This Golden Hour

127. Understanding Attachment-Based Parenting with Todd Sarner

• Timothy Eaton

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In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Todd Sarner from California. Todd is a father of one, psychotherapist, parent coach, and author of The Calm and Connected Parent. Early in his career, Todd worked with Dr. Gordon Neufeld, who wrote Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers. Much of our discussion centered on attachment as the instinct to hold close those we hold most dear. Todd explained that children are biologically wired not to listen when they don't feel connected and that connection must come before direction in all parent-child interactions. He emphasized that proactive parents, which entails creating structure upfront, is more effective than reactive parenting. We need to be “papa bears” and “mama bears,” warm and firm, without being dictatorial. This means that we should protect and take care of our children instead of only trying to do whatever makes them happy in the moment. We also considered several threats to attachment. Listen closely to this enticing episode, and learn how to improve your parenting and the connection with your children.

Todd’s Website

https://transformativeparenting.com/

Other Website

https://drrebeccajorgensen.com/

Todd’s Book

The Calm and Connected Parent: An Attachment-First Guide to Raising Resilient Kids in the Age of Screens and AI

Other Books

Hold On to Your Kids

Simplicity Parenting

The Anxious Generation

Parenting from the Inside Out





This Golden Hour

Todd Sarner:

No matter what your flaws, no matter what your shortcomings, you are the parent. I have all this experience that I could sound like I'm congratulating myself about all the clients and the blah, blah, blah. I could never be to your kid who you could be on your worst day. I couldn't be, I just can't.

Timmy Eaton:

Hi. I am Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and Doctor of Education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years, and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out, but people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue. New homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling and homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of This Golden Hour podcast. As you exercise, drive clean or just chill. You're listening to this Golden Hour podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Todd Sarner from California. Todd is a father of one psychotherapist, parent, coach, and the author of the Calm and Connected parent. Early in his career, Todd worked with Dr. Gordon Neufeld, who wrote, hold on to Your Kids, why Parents Need to Matter more than Peers. Much of our discussion centered on attachment as the instinct to hold close those. We hold most. Dear Todd explained that children are biologically wired not to listen when they don't feel connected, and that connection must come before direction in all parent-child interactions. He emphasized that proactive parents, which entails creating structure upfront is more effective than reactive parenting. We need to be papa bears and mama bears. He called it warm and firm without being dictatorial. This means that we should protect and take care of our children instead of only trying to do whatever makes them happy. In the moment, we also considered several threats to attachment. Listen closely to this enticing episode and learn how to improve your parenting and the connection with your children. Welcome back to this Golden Hour podcast today we're excited to have with us Todd Sarner from the Bay Area in California. Todd, thanks for being with us today. Glad to be here. I'm really looking forward to the conversation. Yes, indeed. We are too. I appreciate you taking time. Just do a little bio here. Todd is a psychotherapist, formerly trained with Gordon Neufeld in the Neufeld Institute, part of the faculty there. That was at the beginnings of that then, or

Todd Sarner:

It was at the very beginnings? Yeah, I was there at the formation. He put together a group of, I wanna say a dozen people, mostly from Canada. There was two of us from America and a couple from Europe. At the very first. And yeah, we were there where he was putting it all together. It was supposed to be like a year, and I think it turned into two and a half years of the internship because he just had more stuff he wanted to say and then it turned into being involved at the faculty for another couple years.

Timmy Eaton:

And those who are listening many of you are familiar with Gordon Neu Felt's book, hold Onto Your Kids but also but author of the Calm and Connected Parent, and you can find a lot of Todd's work on his website, transformative parenting.com, and we'll put all this in the notes. But anyway, so excited to talk to you. I especially about this idea of connecting like attachment sites and day-to-day routines and sore. gonna have a good conversation. You're a father of one son who's about 22 years old and

Todd Sarner:

who's an adult. Yes. I also do couples counseling. And so I wear a couple hats. I do a little bit of individual counseling. I do the parent coaching, which I've been doing for 22 plus years, and I am a couple's counselor who only works with parents. So I feel like I try to address the system and the challenges from all angles. Sometimes people need individual help, but I find so much of the time people just need a little education and coaching about development and child behavior and how to see it differently. So that's the coaching work, and then people get into it with each other and there's stress in marriage and a lot of it's can be caused by parenting. So at some point I started following the work of another Canadian Dr. Sue Johnson actually is from. England originally, but she lived in Toronto and then Vancouver she passed a couple years ago, but she has an attachment based couples counseling, emotionally focused therapy for couples. And it's just all different ways of looking at the same stresses and the same issues and challenges just from different entry points, I did training with Sue Johnson, but then I did training with a wonderful therapist, Rebecca Jorgensen. Oh my gosh, I almost forgot her name. You're the best. Becca. Sorry. Rebecca Jorgensen was one of Sue Johnson's top kind of students and trainers in emotionally focused therapy for couples. And I remember she did a three day workshop once on shame in couples work, and it was so fascinating and it's such a difficult thing to work with, but that takes us into another direction.

Timmy Eaton:

Todd is no stranger to our audience, the homeschooling audience. So maybe just talk a little bit about that, your connection there, and then we'll just dive into some questions about the work you're doing but let's talk about the homeschool connection for a little bit.

