I saw my friend the other day, asked “How are you doing?” and he said: “I’m trying to be a better parent.” What a cool answer!

The quip alone speaks volumes about his desire to do the best he can, and his self-awareness as he makes his best effort to raise toddlers. We ended up having a whole conversation about parenting as he began self-reflecting and spoke about patterns from his own childhood, his desire to avoid undesirable ones and model favorable ones, and how his peers kept him in check with great effectiveness. I told him I’d email him my all-time favorite parenting article, “The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids: How Not to Talk To Your Kids”, and share my favorite insights about parenting young ones, as my kids are now 26 and 24, and this conversation ended up being the inspiration for today’s episode.

It doesn’t matter how old your kids are—there are great takeaways for all parents in this show (as well as prospective parents) about things like overparenting and the importance of observing cultural norms and perhaps choosing to do things your way, instead of merely following others, while still acknowledging that some circumstances require a very delicate balance (like “helping” your kids with their homework or college admission essays). I also discuss the idea that we actually have less influence than we think on our kids destiny, why it is more effective to praise the effort they make, rather than the results they receive, and the importance of realizing that while we do have a distinct ability to screw our kids up, their positives and successes will largely be self-directed.

TIMESTAMPS:

To learn how to parent, we look at what we learned in our own childhood….what was good and what was not so good. [00:56]

It seems like kids are over-parented these days. [03:54]

These days if a kid gets a B in high school, their chances of being accepted at university are slim. [07:06]

Commercials during the Olympics showed different attitudes from parents regarding sports. Never give up on finding what you love. [08:56]

Parents have way less influence than we think on our kids’ destiny. [12:54]

Give the kids opportunities and then stand back. [15:45]

You do not really need to praise results. You praise effort toward improvement. [20:25]

Be like your kid’s traffic cop. [27:11]

The kids can possibly be involved in the decision-making regarding rules and consequences. [30:47]

LINKS:

• Brad Kearns.com
• Brad’s Shopping page
• B.rad When Protein Isolate Superfuel
• B.rad Superfruits
• The Inverse Power of Praise
• Mindset

LISTEN:

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TRANSCRIPT:

Brad (00:00):
Welcome to the B.rad podcast, where we explore ways to pursue peak performance with passion throughout life without taking ourselves too seriously. I’m Brad Kearns, New York Times bestselling author, former number three world-ranked professional triathlete and Guinness World Record Masters athlete. I connect with experts in diet, fitness, and personal growth, and deliver short breather shows where you get simple, actionable tips to improve your life right away. Let’s explore beyond the hype, hacks, shortcuts, and sciencey talk to laugh, have fun and appreciate the journey. It’s time to B.rad.

Brad (00:38):
Parents have way less influence than we think on our kids’ destiny. This means you can give your ego a rest. Do your best every day, dispense unconditional love and give them all the support they need for their own journey but

Brad (00:56):
I saw my friend the other day, I said, how you doing? He says, I’m trying to be a better parent. What a cool answer. I think the comment alone speaks volumes about his interest, his passion, his desire to do the best he can, the self-awareness that he’s fighting the battle every step of the way. And, being self-reflective. I thought it was really cool. And so we got to talking about the wonderful concept of parenting, and I thought I’d do a whole show on it. He’s trying to raise toddlers right now, so, um, different perspective than I have with my, both my kids in their mid twenties adults. And, one of the things he mentioned was the patterns that he learned from his own childhood and his desire to avoid the undesirable experiences that he had. And, also to model the positive stuff that he felt was good that he received as a kid from his parents.

Brad (01:59):
He remembers how, how effective it was for his peers to keep him in check. He was a high school football player in the big time, Texas five A football scene. And he recalls that if a player acted up in class, the teacher would say, I’m going to inform your coach about your misbehavior. What a cool overall dynamic school community to have these things in place. But anyway, if a football player acted up, the coach would be informed, then it would come to practice, and the coach would say, due to the <laugh>, behavior report from one of the players here, you guys are all gonna run laps until you puke in the hot Texas sun. And then after the practice, uh, the full practice was over after the, uh, the punishment session, there would be some, uh, reinforcement in the locker room where the offender would hear about it from the biggest, strongest players on the team.

