Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 963 ｜ The Dangers of Gentle Parenting, SEL & Empathy ｜ Guest： Abigail Shrier

00:00:00.980 Gentle parenting, empathy, therapy, all the things we're told are good for kids are actually

00:00:08.660 very harmful.

00:00:10.060 That's what today's guest argues.

00:00:12.760 Author Abigail Schreier is here today to break it all down for us as we are talking about

00:00:17.660 her book, Bad Therapy, Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up.

00:00:20.820 Guys, this is an amazing conversation that you need to share with every single parent

00:00:26.520 in your life.

00:00:27.280 Oh my goodness, I learned so much.

00:00:29.680 Before we get into that, just want to remind you that the first installment of our subscriber

00:00:35.400 exclusive series, Debatable, is out on blazetv.com slash Allie.

00:00:41.440 Catholicism versus Protestantism, Trent Horn, Catholic apologist, Dr. James White, a Protestant

00:00:46.240 apologist.

00:00:47.520 They go at it for two hours.

00:00:49.640 I learned a lot from that.

00:00:50.800 I know that you guys are going to love it.

00:00:52.460 So if you go to blazetv.com slash Allie, you will get a great discount on your subscription.

00:00:58.440 All right.

00:01:00.180 This episode, this conversation with Abigail Schreier is brought to you by our friends

00:01:04.680 at Good Ranchers.

00:01:05.700 Go to goodranchers.com.

00:01:07.200 Use code Allie at checkout. 1.00

00:01:08.380 That's goodranchers.com.

00:01:09.620 Code Allie. 1.00

00:01:10.300 Abigail, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

00:01:24.240 All right.

00:01:25.160 You've got another amazing book that's out after irreversible damage.

00:01:29.480 This one is called Bad Therapy.

00:01:31.820 So just set us up.

00:01:33.040 Tell us why you went down this road and decided to write it.

00:01:36.960 Sure.

00:01:37.700 So first of all, thank you so much for having me on, Allie.

00:01:40.320 I really love your show and I really appreciate the invitation.

00:01:44.200 So I'm raising three kids in the rising generation.

00:01:47.560 And what I wanted to know was why did the rising generation seem to be suffering so much?

00:01:53.880 They seem to be in genuine distress, genuinely fearful, genuinely full of worry and anxiety

00:02:01.020 and genuinely a little depressed, sad.

00:02:05.040 And they hadn't obviously lived through anything that hard until the pandemic.

00:02:09.620 They really hadn't lived through, you know, anything hard at all as a group, as a generation.

00:02:15.480 Um, and, and, and the other strange thing was they received the most mental health treatment,

00:02:22.840 the most coping techniques, the most mindfulness, the most, uh, therapeutic intervention, the

00:02:28.160 most diagnosis, the most psych meds of any generation.

00:02:31.480 So they really should have been the picture of mental health, uh, wellness instead, instead

00:02:36.420 they were the picture of suffering.

00:02:37.820 So I really wanted to know why.

00:02:39.320 And, and the other thing I wanted to know is why they have no interest in growing up.

00:02:43.340 Why did they, you know, you know, 18 to 25 year olds and numbers we've never seen want

00:02:47.940 to live with their parents.

00:02:49.260 Why did they not want to get driver's license, you know, even more than millennials?

00:02:53.200 Why did they not want to be parents or to get married?

00:02:56.900 Um, so, so that's, that's what started me down this path.

00:03:00.660 Yeah.

00:03:00.820 That's what made you curious about this.

00:03:02.640 And did your last book, Irreversible Damage, where you talked about this kind of phenomenon of

00:03:08.340 particularly young girls, quote unquote, transitioning into boys, did that book and the backlash it

00:03:15.160 received from, you had, you know, libraries, institutions saying, oh, this book, your book

00:03:19.740 will cause suicide and so-called trans youth. 0.99

00:03:24.020 Did that kind of have an effect on your desire to start looking into the therapy world?

00:03:31.720 Well, remember that in every, almost every case where a girl's goes down this path,

00:03:38.620 um, that, that the parents who called me, they already had a therapist for the girl. 0.98

00:03:43.720 In fact, uh, the therapist played a big role, um, in the child's, you know, or teenagers revelation

00:03:51.220 that she was trans, either a therapist, the family had hired or the school counselor invariably

00:03:56.620 played a very large role.

00:03:57.840 So I knew therapists were making terrible mischief with the kids.

00:04:01.280 And, and what I want parents to know is it wasn't a gender therapist.

00:04:04.100 It wasn't even necessarily an activist therapist.

00:04:06.660 It was just a therapist that parents very often hired to deal with the girl's anxiety or depression

00:04:11.700 who, when they were done, you know, talking about her, you know, uh, emotional trauma or

00:04:18.460 whatever, you know, of, uh, she felt like she had gone through an adolescence, they would

00:04:22.900 say in loud, let's talk about gender. 1.00

00:04:24.740 How are you feeling about your gender?

00:04:26.080 And that was really enough to get them off to the races.

00:04:29.040 Right.

00:04:29.680 And so that is an example of something that you talk about in the first chapter, this

00:04:35.720 idea that healers can harm.

00:04:37.240 And you use a Greek phrase, um, H atrogenesis.

00:04:42.560 Is that how you, is that how you pronounce it?

00:04:45.240 I atrogenesis.

00:04:46.480 Yeah.

00:04:46.820 This is a word that, you know, I wasn't aware of, but everyone should know because every single

00:04:51.900 intervention, no matter how good can cause harm.

00:04:54.960 So I atrogenesis refers to when a healer introduces the harm. 0.95

00:04:59.060 And of course that doesn't mean any intervention is all bad.

00:05:03.000 Tylenol causes harm.

00:05:04.280 If given too much, too often x-rays cause harm.

00:05:07.660 And yes, therapy also comes with harms.

00:05:10.260 And there's actually a large body of research showing the harms of therapy.

00:05:14.520 They include things like making depression worse, making anxiety worse, alienating from

00:05:20.220 your, you, from your parents, making you feel inefficacious in your life.

00:05:24.340 Like you can't do anything on your own, uh, making you feel, um, demoralizing you with

00:05:29.720 a diagnosis.

