High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 477: The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure with Dr. Hank Weisinger, New York Times Bestselling Author and Psychologist

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

A world-renowned psychologist, Dr. Hank Weisinger is the Author of the New York Times Bestseller Performing Under Pressure and his most recent book that we focus on in this episode is The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure. Dr. Hank has also written several other books including Emotional Intelligence at Work, The Power of Positive Criticism, The Genius of Instinct, the New York Times Bestseller Nobody’s Perfect. He has spent three decades helping individuals and organizations enhance their personal and work effectiveness through innovative applications of clinical, counseling, social, organizational, and evolutionary psychology. He is a popular blogger for PsychologyToday.com, Huffington Post, Execunet.com, and Lifehack.org. In this interview, Hank and I discuss: • What is pressure and when we experience it • How parents can unintentionally put pressure on their children How we can be supportive parents and leaders instead of pressure parents and leaders HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/477 FB COMMUNITY FOR THE HPM PODCAST: https://www.facebook.com/groups/highperformancemindsetcommunity FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong TO FIND MORE ABOUT DR. HANK: HOME - Hendrie Weisinger PhD (hankweisingerphd.com) Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best. So you can accomplish all your goals and dreams.

So I'm over here following my big dreams. And I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man. Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the high performance mindset. Henry Kissinger once said, a diamond is a chunk of coal that did really well under pressure. Ed Jacoby once said, pressure comes from within and must also be mastered from within. Thank you so much for joining me on episode 477. This is your host, Dr. Cindra Kampoff, and today I've interviewed Dr. Hank Weisinger, a world-renowned psychologist who's the author of a New York Times bestselling book called

Performing Under Pressure. This is the second time I've had Hank on and it was an awesome episode where we talk about his new book called The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure. Dr. Hank has also written several other books such as Emotional Intelligence at Work and the bestselling book Nobody's Perfect. He has spent three decades helping individuals and organizations enhance their personal and work effectiveness. He's also a blogger for psychologytoday.com and the Huffington Post. In this episode, Dr. Hank and I talk about what is pressure and why we experience it, how

parents can unintentionally put pressure on their children, and how we can be a supportive parent and leader instead of a pressure parent and leader. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us at a rating and review wherever you're listening. If you're listening on an iPhone, for example, you can just swipe up and leave a rating and review there. And to see the full show notes as well as a transcription of this interview, you can go to cindracampoff.com slash 477 for episode 477. Without further ado, let's bring on Henry Weisinger. Dr. Weisinger, I'm so excited that you're here today to join us on the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I had you on several years ago where we were talking about your book, Performing Under Pressure, which is still one of my favorite books I reference all

the time. And today we're going to be talking about the unlikely art of parental pressure. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm very happy to be here. I absolutely love your book. And I'm really excited to talk with you today. So maybe for those people who aren't as familiar with your work as I am, tell us a little bit about what you've been doing recently. Okay, well, I am a psychologist. And for the last two years, I've been working on the subject of parental pressure. And as you mentioned, I'd written a book called Performing Under Pressure. So I thought a good follow up would

be a book for parents on helping your kids handle pressure. For example, when they're getting ready for a sporting event or when they're taking their SATs or when they are having a music recital. But then I had a flash of genius when that Varsity Blues cheating scandal came out. I started to say, forget the kids. The real issue is the parents. I started looking at the subject of parental pressure, reading a lot, doing a lot of quote field research i live in a environment where there are a lot of young parents so they were you know any psychologist would take advantage of

of uh you know of that and started to formulate the premise that there are some kids who are very successful, be it in sports or theater or straight academics, and they have really good mental health. And there are other teens, young adults, who may or may not be successful, but they often have severe mental health issues ranging from anxiety disorders to eating disorders, substance abuse, depression, and unfortunately, suicide. And when you look at those two groups, we found, my co-author and I, Dr. Chris Derber, that a significant difference between the two was how they experienced the pressure put upon them by their parents. Yeah. Yeah. And when we started looking at those differences, we found differences in three key areas. OK. One was how parents communicate with their kids, specifically with criticism, questions and praise.

