On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Dr. Daniel Amen: 3 Steps to Stop Your Brain’s Guilt Cycle & How to Re-Parent Yourself to Build Mental Strength

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Do you want to know how to stop your guilt cycle? Do you want to know how to build positive mental strength? Today, let's welcome back renowned psychiatrist and brain disorder specialist Dr. Daniel Amen. Dr. Amen known for his work as the director of the Amen Clinics and a bestselling author, having written numerous books on brain health and wellness, and has also produced television programs promoting his theories on brain health.  Dr. Amen talks about mindful parenting, ways you can set goals with your children and nurturing their ability to think independently. He shares a simple 20-minute practice to deepen your connection with your child, and understand the pivotal role of boundaries in their development.  Let's understand how critical it is when children retreat into themselves and offer strategies to mend and strengthen the fragile threads of parent-child bonds. Dr. Amen challenges the practice of labeling children as 'smart' and instead, focuses on cultivating their problem-solving skills and shed light on the often-overlooked emotional burdens our actions can place on our kids, from the subtleties of attachment to the complexities of misunderstanding them. In this interview, you'll learn: How to empower kids through responsibility How to build mental strength How to foster problem-solving in children How to implement loving discipline How to instill the value of hard work on kids This conversation will help you better understand the hacks of raising well-rounded, resilient, and loving individuals in today's fast-paced world.  With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 00:46 How Do You Set Goals For Your Kids? 04:34 How Do Children Become Free Thinkers? 10:19 Allow Your Child to Get Uncomfortable 13:01 The 20-Minute Practice to Bond with Your Child 17:46 What Does No Boundaries Lead To? 21:26 Why Do Children Shut Down? 24:54 How Do You Repair a Broken Bond? 28:00 Don’t Tell Your Child They Are Smart 31:04 How Can Your Child Solve a Problem? 33:07 You’re Making Your Kids Miserable 35:16 Attachments That Become Broken 37:37 I Don’t Understand My Child 41:54 What is a Loving Discipline? 44:51 My Child is Addicted to Social Media 46:25 What Does Social Do to the Brain? 48:35 Effects of Divorce on Kids 51:01 Teach Your Child to Self-Soothe 53:39 How to Love Your Child Right  Episode Resources: Dr. Daniel Amen | TikTok Dr. Daniel Amen | Instagram Dr. Daniel Amen | Twitter Dr. Daniel Amen | LinkedIn Dr. Daniel Amen | Facebook Dr. Daniel Amen | Books Dr. Daniel Amen | Website Amen University Take The ACE Quiz See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is your space to explore mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Hardin-Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to The Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Take good care. Hey, I'm Wilmer Maldorama, executive producer of the new podcast, Date My Abuelita First.

Each week, the incredible Vico Ortiz and fabulous Abuelita Liliana Montenegro will play matchmaker for a group of hopeful romantics. Right, Vico? You know it. Listen to Date My Abuelita first, Thursdays on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, don't do anything I wouldn't do. Just do it better. Besitos.

You do not solve all of your children's problems. That's the heart of love and logic. It's you want kids to make mistakes and you want them to pay the consequences. So they learn. Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite you to join this community to hear more interviews that will help you become

happier, healthier and more healed. All I want you to do is click on the subscribe button. I love your support. It's incredible to see all your comments and we're just getting started. I can't wait to go on this journey with you. Thank you so much for subscribing. It means the world to me. The number one health and wellness podcast.

Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guest is one of our most frequent guests, actually the most frequent guest of all time. He's one of your favorites.

I know that you love diving into the science. I know that you love diving into the brain. And today we're going to get to put that all together diving into the science. I know that you love diving into the brain. And today we're gonna get to put that all together with raising young minds. If you have a child or you're about to have a child or thinking about it, this episode is for you. If you wanna know what impacts us, what helps us become happier, healthier and more healed

through our childhood years, this episode is for you. And if you're wondering about your own health and how you got to where you are and how you can make shifts and changes, this episode is for you. Today I'm talking to Dr. Daniel Eamon, a former infantry medic, physician, child and adult psychiatrist,

and founder and CEO of Eamon Clinics with 11 locations nationwide. Eamon Clinics has built the world's largest database of brain scans related to behaviour, totalling more than 250,000 scans on patients from 155 countries. Dr. Amen has written 20 national bestselling books, and Dr. Amen's new book is, Raising Mentally Strong Kids, How to Combine the Power of Neuroscience with Love and Logic to Grow Confident,

Kind, Responsible and Resilient Children and Young Adults. If you don't have this already, go and grab your copy right now. You're going to love this conversation. Welcome Tom Purpos, Dr. Daniel Eamon. Dr. Eamon, it's great to have you back. Jay, what a joy. Thank you for helping me spread this message

of brain health, brain healthy adults, brain healthy kids. Yeah, well, I've learned so much from you over the years. And I think anyone who goes back and listens to those episodes, there's so many great conversations, great insights. But I love that you're focusing on raising mentally strong kids because I know I get this question from our audience a lot. Now, some of our audience are mothers and fathers, and some of them are thinking about it, and some of them may be years away, but I know that it's something that even I sit and think about.

