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Do you want the truth?
Welcome to Do You Want The Truth? where we dive deep into the real raw stories from parents in the trenches of parenthood.
Season 2 is brought to you by Sam Strom and Freelance Journalist Zara Hanawalt, along with guest co-hosts such as Jaime Fisher.
Season 1 is brought to you by Paige Connell & Sam Strom. They bring you candid conversations with parents who share their experiences of parenthood and what they wish they knew before having kids. You'll hear the real stories. The stories that are typically reserved for best friends. The stories with TMI. We believe in the power of truth telling because when someone asks, do you want the truth? We always say yes. Join us as we explore the highs and lows and everything in between so you can feel less alone on your journey.
Connect with Sam: https://www.linkedin.com/samanthastrom https://www.tiktok.com/@samanthastorms
Do you want the truth?
The Truth About: A Brain-Based Approach to Parenting Without Punishment with @WholeParent
This week, we chat with Jon Fogel—known to many as @wholeparent on social media—to challenge everything we think we know about parenting, discipline, and the role of punishment. Jon brings a unique blend of lived experience as a pastor, foster parent, and neuroscience-informed educator. Together, we dive into how authoritarian parenting patterns mirror broader societal dynamics and why shifting from punishment to connection could be the most transformative change we make as parents.
We also get deeply personal—sharing stories of tantrums, triggers, and those hard moments that test every parent's resolve. If you've ever wondered whether there's a more effective, more human way to raise your kids—especially when they're screaming "F-you" at you—you’re going to want to hear this. Jon’s insights on brain-based, compassionate parenting are nothing short of game-changing.
⭐️ If this episode resonated with you, I’d love for you to rate, review, and follow the show. And don’t forget to share it with a fellow parent who might need a reminder that punishment isn’t the only path. Let’s raise kids who feel safe, seen, and supported.
Links & Resources:
Jon Fogel’s Book: Punishment-Free Parenting: The Brain-Based Way to Raise Kids Without Raising Your Voice
Follow Jon on Instagram and TikTok: @wholeparent
Jon’s Substack (with bonus parenting resources): wholeparent.substack.com
Book Mentioned: The Whole-Brain Child by Dr. Tina Payne Bryson and Dr. Dan Siegel
Children’s Book Mentioned: The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld
Book Mentioned: Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn
Emotional Regulation Guide from Jon (included in Substack subscription)
Primary Keywords:
gentle parenting, punishment-free parenting, parenting without punishment, conscious parenting, discipline vs punishment, emotional regulation for kids, neuroscience-based parenting, raising emotionally intelligent children, parenting, punishment-free parenting, emotional regulation, child development, neuroscience, parenting advice, John Fogel, Whole Parent, discipline, Bible, authoritarianism
Supporting Keywords:
Jon Fogel Whole Parent, Whole Brain Child, parenting expert interview, foster parenting, parenting and religion, parenting and politics, authoritarian parenting, ICE raids and parenting
Long-Tail Keywords:
how to discipline without yelling, what to do instead of timeouts, how punishment affects child brain development, alternatives to authoritarian parenting, what is conscious parenting really about, parenting advice for strong-willed children
Website: https://www.doyouwantthetruthpod.com
Connect with Sam:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/samanthastrom
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@samanthastorms
Connect with Zara:
Zara Hanawalt https://www.linkedin.com/in/zara-hanawalt/
TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@zarahanawalt
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/zarahanawalt/
Welcome to the pod, john, or is it Dr John Fogel?
Speaker 2:Not a doctor, just a dad, no. But I appreciate that if we kind of put the facts first and if we follow the best advice, this can apply to anyone and so, yeah, maybe someday.
Speaker 1:So I see it in your future. Actually, I see it in your current. So, of course, I see it in your future. For those of you who don't know John Fogle, you might have seen him on TikTok Instagram, whole Parent. He also has a book out, and what is your book called?
Speaker 2:My book is called. Wait, here's a copy that I have, with a little bit of a coffee stain, which is why I keep this one for myself. Punishment-free Parenting the Brain-Based Way to Raise Kids Without Raising your Voice.
Speaker 1:And you were a pastor before being. You know in neuroscience or you know looking at the brain, right? Can you tell us a little bit about who you are like, who you were before and who you are now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm technically. I'm still a pastor. I still I still work in ministry, although it does not it does not intersect in in content with any of my parenting work but it does intersect in context. And so my context is that I've spent my life basically as a teacher and teaching people mostly adults how to deconstruct harmful worldviews that can help them live a more flourishing life, and part of that has been the deconstruction of harmful religious fundamentalism and things like that.
Speaker 2:And then in the process of learning more about the brain, of getting my advanced degree, which included training in counseling, mental health training, and then the process of it's a long road to get here, but becoming a licensed foster parent, helping parents for years and years to parent more effectively, reading basically every parenting book under the sun, I started to realize that there was this huge gap not only in what people thought about religion or what people maybe thought. Specifically, my area of expertise is in the Bible, not just in hey, they might not know what the Bible even says or something like that. That's what I used to talk about. Mostly, most people don't know what the academy says about parenting. Most people don't know what most psychologists and doctors and researchers and neuroscientists and behavioral neuroscientists. They all I don't want to say they all agree that's not how that's not how you know this works. But there is a significant academic consensus around the best practices for raising kids, and somehow that was completely left out of my formation, that was never communicated to me, and I had to go through massive research and literal training, foster care training, before anybody presented me with stuff that should be 101. You should get this stuff. We should be teaching this stuff in high school. We should be teaching this stuff to parents all over the world.
