless mom dubbed “the world’s worst” for letting her 9-year-old ride the NYC subway solo. She’s the brains behind Free-Range Kids and Let Grow, a nonprofit smashing the helicopter parenting epidemic. This isn’t just about letting kids play outside—it’s about raising resilient, Bitcoin-ready rebels who can inherit the future. We’re unpacking how surveillance kills trust, why our safety obsession is backfiring, and how Bitcoin’s self-sovereignty ethos could be the key to badass parenting. Stick around if you’re a parent, a Bitcoiner, or just fed up with society’s nanny-state nonsense—this one’s a must-watch. Chapters:00:00:00 - The Surveillance State Starts at HomeIntroduces the issue of child surveillance and its prevalence in modern parenting. 00:02:10 - Why Parents Can’t Let GoExplores the societal and emotional reasons behind overprotective parenting. 00:05:23 - Trust Over TrackingHighlights the importance of trust as an alternative to constant monitoring. 00:12:06 - Bitcoin and Permissionless ParentingConnects the philosophy of Bitcoin to fostering independence in children. 00:15:22 - Attachment Done RightDiscusses healthy attachment and its role in raising confident kids. 00:19:16 - Play: The Secret SauceEmphasizes the value of unstructured play in child development. 00:27:51 - Let Grow’s School RevolutionCovers initiatives like Let Grow and Play Club that promote free-range principles. 00:44:04 - The Anxious Generation’s RootsExamines the historical shift toward anxiety-driven parenting. 00:55:56 - Facing Backlash and Building TrustCombines Lenore’s personal story, the Bitcoin advantage, and the long-term benefits of trust.About Lenore Skenazy:Website: letgrow.orgTwitter: @FreeRangeKids Schedule a Free Discovery Session with Nathan to fast-track your Bitcoin education and enhance your self-custody security: https://bitcoinmentor.io/?fluent-booking=calendar&host=nathan-1712797202&event=30min Struggling to explain Bitcoin to friends and family? Blockhunters - The Bitcoin Board Game makes it fun and simple. Visit blockhuntersgame.com and use code BTCMENTOR for 10% off to ignite Bitcoin curiosity today! FREE Bitcoin Book Giveaway: New to Bitcoin? Get Magic Internet Money by Jesse Berger FREE! Click here: bitcoinmentororange.com/magic-internet-money BOOK Private Sessions with Bitcoin Mentor: Master self-custody, hardware, multisig, Lightning, privacy, and more. Visit bitcoinmentor.io Subscribe to Mentor Sessions: Don’t miss out—follow us on Twitter:BTC Sessions: @BTCsessionsNathan: @theBTCmentorGary: @GaryLeeNYC Enjoyed this episode? Like, subscribe, and share! Check out our previous interview with Tom Luongo on financial warfare and Bitcoin: Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whaMYQeMHh0 #Bitcoin #Parenting #FreeRangeKids #SelfSovereignty #LetGrow #BitcoinEducation #BitcoinMentor #MentorSessions #Blockchain #Crypto #LenoreSkenazy #BitcoinPodcast #Freedom #Podcast

It does prime people for the idea that it is fine to be under constant supervision and surveillance. And it really feels like it's undermining the family relationship. Turns out to be making them less creative, less communicative, less cohesive. Maybe we've been doing exactly the wrong thing. What gives you peace of mind is trust. I'm not a Bitcoin person, but I do salute the ethos. Did you know that 80% of kids today are being tracked by their parents? Yep, 8 out of 10.

But what if all that constant surveillance is actually making me our kids less capable, less creative, and a lot more anxious. Today, we're sitting down with Lenore Skinezy, once called the world's worst mom for letting her nine-year-old ride the subway solo. Yep, she did it and no, she's not a monster. She's the author of free-range kids and the mastermind behind Let Grow, a non-profit pushing back against the helicopter parenting epidemic. We're diving into why letting kids roam free might just be the secret sauce to raising resilient, critical thinking, successful bitcoins. We'll unpack how constant tracking could be tanking family trust, however, our culture's fearful obsession is holding kids back and have the ethos of self-sovereignty

ties into raising kids who can handle their own lives and maybe even inherit a bit of generational wealth. So if you're a parent, a future parent, or just someone who cares about where society's headed, stick around. It's worth your time. Going beyond Bitcoin to bring you the skills and insights to escape the Fiat Matrix. This is Mentor Sessions. Lenore, thank you very much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. My first question right off the bat. Wow. I'm really fast. He bought you on a date. I so wanted, you know what I'm going to say.

That's what she said. There we go. All right. I had to. I got it out of the way. I have a six-year-old son. And three years ago, we were at a party around the corner, a little block party that another family had and everything was fine. We scooted over there with him.

And towards the end of the party, one of the parents said, oh, where's Charlie? And I said, oh, he went home. And people were a gas. Like, oh, did mom come back to take him home? No, he knows his way. He got in a scooter. He went home. and people couldn't believe it.

So, Lenore, tell me how I am a bad father. No, no, correction. I know I'm a bad father. Tell me how that specifically makes me a bad father. Well, anything terrible could have happened to your son. There could have been a giant eagle who comes down from the sky and snatches him off his scooter. There could have been an asteroid. Your town could have been destroyed by a nuclear bomb, and you wouldn't have been with him.

So really, you weren't thinking ahead. Okay. Good. And I should, in the future, lock my son inside the house and never let him out. You can let him out if you're wearing a Velcro suit and he's wearing the opposite kind of Velcro suit so that you guys are, you know, never separate. That sounds good. Well, for those who haven't read it, your book here, Free Range Kids, this is a huge influence on me after I had kids. I have an eight-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son. And I'd always kind of been sort of somebody who believes in letting people learn on their own, letting kids learn on their own.

but there is this major pushback in our culture or modern-day American culture, specifically, that you can't let kids alone, you can't let them go out on their own. And I felt, you know, even somebody I like to feel that I'm independent-minded and a bit irreverent, but this book helped me not feel guilty about it. And I have to tell you, the biggest fear that I have when I let my kids go out in our very safe neighborhood is not anything bad happening to them. It's somebody calling the police and having the police come here. And I say that because you're obviously.

on a Bitcoin show, and this is, you know, primarily for Bitcoiners. But I feel that there is a lot that's a part of this, because as you said on an interview, where we are raising our kids to take over for us in the future. And part of the big, I was on a stossom. I don't remember saying it, but everybody says that. It's true. It was our future. Yeah, exactly. I believe that. Exactly. It's a very kind of cliche thing, but sort of part of the idea is that they should be able to be out on their own at some point. And part of the Bitcoin ethos is you are taking control of your own money. And there's no third party. There's no bank or government. If something goes wrong, where you call them up and say, hey, something went wrong. Save me, make me rolling out. I lost my number.