Brad (02:54):
So with modern high sensitivity hazing concerns aside, you can see how that whole dynamic worked very well to have very well-behaved high school football players, uh, very quickly, everybody toeing the line thanks to that, uh, peer influence. Um, what I told him, uh, during our conversation with us, I was going to email him my favorite parenting article of all time. It’s titled, The Inverse Power of Praise, How Not to Talk To Your Kids. And it was published in New York Magazine in 2007. It honors the great work of Stanford researcher, Carol Dweck, author of Mindset. And I’ll send a, uh, a link in the show notes to my blog article with my reflections on the article, as well as a link to the article. You can find the article easily if you Google it. We’ll also have that in the show notes.

Brad (03:54):
But honestly, I read the article when it came out in 2007, and I thought about it, or have thought about it virtually every single day from that point on, especially when I was in the midst of parenting my kids from youth ages into teenager, adolescent, and so forth. And, I just it really hit home with me. And there’s quite a bit of, uh, counterculture advice, controversial advice. So I’m gonna lay it on you and see what you think. But first, I, I wanted to also put together my, uh, my favorite or my most profound parenting insights, and we’ll discuss those in an organized fashion during the show. And my first one is that it seems like kids are over parented these days. What do you think? Yes, it’s good to reflect upon these things, especially when we compare and contrast to the ages past where the parents weren’t breathing down our neck so much.

Brad (05:00):
And it’s just sort of a, a, a change, an evolution of culture. Um, and if you just ignore it or just blindly forge ahead, you are going to follow the pack and the norms. And so what I told my friend is it’s really good to sit back and reflect and realize if that this is the age of over-parenting, maybe you can make a conscious decision to swim upstream against these norms if you feel like in your heart and in your philosophical base, that maybe there’s a better way which means, yeah, you do not have to help your kids with homework every single day. You don’t have to quote marks in the air, help your kid work on their college essay <laugh> to the extent that you’re sitting at the keyboard and the kid is looking over your shoulder. And it’s a very, uh, delicate balance.

Brad (05:55):
I think everybody would agree with these quips I’m making. But, when you get down to real life circumstances and the day-to-day decisions, I felt like it was a challenge to go against the cultural norms because if you kind of do the, the, the hands off parenting style of decades past, it’s very likely that your kid will fall behind this incredibly insane and competitive pace of what we’re seeing today with the competitiveness, uh, in every way in the world for, uh, a spot on the athletic team, or of course, the prized college admission. You know, when you, when you think about a big picture, homework seems kind of like a dumb idea these days when the kid is already in school for six hours a day, and we know conclusively that kids are not moving or exercising enough. And like Mark Bell said, the first kind of education should be physical education, but we have definitely put that aside and suppressed the importance of overall physical activity and an active lifestyle in favor of, in one example, academic rigor.

Brad (07:06):
So if your kid’s falling behind, you have a strong temptation to push them into the world of tutoring, or the Kuman Math Center where you can take your kid ostensibly after school for more math practice if they happen to be falling behind. It seems kind of ridiculous. But then when you look at the reality and realize that if your kid receives a B in any class in high school, they are very likely removing themselves from selection into the most popular University of California admissions. That’s right. The average GPAs are so far above, it’s 4.3, 4.5, 4.2 average. If you receive even a single B in high school, you will remove yourself from that selection pool. And that’s happening right around us. It’s crazy, it’s amazing, but it is happening. And these are fine, affordable universities that are very selective and prestigious to get into.

Brad (08:02):
So you don’t wanna mess around if that’s what the kid’s goal. We’ll talk about that further, um, and how the kid’s natural destiny is the thing that’s really gonna come out. But, um, yeah, it becomes a, a challenging thing to realize and shake your head and scoff at the, the pace and the competitiveness, but it is what it is. And, uh, the same for sports. I realized when my kid was in fifth grade, and he was having a great time excelling in the local community basketball league, and almost to the point of being frustrated that it wasn’t a competitive enough experience for him. And I said, okay, we have to go throw you to the wolves now and sign up for the youth basketball track. And if you’re familiar with that, just like in many other sports like gymnastics and swimming and competitive soccer, it’s very, very rigorous, very intense, starting at a young age.