Speaker 2:And so I said, look, if I can explain something as complicated and triggering as faith in a way that people can deconstruct in a healthy way and learn better paradigms, maybe we can do that with parenting too. And so I started to connect with parenting researchers, people like Dr Tina Payne Bryson, who wrote the whole brain child she wrote the forward for my book, many others and and I said, look, is this stuff that I'm saying accurate? And they all kind of said, yeah, this is what you need to be saying. And I said, okay, well, well, maybe people can hear it coming from me, because I don't have those credentials. If anything, I can speak more to just what it is to be a normal dad and, as a result, we've had hundreds of thousands of people on social media say, yeah, I vibe with this, I track with this, this I can understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting. I tried to read the Bible this year and I got really mad. The Old Testament after the first, on page two, I had to quit because I got so upset. But I want to. A lot of people use the Bible to justify corporal punishment. And there's this couple on YouTube I think they're called Nate and Sutton or something and the way they punish their kid. When their kid would have a tantrum at dinner, like at a restaurant, they would go and the dad would lock him in the car, in the car seat and like by himself. And I remember just being like and they would read Bible passages to justify it, and so.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you've seen a lot of that in the past.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and yeah I mean we can. We can start to go down that path. I, I want to be sensitive to people's religious beliefs. I also, when you go to seminary which I have been and you get a master's degree, in this many thousand year old collection of works which have been changed and edited and the authors are not always clear, and what is meant to be taken allegorically versus what is meant to be taken literally, versus the different genres of literature that you're even reading, is not always clear. I think when we try and proof what's called proof texting, are going to that very diverse collection of resources and we try and pick out individual things and use them to justify our worldview, we are doomed at that point. That's never going to lead to anything positive. And so kind of the old adage is that if you the never going to lead to anything positive. And so the old adage is that the people who actually go to seminary which it's becoming increasingly less common, so the majority of pastors 25 years ago went to seminary. That's not true anymore.
Speaker 1:What is seminary?
Speaker 2:Seminary is pastor training, so you don't have to do.
Speaker 2:It's the longest vocational master's degree that you can get, called an MDiv, and basically it's like imagine combining like a counseling degree with like a degree in ancient cultures and languages and a degree in philosophy and a degree, and you have to learn all of that stuff. And so where an MBA might take you 18 months, an MDiv, a Master's of Divinity, will take you more, like three to four years. So it's very intense study and when you go to seminary, when you study the Bible academically in a high level way, you leave feeling like you know far less than you thought you knew going in.
Speaker 1:Isn't that what happens? As you learn more, you know less.
Speaker 2:Exactly the humility is what's lacking for so many people who try to appropriate and I'm not going to sit here and try and dodge the Bible has passages that are pro-slavery. We got to do something about that. The Bible has many passages where it lifts up and celebrates women in a positive way. It has just as many passages where it really degrades and dehumanizes women and we have to deal with that. So I'm not saying that this is oh well, once you know the truth, then it all is warm and fuzzy. There's stuff in the Bible there are Psalms where they talk about throwing babies against the wall that you don't like. There is stuff that I will never, ever try and justify or rationalize or say, well, secretly, this is actually good. But you also have to understand that this whole thing, we don't really understand 90% of what's in this book and we're certainly not reading it from the lens to the people that it was originally written to and by. And so, yeah, when people come to me and they say, well, but the book of Proverbs says that you should hit your kids, I respond usually with yeah, and the book of Exodus says that. Or Deuteronomy says that you should. What is Exodus? Yeah, the book of Exodus says that you should beat your slave. The book of Deuteronomy justifies beating your slave, like the book of Deuteronomy justifies beating your slave. So so like telling me that this is the reason that we should do these things is is wildly, wildly inappropriate. And and actually, if you look at the general tenor of most of the new Testament, especially not to demonize the old versus the new, but but when you see, you know the things of, oh, like, don't provoke your children to anger, and you, there's, there's plenty of verses that if you want to start picking out verses about hitting kids or locking kids in cars which, by the way, is is abuse, right, like, let's just call that what it is that's wrong, it's, it's abuse, it's, it's anti-helpful, it's dangerous, it's dangerous, right? If you want to start picking out verses to justify that stuff, then you're going to have to. And you want to bring those to me, pastor John, right, I've put on my pastor hat Like you're going to have to contend with a whole lot, because I'm going to come back to you with a whole lot of Bible that says you know, hey, they actually in many ways were way more honoring to children in the early in the near East and we see this reflected in, you know, palestinian culture around raising kids, arabic cultures around raising kids. You don't see the same types. I'm not trying to say one's better or worse, but you can actually see reflected the cultural sensitivity towards kids, western culture.
Speaker 2:There's a great book about this written by Stacey somebody. I can go grab it, but it's called Spare the Child. And there's a great book about how really hitting children is a Western invention and so understanding that that what you're bringing. Often we give you a quote and then we can kind of move on away from the text.
Speaker 2:But the famous author Rachel Held Evans, who's brilliant, she unfortunately passed away due to, like, some complications when she was very young, but she wrote several books, like in her early thirties, that are just transformative for people who are deconstructing from harmful religious paradigms, and in one of them I think it's the year of biblical womanhood. She she writes if you go to the Bible looking for passages to justify slavery, you will find them. If you go to the Bible looking for passages to justify slavery, you will find them. If you go to the Bible looking for passages to liberate, you will find them. If you go to the Bible looking for passages to disgrace women, you will find them. If you go to the Bible to look for passages to upheld women, you will find them. The question is not what does the Bible say. The question is what are you looking for?
Speaker 1:Yeah, reminds me is what are you looking?
Speaker 3:for yeah reminds me of data, like data manipulation.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say that it is. You can find data to kind of validate any parenting choice you make. And I've been talking to Sam about that a little bit. You know, I'm a journalist in the space and I have definitely noticed a media bias, because a lot of the people that I work with are really trying to kind of cherry pick and highlight research that validates their own choices that they've made as parents, and it doesn't always give you the most comprehensive picture of one. I think you know the body of research that's out there. And two, I think that as parents, we are not always going to have research to validate our choices, right. Sometimes choices are going to be based on individual circumstance. Sometimes they're going to have research to validate our choices, right. Sometimes choices are going to be based on individual circumstance, sometimes they're going to be emotional, sometimes they're gut. Yeah, sometimes it's based on what your kid needs, and I think that when we get so into research we lose a little bit of our child's individuality, I think to some degree.
Speaker 2:To some degree, I think, by and large, research has been, I think, if we have an open mind to receive it right. My good friend, dan McClellan, who's probably the big Bible the guy that all your Christian followers hate, he's the big Bible deconstructionist, he's the foremost Bible scholar on TikTok, that's kind of his thing. He just wrote a book recently came out, maybe a month ago. It was a New York Times bestseller called the Bible Says so, and his guiding analogy in that book is that the Bible is more like Legos than a rule book or than a Lego instructions, and so you can kind of put them together. The same thing is true with research. Often is that it's kind of like Legos. That said, I think that the research if you can do your best to approach it Another Bible here, word here, exegetically looking for what it's trying to tell you rather than what you're trying to manipulate it into saying yeah, writing Punishment-Free Parenting was that the research on punishment specifically, and fear-based discipline is almost hard to manipulate because it's so univocal and it's so universally accepted in psychological communities that punishment is an effective discipline.
