Drawing from his background in theatre and improv, Gabriel shares his insights into entering a child's world through play. We discuss the difference between different styles of parenting, including peaceful and authoritative parenting, how to connect with neurodivergent children, and what you can do to become a better parent.
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Drawing from his background in theatre and improv, Gabriel shares his insights into entering a child's world through play. We discuss the difference between different styles of parenting, including peaceful and authoritative parenting, how to connect with neurodivergent children, and what you can do to become a better parent.
Timestamps (Generated by AI):
Resources:
AI tools used to create this episode include Autopod and Cohost AI.
Subscribe and support the show directly:
https://brendonmarotta.com/show/
Kids will often invite adults into their world. It really makes sense from a theater mindset where there's a suspension of disbelief and you're stepping into a new world. It doesn't have to make sense to you, it makes sense in the scene. So anything to do with the child behavior. They're seeing things in their world, so you have to step into their world.
Speaker 2:You're listening to the Brendan Murata Show. In this episode, i talk to Gabriel Hannan, a child care professional who is the author of the book This Is Parenting. In this episode, we talk a lot about childhood play and how Gabriel is using his background in theater and improv to connect with children. We talk about neurodiversity and how to connect with children who maybe see the world a bit differently, and how to enter the child's world and understand what they're thinking and experiencing, rather than impose your own experience. A lot of the episodes we do in this show are about what things people are doing wrong with children, but I think this is an episode that'll be really useful to people who are interested in bringing more joy and connection into their child's life. So, without further ado, here is Gabriel. What is it that got you interested in working with children? What's the history there, so to speak?
Speaker 1:So I always loved working with kids. I have wanted kids since I was a kid And, as I said in my book, as I said in many other places, i've always worked with kids, whether it was kids in my family, kids in the neighborhood, kids that were just around my friend's kid, whatever. I was working with kids And so what turned me into the place where I was as a registered behavioral technician, which is the that's the term. I was actually homeless at the time and I needed a job And a friend of mine was working as a behavior assistant, which is a level lower than the position I got hired for, and I had this real sense of urgency. It was right. After I finished my first year of teaching at a private school, they let me go from that And I was a camp counselor. So around that time I had applied to go to be an RBT. They told me I had to do this 40 hour course. I did that, passed. It passed the competency evaluation. I passed. I sat down for the board certification and passed that first time. And then I got into the actual career with the children who are neurodivergent, usually with autism, and it changed my entire life. And I also spoke with my theater professor when I was in college.
Speaker 1:At the time And when she saw me teaching, i brought a whole bunch of the kids to go see a play that she had directed And she was just looking at me off at the sign. She was like Gabe, I'm so proud of you. It's like what do you mean? She was like I've always seen you as a teacher. You're really great at education. You should really do that. You're getting older and age. Now You need a career. To go for education. I did, and it's honestly been the best decision, because before I was going to school for biomedical sciences but then I changed it to exceptional student education. So that's kind of how I got into it. That's wild.
Speaker 2:I've not heard this as a party where you went from homeless to child education And it sounds like for you that was really transformative in your life And I just want to know more about that story. Like, how is it that you because for most people, i don't think most people can imagine a shift that big, or was it a shift that big? Was it something that felt normal to you? What was that like?
Speaker 1:It felt right, like it matched. Everything made sense When I got my first client. He was a nonverbal child with autism And although I hadn't seen a lot of the behaviors like head banging, other self-injurious behaviors, as soon as he saw me and I saw him and I started to actually pair with him, i started to see how his mind worked And it took nothing for us to communicate on his level And it just made sense. And so I did that for a number of years and it works.
Speaker 1:I was like every person who's worked with me has always raved about how good I am with their child, to the point where I got another job as an RBT and I was hired on the spot. The person had never met me before, did not know, only knew about me from what other RBT's and behavior analysts said. They're like oh, this is gay. So when I applied they were like I know you, you're gay, i'm gonna hire you just off of what I've heard about you alone. And so it was a natural. It was like I fell into my raison d'être, like my whole reason to be Like that was this.
Speaker 2:There's another synchronicity there too, which is I have a big interest in autism and neurodiversity and the idea that people who are neurologically different in some way are not necessarily bad or defective, but just different, and they have different ways of communicating different needs. So I would be curious what your perspective on that has been working with autistic kids.
Speaker 1:It's been. it hasn't been a challenge. It's been different, and different only in the sense that the only real variable is the way people communicate. Every living being is communicating through behavior, verbally, non-verbal. whatever they're communicating, they're trying to communicate and make sense of the world, and so my job has always been to bridge that gap of understanding and I'm sorry I just got a phone call. It's to bridge that gap of communication and allow them to express themselves. That's really been it. So it's not too different from dealing with neurotypical kids. It's just the level of patience that you have and the amount of relationship building that you build with that child to understand how they're receiving information, how they're perceiving the world and how they're trying to give that information.
Speaker 2:That's a great explanation of it And I think it ties into the larger challenge people have around parenting, which is trying to figure out how to communicate with their kids, because kids and adults do communicate differently, and I'm curious. What you see is the difference between those types of communication. In other words, if I want to understand a child and a child's world, what's the way to understand them and communicate with them?
Speaker 1:It looks like actually I can say it like this kids will often invite adults into their world. If a kid hands you a stuffed animal or a little toy, they're inviting you into the world that they've just created And it looks like accepting that and then going with it. It really makes sense from a theater mindset where there's a suspension of disbelief and you're stepping into a new world. And it doesn't have to make sense to you, it makes sense in the scene. So anything to do with the child behavior they're seeing things in their world, so you have to step into their world to understand how they're seeing things, how they're perceiving it, how they're operating in that world.