Todd Sarner:

Dr. Neufeld was embraced very early on by the homeschooling community. One of the first things I ever did with him locally is he came to California and there was a homeschooling conference in Sacramento, and he asked me to come along with him. I think he was in the South Bay at Stanford. And I picked him up and we went up to Sacramento and I watched him present at that conference. And my son was very young. He was one or two years old, I think, at that time. But then over the next few years, either I would go to homeschooling conferences with him to learn or to take part or to help. And then after a while they started inviting me a, after the first couple years, sometimes probably because I didn't cost as much. Yeah. I was cheaper. But but I would do like one of my favorite stories I won't get into right now. I tell people how. I had a really challenging situation at a homeschooling conference once where I did three presentations in a row and I'm introverted. And that was hard for me. You had to recover. I'm used to it these days. I can do it. And my my presentation, my PowerPoint died. The computer died in the middle of the presentation, but that was at a homeschooling conference. My son's mother really brought up homeschooling a lot. In those early years when we were trying to decide what we are gonna do. And we ultimately chose not to, not because we didn't believe in it, but because we just found the right situation in the right school for us, in the right community. Summerfield Waldorf School in Sonoma County. Cool. Just this beautiful farm and life protected animal refuge. And it's just this gorgeous, beautiful, idyllic space. Just worked out for us. The teachers were amazing and the pedagogy was great and the community was wonderful. Ultimately for us, but for those years we studied mostly she gave me the books and gave me the things to look at. But we followed, not podcasts really at that time, but books, and read books and looked at articles and really became very big supporters of homeschooling. Part of what appealed to me about your podcast when I heard about it was the name right away, this golden Hour, because that fits in completely with my philosophy and my belief about childhood and that it's meant to be protected, not overprotected, but protected and honored and cherished. And I think homeschooling is just very compatible with that.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

And so we ultimately didn't do it ourselves, but I've probably had. Hundreds and hundreds of clients that are homeschoolers and done so many talks at homeschooling groups. And I just find the message of hold onto your kids, which was so inspirational to me. As a brand new dad just really also resonates with homeschooling community.

Timmy Eaton:

Thanks for explaining that connection. And I don't mean to take off too much on this, but I am interested'cause how did you connect with Gordon then? Because it's true

Todd Sarner:

luck and timing. Oh,

Timmy Eaton:

okay.

Todd Sarner:

Luck and timing. I I have a little, a part of my personality that I've had since I was young where when I get enthusiastic about something, I get very enthusiastic and I pursue it and I reach out and I look to make connections. Maybe in my old age I've mellowed with that a little bit. But I. I used to contact record companies as a teenager when I was into a band, and I would find out who their music publisher was and I'd end up talking to somebody in the band or something like I, so when my son's mother is actually the one who heard about Hold onto your kids. And at the time it was only available in Canada and as new parents, me starting off in my career after years of internships and learning this book was very expensive. It was, Canadian dollars made it look more expensive at the time, and I'm like, this better be a really good book. But she's like, I've heard about it on all these forums and it's exactly what we're looking for because we had met in grad school and we had a lot of theoretical background and we had both worked with children, but we had the same experiences. Most people. Here we are with a kid and we are like, what in the heck do we do?

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. What do we do?

Todd Sarner:

Because now

Timmy Eaton:

it's real it's no longer theoretical.

Todd Sarner:

I had I had good six figure investment into my education in years of training, and I still was like, okay, I have an instinct to love this child and to protect this child. Yes. Okay, that's good. But the actual to-dos didn't make sense to me because school was mostly like a compilation of theories we did get introduced to attachment science, but we also got introduced to Melanie Klein and we got,

Timmy Eaton:

yeah.

Todd Sarner:

Dr. Neufeld superpower is it's not just that he comes up with some new concepts that are interesting and help you understand things, it's that he puts together what's out there in a way and presents it to you in a way that makes sense and that you can understand and that. Has a context of what does that mean now for parenting versus how it might have used to be 50, 60, a hundred years ago. Honestly, as I remember it, I reached out to his office a couple times and I just said, Hey he was probably more accessible back then. He didn't have this big organization, but he has really wonderful people around him. Just amazing people. Most of all his wife Joy and his kids who have been involved, but also, people running the office. I reached out and I said, look, your message is needed here in Marin County, California, which is right above San Francisco. It's where a lot of tech people live, and very wealthy people. And that's where I was living. And I said, oh boy, do they need this message? And I want to bring you here and. I don't know how it happened, but he returned the email. Wow. To me he replied and we just started a conversation, and then we talked a couple times and he said, Hey, I have a thing coming up. Why don't you meet me there? No. The first thing was he invited me to come up to his intensive in Canada in Vancouver, which he did at the Vancouver Museum. I think it was two weeks away. And it was a week long intensive. And I said, I don't know how I have work. I have a child. I have the, I, okay, I'll get there. And then he came to town and so it just started that way. And then, so when he decided to form the institute and do the training because he wanted to get out of personal one-on-one work and he wanted to do more training and teaching other people, I was just lucky to be in that first group. It wasn't that I was the most talented in the world. I think he knew that I really resonated with their approach, and I was very enthusiastic about it. Yeah. But yeah, I was really happy. I'm still friends with a lot of the people in that group.

Timmy Eaton:

And what I love about that is that like what you did as a young kid calling record companies. And now I've kinda learned that in this gig, like of doing a podcast that like turns out that you could just like email people and some people get back to you like that you wouldn't expect. And so

Todd Sarner:

I, it's been fun. It still happens. It's a little harder these days, but yeah I remember being enthusiastic about a band when I was 17 and I found out their music publisher. I got the phone number I called and it was the guitar player's mom.

Timmy Eaton:

No way. No.

Todd Sarner:

And I'm not, okay.

Timmy Eaton:

What's the band? I have to know.