Speaker 2:What's crazy is ask the mom that you go to mom's group with. Ask the dad on the golf course. You know they don't have any clue that nine out of 10 psychologists think that punishment doesn't work, and I just made up that statistic. But you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Can you tell us more about what you mean? Because people listening might not. You know know your content. People listening might not, you know, know your content. I know your content because I had a very difficult child initially like. But now, looking back, I was like I'm very difficult and now that I've my nervous system is regulated, we get along much, much better.
Speaker 2:Amazing how that works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I I remember watching your videos about punishment and I would not punish my child like at all. And Christmas, a couple of years ago my mother-in-law got up and left because he was throwing a tantrum and like she drove back to the city like on Christmas day, and so then we started. You know, we saw some of our friends who were doing punishment and you know, go to your room, all of that and it was working. My child at the time was walking in at three and yelling fuck you, mommy, nonstop, and so, like we, that that's where we were and it was, you know. Peer influence Obviously he learned that word at school. He doesn't know it now that we moved him schools, but I was very, very conscious about not punishing him. And then we did start doing timeouts because he was starting to get so violent, and then it corrected, but we're still pretty lenient in terms of punishments, and so I just want to hear your thoughts more. And you know what? What are your thoughts on punishment and timeouts and what do you do for your?
Speaker 3:kids when they walk in and you fuck you?
Speaker 1:They probably don't.
Speaker 2:But where it's not great right, where dysregulation happens, and sometimes that manifests as fuck you. Oftentimes it manifests as punching their brother, typically more, or slapping me in the face, and I still get triggered and I don't always respond perfectly in the moment you spike my nervous system. I'm going to put you down?
Speaker 1:What do you do when they slap you in the face?
Speaker 2:I put them down, yeah yeah, you like grab them and yeah, yeah, no, no no, no, no, like if I'm holding them and they slap me in the face, I just put them down, I just go. I can't hold you if you're gonna hit me, okay? What are your kids, john? I have an eight year old, I have a five year old, a three year old and a seven month old. So I have, I have a range, and you want to?
Speaker 1:stay at for a bit too right.
Speaker 2:Both me and my wife are both kind of stay-at-home, both kind of Self-employed. Yeah, I have two full-time jobs I work at a church and I'm obviously a whole parent, which is its own full-time job. And an author Right, I count that as being a whole parent.
Speaker 1:I count that as a third.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a kind of a third thing. And then my wife is a photographer, but it's still not zero hours, so we're both kind of at home, we're both kind of also working. So, just to kind of get back to what you said, I think when people say, well, but the punishment works right, I think that my main thing is to just get curious about that and say define work right. What do you mean? It works? Do you mean that it stops that behavior in your presence right now? Or or do you mean something different? Because oftentimes what parents mean when they say this punishment works is I no longer have to deal with that behavior in a given context? And it's not that my child learned. Why shouldn't I say fuck you, it's it's instead? Well, my child doesn't say that to me anymore.
Speaker 2:And if understand this, our children's survival instincts are so strong that if their primary caregiver makes them fear for their safety, they will stop doing certain things. But they don't know why they stop doing those things and they certainly don't learn that those things in and of themselves are problematic. All they learn is I shouldn't do this around mommy, because what happens is mommy doesn't like it and I don't like. When mommy doesn't like it. What happens is mommy doesn't like it and I don't like when mommy doesn't like it.
Speaker 2:So instead, what I offer to people is that that model of discipline winds up not actually teaching the life skills that we're looking for. And if you project out into the future, instead of saying, how do I get this behavior to stop at three, if you project out in the future and you say, what kind of life do I want my child to have at 33? You'll realize that the majority of punishments that parents leverage on their kids let's remove the ethics from it, right the majority of punishments that parents leverage on their kids are actually working against the goals that they have for their children at 33. Like, fundamentally, the thing that they want to control, their desire to control, to gain compliance, is not actually they don't want their kid to be compliant at 33.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And and, and you know, when I look at the population bias today, just to we want to dip our toe into the political realm. When I look at the population of bias, of people who seem all too quick to cry agency autonomy, personal freedom don't tread on me and yet who are so susceptible to authoritarian tendencies, so willing to acknowledge and immediately gain compliance, obedience, surrender all of their values on the altar of following what I see is people who have been formed, who have been conditioned to unequivocally obey the loudest, most brash, powerful. They will hurt me if they don't get what they want. Person in the room. And so you know, I don't think that it's a stretch to say we I'll put it this way when I started my membership, I have a membership of several hundred parents who who do like group coaching with me and they have access to a bunch of courses and stuff like that. When I started that membership my initial launch, before anybody had any reviews on it this is the first group of people who signed up I was really shocked that I had so many people from around the world. I was so. I was amazed. I had people from Africa and tons of people from Oceania, from Australia, new Zealand, but I had. Almost everybody came from English speaking countries, primarily English speaking countries, with some exceptions like South America, whatever, but a lot of English. And then one of the least English speaking countries as far as like per capita, like society, is not in English.
Speaker 2:Germany shows up at the top of my list. Yeah, all of these German dads. And when I asked why are you here, all of the German dad said because we've seen what happens when you insist on unquestioned obedience to authority and we don't want to raise our kids like that. So I don't think it's a stretch to say when we say punishment works, what do we mean by that? Do we gain short-term compliance? How many parents have heard if you're listening to this right now and you're a parent and you go every time I go to parent-teacher conferences, I hear about how my kid's a little angel. And then they come home and they tear up the house and they throw a tantrum on Christmas and they drive my mother-in-law out of the house. Right, you know what that says to me You're a great parent, right, right, there, that tells me you're a great parent. Why? Because they feel the freedom to express their deep need to assert themselves, to learn how to push back, to learn how to negotiate with the people who are most safe and supportive and secure. Instead, when I hear about parents who are like, well, I don't know what you're doing wrong at your school, because when my kids at home, they don't talk back, they don't say nothing to me. But now they're at school and they're tearing up the place and they're getting suspended and this and that yeah, because the teacher is more of a securely attached caregiver than you. Oh God, that's like a nightmare. They feel more secure to this person who has 25 other kids to care for, who's probably like 25 years old, than they do to you, because you have wrecked that relationship.