Speaker 1:The difference between that and adults is adults have a shared reality and a shared perspective, generally speaking, and when we get older a lot of us forget that we all had a world that we saw and we exchange that for the world that everybody sees. And so our goal is to get to their world, understand what they're seeing, understand how they're perceiving the world and then try to, like I said before, bridge that gap. That's really the only difference between adults and kids. They have their own individual worlds that they can like kind of little bubbles. Where this is my world, you have your world bubble and then, when little kids play together, their bubbles can intersect with each other, turn into a giant bubble And then they're inviting you to put your bubble in theirs so that everybody can share it. But if you've forgotten that your bubble doesn't exist, then you're not gonna be able to assimilate in theirs. So you want the communication to happen. Join them in their bubble, join them in their world.
Speaker 2:It also reminds me of the theater principle, yes, and which a lot of adults know, but with children, and when they hand the toy, they're like, no, we're not doing that now.
Speaker 1:No, Yes, yes, and Let's take it a little bit farther. You can improv specifically. You have to. You can set parameters for the game and they'll play that game. That's okay. It's setting boundaries and structure. You can do that, but it's learning how to go with the flow as opposed to being a wall that they just crash upon.
Speaker 2:You just gave me a light bulb moment in terms of that. The boundaries of a game could be used to create boundaries for children, and I know that a lot of what you talk about in the book is letting go of the old ideas people have around discipline and controlling children through punishment and things like that, and it sounds like the thing that people might do instead of that has something to do with play. So I suspect most of my audience probably knows by now that things like spanking or corporal punishment are not helpful and bad, but I'm curious what you would suggest instead of if you're in a situation where a child needs boundaries of some kind or you do need to say no to something.
Speaker 1:In cases like that, because a lot of people think that gentle parenting, authoritative parenting, respectful parenting whatever you want to call it is not about having boundaries and firmness. That's not true. Anytime I work with any kid I work with. If I don't like something, i can establish a boundary and not allow that child to step over that boundary. And if they do, they receive a consequence. And that is just getting people to understand. It doesn't have to be violent. You can explain that something is not okay without being violent. You can give a consequence for a child's behavior without it being violent or yelling or lashing out. It can be something as simple as hey, what you're doing is unacceptable, i don't like that, so we're going to do something different. What are some other things that we can do when this is what's happening? You're frustrated. Right now. You want to have a meltdown. I understand.
Speaker 1:What did we talk about before? Let's practice the skills that we've been doing. It's teaching them how to control themselves, is teaching them how to interact with other people. It's just doing it in a way that's not violent And that's not a hard concept. It shouldn't be a hard concept for a lot of people to understand, but I believe that a lot of people are still dealing with their own triggers, that their own unpacked, unprocessed trauma that still allows them to act the way they do. Or, if they hear it, they react the way their parents would And it's like, well, no, let's take a step back. Let's just rethink everything. How did it make you feel when you were a kid? Did it work for you when you were a kid? Don't base it on what result that your parents got. How did you feel? Did you respond this way because you were spanked? Or did you respond this way because you eventually got a skill And then you learned how to master that skill in spite of being hit?
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things I didn't realize about parenting until I became a parent is how much time is spent on play, Because when I read books about parenting, they're kind of about the big questions of parenting, of like, will you do a home birth or hospital, home school or public school, all of these sort of questions.
Speaker 2:But I found that 90% of my time is just hanging out with my son and we're just doing stuff, And one of the things that I've really wanted but haven't found is a book just about play, because that does seem to be the primary activity of children, And so there's a lot of stuff out there about you know how to discipline kids and teach them and all these things. But I'm curious what you would say if a parent asked you how do you play with children, Or how is it that you engage in play, Or what does that mean? Like, why is play the primary activity of children? Like, why is that seem? you know, if it was the focus was not on all these other parenting questions but just on play, what would you? what would you advise?
Speaker 1:It kind of goes back into what I was saying before. They have their own mind And there's there's two aspects of this right. Kids are geared, designed to gain information and skills, and a lot of the way that you can teach your child in a way that they are engaged, they're creating. Creating is the one of the highest forms of skill acquisition, and so if you're engaging them in fun, active activities, lessons, they're going to get it so quick, they're going to understand how these concepts interact with another concept and they can build upon that. And so if you want to play with your kid, it first looks like having a relationship with them to where, when they invite you into something one they want to invite you to, they do invite you. And three, they can trust that you can play the game And they can learn something out of it, because they're learning social and emotional skills, the learning, whatever skill that the game involves. They're playing basketball, they're learning how to shoot, they're learning how to dribble, they're learning hand-like coordination, gross and fine motor control skills and everything on top of that. But it looks like finding things that they could be interested in and then joining them in that is. It's really that easy, but it can only happen if you're pairing with your child, and pairing means you're building a relationship. Just because they came out of you, just because they can act somewhat like you, doesn't mean that they're going to enjoy everything that you do.
Speaker 1:My dad loves basketball. I am not a fan of basketball. I'm six, eight, do not like basketball. I like baseball, like both of my parents, and I like football, like both of my parents. But if you asked me to play, i'm not going to do it. So it's finding things in. My dad said Hey, i want to play football with you. Yes, 100%, let's go play baseball. Yes, i will love to play catch with you. Let's go do it. But that's because that's what I like.
Speaker 1:Don't force your thing on them. Let them invite you into something, and it can be small, as a tea party. If your kids want to do a tea party, play a tea party with them. If your daughter wants to paint your nails, let your daughter paint your nails. If your son wants to bake cookies for you, let them bake. Enjoy what they're doing, play with them and then teach them skills as they go along. Perfectly, fine. Just reinforce what they're doing. Reinforce how well they're learning, how well they're playing, and it's that simple. You can even come up with games Like. Y'all can just invent games together that teach a specific skill. Who can build something out of Legos the fastest? who can make a bridge out of these little materials, marshmallows and spaghetti straws? There's so many different things that you can do where you can invite them or they can invite you. It's just knowing that they want to do an activity and you can do the activity together.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to be a little bit selfish with this interview and get some parenting coaching from you, if that's okay.