Pressure parents, as we will start to call them, use those tools differently than what we will call support parents. We found the second area of difference was in parental involvement. Now, the rule of thumb, just very quickly, is that if it's the right amount of involvement, your kids will say that you are supportive. If it's too much involvement, they will call you intrusive. And a lot of it has to do, which we can talk about in a little bit, the idea of respecting your kids' boundaries. A pressure parent will think nothing of it, of picking up their kid's phone and looking through the text messages or going into their room without knocking. And finally, the third difference we found was in the area of parental involvement.

Not involvement, I'm sorry, parental warmth. Warmth. Parental warmth. Now, one of the things we found is that pressure parents often set up their parent-child relationship like it is a sports contract. We're going to have incentives in,

but you only get them if you perform. We'll have this clause in and this clause in and so on. Rather than support parents who are not accepting of everything and approving of everything their son or daughter does, but they are emotionally accepting. And we call that parental warmth, that it is not unconditional acceptance. That does not mean that you have to like everything your kid does, but it does mean that you do not withdraw love based on how they are performing.

Yeah. Yeah. And within those three areas, the other one quick point I want to make is we found that there were certain attributes about a pressure parent. And here's the funny thing. These are all well-intentioned parents. Exactly. That's what I'm thinking about me. I'm always well-intended. Am I putting pressure on my kids without realizing it or meaning to? That's a good observation because that's what we find happens. And I've been guilty, I'm sure, of the same thing. We inadvertently put pressure on our

kids and we think we are helping them when actually one of the findings I found in my last book is that nobody does better under pressure. Nobody's rising to the occasion. A parent can yell at their C student in any format, whether it's encouragement, whatever, for their SATs, but if their teen is a C student, they're not getting 1600 on their SATs unless they cheat. And we'll talk about that this in a few minutes. I just found some interesting research that shows that parents who encourage their kids and really put pressure on them to excel in sports are increasing the chances that their son or daughter will start to juice up because they want to succeed. Oh, wow. They want to go through every cost to be able to do everything.

Because as we'll see, if they don't succeed, then they feel the parents will disapprove and will not love them. And there are many examples, fiction and nonfiction, that I will reference in the sports world that clearly show that to be true. So what we found is that pressure parents, and I want parents who are listening to think, what do they bring to the table in terms of how they parent their son or daughter? And one of the things we found is that it starts with pressure parents view the world as a scarcity of opportunities. You only get to travel for the Olympics every four years. So you better really train and do and do your best and there are only eight ivy league uh schools so the fact that there is scarcity of opportunity leads into a set of they become very competitive and they teach their kids that it's not you don't have to just

be as you know keep up with your friends you have to beat them and the don't have to just be as, you know, keep up with your friends. You have to beat them. And the reason you have to beat them is that there's just a few opportunities. Many people, by the way, think that competition is healthy. Competition does not bring out the best in people. It brings out actually the worst in people. Competition is why kids cheat. Competition is why people in business many times will, salespeople will fake results

and whatever because they want bonuses and so on. There's a lot of bad things about competition. And I know you're aware of that. And we'll talk about the idea of personal best versus a mindset of excellence versus a ranking mindset. And what competitive parents do is they put their kid on that competitive track where they're always comparing themselves to other people. So no matter what they do, it's never good enough, which gets into the third attribute that pressure parents have, which is perfectionism. The kid who was under a lot of pressure will hear a lot of times, that's really good. But they'll also hear, but it could be better sure or so and so did it better

there was a baseball player when i was growing up so we're going back to the late 50s and early 60s maybe you've heard of him his name was jimmy piercel he was on the boston red sox and he was great but what we did not know is he was bipolar okay we didn't know about that at at the time we don't have medications and with depression and so on and so he would do these crazy like run the bases backwards get into incessant arguments all the time people just thought he was putting on a show he was crazy which he which he was but the point i want to make one of these and they made a movie out of it with anthony perkins who also played norman bates in psycho and carl malden who many of your viewers might know from the streets of