Speaker 2:So so when we say it works, does it work for making easier kids? Sure, but so does an iPad 24 hours a day, like that's not the goal of parenting. The goal is how do we raise kids who are going to be self-disciplined, who are going to be emotionally resilient, who are going to be emotionally intelligent, who are going to be thought leaders, who are going to be ethical human beings, who are going to be moral, who are going to be anti-fascist, whatever? Then, all of a sudden, you have to actually come and contend with the fact that punishment is actually hurting you. And here's the last piece, and I promise I'll shut up and you ask me more questions. The last piece is just because we feel like it works doesn't mean it's any fun.
Speaker 2:And the thing that I have found, or that that I the probably the the thing that I didn't, I wasn't ready for, is all of these dads who have read my book even people who are involved in the writing of my book, who read it early copies who said John, I didn't realize how much punishment punishing my kids was actually just punishing me, was making my relationship with my kid so confrontational and it's so much better now.
Speaker 2:And I didn't know that I could have a kid who came up to me and apologized for screaming fuck you. I didn't know that that was possible without making them feel sorry, like I didn't think that like this was going to work. But actually, after doing this stuff for two or three months, like, oh my God, I get a level of collaboration and cooperation. I get a level of, you know, perspective taking and empathy, even for their own parents. I get all that positive communication and relational capital with my kid. It's not like I have a kid who's just terrorizing me 24 hours a day, and I get it without having to feel like a dictator and a tyrant in my own home, which nobody wants to feel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you say it works, I've been thinking, like I've been sitting in my head thinking about everything you're saying right now because you're bringing up some questions. I'm like, yeah, that worked. But you know, what actually worked is when he was biting and hitting and doing all those things and our therapist was like you might have to get him evaluated if he's doing that at three, like he's way too old to be doing those, and I told him that and immediately it all stopped. I was like you're going to have to go to the doctor and get immediate, like get evaluated. Literally never happened again. Maybe sometimes I'll have a little slip up here and there specifically with me, but that actually, like you just challenged some of my own thinking that like the punishment worked. It was no light, it was being like, hey, this is you're going to have to go to the doctor because something might be wrong if you're behaving like this.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't even think. I don't even think it was necessarily that threat Right, I think a lot of it has to do with just curiosity. But like my second, second chapter of my book after chapter one, which kind of has to be, I don't really like chapter one of my book, can I? Can I confess that I don't love it? Chapter one is the problem with punishment and confess that I don't love it. Chapter one is the problem with punishment, and I don't like talking about what you shouldn't do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just think that it's generally counterproductive, right? Okay, great, john, so I'm not supposed to punish my kids. Well then, what the hell am I supposed to do? But I feel like you have to convince people to ditch punishment, because if you think that it's always in your back pocket, I'll put it this way If you think that, secretly, that actually works and like, yeah, you want to do gentle parenting because it's more fun, or where you want to be, like, more conscious because it's more fun, but ultimately, if I need to, I'll whip this out, you will eventually pull it out, and a kid who's punished ever is a kid who waits to be punished.
Speaker 2:Kids want to control their environment, which means that a kid will do something to gain that negative attention. The reason for that are they trying to like, do this to like, get like. Why are they doing this? Because they want to have control over their environment. They seem like they're seeking out the abuse because they. Because abuse that's predictable is less maladaptive than abuse that's unpredictable to a child's brain. So they will. They will do the thing. So so if you are punishing your kid, especially physically, like locking them in a room, understand.
Speaker 2:All punishment operates using pain. It's just what kind of pain? Do we want to use? Physical pain? Do we want to use social pain? Do we want to use emotional pain? All punishment uses pain. It's disciplined by means of pain, and so if you ever go to punishment to correct a behavior, your child will begin to wait for it. So then it will feel like it's the only thing that you can do, in the same way that if you yell at your kids constantly, they'll stop listening to you when you don't yell. So understand that. That's the piece. So I had to write chapter one. The problem with punishment, chapter two, is get curious, not furious. This is where the fundamental of all parenting begins, which is your kid's not giving you a hard time, they're just having a hard time. If your kid's biting and hitting, it's because they don't know what else to do. And so when you brought him in and said we need to get him evaluated, I almost guarantee that you started approaching hitting and biting differently, even if it was just subconscious.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When you were like is there something here that I need to help you with Versus? Why are you being such a little jerk?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And when you make that switch to what's going on instead of stop, otherwise I will on instead of stop, otherwise I will that switch in your own mind, in your own tone, in your own posture, shoulders slumped, questioning, angry, those subtle differences. Our kids' brains are wired to pick up on those, and when they can pick up on that. I'm guessing it had nothing to do with you saying, if we do this, then we're going to have to go to the doctor. It had to do with you internalizing If this doesn't change, that means there's something going on here.
Speaker 2:And the second, that you started looking at it from that perspective, what underlying need is not being met here that we have to hit and bite? Are you hungry, are you tired? Do you need more connection? Do you not know how to express your feelings? Do you need more activity? As soon as you started thinking in those terms, you probably started to subconsciously do things that allowed your child to feel safe and secure and to say, yeah, mommy, I don't know why I hit my bite. And and that a child who, who, who, who believes that you are on their team, working towards a shared mission and shared goal, is way more likely to work with you than a child who feels like you're in opposition to them, constantly trying to direct them, to force your will upon them. You know, instead of that.
Speaker 1:I stopped thinking like, as you're saying this, I'm like just thinking about what's going on politically. I live in California, so it's like you have dad and then you have our governor, and like I can't. I'm like, but it's like reversed.
Speaker 3:When you said that kids want to feel like you're on their side. I had a moment a few months ago with one of my kids where it was your classic, like we were at target and they wanted something, and there was a tantrum and I looked at my kid and I was like, hey, I'm on your side and it was just like this yeah, like the eyes light up, like the tantrum kind of calmed for a second and we kind of, you know, got to a resolution together.
Speaker 3:But I've been using that a lot since that moment because it was just like, let me use that that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, think about. One of the things that I encourage parents to do is to think about how they want to be communicated with by a partner, by a boss, by a colleague, by a consultant. Right, do you want to be degraded, dressed down, forced, threatened, coerced, bribed, even? Right, like a lot of parents go. Well, like gentle parenting is just saying like I'll give you candy if you do it. Like no, it's not because, like, you don't want. Like if your partner came to you and said you know, if you pick up milk on the way home, I'll do the dishes. Ew, right, like, like, I mean like, how about just, can you pick up milk on the way? Like how about just collaboration? Hey, I couldn't do this. So, so instead you look at that and you go, oh, yeah, man, if I had most parents come to this realization and they realized if I had a boss who treated me like I treat my kids, I would quit. Like. If I had a boss who treated me like I treat my kids, I would quit. Like. If I had a boss who, just every single time, I was like hey, can I do this, can I do this? Oh, I can have this innovative way to do this. They were just like no, stop it. Like they would be like I'm out If they had a partner who is constantly like if you do that one more time, you know more time. You know what? I can't even talk to you when you're so emotional. Figure out a better way to say that.