Speaker 2:I do that with my son very often. He is almost two, not quite there yet We'll be in two months And one of the things that I'm trying to figure out is if there's, because we play, we do all sorts of fun stuff together, but I'm trying to figure out if there's a way that I could teach him something useful in the midst of that. Or there's sort of a part of me that feels like I should be building him up in some way or helping, you know, teaching him something useful. But at the same time he's very little And so, you know, recently I threw a ball towards him and he caught it midair for the first time ever And that to me was the most exciting thing ever because he couldn't he hadn't done that before, slowly knew. But I'm trying to figure out. Is there a way that I could add some, you know, useful benefit? or is it at that age is it okay just to run around and, you know, have fun?
Speaker 1:You can do that. You can also. I started reading at two. My mom would sit me down and one of my earliest memories was reading this book called Tuggy, And it was about a little puppy. I was two.
Speaker 1:You can absolutely start teaching your child how to read at that, and I encourage you. a lot of people say, oh, you should wait until they're like six. I say start teaching these kids as soon as they can. As soon as they can start recognizing certain letters, certain symbols, you can start teaching them to read And that's going to set them up for success. I cannot emphasize this enough. Teach your children to read as early as you can. You don't have to force it. It can turn into a game. If you're tossing your ball to your son, you could say say ah, ah, ah And then if he says the sound, toss the ball. That's reinforcing him saying reproducing that sound, and it's also reinforcing him catching a ball. That's fine And gross motor control. Or you can identify a photo of the letter A and say ah, ah, ah. If he does it right, toss the ball again.
Speaker 1:There are so many different ways to teach that skill. For ABA, applied behavioral analysis, which is what I did when I was an RBT. It has a. It's pretty scandalous, but here's the basis of it Giving a reinforcer for any behavior increases that behavior's likelihood of manifestation. So if, like I said before, if you were to try to teach your son how to read certain words I'm not saying this how you do it, but I'm just saying this, the principle You can show a word If the child reproduces a sound at, reinforce them, give them a preferred activity or preferred item, food item, like a goldfish, a snicker, whatever they're getting rewarded, they're going to do it again. They're going to say okay, i'm associating good with repeating these sounds. Cat, oh, okay, so when I see that that means cat, they're learning how to read, they're learning a very important skill. It's, it's really just like that, and they have so many programs now, like My Baby Can Read. You can teach a kid skills that they need at a very early age. They are designed to get those skills at that age.
Speaker 2:So if I'm I'm hearing that right, you teach the skills in the form of a game and reinforce anytime they build that skill, so anytime they do it. Well, just like any game, there's a reward, there's a, there's something given in response to that.
Speaker 1:Exactly That's why people play video games. I mean, i'm a gamer as well If I'm playing a video game and my skill is going to increase as I continue to play. When I first started playing Kingdom of Hearts, i couldn't beat Riku on in the Hollow Bastion. Then, 10 years later, i played it again and I beat him the first time. I developed a skill, and so the same thing occurs with children. As you play, you're gaining a skill As you get better at like. There's this whole thing in gentle parenting now about allowing kids to do risky activities like a lot of parents are like get down from there before you fall and hurt yourself. Well, gentle parenting. A lot of parents are saying no, let that kid do that, because what that does is that increases their, their skill making. Either you're going to fall and hurt yourself or you're going to do it better next time, reinforced when they do it better.
Speaker 2:I'm a little more towards the risk side and my wife is a little more towards the safety side, So I feel you're there.
Speaker 1:Medical bills are nowadays. I mean, I'm also not really trying to go towards the risky side, but the risky side also helps build the skills which made humans who we are today.
Speaker 2:I mean we do the thing where we're letting him do something a little unsafe, but we're nearby if he's going to need the help.
Speaker 1:And that's perfectly fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i wanted to ask what do you think the difference is in terms of being in a child's world between different ages? So I'm curious if most of your work is with older kids or if you know things about working with children and infants. Is that something you have experience with, or is there different principles, or is it mostly the same, just depending on the skill level?
Speaker 2:Ask your question a different way, please? Okay, i'm sorry. I'm so excited about this that I'm all over the place, which is something I see kids do too, and something I'm told that I did as a kid is I would get very excited and just take off. So what is the difference in terms of how you parent and get in the world of a very young child, or even an infant or a toddler, versus an older child?
Speaker 1:Okay. So I've worked with everybody from two to 20. I have had clients of that entire age range and all of them kind of operate under the same way. But when kids get older, when they start to hit adolescence and they're trying to break away from their parents and establish their own identity, it looks a little different, but the principles of it are still the same. It's all about how you're building the relationship. How are you? because it's not enough that you just say you can come to me for anything. They're not going to come to you for anything, because they want to try to figure it out themselves, and that's good. They're trying to gain independence, but what you really want to do is engage them in things that are outside of just bad things, going on without judgment.
Speaker 1:It looks like hey, how are you doing in school? Oh, what was your day like in math class? Oh, when I was in math, i struggled with this, and that there is letting them know that you went through similar things. You came out of it. You're giving them like oh, oh, you struggled with that too. Okay, well, i actually need help with such and such, can you? of course, i can help you all. This is what I did. It is kind of that same thing.
Speaker 1:They're still inviting you into their world. When kids are shutting down and they're saying nothing, they're still inviting you into their world. They just don't have a way to articulate that, but they still are trying to communicate. Hey, i need help with something coming to my world. Hey, this really incredible thing is happening. Come into my world.