san francisco so there's a scene right at the beginning where you're practicing his sliding. So the kid slides and his father, he says, that's a good slide, Jimmy. But if it was a good throw, you would have been out. He couldn't just leave it that it was a good slide. And inevitably there's a scene where the kid hits a home run. And after he circles the bases, he jumps up on the fence behind the catcher and he starts yelling to his father, is that good enough? Is that good enough? And they have to take him off the field. That was a true, true. Wow. Wow. That's one of the things, the extreme, of course, because there are good ways, as we'll see, to put parental pressure. Yeah. Henry, what a great way to start. I mean, really lots of value you've already provided for us. I'm thinking about these three ways, you know, that it shows up in the way that people parent. And I'm thinking about myself, of course. I have two boys, 14 and 12. And it's hard to know, for me, even as, you know, someone trained as a PhD in sports psychology, exactly how much am I, when am I pushing them too

much and holding them to the standard of excellence? And there was one thing that you said about the difference between supportive parents versus those that provide a lot of pressure. They communicate with their kids differently with their criticism, questions, and praise. Can you give us some specific examples of that? So in terms of criticism, pressure parents will use criticism to point out the flaws, what the person is doing wrong. So the father after a little league game might say, I can't believe you let that ground ball go through your legs. You're in three runs and you blew the game. Whereas the other parent, support parent might say might say hey next time there's a ground ball hit you just bend down and block it simple as that and the idea of next time implies that

you're going to get another chance see one of the other characteristics that pressure parents do is they go they make everything the most important so the the teen athlete from a pressure parent will hear that every practice is the most important practice you're ever going to have every event is the most important event every test is the most important test i can't even remember the 100 most important tests that i have taken i'm sure when you were in school especially in grad school you get into that mindset oh this is the most important thing. It's going to change my life and yada, yada. And you can't even remember. So you think in terms of how everything's the most important. There's just a few opportunities. You have to be better than everybody else. And not

only do you have to be better, you have to be perfect. Otherwise you won to be better you have to be perfect otherwise you won't be better than everybody else and a sense of urgency that you got to do everything now so the the pressure parent will say on the first day of Christmas vacation you better start on your applications now or the you better get that extra practice in you You better, you better do it now, go now. Cause the gym might be closed and you know, closing early and so on. So imagine if you had somebody standing over you where they're telling you everything you do, this is the most important thing. You got to be better. It's got to be perfect. And you got to do it now. You'd start to go nuts. And that's exactly what happens to many of these teens and that is called clinically hot housing it's like it becomes relentless and you know an important point cinderella is you can't get away from pressure because it has evolutionary utility pressure first is a force this is a physical entity and that's how I want parents to think of it,

that you have this force that is inherent in every parent-child relationship. When I say parental pressure is a global pandemic, that is not hyperbole, that there are studies conducted all over the world in everything, be it in sports, academic, performing arts, such as music. I'm talking about studies from the UK, Australia, Germany, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, China, which is 10 times worse than the US in terms of parental pressure. And the results are always the same. So the fact that it is global, we know that must mean that it's an inherent force. And when it's used effectively, the teen experiences it as guidance, as support, as motivation, as encouragement, rather than being pressed upon. An important point about parental pressure.

Like you can say as a parent, I don't put parental pressure on my kids. But if the kids say you do, then you do. In other words, on this topic, everything is defined from the kid's point of view. Because they're the one who is experiencing it. So I remember I once said to my kids, who in the family would you say, you know, this is me versus my wife at the time, gets angry the most. And when they said me, I said, how can you say I get angry? Are you crazy? It's funny. Yeah. So one of the things I would suggest to parents is to ask their kids how they

come across do you feel i'm putting a lot of pressure on you now a problem for that especially if it is a pressure parent the kid will be afraid to respond truthfully right because you're afraid the parent will yell scream get, get angry at them. And you have to remember when you are a young child, seven or eight years old, and the parent shows disapproval, how does the seven-year-old process that information? It's not my mother loves me or my father loves me. It's just the opposite, which is why many times very young children will distort the truth. It's about, they want to protect themselves and they want to feel secure with their, with their parent. And

again, that, that great irony is, these are well-intentioned. Praise is another one. So, you know, the, this would be like, I watched my son in the game and I said, we go home and he's getting the car and they say, OK, you played well. Now that that's is that praise is praise. But is it effective? No, because it's like your boss saying good job. What the hell does that mean? Right. It's not very specific. Exactly. I mean, how many times you do you do a presentation and somebody comes up to you and says, oh, Dr. Sundry, that was a great presentation, but they never tell you why. Right. Exactly. So the parent who says, oh, you really played well. I really liked the way that you played defense in that third quarter.