Speaker 2:Stop throwing a tantrum. Can you imagine If you came home and you were I mean, my wife was ticked. I screwed up a project for the backyard Total, honest mistake. I measured something, measured twice, cut once. I measured once, cut once and it was bad. Actually cut twice because I measured because of the way how bad it was. Like I cut twice because I measured how bad it was. I really screwed up.
Speaker 2:Had she been like John, this really sucks and I'd have been like can you not throw a tantrum right now, jessica, can you just stop throwing such a tantrum? I can't understand you when you talk like this. Ew, so just talk to your kids like you want to be spoken to and what do you want to hear? You want to hear somebody say hey, I'm on your side, you go to your boss and you go. Hey, I want to do this and they go. Yeah, I know, I actually want that for you too. I'm on your side.
Speaker 2:Let's get you that next one. Let's do it this way this week. Let's figure out a better way to do that next one. Let's do it this way this week. Let's figure out a better way to do that next week, because I think that's a great idea. Or you know what? I've been doing this a long time. I see why you think that's a great idea. I used to think that was a great idea too. Actually, if we do it that way, it's not going to work out because of X, y and Z. Great thought, though. Keep coming to me with your ideas. Every kid just wants to be treated and respected, and it's amazing how quickly that can change the parent-child dynamic.
Speaker 1:Did you raise all? I mean? I know you have a seven-month-old, so you're currently raising it this way, but did you start this and have you raised all your children this way, or was there a fundamental shift at some point?
Speaker 2:I started early. I wouldn't say that I even do this all the time, perfectly right.
Speaker 1:Well, nobody's perfect.
Speaker 2:Right. So one of the things that I think, one of the really positive things about the book, one of the things that people come back to me over and over and say they really appreciate about my work, is that I'm totally transparent, that like, maybe do this 70% of the time, that would be pretty generous to myself, totally scream. But we just got like this cheap outdoor pool and I'm having to figure out like pool chemicals and stuff for the first time my three-year-old has so many impulse control problems Like so sensory seeking, chewing on stuff. Bit through a glow stick yesterday Like just took that kid Bit through it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Just got up that kid.
Speaker 2:That kid right and I'm like don't touch immediately he just can't, he just can't help it.
Speaker 2:Takes it out, drops the chlorine tablet into the pool, like just so, bad right. I screamed at him like I am so that guy, when I'm just like I just told you not, you know what I mean. And then I apologized like I was like you know, I don't need to yell you like that's, I know it's really frustrating. I'm telling you, we got this new thing and so I did it. Sometimes I do it after the fact, in other words, but I started early because my oldest was hard.
Speaker 2:My oldest challenged me. He's highly sensitive. He's very oldest child in many ways. He's very slow to do things. Both me and my wife are youngest, so we're more like you know my way and also like kind of run headlong into stuff. He like was afraid to put his head under the water until he was five, and so he. But you know what the nice thing was being highly sensitive, he never let me get away with bad parenting. So with my next oldest, who's now five, if I shame or yell at him, I get compliance, and so it feels like it works. If I yell at my eight-year-old, it just pours gas on the fire, and so I've learned not to. I've learned that it doesn't really work in the longterm, and so I've been trained he's trained me to be a better dad, but I have yeah, with all four sought to do this more often than not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. Zara, are you the young? No, you're an only child, I'm an only child.
Speaker 1:I'm an only child but, like I was raised with step, like brothers, and also I have six half siblings that I wasn't raised with. So my husband and I are technically like youngest and I'm like only child, and our son same way highly sensitive and just as like run us. They do make you a better person, though, where you're like, oh, I have to, I have to get this under control. We started something that you're going to hate and I am curious your thoughts on it, because I know a lot of parents do this so, and maybe even some parents who are listening. So a therapist just a mom friend of ours told us to start using tokens that they can earn if they have good behavior, and they can, you know, watch TV and we won't let.
Speaker 1:So I've started doing tokens where he can buy stuff with them if we get out the door on time, and he can trade in his tokens for gold tokens and then get a Tony.
Speaker 2:So I'm curious your thoughts on it from a brain perspective, yeah, like a developmental psych perspective. So here's why rewards sometimes work and why they sometimes don't.
Speaker 1:They don't always work. I will tell you that even the tokens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not surprising, so so. So let's start with the positive. Sometimes kids just do not have any internal motivation to do a thing, and providing external motivation can get them more on your team to get that thing done. And so I understand and especially with kids, there's the research into neurodivergent kids is that it's hard for them to project out how they will feel or if they will feel satisfied by doing a given task or doing a thing in a certain way, and so for them there is a reward chart tokens, whatever where you can make a case that it's not terrible.
Speaker 2:I read this book a while back by one of my favorite parenting authors. The guy is hard to read because he is really tough on parents. Really great guy Met him. He was on my podcast, my last episode, the finale of my season two, which just means that I ran out of ideas and so I stopped recording. He was on that and his name is Alfie Cohn. He wrote this book called Punished by Rewards, where he talks about how the reason that the other side of that coin is that we actually remove all motivation from a child when we reward a given behavior, and so if it's something like getting out the door or doing chores or whatever. I'm not going to say like, like you're going to have a much more sympathy for me in saying every parent is doing the best they can and if that's working for you today, like you can go ahead with it, then parents who start to do the whole like pay your kids to get good grades, pay your kids to read books.
Speaker 1:Oh, is that something people do?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, big time. And that's where or even like, just kind of abstractly reward your kid for good behavior. The reason why that rubs me from the neuroscience perspective in the wrong way is that you actually are robbing your kid of something, which is you're robbing them of the internal motivation, which is you're robbing them of the internal motivation. What we know is that when we tell people, for example, hey, your grade is going to be based on, like, if you make a thousand pieces of pottery, you're going to get an A, no matter what. If you make a hundred, you're going to get an A, no matter what. Versus we're going to grade the best piece of pottery that you make.