Todd Sarner:

It was a band called Queen Rike Out

Timmy Eaton:

I Washington Queen man. They're the lead singers and opera singer,

Todd Sarner:

he is, he had this five octave range. Yeah. I was silent

Timmy Eaton:

lucidity. Yeah,

Todd Sarner:

exactly. That was their big breakthrough hit. That sounded like Pink Floyd a little bit, but I was into the cure and the kind of goth stuff over the Smiths wave stuff. And then over, yeah. And then over here I was into metal and Metallica and Queens, Rike. So that's, that was my teenage years. And I was I wanted to be a concert promoter or a therapist. Okay. That's what I wanted to do as a teenager. I wanted to either be the guy putting on concerts or I wanted to be a therapist, and I didn't know if I had the grades to be a therapist but eventually that one out.

Timmy Eaton:

That's why I love these conversations. They're so organic and go in different ones but I'll bring us back a little bit. On the one hand, attachment for homeschool family seems like such a natural thing because whether they know it or not, they've chosen kind of a path that is more attachment based than other routes maybe. But what I find is a lot of homeschool families don't really know a lot about attachment. They just do it. So what do people need to understand about attachment and

Todd Sarner:

Oh gosh. How many hours do we have,

Timmy Eaton:

Timmy?

Todd Sarner:

Since we're talking about Neufeld, a lot of times I'll quote his definition of attachment because it's very precise thing. It's very UBC professor kinda language which he was.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

But it's so important, I think. Because attachment has been made to be a controversial thing. Sometimes if you look at parenting blogs or if you go on social media or something it's usually a straw man argument. It's usually attachment means you have to sleep in the same bed as your child until they're 25 and you have to homeschool. There's no choice. And

Timmy Eaton:

Right.

Todd Sarner:

You breastfeed until they're 14. But attachment science doesn't say any of that stuff. Attachment science is really uncontroversial in the scientific world and Gordon's definition, which I still quote every day, is that attachment is the instinct, the drive that we're all born with to hold close and to keep close to those that we hold most dear. It's very precise. It doesn't sound warm, but it just means, hey, when we're born. We have this instinct that I could sit here Timmy and just explain as an emotional, psychological thing. And that would be real. That we want to be close to those that we are attached to. We want to be close. When I'm a kid, I wanna be close to my parents. When I'm married, I want to be close to my partner. When we're best friends or have a very close family member, I want to be close to you. And that's emotional. That's psychological.

Timmy Eaton:

It's instinctive.

Todd Sarner:

It's instinctive though. Exactly. Is what I wanted to really underline there is if you think. Human beings primarily act because they have a conscious plan of, my kid's gonna wake up this morning and go, you know what, around four o'clock, I am not gonna listen to my father. I will just not listen. That's not it. That's not how people behave. I'm a couple's counselor too. Like I said, I work with highly functioning people, doing very well in the world. People, you've heard their names sometimes, but when it comes to emotional things with attachment with their partner, they can be childlike at times because it's an instinct, and so it's a very important thing to understand from a parenting point of view, that if you think your child is doing things intentionally, you're probably gonna have an antagonistic kind of

Timmy Eaton:

bitter.

Todd Sarner:

Position towards them sometimes. If I thought you were condescending to me on purpose, to me, I might instinctively just go, oh, yeah. And be sarcastic back to you or something. And I'm a grown adult. I'm 55 years old. I'm a therapist. I have a lot of experience in things. I tend to think I'm a spiritual, non-judgmental person, but if somebody really is condescending to me, I could very easily have the instinct to punch back. You know what I mean?

Timmy Eaton:

Yes.

Todd Sarner:

Just being honest. I try not to, I try to notice it, try to breathe through it. And usually I'm successful. But attachment is an instinct. It's true for couples. So maybe trying to loop back to your question, attachment science is not that controversial. It just says there's a lot of factors that go into raising a child. And a lot of factors that go into how a child behaves and a lot of factors that go into how they grow into their greatest potential. But their ability to feel close in their head and in their heart, and sometimes with their body, but in their head and their heart, to those that they hold closest to them, who they're attached to, who are the most meaningful, is the greatest factor in that. I was just talking to a client earlier today, and we've been really working with one of their kids. Like I, I don't work with the kids directly, but they have this 7-year-old who's just a lot he's a handful and that's the one everyone calls me about. They have three kids, they have issues, but the middle one, they just, oh gosh. He just is very sensitive and he shows up, in a big way. Sometimes. Through working on the attachment, working on the attachment, all of a sudden this kid is opening up and he's saying things like, they reported to me that he did something wrong at school, and he got sent to the principal's office. He's a young kid. And he said, I just missed my mommy and daddy. And the principle was blown away because he doesn't usually present that way. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. Totally know. I'm going on a tangent. No, it totally

Timmy Eaton:

does.

Todd Sarner:

And it

Timmy Eaton:

sounds like that would be a win to hear that

Todd Sarner:

it was a total win. Yeah. In my book, that is a huge win because along the way they're also saying, oh yeah, the behavior's better. Oh yeah, we're having a better time with this and that. But that is the thing I look for. I look for those little things where the kid is able to, for instance, be more vulnerable because he feels more comfortable. He's not trying to. Act out to get attention. He's learning to open up a little bit.

Timmy Eaton:

He's not covering his feeling. He's saying, I want my mom and dad.