I talk about it with Radhe, what does it really take? And I think that it's so hard to know because there's so many theories, There's the way we were raised. There's the way our partner was raised. There's a million ways. And in the book, you really break it down beautifully. And I wanted to ask you a couple of questions to get going. So the first thing I wanted to ask you about is that you talk about mentally strong kids

live by clearly defined goals. And I was thinking about that. I was thinking, how do you set a goal for a kid? And at what age does a goal become real? Well, the goal starts with parents. What kind of dad or mom do I want to be? And what kind of children do I want to raise? So in raising mentally strong kids,

I mean, the first principle is you need to be mentally strong, right? You have to model the message. At Eamonn Clinics, our first core value is authenticity. And what does that mean to be mentally strong? Well, the first principle is clarity, is you wanna know. So when I was growing up, my mom was great,

she was present, but there were way too many of us. There was seven. Third means irrelevant. At least that's what I thought. Prince Harry's book spare. Well, in a Lebanese family, the oldest son is golden and the second son's irrelevant. Now, there's huge upside to irrelevance,

which means I could do anything I want. But my mom was present and fun and playful and strict, all good qualities, my dad was gone. And so when I'm thinking about what kind of parent do I wanna be, is I wanna be present. Because that caused a lot of bitterness in my life. And if you read sort of the latest neuroscience on childbearing, attachment is so important

to prevent mental illness or mental health problems. And so if I want to be present, then that leads to the second principle, which is bonding, which is connection. And how do you connect? And too many parents get that wrong and like, oh, well, let me solve all of my child's problems, which creates entitlement and disaster. But the first one is what do you want? And I think it's a great question for kids when they're six or seven. what do you want? And I think it's a great question for kids

when they're six or seven, what do you want in our relationship? Like I treat a lot of difficult kids and one of my favorite questions to parents, how many times out of 10, when you ask this child to do something, will they do it the first time without arguing or fighting? And seven is the average for healthy kids.

So very few kids do something every time, right? But for the kids who see me, it's zero or less than three. And when I asked the children about this, seven, eight, nine, I'm like, is that your goal to make your mother cry? I'm like, no. I'm like, why do you do it? I don't know. And the fact is they don't know

because it's not will driven. It's brain driven. And that one concept all by itself on top of which if a child doesn't do what you ask them to do and you ignore it or you just repeat it, what you're doing is teaching them to do that. And the brain is lazy. So this is going to be a fun conversation. How about the people that would say that that may make children obedient, but it doesn't make them free thinkers or it doesn't make them independently thoughtful. I think we sometimes feel like these two things work against each other, right? Like if we feel we're like, they listen to everything we say and they do what we say, then how do they build up

their own sense of identity? How does that work? Well, that's totally in the book on how to do that. And that is, you do not solve all of your children's problems. That's the heart of love and logic. It's you want kids to make mistakes and you want them to pay the consequences. So they learn agency. It's such an important word in lives. So I have six children,

three of them are adopted. And Chloe, who's now 20, she's a bit of a hellion and argumentative, oppositional, and I'm a child psychiatrist. And Chloe was too when Tana and I met. And I'm like, Tana, you've done second grade. But they would like go at it in a bad way for homework for like a couple of hours. And then Tana got a program. I co-wrote the book with Charles Fay, who's the president of the Love and Logic Institute.

So she got parenting with Love and Logic and then took everything they ever created. One night when it finally clicked that I've done second grade, she told Chloe she'd never again ask her to do her homework. She said, hey, I've done second grade. This is on you. And if you're okay with the consequences of not doing your homework, Mrs. Mank, her teacher, will be mad at you. You won't go out to recess. And if you really decide you're not going to do it, you'll make new friends when you repeat second grade.

That was that epiphany moment. Chloe got upset and said, I never said I wasn't going to do my homework. I'm just not going to do it now. She stormed off. 20 minutes later, she came back. No one ever asked her to do her homework again. She's gonna graduate with a business degree from Chapman University. She's bright, she's independent, she has agency. She's a hard worker and a free thinker

because she couldn't push against her mother to solve her problems. She had to figure it out with, of course, appropriate support. And oh, by the way, to really push on this idea, if Chloe forgot her homework, there's no way her mother would bring it to school because then she'd only forget it once, right? If she forgot her homework and we brought it to school, we'd always be bringing her homework to school. If it was cold out and she forgot to bring a sweater, nobody's bringing a sweater.

She forgot her lunch, nobody's bringing her lunch. We're teaching her probably the most important skill of mentally strong people. I'm responsible for my life. And if there are consequences, I'm going to pay it. And you, so you want them to make mistakes when the consequences are affordable. What age is that at?

Is that at a particular age or is there a time when? Like four, five, six, you know, earlier the better. And of course you're always putting, you know, think of bowling alley, you're putting bumper guards up to protect them. But when I was a young parent, I think my self-esteem wasn't great. And I would get self-esteem

by solving my children's problems. And what I realized is I was robbing them of their self-esteem. Because where do we get self-esteem? There's this great study out of Harvard where they followed 454 inner city Boston school kids for 70 years. I mean, think about that.