Speaker 2:We know that that number one the person who made a thousand pots made the best pot. Right, quantity over quality just takes reps. Number two the person who made a thousand pots and got an A, no matter how many they made, goes on to have a future with pottery as a hobby and or job. The person who was viciously critiqued for their one pot never wants to do that again. Because it was such, because the only reason to do it was for that incentive, and once the incentive is removed, their brain literally does not get the same amount of dopamine anymore out of that positive experience. And so this is why you know, when you reward kids for certain things, that's. My only hesitation is I go, am I trading some? You know, ease, getting out of the house right now, or or you know, just short term, hey, this is easier for me right now, which I get, like I have definitely like given my kid a lollipop to get him to shut up, like I've done it, like I don't don't hear me judging it at all.
Speaker 1:I don't feel judged.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I do it, I'm not at all. I've definitely done it, that's it. When I do it, I realize, hey, you know what I've got to be honest here. I'm trading short-term compliance for long-term skill development and as long as we're naming that like I'm trading short-term compliance for long-term skill development, then I think we'll probably make the best choices long-term. Again, this is about. Parenting is as a marathon, not a sprint sound, about being perfect one day. It's about being pretty good for five days out of the week, 50 or 40 weeks out of the year. That's great parenting and then repairing when you screw up. So that's what I would If it was me.
Speaker 2:With the tokens, I'm looking at the things that they're getting tokens for and I'm going where's the internal motivation in these things? And can I try and motivate them in a different way? You want to be their consultant, not their boss. So you follow a boss because either they pay you lots of money or because you're afraid to get fired. Right, you follow a consultant because you paid them. You follow a consultant because you have learned over time that this person is so valuable to you that it would be crazy to not take their advice. When people pay for calls with me. They take my advice and the reason why is because they've said I trust this person. But am I doing anything really different than a boss would do of telling them here here's what you should do?
Speaker 1:No, I'm not really, but it might be that internal thing, like your shoulders, but the context is totally different.
Speaker 2:The context is totally different, and so be the type of parent who sees themselves not as the hero of your child's story, but as the guide, not as the boss of your child's life, but as their consultant. Ultimately, they're responsible. They are going to suffer long-term from their misbehavior. They are going to. They are going to suffer long-term from from their misbehavior. They're going to suffer long-term from an inability to do their chores when they're independent someday at 20. Like, they're the ones who are going to have to actually experience the consequences of this stuff. Be the parent who goes. I just want to help you avoid these consequences, not the parent who goes. I just want to help you avoid these consequences. Not the parent who goes. I want to avoid consequences right now of your bad behavior.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I also think none of this exists in a vacuum, right? So, sam, if you're using reward tokens, I remember a few months ago there was all that discourse about how we shouldn't be hurrying our kids so much, we shouldn't be rushing them out the door.
Speaker 1:This is going to affect them negatively.
Speaker 3:It's also going to affect your kids negatively if you lose your job right and you can't put food on the table 100%, totally not grounded in any research, by the way.
Speaker 2:Yes yeah, so the don't hurry your kids. Why you shouldn't hurry your kids is because it's going to make the experience so much worse for you right now and maybe, maybe, maybe you're creating a kind of hostile dynamic between you and your kids and that matters for secure attachment. Hurrying your kids is not giving them anxiety. We know actually what gives kids anxiety. You want to know. I'll tell you. It's really easy. I read it in my book.
Speaker 2:Number one social media gives kids anxiety If they get it too early, that's for sure. Number two not having enough age appropriate autonomy gives kids anxiety. So you actually want to, you know, not have your kid have anxiety. Don't tell them to fear everything in the world all the time just because you are afraid of everything in the world all the time. And three we know that certain performance rewards give people anxiety, like school no, I don't want to say it but like a culture around standardized testing, a culture around grades. I'm a grade abolitionist. Just get rid of all the grades. It's totally so like, yeah, so the culture of, of, of constant surveillance of our kids. I split it that into always having adult led performance driven things Right. So, instead of your kids playing pickup baseball at the, at the field with their friends and just kind of like Sandlot style, trying to figure it out. Everybody's on a team and you're doing drills with a coach. The more we do the latter and the less we do the former, the more we create anxiety. So those are the actual things.
Speaker 1:Well, also resources, right.
Speaker 2:Not having food, not having shelter, not having parents yes, stability, parents yes, stability, yes, and and those things go into the neuro, like the neuro anatomical, where lack of resources, violence in the home, yeah, anything that attributes to a high a score, right, which is adverse childhood experiences, anything that gives you a high a score, literally has physical damaging effects on your brain. I hesitate to call it brain damage because I don't want people to get the wrong like create a correlation between this and a traumatic brain injury, but it literally changes the physical anatomy of your brain and, yes, kids with that experience also are far more susceptible to anxiety and depression. But, short of making sure that your kids have their basic needs met, and making sure that they're not.
Speaker 2:It's exactly what I talk about in my book.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I feel like I've been peppering you with questions. I am really curious about your relationship with your wife and how that's been with four kids, and especially after the first one. Yeah, I'm just curious how has your relationship changed? How has it strengthened or not? I know you guys are in the thick of it with a seven month old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think I think it's made us both more empathetic people and humble people and I think that that always is net positive for your relationship. I have a great relationship with my wife because I've always focused on that. To be honest, I've always prioritized that. A lot of the same things that make me a good parent are things that make me a good partner, and that includes owning it when you mess up and apologizing, and that includes just kind of being a decent human being listening, active listening, not trying to fix right. These are just things that make us good partners.
Speaker 2:Caring about physical, emotional needs. On Sunday my wife had to go to a photo shoot and it's Sunday afternoons like the worst time for her to do photo shoots, because we're emotionally drained from being in church and stuff in the morning and it's a whole thing. And my wife is like trying to get out of the house and like do I have my camera dial and stuff? I just made her lunch. I said here's a PB&J. It was not elaborate, it was like PB&J and like some Chex Mix, I'm sure like all the food diet. People are going to jump up in the comments, right, and they'll be like I'm terrible and I gave them like PB&J, here's a plate, Take it Like. That's the type of stuff that makes you yeah, being a parent can make you see your partner in a different light in that way, If you allow it to. And also you know, physical intimacy is harder when there's four kids around.
Speaker 1:It's hard when there's one.