00:05:30.400 All these are known side effects of therapy that all the academic researchers knew.

00:05:34.820 Uh, uh, oddly though, most of the practitioners I talked to either weren't aware of them or denied

00:05:41.140 them outright.

00:05:41.760 And what is it about therapy that is causing that, particularly what you talked about, about

00:05:47.720 young people today, not wanting to grow up.

00:05:51.000 I've noticed that too, the just complete lack of interest in getting your driver's license,

00:05:55.820 which as a millennial is wild to me.

00:05:57.980 I could not wait.

00:05:59.560 I could not wait.

00:06:00.700 What is it about therapy that is causing that kind of failure to launch?

00:06:03.880 Well, the idea of, and it's, you know, the, these kids are getting therapy, not just from

00:06:10.120 a therapist in school and from their parents who are reading the best, you know, the, the

00:06:15.620 most popular parenting books written by therapists.

00:06:18.140 And what it is, is anytime you are told to check in and double check and think about everything

00:06:25.500 you're going to do before you do it, that you tell you can't handle any problems on your

00:06:30.420 own.

00:06:30.720 Every time you have a squabble with another kid, you have to go rushing to mom or rushing

00:06:35.540 to a therapist.

00:06:36.180 It creates what they call treatment dependency.

00:06:39.740 You become dependent.

00:06:41.020 And the idea is I can't take a risk on my own because I could ruin things.

00:06:45.100 It could be ruinous.

00:06:46.800 And so I have to bring everything to an adult and adults are always standing by.

00:06:52.540 And, and that's what we're seeing.

00:06:53.500 These kids feel unwell over half of the rising generation says their mental health is not good.

00:06:59.200 You know, they, they report that, you know, that they don't feel well.

00:07:02.320 And so they don't feel up to the responsibilities of adulthood, right?

00:07:06.000 Adulthood is a series of responsibilities.

00:07:08.440 That's what it is.

00:07:09.440 It means I'm ready to be someone other people can rely on.

00:07:12.780 I'm ready to form a family.

00:07:14.060 I'm ready to be a good spouse.

00:07:15.380 I'm ready to be a good neighbor and someone you can depend on.

00:07:18.300 And, um, they're opting out of all of that.

00:07:21.280 And, and really it's no surprise because if you feel weak, you don't think you're ready for

00:07:25.880 those things and the irony is, is that going to therapy is marketed as the most responsible

00:07:34.060 thing, the most mature thing, the most adult thing that you can do.

00:07:38.280 And in fact, it is the thing we are told that will help you finally be able to love other

00:07:44.680 people while we've heard this kind of therapeutic mantra of you can't love other people until

00:07:49.980 you love yourself and loving yourself has to look like constantly thinking about yourself,

00:07:54.960 constantly focusing on yourself, constantly thinking about and examining your feelings

00:07:59.320 and overcoming your trauma and all these things.

00:08:01.520 You can't go out and love other people and be this dependable adult until you take care

00:08:05.680 of those things.

00:08:07.240 But that's right.

00:08:07.860 As long as you're going to therapy, you could think that, well, I still don't love myself

00:08:13.000 perfectly.

00:08:13.580 So maybe I still can't adult.

00:08:15.620 Maybe I still can't be a responsible adult in a faithful relationship because I haven't

00:08:21.160 perfectly figured out how to like every nook and cranny of myself.

00:08:25.400 Right.

00:08:25.980 I mean, here's the thing to know that therapy with a child or teenager is totally different

00:08:30.720 from therapy with an adult because with an adult, an adult can push back on a therapist.

00:08:35.260 So a lot of the harms that are, that there are risks of are going to be less.

00:08:40.040 An adult can say, you know, I love my wife.

00:08:42.840 I really don't think she meant that.

00:08:44.340 I wouldn't call it, you know, I wouldn't call our relationship toxic.

00:08:47.760 I don't think that's fair.

00:08:49.700 Or an adult can say, you know, honestly, I don't like the way I feel on these medications.

00:08:53.840 I think I don't like not having a sex drive.

00:08:56.780 I think I'm going to try to taper off them.

00:08:59.020 It's very hard for a teenager to say those things.

00:09:03.040 They don't have enough of life.

00:09:04.200 But also it's very hard for a teen who might be angry with mom to say, you know, I'm not

00:09:08.880 sure I'd agree that my mother's emotionally abusive. 1.00

00:09:11.400 And yet, um, so there isn't that pushback, but also there isn't the buy-in an adult who

00:09:17.980 chooses to go to therapy decides, listen, I feel like I need someone to work on me, work

00:09:23.060 with me on this.

00:09:24.140 I'm, I'm unsatisfied with this.

00:09:26.020 I need to work.

00:09:26.900 I want to do this.

00:09:28.240 Okay.

00:09:28.820 But a teen or, or, or child who's, who's signs up for therapy is strong armed by an adult.

00:09:34.560 So there's the incentive of the therapist to pander to the child, whatever will make the

00:09:40.000 child feel good and agree with the child.

00:09:42.500 Oh, that was that.

00:09:43.640 I can see why that made you feel terrible that your mom said that there's every incentive

00:09:48.160 to do that because of course the child didn't even sign up to be there.

00:09:51.500 So they have to do something to get the kids buy-in.

00:09:54.120 Now, of course, if a child has a real problem, that's different.

00:09:58.160 If a child is anorexic, if a child is severely, you know, obsessive compulsive disorder or,

00:10:03.660 or, or, or has one of these other problems, then there's no question what the therapist

00:10:08.420 is there to work on.

00:10:09.900 But if you sign your, your anxious or moody teen up for psychodynamic psychotherapy, just

00:10:15.500 general therapy, general talking about problems, there are real risks that the problems they

00:10:20.520 have will be magnified or the therapist will introduce new ones.

00:10:23.720 And in your research, how did you find that we got here?

00:10:40.060 Not just in sending kids to therapy and going to therapy unnecessarily ourselves, but getting

00:10:49.220 to the place of calling worry, anxiety, and sadness, depression, diagnosing a normal spectrum

00:10:56.620 of human emotions and then medicalizing them.