I mean, one of the longest longevity studies ever done. And they looked at what was going, you know, with mental illness, with addiction, with self-esteem. And the only thing that correlated with self-esteem was whether or not you worked as a child. Whether or not you had responsibility at home, you had a paper route, you had an outside job. When I was 10 years old, I went to work

because my dad owned grocery stores. And work is good, but for people who are affluent, who have help at home and everything is done for the child, you're really setting the child up for struggles in their life, because they won't develop a sense of agency. That's so interesting hearing that. I've always felt that. I started doing, I was a paperboy when I was 14 years old. And I remember going around the local streets and delivering the papers,

and it was raining, and it was, you know, at some time of the year in England, it would snow during the Christmas period, and it was, you know, at some time of the year in England, it would snow during the Christmas period, and it was hardest because I'm pulling this, like, you know, this trolley, we call it, I don't know what you'd call it here, but pulling this cart that has all the newspapers stacked in it. And then I worked in a grocery store, and then I worked in retail,

and so I've been working ever since I was 14 years old, and I couldn't agree with you more. I learned so many interesting skills. I developed so many amazing habits because you had to in order to do it. And that resonates so strongly with me. How do you get comfortable watching your child be uncomfortable?

Because I can imagine that's the biggest challenge, right? As a parent who loves, adores, cares for this child, doesn't want it to be cold, doesn't want the child to be late for school, doesn't want the child to perform poorly, your ego is somewhat attached to the child's ego and success level. How do you get comfortable watching your child be uncomfortable in a non-unemotional way and not in an insensitive way? It's hard.

You have to have the big picture in mind and the long game in mind. What do I want? What kind of parent do I want to be effective present? What kind of child do I want to raise? Independent, competent, strong. Um, if I do too much, I'm robbing them of their self-esteem of their sense of Responsibility and agency and that's a disaster You just don't want and you need to see it ahead of time and that's why you know

the first principles know what you want and Always ask your kids. So what's the goal for this year? What do you want and always ask your kids. So what's the goal for this year? What do you want, right? It's not, you're not telling them their goal. I mean, an example, when I turned 18, it was the first time I could vote. And my dad told me if I voted for Senator McGovern,

the country would go to hell. So 1972, Richard Nixon is running for reelection. He's a very popular president, even though it'll turn out to be a disaster against Senator McGovern. And I'm 18. And I don't have a relationship with my dad. I mean, we're sort of mostly mad at each other. He's trying to have influence on me. But because we don't have a relationship, I just assumed piss him off. Right now. It wasn't my conscious thought, but I just assumed piss them off. And I voted for McGovern and the country went to hell, but it had nothing to do with McGovern. It was all Nixon and

Watergate and so on. But it was that lack of relationship. And if people do what I talk about in the book, you have more influence with them. Hey guys, it's Jay Shetty here, and I couldn't be more excited to share this exciting news. You asked, we delivered. Juni Sparkling Tea with Adaptogens made by my wife and I are now available in all Sprout locations across the country. Juni is the perfect midday pick me up. With only one third of the caffeine

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Head over to your local Sprouts or visit sprouts.com to find the closest location near you. local Sprouts or visit sprouts.com to find the closest location near you. And that leads to, so the first principle is goal setting. The second one is bonding. It's attachment. If you want to have influence with your children, if you want them to seriously consider your values, you have to be connected with them. And what does that take?

Time, like actual physical time where you're not on your phone, but you put the phone away and you spend 20 minutes a day with a child. So there's an exercise I talk about in the book that I love so much that, all the things I've recommended to my patients over the last 45 years, when I decided to be a psychiatrist 45 years ago, special time, it's magic.

And 20 minutes a day, do something with your child, child wants to do, that's reasonable, you can do in 20 minutes, so it's like not take me to Nordstrom's. And during that time, no commands, no questions, no directions. It's just time to be together. And it's money in the relational bank. And I remember when I first figured this out, my literary agent had a child later in life. We were talking on the phone and he's like,

my daughter Laura doesn't wanna have anything to do with me. And she's too. And he said, that's like a girl thing, right? A mother daughter thing. They don't want anything. I'm like, no, Carl, you're ignoring her. What? What do you mean I'm ignoring?

I'm like, you're ignoring her. Do this. And he said, that won'm ignoring. I'm like, you're ignoring her. Do this. And he said that won't work. I'm like, Oh, great. You represent an idiot. My own literary agent won't do what I say. Do it. In fact, I'm going to put you in my schedule for three weeks. I'm going to call you, get the party started. And so three weeks go by, I call him up, Carl, Daniel, she won't leave me alone. As soon as I walk in the door, she grabs my leg and wants her time. All she wants to do is be with me. I'm like, that's a problem. That's what we want, right? That's what we're after. So actual physical time. And now parents are so busy, they're not spending this one-on-one alone time listening.

So that's the second part of it. So time, actual physical time, and shut up. I mean, it's so important. You love them so much, you to pour all of your knowledge, all of your wisdom that you worked your whole life on and download it into their head. Don't do that. Listen to them. And therapists learn this technique called active listening, that whenever someone says something, you don't interrupt and tell them how to think. You repeat it back and you listen for the feelings behind the words.

So if my son came home and said, dad, I want to have blue hair. I don't know what your father would have said, but I know what mine would have said. No way. Now, as long as you live in this house, you can have blue hair. But what does that do? It just stops the conversation or it starts a fight. Active listening teaches you repeat back what you hear. Oh, you wanna have blue hair.

And then be quiet long enough for them to like explain what's really going on. And he might say, all the kids are wearing their hair blue. of for them to like explain what's really going on. And he might say, all the kids are wearing their hair blue. Now I've been to a school, I know not everybody's blue headed. And if I would have said that to my dad, I don't know what your dad would have said. I don't care what anybody else is doing. As long as you live in this house, you're not going to have blue hair.