Brad (08:56):
And that is the track that pretty much your kid is compelled to participate in if they even want to get a spot on the court, come high school, or let alone a dream of a college opportunity. So I kind of gritted my teeth and, um, uh, every step of the way tried to, um, uh, you know, nuance, the overall vibe and experience by injecting my, you know, freewheeling and fun-loving attitude into the high intensity competitive circumstances. But, whew, it’s, um, it’s a tough choice. I really appreciated during the Olympic coverage, watching the very clever and highly regarded commercial from Hyundai. You might see it, but what they’re showing is a series of parent child interactions, obviously while driving to sports practice or driving home with the car getting that cool product placement. Uh, but the conversations they were showing were kids having a kind of a tough time in their sports and the parent, saying things like, I really want you to be happy and find what you love.

Brad (10:07):
Another one was, Hey, maybe it’s time to take a break break as the kid’s driving home from yet another frustrating sporting experience. So really off the track of what we usually see, especially in commercial settings. So we see the gymnasts falling and struggling, then little wrestler kid getting mangled in practice, and then driving home with the parent and receiving these supporting, loving, gentle comments. And then the final frame comes up with the tagline for the commercial, and it says on the screen, never give up. Then there’s a beat, then there’s a beat, and then they finish the presentation. Never give up on finding what you love. Uh, I read further about the commercial and what the advertising world thought about it. Here’s a little quote from an article. Hyundai’s campaign stands in stark contrast to those from other Olympic sponsors. Nike recently unveiled a highly anticipated summer games ads, which dig into the ruthless drive it takes to win commercials.

Brad (11:08):
Narrated with relish by Willem Defoe typically list negative qualities that are nevertheless shared by many sporting greats, including an obsession with power, an inability to be satisfied, and a lack of care for others’ feelings. Woo. So we are programming this into the brains of parents and kids. We’ve been doing it for decades. I made some extensive comments on another show about how, although I love Kobe Bryant and I love Tiger Woods, um, they have gone over the top so many times and embellished their, um, you know, their, their training protocols and things simply for the purpose of perhaps feeding their ego or intimidating their other competitors. And I was talking about how Tiger said that he ran eight miles a day twice a day as one of his quips. And I’m like, Nope, sorry, you didn’t, pal. So why would you tell the world something that’s not true?

Brad (12:02):
Same with Kobe, frequently going on about how if he finds out his competition is waking up at 5:00 AM to train hard, he’ll simply wake up at 4:00 AM or 3:00 AM if necessary, and it’s blather and it’s nonsense, and I don’t like it, and I’m calling it out. And again, many of those winning qualities that we see from the great legends, the most competitive people like Michael Jordan and Kobe, are in that category of worth second guessing. So, great job by Hyundai to say to the kids and the parents, you know what, it is okay to quit. It’s okay to quit in the middle of the season. It’s okay to quit after dedicating, uh, hours and hours for years and years to your swimming career. And then say, yeah, I’m over this and I wanna do something else. All right? So never give up on finding what you love.

Brad (12:54):
That’s the section about over-parenting, breathing down the kid’s neck, choosing into these cultural norms instead of taking a beat and thinking about, do I really have to do this? Um, and related to that is would be my, probably my biggest takeaway of all. Now that my kids are in the adult scene and reflecting back, my biggest takeaway is that parents have way less influence than we think on our kids’ destiny. This means you can give your ego a rest, do your best every day, dispense unconditional love, and give them all the support they need that, uh, that they need and, and deserve for their own journey. But the main realization that we need to, uh, get here is that we have a distinct and powerful ability to screw them up, but their positives and their successes are going to be and must be largely self-directed in order for them to be a happy, well-adjusted content, adult human beings, right?

Brad (13:59):
You can probably, uh, drive a kid to the brink and have them excel in the competitive, uh, world by pushing the crap out of them and breathing down their neck and looking over their shoulder every step of the way. Um, but I don’t know if that’s really a desirable outcome, if you really want to reflect on it. So the kids’ success and their drive is going to be largely self-directed. Remember that great quot from Wayne Gretzky, when a parent came up to him and, uh, asked, Hey, Wayne, um, uh, how can I get my, uh, little budding hockey superstar, uh, to practice more? Do you have some suggestions? And Wayne Gretzky answered the parent, uh, no one ever had to tell me to practice more. Ha So the kid is going to pursue their natural destiny with the parent having less influence than you think.