You had some really good blocks and so on. Now that he knows you were really watching yeah questions is that is that is another one okay where pressure parents will use questions to interrogate what did you do at school what who are you playing with what'd you get on the test where i support parents will use questions to help the child articulate their thoughts and their feelings. Tell me what you think about this. I'm curious about how you feel about this. One of the tips I would give parents, and the reason is you want your kid to self-disclose. Self-disclosing means that the person is revealing their thoughts and feelings.

And the parents should think, what are the things that they self-disclose? Most parents, for example, do not self-disclose to their friends, my son got a D on the chemistry test. But they will certainly self-disclose about their kid, my son got an A on the chemistry test. How many parents have you met that come up to you and say, I just want to tell you, my kid blew the, I can't share with you, my kid blew the game. But if the kid made the winning touchdown or something, they are all- Yeah, all the parents are going to be talking about that. Exactly. So the reason you want your child to self-disclose, it will make it easier for them to, when they're under stress and pressure, to talk about their feelings.

And one of the ways that parents can help do that is by talking about their own feelings. us so far. And I'm curious, is it a continuum between pressure parents and supportive parents? Because I'm thinking about that maybe there are times where we might put pressure on, you know, our kids and not really even realize it. Yes, that's a great point. And there is a continuum. And I always like to say you can be on drive on the left side of the street, which would be the pressure street, or you can be on drive on the left side of the street which would be the pressure street or you can drive on the right side of the street i'll give you some different things but that point about anytime you tell your child that this is really important even though we're doing it as a reminder we're thinking i want to remind them this is important so they will study and so on it's like the parents say this is really

important game it's a championship game does the parent think their kid doesn't know that right they know that the more important you make something the more pressure you experience and therefore uh the worse you do i am sure that you can give many examples of athletes when you're talking to them who tell you it's just another game. Right. Even the Super Bowl.

That's what they'll say. And this is what the media hates to hear. Sure. Because the media say, how can you say it's just another game? It's the Super Bowl and so on. But they don't realize why would, if they got to the to hear. Because the media say, how can you say it's just another game? It's the Super Bowl and so on. But they don't realize, if they got to the Super Bowl, why would they do anything different on that? They just have to keep on doing and they want to minimize the importance. So it's just another day. If I do my best, we have a great chance of winning. So that's one of the ways we inadvertently,

that's why it goes against, it's counterintuitive. But the best thing to say to your kids is before a big sporting event, it's just another match. It's just another test. Some parents will say that's unrealistic to say that something so important like the state championship high school game isn't important. And I would say, OK, but it's equally unrealistic to say it's the defining moment of your entire life and that your life is over if you lose. I mean, you watch a, you know, the kind of game, the kind of football game in that sport that I love as a fan, not as certainly as a player, is a game that the team that has the ball in the last second is going to win because then I know I'm on the edge of my seat.

Like last night, we were talking about the Steelers and Vikings game. Exactly. You know, when it's 20 to nothing, I don't even want to watch it unless it's my team is winning 20 to nothing. Cause I found like, I'm a big Yankee fan. If it's the world series, if the Yankees are only winning by a run, I can't eat anything because I'm so nervous. When my Kansas Jayhawks are playing and it's the last four minutes and they're down by six points.

I have to turn off the station because I can't handle it. I don't know how the players are able to or the coach. But I'm on my floor with the anxiety in my stomach because I know if Kansas loses, my UCLA friends are going to call me up immediately. It makes me think of like your first book where you're talking about, you know, why you experience pressure. And it's because the outcome is uncertain, but it's important to you. Exactly. Yeah. You know, one of the things that I also want to encourage parents, because I noticed this, I was doing a lot of reading on sports parents. And one of the things I found, and the research is very consistent, whether the athlete is a swimmer in Sweden or a bowler in Texas. And the big thing that the teen athlete wants from their parents is basically pay for all my training and take me to my matches yes bring me a bottle of water

and keep your mouth shut you're not my coach they don't want and parents need to remember that i one time i mean the i laugh about this but it was really sad when my son was playing soccer and i'm talking about at eight years old seven years old so they're just running up and down the field they're not playing soccer and so on all the parents are talking they're having a good time so the first question i would always ask my son is was it fun and so on i heard one father say to his like seven-year-old as they're walking out the game you've got to practice your kicking well what kind of thing is that to say that yeah right after right after the game or match exactly as if it's going to be a professional soccer player I was living in West