If they're going to jump off a bridge, are you going with them? Yes, that one for sure, I've heard that plenty of times. And what does it do? Stops the conversation or it starts a fight. Sounds like you wanna be like the other kids. Completely different conversation. But that's, and he might say, dad, sometimes I feel like I don't fit in.

Now my mother would have said, what do you mean you don't fit in? Of course you fit in. You're a good boy. You're a good looking boy. You're a nice boy. And that's not helpful either. What's just helpful is, so sometimes you feel like you don't fit in. And then give it a breath. So they're the ones solving their problem. Now at the end of a half an hour, he says I still wanna have blue hair, I'm gonna tell him no, I'm gonna hell as long as you live in my house

because it's not cool to look weird. I mean, if you look weird, you're gonna hang out with weird people, right? It's okay to have boundaries around behavior. Some parents, they have like no boundaries. And I think some boundaries are appropriate. What does no boundaries lead to, like from a neuroscience and from a study perspective of what is what happens if you have no boundaries? At least the mental health problems. So there's this great study out of the University of Oregon. We looked at 10,000 families,

and they looked at parenting along two dimensions, parents who were firm versus permissive, and then hostile versus loving. And if you take those two dimensions, you end up with four types of parents, permissive and hostile, permissive and firm, loving and permissive, loving and firm. And they looked at what were the consequences

or the outcome of each parenting style. Do you have a sense what would be worse? What would be the worst one that creates the most trouble? You would think that it's hostile and permissive. Hostile and permissive, the worst. What do you think is the second worst? Loving and permissive? Loving and permissive.

Shocking. Because children need boundaries and the loving and permissive ones had more mental health challenges than the hostile and firm. Now that's not helpful, right? That creates anxiety, but children need boundaries. I often say God gave us parents until our frontal lobes develop, right? The front third of the brain, the most human part of the brain, focus forth on judgment, impulse control.

And that's why you need parents to help guide you. And one of the big mistakes we make as a society is we abdicate parenting before their frontal lobes are developed. So I'm like not a big fan of sending children away to college because you're gonna take their undeveloped prefrontal cortex and put them in a dorm with a whole bunch

of other undeveloped prefrontal cortices. Bad idea. And you know, I'd learn this as a child psychiatrist, send kids away to school. The incidence of anxiety goes up, depression goes up, suicide goes up, addiction goes up. And it's not a good thing. How were you able to go get around that with your kids going to college as well? Well, I mean, one of my daughters wanted to go to the University of Virginia. So always across the, I'm like, no, you have to go to somewhere.

I can drive to see you in three hours. Wow. So yeah, that's, it's really interesting. This limits and rules building mental fortitude that you talk about because it's, it's hard to know, I think as a parent, and it comes back to the earlier point that you were saying that we're just dealing with so much ourselves, like people are busy. They're stressed. They are on their phone, just trying to decompress after a long day.

And what I liked about what you said was 20 minutes of no questions, no commands and no directions. That I think is really powerful and a special takeaway for people because it may be really hard to give quality time, but I love the definition of quality time becoming no directions, no commands and no questions because it seems like that's what our relationship becomes about with children. And what do all of those do? If your relationship is just giving the kids commands, directions, questions, what ends up happening to the relationship?

They shut down. And if you're just in their space, and, you know, as a child psychiatrist, you know, I've seen thousands of children over the years and often parents go, he won't talk to you. He doesn't want to be here. He won't talk to you. I go, yeah, it's really hard to be me. And I just sit there and I'll play games with them. But while I'm playing a game with them and a game they choose, they chat, you know, they talk about what's going on in their dreams, what goes on at home, what goes on.

What game would you play with them? I mean, we'll play cards, we'll play shoots and ladders, we'll play Monopoly, we'll play all sorts of different games. And one of my favorite games is the storytelling game where they'll start a story and they'll have a sentence, all of a sentence, they'll start a story and all, they'll have a sentence, all of a sentence, they'll have a sentence, and you really get to see how their minds work.

Why does that work? Why is that a great interaction point that allows them to open up? Because kids, if you just say, tell me your problem, they'll have no idea and they'll freeze. If you play a game with them or you go for a walk with them, then they begin to open up if they know you'll listen. And we just, we're in a society that's talking over each other.

Parents are anxious and they want to solve things and they talk too much. So if I can get people to use less words and be more present, it's gold for them. How do you know if a child is becoming more mentally strong or more mentally weak? As you're practicing some of these methods, what do you notice? What are the habits or the core traits of a mentally strong child and a mentally weak child. So mentally strong kids don't believe everything they think. This is so important. Before in other episodes, we've talked about killing the ants, the automatic negative thoughts. Actually, I have a child's book called Captain Snout and the

Superpower Questions where I wrote specifically to teach kids to question their automatic thoughts. And so a vulnerable child, so maybe I wouldn't say mentally weak, I would say vulnerable, is you notice they have stinking thinking. They mind read, they fortune tell, they focus on what's wrong rather than on what's right. A strong child still have those thoughts, but they'll question them. They just won't attach to what I call

the different kinds of ants. And blame is like the worst ant. It's you blame other people for your life. You become a victim and you become powerless. What is it I can do today to solve this problem? And that's the essence of the book along with love and logic. What is it I can do today to solve this problem? Yeah, obviously none of us are perfect.