Oh, no, you must have it somewhere. I just got a free suitcase from a company that was giving a lovely presents. Oh, it's always something. If you're getting free stuff, you're the product. Yeah, that's probably true. But you had to, it doesn't have a zipper and it has a lock that you have to you know, come up with the number. And then they say, remember this number, because if you don't remember this number, there's no other way to ever open this suitcase. And I'm like, this is a terrifying suitcase to me. I don't want to have to go on every vacation going, 600, 600, 600, 600. And then what if it screws up? Like, I don't want to have to shoot my suitcase open. So I don't, I'm not a Bitcoin person. Let me just put it that way. But I do salute the ethos that you're talking about, which is that basically

we are human beings. We got the willpower. We got the brain. you know, we have the common sense and the stupidity to make our own decisions and that's not a crime. So you got it. So as Bitcoin people, we want to be able to say, if we have wealth and we want to leave our kids, we want them to be able to be self-sufficient enough to take care of it. And I feel like raising independent kids is a huge part of that. So that's why we have you on here. That's long and short of it, basically. For the wealth of the future of the children. Okay, whatever. Yes, I'm here basically say that those people who were shaming you because you were raising a child who was competent and had

some agency and knew when he was bored and he could get himself to do something else and go around the corner on a scooter and a safe neighborhood on a Sunday morning when he's full of hot dogs already. The idea that anybody considers that controversial, much less wrong, is what gets me up in the morning. I'm like, that's not the case. That's not the case. It is so weird to me that we can't see what's in front of us, which is a growing human being and we always are treating them like they're either babies or pets or packages. One of the things I like to point out is that in the older days, the bell in the morning for school was arrival,

and then the afternoon it was dismissal, and now it's drop off and pick up because the kids are like FedEx packages, because we're expected to always be. They couldn't possibly get there by scooter, right? We must be dropping them off and picking them up. And thus the culture changes without even noticing it, suddenly it's become de rigour to always be with our kid, even in the most, you know, safe and simple circumstances.

Now, you've talked about this before. Once or twice. Once or twice, to take the other side of it. What is the problem with always kind of being around our kids and if they need us helping them, you know, I'll try to, I'll try to steal mad at as best I can. You know, something could go wrong. What's wrong with helping them? What's wrong with trying to be a responsible parent?

You know, there may be a fight with other kids. Somebody might get a bloody nose. Maybe worse could happen. Right. Nathan just got a shiner from his own kid. Yes. From what I heard before we started talking. So what's wrong with assuming that something bad can happen is nothing because

something bad will happen. There will be an argument at some point. Your kid will be frustrated at some point. At some point, your kid is going to get lost. And yay. right? Because that means they have to learn how to find their way back and how to compromise with the friend or the person they're having an argument with or how to problem solve. You know, we love problem solving. Everybody, it's like the most fun thing is to solve a problem. And to keep solving all our kids' problems means that,

A, we're depriving them of the fun and we're giving it to ourselves. But also then we don't even ever see that they can solve problems. And so then we think we have to be there with them more because we've never seen them be competent. And then they start thinking, well, I guess my mom or my dad are the only people who know how I should live and what I can do. And it's this sort of cycle of distrust in a way. I mean, nobody is trusting that the kid can be competent and nobody, the parent doesn't trust themselves that they've done a decent enough job of raising the kid or that the kid is resilient enough and resourceful enough that if they're not with them for some of the time, that's okay. And then it's a more generalized distrust of all your neighbors and all your friends and and the world at large and the local squirrels. I mean, it's just a strange way to live, which is to think the worst of everyone and everything,

including your own parenting and your own kid, not the worst that they're horrible people, but the worst that something terrible is going to happen and it's all your fault because you weren't there. That's doomsday thinking, even when you're at a barbecue and your kid is going around the corner. And you have a saying about that. You call it worst first. Can you tell us how you came up with that and why? Can you tell me how you even know that? That's a phrase that has not caught on. That's so great. Yes, I call it worst first thinking. And I came up with the phrase because I once read an article that said that when things rhyme, people believe it more. I mean, like there's even old saying, you know, red sky at night, sailors delight. And if you if you rephrase it like, you know,

when there's a sunset that's beautiful, it's going to be a nice day the next day. Nobody believes it, but they believe it more when it rhymes. And the thing that people really believe in America these days is stranger danger, even though the greatest threats to your kids are weirdly enough, you know, family and friends. So people are so obsessed with stranger danger that I wanted a phrase that rhymed that would show sort of the opposite. And so I came up with the non-popular phrase, worst first thinking, which is going to the worst case scenario first and proceeding as if it's likely to happen. And that's, I mean, even though nobody uses that phrase, that's exactly what we've been sort of trained to do in our culture today, which is like, well, you could let him go around the

corner, but what if? And then you go to the worst case scenario, what if a guy comes in a white van and scoops him up and you never see him again? And therefore, you shouldn't do it. And it's, it's a way of stopping you from doing almost, from letting your kid do almost anything unsupervised. And in fact, that's what all the, you know, the tracking devices are always saying, oh, this will give you peace of mind because you are always in control and you are always watching. And it's like, what gives you peace of mind is trust. And all the, you know, all the tracking and all the admonitions to always be with your kid are eviscerating that trust because they're saying it's only when your kid is either with you or somehow attached to electronically that your child is safe and otherwise all bets are off. That's not really reassuring. assuring. No, no, it's not. Nathan, you have a bit of a maybe different perspective being up in Canada and you have a few kids of your own. What's, what's parent life up there? It's very much the same. I think you're always going to get that kind of contrast between rural and like urban environments. We're going to have potentially different worries and fears that we're constantly freaking out about.

Whereas I may be my concern about the kids walking on the highway. We have something maybe different going on necessarily in New York, but there's still that same sort of mentality. And again, it's funny because a lot of people here that grew up, like I'm west of the city. I'm kind of a smaller town environment. And a lot of the, a lot of the parents and guys that I hang out with, we talk about how like, how it used to be for us as kids and how we want to get back there as well, too. Like when I was younger, it was like, you know, when it's dark come home, we're going to go out and just just go out, right? Just the, my friends house is always so far away. Yeah, exactly, right? It's like, we're not done. We're still hanging out. This is still fun. And every kid that I

hung out with was far enough away that you were completely out of sight. It was get your bike and go 15 minutes to go and go and meet up with them. And there was, there's a few things there you guys were talking that really stood out to me that wasn't even necessarily specific to Canada was this like I'm looking at kind of some of these underlying base issues and also how they directly relate to Bitcoin and why it's kind of fitting into my framework in that way too and the idea of like Bitcoin being a permissionless money that you don't need to go to any third party or have any kind of permission or figure in its use too which then leads to Bitcoiners and kind of this permissionless living reevaluating their health their lifestyle their relationships everything

else and of course then raising kids and the nice thing too is that there's a there's a few things want to touch on. One was this idea that like there's kind of this control normalization in this whole sort of worst first setup that you're getting everybody really comfortable with the idea that you're not going to think, you're going to submit to somebody else and that's good. You're safe, right? This is trade of freedom for safety, a classic kind of give and take there. And there's something with the like, I wonder how much of whatever underlying is going on. I want to explore that at some point as well too. Because I've seen at least in my peer group too, like a big, like not pro natal, big drop off in kids. in marriage. A lot of my peers from the non, so people still living in the Fiat world,

like kids are too expensive or too much of a hassle. I want to have my, Fiat world is like the dollar world. Exactly. Yes. Come on. Lenore. Get with it. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, I told you. If I can't get a suitcase, I'm not going to get Bitcoin. I'll help you. I promise. And in the Bitcoin world, there's so much optimism, right? There's so much optimism. I see a lot of them having kids planning for the future and want to do things on their own. And I think that there's something about having that your own sense of control over your life that is a prerequisite in order to feel optimistic and feel good about where things are