00:11:00.920 That's right.

00:11:01.720 We didn't even realize, we almost didn't even want, you know, notice the water slipping in

00:11:07.320 because you're right.

00:11:09.000 It totally changed our vocabulary, you know, and, and I mean, across the board, liberals,

00:11:13.720 conservatives, religious people, it didn't matter.

00:11:16.300 All of a sudden, we were seeing all of humanity as a series of pathologies, psychopathologies,

00:11:22.200 and the whole human experience, every deviation suddenly was a diagnosis.

00:11:27.840 And what that meant, and, and it was with the rise, there's been a dramatic increase in the

00:11:34.140 growth of mental health staffs at every school, at every university.

00:11:37.600 And, and of course, you know, they've, they've sort of sit atop our parenting, um, they write

00:11:42.720 all the popular parenting books and, um, you know, I have various theories for why, you

00:11:47.840 know, part of it may have been, you know, the rise in, uh, divorce among that started with

00:11:52.180 Gen X.

00:11:52.960 We saw various problems in America and we thought the solution was to send everyone to therapy.

00:11:58.540 We became convinced this really needed expertise.

00:12:01.680 And, um, so adults started going to therapy in larger numbers, and then they sent their

00:12:07.060 kids believing it could only help.

00:12:08.940 And here's the thing, you know, if your child is struggling and they go to their aunt, okay,

00:12:14.760 for help, for advice, their uncle, what, whoever there, the, the, the, the family member in

00:12:22.820 general, not only has, is generally going to reinforce the parents' values, not only generally

00:12:29.440 wants the best thing for the child, but there's no incentive for them to keep the child coming

00:12:35.260 back and making them their confidant.

00:12:37.700 And here's the problem with in general, sending a bummed out kid to therapy as opposed to grandma.

00:12:45.980 You send a bummed out kid to therapy, the therapist's incentive is to treat the least sick for the longest

00:12:52.000 period of time.

00:12:53.200 They want that child coming back and there's no oversight.

00:12:57.540 There's no one saying, you know, you're really undermining her, you know, um, respect for

00:13:03.380 her mother.

00:13:03.860 No one's even tracking it.

00:13:05.760 Unlike with medicine where they're tracking harms, therapists don't even track these.

00:13:11.320 And so no one's measuring it.

00:13:12.960 No one's reporting.

00:13:14.200 Meanwhile, you know, in many ways in a teen or adolescent could be getting worse.

00:13:18.360 It also seems like social media has kind of glorified the idea of not just going to therapy

00:13:26.700 as just something that you do if you're having any problem in your life, but also, I mean,

00:13:31.380 taking anti-depression and anti-anxiety medications.

00:13:35.420 I mean, there's a whole subset of TikTok that is about the different medications that teenagers

00:13:41.020 can take to alleviate their symptoms of anxiety or whatever.

00:13:44.980 And so probably, uh, maybe there's a lot of similarities between what you saw in the social

00:13:50.280 contagion of what's referred to as gender dysphoria and somewhat of a social contagion

00:13:55.580 here that, okay, all my friends are going to therapy.

00:13:57.940 All my friends are on Lexapro.

00:13:59.780 Well, I guess that should be what I do too.

00:14:03.700 That's right.

00:14:04.660 And, you know, that, that's exactly right.

00:14:07.420 There is an element of social contagion.

00:14:09.340 People are valorizing diagnoses, but it's so, it's so dangerous to valid, you know,

00:14:15.000 to valorize a diagnosis or being on medication for various reasons.

00:14:18.640 First of all, those medications come with real risks, but, but also because it's so limiting.

00:14:24.060 See, if you say I'm a shy person, well, that doesn't limit you.

00:14:28.360 You can just say, well, I'm going to try to get over my shyness.

00:14:31.580 But if you have social anxiety or social phobia, now you're saying there's a problem with my brain

00:14:36.820 and I need an expert or medication to help me.

00:14:39.900 So you, you naturally go down the road to feeling less powerful and less able to fix your life.

00:14:46.160 You mentioned that they're not just getting therapy from a professional in an office,

00:14:51.300 but I mean, they're getting it on social, social media.

00:14:54.960 I mean, you follow these self-help accounts that claim to have the power to psychoanalyze

00:14:59.800 you and tell you how amazing you are, but they're also getting it.

00:15:02.960 You mentioned, uh, from school.

00:15:04.860 Now, would you say that's primarily from this social, emotional learning SEL curriculum

00:15:11.600 that is now in a lot of schools?

00:15:14.740 That's it.

00:15:15.560 Yes.

00:15:16.080 Social emotional learning is now this giant, massive juggernaut.

00:15:20.720 It's an umbrella.

00:15:21.520 It can mean anything.

00:15:22.520 It can mean straightforward, you know, critical race theory, which the kids learn about, you

00:15:27.540 know, white oppression. 0.79

00:15:28.640 But so sometimes it's just a cloak for that, but very often it, it is a process of breaking

00:15:35.680 down kids.

00:15:36.640 That's effectively what it is.

00:15:38.580 It claims to be, um, something that will help kids to make them more resilient.

00:15:42.960 They throw around that word a lot.

00:15:44.380 It will make them stronger by teaching them tricks for emotional regulation.

00:15:48.660 Well, there are various reasons that focusing on yourself, focusing on your emotion, focusing

00:15:53.940 on your pain, isn't the way to resilience.

00:15:56.660 It's counterproductive.

00:15:57.980 But these, the, the discussions of emotion in the classroom old, almost inevitably end

00:16:04.160 up with discussions of sad emotion.

00:16:06.700 First of all, because the prompts actually direct you there.

00:16:09.820 But second of all, it's just much more interesting.

00:16:11.980 How do you feel?

00:16:12.600 Great.

00:16:12.960 Fine.

00:16:13.900 There's not much to talk about.

00:16:15.560 Actually, I'm feeling really sad because my mom was too busy to help me with my homework

00:16:20.260 last night.

00:16:21.040 Now, now we're off and running.

00:16:22.920 Now we've got something we can all talk about.

00:16:25.280 And that's what the schools are doing.