Speaker 2:Right, and so there's also aspects of like. It is challenging. We don't go on vacation just us two. You know, date nights are rare because we are very kind of fiercely protective of our kids' relationship with us and so they don't have a lot of time where they're like with other caregivers other than us, which is not always great. It's probably one of our shortcomings we were talking about last night. Our kids don't feel as securely attached to other adults, which we know would be good for them. So so I think like all of that at the same time.
Speaker 2:Just as far as like the gentle parenting, like I was the one who had to get on board with the stuff, not her, she, she wants, she, she like her reaction to her upbringing, which I won't share her details, but her reaction to her upbringing was that this felt intuitive to her and this was like when she read a whole brain child, which is like the best parenting book. When she read that book she was like, yeah, great tips, but I knew that this was how I should treat my kids. She defaulted to respect and dignity with kids. So understanding that she just kind of intuited a lot of this stuff made her a really great mom and me catching up. Not only does that make me a great communicator about this stuff, because I was convinced, like my instinct is not to do that right.
Speaker 2:It's harder to convince somebody to change when you have not gone through that change, but I have, and so that you already said you know this happened pretty early on for me, so it wasn't like I had to redo a bunch of bad patterns. My parents did a really great job raising me by and large too, so I didn't have to, you know, deal with. There is an aspect absolutely of you write a book about parenting and you say we need to parent differently than we were parenting. Your mom doesn't always look at that the best way, right, but my parents did, by and large, a really great job, and so they even gave me the tools to be able to say we're not going to be perfect. So, yeah, I hope that that kind of roundabout answers that question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're telling us we should talk to Jessica Sounds?
Speaker 2:like she is the. You wouldn't catch her, you wouldn't. We have a children's book coming out in April of next year. I've not talked about it at all, but yeah, so she's an artist, so she's a photographer and has done some illustration, and now this is her breakout as an illustrator. But we were talking about the press tour for our children's book, which is just all emotional regulation techniques, and it's a picture book, though, so kids and parents can do it together. And I was like, yeah, you're going to be on all these podcasts with me. She was like, no, she's the introvert. Yeah, she could do it, she's actually really, really good at it, but she's just like I'll just watch the kids, you go talk. You go talk about our book.
Speaker 1:I have learned so much from kids. Books about emotional regulation Like our favorite series in our house is like the good egg, the sour grape, like those. I forget who writes them, but it's. I always read them and I'm like, oh man, I like these are so helpful and we have a lot about emotions and just like trying new things and I'm like, oh, there's so much you can learn from children's books. I know that sounds so cheesy, but especially like new ones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some good ones out there. Now Corey Dorfeld, I think is their name, wrote one called the Rabbit Listens Recently. This is like a last in the last 12 months this has come out. Read it with my three-year-old last night. This is the best book that every parent should read. It's just about it's a kid. Framing is that there's a kid who has a huge, disappointing, frustrating thing happen and all these animals parade in and try and tell him how to respond, and the last one is the rabbit, and the rabbit doesn't say anything. The rabbit just sits. And when last one is the rabbit, a rabbit doesn't say anything. The rabbit just sits. And when the kid is ready, the kid goes through all of their feelings and I think if most parents could just learn to be like the rabbit and just listen, probably be and most partners probably be, a lot better off. So that's a good one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll check it out. I'm really good at listening. It's so hard.
Speaker 3:Not to my husband, I find it so hard when you can tell something's bothering your kid, especially after school, to not be like what happened. Did someone do something? Are you upset? It's so hard but I need to work on that. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:But I need to work on that. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of writing, you recently wrote an op-ed about kind of authoritarianism and punishment. I know we don't have a lot of time so I want to touch on kind of your thoughts on what's going on and how that relates to punishment in the political sphere.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So yeah, I wrote something.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it'll get published anywhere, but it'll get published on your sub stack at some point, though, If you know like yeah, if it doesn't get published anywhere, it'll get published in my sub stack.
Speaker 2:We will read it. Yeah, good, good, good plug, for, yeah, I do have a sub stack. I just launched it last week and I've been very grateful. I already have over 150 paying subscribers and it's because it's because I give away so much on their like, I have an emotional one thing.
Speaker 2:One great criticism of the whole parent platform is that I'll make any money Like I don't make half as much, a quarter as much, a 10th as much as most people my size and with my type of platform will make. Our family lives a very humble life and I don't make a lot of money, and part of that is that I don't like selling stuff. So Substack has been this beautiful thing where I have like a $25, $27, whatever it's called emotional regulation game guide which is worth every cent of $29. I mean, it will get you out of 90% of tantrums. All right, I'm gonna go buy it In a fun way. Well, you don't have to. So I hate selling it. So I just put it up on my sub stack. If you pay for my sub stack, you get that too. So five bucks a month and you can get all of my best resources there.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I do have a membership but, again, I don't open it up for enrollment nearly as much. So, yeah, so what I was writing about is in the current state of politics. Obviously, the crux of my writing is about parenting, but there is an aspect of just how punishment affects the brain and I kept my book really tight in saying I'm not going to go into criminal justice and I'm not going to go into policy, and I'm not going to go into politics, policy and I'm not going to go into politics. That said, there is absolutely a conversation to be had and that's what I did, that's what I'm trying to do around why we have a cultural obsession with punishment, and it goes way beyond parenting. It goes into how we view, like I said, criminal justice, how we view incarceration right. All of our kind of law and order type practices are built on this idea that we should control, often through violent means, other people.
Speaker 2:Raid happened in San Diego, or I guess I shouldn't say the first, but a large raid, a very public raid, happened on an Italian restaurant, like Friday night at five o'clock, and what struck me in that? Just for the context of this. You can go look it up. The response was that, like tons of community members, tried their best to interfere with this ICE raid, and it was one of the first that I had seen so public, where ICE officials all showed up faces completely covered, no discernible uniform, with crazy force just right away. And what struck me being there physically but also not with a raid but in the town where it was happening and doing this work on punishment is how reminiscent this is about how we try and treat our kids and how these authoritarian parenting practices are the same type of authoritarian political moves that kind of these dictator type people attempt strong man type dictators try and try and enact. And so this idea that, like you know, it's not just about meeting some sort of deportation quota which is its own ethical, you know thing that we can talk about, it was we want to do this at five o'clock during dinner rush, in a place, you know, a stone's throw from the border. We want to terrorize because if we terrorize effectively enough, it will lead to behavior change.