Brad (14:51):
So, sit down, take a deep breath, and really reflect on my comments here. Uh, I wanna give you an example of my younger sister, Kathleen. She ended up to be valedictorian at Yale University. That was her natural destiny, didn’t happen to be her brothers <laugh>, but good for her. But along the way, I want to report that no one pushed her. No one even incentivized her. No one looked over her shoulder to check on her work. Of course, they didn’t, they wouldn’t have. No one was going on with that advanced math. And no one even had to lavish effusive praise upon her for every accolade that she received along the way. She was just following her own destiny. She had a passion, she had a drive, and it was natural, and it was, of course, supported by the parents and the family, but it was not orchestrated in any way.

Brad (15:45):
So, your charge your mission here, if you choose to accept it, is to be your kid’s caddy. With the golf analogy, you know what a caddy is, right? The caddy carries the bag for the player. The caddy helps set the player up for success. The caddy will hand the player the requested club. Maybe they’ll have a discussion together about whether it should be a seven iron or an eight iron, but the player has the last choice. So you want to open doors for your kids, set them up, give them opportunities, and then stand back and watch them excel. Yeah. Okay? Uh, keeping with this caddy analogy, maybe you can demonstrate, show them how to hit that 150 yard high fade, uh, into the wind. Also live your life and walk your talk, I think is super, super important.

Brad (16:35):
So whatever influence we have on our kids, it’s largely by doing rather than talking, and there’s no faking that either. I remember getting into an argument with some, uh, parents a while back who, uh, like to party in the background when they’re, while they’re raising young kids, um, you know, maybe even in, um, in the other room or while the kids are asleep. And I’m like, really? So you think this is gonna be okay to wish for your kids to have, let’s say, a drug free or responsible high school experience while you are indulging, you know, right around the corner? That sounds like me being high and mighty, and I’m sure that, um, that I, I, I will accept that characterization. Uh, but it did seem like a disconnect where you want your kid to be a certain way and you wanna lecture them every day about that, and then not walk your talk.

Brad (17:28):
That’s gonna really diminish your credibility. So you’re gonna serve as your kid’s caddy. You’re gonna realize that you have far less influence than you think you do. You, uh, but you’re going to strive to not cross over that line into the lawnmower parent zone. You know, the typical characterization was the helicopter parent hovering over your kid, and then they, uh, evolved it or progressed it to the lawnmower parrot, right? You’re mowing the lawn and you’re mowing a strip of lawn for your kid to walk through this. They don’t have to struggle, suffer, or, um, you know, experience failure. Oh, boy. So yes, stay away from the lawnmower parent zone. My favorite article, as I mentioned at the outset, The Inverse Power of Praise. And I thought about it every single day, drawing heavily on Carol Dweck’s work in the book Mindset and the importance of cultivating a growth mindset in life, whereby you’re not afraid to fail.

Brad (18:29):
You’re not afraid to tackle new challenges. And what happens when you are effusively praising your kid for every little thing that they do? And as we always complain about every kid’s getting a trophy, every kid’s getting a prize, every kid’s getting celebrated, and we’re praising, praising, praising them. What happens often is we praise, uh, the results they achieve, and thereby they develop a protective mindset where they’re resistant to tackling new challenges that might be difficult and result in some failure and setbacks, because they’re protecting those characterizations that the parents are feeding them every single day. You’re such a great athlete. You are so smart. You are amazing at math. You are a natural artist when you spew this kind of commentary towards your kid, I know it’s well-meaning I know it’s coming from love, but it has the potential effect of diminishing their growth mindset and making them resistant to new scary challenges that might challenge or that might counteract the blather, the effusive praise.

Brad (19:36):
Uh, I told you the story about pulling my kid from the, uh, fun and games of the community recreational basketball league into going with the tigers and the savages in the a a u basketball journey. Um, if I was just effusively praising him every day after he, uh, scored a bunch of points in the community league, you’re a great basketball player, you’re amazing, you’re so naturally talented. And he went to his first practice and got blown off the court by guys that were twice his size when they were all 10 years old, um, that would not have worked very well, right? He would immediately, uh, have been, you know, devastated due to this artificially propped up self-esteem. Same with when, uh, your kid goes off to a more selective academic experience, or they start, the class starts getting more difficult.