00:16:27.180 Um, they're all engaged in this constant psych, you know, this constant therapeutic kind of

00:16:32.600 group therapy.

00:16:33.920 And it, you know, there's, there's lots of evidence of this, but basically there's a lot

00:16:38.520 of research showing group therapy often makes people feel worse about their problems.

00:16:43.520 Um, this has been true of breast cancer survivors, burn victims, first responders to catastrophe.

00:16:48.980 Um, you know, um, all kinds of situations, um, in which, you know, sitting around with a group

00:16:54.520 talking about your pain, bereavement, uh, people who had lost loved ones, they, they ended up

00:16:59.660 feeling worse off than the control group who didn't go to therapy.

00:17:02.680 And we're doing this with kids.

00:17:04.240 It reminds me of something in college.

00:17:07.720 When I first joined my sorority, my freshman year of college, and we had this retreat with

00:17:14.160 the whole sorority and we all sat in a circle and I'm thinking back, I'm like, why did we

00:17:19.100 do this?

00:17:19.760 But whose idea was this?

00:17:20.880 And we were all supposed to share something like really difficult and sad that we had

00:17:26.420 gone through or something like that we had never shared before or something like that.

00:17:31.540 And we were all supposed to be very emotional about it and everyone, you know, ended up crying.

00:17:37.200 But I remember feeling that it almost turned into a competition of who can give the worst

00:17:43.140 sob story, who can shock everyone the most, who has been through the hardest thing.

00:17:47.980 And like you said, valorizing trauma or difficulty or whatever it is, it, even in that just kind

00:17:56.200 of like micro example, I can see that I could see that competing to see, you know, who's had the

00:18:03.360 hardest time can make things a lot worse.

00:18:06.820 That's exactly right.

00:18:08.440 And what I want people to know is that's inevitable because they can say, oh, we're just working

00:18:14.340 on our emotions.

00:18:15.140 We're just discussing our emotions.

00:18:16.980 We're working on self-regulation.

00:18:19.100 They can say that all they want.

00:18:20.620 But as soon as you get kids in a circle talking about their feelings, there becomes a natural

00:18:26.860 one-upmanship occurs to, you don't want to just say something boring, right?

00:18:32.680 It becomes what, you know, what a great researcher said to me, it becomes like a memory poker.

00:18:37.700 You start trying to, you know, dredge up the worst memory of a painful episode in your life

00:18:43.620 because you want to sort of keep the group engaged.

00:18:47.160 And we're doing this with kids right before they have to take a math test.

00:18:51.240 And sometimes it's the school counselor.

00:18:53.920 Sometimes it's the teacher.

00:18:55.380 And the worst part is parents are told this is really good for them.

00:18:59.500 In fact, we're going to interrupt their lessons for it.

00:19:01.760 But it really is, it's an incredibly good way to break kids down.

00:19:08.180 And that isn't even, you know, the mental health surveys they're flooded with, many of

00:19:12.980 them written by our CDC, which talk to them about suicide, self-harm.

00:19:17.320 What are the ways you might use?

00:19:19.160 You know, have you tried this?

00:19:20.460 Have you tried that?

00:19:21.340 Have you tried cutting, burning, choking?

00:19:23.340 What about a choking game?

00:19:24.580 I mean, it goes through all these with middle schoolers or high schoolers in great depth.

00:19:29.460 And as if, oh, we're just, we're just asking, no harm.

00:19:33.540 Yeah.

00:19:34.420 And they do it, of course, in the name of saving lives.

00:19:38.560 And they also do it in the name of representation.

00:19:42.220 I had a woman on my show. 1.00

00:19:44.720 She had gone viral a couple of years ago for speaking at her school board because her eighth

00:19:49.940 grader had come home.

00:19:51.060 This was a conservative district in Texas.

00:19:53.060 This public school had come home with this horrifying book that was not only very sexually

00:19:58.400 explicit, but also detailed, like how this person was planning to commit suicide.

00:20:04.700 And when she went to the school and she said, what in the world?

00:20:08.520 Why is the English teacher recommending this book to my 13 year old?

00:20:13.820 They said, well, we give these kinds of books to represent.

00:20:18.500 So these students can see themselves.

00:20:21.020 What if a student had gone through something like this?

00:20:23.580 What if there was a student who had thought about suicide?

00:20:26.400 What if there was a student who was gender confused?

00:20:28.960 Even they justify books with pedophilia.

00:20:32.320 And then by saying, well, what if the child has gone through this?

00:20:35.160 And they say it's important to see themselves reflected in this literature, in this content

00:20:43.620 that they're consuming.

00:20:44.560 I mean, to me, not only would it make it worse if a child had gone through that, but also

00:20:49.720 for most kids, you are introducing very, very dark themes into their little form, you know,

00:20:57.960 formative minds or their malleable minds that they can't really safely and fully process

00:21:05.920 in a healthy way.

00:21:07.900 And Allie, when a mom goes in and objects, the first thing they do is make her feel stupid

00:21:13.840 or crazy.

00:21:15.220 That's what their response is.

00:21:17.060 Oh, you don't know the literature.

00:21:19.400 Well, I looked into the literature because I wanted to arm moms like that one. 1.00

00:21:23.820 And actually, the literature backs up the fact that if you valorize suicide, if you present

00:21:28.880 it as a coping mechanism, if you are repetitive in your talk of suicide, we know that that

00:21:36.700 increases suicide.

00:21:38.720 OK, there have been great studies on this.

00:21:40.540 There's a great Viennese subway study in which that showed this when they stopped doing when

00:21:45.940 they got the press to stop doing those things in reporting Viennese subway suicides in Vienna.

00:21:51.740 Um, they were able to depress the rate of suicide just by stopping all the talk of it.

00:21:57.200 Stop by, you know, talking about methods and valorizing the subject.

00:22:01.100 And you're right.

00:22:02.180 It absolutely presents the world as dark and dangerous.

00:22:05.720 But here's the other thing I want you to know.

00:22:07.520 Look, my kids are in religious school.

00:22:09.780 OK, they're in a very religious school.

00:22:13.000 Um, a lot of people think and they felt this way with my last book.