Speaker 2:And, of course, what happens doesn't change any behavior. What it does is it incites rebellion. So, in the same way we're, like you know, nip it in the bud, come after your kids. Type person, type parent often will fight. What they'll receive by means of their teenager. The behavior doesn't go anywhere, it just goes underground, right. So if you punish and punish and punish your kid for underage drinking, you punish and punish and punish your kid for sneaking out, it doesn't work. What happens is they just get better at hiding it from you that's me, and in fact they're more likely to do it. This is why, when you get two speeding tickets, you don't slow down, you buy a radar detector. And this is what we fundamentally misunderstand about punishment is that it actually often incentivizes the very behaviors that we are trying to disincentivize. And so not only did these ICE officials not really learn their lesson and conduct even more public raids right Again, this kind of performative cruelty, whatever you believe about immigration. And so this performative cruelty designed to try and kind of force into submission a population.
Speaker 2:Then, when the community rose up and said, no, we're going to protest this. What were they met with? Well, we're going to militarize the National Guard. Or we're going to federalize the National Guard? Well, we're going to send in Marines. We're going to protest this. What were they met with? Well, we're going to militarize the National Guard or we're going to federalize the National Guard? Well, we're going to send in Marines.
Speaker 1:We're going to put your governor in jail.
Speaker 2:We're going to put your governor in jail, we're going to shoot, we're going to shoot a reporter with rubber bullets, like, like, this type of stuff, this type of like we are going to meet this chaos with more chaos is exactly what parents do and it totally fails. But why are we surprised that this is the type of authoritarian instinct that government officials have, when this is the type of authoritarian instinct that so many parents have? Like this is this is not like. That was what I wanted to communicate. Is that like our instinct to punish? This obsession with punishment is. This is why we are where we are. This is why we cannot have nuanced conversations about any of this stuff. This is why protesters take to the streets multiple times a year, and good on them for trying to push back against this kind of, you know, punitive, these punitive measures. This is why we in the United States lock up, per capita, far more people than anyone other than Russia in the world. Right, like this is. This is the fruit of what this kind of authoritarian, punitive mindset is.
Speaker 2:We are going to keep seeing this, and and, over and over, until we begin to question the underlying assumption that punishment is a good way to discipline, to change behavior, to teach people. We are going to keep getting this. What we know is that the severity of a prison sentence has no effect on recidivism. We know that if you lock somebody up for 25 years for possession, that they are just as likely to go out and get locked up for possession again. The only thing that seems to impact recidivism is education and rehabilitation, and so until we start realizing that discipline is not punishment, it is about teaching, we will continue down this path, not only with our kids. Not only will we see a continued rise of all of the problems that we see within society relating to kids, we will also see continually our society degrade into a more and more punitive place, a place where, by the way, none of us wants to live. Yeah, we will not solve our problems through punishment, because this is we have our problems because of punishment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Normally we ask what your advice like, what advice you would give a parent.
Speaker 1:I feel like you just did it, but I'm going to ask you anyway if you have a best friend who's going to have a kid, because that I think what you just said is like the best advice Discipline is about teaching, not punishing. I think that is like my takeaway that I'm going to take away from this. But what advice would you give a parent who, like your best friend, comes to you? They just got pregnant. What would you tell them for advice?
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's a good one. You know what? Nobody's asked me in that way, because usually it's. You know what would you tell a person who's struggling? But a person who just like, just became? Honestly, I probably wouldn't tell them anything.
Speaker 1:But they're coming to you because my husband did the same. He told his best friend don't take advice from anyone and his best friend was like no, that's not the advice I want. Tell me something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you don't want to answer that, can you break down? I mean, rather than punishing, how do you deal with some of those tough moments like the hitting or the biting Sure?
Speaker 2:sure, sure, sure. So I mean, this is basically the advice that I would give them.
Speaker 1:Right, it would be read, read my book I did the homework for you, okay I did the homework for you and we'll link it in the show notes yeah, please just read the book, because because audiobook too.
Speaker 2:You have audiobook, yeah, okay, I think that's where my parents are gonna read and I read it and I cared, I cared a whole lot about reading it, because I consume the majority of the books that I that I read via audio of young kids and so I didn't just do an audio book, I really sold out for it.
Speaker 2:Four pillars of parenting this is exactly chapters two, three, four and five of my book. Curiosity you have to understand that behaviors are communication. You get curious about them. You're going to be a lot better off than just trying to play whack-a-mole.
Speaker 2:Number two model whatever you want to see mirrored, our kids are first and foremost observational learners. You don't want your kid to be a jerk. Stop being a jerk. You don't want your kid to treat that population of people that way. Do as I say, not as I do, has never, ever worked. It's monkey, see, monkey do. That's how we live, that's how we work. Do what you want your kid to do.
Speaker 2:Number three there are a place for consequences, but consequences must be enacted with long-term discernment. Like is the consequence warranted? Is it like, are you reactive in this moment? Are you ready to teach, you know? Is it associated with whatever you're doing? Is it proportional? I have this whole thing. But there is a place for consequences. You're not going to just let everything go, but your consequences have to be effective, because punishment doesn't work. And last, effective boundaries allow for autonomy, and the more autonomy that you can give your kid, the better your parenting experience is going to be. And so I'm not saying don't have boundaries. I'm saying have great boundaries and be willing to adjust them when necessary so that you can give your kid the maximum amount of freedom and you're going to have a lot easier time as a parent.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going to say something like get on the daycare wait list as your advice.
Speaker 2:None of my kids have ever. You know what I love giving advice about daycare, but none of my kids have ever been in daycare, so I feel a little bit like-.
Speaker 3:Are they homeschool?
Speaker 2:One of my oldest goes to forest school halftime. How fun. But yeah, my next book someday will be about the problems with education. Most of what I'm saying about punishment you can directly apply to education, but we don't have time for that today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I know we're at time. But the other question that we always ask are you want to take it?
Speaker 3:What is a part of parenthood that has brought you unexpected joy?
Speaker 2:Just learning from my kids, Can I? Can I say that it's kind of?
Speaker 3:a cop-out answer.
Speaker 2:That's a great answer Learning from my kids brings me the most joy 37.
Speaker 3:I finally learned how to throw a baseball, thanks to my son, so I get it.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 1:Well thank you. Thank you so much for being on here. I feel like we could talk for hours and hours and hours and I have so many questions, but yes, go buy his book.
Speaker 2:If you're not, if you're listening and not seeing it, we will link it in the show notes so that you know where to buy it and thank you so much. No, if you're looking.