Fort Connecticut and I would tell people I said the only way your kid is going to the NFL, NBA, or Major League Baseball is as team doctor or part-time owner or the team lawyer. That's it. They're not going as a professional athlete. And I have found that I'm sure you see this more than I do is that many parents, if they want, if they are a frustrated athlete, they put even more pressure on their kids, because they're, they're combining their aspirations, their aspirations into their expectations. And that makes their expectations automatically unrealistic. I once said to my son after a basketball game, you know, like Saturday morning rec league. He said, oh, Danny, you played well.

You're really good today. And he said, dad, I'm not good. I just like playing with my friends. I thought that was such a great on his part. Yes. A sense of awareness. He's just enjoying this. He wasn't the best by of awareness he's just enjoying this he wasn't gonna he wasn't the best by far he's just average but he loved it and he loved playing with his his friends and that

syndrome is one of the ways that i have seen you sports change from when i was growing up after school if i had five kids on my block or six kids on my block. So we had three on three basketball games, three on three touch football games, three on three softball games. And it was always fun. Today, it seems it has changed. Yeah, that it be. And I think a large part of that is because of the parental over involvement, because many kids, at least in one of my hometowns, are you're not good in baseball, basketball or football. But if you can play lacrosse, that will get you into a better school than you would normally would. And they go into these other sports. Soccer wasn't popular when I was growing up. Lacrosse wasn't popular when I was when I was growing up. So that parent involvement has really changed the nature of sports. And I think it makes it worse for the for the young kid feeling that he or she has to exceed rather than just have fun playing with your, you know, with your friends. I appreciate what you just said about how parents,

we can connect our aspirations with our expectation. And I do see that, especially in sport, that parents can, you know, maybe they didn't reach their own expectations, so they can put that on the kids. Henry, you talk in the book about what you describe as healthy pressure versus harmful pressure. And I'm curious about that as we're talking about, you know, providing parents with great tips.

Okay. So I said a little earlier that pressure is like a physical force. It's a physical entity. And there's different times, like gas pressure and heat pressure and water pressure. And also, if you don't have pressure, right, blood pressure in your heart, think of what blood pressure does. It forces your blood through your system. Now, the idea of healthy pressure is to take that force and think of if you're dancing with you or you said you had two sons yes so you're dancing with your son and let's say it's you know slow music and you're wearing

your high heels okay step on his foot that will hurt yes likely on the other hand if you're dancing but you're wearing sneakers and you step on his foot, it's still my, you know, he'll feel it, but it's not going to hurt. And that's, that would be more along healthy pressure rather than this stiletto heel of pushing down. So we're going to transform pressure so that it helps the team. Okay. and the first way you start doing that is something we alluded to was expectations to when you when a parent parental expectations is the big bang of parental pressure nothing happens when you had your first child and you come home from the hospital there is no pressure on him in In fact, it's the other way

around. The baby is deciding when you sleep, when you feed, when he goes to the bathroom. And then after a while, you start putting that child on a schedule. You will sleep during these hours. You will be fed during these hours. And this is the beginning of parental pressure, the formulating of parental expectations. Now, I want parents to think, where do those expectations come from? Think of the expectations that you have on your son. What were the expectations your parents had on you? Just because the expectations for you worked doesn't mean they're necessarily the right ones for your son, or if you had a daughter, or for your daughter. When I hear, my co-author is the head psychologist at Phillips