And I think every parent is already judging themselves in how they are a parent. I think a lot of people carry that weight around and they carry that stress around of I'm not a good parent, I wish I could have handled that better, I shouldn't have said that, I should have said that. What's a healthy way to repair a mistake you've made? Maybe you've said something you wish you didn't say, you did something you shouldn't have done, and you've done it a few times.

What's a healthy way to repair that bond? Well, there's a guilt cycle that people get into. They overreact, and then they feel bad about it. So they don't react, and they let bad behavior go, and they let it go, and they let it go, and then they can't stand it and then they explode and then they feel guilty and so they don't react and they don't react and then they don't react and then they overreact and so the trick is when there's behavior you don't

like deal with it as opposed to let it go it's like deal with it in the moment. And you're gonna make mistakes. Lord knows I've made lots of mistakes. But every day I win or I learn, right? I'm working with an Olympic athlete that I just love so much. Alicia Newman, she's a Canadian record holder for pole vaulting and it's just such a mess. When I saw her, she did my show,

scan my brain. And now she's so mentally strong because every tournament she wins or she learns. And as a parent, that's the mindset is, you know, we had a really great day. And when you don't have a great day, why didn't we have a great day? And when you don't have a great day, why didn't we have a great day? And you think about it in the book, there's all sorts of brain reasons why you didn't have a great day. You didn't sleep, you went too long without food.

There's the time change, you know, that has more bad days just because, you know, as a society we become jet lagged all at once. So if you can just be curious rather than being furious, it helps you so much. So if we have a really great day, it's like, okay, why'd that happen? And just be thoughtful and the default is always firm and kind and the softer your voice the more they pay attention to it if you're screaming they tune you out and they get mad. Hola mi gente this is Wombre Valdorama executive producer of the new podcast

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we need this for ourselves right now at this age, because our child self didn't probably get this kind of parenting or wasn't exposed to this. And so even that statement you just said that I either win or I learn, I think that's a habit that any of us listening to this right now need to develop. Because I think just as we're harsher on children, or harsher on someone else, it comes from the fact that we're harsher on ourselves.

Like there's this inner critic and this inner voice that breeds negativity and as you said, the guilt cycle that continues, it seems that that then becomes the externalized version is how we treat the kids. And then again, we feel guilty for doing that because we know it's wrong. When you're trying to become mentally strong yourself, but you feel like

you don't have time, your kids need dinner cooked, you need to do their homework with them, like I feel like there's a massive loss of time balance, the ability to cater to this. What do people do when they're like, Jay, I'm just surviving. Like I'm just putting food on the table. We're just about even surviving for myself to be able to switch on the TV in the evening after the kids are asleep.

Like I get no time for myself. How do we balance that time? That's why special time is not two hours with the child. It's doable. You're playing the long game. And too often parents love their children so much. It's we. You're playing the long game. And too often, parents love their children so much. It's we're going to do soccer and we're going to do dance and we're going to do music and we're going to and it's like, stop that. You need time to spend with each other. And you're like,

well, but I have to do my homework with the children. It's like, please don't. That's not what the schools want you to do. They want the children to do the homework. And if they don't do it, let the kids pay the consequences. But then what parents do is they get into this fortune telling thing. It's like, well, then they won't get into the best preschool and they won't get into the best school and they won't go to Harvard and their life will be terrible. And like I went to a junior college, a community college, I'm actually in the hall of fame

at Orange Coast College. I actually think many people, Mark Cuban actually said that, it's like most people should go to a community college because it's such a low cost and it's the same education, right? But people have this idea of prestige is attached to my self-esteem. And prestige is a French word, comes from a French word for deceit, right? But I mean, I went to a community college, my life is awesome because I work hard, right? And ultimately another point, you never want to tell a child, they're smart. I mean, parents get so proud of you. You're so smart.

Don't ever do that. Go, you work hard because if you tell them they're smart and they can't learn something, their self-esteem drops. If you go, I really like how hard you're working. And they come up with something hard. They work harder. And you also teach kids because mentally strong people ask questions. And too often it's like, no, I want to ask questions. So I don't want to appear dumb.

It's like mentally strong people that ask questions. And so when I was in elementary school, I'd never ask a question. And then I realized, cause I was in the army and I took three years between high school and college and I was able to grow up and I'm like, oh, you have to ask questions, right? I learned that in the army. If you ask a question and somebody says no, ask somebody else because they're more likely to say yes. Right.

So I learned that don't just accept no, but in school, it's like, oh, let me ask questions. But I don't understand something, odds are people don't understand those well. What are some of those other statements that parents say to kids that they think they're saying the right thing, but they end up backfiring because they make it harder

for the child to live up to that? What are some of those other statements? It'll be okay. Or I'll take care of it for you. They're having problems with another child at school, they immediately in the principal's office, they're not listening to the child and going, so how do you think you can handle that?

Or what if they go and they fix it? And that's death to their self-esteem. Now, of course, if it's dangerous or bullying or abuse, you have to step in and take care of it. But for the day-to-day stuff, how do you think you can solve this? As opposed to, well, I had that problem when you were, when I was your age, and this is what I did,

and this is what you should do. Don't do that. Because it steals their self-esteem. It steals their agency. What is it you can do? I'm rooting for you rather than, well, that's a dumb decision. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

No, I'm rooting for you. That's so huge in our friendships. It's so huge in marriage. It's, it's so huge in our friendships. It's so huge in marriage. It's huge with kids. I think it's so easy to just say, this is what I did. This is what you should do. This is the right way to do it. This is easy.