00:22:16.600 You know, on the left, they kind of the react, the attitude was always like, why are you picking

00:22:21.420 on this marginalized group?

00:22:23.160 Right.

00:22:23.300 And on the right, the attitude is, why would you even bother?

00:22:26.020 Like, that doesn't that doesn't apply to us.

00:22:28.020 Who would do that?

00:22:28.940 Like, you know, that that is sort of like irrelevant.

00:22:33.360 SEL is completely in my kid's school.

00:22:35.620 They expanded the psych staffs.

00:22:37.820 Right.

00:22:38.380 Even in religious school, they bring this stuff in.

00:22:40.700 And they smuggle it in.

00:22:41.560 They tell you it's lifesaving.

00:22:43.600 And they they start to very much like DEI officers in a university.

00:22:47.660 They get to work undermining the school.

00:22:50.720 And they they that doesn't mean they mean to, but they sort of take over because they

00:22:56.200 can oversee everything in terms of mental health.

00:22:59.100 And now we're no longer talking about morality.

00:23:01.360 We're not no longer talking about treating each other correctly or, you know, doing what's

00:23:06.060 right.

00:23:06.380 All of a sudden, we're talking about feelings and oneness with feelings and that's and and

00:23:12.240 and always looking at yourself.

00:23:14.480 It's it's it's you know, it tends to really undermine, you know, even the most even in

00:23:19.960 the most conservative districts or in the most religious schools.

00:23:22.920 Yeah.

00:23:23.400 I mean, I think that we all have a natural tendency to be self-centered, to think about

00:23:28.860 ourselves and to look at the world through the lens of like, what do I want?

00:23:32.220 How do I feel?

00:23:33.340 And this kind of feeds into that.

00:23:35.780 And also, as you've said, it glorifies it.

00:23:39.140 And so it glorifies self-centeredness.

00:23:40.900 And you're actually told that self-centeredness, being self-centered, being self-focused is the

00:23:46.400 best and most moral and the kindest and the most loving thing that you can do.

00:23:51.020 That is how you are a good neighbor.

00:23:52.620 That is how you are a good citizen.

00:23:54.240 You just learn to love yourself more and more.

00:23:56.620 You just understand your feelings more and more.

00:23:59.420 And what you're saying is that it's actually doing the opposite.

00:24:02.540 It's not only making kids, stunting their growth, but it's also making them more cruel,

00:24:08.900 right?

00:24:09.320 Like they're actually less able to see the pain of other people and understand other people's

00:24:15.000 point of view, right?

00:24:17.100 That's right.

00:24:17.980 They're living under this tyranny of feelings in which they tyrannize each other with their

00:24:23.080 feelings and they are tyrannized by their own.

00:24:26.200 They're constantly focusing on their feelings.

00:24:28.260 And guess what?

00:24:28.920 When you think about your feelings all the time, you're going to conclude that you're

00:24:32.020 not that happy.

00:24:33.120 You're going to think about every tiny worry and magnify it.

00:24:36.940 I mean, I call them in the book sort of emotional hypochondriacs, by which I don't mean that they're

00:24:41.380 making up their own pain, right?

00:24:43.200 It's not that they're inventing it.

00:24:44.660 They're just making it worse, just like hypochondriacs do. 1.00

00:24:47.500 What they do is, you know, what they now call illness, anxiety disorder, somatic symptom

00:24:52.320 disorder is these are people.

00:24:54.320 And I talked to world experts in hypochondriasis.

00:24:56.560 What they do is they magnify the pains we all have by hyper-focus on them, by relentlessly

00:25:01.880 focus on them.

00:25:03.280 And that's what kids are doing with their feelings.

00:25:06.400 And, you know, you mentioned empathy.

00:25:08.740 What I learned is that empathy naturally, unlike things like fairness, it causes us, we can't

00:25:15.660 empathize with more than two people at once.

00:25:17.640 It's not possible.

00:25:19.120 So naturally, we privilege the person in front of us who's suffering very often at the expense

00:25:25.700 of the out group.

00:25:27.320 So it actually, empathy can lead to a lot of cruelty.

00:25:31.300 Right.

00:25:32.060 I think that's such an interesting concept.

00:25:34.180 The title of chapter eight is Full of Empathy and Mean as Hell.

00:25:39.600 And I'm actually writing a book that'll be out this fall about how specifically empathy

00:25:46.420 tricks Christian women into taking the progressive position on everything. 1.00

00:25:52.140 If you have empathy for the migrant, then you'll be for open borders. 1.00

00:25:55.780 If you have empathy for these gender-confused young people, you will affirm them, use their 1.00

00:26:00.800 pronouns, et cetera.

00:26:02.880 And I never thought about what you said, though, that you can't really have full empathy for

00:26:08.820 two people at once.

00:26:10.380 And so whoever is hoisted up in front of you as the worst victim, as the biggest victim

00:26:16.020 based on their skin color, based on their sexual orientation or gender identity or whatever

00:26:21.420 it is, that's the person that you're going to say is right, needs your full defense, needs

00:26:26.640 your full celebration, needs your full affirmation, even at the expense of everyone else, even at

00:26:31.680 the expense of truth, even at the expense of fairness, even at the expense of safety.

00:26:36.220 Obviously, we see that in the gender issue a lot. 0.99

00:26:40.180 But there are many other examples of that, how empathy can actually not just be unhealthy,

00:26:44.940 but harmful.

00:26:47.020 I love that.

00:26:47.900 That's fascinating.

00:26:48.780 I'm excited for your new book.

00:26:50.280 I mean, that's exactly right.

00:26:52.820 Empathy becomes a tool of manipulation, right?

00:26:55.440 So you say to a kid, whatever the issue, oh, well, we all need to feel bad for so-and-so.

00:27:01.560 And I profile in the book a young woman who was treated so cruelly over supposedly a racist

00:27:07.500 and anti-Semitic comment.

00:27:09.260 Now, it turned out the girl was Jewish and it wasn't. 0.96

00:27:12.980 She hadn't made an anti-Semitic comment or a racist comment.

00:27:16.300 But the administrators and the children who accused her of the anti-Semitism were not even

00:27:21.380 Jewish, but they accused her of anti-Semitism based on a funny joke she had made that had

00:27:27.900 really nothing to do with anything.

