The One You Feed - Rosalind Wiseman

Episode Date: May 20, 2014

This week on The One You Feed we have Rosalind Wiseman.Rosalind Wiseman is a teacher, thought leader, author, and media spokesperson on bullying, ethical leadership, the use of social media, and media literacy, she is in constant dialogue and collaboration with educators, parents, children, and teens.She is the author of Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World—the groundbreaking, best-selling book that was the basis for the movie Mean Girls. Her latest books, Masterminds & Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World was published in September 2013.  In addition, she wrote a free companion e-book for high school boys, entitled The Guide: Managing Douchebags, Recruiting Wingmen, and Attracting Who You Want.In This Interview Rosalind and I Discuss...The One You Feed parable.Handling negativity in a positive way.The importance of the people and the things that choose to be surrounded by.How we all need a language which to communicate our emotional experience.The different expectations for boys and girls.The unwritten rules that try to force us into a box.How social status is often determined by how well we fit into these unwritten rules.How men battle body image issues and conditioning as well as girls.The Act Like a Man Box.How we are taught to dehumanize each other.The power of cultural conditioning messages.How we can never really overcome them, just learned to be more mindful of them.The shame of feeling like we don’t fit into the box.The link between being able ask for help and emotional well-being.Have dignity is nonnegotiable but respect must be earned.Listening is being willing to be changed by what you hear.Asking ourselves what our intention is in a conversation and making sure it isn’t just to win the argument.How being in connection to other humans is fundamental to our nature.The positive and negative power of groups.Trivializing others experiences because we don’t think they know as much as us. Rosalind Wiseman LinksRosalind Wiseman Homepage Rosalind Wiseman Amazon Author PageRosalind Wiseman on TwitterSome of our most popular interviews you might also enjoy:Mike Scott of the WaterboysRich RollTodd Henry- author of Die EmptyRandy Scott HydeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We give our boys costumes at very, very young ages, and 20 years ago those costumes did not have muscles sewn into them. They have sewn in muscles everywhere, right? The boys are like a walking ridiculous muscle pillow. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do.

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor,

what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the show. Our guest today is Rosalind Wiseman, an internationally recognized expert on children's, teens, parenting, bullying, social justice, and ethical leadership. Rosalind is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Queen Bees and Wannabes, helping your daughter survive cliques, gossip, boyfriends, and the new realities of girl world,

which, by the way, was the basis for the hit movie Mean Girls. Her latest work is Masterminds and Wingmen, helping your son cope with schoolyard power, locker room tests, girlfriends, and the new rules of boyhood. Let's hear the interview. Hi, Rosalind. Welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. As you know, our show is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the old parable where there's an old grandfather who's talking with his grandson, and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and love and bravery, and the

other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops, and he thinks, and he says, well, grandfather, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks, he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start the show off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, I think it's really profound. It's easy to say, you know, you should live according to your values and in my case I'm always talking about treating people with dignity when it's hard but I think that even you know I talk about I think about those things so often but it's still so challenging in real life when

you truly are faced with something that's really irritating you, or you're really angry at somebody that in that moment that you, that you don't go to that dark place. It's hard. It's so hard. And, you know, I, why, you know, I think it is about that feeding thing you're talking about, about having the support of love of people that love you around you and like what you have around you that in those really challenging moments that you do the right thing that you go to a better place and even if you are angry and you have every reason to be angry that you conduct yourself in a way that is not vengeful or deceitful or um cruel and um but it's so, so hard. Well, one of the things in your, in your books that you, that you talk about, and I think it was in the most recent book for boys, you talk about the

idea that conflict is, is unavoidable. And there's a lot of scenarios in that book where you're, you're walking boys through how to handle some of that conflict in a way that's similar to what you just said, a way that feeds the good wolf, so to speak, or at least doesn't, you know, drag the bad wolf into it. Can you share a little bit about what you teach boys to do in those situations? Well, sure. You know, I believe that boys deserve a language to talk, to be able to talk about their emotional experiences. And I think that unfortunately, many of us without even realizing it, deny our boys the language of life that they, you know, we say things. And really, honestly, sometimes we are so unaware of them. One of the most profound I think is saying you know

boys are easy they just fight and it's over and we don't realize what we're saying when we say those things we're not self-reflective and in doing that when we say boys are easy they don't care about things they just get over their problems they don't have problems in their friendships that it really sends the message that if a boy has very strong feelings about being betrayed by a friend or being relentlessly humiliated by a friend, that it reinforces the notion that there's nothing that, there's never any limit, basically, to what somebody else can do to him. And I think boys have the right to say, I don't like you betraying me. I don't want to have it as part of my friendship.