Exeter Academy. And when I hear that this kid is fourth generation of, you know, Exeter at this school, my first question is, are you telling me that all three kids wanted to go there? Right, exactly. None of them ever wanted to go to school with their friends or go to Andover or go to a private school in California. Are you serious? And so on. And that's the parents, becomes the parents' expectation. This is where you will go to school. This is what you will study. And a lot of times it's because what the parent's expectation this is where you will go to school this is what you will study and a lot of times it's because what the parent did so part of the problem of making a child expectation is is like the only legitimate expectation the core parental expectation that every parent

i believe should have because it will serve their son or daughter in the best way will help them navigate life effectively is expect them to do their best yeah that is the most important because that's all they can do you can't do better than your best now what is funny is how many times have you seen her parents say okay just just do your best then when the kid does his best, the parent gets upset. Why is the parent upset? The father says, just do your best in this match. Okay, but the best is fourth place. So why is the father getting, why is he disappointed?

The kid did the best he could do. It's because that's not what the parent really means. The parent says, I want you to win. So make sure when you say it you mean it well I appreciate you talking about healthy pressure and harmful pressure and I was also thinking about in your book you talk about like how do we spark the motivation and interest of our kids and I'm thinking about um what advice would you give to parents because I think sometimes parents will say, well, my kid just doesn't do want to do anything or they're not very gritty. Right. Or they maybe have hard, a hard time kind of finding their passion or motivation.

This is a great question. And here is the thing. I mean, let's, let's get out of the, you have a mother who has a five-year-old daughter who's taking her to a dance class and the dance class is every Wednesday now what if the kid doesn't want to go to the dance class why is the mother going oh because she's going to see her friends while the kids are are dancing so she's really going to see her friends and remember if you don't get in the car and we go, you're never going to do anything or whatever. See, this is one of the ways how parents exert pressure, guilt. They force them, manipulate. Oh, you want a car? You better do well, or this is what I want you to do for me,

and so on. So the idea here is when do you listen to your kid? Yeah, that's a really good point. And I don't know the answer to that. That is individual. I will tell you one thing about pressure parents. The parent child relationship, remember, is an interaction, just like your relationship with your marriage. It's an interaction, which means what the parent does affects the child.

What the child does affects the parent. If the parent speaks to their child respectfully, the chances increase that the child will speak respectfully. If the parent yells at the kid, there's a good chance the kid will yell back. It is an interaction. It is also hierarchical, meaning that the parent is the boss from day one. The baby's biologically dependent on the parent. When a man and a woman meet, now one person might have more power as in the case of all relationships, but we think of the person as a partner. I never heard a parent say, talking about their kids, well, I have three partners. one's 15 you know one's uh my oldest partner is just graduating from college and what pressure parents do is they exploit that hierarchy and

that's where they use they force it see see the whole as kids get older like when you're when your child was three years old you needed to help feed them correct maybe cut their meat or yeah absolutely okay but when they're 16 you don't do that no if you were still doing that it would be strange 16 year old right because but you respect the natural developmental process. The natural developmental process of parent-child is for the child to become more and more autonomous. One of the goals of effective parenting is to make your kid independent

so that they can function as an adult when you are no longer there. Pressure parents don't like to do that because they don't want to lose the relationship. They don't want to lose the parent. So a pressure parent says, says, okay, not only do I want to drive you to the soccer game or the football game, but I also want to play on the team with you. See, that's what it's called EOI. This is becoming a hot concept, emotionally over-involved parents. Emotionally over-involved mother not only wants to go

shopping for the prom dress, but they want to go to the prom with their daughter as well. And I have to tell these parents to get a life. I admit that's cruel, but that's why many kids go to college, they have empty nest syndrome. All upon that is the parent doesn't have a life or their interest for their own. So they get so involved in the kid's interest. You're always helicoptering always hovering over them. So it's when we talk about healthy pressure, you know, it's like communication. I want the parent to go to up communication, use criticism to put up your kid, not to put down, to have a dialogue rather than a monologue. How many how many parents ask their kids what they think, but really pay attention? Studies show that I'm going to make the decision as the parent. And that's OK if I at least I listen to my son or daughter. As long as the son or daughter has some type of voice in the

decision-making process, they're okay with the parent deciding, and they actually feel less pressure. Yeah, that's a really important point. Everything that you just said, I think about my kids and sometimes how they don't actually want to go to practice all the time, right? And we talk about, well, sometimes we have to do things that are difficult. And even when we don't have 100% motivation. And, you know, you've talked a lot about today about the importance of helping our kids do their best over winning or beating others. And I also really appreciated what you said about in the book where you said helping our kids focus on their personal best instead of their competitive best. kind of this process over outcome, right? That they can control the process of how they play, but not necessarily the outcome if they win or they lose or how that goes. Right. So how do we, as parents keep on.