going. If you're not confident that you can handle the situation, how are you ever going to potentially relax? And the other one that jumped out, I mean, there's just so much going on. Again, Gary and I both being parents. I'm writing notes down too. Gary and I both being parents, you know, we're trying to navigate both making sure, like, I don't want my kids to just defer to authority, right? Which is really hard. too when you're trying to like correct and corral and trying to guide them like I don't want them to just do what I say for the sake of what I'm doing which can make for some long and interesting conversations in big deep why rabbit holes and I couldn't help also think about like the participation trophy kind of aspect as well too and how you mentioned like we talked about play and going outside and I was thinking about it in the same sense and I guess it's just another elaborate game of how important failure even in sports is going to be necessary because that's that's prerequisite training ground in order to learn how to coordinate, deal with failure, improve, organize, and basically move towards a common goal. So one, I really want to touch on why it's so important that we do this so that kids aren't

necessarily susceptible to authority, if you have any thoughts on that. Because not only do you want them to be able to do stuff without it, but you don't necessarily want to defer it to it. And then maybe after that, I kind of want to tease out, where do you think, or in your estimation, I think you said 17 years of doing this, where did this kind of begin? Because it feels even alien to my childhood, and I'm 35, I think. Find out. Yeah.

If you have a driver's license, you can look at it. It should say on it somewhere. Yeah, you probably will. All right. So look, I wrote permissionless, pro-natal, did it myself, trophy, tracking. We can take any of those. Let's start with the idea of growing up that somebody else is always in charge. there's when I interviewed these kids about being tracked which is like 80% of kids now or something

like that. Wow. And I'm very excited that I get to interview some more. One of the kids said something memorable to me, which was that he said he wished at some point that he would be driving 10 miles over the speed limit and get pulled over by a cop because that would be something that he would have to deal with on his own. And I thought, wow. Wow. Wow, but he thought like he just does nothing on his own. His parents are always, you know, tracking him, helping him, calling him.

And when, you know, I work with Jonathan Haidt, who wrote The Anxious Generation, and the big objection to taking phones out of schools is coming from parents who want to be able to reach their kids any time of the day. And I feel like it's sort of an addiction. It's sort of, you know, I don't know, sort of two part in that the kids can take out their phones in between classes and call their parents. And their parents are happy because it's like, I know you just had your Spanish test. How did you, how do you think you did? And first of all, it's sort of like, you know, I'm going to go get a drink at a party. It's like you don't know

what to say to your fellow human beings. So you have an excuse to be just talking into your phone. It's like this, like, oh, course I don't have to talk to people in real life because I'm talking to my mom. And then it's also, it undermines the parents, you know, trust in their kid that, you know, what, if they did poorly on their Spanish test, they can handle that. And if they really want to talk about it by the time they get home, which they might not, because then there's another five periods. And, you know, after that, they've done other things in their day. It's just this idea that only constant supervision and attention and connection is what makes anybody feel good enough and safe enough and loved enough. And it really feels like it's almost undermining like the first.

family relationship because this before phones, I tell you, it's been doing this a long time, I was the only person, and I still am the only person, who was mad at Frito Lay because on their silly little lunchbox size bags of Fritos, which A, I'm annoyed also because they're not big enough, but B, they have a little space on them where you could write a note to your kid, which seems hard on a bumpy Frito package, but like, love you, thinking about you, honey, I care about you. like your child should know that you care about them even when you're not watching them. And you should know that they're okay and their love will be, you know, is strong enough to last from nine to three. Right. So there's just something weird about this idea that the more connecting, the more connected you are and the more supervised you are, the better off you are.

And that the stronger the relationship is. And I was once writing a piece about tracking and then I'll get off of tracking for a second. But in John's book, The Anxious Generation, this is how much I know about attachment theory, there's a graph that shows you how attachment theory works. And that is that when you're a kid, obviously you're attached to your parents very closely. You're always with them. And then you get to be a little older, maybe you're three and you toddle off. But then you look back and you're sure your mom is there. And then you can toddle a little further.

And the dog barks and you run back because you're attached and you know that that person is there for you, that beloved person. And then eventually you get a little older and you go around the same. the corner on your scooter, but it's not because you're, you know, it's not like your parent disappears. It's that you know that they're there for you. And gradually, the connection goes from physically close to in your heart and in your mind so that your, you know, my parents, you know, love and thoughts and values are in me, but they don't have to be with me all the time. But now because we never really separate and you can call home anytime you're feeling bad or I can't

find, you know, you said to go to the shoe store, I'm lost, where am I? Oh, let me find you on my map and then I'll tell you where you are, even though I'm at home and you're the one on the street. It feels like we've gotten away from the attachment, right? The attachment is not working. It's only the physical kind. And not only is the kid not detached, but the parent has not learned to detach. So I think that that is, you know, A, a problem. And B, it does prime people for the idea that it is fine to be under constant supervision and surveillance because that's the only way you're safe. And, you know, I write for reason, which is the Libertarian website, because I do believe that people are smarter and safer than that. And the way that supervision is usually sold to

us is the idea that, well, you'll be safer and calmer. And it's like, I'm not safer and calmer with a million cameras watching everything I'm doing. So that was tracking. The trophy culture, I'll just do that one thing and then we can go back to a dialogue. But, you know, I know the lines, everybody gets a trophy. And the thing is not, I mean, I'm annoyed that everyone gets a trophy, but I'm more annoyed that there's anybody there to give a trophy. Because the way kids really learn is when they're trying to do, like, organize a game on their own and they're arguing and this is boring and let's do it with two balls.

It was your turn. No, it was my turn. All these interactions, which see. to be inefficient because you're not playing the game. You've stopped the game for an argument or you can't decide what you're going to play or the teams aren't fair. And so you have to negotiate all along. All of that stuff turns out to be the really nutritional part of free play. And the game is the frosting. The game is the reward. Right? And kids want that reward so much. They're, they're primed to, you know, have a play drive that they will do anything, including compromising

and listening and trying to articulate how they want to play to get there. And Mother Nature made the drive so that they would go through all those stages. But when an adult is there to organize the games and is the ball in or out and to give the trophies, all you have left is this sort of, you know, exoskeleton of childhood. You have the game part, but you don't have any of this inner workings and figuring things out that are foundational. And of course, if adults are organizing everything for you as a kid, then you sort of get used to somebody else always being in charge. Yeah, there's no, it tamps down on creativity. You don't think, kind of to be incredibly cliche outside the box. And it also causes kids to sort of defer to authority. Well, I'm having this dispute. I need to call

an authority figure. Maybe in their youth, it's the teacher or the parent. And as they grow up, it's, you know, the politician or the policeman. And, you know, okay. HR. Yeah. To solve this issue. and that doesn't create resiliency. It doesn't create creative thinking. And, you know, certainly I would think everybody would agree that I don't think the answer is to drop your kids off in the middle of the woods and let them spend a year trying to figure their way out. I mean, I don't. Which woods, Gary? Which, I mean, and I say that because I did send my kids to forest school as little kids, you know, and there are people there.