And I don't want to just have to sit there and just say nothing when you take advantage of me. We would never accept that with girls, ever. But we regularly do with boys. And I think it's really to the detriment of boys feeling that they can talk to us about the most basic common problems that they have. And then we wonder why boys shut down and won't talk to us about the most basic common problems that they have and then we wonder why boys shut down and won't talk to us I mean it's an amazing thing if you think about it about how our non-self reflection about how we interact with boys and I include men in that too um lots of men that I've you know it's been very it was always very surprising to me when I was working on masterminds that there would be men that I felt like would buy into the stereotype of boys.

And that was shocking to me. But since the publication of Masterminds, it's been an incredible experience to watch so many men come forward and say, thank you for doing this with the boys because I didn't do it by myself. I never would have. I don't have the right to speak for boys, but to collaborate with boys and to be able to try and create this language was really important to me. And in the book, you talk about something, you call it the act like a man box that boys are forced into. And I think in your previous work for teenage girls, you talked about,

you had similar ideas of directions that girls are pushed into. And I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about, because if you expand that idea out, it expands to everybody, man, woman, teenager, older, about being authentic and being yourself. And could you talk a little bit about that maybe in a broader sense? Yeah, sure. Sure. So the 20 plus years that I've been teaching have always been about what are the unwritten rules that we, or unspoken rules that we get that says to us, you know, if you are this way, if you have these kinds of characteristics, then you will have social status, not necessarily respect, but social status. And what are the ways these, what are sort of unwritten rules about what you can't be? And if you, but if you are those ways, then it gets much easier for people to blow you off, dismiss you, or you, you want to hide those parts of yourself. And the culture is everything we know. We've never been sat down and taught. Culture is oftentimes these unwritten rules. And one of the ways that you always get social status,

especially in our culture, is how you fit according to your gender, about how you fit as a girl or as you fit as a boy. And so for girls, the work that I've been doing with girls, and the girls don't necessarily have to agree with this. It's that cultural messages are coming at girls constantly, but not just from the media, but from also adults in their real lives, right, in their lives, you know, on a day-to-day basis, saying to them, you know, this is what you have to be like. Now for girls, we can take physical attributes, for example, because I think it's the best, it's the most obvious one, is that the culture is still giving messages to girls constantly that they have to be very hyper-sexualized to count, basically, to be recognized. But at the same time, there are people

in the girls' lives, and there's also media messages coming to the girls that are really counter to that, that say, you are way more than your body. So there's a language about being that the girls can break out of and, and use to be able to break out of the confines of, I don't want to only be seen as this like hypersexual person, um, or to have no opinion. I just am the body that I am. Now, if you take that for, for boys, boys have the same kinds of very, very strong messaging coming to them about what they have to be like as a boy, how to present, which is the biggest and best visual that I wrote about in Masterminds, I think, for most parents is that we give our boys costumes at very, very young ages. And 20 years ago, those costumes did not have muscles sewn into them. And now not only do they have

sewn in six packs, but they have sewn in muscles everywhere, right? The boys are like a walking ridiculous muscle pillow. And that's the equivalent of like a girl, you know, at three or four years old being given like a Barbie costume with fake augmented breasts in the costume. And we would never accept that for a three-year-old girl. Yet we regularly do that for boys and we think nothing of it. And so that is showing boys, this is an unwritten rule. So it's not like the parent gives the costume to the boy and says, okay, in order to be a boy, that's going to have high social status. You have to have less six pack by the time you're eight, no parent, you know, it says that, or very, very few do. Um, but that's the, that's the message that's being imparted to the boy that