00:27:29.920 You can see it in the book, but it really didn't have very much to do with anything at

00:27:33.360 all.

00:27:33.560 She was joking about Halloween costumes and they then persecuted her for the rest of

00:27:38.740 the school year and that they felt, but they were only sticking up for the kids who

00:27:44.320 were so pained and injured by this.

00:27:47.180 And no one bothered to say, wait a second, what do you mean you're injured by her anti-Semitic

00:27:51.360 comment?

00:27:51.860 You're not even Jewish. 1.00

00:27:53.240 She is.

00:27:54.620 What are you talking about?

00:27:55.960 No one said that because they completely forgot every sort of basic principle of what

00:28:01.540 was actually said.

00:28:02.540 Does this make any sense?

00:28:03.920 And they just ran with this girl's feelings.

00:28:06.380 Yeah.

00:28:06.940 You know, it reminds me of a phrase that I heard echoed a lot in the era of George Floyd,

00:28:11.480 like the summer of 2020.

00:28:13.960 What matters is the impact, not the intent.

00:28:18.840 That's what they would say, the activists would say, is that it doesn't matter what

00:28:22.240 you meant by what you said.

00:28:23.840 What matters is how it made people feel.

00:28:26.460 And really, it's both and.

00:28:27.960 Like, obviously, if you run into someone, you didn't mean to run into them, you still

00:28:31.000 apologize to say, I'm sorry that I hurt you, even if you didn't mean to.

00:28:34.920 So it's both.

00:28:35.900 But I think that motto that it's always just the impact and the intent doesn't matter at

00:28:42.680 all, it exemplifies what you're talking about there, that we always have to prioritize how

00:28:48.220 someone feels about what you did or what you said over the truth of what someone might have

00:28:56.300 said.

00:28:56.600 And that is a very unfair world to live in.

00:29:02.860 Right.

00:29:03.460 I mean, remember, empathy is not a moral concept, right?

00:29:07.140 In other words, you can do good in this world without having empathy for the person you're

00:29:13.220 helping.

00:29:14.080 You might say, I can't really understand what she's feeling, but I'm going to take care

00:29:17.360 of her anyway or him anyway or whatever the act is that's good.

00:29:21.720 Likewise, you can be, you know, very cruel and full of empathy.

00:29:25.620 So we know that con men and all kinds of, you know, bad people exploit the fact that they

00:29:32.020 can get inside other people's heads to take advantage of them.

00:29:35.780 So sometimes, you know, empathy is not a moral concept.

00:29:38.780 The problem is we're so pushing this with kids and it takes over.

00:29:43.140 It completely sort of, you know, submerges fairness, considerations like fairness, what's

00:29:49.660 right, justice.

00:29:50.600 And we think we're being so emotionally in tuned, but really we're being, you know, the

00:29:56.480 schools are often very tyrannical as they run supposedly with, you know, with to take

00:30:02.700 care of someone's feelings.

00:30:03.940 You know, I've thought about empathy and you can tell me if you agree or disagree with

00:30:20.260 this, but I've thought about empathy as something that can be in particular contexts helpful.

00:30:27.700 For example, before I had kids, when I went on an airplane and there was a bunch of crying

00:30:33.660 babies, I'd be like, seriously, seriously, can you, can the parents not just figure this

00:30:38.740 out?

00:30:39.140 I can't believe that you have this crying toddler, this toddler running around, you

00:30:42.060 have all of these silly thoughts in your head of, oh, when I'm a parent, I'll never

00:30:45.920 do that.

00:30:46.380 It'll never be that way.

00:30:47.580 And then you have kids and wow, you understand.

00:30:50.420 And you have so much compassion for those parents.

00:30:52.880 You completely know what they're going through.

00:30:55.260 It's not easy.

00:30:56.040 They're much more stressed out about their crying baby than you are.

00:30:59.740 And that can motivate you to say, okay, how can I help?

00:31:04.380 Now, of course, you can have compassion for someone without having been in their shoes

00:31:08.960 before, but it helps having been in their shoes.

00:31:11.540 It helps having experienced something yourself.

00:31:14.120 It helps to be able to say, not only can I have compassion for you, but I have felt what

00:31:18.920 you feel.

00:31:20.060 And that is what inspires me to help you out or to see things differently or to be

00:31:26.020 be more gentle with you.

00:31:28.520 But so, oh, go, you know what?

00:31:30.760 Go ahead.

00:31:31.200 You answer that because I think I've spoken enough about it.

00:31:34.080 I think I've explained it.

00:31:35.000 Not at all.

00:31:35.640 I, you know, I would say just to push back on you that it's actually coming from your

00:31:39.960 values.

00:31:40.620 So in other words, you could also have empathy just as easily for the stewardess who is trying

00:31:47.620 to get the parent to shut up or, right?

00:31:51.180 In other words, your values lead you to, to empathize with that mother.

00:31:56.020 But it, the goodness is coming from your values, feeling like a young mother is doing something

00:32:01.280 noble.

00:32:01.660 She's raising the next generation and she's trying to tend to her kids. 1.00

00:32:05.140 And I should try to feel for her.

00:32:08.000 Right.

00:32:08.440 I mean, you see people empathizing with terrorists, empathizing with vandals all over the place

00:32:13.780 because empathy is not bad.

00:32:15.760 It's morally neutral.

00:32:16.880 And that's the point.

00:32:18.180 It can, it can be, it can manipulate us.

00:32:20.860 Yeah.

00:32:21.400 You know, it can manipulate us and, and be misapplied all over the place.

00:32:25.580 Yes, I, I agree.

00:32:26.940 It has to be, um, submissive.

00:32:30.080 Empathy has to be submissive to your values and submissive to the truth.

00:32:33.660 And it is not the same as love.

00:32:36.840 I mean, I've argued before that there really can't be true love without truth.

00:32:42.740 You're not loving someone well by lying to them.

00:32:45.780 You can empathize with someone and lie to them.

00:32:48.380 I don't think you can love someone and lie to them.

00:32:51.220 So empathy can be good when it is submissive to those superior values of love, truth, principles.