But I mean, like, you know, out in the tundra, okay, you know, a six-month hike to get back to civilization, go die. No, it was saying that. Although what's ironic is that when kids are. are really in dire situations, often that's the choice that the parents make, send them to one of these wilderness places because that gives them back a sense of their connection to nature and they have to be resourceful to, not to survive, you don't want them to die, but it's interesting, right? That that's to rebuild a person. And that's totally fair. Yeah, and that's part of why I wanted to send my kids to forest school. Like every day, you're out there, rain, sleet, snow, sunshine.

and, you know, there were the kind of the counselor slash teachers there to kind of help guide things. But, hey, you're out in the woods, you know, go get dirty, go play around. And my kind of rule of thumb is, is, you know, back in our day, unless it's bleeding or broken, figure it out. You know, you're having a dispute with another kid, figure it out. Now, obviously, if it's a situation where there is somebody just day after day mercilessly bullying somebody. True bullying is horrible. No, no, no.

We're stepping in for that. But, oh, you can't decide who gets to be in the first. square on four square if he gets to go down the slide first, I'm not here. I'm somewhere else. Figure it out. And I guess for me, it sounds great, but not everybody thinks that way. And I live in a neighborhood where there are many parents who, if the kid is going to go to a house down the block, the parent will literally come out in the street and look down the block to make sure the kid is going. Or they have to be within eyesight, or they can't even go around the block unsupervised. Oh, you want to play with a friend? Well, if my daughter wants to play with a friend,

first the older brother has to bring the the girl by she's an eight year old and it's a block or two ways she can't come on her own i guess i have two questions one how do you how do we kind of help other parents feel a bit more liberated and open to the idea of i can let go of my kids a little bit and two laws are different from state to state even if i want to do this in my state my state or town might be a place where the government will come in and a worst case scenario arrest me for being kind of open and, you know, liberal in the classical sense of the word with my kids and letting them go do whatever. So how do we get other parents to kind of, at least more, a little bit more adopt this ethos? And how do we get laws changed where we're not going to be thrown in a cage

for doing it? Thank you for these two wonderful teeups to everything I wanted to say. Really great. So you were saying, how do you get parents to let go? Well, the original name of the nonprofit I'm president of was let go and let grow. And that was long, bad for Twitter. So now it's just let grow. And it was founded eight years ago when Jonathan Haidt was talking to a man named Dan Shuckman, who used to be the chairman of fire, which fights for free speech on campus. And I just got to go backwards for a minute. And they were talking about kids on campus, 18, 19, 20, were mistaking whenever they felt uncomfortable for literally being unsafe because they've been told that all these safe things weren't safe enough, walking down the street to a friend's house,

dealing with an argument. And Dan and John were feeling that if you're trying to make kids more resourceful, resilient, open-minded, anti-fragile at by college age, that's a late-stage intervention. And so they said, wouldn't it be great if we were raising kids from the get-go who were more, you know, curious and ready to try things on their own, exploring. And John had been reading free-range kids, and he was raising his kids free range. And he said, well, let's just talk to Lenore. And so they came to me and they said, let's start a nonprofit. And I, um, and we did two things. One is we also brought in Peter Gray, uh, who he would love on this thing. I read his book as well. Peter Gray is the best. Peter Gray is so fantastic. He wrote a book called Free to Learn. He's

professor of psychology at Boston College. And he talks about how much kids learn, like we were talking about earlier, when they are trying to organize a game, when they are really just want something to happen, there will be a lot of drive, a lot of focus, a lot of frustration tolerance, and executive function developing because they are so eager to do something. And so John's big point is that a collective problem, which is parents not knowing if and when they're ever allowed to let go of their kids, needs a collective solution, which would be everybody letting their kids go. So it doesn't feel weird.

You don't feel guilty. In fact, it's a new norm. We came up with two free programs for schools, and I will outline them briefly because one of them is exactly what we were talking about, which is we want schools to stay open for what we call a let grow play club. It might not be the right name because people don't think that play is ever important. But it's just keeping the schools open for everyone who feels like staying afterwards. And there's nobody organizing the games. There's nobody solving the arguments.

There's an adult there. I always say crouching in the corner with an epi pen, but they're not organizing anything. And so some kids go off and it's always a huge group of kids, but they go off. they play soccer and then some like me would be drawing with chalk on the ground or just talking or going on the swings together. And it does so many things and it's so cheap and so simple. It allows kids of one grade to meet kids in another grade. So if you're the lonely kid in third grade who doesn't have friends, which we've talked to kids like this, then they make, they give the kindergartner's piggyback rides, right? And then when you come to school in the morning, it's like, look, it's

Gary, Gary, let's, you know, I can't wait to see you later today. So that's great. And then it also teaches kids all these social, emotional skills that we're trying to teach them with workshops and, you know, worksheets in the classroom now because kids are not learning just how to interact. It's real-life interaction. So kids are looking each other in the eye. And one of the things I learned when I was working, you know, a lot of us gave John ideas for the anxious generation. when I was helping him with the chapter for schools, I was finding out what are some really key things for a play club.

And one guy in England, Tim Gill, said, make sure there are sandbags. And I will ask you guys why, because I didn't know why. Yeah, I have no idea why. Because they'll make forts out of them? They will make forts of them. But here's the deal. A kid cannot pull a sandbag by himself.

Ah, that's really cool. Very cool. Isn't that cool? So they're actually learning cooperation and communication, you know, the English language learners who are, you know, shy in class want you to throw the ball, don't know, me, ball now, you know. And actually there are studies that show that kids when they're playing actually use much more enriched and advanced language because there's a purpose. It's not just sitting in class being bored out of their mind.

It's they want to, you know, like, let's go to the tree and then I will chase you. You know, you have to, I mean, that's not very advanced language. I came here speaking Chinese, that'd be pretty good. So you're just learning all these things. And it also is a place without phones. So everyone's worried that their kids are running home to their phones. Their kids want to be with other kids. They want to be having fun, having adventures, quests, whatever.

And so just leave them a place where that can happen because either they'll come home and they will go on their phone or they'll go to the park and there's nobody there or they'll go to an organized activity, which is like school. I mean, it can be fun, it can be interesting. It can be learning a skill. But once again, it's adult run. And to that end, I have to put in a plug for this. There's this one big child or kids sports organization called Steel Sports.

I don't know why it's called that. Anyways, they're in a bunch of states. And they read, they read me, they read the coddling of the American mind. And they read Peter Gray. And they said, well, you know, you guys are saying that free play is important. We're going to pilot study giving kids some free play. play in the whatever time that we have with them. I don't know if they have an hour or two hours, but what they started doing just on a small study because they were worried that, A, parents might

complain, wait, why are these kids just playing, you know, for the first 10 or 20 minutes when I'm paying for you to be a coach? And they worried that the kids might like it. They worried that the kids might not be as good at soccer or baseball, which are the two sports that they teach. And they worried that the coaches would hate it because I'm here to, you know, raise the next, you know, Paley. I can't even remember the name of the guy who's really famous now as the soccer player. So anyways, they tried it and it was extraordinarily great to the point where now all of the steel sports teams start with 10 to 20 minutes of their actual time, not before the time, of free play. And when I talked to them about this, I heard two things that speak to our

earlier discussion about authority. One is they said that now kids are running to running to practice. And I'm like, they used to trudge, you know, oh my God, you know, a whole day of school and now I got soccer. So I don't know if they were trudging. But the cool thing is that they also said, when they get there, they throw down their backpacks and they start playing. And it's like, well, what did they do before? And they used to sit on the bench and wait for somebody to tell them what to do, wait for the coach. So that's a really obvious example of people taking back agency, kids realizing that they can make fun. They're not just there to be these, you know, students or pawns or whatever you want to call them.