Brad (20:25):
And first, they were bringing home As, and receiving effusive praise and getting 50 cents for every a and a dollar for every a plus, whatever. That’s the kind stuff that can crumble like a house of cards, because it’s not optimal according to the greatest researchers in the world like Carol Dweck and that importance of cultivating a growth mindset. So think about this. Um, you do not really need to praise results. Yes, you can praise effort, or as Ashley Merriman, my former podcast guest whose work was also referenced in this article, uh, her book with Pope Bronson Top Dog, the Science of Winning and Losing, and also, uh, nurture Shock. Her book about, uh, her and Pope Bronson’s book about the Science of Parenting, uh, and lots of the, uh, similar commentary. Uh, and anyway, um, uh, you wanna praise effort that are, that is made toward improvement, not just blindly praising effort.

Brad (21:23):
Because if your kid makes the effort to do homework for three hours while <laugh> TV is blaring in the blackground, and they’re handling their mobile device, that’s not really a worthy effort. So you are allowed to praise effort toward improvement. You can praise their character, I’m proud of the man that you’ve become, but you wanna really be careful praising results, um, because this is what sets you up for that protective mindset versus the ideal growth mindset. Furthermore, think about it. Praising these results is kind of unnecessary and potentially takes the, uh, the enjoyment and the satisfaction away from the kid, and rather turning them into a show pony performing for their parents’, amusement and satisfaction and ego, right? So if your kid hits the winning three pointer at the buzzer, and you’re driving them home after the, uh, uh, the wonderful experience, do you really need to verbalize how awesome it was for your kid to drain that three pointer or to say something as innocuous and loving as it sounds?

Brad (22:38):
I’m really proud of you for stepping up and burying that three pointer. You don’t really need to do that. The kid is already awash in satisfaction, happiness, excitement, and praise from the peers and everyone who watched the game and the parent interjecting and trying to weasel their way into, um, an ego boost, uh, has, has potential to, uh, take the, take the satisfaction away, allow the kid to bask in their own success and own it entirely. Rather than saying, I’m proud of you. Every time you think about saying, I’m proud of you, think about the possibility of rephrasing that too. You should be proud of yourself. You should be proud of yourself. You came through under pressure even after that rough first half, or you missed a bunch of shots. Whatever you wanna say, you should be really proud of yourself for graduating high school, graduating college, getting the lead role in the play.

Brad (23:33):
Whatever it is, not, I’m proud of you. You should be proud of yourself. I told you, I’ve been thinking about this stuff every day. That’s why I’m hitting you, uh, so aggressively with this, because we hear this now, now that I’m, uh, so, programmed accordingly. I hear people saying left, right, and upside down. I’m really proud of her. She’s really done a great job at her career. I’m really proud of her. She graduated in four years on time. I’m really proud of him. He made the A team on soccer instead of the B team. How many goals did you score in the process of, um, your, your kid making the A team instead of the B team? That’s right. Zero. So why are you proud? You didn’t do anything. You fed the kid and drove him to practice. You’re the caddy, and that’s great.

Brad (24:13):
The kid should be proud of themselves. Now, we take this theme further into the point of getting possibly a little controversial. I’ve experienced some pushback when I’ve shared these ideas with other parents, but I think the article and possibly, uh, the book goes into this further where, um, if you do something, uh, so innocuous is telling, uh, especially, uh, let’s talk about daughters in the female realm here. Um, you’re so pretty, seems like, um, something nice and warm and loving to say that’ll boost your daughter’s self-esteem. But it can also risk her trafficking on her physical appearance and absorbing the unhealthy influences by the related cultural forces. You get what I’m saying? I’m trying to say it with big words here. But if you keep telling your daughter how beautiful she is, there’s a potential downside. That’s all that the message is being conveyed here, especially as we are wash in comparative culture, right?

Brad (25:16):
And the long programming that we’re carefully trying to unwind. Now as we become more conscious and more politically correct, besides, again, just like the example with sports. Um, whatever a parent says will get overridden on the playground anyway. So if you keep telling your daughter, you’re so pretty, you’re so beautiful, you’re gonna, you’re such a knockout. Oh, you’re gonna, you’re gonna drive the boys wild in in five years. Ha ha ha. Isn’t that a cute thing? Um, same with telling the kid, you’re such a great athlete. You’re so amazing. You’re such a talented artist. This stuff will soon become tuned out. Your kid will tune it out when they face the reality of the harsh circumstances on the school playground, to set that example, right? So, um, those who are <laugh> destined to become professional athletes, supermodels and sensational runaway sensation artists, they will start to intuit these things very early on in life.