And we think we're basically doing a shortcut because we're not listening. We're not actually bonding. We're not connecting. And we're trying to jump to a conclusion that hopefully we think solves the issue. And a lot of this comes back to what we both mentioned in this conversation is that there's this subconscious ego attachment to the child succeeding as being a reflection

of our self-esteem, our self-worth, our self-esteem gets wrapped up in our child's self-worth and self-esteem. And now, you know, subconsciously we're living our dreams through them. That's not as basic as saying, I want my kid to be a doctor because I am, but there there's other more subtle versions of that. How do people disconnect from that ego?

Because it seems to be so subtle and so hidden, but it's there. And I think everyone notices it with their parents when their parents are acting in that way. But almost when we become parents, we're completely oblivious to that ego. And it's so important. It's often so toxic if someone is living an unrealized life that they pour a lot of it into their child. And it makes these kids miserable. And it doesn't give them a sense of agency. It constrains them. Um,

and they often rebel against it as opposed to what do you want to do? That'll make you a good living. So I don't have to support you. And I love my six children, It'll make you a good living so I don't have to support you and I love My six children, but I never want to have to live with them Right, so I want to create Competent people who can care for themselves. It's like oh Go live your dream whether or not you can take care of yourself. And that's going to set them up to be miserable.

If you're dependent on someone else, you're miserable. Entitled people are never happy. Another thing is, and I posted this on TikTok and it got like 7 million views, hallmark of mental strength. Um, I don't do things for people who do not treat me with respect. Mmm. Whoa. So, you know, your child misbehaves, you love them so much, it doesn't matter.

You, you know, give them everything they want anyways. Death. I don't do nice things for people who I feel don't treat me with respect. That doesn't mean you don't feed them. Of course you feed them, but you're not taking them to the store and you're not doing nice things for them. I mean, you need to teach them their consequences. So the third part, so it's goal setting, bonding,

so much there, and so many mental illnesses are attached to attachments that become broken. Could you walk us through this? So John Bowlby's sort of the famous attachment psychologist and he said that if we're not connected to our moms or dads it puts us at great risk for mental health problems and he's absolutely right and often the break in the bond between your mother or your father or it can be any primary caretaker creates this rage inside of you. And then you feel guilt about the rage. And so you attack yourself. And you know many people who live with this negative chatter

in their head, and it's often that specific dynamic that they're furious at their mother, their father, you know, perhaps a divorce happened when they were four or five, or they had a sibling die when they were four. Something happened. They get really angry, but that's not appropriate because these are the people that feed me. So rage guilt about the rage and then self attack. And they live with that their whole lives.

I can't tell you the number of people. Um, and when you're a four or five or six, you think of yourself at the center of the world. And so if something good happens, you sort of think it's because of you. If something bad happens, you think it's because of you. And you end up with this chronic sense of being bad. And there's a specific type of therapy I like, it's called intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy. And it's often getting to the feelings underneath and rage and attachment and guilt about the rage are often a significant piece of it.

Sometimes it's hard because I feel like a lot of people may be feeling like, you know, I don't understand my child. Like they're angry, they're upset, they, you know, they kind of want to disconnect. What do you do in that situation? Where do you start? Well, I think you first start with the simple things, time. And look at what they're eating. Because that matters. I have one patient who would go in a rage whenever he got red dye. And people

go, red dye? Yeah, red dye number 40. And so- That's like every sweet and candy. It's think of red vines. Yeah. And it's even in cough syrup for children or hard candies. Red dye number 40. And he would go on a rage. And when they would take away red dye, he'd be fine.

But sometimes he'd get it accidentally and he'd rage. And so I actually scanned him, you know, that's what I do. I look at people's brains. And so we scanned him, no red dye for a month, and his brain was healthy. We gave him red vines that have red dye number 40 in it, and his brain went went like it exploded. That dramatic hyperactivity in his brain.

And so if you're really struggling with your child and you use the principles, Dr. Fay and I talk about in this book and you're still struggling is probably a good idea to get them assessed. And on average, it's years between the time a child first has a symptom, anxiety, depression, OCD, ADD, between they have a symptom and they get assessed. And so many bright people go, I'd never give my kids drugs. And it's like, if he is diabetic, you give him drugs.

If he had heart disease, you give him drugs. It's like, and I'm not advocating drugs, right? I mean, I own a supplement company, but I'm not opposed. If I do all the things I know how to do, then I use medicine to do it. People like don't really see the brain as an organ, right? They have to get the progression.

Your brain, physical function of your brain creates your mind. And if your brain's not right, your mind's not right. And if your brain's not right, your mind's not right. And so what are all the ways that a mind can be troubled, right? So if you have a child that's not sleeping, that has nightmares, that has tantrums, that won't go away, they don't socially connect, they're obsessive. It's like at some point you have to go, what's going on in their brain? And there's a whole section in the book on brain health for kids. Of course, you've got to model it as a parent, but what you feed them matters. How much sleep they get matters. I have

another really fun book called Time for Bed, Sleepyhead, which is a hypnotic bedtime story for children. I actually used to do it with my daughter, Brianne, when she was three. I did it from three until eight. She loved the story so much. And think of your kids in four big circles. They have a biology, so we talked about their brain. They have a psychology, so we talked about their brain. They have a psychology, how they think.