They are, they're people who can do things. And then they do funny things. Like they turn the goalposts upside down and they kick the ball over and under it. And they climb it. And the reason the coaches don't object is because then the kids end up being better at communicating with each other and more of a team and more creative. So I think that even just, if I only gave you that example, I think that we could all sit back and go, so wait a minute, what we've been trying to give kids, which was more instruction, more drilling, more top-down instruction,

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Simply scan the QR code or click the link in the description down below. Yeah, I mean, with that in mind, you mentioned Peter Gray, and there's another book I'm sure you're familiar with Carrie McDonald, unschooled. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the place where I send my kids is, I don't homeschool, but I send them to school. It's a private school. It's a very kind of Sudbury model. You may be familiar with that. I went to the original Sudbury school to see it.

No, I didn't go there. I just took my, and I went there for like a day, and when we left, I brought my son with me, and he was crying. Sorry, back to prison. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know if there's a one-size-fits-all model where every kid is going to be great in this particular place or that particular place or homeschool, traditional school or whatever. And, you know, nobody gave me a handbook for this. I'm just kind of throwing darts against the wall, you know, seeing what hits. But, you know, their kind of deal is, for the most part, the kids kind of run the show. And if you want to go outside and play, you go outside and play.

If you want to stay inside and do art or play chess or, uh, you. you know, figure something out another kid, make up your own game, you can do it. Now, I still have a little bit of an urge as a parent, and I tell my daughter, listen, I need you to spend an hour each day doing math or a logic puzzle or, you know, reading a nonfiction book, just for my own piece of mind, just do that for me. And then whatever you do the rest of the day, I don't care about. And my main impetus for it is I don't want learning to be work for her. I don't want to her to equate learning with this is something somebody is forcing on doing.

Yes, I want to be. something that I'm doing on my own. And to even bring it back to Bitcoin for a moment, you know, I, I know, a little bit, just my own personal story. You know, I got into Bitcoin a few years back and I bought a little bit at the time. And, you know, for my own reasons, it seemed like a really interesting thing for me. Deep regrets. No, we can talk about that too. You know what? It's never too late. If you didn't buy Bitcoin before the second best time to buy Bitcoin is right now. You know, we'll say that a lot. But, you know, before I did that, I had a few investments. I had my bank account, you know, with a little bit of money here and there. And I did an

interview on Fox Business News. It was arranged because a friend of mine knew somebody there. This was back in the city in, I guess, 08, something like that. And they interviewed me for a younger generation. They want to figure out how we are planning for retirement, what your best savings investment, your best asset is. And I interviewed the late and she said, what would you say is your best investment? And I responded to her completely deadpan. And I said, I have to say my fantasy baseball team. And, you know, she laughed. And I'm like, no, I'm serious.

I'm really good at it. Let's like six or seven hundred bucks a year. I win more often than not. And I eventually ended up on the show as the what not to do guy, which is funny. It's fine. I don't care. It's totally fine with me. You're a cautionary tale.

Yeah, I'm the cautionary tale. I don't care what other people think. Share, it was funny, amusing. And for the most part, that's how it stays. for many years. And when I got into Bitcoin and I realized this is something that nobody else is going to hold my hand through. There's no company or government or agency where I can call and they're going to handle it directed for me. I realized I'm fully in charge of my own savings now. I better learn stuff. And I'm not a technical person. I am not at all. And it made me

inspired to say, hey, I need to learn this. I want to learn this so I can handle and manage my own wealth. And I think there is a corollary with that. You know, if you, learn growing up that, hey, this is something that I want to do. Learning is something for me, not it's something put upon me. I feel like that can make a major difference in life. And for me, going to a traditional government school, I hated it. I was in trouble all the time. I got bad grades. I never did the work. It wasn't that I wasn't smart. I did fine on the standardized tests, but I just was not having it at all. And all the books they told me to read, I never read. And once I got out of school, I read all the books on my own because I wanted to read them. It meant something to me.

And I say all this. I know my mindset is not everybody else's mindset. I know it's not one size fits all. But I do think there's something to that. And, you know, raising kids who want to figure things out, who want to be creative and who can prepare themselves to take on independence in life, which is, again, part of what Bitcoin is about. So that's my Bitcoin plug. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. Nate. Really, I could feel my heart sinking the whole time. Oh, my God. I got to figure out technology and the Bitcoin thing. And I should have been taking care of my money sooner. And I haven't even done. to see baseball. That's the important one, Little bit. What are you doing? I blew it. My God, I'm going to be eating cat food. So here's the other thing that I wanted to say, and it's a way to make most schools into something more individualized and more real world-based.

And that's the let-grow experience. This is the other free thing that we suggest schools do besides staying open for free play is send kids home with the let-grow experience homework, which you can get on our site. It's let grow.org. And all it says is more words, but it basically says, go home and do something new on your own with your parents' permission, but without your parents. And then we have pages and pages of ideas.

You can walk the dog. You can do a lemonade stand. You can go to the store. You can climb a tree. You can, you know, your neighborhood is too dangerous to go outside. You make pancakes. You babysit. You visit grandma down the hall.

Just stuff that you are interested in doing that you haven't done on your own yet. and then your parents have to say yes to something because it's a homework assignment. And that's the way back to, we were talking originally that a collective problem needs a collective solution. If everyone at the school is sending their kids to, you know, mine went to the store, mine got his own haircut, you know, mine opened a Bitcoin account, whatever it is. Actually, it doesn't matter, I'll tell you on a Bitcoin story later, but the point is that it's this double whammy because the kid feels so great that they're doing something on their own. But it's only when the kid comes back and they got the milk or they made the breakfast or whatever it is that the parent gets this jolt of, look at my kid.

Even Gary, when you were talking about your six-year-old going around the corner, I know it was to shame the other parents, but there's pride, right? Look at my kid, unlike these slubs, can go around the corner and get himself home. And so without having that experience, parents don't realize how great it is to let go. And I always compare it to when your kid is crawling and then they hold on to something and they start walking. It's fantastic. I mean, I remember that for my kid. He's one among these 29 now. It was such a great heart-filling experience to see like, oh, is that actually walking?

Is he walking? Is this the thing that's supposed to kick in? And so it makes a parent so happy that then they can let the kid do it again. Right. And so then it starts the cycle of instead of always watching, always tracking, always being with the kid, to letting them go and feeling fantastic about that. And if everybody's doing it at the same time, then you're not the odd ball. Then the kids talk amongst each other, what they're doing. And it's also a way to make school a little more interesting in a different dimension because instead of talking about, you know, the book or the math problem, you're talking about like, I learned how to make tortillas.