Brad (26:18):
And they do not need any reinforcement or verbalization from the parent along those lines. In fact, what they probably need is to be brought down and, uh, focused on becoming well-adjusted people if they are on the supermodel track or the professional athlete track. So, uh, just think about those things as you try to, uh, support your kid and boost their self-esteem and all those kind of things. Yeah, and guess what, uh, be careful what you wish for as well with your kids’ journey through life. Because, uh, being an NFL player or being a supermodel, or being a valedictorian, or being a runaway sensation artist is no guarantee of happiness or contentment or satisfaction or being a well-adjusted nice kind person. So focus on the latter, rather than boosting them up and propping them up with, uh, blather commentary.

Brad (27:11):
This gets me to one of my favorite parenting analogies. And that is to be the traffic cop because one of the things my friend was talking about at the outset was, you know, trying to unwind that potentially harmful, uh, childhood programming of his own and model the good stuff that he experienced. He says, yeah, you know, I’m, I’m trying not to raise my voice. That happened to me a lot when I was a kid. And I can, I can know, I know it’s, uh, has negative aspect, uh, but I’m, I’m, I’m doing my best. So I, I recalled my, my traffic cop analogy because when you are speeding on the road and you get pulled over, uh, by the traffic cop, they come up to your window and they say, I pulled you over. ’cause you’re going 82 in a 65 zone. Can I have your license and registration please?

Brad (28:02):
Whew. Busted huge fines ahead, traffic school, a lot of hours, uh, penalty and the cop need not say anything else besides license and registration, please. What you don’t get when you’re pulled over is a cop racing up to your window and yelling and screaming at you with a lecture. Don’t you see how dangerous that is? Do you know what kind of carnage I see out here every day? How dare you endanger the lives of other drivers, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Maybe some cops, I don’t <laugh>, I don’t think many. But you get the analogy here is that you have the guidelines, the boundaries, the rules, and then you have what’s called a natural consequence. So if you’re speeding on the road, you get pulled over and fined, that’s a natural consequence of speeding. Do you want to keep doing that?

Brad (28:49):
Do you want to keep paying those massive fines and going to traffic school? That’s going to be the best incentive to obey the laws of the land when you’re driving, and it’s going to be vastly superior to some cop coming up to your window and berating you for how dangerous of a driver you are. And imagine this as we take this, uh, parenting analogy deep. What if the cop, what if that’s all they did was pull you over, run up to your window, scream at you for a couple minutes, point their finger at you, warn and threaten you that next time you’re gonna have, uh, you know, a hell to pay and then send you along without giving you a ticket or anything of the sort. This is what happens a lot in the parenting situation where we have, I mean, I see this dialogue out in public, and boy, it’s, it’s kind of heartbreaking because you see the parent lecturing the heck outta the kid and, uh, using harsh words and criticism and tone of voice, but you don’t see consequences, uh, being enforced, uh, right on the spot.

Brad (29:52):
So it kind of occurs to me that oftentimes we treat, um, our kids like adults, and we treat ’em like adults when we should treat ’em like kids. We treat them, we treat ’em like kids when we should treat ’em like adults, vice versa. You get what I’m saying? So when a kid is whining and having a meltdown while you’re trying to finish off your shopping at Target, and you hear the parent saying, come on, I’ve been driving around and doing things for you all day, you’re really annoying. The heck outta me. Why don’t you be quiet? We’re almost home. Just hang in there. You know, that’s treating a kid like an adult, where if you have a kid, uh, whining and melting down in a public place, what you do is remove yourself and get them home for a nap. Um, <laugh>, I ain’t learned this really well when my kids were young, and therefore they didn’t melt down hardly ever, because I didn’t push ’em too hard, uh, for my own agenda and my own shopping errands necessary.

Brad (30:47):
And then, um, there’s, there’s a time when you can treat ’em with, uh, respect and bring them into the, for example, the, the discipline and the boundaries and the decision making by saying, uh, for example, uh, having a conversation with your teenager saying, what do you think’s a fair curfew, 2:00 AM? Well, guess what? I think midnight is much better, or 11:15, whatever. But you do have a dialogue. And then you also can go over things like, what do you think the punishments and the consequences should be? What do you think is fair to you? I don’t know, lose an hour of, uh, mobile device use, eh, well, I’m the parent. I have the last say. So how about a day of mobile device loss if you forget to do the dishes at night? And so everyone agrees. It’s like the cooperative parenting approach rather than arguably flawed and dated approach of saying, why do I have to do this?