Todd Sarner:

Exactly. So that's what attachment is. It doesn't mean gentle parenting with no limits. It doesn't mean

Timmy Eaton:

babying your kids

Todd Sarner:

and coddling, babying anybody. No. It just means I call my approach. Now I've been calling it attachment first, it would be probably a whole sentence of other things. Attachment first regulated alpha parenting or something, right? Yeah. But I say attachment first. Because it's just that, Hey, what did we do Timmy? We had never met before. What did we do when we logged on here? You and I just talked, I talked about your shirt, we talked about stuff. I didn't plan that. You didn't plan that. We weren't doing that in any fake way. It just made sense to us to get into relationship with each other. Yeah. And talk and connect before we hit record. People get that instinctively when it comes to adult things, but then they walk into a room and just tell their kid what to do.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

Without bothering to get their eyes first and honor the relationship by collecting them as Gordon says, Kim John Payne talks about the same thing. Kim is a dear friend of mine, a simplicity parenting and all those great books. He says Connect before you direct. But yeah, it's just little things like, Hey, the first thing is are we okay?

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

Do you feel connected to me? And do I feel connected to you? But mostly if you're a child, I need to make sure you're feeling connected to me and then we can proceed with everything else. But if our relationship is in a bad place, we're not gonna get anywhere with that.

Timmy Eaton:

And how do you respond to a parent or somebody who says yeah I get that, but like the reason you and I did that is'cause, we don't have any history but I can hear people saying it's because we have history one and two, we're comfortable with each other. Which is almost like it's culturally accurate, but it's not necessarily what needs to happen, obviously for the relationship. But you feel comfortable so you just say, Hey, get off the couch and do something, instead of connecting,

Todd Sarner:

to be honest. Oh, I know. I absolutely know. That's why you're doing it. And I know that. Don't blame you for that, or I wouldn't shame you for that. I'm just here to tell you it doesn't work. Because nobody likes being told what to do if they don't feel connected first. All the sayings we have, people don't care about what you know until they know that you care.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

It's just a biological fact.

Timmy Eaton:

That's true.

Todd Sarner:

Children are wired not to listen to you if they don't feel connected to you. And because of lots of different things like distractions in the world, screens busyness a lot of times just because up until seven, eight years old, they don't have a functioning frontal lobes, so they can't pay attention to two things at once. So if they're really paying attention to this and you come in with that, they don't even hear you.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes.

Todd Sarner:

But they are wired from an attachment point of view, not to listen to somebody. Who I don't feel connected to. And that is an instinct to protect them, that we want to be there.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow.

Todd Sarner:

And a lot of parenting things is yell, take things away, force to get through that resistance, but that doesn't make a child feel more connected to you. It just creates a cycle of that where you just do it over and over again. Oh, I understand when people would say something like that, like if they say, Hey, but I love my kid, and we had a great morning, so I totally get that one. I'm just telling you biologically this is reality. Yes. And then two I'm, here to say, I usually actually hear, but Todd, I don't have time for that. I don't have time for every single time and I say. I understand where you're coming from. I've had those days, but

Timmy Eaton:

you

Todd Sarner:

can't afford

Timmy Eaton:

not to have time,

Todd Sarner:

but Exactly. I have had over 2000 clients. I guarantee you, I have heard every single version of this scenario that you could ever throw at me. I guarantee you, you're spending more time dealing with the repercussions of not collecting your job. For sure. Without a doubt. I absolutely, with no hesitation, put any amount of money on that. You are spending more time dealing with the fact that you didn't take at least a moment to get those eyes.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes. Hey,

Todd Sarner:

what's going on? Hey, what's happening?

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, for sure. As you say that it just totally resonates. It's true. And I, and as I, I've taught for 21 years in the classroom and. And I teach religious education, and one thing that I've said with my colleagues is that kids smell you and I, that's the way I would describe it. It's like they know right away, and that's why sometimes they're brutal to substitutes because, they don't have that connection. And a lot of substitutes are, they're basically on defense the whole time. And the ones that just go in there relaxed with not much of an agenda and just get the kids' eyes and talk to them and learn about them, are so much

Todd Sarner:

and again, speaking of instinct I grew up in San Jose, California. I didn't grow up in a neighborhood with a whole bunch of kids that were challenged it was a safe, quiet neighborhood.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

And boy I would own it if I treated substitutes really badly. But I do remember being part of classes where we would all like, raise the desk at the same time just to bother the, yeah. Substitute or drop a pencil. And Gordon Neufeld talks about that a lot that. A lot of times the teacher and stepparents sometimes have this challenge. But the reason I listen to my teacher is I have a relationship with my teacher. I know she cares about me. I know we're connected. You're connected with your students, whether they're kids or they're adults. But then if a substitute comes in and assumes a connection and just talks to us like they have already earned our respect or our connection, our attachment, we instinctively will push back.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

What kids do.

Timmy Eaton:

When you have experience like you did with me, like you're a professional at this. And so I felt the connection pretty quickly in a classroom. I feel like I could be sent to your neighborhood and meet with a group of youth. I'm so used to, and I would be able to form that connection quicker than most. Not that I can cheat the process of actually developing the relationship, but that they can smell my warmness. They can feel my absolutely genuine. I love

Todd Sarner:

authenticity. I love that. I might have to borrow that. I don't know if I've said that. Yeah. But it's absolutely true. I think it was Gordon who pointed out to me since we've been talking about him a lot, that when you walk in a room, a baby will instinctively look at you in your face and a baby kind of can't take in all of your facial features. So a baby will actually look at one of your eyes and they will be able to see, and again, they didn't go take an online course. On how to read the nervous system of a caregiver. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

It's just

Todd Sarner:

in there. They just come out that way. They come out looking and scanning. I always joke do you come in peace? Yes. And that's how we mammals our nervous systems are geared. I'm looking at you and I'm looking at your facial expression and all that to see if you come as a threat or you come in peace and we could sit here and go and you wouldn't argue with, but we could say, but I'm their parent. Obviously I'm safe to them and stuff, but it's deeper than that. Yes. It's a survival nervous system thing. Is that what

Timmy Eaton:

people call the reptilian brain? Is that like coming

Todd Sarner:

from that Yeah, the amygdala. Yeah. The, I've done a lot of training in nervous system issues, trauma, these things, and I find it such an important piece to talk about. Maybe we'll loop back to it. But you could have all the good intentions and really solid values, and you could listen to some great podcasts and read some good books. But if your nervous system is offline right now, you don't have access to those things. You don't, your brain doesn't have access to them. Does that make sense?