if you have man boobs if you have moves you know when you're little there's something shameful about that well those are those are cultural messages coming to the boys and the act like a man box is about the messages and what those rules are that if you have you know if you have the right body if you are strong if you're if you can put somebody down fast if you are always detached like you don't think you you don't come across as you care about anything you like the right sports you play the right sports um that everything is funny to you nothing you don't take anything seriously um and then on the flip side for the act like a man box you know what are the things that get that you don't want to be you don't want to express yourself as a girl you don't want to look like you're trying too hard you don't want to be? You don't want to express yourself as a girl.

You don't want to look like you're trying too hard. You don't want to be passionate about things. For example, making the world a better place, that people will come down on you because somehow that has become feminized in our culture. And so that's really what the act like a man box is. But it's also about, for example, money. Whoever has markers of the right shoes and the right stuff within their community goes in the box. When you don't, it goes outside the box. So this is really also about homophobia and racism and classism and how those dynamics work to dehumanize, to teach us how to dehumanize other people. And that's profound, right? I mean, that's like, those are the, it's not just about kids being nice to each other or self-esteem. It's not that. It's about the mechanisms for how we teach or how we are taught

and how we teach others, unfortunately, to dehumanize other people. So, you know, when you say that, when a kid says that's so gay, or when a parent says, don't be, you know, you're crying, don't be like a girl, don't be like a little girl. Or if you hear that, like I've heard that from my sons, when you hear that, they say that to each other and you don't stop them from saying that. Those cultural messages are being reinforced all the time. Yeah. And it's, I have teenage boys, so it's sort of a constant, I see all that stuff, stuff playing out all the time. So there's these bigger forces that you're talking about there. These messages that we're all getting, what are things that people can do individually to

get back in touch with their humanity and, and live in a way that they don't feel like they have to be in the box? Well, I mean, I think that I don't, I think that the box is so powerful that you're constantly dealing with it. I mean, I myself, you know, I think that the box is so powerful that you're constantly dealing with it. I mean, I myself, you know, I'm always thinking about how it impacts me and the decisions that I'm making from like the car that I buy to, you know, my stressing. Like, I'll give you one for myself. Because I don't think we ever really get over this. I just think we have to be mindful. So I just did a presentation.

I did a speech a couple weeks ago, and the client sent me a recording of me doing the speech, right? So it's me up on a stage. And, you know, as a woman growing up in this culture, I cannot control the fact, I wish I could, but I cannot control the fact that as I'm looking at this, I'm not listening to what I'm saying. I'm looking at myself and I'm like, wow, have I been drinking a lot of beer recently? Because like, what's up with my stomach? I mean, that's really what happened. And I, at the same time that this is happening, I'm looking at myself. I'm like, oh, I don't like the way I look. Oh my God. Is I'm thinking to myself, can you believe that this is the way you're responding

to this video? You're not actually listening to the content of the words and the way I'm responding, it's like the words don't matter as much as I, as how I look that, you know, having those feelings and being like, wow, I am feeling this and that's really sad. And I need to be really mindful of that so I can process it and move on. So it doesn't really control, I can be mindful of it, but it doesn't control my decision making. Yeah. It's amazing how deep that, that conditioning is. And what I really, one of the things I really like in the recent book is you talk about that and you referred to it with the superhero costumes for boys that, that boys have body issues too. I mean, it's, it's, it's not talked about much in the way it is with girls, but I think it's, I don't know a man that doesn't think about it,

that isn't concerned about it to some degree. It's just, it's just never talked about. It's not, it's not socially acceptable in the same way to really talk about it very much. Right, exactly. And then men learn to feel ashamed of who they are or that they can't admit, you know, it takes the sting out of it, right? Like when I can talk about it, like when I just talked about it, right? It takes the sting out of the pain or the power that those kinds of messages have for you. And so for boys to be, um, there's no place for them. There's almost, there's really so few places for them. Um, in comparison to middle school girls, for example, where they can say, yeah, like I'm getting teased for being fat or I'm being teased

for being super skinny or I'm being teased. And they don't even, they don't think they can even talk about that because people won't take it seriously. Whereas girls know that they have the right to feel bad about it. Right. We had, uh, we had Andrew Solomon on last week who wrote a book, uh, far from the tree and another one called The Noonday Demon. And one of the things we were talking about in regards to depression, but it applies exactly to this, is the feeling of shame that comes over you when you have depression. You're depressed, and now you're ashamed about being depressed, and you don't want to talk about it. And I think it's the same thing here. It's, I don't like the way I look. Now I feel bad that I don't like the way I look. And so I'm adding pain on top of pain in a lot of cases.