Brad (31:36):
And the, uh, the pat answer being, because I said so, is not going to be as effective overall. Similarly, if the, uh, punishment is not aligned, if it’s not a natural consequence of the offense, what you’re going to do is buildup, resentment. And that stuff doesn’t, uh, come out too well, uh, as the ages, uh, increase. So a resentful 10 year old’s gonna be a pain in the butt a little bit, but a resentful 17-year-old, um, just like the George Michael song, I’m big enough to break down the door. Ah, yeah, we don’t wanna mess with a, uh, creating a resentful 17-year-old who’s been, you know, dominated and diminished for years and years through discipline and punishment. That’s not a recipe for cooperative parenting or, uh, loving healthy family dynamics. Okay? So be the traffic cop, assess those penalties and those natural consequences and, um, uh, don’t do something that’s unrelated, because that’s what’s going to create resentment.

Brad (32:40):
I read this insight from, uh, one book, I think it was Dr. William Hughes. He said, um, consider, you know, the, the common punishment of grounding, maybe that’s not the best punishment, because as a teenager, the most important thing to them is their freedom and their connection with their peers. And if you take that away due to not doing the dishes or whatever the reason is it’s going to create resentment because they don’t see that connection of losing their freedom. Secondly, um, the idea of, uh, punishing your individual child by, uh, removing them from a team experience. Like, okay, that’s it. You’re missing the game this weekend because you didn’t do the dishes or otherwise broke the house rules. Then you’re kind of bringing the punishment in and affecting others. So we wanna try to get away from that.

Brad (33:36):
So, um, yep, you’re gonna still play in the game, but after the game, instead of going out to the pizza place and celebrating with your team, you’re gonna come home and you’re going to sweep the driveway and polish the stairs. You get the difference there. Um, uh, same with the speeding, the cop yelling at you or just giving you a ticket and sending you along. So that cooperative approach, I favor that. I think that’s really effective. Where the kid has a say they feel like, um, they’re respected, they feel like an adult in that circumstances when, uh, as I was trying to describe before. And, you know, good luck with that. And of course, the parent has the final say. So it’s not like, oh, <laugh>, my kid chose a curfew of two and I really wanted 12, so I wonder where he is now.

Brad (34:18):
’cause it’s 2:10 AM Nah, no, nah, that’s not what I’m talking about at all. So in summary, uh, the first thing I mentioned was the, uh, cultural trend of over, over-parenting and perhaps taking the time to reflect and make decisions that may will potentially require you to swim upstream. Then the second thing I talked about was that the realization that you have far less influence than you think, and instead you want to, uh, allow the kid to pursue their natural destiny. Maybe they’ll be valedictorian of an Ivy League university. Maybe college won’t really be the thing for them, and that’s absolutely fine because of the competitiveness and the selectivity. And so, uh, you know, be open to the idea that just like on the Hyundai commercial, you want your kid to do whatever it takes to find what makes them happy.

Brad (35:13):
Alright? Uh, and, uh, realize again with the foundational article, uh, the inverse power of praise is that you have a distinct and powerful ability to screw them up. But this effort to continually boost self-esteem with unnecessary praise and potentially counterproductive and extremely counterproductive praise, uh, is really important. And I strongly encourage you to, uh, read my blog article with further thoughts and read the article itself. And then finally, when it comes to discipline, be the traffic cop. There’s no need to inject raising your voice or unnecessary emotion criticism, or negative energy. You just establish the boundaries and the natural consequences. And that’s a wrap. I wonder what you think about that. This would be a great blog post get some, uh, community comments on. And maybe I’ll do a follow up, Q and A show. So I really appreciate you taking the time to listen, reflect, I’d love to know some of your own personal parenting experiences. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
Thank you so much for listening to the B.rad Podcast. We appreciate all feedback and suggestions. Email, podcast@bradventures.com and visit brad kearns.com to download five free eBooks and learn some great long cuts to a longer life. How to optimize testosterone naturally, become a dark chocolate connoisseur and transition to a barefoot and minimalist shoe lifestyle.