00:32:59.900 Um, and so I, yeah, I agree with you there, but it is definitely,

00:33:03.660 it's definitely seen as like the reigning, um, you know, stamp of virtue today that if you are empathetic, you will do X, Y, Z.

00:33:13.900 It's a total tool of manipulation and coercion.

00:33:18.380 Yeah.

00:33:18.820 I mean, think about it this way.

00:33:20.120 You know, if you empathize with a child too much, when you're going to give them a shot, you won't give it to them.

00:33:25.300 Yeah.

00:33:25.920 If you empathize with a child too much, who's upset that he's been sent to his room, you'll never punish him.

00:33:31.400 Right?

00:33:33.080 Like empathy is neither necessary nor sufficient for doing good in this world.

00:33:38.140 And often over empathizing with certain people will keep us from taking care of each other for keeping us from doing the right thing.

00:33:46.480 Right.

00:33:46.960 If a police officer over empathizes with someone who is, you know, a criminal, he might not arrest him.

00:33:55.540 And then the criminal could go on to harm others.

00:33:57.920 Yep.

00:33:58.060 So, you know, in all kinds of situations, empathy is just not, it's, it's amoral and it, it won't necessarily produce the best result.

00:34:07.320 Right.

00:34:07.920 Right.

00:34:08.280 Tell me how this leads into gentle parenting.

00:34:13.080 Would you say that it is, that the idea of gentle parenting, that it is led by the idea that empathy must be first and must be foremost when it comes to,

00:34:28.060 how we treat our children?

00:34:30.220 I love that.

00:34:31.220 That's not how I described it in the book, but I love your characterization.

00:34:34.440 I think that's great.

00:34:35.420 I mean, yes, that's a way of looking at it.

00:34:37.500 It is a therapeutic method, which constantly solicits the child's feelings, focuses on the feelings, puts the parent at the same level as a child.

00:34:48.180 And it's constantly a conversation about how are we feeling about this?

00:34:52.740 Do we, and, and giving a child endless options.

00:34:55.360 Now, there are a number of problems with this.

00:34:57.040 There are another reasons that it is not good for kids.

00:35:00.080 And, and the number one thing is that we've known now for really millennia that kids need parental authority, which doesn't mean cruelty.

00:35:08.420 It doesn't mean, you know, an unloving laying down of rules, but ultimately the parent has to be in charge.

00:35:14.500 A child will feel much more safe and secure if the parent is in charge.

00:35:18.800 But if you empathize too much with a child, you'll never do what's right for the kid.

00:35:25.240 Yeah, this is such a debate right now among young moms. 1.00

00:35:30.140 And I think that there is some, there's somewhere in between.

00:35:34.580 I mean, obviously only being a disciplinarian or a nag or a nitpick or someone who never gives credit to what your child is feeling. 1.00

00:35:43.800 That's one thing.

00:35:44.540 But who is that today?

00:35:46.180 I mean, does that even exist today?

00:35:48.420 We don't have authoritarian parents anymore.

00:35:51.240 We surround our kids with these therapeutic, empathic adults.

00:35:54.920 No one is laying down any rules or high expectations, almost in any situation they're in.

00:36:01.480 The problem isn't that they have empathetic mothers or empathetic fathers.

00:36:06.020 It's that they're getting therapy from every angle and no one's saying, you're fine.

00:36:11.300 Go on, keep playing soccer.

00:36:12.780 You'll be fine.

00:36:14.040 No one's saying, knock it off.

00:36:15.480 No one's saying, shake it off.

00:36:16.640 No one's saying, handle your problems yourself.

00:36:19.080 And that's the problem.

00:36:20.540 It's so extreme.

00:36:22.340 And I'll tell you something else.

00:36:23.740 Empathy can be much crueler.

00:36:25.800 And I'll give you an example why.

00:36:27.140 Let's say you don't set down rules for your child.

00:36:30.100 Let's say you always solicit their opinion.

00:36:32.760 You always worry about their feelings.

00:36:34.680 You just hug them when they're in distress.

00:36:36.920 You never punish them when they punch their little sibling, right?

00:36:40.520 Now you're going to send them off to school where they have to obey the teacher's rules.

00:36:44.800 And they won't be able to do it.

00:36:46.680 So tell me what ended up the most compassionate.

00:36:49.720 Was that compassionate?

00:36:50.760 The teacher's going to now want to put your child on drugs. 1.00

00:36:53.740 Right, right.

00:36:55.320 And even beyond that, I mean, if that problem extends until they're a teenager, until they're

00:37:00.280 an adult, and they never learn how to work with other people, learn how to share, learn

00:37:06.400 how to not have outbursts or violent reactions when they don't get their way.

00:37:11.140 I mean, you're talking about not you disciplining them, but the state disciplining them.

00:37:16.060 And so you're right.

00:37:17.080 At the end of the day, which was the more compassionate option.

00:37:20.960 The last book, people were always talking about, you know, oh, what about, you know, what we teachers

00:37:38.700 have to get in there and liberate the kids and protect the kids from their horrible, you

00:37:43.500 know, homophobic parents who won't affirm, you know, who are so homophobic, they would

00:37:48.660 throw a child out in the street.

00:37:50.460 And they invented this bugaboo that didn't exist.

00:37:54.120 I mean, I don't know what, how many decades we have to go back in order to make that a

00:37:58.660 reality of American life.

00:38:00.620 But it has been so many decades until since that even existed.

00:38:04.960 And they were saying this in the most liberal districts in our country, in California, there

00:38:09.740 was this idea, oh, that we couldn't trust those homophobic parents.

00:38:13.140 And I think the same gets true when you talk about basic authority and rules and expectations

00:38:17.960 in the home.

00:38:18.780 Where are these cruel, unloving parents who demand obedience?

00:38:23.340 You know, these authoritarian parents.

00:38:25.320 Now, we know authoritarian, which is unloving and rule bound.

00:38:28.600 Um, those kids don't fare very well, but neither do the permissive parents.

00:38:33.740 And study after study has shown this.

00:38:36.200 The ones who, or as I call them, the therapeutic parents are even worse than permissive because

00:38:40.700 they surveil the kids.