And first I want to, that's it. Cause you just made a really important point. And that is a huge difference between pressure parents and support parents, pressure parents focus on the outcome. See that's why they give superficial praise because they don't really care pressure parents and support parents. Pressure parents focus on the outcome. See, that's why they give superficial praise because they don't really care how the kid played. All they care about is, did you win? They don't really care how much you studied

or how little you studied. They just want to know, would you get on the test? And when you focus on that, think of what that does, whether you are an adult or whether you are a child, is you're just, you're defining, you end up defining your self-worth based on the outcome. The key is just what you said, is that you want the parent to focus on the effort, because if you focus on the effort, the kid will start to realize that there is a link between effort and outcome. And

this is the beginning of taking responsibility and building confidence. Otherwise, why would you study more or practice more if it's not going to have any relationship to the outcome. And that's how you, by focusing on the process and the effort, is how you build up that mindset of excellence. I noticed that with my own trainer. Before I started with him, I'm embarrassed to say, and this is about six months ago, I could not do a push-up. Now I can do 60. Nice. So I have to have like, you know, two minutes in between, but they're also really good form. And it was because he never focused on how many, it was always just the effort and the process and getting stronger. And then one day I said, Hey, I can do push-ups. And then you realize you can change. And that's what that growth mindset is.

And if you have a ranking mindset, it means you're always comparing yourself to the other person. This is what many pressure parents say. How did the other kids do? You can't control. Carl Lewis, the great Olympian, said that every time he started a race, he never thought about beating the other person because he can't control them. He just thought about getting off to a great start and running as fast as he can. So that's one of the ways of how you transform unhealthy pressure to healthy pressure, by focusing on effort and process rather than making everything dependent on the outcome.

So as we are talking about pressure parents, right, and sometimes we're putting pressure on our kids without even realizing it or knowing, what's, what do you see as the ultimate impact of this? Are kids burning out sooner? Are they dropping out? Are they, is there mental health, you know, implications? What are you seeing in the research? All of the above. But one thing I want to tell parents, the more you pressure your kids to play sports or to play a music instrument, the greater the chances that they will not want to do it. And that's what I said, that one of the things is that you should only have your, it's good to encourage trying something, but not forcing them to do it.

See, some parents will say, you have to finish what you start. Why? Sure. Why? To learn, follow through? Yeah, but isn't it smart? I say the faster you learn what you don't want to do that's just as important as following through if i know that after uh two music sessions and i'm 14 that i

do not want to play the violin why am i taking 10 sessions i already know it that's like how many times you have to go out with somebody before you realize you never want to see them again? You have to keep going out with them and so on. I mean, you know, so again, it's giving that voice. What were you going to say, Min? We were just talking about the implications of pressure. So not only do we have performance issues. First of all, again, nobody does better under unhealthy pressure. And another way parents do that is when they say this is your biggest chance, rather than letting them know you're going to have multiple opportunities.

Because when you say this is your only chance, it makes it literally a do or die situation and you want to move away from that so the kid because if you don't do it then you're left with well then I failed and that doesn't that feeling doesn't help anybody so there are other things that we can do again you said we're talking about. You said something really insightful and I wanted to get back to that. I think we were talking about process over outcome and we were talking about how you can control your effort. And then I asked about the implications of its mental health issues.. So there are all types of anxiety disorders from unhealthy pressure. Forget counterproductive behaviors, cheating, lying, arguments with friends in their social relationships, many times it's withdrawn.

Then you have the big ones, the eating disorders. You have these substance abuse. I would say that every kid who is in a substance abuse center has experienced parental pressure. I would say that every kid who has had eating disorders is experiencing parental pressure. To say nothing of depression. And you just can't believe I got a hold of a bunch of diaries written from students from China. So one student wrote that his parents, if he gets like a 95 on a test or a 90, his parents will say, this is how you reward us. I said, we buy you a new iPhone. We do your errands and you can't get 100.