Speaker 1:It looks differently, but that's because they don't have the ability especially at like the ages of 13 to 16, they don't have the vocabulary to really express what they're feeling because of hormones which have never existed before. So they're like I don't know what I feel. I feel a lot of really weird things right now. I don't want to be shamed for saying it. Help, so it can look like shutting down, it can look like saying whatever, it can look like having an attitude. Those are still ways that they're trying to invite you into their life, but it looks like giving them just enough space to let them know that you're still there, but then also like okay, wait, what's actually going on? It's about asking questions, not in a judging way, but in a way that gets them to understand that you're stepping into their world and you want to play the game with them. That's how I work with my students. Any of them, any of my clients, any of my students. They can be having the worst day. They tell me everything because I have that level of rapport with them.
Speaker 2:And how do you build that level of rapport?
Speaker 1:Asking questions and being there, being not judgmental, because you can be the funniest, goofiest, weirdest parent that's so cringe and they still want to come with you and hang out with you. They can be the most defiant, angry, different child from you and still want you in their life. You have to sit and observe their behavior and see what their behavior is trying to communicate And just literally, it's as easy as being there and not judging. As soon as you input any type of judgment, they're going to shut down and they're going to put a wall up. And if you say, say, for instance, they did something bad, like they're struggling on a test, if they feel like you're going to judge them for failing a test, they're not going to come to you. They will put a wall up and you will not be invited back into that life. When you say, hey, you're struggling, dang, this looks like you need some help.
Speaker 1:I struggle with the same thing. Let me come up. It's just communicating. Free behavior is a communication And so you have to take that information, accept it and then communicate back without judgment. That's really as simple as I can make it.
Speaker 2:And how do we let go of that judgment? Because I know that that's something that comes up for me sometimes. My son is young enough that I don't really have it at this age. But I'm also aware that there is a possibility of judgment within me and that it comes up in my adult relationships more often. So how do we let go of that judgment?
Speaker 1:Recognize, and we say this all the time and it's so cliche. Everybody makes mistakes, but we have to actually unpack what that means. Every human will make a mistake. Kids are no different. In fact it's worse, because they've never been on this planet before. They don't know the things they don't know. So judging them for making poor choices because you wouldn't make it doesn't really help them. Judgment does not help anybody because it's not changing the behavior. If you want to see behavior change, judgment isn't going to do it. If you want to see behavior change, you're going to have to work to change the behavior by giving them a skill so that the behavior doesn't increase.
Speaker 1:If a child is failing at math, you don't yell at your kid or beat your kid or ground your kid. That's not helping them get better at math, it's just punishing them for not knowing how to do it. I didn't get good at math until my sophomore year of college, after I failed eight math classes. It wasn't until I had a teacher who said you can't study math, you don't understand how to study it. Show me how to study it that I started passing my math classes. I was given the skill necessary to do it. So you can't judge a child who literally doesn't know or hasn't had enough practice to master the skill to know not to make that same mistake again.
Speaker 1:The next part is practicing. You can't tell somebody something once and think they're going to get it. Sell them this. that happened. You have a trainer at your job who sits and watches you do something and corrects you when you do it wrong, again and again until you master it, before they let you off and do it on your own. The same thing applies to a child. We have to look at skills in terms of mastery. It doesn't matter how many times you've explained it. if they don't master it, you've done nothing. So don't judge. Recognize that their children. they're learning. You made mistakes, your parents made mistakes. Mistakes go all the way back to the first humans. That's okay. They can learn. Give them the tools necessary to learn.
Speaker 2:So we enter the child's world, Learn what's going on with them, look at it without judgment and then figure out what the missing skill is that they need And then work on that, having patience with however long it takes them to learn that skill. Is that a good understanding of the process?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Anytime we look at gentle parenting, gentle parenting or authoritative parenting is literally high expectation and high responsiveness. The expectation is up here, you're going to pass this class, but I'm going to help you get up there. Authoritarian parenting is pass the class. I ain't going to help you, you're going to figure it out on your own. Or you have permissive, where it's like I'm going to help you, not necessarily pass your class. You tried, that's good enough. No, no, i want you to pass this class and I'm going to help you get there. That's what authoritative parenting is. That's gentle parenting.
Speaker 2:I really love that frame of authoritative parenting because I've been previously familiar with the labels of peaceful parenting And I think a lot of people misunderstand peaceful parenting as permissive parenting. In other words, they connected the abusive behavior with the standards and thought, well, we've got to get rid of this abusive behavior and drop the standards in the process. And it sounds like the term that you've created, or actually did you create the term authoritative parenting? I hadn't heard it before you. Okay, maybe I just need to read more books apparently Not that there's enough behind me, but where does that term come from actually?
Speaker 1:Just the term that they've been using for a long time. It's not unlike authoritarian or permissive or neglectful. They are all terms that have been used as far back as I know. All right, and it all just talks about the same thing. I'm surprised.
Speaker 2:I've only heard the peaceful parenting language, which I guess is I don't know.
Speaker 1:Maybe we have a lot of different terms for it. A lot of people get hung up. A lot of people confuse authoritarian and authoritative. Yeah, i think they're the same thing. I say it's the biggest problem in the gentle parenting community. It's the concept of these. words are triggering to people, or misunderstood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i could see how authoritative would be triggering to someone who has issues with authority.
Speaker 1:But I also want people to understand that that's good, because that opens up conversation. So when people say gentle parenting made my siblings to be a-holes, okay, well, what's gentle parenting Right? That's the next question I always ask, because when you tell me what you think gentle parenting is, then I can correct you and say, well, actually is this. When they say what authoritarian or authoritative parenting is, i say, well, actually is this. And so I'm able to provide them a better, accurate understanding of it. And then I got you, because as soon as you hear you're like that makes sense, i got you at that point.
Speaker 2:You're going to change. So authoritative parenting, high standards, but also what was the phrase of responsiveness? Responsiveness, yeah Which I guess is also the opposite of reactiveness, or reactivity that you're taking ownership of it. In addition to, if I want you to have this high standard, i will take ownership of ensuring that you have the support you need to get there.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Because in reaction.
Speaker 1:you don't want to react to behavior, You want to respond to it.