They have a social circle, what's their environment like, and there's a spiritual circle, which most child psychiatrists wouldn't touch. But it's sort of like, why do you care? Why do you think you're on the planet? What's your sense of meaning and purpose? Because purposeful people are happier. Purposeful people, I mean, what am I on?

On purpose, right? They live longer. And so nurturing those four circles is so important for the kids. Hi, I'm Laura Vanderkam. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And I'm Sarah Hart Unger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer, and course creator. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

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Hear it now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What is loving discipline look like? Because I think it sounds good. We're all like, yeah, I would love to be disciplined, but I'd love to be loving. Often we don't even figure out what that means in the workplace, let alone with kids. We're either loving or disciplined. But we're not. I're either loving or disciplined.

But we're not. I think it should be both. What does it look like? Well, you know, we haven't gotten to rules. I think families should have them. Society has rules. Like tell the truth. Do what mom and dad say the first time.

I love that rule. Because do you know your chance of abusing the child? If you tell a child to do something five times, your chance of abusing that child just went up significantly. And so if you have the expectation, they'll do things the first time. It's like, Caitlin, I want you to take out the trash, like in the next half hour.

And if she doesn't, it's like, sweetheart, you have a choice. You can take it out now. Or you can have this consequence. And then you can take it out. I don't care. It's up to you. And I love that part of not being attached to it. I love her. I'm really clear. And she's getting that consequence if she doesn't move. Like stop threatening them and then not following through. Because you teach them that you have to tell them and get angry and be a bit crazy in order for them to do what you ask them to do. And I like the rules and rhythms and routines. I remember in my

home after dinner me and my sister would clean up and we had a little rotor of who washed up that day and who cleaned the table that day. And it was just something that went around every day. We take it in turns. My sister was four years younger than me and we just do it together and it became this thing that we just did and it became natural. It became a habit and it made us accountable and responsible to each other as well, as well as our parents. And it was a really neat way of kind of giving us that rules and,

you know, I think sometimes we think of rules as like strict rules and guidelines, but actually it can be just a rhythm and a routine. And it building competence and skill. And you're part of the family rather than you're entitled To live in that family. Yeah. Yeah, and the earlier you start the better it is For kids. I mean, it's it's hard if you not spend any time with children by the time They're 14 their friends are more important than you are. And that's the heartbreaking thing I've learned is if you're not spending time with them,

their friends will take your place. And they may not have the advice, they may not have the right ear for you. And it makes them more vulnerable to all the scary stuff that's on social media. Well, I was going to ask you about that. I think a lot of challenges that parents have today are my child is addicted to social media. They're addicted to their phone. Forget spending time with them.

I can't even get them to look up and make eye contact. What have you seen? What have you experienced? There's a whole section on technology. Yes. Is you can have technology, and I recommend you delay it as long as humanly possible, because it's not in their best interest,

but you can have technology as long as it's not creating a problem in the family. And if we're not connecting, that's a problem in the family. And if we're not connecting, that's a problem in the family. If you're at dinner, now you can't be on your phone, all dinner, and tell your child they can't be on theirs. So probably everybody should put their phones away so you can connect, right? Modeling mentally strong parents

ultimately raise mentally strong kids. But the problem with social media, and you're on social media, I'm on social media, it creates this toxic level of self-absorption. You know, who's looking at me, who am I looking at, who's following me? And self-absorbed people are never, never happy. But that's become such a challenge now, right?

That it's, it's the thing everyone's addicted to. It's the thing everyone wants. It's like you said, parents are on their phones. They're not going to stop straight away. What do you see being the silver lining or the light at the end of a tunnel that's going to have that breakthrough with a child? Like what, what do you think that would be? Well, you know, I'd go back to delay it as long as you can, even, you know, if

the child's like, everybody's doing it because everybody's not doing it, but it's, it's like, I love you so much. I'm going to protect you. All the studies, all of them say that it makes kids more vulnerable to bad things. Um, and then when it's in doing to our brain, what's social media doing to our brain? Well, addicting that, um, there's a book I love called Thrilled to Death. It's continually pressing on your nucleus accumbens that produces dopamine,

continually pressing on the pleasure centers in your brain. But the problem with that is the more you press on them, they begin to become numb. And you need more and more excitement, more and more stimulation in order to feel anything at all. And, you know, I see it with the wonderful famous people I've been blessed to see. I see it in kids who are addicted. I mean, they're actually programs. And I've sent a number of kids away

to video game internet addiction program. And when they get away from it, they become sweet again. I had one kid who parents took away video games. He broke up all the furniture in his room. And I'm like, needs a program. Well, we decided to do, take away all the gadgets, good. And I scanned him a month later. And then I scanned him while he was playing

one of the violent video games he was addicted to. And it deactivated his frontal lobes and his left temporal lobe, which is an area is often involved in violence. Like that good thing. What, what about parents that are, you know, parents that are going through a divorce, going through a difficult time, what's the healthiest way to communicate that to a child? I know, I know couples that are staying together for the children,

they don't want to get divorced, even though they don't have a healthy relationship. I know others who had the divorce, but they're so scared about how that impacts the child. What have you seen through the neuroscience and research around when you're staying together or breaking up? So it's not good. Divorce is not good for the child, but staying in a chronically unhappy,

conflicted, negative relationship is worse. So neither is good. I often say to the people I see the best thing you can do for your child is love your spouse the best thing you can do model a healthy Relationship, but you know there's no education in school on how to have a healthy Relationship right so there should be that would be helpful When you go through a divorce Be really careful not to talk bad about the other person because that child is half you and half them. If you're talking bad about their mother, they feel bad about themselves.