Really? What do you know? Well, believe it or not, you just need flour. You're like, you're getting. And so it's just a way of sort of blowing open the walls of the school and also honoring the real world, which, you know, is sort of absent from a lot of schooling. So it's that simple. And one of the things that's cool is there's a guy, Camillo Ortiz, he's a professor at Long Island University. I recommend him for your show. He did a pilot study of independence as therapy for kids with a diagnosis of anxiety. And so what he did is basically talked to the parents for one week and then the next week the kid came in. And instead of focusing on whatever problem they were having, which is normally what you would do in therapy and especially in cognitive behavioral therapy, you say, oh, you're afraid to walk upstairs in your own. Tonight, I want you to go upstairs and stay there for five minutes. Instead, it's like, what are you ready for?

You know, you're 10. What do you want to do on your own? It's like, well, my parents have money, but I actually would like to walk home from school. And it's like, now they're going to let you. And you have to do something like every day or every other day for 20 days. days. And the anxiety in both generations plummets. I don't think he measured the anxiety in the parents, but the kids in the pilot study went from feeling worried most of the time to worried a little bit of the time. And it's because this is also what kids are programmed to do.

You know, they're programmed to explore. They're programmed to test some limits. And once you give that back to them, it's like feeding them. It's like, oh, that was a problem. You weren't getting any food. Here's a piece of bread. So simple as that. Nate, I have a follow up, but Nate, I don't want to stop you if he wanted to jump in on something here. Dude, I've been just like, I got like two pages right now. I don't even know where to necessarily jump off at this point. There were a few things that stood out to me. One was this kind of this idea that like essentially it reminded me of you can ignore reality,

but can't ignore the consequences of it. Oh, I love that. Is that like a phrase? I know I picked it up somewhere, but I don't know where I got it. And of course, now I'm starting another page. Okay, get it. Get it, get the nose, get it down. Of course, it goes to Bitcoin health, the works in these. things too, but I couldn't help that. It seemed like so much of what was going on, and I was trying

to like, sum it up is externalizing like emotional comfort and externalizing decision making. That the kids are putting all of those outside of themselves as they're trying to be sheltered from reality. But again, you can, there's going to be a cost associated with everything. There's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, free lunch. We're always going somewhere too. And man, what else was there? There was, oh, thinking about they, when you were looking at the university students that had had high anxiety. It's like, no, we got to stop. We have to go back and look when they were younger. I was curious if you'd explored anything even prior to that.

Because what I was thinking about was like, okay, if there were kids that are having, no, kind of, the generation before that in the sense that if we have kids that are high anxiety, it's likely due to the environment that they were in, or at least the interactions with their parents. So what was causing, what was the shift in parenting that happened the years prior with the older generation that ultimately led to this? In the sense that I was thinking to about like the programming, because if the parents are feeling a, if the parents are anxious and have a big distrust of the world, the kids are not only programmed to go out and play. They're programmed to just read the parents to know if it's safe or not.

And so if they're reading for the parents constantly, then that's not safe. That's high cortisol. That's stressful. They're never going to be able to relax. And going back to your earlier comments, if you don't let them do it, the lesson that they're learning is that dad doesn't think I can do this.

Therefore, I can't do this. And so they're internalizing that. Now, I don't mean to, and I haven't sussed out why this is, but I can't help but see parallels in everything. And so thinking about what, The generation prior would have been born around like the 1970s that led to this anxious generation, which is also when we saw the, we left the gold standard.

We saw the breakdown and the money in one of the base protocols as well, too. I have to say, it all comes back to Bitcoin. It's so interesting because I feel like I've done, oh, I don't know, 500 podcasts. First time I've heard the gold standard mention. So let's hear. So I'm, when we think about for us in particular, when we think about language and we think about money, these are base layer communications which everything is built upon. And again, this is a stretch.

But I'm just trying to see there's some link there in the sense that there was kind of this, the money broke from reality. And then all of a sudden, it seems like the generation that was going to raise the next one also kind of broke with reality. Right. They were trying to shield from any consequences of decision. They were trying to have their cake and eat it too. And I wonder that popped up. Right.

And I wonder if anything else popped up in the culture. So long-winded way of saying, have you seen anything? that changed the framework for the parents that then resulted in this anxious generation, that maybe even happened prior or some consistency there. So Gary read Free Range kids. Yes. It's all in there. I mean, it's what I think are the reasons are there.

And I'm going to go through them really fast because we do have to concentrate on the gold standard for a second. So, you know, if you're talking about parents born in the 70s, then by 78 or 79, Aiton Pates is taken from a bus stop. in New York, and he's six years old. And the working assumption on the part of the public then, according to Paul Fas, who wrote a really cheerful book on a history of child kidnapping in America, she's a historian. The working assumption was that some love-lorn mom picked him up to raise as her own. I mean, nobody was thinking the way we think now. And it really took like a month or two before the police said, well, maybe it wasn't a woman. Well, maybe he was a guy. Well, what did he want? Well, I don't want to tell you about you. You're kidding. I mean, back then when we said predator, we meant

Mountain Lion, right? And now we obviously mean something else. And so between his kidnapping and then 82 was Adam Walsh, who was taken outside of Sears in Florida and his dad was John Walsh, who started America's Most Wanted, and also was influential in starting the National Center for Missing Exploited Children, which put the pictures on the milk cartons and said, have you seen me or taken? And they never had the little asterisk that said, my parents were involved in a custodial dispute after they divorced and one of them took me or I ran away because I couldn't stand home. So we really got the impression that kids were being snatched off the street right and left, which led to all these specials, led to law and order, led to stranger danger, just that, that whole

thing really exploded in the 80s. And if you were born in the 70s, you would have been, you know, growing up then. We also live in a litigious culture, which makes us start thinking like lawyers, is this safe enough? What, you know, does this make sense? You know, how would I explain it in a court of law, and nothing is going to sound okay in a court of law, which is why just yesterday, I got the parents' magazine alert, timely, you know, time sensitive, you know, urgent. And a Fisher-Price toy or some toy had been taken off the market because it had a toy Kleenex box. It's like, you can get a regular Kleenex box for like, you know, a dollar. Why didn't need a toy connect? But the toy Kleenex box had a toy stiff piece of Kleenex that could become detached.

And I guess if you shoved it down the child's throat, it would occlude breathing. And so you know that nobody thinks it's truly dangerous and one piece dislodged out of, you know, however many units they sold. But once they're alerted to that, then their legal department has to say, oh, well, we're recalling all of these. This is a choking hazard. And so then you start getting this disassociation from reality, which is the idea that, like, that's the only real danger in the world.

And if you get rid of that and like there's nothing else. I mean, all my earrings are, you know, like everything, you know, glasses cleaner. Everything could be a choking hazard. And certainly everything in the forest school, you got acorns, you got sticks, you know, you got mouse turds. It's just, those aren't actually choking hazards. They're kind of small. But they're still probably bad. So the point is that like once you start seeing things like a trial lawyer, nothing is safe enough.

And then we have an expert culture telling you how to do everything and that you're doing it wrong. And here's 25 steps on how to do it right. I literally got a, this is like, it's like fishing in a barrel. I got an email two weeks ago from some parenting organization saying, is your child ready for a sleepover? And we have, you know, six easy steps for you to think about. And I'm like, that's not easy. Six steps.

It's like, you know, does she, you know, pee at night or not? I mean, it's really, it's pretty simple. Does she have a friend who wants her to come over to sleepover? But then they said, and for an extra, however much money, you could get their nine page guys. of course. So it's a crazy culture, and that's the big point. But anyways, and then we have a capitalist culture. Obviously, we all like it.