Speaker 2:Right, and in that frame is there. how is it that you determine what the standard should be?
Speaker 1:That's really up to the parent, but it's. You generally want to have something that's going to allow them to assimilate into a society Not assimilate as in be like a follower or a sheet, but it is. They're going to interact with other people. What skills do they need to have to interact with other people? Okay, they're going to need to learn how to set boundaries Okay, so you're going to have to teach them how to set boundaries. They're going to have to know how to effectively communicate You have the teacher kid how to effectively communicate. They're going to have to have empathy. We're going to have to teach them how to have empathy.
Speaker 1:Other skills is you think it's going to make them successful in life, to fit in a society where they're a functioning member of society? Those are the skills that you need to have And, based on that, you know what standard that they need to be at. If you're a little Jimmy laughs at people that are crying okay, well then, maybe we need to examine that, because that necessarily won't fly in society. They're going to see him as not being empathetic, okay. So what's going on with that? If you have little Timothy who is hauling off and hitting people because they took his toy. That means he might have issues in communication. Let's give him some skills to teach that communication, so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:What do you think the skills that a kid needs to learn are?
Speaker 1:Well again, communication, empathy, self-regulation, self calming or self soothing. They need to know how to be patient. They're going to have to wait for a lot of things. Risk taking or really a risk reward balance. They need to know how to calculate their risk. Fine and gross motor control, of course reading academics in general, critical thinking skills are impaired. God, they're so imperative.
Speaker 2:I was also asking that because I think judging what sort of world your kids are going to be in or have to be a part of is really challenging for a lot of people. And growing up there are a lot of things I was told well, that's just how it is. And then the world changed and that's actually not how it is. I remember things like we have to know how to do this, because you're not going to carry a calculator around in your pocket all the time. Right, and of course we kind of do.
Speaker 1:Here we are.
Speaker 2:And now I'm hearing the same thing around AI, like how will kids learn to do this if an AI does it for them? And it's like I think the AI might do it for them for a really long time. I think that might be the future now, and there's also things where I've even seen emotional expectations placed on people that have changed. Well, you have to learn how to suck it up and never show emotion because you're a man And it's like, well, the standards around that might be changing a little bit too. So I guess I'm also curious how it is you calculate the world that your kids are actually going to be in And what's going to be important in that world, when the world that they go into might be different than the world we were raised in.
Speaker 1:That is very subjective to the, because we don't really have a way of knowing right. like 90s, we went from not flying to being on the moon in about 60 years a little bit over 60 years And then from being on the moon to having AI, to going interstellar to. we went from having the amount of information that it took to get a man on the moon was about 8 megabits. Right To having a two terabytes worth of data in the size of my phone.
Speaker 2:We're using more data to record this podcast than it took to put someone on the moon.
Speaker 1:Then they had to get to the moon. Yeah, a TI 81 had more information on it than what it took to get to the moon. So there's no way of knowing There's no way. But we do know what got us this far. And what got us this far as humans is what I said before the ability to critically think, to have a risk analysis, effectively communicate, self calming, self regulation and empathy. Those things got us to where we are today. Having those skills. If everything shut down in the world and we went back to primitive life, those five skills could get us back to where we are currently.
Speaker 2:That's a really great frame. Those are sort of eternal skills too. They're going to be useful in every situation, because in every situation you're dealing with other people and you're dealing with yourself.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I'm also curious too, to what degree, because you mentioned the skills that someone needs to be in society, and I suspect many of our audience have noticed that society is a little bit dysfunctional and not everything is as it should be. So to what degree do you teach them to conform to the world or to work within the world, and to what degree do you teach them to change the world and to actually push back against the social standards around them?
Speaker 1:And go ahead? That's a great question, because I think that's what's happening now, jin, from the Millennials on Kids. First off, they are the ones who set the trends. They're the ones who, if you see a great world changing event, it started with kids. I mean, you look at the civil rights movement, people think it was just the adults. No, the kids were the ones who were spearheading everything. The occupied movements, those were young adults. What happened after Parkland? you had kids spearheading that, which is actually a shame.
Speaker 1:Kids should not have to be lobbying about their life, but that's a conversation for another day. Kids are the ones who they're setting the tone and the precedence for everything. They're already. They're ready. All you're doing is just guiding them to understanding these skills. They'll pick everything else up. They're interacting with each other and they have their own hive mind.
Speaker 1:The Bible says raise a child in the way that he should go and he'll never depart. I know Nye right, that's Christian. That's how the point is recognizing that kids are already poised and set on a path. All you're doing is giving them the tools for their journey so that they can use them on the journey there. So you don't have to nitpick every little thing. They're going to get it. The brain doesn't stop developing until 25. They're going to get it. Just give them the tools to get there and then watch them keep going, because a lot of my parents that I work with they are under this mindset that they have to helicopter parent or they're failing at something and they know just vibe, they're going to get there. Just give them a chance, they're going to get there.
Speaker 2:So it's almost like you're going in the, when you're in their world, their world's obviously interacting with the larger world and you can notice the places where they don't like the world the way that it is, and then you're giving them the tools they need to change it.
Speaker 1:So it's like oh okay, So they will absolutely change it.
Speaker 1:Gen Z and Gen Alpha. right now, like my middle school kids, they will call out hypocrisy and a heartbeat If they see something that doesn't seem fear. well, mr H, that's not fair. How come you did this for this and you didn't do that? You know what You're right, dang. why did I do that? Let me recap my statement. Both of y'all got detention. It really is that mindset of they're already ready. The young people see problems and they're ready to change it. Just let them do it. It's when we try to repress them that things will get worse. Let the kids be the kids and they know that they're going to be the future leaders. They're ready to do it. The ones that aren't are the ones that are either in a bad situation or they just haven't seen it yet, but they'll get there.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that we were talking about earlier was how to get your own stuff out of the way, because all of this requires being in another person's world, looking at them without judgment, allowing them to make the changes to the world that they know in their heart need to happen, or write for them or would feel better for everyone. All of that requires letting go of your own stuff and maybe the patterns and things that we were taught in our own childhood. I'm curious how it is that you approach that, because I suspect, as you're working with kids, you're also, in a way, working with the parent and their maybe misconceptions or own hangups around how to handle their own child. So how is it that we let go of?