Timmy Eaton:

Yes.

Todd Sarner:

And to make sure I complete the point where we were for tens of thousands of years, I assume it's very safe where you live in Alberta. It's very safe. Where I live, most of my clients live in very safe places, but our nervous systems have not caught up to that. Okay. Obviously there's dangerous things in the world and there's dangerous places. I could go in certain cities around here, if but our nervous systems are geared towards predators coming to get us, lawlessness. The king could decide he didn't like us and chop off our head. That's what our nervous systems are geared towards. And the nervous system has an attitude if it could articulate it.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

If I perceive danger and I'm wrong, at least I'm still alive, so it's no big deal.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. But

Todd Sarner:

But what the nervous system doesn't quite know is there are a lot of costs to dysregulation and nervous system activation that really harm our bodies and make us ineffective. But the nervous system is still geared towards. If there's a rustling in the bushes, I'd better be ready because that could be a tiger. You know what I mean?

Timmy Eaton:

Yes. So I have two questions that came to mind as you were saying all that one and see if I'm saying this right, or at least direct it the right way. So in a practical circumstance or situation like a homeschool family, I think that most people would think that attachment has to do with things that we do or things that we set up, or systems that we create. But is it more about what we are and who we are and less about yeah, and then the second question that maybe will tie into this is what do you see as the greatest threats right now in our North American context? What are the greatest threats to attachment so that families can be proactive and intentional about that? Because as you're talking, I'm thinking, oh yeah, I feel like culturally we think of it as make sure that they're not on screens a lot, and then you're more attached and it's it sounds like it's more about who you are. And who you are to them.

Todd Sarner:

Yeah. Great questions. To the first question, I'd say both. Both and, okay. And again, this is gonna be a Gordon Neufeld tribute show just because we started off talking about him even before we started recording, and we both have that connection through his work. Gordon, one of the most impactful things I ever heard him say at the beginning of getting to know him, and I think it's in the book too, is parenting is more about who you are to your child than what you do. And if you figure out who you need to be to your child, the what to dos flow more naturally. Now that could seem like a thought exercise, a, nice philosophical thing. But it is the kind of thing that I would invite parents just to sit with a little bit, walk with that, do a little journaling around that question. And one of the most powerful entry points to that is, who did you need when you were little? And I'm not here to judge anyone's parent, totally. Obviously when people do abusive things, that's not right. But a lot of times our parents were just doing their best from what they knew and what they were taught and what they weren't taught.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes.

Todd Sarner:

But what did you need when you were little? Did you need somebody just to help make you feel safe? Help make it feel like you're okay? Help make it feel like you were special to them. Not that you were just some fake special, give you a trophy, but I actually see what makes you special. And there's something about me and you that's special, and I'm gonna take care of the relationship bits and the adult bits. So you can just be a kid and feel safe and do the most valuable thing you can do as a kid, which is play and learn and grow. And I'm gonna create the space for that. Like I sure know, I would've liked that, and my parents did their best. But

Timmy Eaton:

yeah.

Todd Sarner:

That's who our kids need. And they need you to be an alpha, which in Gordon's language is not a dictator, not an oppressive force, but a papa bear, a mama bear. I'm here to take care of you. I would love you to be happy, but my main job is to take care of you. And if my mantra in my head when you say, I want ice cream for lunch.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

If in my head I go, my job is to make him happy, I might give him ice cream. If I say my job is to take care of him. Oh man, ice cream's good. I would like some too, but I know your belly needs to be filled with some good nutritional stuff. Hopefully you like it too, but you need that. And then if later we have ice cream, I might do that too. So yes, parenting is attachment is knowing that it's about who you are to your child, but it is also

Timmy Eaton:

what follows and what you do.

Todd Sarner:

Yeah. It

Timmy Eaton:

but it naturally comes because of who you are or who you've become in that relationship.

Todd Sarner:

And I would say that one of the main things about who you are is my job is not to react to what you do. That's not parenting. Parenting isn't. I do this when you do that to make you stop doing it, which is what a lot of the advice is about. Okay. Even people who like to be gentle parents like. It doesn't work when they do it without boundaries and I'll talk more about that, but then they get really fierce because they get mad because their kids taking advantage and I'm trying to be nice, yeah. But it's one of the things we need to understand is systems and culture and community, parenting is mostly supposed to be what you do upfront to avoid the problems. It's not supposed to be reactive. If we did homeschooling, we would've put a lot of effort into building out community in a different way. We still had community. I loved our community, but I would've wanted to make sure that we built out community also, so that there was this holding kind of feeling beyond just us. You know what I mean?

Timmy Eaton:

Yes.