But the easiest dollar to get from anyone is the dollar from a parent that you've made afraid that something is going to hurt their child, and now you have the antidote. But the bigger point, what was my bigger point on all this, was that I don't blame parents. I mean, it sounds like we're saying, oh, these crazy helicopter parents, and how did they become helicopter parents? They were raised to be helicopter kids, and then they're out of helicopter parents. you're raised in a culture that is recalling items that aren't dangerous. You're raised in a culture that says your kid cannot get off the bus until

at the bus stop until third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade. You're raised in a culture where you have to sign a waiver so that your kid can go on a field trip across the street. And so it's not just the parents. And even parents like you guys who want to give your kids more independence are stuck in this very hair-trigger, worry-filled. blame excited culture that wants to think of everything as dangerous. It's a weird obsession, but that's what we do like to think of.

How could this hurt our child? And so don't blame the parents. They're swimming in the water. Blame the water. Yeah. And it is a culture because I could easily see an argument being made that, well, we have so much more modern technology. It just encourages us to want to stay in communication and always.

we have all this information that's coming into our heads of all the dangers and everything. And that could certainly play a role. I think it does play a role. But, you know, Sweden has all that same stuff. Japan has all that same stuff. And, you know, there's that show in Japan where they let the kids just kind of go out on their own. And hey, you're three, four, five years old. Go a mile down the road and run an errand.

And I think that's great. I would love to do that here. The only reason I haven't let my kids go down to the local quick check and just do some grocery shopping is because they'd have to actually cross a busy main road. in order to get there. I wish it was like on the other side, my side of the road. I would be setting them down there all the time. So it is, it's a cultural thing. And it is, it is interesting how we got to this point and what can be done to change it. Well, that's all I'm trying to do is change it. One thing I was going to say is that if you go to let grow.org, you can download, I don't even have it in front of me here. It's dumb. This little card, you know, about this size that says,

I'm not lost or neglected. I am, my parents know where I am. You can call them if you have to. Our old version was snarky or said, call my lawyer. So there's that. And then also in terms of the big road, I mean, cars are the thing that scare me the most. I moved to New York, so I wouldn't have to drive. So I'm not a brave person. I just trust strangers. But you can practice, practice, practice crossing that street with them, too. I think my daughter could do it. And she's crossed semi-busy roads, not the real main one over there. I'm actually confident she could do it. My bigger fear, like I said from the beginning, is if I let her go do that, somebody will call the cops and I'm going to jail.

So what Lecrow has done so far in nine states and perhaps later this week in 10 is we've encouraged states to pass, what do we call them, reasonable childhood independence laws. First one was passed in Utah in 2018 and since then another eight states. And possibly Florida, like in the next week, because it already passed the Senate in Florida, and now it's going to the House floor after having passed three committees. And it says that neglect is when you put your kid in obvious and serious danger, not any time you take your eyes off them. And that helps the free rangers like, you know, Gary and possibly you, Nathan, I think so. And it also helps parents in poverty whose kid is coming home with a latchkey in the afternoon because mom is working a double shift and it's not neglect that she's there for a couple hours making her own snack.

It's that I can't afford babysitter. So it has been like in Florida, it has a dad. Democrat and a Republican, a male and a female, a white and a black, supporting, and they're just two people, not six people, you know, sponsoring this law because it really is a bipartisan thing. And that's why I passed the Senate there unanimously, because it's just common sense. And it reassures parents that they don't have to worry. So if you go to let grow.org and you click on state laws, there's a, there's a toolkit if you want to try to get it going in your state. And there's a map. that chose you all the laws. You know, each, you can click on your state and see what the current neglect laws are. That's great. Nate, do you mind if I ask one follow-up question here? Go for it. If something you wanted to get out. No, go for it. I'll hold my questions. You mentioned- I probably don't know it if it's legal. Uh-oh. No, it's something I want to get back to because I want to make sure we include this and you mentioned it before. You mentioned law and

order. And for those who don't know, law and order did an episode where they mocked you. Yes. It was an honor. I know to you it was an honor and I think we'll probably mention this in the opening to our show today when we record later. But in case we don't, for those that don't know, Lenore had sort of made a huge name for herself for better or worse. I guess it was 15 years ago or so. 17 years ago and it was your 10 year old son at the time? 9 year old son. I let my 9 year old son ride the subway alone and wrote a newspaper column about it and I ended up on every possible television show.

Yep, and she was called the world's worst mother. And half the people were saying, this is great. More people need to give our kids to freedom. And the other half of the people were saying, this person's a horrible woman. She's literally Hitler. She needs to go away, you know, just the worst possible. Right. Oh, never let that stop you.

So, yeah, she's the worst person ever. And how could she let her child do this? Ride the subway in New York on her own. And I certainly love to you. loved to hear you talk about that. But what the question I want to ask you is, we talked about how letting your kids go off and do things a little bit, a little more freedom can create resiliency for the parents. Or they say, okay, I can calm myself and I can, you know, feel better and more confident about myself, seeing my son or daughter can do this on their own. For a mom, when the

whole world, or at least half the world, it seems, is calling you the world's worst mother, how did you find the resiliency to handle that and say to yourself, no, I know I'm doing the right thing. I'm not the worst because I can imagine very easily most people folding like a cheap tent and not being able to handle that. And maybe you didn't handle it with the grace that I've seen with your interviews. Maybe at home you felt really bad about it, but I'd really like to hear how you handled that. Well, it is a million years ago now. I mean, my nine-year-old is 27. So what is that? I guess it's 18 years. So, you know, First of all, there was the half of the world on my side, sending me great stories and, you know, giving me a lot of support.

So that was great. And then I had one little mini breakdown. But it was mostly because I was afraid, and I still am afraid. So we're going to go to another topic that, like, you know, I'm jinxing my luck just by saying, no, I think he's fine. And that terrible things will happen to me. So it was, but I got so much, you know, good stuff out of it that it, it, that helped with any worries. You know, then I was still afraid. Then I was like, oh, my God, now I got a cinnamon to somebody again or I'm going to be like a total hypocrite.

You mean I can't go back to Bloomingdale's. Like, so sometimes you'd come home like it would be after dark because it's the winter in New York. And it's like, ooh. So it's not that I have no fear. And as I've said before, I'm terrified of cars. So sorry, my kids have their driver's license. But, you know, the idea that you can have kids and not worry is unfair. Unfair to the kids because the only way you would not worry is, once again, if you're constantly with them.

And actually, when you're with them, you see everything they're doing wrong. And that drives you crazy too. So, you know, you signed up for it. and and there's just going to be some worry. There's going to be some really dark days. And that's because we live in the real world and nothing is perfect. Fair. Yeah.

That's true. Nate? Yeah, no. You want to jump in with. My God, where to go on that one. So one, yes. Go someplace better.

Okay, I'm going to go someplace better on that. One thing that did, I just want to even touch in passing to because I thought it was relevant to kind of other aspects, you know, exploring the edges of kind of having skepticism about the current, like, thoughts and beliefs. too, is it even reminded me of like this over-protecting them from like emotional damage or physically getting hurt to even things like their immune system development, right? An over-steroised environment. Their wet system?