Speaker 1:that. So are you asking how do people let go of what they've gone through, or their ego or something?
Speaker 2:Yeah, So I'll give a more specific example. If I'm with my child and I get triggered and I can feel my fight or flight instinct kick in on something that's totally not worth that instinct being kicked in, what is it that we do to let go of that? And what is it we do to let go of our own judgments about kids?
Speaker 1:Go to therapy.
Speaker 2:I mean, yes, there's that.
Speaker 1:I mean, i tell everybody go to therapy. If you got to find a therapy, you can shop around for a therapist. You need to unpack what you went through as a kid, whether you think it was great, whether you think it was bad, whether you think it helped you, whether you think it did it. You need to process it because if you take that to your child, you're only doing that child a disservice, because your child didn't ask to be here. You did You. However, your child came about generally, hopefully, is asked for that child to be here, or you did something for that child to be here, and in which case you owe it to your child. Now Your life is no longer your own, so the goal is for your child to be like you. Your goal is for your child to be better than you.
Speaker 1:One of the things I pride myself on is that I'm in a position that my great great grandmother, who was a slave on a slave breeding plantation. I'm living a life she could have never dreamed about. Nobody in my family, none of my ancestors, could see me in my position. We've all done better than the next generation. I come from two educated parents who came One did not come from an educated family at all.
Speaker 1:The other one came from a father who was educated and then their parents were slaves. We came a mighty long way. So we owe it to our kids for our kids to be better than us, and it shouldn't be a jealousy thing. We shouldn't be trying to live vicariously through our children because we want to live some fantasy that we never got to have. No, let your kids go off and live the life that they are supposed to live And empower them and give them the tools and resources to do that by going to get your own help. Go deal, go nurse and take care of your inner child before you start working on your child, and you will watch your child flourish more than your inner child did.
Speaker 2:I can say that that has always been true for me, that every time there's something that comes up in my relationship with my family there's something I got to go into. I'm also curious, too, what you sort of change, because you've obviously worked with a lot of families. Have you seen a family transform as a result of the parent doing some sort of healing work?
Speaker 1:I would say my mom, but in terms of a family that I've worked with, not really Therapy is expensive A lot of people haven't but I have seen a lot of my friends who are around my age and younger When they go to therapy. I have seen their whole lives transform, like a friend of mine is getting married in a couple days and seeing where he came from. I've known him since he was 18 and he came from a very messed up family dynamic with a single mom who abused him And now he's completely transformed and doing better than all of his other siblings, in a better position than all of his other siblings, because he got therapy. He went to get help and got the help and he's where he is now.
Speaker 1:I have another friend same situation abused his entire life and is about to graduate with his master's first person in his family not only go to college but get higher education and continuing education and it's on track to go for a doctorate. Everything got this person down because he got therapy, dealt with his inner child. Well, regularly you talk to me about the different epiphanies, as he calls them, epiphanies of what he's discovered about his life, about his childhood and nursing and taking care of and raising his inner child. It changes you when you start to do that. It happened in my own life and it's never like a thing that ever ends, but it's something that as you continue to nurture it, kind of like a plant, you start to see it grow again and it changes the environment. So I haven't seen it in the parents that I've worked with, but I've seen it in other people's lives.
Speaker 2:I've experienced it in my own life as well. You also mentioned your mom changing in some way. If it's okay, if that's your personal, may ask. I'm curious what happened there, because I know in my own family I've seen my parents grow and change in ways that I would not have expected them to. Maybe it's just the bias of being their child that I would think this is who they are and that's who they're going to be. But I know that seeing your own family change can have a really transformative effect. And it's still being on the other side of like. Oh, maybe this is what my kids will experience if I change and transform as well. But I'm curious what you experienced around that, around seeing a family member change.
Speaker 1:So my mom well, my mom and my dad transformed in a lot of different ways My mom. She was raised old school. She had both parents, loving parents, but they were pretty authoritarian and they also had seven kids. So she was one of seven And there were times of emotional neglect not ever physical neglect, but there were some times of emotional neglect because they got seven kids. And so with my mom, when she went to therapy as a kid, growing up and seeing that she taught us to be more emotionally intelligent, she always added that extra love to us, just to make sure we didn't feel any sort of emotional neglect whatsoever. I knew my mom loved me. Did she always show it the way that I wanted her to show it? Not necessarily, but there was never a doubt in my mind that my mom didn't love me. She always did My dad a little different.
Speaker 1:He raised me with a firm hand because he never had that when he was a kid. His dad was abusive and neglectful And so with him it was I want to raise my son to be. I want to be the father that I wish I had when I was a kid. He was that in a way He was, but even in that he still wasn't the dad that I needed, but that's neither here nor there. He's transformed over time, especially when my older sister started having kids, into a person who was more emotionally aware, who was more forgiving, who started to calm down in his aggression and really started focusing on okay, wait, i can be gentle. I can be a good gentle, communicative, communicating, whatever the word is father to my offspring. And so from that he started to do that. But that wasn't until I was like 15, 16. And it's still sometimes a struggle where I'm like Dad, shut up Kind of thing. But seeing that transformation has been very. It's been challenging at times, but it's also been really good at times as well.
Speaker 2:I noticed that parents tend to at least on some sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously try to give their kids what they didn't get, and there's often an overcorrection in the process.