Todd Sarner:

But. Connection first, but then let's create some knowing and structure and ritual because kids feel good with that. Let's give chances to play and get out the energy and expression. Let's teach consequences, but let's do it as a day-to-day guiding of, cause and effect. That's not punishing you. It's just you didn't eat dinner, you don't get dessert. I'm not punishing you. You just have to have your dinner first. I'm not gonna yell at you. Yeah, you're yelling in the car. I'm not gonna yell and scream that I'm gonna pull this car over if you don't stop. I'm actually gonna tell you, Hey, this not safe to yell in the car. And if you keep doing it, I'm gonna pull over. And if that comes out of the time where we were gonna play, then we have less time to play. But I didn't punish you. I'm not taking something away. Just a, the consequence in the car made it so that doesn't happen. And then lastly, sometimes we all get full of frustration. And what our kids need when they get full of frustration is they need somebody to be firm and say no and say the behavior's not okay, but be empathetic at the same time and balance those things out until they get it out of their system.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah,

Todd Sarner:

that to me is parenting from an attachment point of view. Just to answer the first question, does that kind of answer it? Yes, it totally. I know it's a little far ranging,

Timmy Eaton:

and it makes me think, I don't know if you're familiar with the Arbinger Institute, the Anatomy of Peace, Terry Warner stuff, but that sounds very Oh

Todd Sarner:

yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

Very familiar. Anatomy of Peace'cause I think the, a basic premise there is that it's not the behavior it's not what we choose to carry out as a parent. It's where we feel and where we are in doing that. But like you said, this is the consequence. This isn't a reaction to you. This is just what happens to make sure you understand that I'm taking care of you and Yeah. Instead of I'm reacting to you. What would you say to that second part of just what are the biggest threats then to this type of attachment?

Todd Sarner:

I could. Talk forever length about that too. And I am, I'm always really careful not to get up on the proverbial soapbox. Because I don't think it's that helpful. Like my kid went to a Waldorf school and I absolutely loved his school. I feel like it's winning the lottery that he had this particular teacher at this particular school. And like I said, it just worked out because what we were seeing, it was like only gonna be homeschooling because like we saw so many things that we just couldn't support or be part of. So careful not to get on a soapbox because I don't think it's helpful. I am very worried about a lot of things practically day to day. Because it is one of the themes of the book, and part of how I'm organizing, how I'm talking to people these days is attachment comes first. But like I said before, if you're dysregulated or your child is dysregulated, or you're dysregulated with your partner, meaning you're in fight or flight, you're overwhelmed, you're stressed, you're scared, you're anxious, all these things that are part of the human experience, you won't be able to access the parts of your brain that you need again, that contain your values, that contain your know-how, that allow for attachment. And then you'll be on the Instagram looking at all these people saying that this is what to do and this is what to do, and this is what to do. And you'll just get stuck in a cycle of that. And then you'll feel bad about yourself because you're like, I know what to do, why can't I do it? A lot of it is because of your nervous system and dysregulation, and part of it is you're spending so much time on social media. I'm not off social media. I'm on it almost every single day a little bit. I tend to go in and get out, but it is designed to dysregulate your nervous system because when you're dysregulated, you engage more, you stay on the social media and they get more advertising dollars. That's just a fact.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. It's just how it

Todd Sarner:

works. I'm speaking as a person who has a lot of people I've worked with, my clients that work at these companies. Okay. And I'm not trying to demonize the company. I'm just saying that is Yeah. It's just what is, that is just a fact. And yeah, I would say if we just broadly understood it to be things that dysregulate you, that bring you out of the smart parts of your brain are bad, then stress overwhelm, technology, social media. All these things are a threat to us as adults and even more so for kids. Do you know the book the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haight? That came out last year? Yes.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes, I do.

Todd Sarner:

It was a bestseller. He was on every huge podcast. He was on all the big here in America, at least. He was on all the big news programs. He shows a correlation in the last 10 years that is not, you can't really argue with it, that at the same exact time as smartphones and social media were being adopted in a widespread matter by teenagers.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

The rates of depression and anxiety and self-harm went through the roof. Perfectly correlated.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

And so those just like Glow

Timmy Eaton:

kids, I don't dunno if you've read Glow Kids.

Todd Sarner:

No. I've heard of that. Glow

Timmy Eaton:

Kids is, to me, anyway, same thing. I amazing.

Todd Sarner:

Our, my kids' kindergarten teachers sat us down. And showed us some cartoons, right? Like they're like, you probably don't even think of cartoons as being problematic, but watch this. And they weren't, again, they weren't really up on a soapbox. They're just like, they're just saying, here are the facts. Yeah. Just notice how you feel when you watch this. And oh my gosh, my whole nervous system was on edge after watching 10 minutes of this cartoon. Totally. He was just like bam, ba, yeah. Fast things and things happening and people getting, hit and Gordon in his book was making the point that parents kinda giving up their power and allowing peer orientation was one of the main organizing things that he was warning about. And. A lot of times people misunderstood that to say that kids couldn't have friends or something. That's not at all. Yeah. It was that. If they are most healthily attached to you and by extension, your family and your people in your community like helpers and aunts and uncles, yes. And they're all like symbolically in back of you and your parenting partner and your kid is oriented towards you, that protects them. If they are allowed to orient towards their peers, they might be great kids. I love kids. I do everything trying to help kids have a better trajectory, right? Yes. But if they're oriented towards other kids you are on the other side of that. Okay. And so they might want to do good for you, they might wanna connect with you, but. If a choice needs to be made about doing something, they're gonna choose who they're attached to. Does that make sense?

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. And is it ever, is it ever the case where parents that's actually preferable because of the parents?

Todd Sarner:

Oh gosh. I suppose there's a situation where that could be, but I'm gonna in general say no

Timmy Eaton:

good.

Todd Sarner:

No matter what your flaws, no matter what your shortcomings, you are the parent. I have all this experience that I could sound like I'm congratulating myself about all the clients and the blah, blah, blah. I could never be to your kid who you could be on your worst day. I couldn't be, I just can't. And that's part of why I don't see kids, it's like I'm not supposed to be the answer for your kid. Now, there are situations in where therapy is helpful. I'm. Saying therapy for kids is all bad. I'm just saying in my average clients that I work with, they have the power to be their kids answer way more than anyone else.