Whereas what you describe, which is being aware of how we're feeling, accepting that it's something that everybody goes through and then potentially sharing it with other people really lessens the sting of those things and the stigma of them. Yeah, I mean, you get to this place of like, you realize that you feel this way

and that if I can say this to a group of teenage girls, for example, that I'm or women that I'm working with, you know, and say, Yeah, okay, so I deal with this for a living, right? I'm supposed to be an expert, therefore above this, which, of course, is absolutely not true. And this is what happened to me when I got this, this video, right? And, and it takes is like, wow, well, you're feeling this way, I'm feeling this way. So we're all sort of in this together and it doesn't feel great, but it feels better that we're talking about it. And boys, I think feel so ashamed and so embarrassed of so many things and they don't feel like they can talk about it. And if they do, there's something wrong with them. Um, and I feel really, I mean, there's absolutely a direct connection between being able to ask for help and being able to admit when you're bothered by something and your mental and emotional well-being.

And that's, you know, I think boys, I feel so strongly that boys have the right to be emotionally well. Not only, and really I could take it from a self-interested point of view. Not, I mean, I mean I believe I mean I don't it like primarily I think boys deserve to have emotional well-being but I also think that the world is is suffering because of those boys who lash out at other people because of that to other boys or to girls and so it's not just in the self-interest of I want that boy I mean he does but I also want it for the sake of the welfare of other people as well I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor we got the answer will space junk block your cell signal the astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer we talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth plus does tom cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really?

That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, Really. No Really. Go to Really about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, no really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. One of the things that you say is dignity is non-negotiable.

What do you mean by that? Well, I think that I don't really like using the word respect. I know that adults like it. I think a lot of adults like to use it with young people. It's another one of these words that we use that I think is often extremely counterproductive. Respect often when an adult says it, really what they mean is you have to obey me, no matter how I'm treating you. So I can treat you horribly, but you have to respect me because I'm your elder. And I know this is, I respect, using that word, I respect that there are cultures

and people within cultures who feel very strongly about we have to respect our elders. But I also think that when we do that, we really are bypassing or being willfully blind and deaf to the abuse of power that some adults inevitably inflict on other people. And then you're supposed to respect them. Right. And so, go ahead. No, I think you talk about that, that you can get them to obey, but it's out of fear. Respect never comes from that type of interaction because boys know what to respect and what not to respect. Absolutely. And they, you know, if a boy respects you because you've treated him well and treat other people well, meaning you're fair, then you're going to have his undying loyalty forever. I mean, I mean, forever. It's when you are arbitrary, when you abuse power, that boys will pretend that they'll, they'll, they might comply. They might be in compliance with what you're doing, but not, I mean, as soon as you're not there, they're going to either run, they're going to disengage or the disengage right

there in the moment, they'll disengage, like in the classroom, for example, they'll, they'll walk out, they'll move, you know, they'll give up, they'll, they'll, they'll give up like on a team or some other thing, or they'll become abusers themselves. And so it's, so when we use the word respect, I just think that you've got to own, if you're going to use the word with young people, I think you better own it that there are kids who regularly see adults not treating people with respect. And I don't think those people merit respect when you do that. Um, and so in comparison, I think the word dignity is a lot more power because dignity, you just, it's inherent. You just get it.