Speaker 2:So people who had really authoritarian parenting become permissive parents, people who were neglected, get helicopter parenting for their own kids. And I noticed even in this conversation, that I as a kid was held to really high standards And that it wasn't until you framed authoritative parenting the way that you did. I thought, oh yeah, some of that actually benefited me and it would be okay to try to give my own children the highest potential that they're capable of, because I know they're going to be capable of amazing things. And the difference there was that I had a standard where it was like you need to do this because that's what we expect of you, versus I know you can do this and I will help you get there, although there was a lot of help. so maybe I don't know is unpacking that would be. I'll save it for my own therapy. But I'm curious how is it that you identify the overcorrections where someone's trying to do something good but they maybe are going a little bit to the opposite direction?
Speaker 1:Yeah, how I identify it. It's really more nuanced, like it's something. I'm really good at observing the behavior and picking it back to where it came from. What's a good example? Okay, say, for instance, you have a parent that's really overbearing. You don't want to do that for your kid, so you let your kid go wild. Your kid can do whatever you don't mind. There's no sense of boundary. That is an overcorrection. You're doing something because of an unresolved trauma that you have yet to deal with.
Speaker 2:It sounds like what you do when you see a parent's behavior is you do the same thing. You're going into their world and trying to identify where that behavior originated, because with kids the origination points probably a little closer. The question that came up for me just now because of my wife and son, how to handle just the amount of work parenting, is Because I know that my wife and I have moments where we're just tired. We've been going all day and we're doing all the things. There's a lot of energy that goes into raising a toddler, so I'm curious how you'd suggest handling that. It's also a little exaggerated today because she got sick recently and so there's a little less energy.
Speaker 1:I ain't got no kids.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:I would say this Anytime working with kids. I'm a middle school teacher. I can tell you this You have to schedule and routine. You have to. If your schedule is all over the place, it's not going to work as well. You want to make sure that when you do something one day, they can anticipate that the next. There is structure, there is routine, there is scheduling. There is trade-off. There is also sacrifice. You're going to have to sacrifice sleep. You're going to have to sacrifice time. You're going to have to sacrifice energy.
Speaker 1:Kids are parasites that leach off of you and they will drain you of resources, both food and energy and emotions. That's just what it is. For 18 years, my auntie had my little cousin. Before she was pregnant, she was so full of life, she was everything, and then the day she had her, boom, tired, perpetually. She's still tired. My cousin is 20 years old. My auntie is still tired. She'll fall asleep sitting up. It's crazy. That's just kids. The only way that you can really deal with it is making sure that you're managing your time better, managing your resources, eating healthy so you have some energy If you can, because kids are a lot. They're a lot of people who are struggling routine structure.
Speaker 2:That's what I'd say. Is there anything that you want to talk about that? I didn't ask about that. We should make sure we get to.
Speaker 1:Gentle parenting or authoritative parenting is privileged parenting. I want people to understand that It is very easy for a lot of and I'm speaking specifically to my black and brown and indigenous communities. We can easily fall into this idea that gentle parenting is easy for white families because there's more of a privilege there. Gentle parenting is privileged parenting, but it is a sacrifice. You owe it to yourself, your parents, your ancestors and your children. To raise your children with gentle parenting, you have to take the time. You're going to be tired, you're going to be worried out, you're going to give everything.
Speaker 1:When I tell you that the payoffs for gentle parenting are so incredibly astronaut, the change that you see in children is remarkable. You will raise your child the way your parents did and you will have all five of your kids at completely different. I'm not saying everybody has five kids, but if you have five kids, all of those kids can turn out differently. But when you raise your children with gentle parenting, with authoritative parenting, where you're getting them to communicate how they feel, getting them to be in touch and identify their emotions and can critically think about what their actions are, you will see a complete change in all of those communities. It looks like letting go of what our ancestors went through and embracing what our ancestors actually would have been doing had they stayed in their untouched indigenous communities. That's what I want to say.
Speaker 2:What does the term privilege parenting mean? I've heard the term privilege, obviously, but I don't know that particular phrase.
Speaker 1:It's the same kind of thing. Recently on TikTok there was a thing where a black woman, a black gentle parenter who I actually mutuals with on TikTok, was explaining how gentle parenting is privileged parenting and she was explaining how she has to wash her daughter's hair. When her daughter has to get her hair washed she has a fear of water and she freaks out. This is a black woman with a black child that has 4C hair. A whole bunch of gentle parents on TikTok were talking about that's ridiculous. You shouldn't have to spend that much time doing your daughter's hair. There was a cultural disconnect where they didn't understand that it's not a 10, 20 minute process to get a black child's 4C hair into presentable hairstyles. What society considers what? do you call it presentable? Black people want to get their hair. My hair takes seven hours if I do it myself. Outside of that, it takes two hours to get my hair done. I don't just wash it once, i wash it numerous times.
Speaker 1:The concept of I can just do this, that's a privilege, because over here, if your child is neurodivergent, you don't always have the privilege of being able to do gentle parenting the way that somebody whose child is neurotypical does. It's completely different, because I've had a kid who has seizures and would lash out and be violent because of those seizures. What do you say to somebody like that? There has to be that level of empathy. Gentle parenting is privileged. There are privileges that come with gentle parenting. A neurotypical child? It comes. There's a privilege that comes with gentle parenting an affluent child or a Caucasian child in an affluent area. The converse isn't true. It's harder for a lot of people who are people of color or in poverty or disabled to raise a child with gentle parenting. We in the gentle parenting community have to understand and accept that and then develop tools and skills for people who are in those communities to better raise their children.
Speaker 2:Got it. The idea is that it's very easy to be a gentle parent when all the cards are stacked in your favor and when maybe some things are not in your favor or you're playing at a disadvantage or your child has some unique needs, that's when it becomes a little more challenging.