Timmy Eaton:

That's awesome. I'm glad to hear that. And I'm sure there's whatever exceptions of, like you said, abuse and stuff like that, but even then, like it, that relationship still is I don't know. People always talk about toxicity and stuff like that, but

Todd Sarner:

it's a horrible thing to say to me, and I hope it doesn't come across the wrong way. I worked with abused kids for years. I don't remember a single one of them that didn't want to be with their parent. Okay. There's all these things being thrown around these days about kids cutting themselves off from their parents. It's a very complex issue, and I am not here to say that there are no toxic or abusive parents out there, because obviously they are. It's a horrible thing, but obviously it exists. But also there are a lot of kids that are being alienated from their parents by divorce situations and things like this. Yeah. I never met a kid in a group home who, if they ran away from the group home, we knew exactly where they were going. Yeah. They weren't going to their best friend's house. They weren't going to go live on the street. They were going to their parent every time. And it's a horrible example to make the point.

Timmy Eaton:

No, but I'm glad

Todd Sarner:

you are. That's how powerful,

Timmy Eaton:

that's reassuring

Todd Sarner:

so I guess the thought I was trying to finish in my long, roundabout way is that's what Neufeld was trying to point out when he came out with hold onto your kids over 22 years ago. Came out in Canada first. But social media and smartphones and peer culture all this is just an acceleration of the same thing. I sometimes, as a practical thing I joke about this from time to time. I have a parent come in for the first time. Nowadays it's virtual, but I used to see people in person all the time. And they'll say, Hey Bobby, our kid or Sally, she was getting great grades last year. She's been a great kid and she get, gets great grades. And Neufeld would talk about this, and all of a sudden this year she's getting Ds, she's getting bad marks, and we don't know what to do because we don't know what's changed. And I always say, and again, Neufeld would say things like this I would always say, okay, tell me about Bobby's new friends. And they'd look at me like, how'd he know Bobby has new friends? We didn't tell him that.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

But it's just patently obvious. He started connecting primarily to these new group of friends. He wants to feel like he's the same. He wants to belong to the group. That attachment is stronger currently. And so he wants to get Ds because if he doesn't get Ds, he won't be accepted by the group.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow. Wow. That

fascinating.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes.

Todd Sarner:

That is how it works. And again, it's just a simple example that I've been using for years and I probably did originally take from Neufeld, but I would start joking with my clients. You know about that. And they thought I was a, a, oh, this guy is good. Yeah, our friends were right. He's great. He knows his stuff. He knew our kid. But that's it. It explains it. Who is your kid attached to? And you see it in politics too. I won't go down this road, but if you are in the more conservative party, you are going to get only things that backs up your point of view. And if you're in the more liberal party, you're only gonna see things that backs up your point of view. And they're gonna agitate you because they know what agitates you. Yeah. And then people come together and they wonder why they have such r. Incredibly different views of reality. It's because they're being fed a certain thing, but it's who they're attached to.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes.

Todd Sarner:

Okay.

Timmy Eaton:

I always ask that not that we're getting into political conversation, but my first two questions, I say, oh, we're gonna talk about politics. I say, who do you listen to and why do you trust them?

Todd Sarner:

Exactly Neither one of us wants to go down that road, but it's just a way of explaining how these things work.

Timmy Eaton:

No, yeah. It is. And I think that does illustrate'cause it resonates with the anyone

Todd Sarner:

who's here. And I think a lot of parents, and I have nothing but empathy for this. I really do. It can be hard. A lot of people are trying to do work and homeschooling or two jobs or, being involved in things and raising their kids. And sometimes when things seem a lot it feels maybe park him in front of the TV for a while my wife and I were joking about, and again, it's not to sound judgmental, but we were at this really nice restaurant in Las Vegas where we go from time to time.'cause my dad used to live there and we're at this really nice restaurant for a holiday dinner. And a bunch of tech executive kind of people come in and all their kids are at one table and all the wives are at one table and all the husbands are at another table. Every single kid had a Nintendo Switch or a cell phone and they weren't talking to each other. And again, I'm not trying to come from a judgy place. I grew up in Silicon Valley. And I'm just like, oh my gosh. I honestly think. When I was that age, I would've had a ton of fun being at that table like, and joking around and like whatever but all the kids were on a Nintendo Switch or a phone and we were just looking over and going, oh gosh.

Timmy Eaton:

That

Todd Sarner:

actually surprises me Normal, especially

Timmy Eaton:

being the children of tech who know the realities of that.

Todd Sarner:

Oh yeah. Steve Jobs sent his kids to the Waldorf School, Silicon Valley Waldorf School, and they weren't allowed to use iPads. I

Timmy Eaton:

know.

Todd Sarner:

But anyway, the point is, I was trying to say, I get it. It's hard.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes.

Todd Sarner:

So sometimes parking your kid in front of something or they use the word babysit all the time, like technology, baby, I understand where you're coming from, but. It's not really what kids need. And if we could just arrange a little cohort of kids that we know, I can send my kids to your house and you can send your kids to my house and they're gonna play outside because they do.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes.

Todd Sarner:

My kid and his friends nobody was asking to watch tv. They weren't?