It's being treated, it's treating somebody with worth and everybody has the right to be treated with inherent worth. That's not debatable. That's not tied to one's actions. So I think that you treat everyone with dignity and that respect is earned. That makes, that makes sense. Another thing, a line that I've heard you use a couple times in your talks and in your books is that listening is willing to be changed by what you hear. Yeah, yeah. Do you want to elaborate on that? Yeah, that's a big one. So I define it, you know, listening is being ready to be changed by what you hear is one of the things that, again, I said in the beginning, of those things that you say but man practice isn't hard it's so hard um especially as a parent because that's actually pretty tricky as a parent because you know you're there might be a situation

where and this doesn't have to be with a child like me with anybody there might be a situation where somebody is trying to convince you of something and as a result they're manipulating you or lying to you or whatever and you've got to be savvy about that um and so so that's a that's like it's it's a it's a very difficult line to walk of like and i'll just use the thing of with one's children so when i'm with my kids and i need them like right now, like at this moment, they should be, I'm not sure, but they should be walking the dog and moving some patio furniture for me that I need them to do. And if they were really tired or they didn't do it, right. If I come, if I walk out of this podcast and I walk out of my office and nothing has been done and I am extremely

frustrated, then I just need them to walk the dog and do the work I need them to do. Right. But all right. But so I don't really want to be changed by what I am hearing. Right. I need to have to get the job done. But I do need to know and, you know, I do need to know if there's something going on that makes it impossible for them to do something like move that furniture. Like something might have – I don't know what it is. But is there something sort of a higher truth or bigger truth that I need to be able to listen to that's going on that somehow the consequences that they didn't get their work done or didn't do what they're supposed to do. That's a hard line to walk as a parent because I believe very strongly in children pulling their weight in the family. And at the same time, sometimes they are overwhelmed and they don't really want to tell you about something that's going on because they don't even know where to start.

Or they're worried about your reaction to things. think that's going on because they don't even know where to start or they're worried about your reaction to things. So it's a very, it's one of the most, I think it's one of the most tricky things about being a parent is that line of listening and also you're in a relationship with somebody where they really do need to hold, they need to hold their responsibilities. They need to pull their weight in the family. Yeah. I think in our culture in general, that's a very tricky line because we want to be open to new ideas. We want to be open to new thoughts, different ways of seeing the world. But yet there's so much out there that's intending to try and deceive us or to get us to see the world in a way that is, that the story that's being spun is certainly from one person's gain. Exactly. The story that's being spun is certainly from one person's gain. And so it's this really tricky, what do I, I find it all the time, a diet is one of the great ones. There's so many different opinions on what's the right way to eat that it's just like, I have no idea what to believe anymore.

I'm pretty sure tomorrow I'll hear like oranges cause cancer or something. Every time you turn around, it's something different. So I agree. But I do think that as a culture, and one of the things they talk about on the internet is that instead of broadening people's worlds, in a lot of cases, you can subscribe to hear only what you ever want to hear. And so then there's no chance of listening to be changed. You just listen so that you can argue back. But I really like that phrase about listening is willing to be changed, at least having that as an intention. Absolutely. And I think especially this comes into play when you're having a philosophical debate with somebody or they really have a different viewpoint about an experience that occurred between the two of you, then that is really different, right?

And that's really when that comes into play. And you've got to be able to say, all right, I really have to stop waiting to be able to make my point. I'm not in a debate here to win. I'm trying to figure out what happened. And that's, you know, and you have to be honest with yourself about are you having these conversations to win the debate? Or are you in these conversations, you're actually trying to figure out a middle ground for the two of you. That's also the you know, you asked me before

about what I'm doing, what I work, what I do with children. And that's really also one of the things I do is be honest, right? I mean, if you're, if that's what you want to do was win the debate, at least be honest about it. And don't pretend that you're trying to be something you're not. Right, right. I heard a quote, I saw it this morning or yesterday, and it said that the minute you turn angry in a discussion is when you've turned into wanting to win more than maybe necessarily make a point. Yeah. I don't know if I agree with that 100%, but it points in the right direction, sir. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it makes sense. It's directionally correct. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it makes sense. It's directionally correct. Yes, yes. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today.

How are you two? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. God bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really.

Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You say we all want to feel a sense of belonging. This isn't a character flaw.