Speaker 1:Right, because you're not going to be a single mom with three kids working a full-time job, coming home and your kids are running around, they ain't got no sense, got bad grades at and up in school. You have to take time out of your schedule to go deal with the fact that your child is up here at in the school like he ain't got no sense and failing. At the same time, you're missing work, they get suspended. You have to miss work to stay home with them kids, or you have to leave them home alone and they can get into even more stuff. So it's not always, oh, cut and paste black and white. No, there's a whole nuance to it. It's hard work, it's harder work, it's almost impossible work, but it has to be done and it's not impossible. There just has to be skills and tools and concepts that are tweaked a little bit for each situation.
Speaker 2:How would you apply that tweaking or how is it that you know? okay, in my situation, i need something different.
Speaker 1:So the principles of behavior modification and skill acquisition are pretty much synonymous across the board for behavior in general. So whether you're a dog, whether you're a goldfish or a human, they're all generally the same, and so what that looks like is reward or operant conditioning. Honestly, it's just conditioning a child into recognizing that there's a skill or behavior that is associated with something good. So the principle once you have the principle down, you understand that it can be applied anywhere. If my child is struggling with I don't know, pick something talking in class. Like me, i talked a lot in class. Okay, they're talking a lot in class. What I don't reward them every time they're quiet.
Speaker 1:One of the things I did for my students this semester is I found out that they could only be quiet for about a good two minutes max. So I set it to about a minute and 30 seconds, and for every one minute and 30 seconds I walked around and I gave each kid an M&M or a Skittle. I slowly increased it by increments until it got to the point where they were being quiet by themselves for up to three minutes before they would start to get wrestles, to start moving around. That's because they were conditioned, and then I slowly pushed it up to where they could last a little bit longer and longer and longer. That's not out of the realm of possibility, it's just tweaking it for each kid.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile I have one kid in one of the classes who was just randomly yell out when he had some sort of overstimulation. He was just ah, for no reason. For no reason other than overstimulation, the class got a little bit too loud. He was screened For things like that. I told him he can go take a walk outside Completely different strategy, but it still got the same process done. When he needed something, he could do. This. It's kind of that simple.
Speaker 2:So in one case, the reward of talking got replaced with the reward for being quiet, and in the other place, the underlying need was overstimulation, and so he needed to have some under-simulation.
Speaker 1:All behaviors communication. You just got to know what the behavior is communicating.
Speaker 2:How is it you identify what the communication behind the behavior is?
Speaker 1:You mentioned you have a unique skill for it, but You got to be observant, you have to listen, you have to watch, look and listen and play the game. When I'm working with my dog, he'll communicate different things And, like right now he's barking, he's whimpering And I'm not out there, but I know he wants attention because that's how he begs for attention. Okay, i can either give him attention or I can withhold the attention. I can reinforce when he's doing it and he'll keep doing it, or I can choose to not do it and he won't do it as often, or he'll keep doing it, but I know what he wants and then I can determine at that point what I want to do. So it's really just looking and building a relationship with your kid to understand what they're doing.
Speaker 1:Anytime I work with a client and they're saying oh, my kid has been acting like this, one of the first questions I ask is how long have they been doing it? Okay, what was happening around that time? Oh, that's what happened. Oh, his dad died. Well, baby, that's why he's acting out in school, probably because his dad died. You should probably put him in grief counseling. That's fine, but that's kind of how we deduce what's going on. That's how I can determine what the behavior is, or what the behavior is coming from.
Speaker 2:So Is there anything else that you want to add before we finish? Anything that you feel like I should ask, anything that you want to make sure we talk about.
Speaker 1:Nope, just buy my book. Be patient with yourself, be patient with your kids And forgive yourself.
Speaker 2:That's it. I had one last thought, which is it strikes me that a lot of what you're saying also applies to adult relationships. It applies to marriages and friendships and families. Is there a way that that applies differently than it does to kids, or is it all the same? It's really all the same.
Speaker 1:We have to recognize that kids are going to grow up to be adults. We're training little adults. They're not adults yet, so don't try to adultify them, but recognize that they're going to start understanding the nuances of adult communication And so let's teach them to normalize it young. And also let's get to the point where we realize that the way society has operated for a long time has been a repression of who we're supposed to be, naturally Kids and how vulnerable, how unfiltered, how raw they express themselves is how we're supposed to be. The concept of holding that back is not natural. There's tech that we should absolutely definitely be teaching and respect in manners, but the level of vulnerability to say I don't like that, that made me mad, that made me sad, i don't like you, that's perfect. You can say those things. Let's just teach the skill on how to resolve those issues. So no, let's get to the point where we realize that we can absolutely embrace who we're supposed to be. That's fine, i love that.
Speaker 2:How do you resolve when a big feeling comes out that maybe isn't more socially acceptable? So if a kid says I hate you or I'm so angry or whatever that is, how is it you meet that?
Speaker 1:Oh, ok, there it is. I'm sorry you feel that way. What did I do?
Speaker 1:What can we do to make it better? And they don't want to say it, don't they? When they calm down which every kid will inevitably do, and then you're their friend again, they just have a conversation. Hey, when you said you hate me, do you actually hate me? OK? well, when you get upset like that, that word is big and that word can hurt. So what's something else you can say instead of I hate you, you made me mad. Oh, that's perfect. OK, what can we do to fix that? What can I do to fix what I did to you? It's getting in their world and recognizing that they are trying to fit in our world. That's OK.
Speaker 2:Well, i think that might be a good note to end on. Is there anything else you want to add before we finish? I've asked you that three times, then I've gone off on completely new conversations, but this one I'm sure will be, this one I'm sure will be the end.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, no, that's that.
Speaker 2:All right. well, thank you so much for coming on. This has been a really good conversation. I've had a number of light bulb moments in terms of things that I can apply in my own life, So thank you.
Speaker 1:I'm glad I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. You're welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the Brendan Marotta Show. If you liked this episode, please leave a positive review on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on. If you really liked this episode, please support the show and become a paying subscriber, giving you access to special bonus material only available to supporters of the show. I want to thank you for listening to this show and I will talk to you all later.