Timmy Eaton:

No,

Todd Sarner:

because like I live in wine country and a lot of the parents at school lived on farms and are raising chickens and things. And so they would go over and they would play in the hay and they would play out in the barn and they would go down to the creek. And not once were, they like, we're bored. Please put us in front of something. Because they didn't know any better. They just played. Yeah. And that's what kids need to do. And if they don't, at the end of the day they have a whole bunch of energy left over that hasn't been expend gotten out. So

Timmy Eaton:

yeah,

Todd Sarner:

going on a tirade, but. That's the whole of what I see as the threats to attachment, peer orientation, too much technology, too much turning kids over when they need us to be in our position for a long time.

Timmy Eaton:

And I think maybe that the, one of the themes coming out of this is that we think that we take the easy route now, but man, it creates work later. I get it it's, sometimes it's hard, so you just put'em in front of something, but man, you're gonna pay for that later. You really will. I'm saying if your value is to have that connection and attachment then you gotta do that, which sues for that. I did want to just have you tell us a little bit about your book, and I think maybe the best thing that happened in this is that people got a good feel of you. From listening to this interview. And so I just feel like people that listen to that will go, I want the book. But tell us a little about the calm and connect parent.

Todd Sarner:

I was the guy for years that was like, they're selling a book. You, sometimes you listen to a podcast or you watch somebody on TV on the news and they're like, like I said in my book. And but now I'm that guy for the last few months.

Timmy Eaton:

And when you've got good information, I'm glad you do it. So I'm over worrying about whether people are selling or something.'cause I'm like, dude, if it's good, sell it. Like we need it.

I,

Todd Sarner:

my whole thing was really honestly an it can sound false, but active service. I can't work with everybody. I feel passionately about this stuff.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

Hey, what if I gave you something for under$20 that maybe can help you, and for years people said, you should write a book. You should write a book. You should write a book. I can't tell you how many clients. Yeah. Super rich clients, that own publishing company. You have to have a book, or a tech company. I had people tell me 20 times, I'll back it if you do it. Man. I'm like, I don't know what I wanna say. I don't, yeah. Yeah. Like I, I love Gordon's book. I love Kim Jong Payne's books. I, Dr. Becky has great stuff. I love that she's breaking through out there.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Todd Sarner:

And has this huge audience, I didn't know what I wanted to say, and so a few things came together in the last year or so where I just thought, okay, I think I know what I want to do. I wanted to write a book that was more about what we've been talking about, that it was not just information and the information's in there, but it was about trying to create a conversation and an attitude and a narrative and a feeling. Of what your job was and to help you have more confidence and help you to see that and help you to understand what's happening, but what you could do with it. And then the last thing that really put me over the edge a little bit is I started to get all these phone calls. Like when Fortnite came out, all of a sudden I got a ton of calls about Fortnite because all these kids were stealing their parents' credit cards and using them for Fortnite to buy things on the game. So one of the biggest questions I've got in the last 10 years is technology is taking over our home. How do we put it back in the box? Getting that question so much. But then in the last year or two, all of a sudden I'm getting. Our kid is actually talking to chat GPT for advice or telling it vulnerable things, or we're hearing a news story about a young man who took his life because he felt a chatbot was telling him to, and just seeing this happen. And so the book is not mostly about that. It is just part of the context. Yeah. Like where are we living now? Gordon did that when his book came out, and then when technology really took off, he put another chapter in the book to adapt to what was happening. My main message though, is what I've said here in our conversation, attachment has to come first, but we also back it up with firm. But loving consequences firm, but loving limits. Those are not punishment. It's a balance because kids feel safe when they know, Hey, we don't do this. I'm not gonna yell at you or shame at you, but we don't do this. And if you're frustrated, I'm gonna help you get it out by saying no, but Right. Not gentle parenting one day and then the next day, harsh parenting, and then back to gentle parenting, which is what happens every year or two. It's a more middle path attachment. First, back it up with firm, but loving discipline that's not reactive. But then the big thing is you are living in a really overwhelming world right now, and your kids are living in a very overwhelming world right now. Yes. We have to regulate ourselves. We have to know how to regulate our kids until they know how to. And as parents, we need to be able to regulate each other. That sounds scientific and maybe not as interesting, but like I said, if you're in your amygdala, the center of your brain, the little almonds in the middle of your brain, you can't access the good information in the cerebral cortex. Yes. You can't access your values and your knowing in the top parts of your brain. Dr. Daniel Siegel does a really wonderful little hand model of that I learned from when I did some trainings with him. Daniel Siegel. An American psychiatrist out of Southern California. He has been a professor at UCLA. His first book was called Parenting From the Inside Out, which was very influential to me. I went and did training with him when he did that live in Santa Barbara. But his whole thing is mindfulness and regulation and attachment. And that was very influential on me. But yeah, I know that's way too long of an explanation to be a nutshell to me.

Timmy Eaton:

No, that

Todd Sarner:

was

Timmy Eaton:

awesome.

Todd Sarner:

I finally felt like I had something I could help people with by explaining it this way, and luckily it's been really well received so far. It's been out there a couple months as of the time we're recording this. It was a lot of work. I was exhausted and depleted by the time it came out. But I'm getting my energy back. But yeah, it's hopefully it's helpful. And there's a workbook that I did with it too, so when people want to do the exercises in the book and. Have the summaries and stuff. I got a lot of feedback for the people who read the early copies that they wanted that too.

Timmy Eaton:

And for my audience, they can just go onto your website and get it, or what's the easiest way? Or my

Todd Sarner:

website Amazon Canada has it. Amazon US has it. That's probably the easiest way.

Timmy Eaton:

Thank you very much. I appreciate you taking time today, Todd Sarner, everybody, and I'm sure we're gonna hear more about you in other arenas here in the future. So thank you very much. Yep.

Todd Sarner:

Talk to you later.

Timmy Eaton:

That wraps up another edition of this Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It helps out a lot, and if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.