Plus, it increases cortisol in their body and makes them much more likely to be sick. So bad thing. Often, if you're gonna get divorced, go to counseling together and figure out how we are gonna parent together. Raising mentally strong kids is great. Like we're gonna parent this way. We have goals, we have time together, we have roles.

One thing we didn't talk about yet is notice what you like more than what you don't. Right. There's all my whole penguin story is in there, which I think I probably told here before, but I'd love that. Notice what you like every day. You're shaping your child by what you notice. You're shaping your partner. You're shaping your employees.

You're shaping everybody by what you notice. You're shaping your partner. You're shaping your employees. You're shaping everybody by what you pay attention to. And so notice what you like more than what you don't. And that really solidifies the kind part of effective parenting. I've also been thinking a lot about, I was sharing with some families over last week when I was doing some events this idea around how mindfulness and meditation can look very different for children. And so I don't think all kids need to be forced to sit in one place and close their eyes.

I also think that mindfulness can be an activity of, hey when you're outside today see if you can find as many red things as possible. When you go outdoor today come back and give me a list of things that you found that were red. Or can you find as many leaves that look like stars, or any stones that look like stars today when you're out and about? And I think mindfulness can actually become alive when we're actually living it and breathing it, when they're out and about, as opposed to this feeling of kids need to learn it in a certain way. What have you seen with... And they don't sit well.

Yes, exactly. That's my point. And it doesn't mean they have ADHD. It may mean their nervous system isn't fully myelinated, right? It's not fully myelinid for people that don't know what that means. When you're born, you actually don't have much myelin in your brain, as we develop, our neurons get wrapped with a white fatty substance called myelin. And a myelinated neuron works 10 to 100 times faster than an unmyelinated one. And when we're two months old, our occipital lobes in the back vision become myelinated. And so when you look at a baby and smile, they smile back.

They don't do it as newborns because their visual cortex isn't working fast. And then slowly myelination goes from the back and comes to the front when finishes about when we're 25. And so expecting the child to act like an adult, bad, bad, bad. But you can teach them self-soothing techniques from the age of four, I think.

Take a big breath, really slow, slow as you can. Breathe it out as slow as you can. And that'll come when they get anxious. So, you know. Yeah, what I'm hearing from you today is that it's really helping them develop the tools that they're going to need long term. The challenge is we need to know what those tools are ourselves. Do them for ourselves.

Do them for ourselves to really believe in them. Because otherwise we, like you said, we rush to solve their problems, we try and make up for their losses, they never get to become independent, resilient individuals. And talk to us about where love fits into all of this. Like, what does love look like with your child beyond time and beyond certain things you've said today? What does love really look like? What does love look like with your child beyond time and beyond certain things you've said today?

What does love really look like? What does love mean? Because I think when you think about what parents ultimately want, they want to be loving parents. That's what everyone wants to do. They want to love their child. But love overcomes as overcompensating. Love often translates as over solving, over fixing, overdoing and overwhelming and forcing them to be overachievers. And so even though we love them, we end up doing all these things that cause them pain. So love is when you want to bring their homework to school.

It's not because you love them and you want the best for them, which is becoming mentally strong. That's love. Love is putting away your phone and spending time with them. Love is when they go and when they're 10 and go, oh, my friends have a phone. What if a school shooter comes and I can't get ahold of you?

Children are manipulative. Quite frankly, all of us are manipulative. And it's like, you know, there are justulative, quite frankly, all of us are manipulative. And it's like, you know, there are just too many risks with that. That's love. It's setting boundaries in a kind, consistent way. And ultimately, love is you developing these tools so you can be firm and kind at the same time. Beautiful.

Dr. Daniel Eamon everyone, the book is called Raising Mentally Strong Kids, How to Combine the Power of Neuroscience with Love and Logic to Grow Confident, Kind, Responsible, and Resilient Children and Young Adults. If you don't have a copy already, go and grab yours right now. Dr. Daniel Eamon, what a gift to talk to you again about this subject.

Like we've said, you've come on many, many times. First time that we've really dove in into kids and raising them. And I'm so grateful that you put this book together for everyone else to read and share. And I hope that parents will develop book clubs around it, communities around it, because I think this conversation of raising mentally strong kids needs to be at the center of our schools, our homes, our families, because it's going to set them up and set our society and world up for so much success. So thank you so much for doing this, honestly.

Thank you, my friend. Thank you. If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with Dr. Gabor Matei on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past. Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it? It grows where it's soft and green and vulnerable. On his new podcast, Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon, join Kevin for inspiring conversations

with his friends and fellow celebrities who are working to make a difference in the world, like actor Mark Ruffalo. You know, I found myself moving upstate in the middle of this fracking fight, you know, and I'm trying to raise kids there and, you know, my neighbors like willing to poison my water. Listen to Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tune into the new podcast, Stories from the Village of Nothing Much, like easy listening,

but for fiction. If you've overdosed on bad news, we invite you into a world where the glimmers of goodness in everyday life are all around you. I'm Catherine Nicolai, and I'm an architect of Cozy. Come spend some time where everyone is welcome and the default is kindness. Listen, relax, enjoy. Listen to stories from the Village of Nothing Much on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.