Another kid writes that walking to school used to be the greatest time, but now it's like walking under a dark cloud because all he thinks about is all the homework that he has to do as soon as he gets home demands from his parents. I mean, you put yourself in that situation and you feel, at least I do, I feel sad for these kids. So that's why I say it's a global pandemic. It's not one of two studies. It's literally, it's hard to believe, but it's literally hundreds of studies from around the world of what parental pressure brings out the worst in kids. And this is why I said, I want parents that sports parents, just like there were stage parents. I said, if you want to be supportive to your son or daughter, take care of the logistics,

but stay out of their game. When my son was in little league, I remember another parent saying the problem with little league in Westport, Connecticut is all the fathers ruin it. Because every father thinks they know they're a baseball expert and they start yelling and talking to the coach and it ruins it for the uh for the kids so my son was in middle league and this was about I guess he was in third grade he comes up in the proverbial big situation you know in the last inning I see the coach, before he goes up to bat, pulls him aside, and he puts his arm around him and says something to him. So then he gets in the batter's box, and he gets a hit.

He got so excited he forgot to run. Everybody's just watching. Everybody's saying, run, Danny, run. And then he made a great fielding play to end the game. So afterwards, I said to him, Danny, I'm curious, what did the coach say to you? And the coach said, the worst possible thing. It's all up to you. We're all counting on you. Oh, wow. Because the more responsibility a team feels, the more pressure he or she experiences. What the coach should have said is just go up and do your best. Have fun.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, Henry, you've given us so many things to think about. I'm so grateful that you're here on the podcast. And there are some things I wrote down that I'm going to summarize at the end. OK, so you talked about the three main things that we should consider when we're thinking about pressure that we maybe provide on our kids is communicating, like such as criticizing, questioning and praising. You talked about parental involvement and parental warmth, which I actually really appreciated all of those things. You said that also very quickly, a parental warmth. When I see a parent drop off their son or daughter at school and shake hands what is that about tactile communication which which you know how many times one of the things i love is that when a player does something like they miss the field goal or something his teammates come over and they give

them a hug or something yeah and and when your kid does a match or whatever sometimes you don't have to say anything but you just give a hug around the shoulder and that says a lot and sometimes you give them a high five and that means when they do their homework and get a good grade it's the same thing so you know when you when when you're three or when your kids were three year old you had two boys so when you had two boys that were three years old, I bet you gave a lot of tactile physical comfort. I did. Lots of cuddling and hugs.

As you get older, it's less and less. I know. I don't like it. My son's 31. Every time he sees me, I still hug him and I will kiss him on the cheek. Every single time. So I don't want parents to forget about the importance of tactile communication as a way of showing warmth just because their kids are no longer five or six years old.

Awesome. Thank you for adding that about parental warmth because I know that was an area we didn't get to. You also talked about how pressure parents can really emphasize comparison and winning and not necessarily the process or the effort. And we also talked about the importance of like not connecting our aspirations to our expectations of our kids. So thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Henry. So your book, The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure, A Positive Approach to Pushing Your Child to Be Their Best. How can people get the book and tell us how we might connect with you? They can get it on Amazon, which would probably be the least expensive way to get it in the fastest way. And they can contact me for further questions through my website, which is Hank Weisinger, phd.com. And if you send me emails, I will be happy to respond to them. And I also want to point out, we're also starting a class,

an online class in development for parents. So I'll let you know when that is up and running. I'm sure that's going to be incredible. Well, do you have any final advice or comments for everyone who's listening today? I want, you know, parents should think about the first time they experienced parental pressure and the impact it had at them and how they felt. I think that if parents can remember to use pressure in healthy ways instead of their son or daughter feeling it as expectations that are impossible to meet, they will experience it as guidance, as I said, support, motivation. And when a parent can do that, that is a guaranteed way

that I will say that the force will be with you. I love it. The force will be with you. Well, such great, valuable content information today. Thank you so much for helping us be better parents. I'm grateful for you. And thanks so much for being on the podcast today, Dr. Weisinger. Thank you. Thanks again for having me. And I appreciate everybody listening. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos

about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.