It's fundamental to the human experience. Give me a little context around that. Well, a very big visual is solitary confinement. It's the worst punishment we can give people. And, you know, even in a jail where hostility oftentimes is, you know, what's happening around you quite a bit, to be alone is the worst punishment. Unless you have to sit with my podcast partner. So, you know, I think that for the vast, vast majority of us, that we are human because of our connection to other people. And there's nothing wrong with being there.

So it's like it's essential to literally it's essential to who we are is to be in connection and relationship with other people and that is not a bad thing um it is it is i believe fundamental to who we are the problem is that we often and this goes back to the act like a man box is that and the act like a woman box is that in order to be to feel a sense of belonging to a group of people or to another person sometimes we get to a place especially in a group where we identify being a part of a group because we are not somebody else and so it's our loyalty and allegiance our sense of commonality with each other is based on not being something someone else or from somewhere else or

has a different religion or a different skin color or a different uh coming from a different neighborhood and so that's really i think is like the achilles heel it's like the it's it's our vulnerability it's our our really really deep vulnerability and it's our great it's our greatest strength and greatest weakness is that we can do these amazing things in groups. And by being in a group, we can do these extraordinary achievements of all different kinds of things. At the same time, when we're in a group, we can, by bonding with each other against someone else, can really do the most amount of evil. Yeah, exactly. That makes a lot of sense. So I think we're nearing the end of our interview time. I'd like to wrap up by asking you a question. If you had to summarize sort of everything you've got in your advice to teenagers and

broaden it out and give one sort of piece of advice or a truth to people in general, what would that be? Not to ask you a hard question. Right, exactly. I mean, for teenagers, I want them to realize that life is really messy and what they're going through, whatever that they're going through that's important to them is important. It's not just first love. It's not just, oh, you're a young person and you'll get over it and you'll forget about it tomorrow. young person and you'll get over it and you'll forget about it tomorrow, that the experiences that you have as a young person are important and they are, and they should be respected and, um, that they, they really do add to who you are as a person and that you have a right to the feelings

that you have about your experiences. Um, for adults, I would say in working, you know, if you have young people in your life, that that's one of the most important things to be able to build a meaningful relationship with them is to simply acknowledge that the experiences they have are important. Yep, that's really true. And it is, I know I struggle with that with the kids sometimes around I know I struggle with that with the kids sometimes around trying to sort of project a wider life experience onto a smaller thing. And that does, the intention is good, but you're right. It can be trivializing of what they're going through. So, well, thank you for being a guest.

Reading your stuff is certainly, I hope, helped me to be a better parent. Oh, thank you. I learned a lot of things there. I was like, oh, yeah, I do that. Oh, I'm doing that. And then there were, and then there were some things I thought, oh, I'm doing pretty well with those things. So it was, it was great. And as a, as a father of teenage boys, thanking, you know, thank you for writing a book that supports them. I'm trying to figure out currently how to get them to read it. Well, you know, the most important thing actually that I should have said is that, and I'm, oh, thank you for this opportunity, is I have a book for high school boys. No, that's the one I want to get them to read. Oh, that's the one you want to get them to read. Well, the guide, you know,

we have this now as an actual book, not just as an ebook. So it's an ebook first for the first, I don't know, six months, and now it's actually a book. So, you know, the thing I'm telling parents to do is to put it on, just buy it and put it on their bed and just leave it, right? Just leave it and run away basically. And, um, and the boy tell that for your sons, I mean, we had some high school boys that worked so hard to create the written book so that it would look the way that they thought boys would want to see a book that they might, that they might read. So that's the, I really hope that parents listening to this or people who work with boys by the guide and just give it to them, but don't have any comments about it. No conversations just yet. Just like, just put it on their desk or put it on their bed and, and run away.

So my, my plan for structured study sessions with a potential grounding, if they don't answer the questions right, will be counterproductive. Right. You better not. All right. Well, thank you again for joining. I really appreciate it. And we will talk with you soon. Thank you so much. Okay. Bye. Bye. You can learn more about Rosalind Wiseman and this podcast at oneufeed.net slash Rosalind.