Their immune system? Right. Kids need to go and play in dirt and get dirty in order for them to build up the proper microflora and have a robust immune system, right? You're not doing them any favors, especially when it's a low-risk environment. By not letting them chance getting hurt in a low-risk environment, you're saying them maybe to get really hurt later on down the road. But the thing that I want to touch on, I felt a lot of this kind of related back to is that particularly if we're in a culture with the majority of people of this hyper nervous, hyper worry, kind of control, defer to authority.

And we're thinking about Bitcoin. Like for me, Bitcoin is a generational aspect. I don't plan on, you know, using it for myself. I want to go to the next generation, build that dynasty. If nothing else, it's a wonderful fantasy. And it gives me a really long term time frame to build out. And so I want to make sure that my kids are, again, we don't kind of have that trust fund baby phenomenon, if I'm correct, right? that they can then take that kind of family wealth and continue this kind of going forward. And the one thing that stood out to me was this idea of that if the current culture is not kind of on this free range mindset, they're not on this building independence and resiliency kind of mindset, that if you take the time, if you deal with the worry and the fear that you have and even the possible ridicule from social situations to do this now with your kids, I think you're potentially giving them a huge advantage over their peers, right? Think about how, Gary, maybe this wasn't, you were always so handsome Gary.

So maybe this wasn't an issue. But think about what I'm here for. I just need a compliment. How terrifying was it approaching a girl for the first time, right? Like, if you can't deal with discomfort and anxiety, how are you going to find a partner? Is this maybe a reason? If you can't take on, you know, even like a modicum of risk, maybe that's why we have a decline in entrepreneurship. Everybody just wants the stable nine to five. But that's not where, that's not where great wealth or wonderful stories or big adventures or like amazing lifestyles come from. You got to get out there with the risk in hand, because if you are, if you're confident enough to deal with

the risk, then you can get the subsequent reward as a result of that. So, Lenora, I'm curious from your years of work as well, too, in the programs that you're running, have you seen, even just anecdotal, have you seen anything that indicates that, like, this really is setting them up for success, that this is not only helping them now, but you've had the 18 years of runway. Are you seeing these kids come into adulthood and maybe even outperform their peers, or we just don't maybe have that data yet? Well, A, it's interesting. I don't follow, you know, like, I don't know who's reading my book. and whose kids are coming into great, you know, great wealth because they've, you know, started the next, you know, Bitcoin or whatever. All I can tell you is, is basically a very short runway, which is that after kids start doing

a few things on their own, the parents just can't believe that they didn't used to let them, right? Like, why did it take us so longer? How did I not know? You know, she's a lot more grown up than I thought, a lot more competent. And it's really that. And I also don't subscribe to even my own philosophy, which is weird, which is that like, you know, great wisdom in, great wealth out, you know, great resilience in, great success in the future.

I think there's so many factors that influence anybody's life trajectory and a lot of, which is luck, right? So I really, I couldn't say, I mean, I can tell you that there's many stories of people, you know, from the olden days who, you know, were very scrappy as kids and obviously didn't grow up with these perfect circumstances and being driven to every play date who ended up changing the world. But I don't know. I haven't done any kind of long-term, any long-term experiments and very few short-term experiments when you come to think of it. So if you guys want to do one, do it.

And I'll tell me what happens. Beautiful. Gary, we've got to run that experiment. Yeah, I think that's a great question. And on the short-term thing, I know we're coming up in an hour here. And I don't want to keep any longer than necessary, Leonard. But it's just so wonderful to have you here. I remember reading a study, I guess it was a Harvard study, for whatever that's worth. And I don't know how much to put into it when I was thinking of who needs Harvard,

where I was thinking of like how best to kind of raise my kids where they're going to want to learn. And you may have read this as well. It might even have been your book. I might have just forgotten. Maybe it was my study. Maybe I did do a study and I just forgot. Maybe. But the idea was they kind of had two separate groups of kids.

And one was a regular group. I was a control group. And they kind of in one group, they really kind of went the traditional model. going to learn, we're going to teach you reading early, teach you math early, and everything. You know this. This is the Tennessee pre-K study. It might have been. And for like four or five years, they were ahead of their peers.

Like the early learning worked. They were reading better. They'd do math better and everything. And then when they hit their like 10, 11. Yeah, pre-teen area, the other kids caught up and sometimes surpassed them because the original group was just burned out. Learning had become work for them. And the other group, they were just.

naturally curious and they just wanted to keep going. So I guess to Nate's question, there is that sort of short runway of a four or five years stand. But it is an interesting question. Like how does that translate to adulthood? I don't know. I don't know what the data is on that. I guess Gary, we're going to find out shortly. I guess. And then you'll give me a call. Yeah, exactly. I'll just tell you one, one cool study besides that one, that was the Tennessee Head Start study. And the people who were studying, there were all these people who applied to get their kids into the free head start, and they could only take half of them, which gave them a very wonderful control group because it was the same people. It was just like every other kid got in. And as you said, by the time it was sixth grade, the kids were not only doing more poorly on their academics, but they were having more behavior problems. And Peter Gray, his theory is that if you start out really young, you not only get burned out, you start thinking that, like, well, if you weren't good at reading, like you just suck as a person as opposed to learning to read later on. And so there was something with that. But the sort of overreaching issue on this one is that there's something called,

it's either priors or primals. I'm not sure, but it's your sort of world outlook. And there was a really long study, long-term study done on this. And what they did is they asked parents how they were raising their kids and they divided them into two, you know, depending on how the parents explained it, there were parents who think that, like, to help my kid, I'm going to tell him the truth. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. You know, don't trust anyone. They're always going to try to get you. Don't be a sucker. You know, look out for number one because otherwise you're dead meat. And then there were the other parents who said, like, you know, people are basically good and, you know, trust is worth it. And, you know, go forth. And we believe in you and we believe in the

world. And both parents thought they were setting their kids up for success. But as it turns out, long-term study, like into people's 40s or 50s, the ones who had been told dog-y-dog don't trust anyone were doing worse on every measure. Like health-wise, they were worse. And marriage-wise, they were worse. And earnings way, their money was less. So what was interesting is that, you know, decide, it's as simple as I'm saying. trust is really where it's at. And, you know, teaching kids that they can trust each other, they can trust themselves, they can trust the world, turns out to be a winning philosophy.

But that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong if you're doing another way because there's so many influences on kids, blah, blah, blah. Of course. Yeah. Well, I think that goes great with Bitcoin because we don't believe in zero-sum game. And, you know, you can, one person can win and it'll help the other person win. It's not if I win, you lose. So I think that works very nicely.

Well, Nathan, I don't know if you had anything else. I think Nate has a notebook full of it. I know. I got a giant list of things, but we've already taken up so much of your time. So, Lenore, we already touched on it a little bit as well too. But for anyone who wants to follow you, follow your work, where can we point them to? Oh, so let grow, not let it go, not let it grow, not let them go. Lettgrow.org is our.

Let's go mets. dot org. I got it. Yes, that's what you got it. Thank you. No, let it go. Right. Not a song. And so let grow.org is our website, let grow org on, you know, Facebook and Instagram.

And then me with my own little snarkier side is free range kids on Twitter. If you found this enjoyable, please do us a favor, hit that like button and check out the previous episode with Tom Lewonko up above. Did you notice the mustache?