00:38:42.340 They give them no independence and they constantly solicit the kids' feelings on everything.

00:38:47.380 Neither of those kids has, has done very well in terms of happiness, uh, anxiety, depression

00:38:52.320 and, and success and all kinds of, uh, a good relationship with parents long-term.

00:38:57.000 Uh, none of the, the, those have had good, you know, results, but authoritative parents

00:39:02.420 who just basically set down rules.

00:39:04.180 That's not cruel.

00:39:05.960 That's just parenting.

00:39:08.600 Do you think that it's changed because of how the different generations were parented?

00:39:17.020 My grandparents were part of the silent generation.

00:39:19.480 I think like within my age, it's probably grandparents in the silent or the great generation.

00:39:25.140 And so, you know, early 20th century to the thirties and forties, my parents, baby boomers,

00:39:31.120 and obviously they didn't have as much of an emotional or even affectionate upbringing as

00:39:38.360 I did.

00:39:38.900 And I have a great relationship with my parents and they certainly were not permissive.

00:39:44.660 They were authoritative and they weren't as, even though I never, ever, ever have doubted

00:39:49.900 that my parents love me so much and love my brother so much.

00:39:53.460 I wouldn't call them affectionate necessarily.

00:39:57.500 My husband and I are much more affectionate as parents and maybe a little bit gentler as

00:40:05.280 well than my parents were.

00:40:06.900 And a lot of my friends say the same, say the same thing, that we are just much more

00:40:12.140 affectionate and kind of like gushy with our children than our parents were, even though

00:40:17.200 we have a great relationship with them.

00:40:19.020 And I just kind of, I wonder why that is.

00:40:23.620 Because we, I think we bought into the idea that it was cruel to lay down rules and just

00:40:29.380 say, no, I'm sorry.

00:40:31.300 Those are the consequences.

00:40:32.620 You hit your sister.

00:40:33.980 I'm taking away your toy.

00:40:35.440 You're going to your room.

00:40:36.280 We started feeling like that was abusive.

00:40:39.240 That could cause them trauma.

00:40:41.120 We were afraid to do it even when we needed to.

00:40:44.600 And it became, we also poured way more time into the kids than any generation.

00:40:49.940 We are so devoted to these kids and we're so determined to have a close relationship with

00:40:55.000 them in part because we spend all our time devoting ourselves to them.

00:40:58.780 So now we really want to be their besties.

00:41:01.240 And the problem is, look, you can be as affectionate to a kid as you want.

00:41:05.380 That's not harmful, right?

00:41:08.100 But you can't miss out on being in charge.

00:41:11.420 See, if you stop being in charge, that's when the harms come in.

00:41:15.360 And study after study has shown this.

00:41:17.540 The kids don't do as well in all kinds of metrics because kids know that someone has

00:41:22.220 to be in charge.

00:41:22.980 And very often when a kid wasn't raised by anyone who was willing to be in charge, they

00:41:28.700 go looking for daddy elsewhere.

00:41:30.400 And we see radicalism, political radicalism in this generation in rates that are new,

00:41:36.360 that are much higher than before.

00:41:37.940 They are, you know, and many, you know, I interviewed several immigrant parents and

00:41:41.680 people who work with parents whose families have become radicalized, the kids have become

00:41:47.000 radicalized and they tell me very often these come from the most liberal, these kids come

00:41:51.100 from the most liberal homes before they join Antifa, BLM, whatever it is, but they're really

00:41:56.080 looking for daddy.

00:41:57.680 And I, you know, that is a consequence of never having high expectations or rules for

00:42:03.920 your own home.

00:42:05.060 Totally.

00:42:05.540 I can see that the importance of discipline and setting, not just setting the boundaries,

00:42:09.500 but consistently enforcing those boundaries.

00:42:11.640 Kids are always looking for that.

00:42:13.600 Like even when it comes to non, not, not just discipline, but when you see a toddler start

00:42:21.400 developing, they're putting everything kind of into categories, into definitions.

00:42:25.180 They know the difference between mom and dad, male and female from a very early age.

00:42:29.660 We do this here.

00:42:30.420 We do that there.

00:42:31.340 This is right here.

00:42:32.260 This is wrong.

00:42:32.760 Whatever it is.

00:42:34.200 You can tell that they are looking for those definitions.

00:42:36.620 They're looking for the lines.

00:42:38.280 They're looking for the boundaries.

00:42:40.060 And I think part of their development is to test those boundaries.

00:42:43.160 And it sounds like what you're saying is that parents in the name of being empathetic

00:42:47.700 and gentle have said, yeah, keep testing them, just keep pushing them out.

00:42:51.820 And we will keep moving the boundaries further and further out until they basically don't exist.

00:42:57.900 And these radicalized teens are out in search of those boundaries.

00:43:02.580 Finally, like, you know, how extreme can I get?

00:43:05.500 How radical can I get until someone finally tells me to stop?

00:43:11.440 Right.

00:43:11.980 I mean, think about it this way.

00:43:13.540 Say you don't punish a five-year-old who's hitting his sister.

00:43:17.160 Okay.

00:43:17.340 First of all, he could hurt his sister.

00:43:19.140 Right.

00:43:19.600 Okay.

00:43:19.820 Second of all, now he's in charge because he's dominating things.

00:43:24.140 He's the most powerful.

00:43:25.420 He's, you know, asserting a certain rule over his sister.

00:43:29.860 There's something else too.

00:43:30.960 Now you're sending a kid who hits other kids off to school.

00:43:34.600 Totally.

00:43:35.320 So is that more compassionate?

00:43:37.120 Is he likely to be, you know, get, have friends at school, have people like him, have

00:43:42.260 teachers who want to teach him?

00:43:43.660 No, because nobody likes a kid who's going around hitting other kids, right?

00:43:50.520 What they do is they suggest a medication.

00:43:52.540 They start telling you he has oppositional defiant disorder, right?

00:43:56.360 That there's something wrong with him.

00:43:57.880 And if you think that having your kid set up to believe there's something wrong with him,

00:44:03.120 just because he, he, he never heard the word no.

00:44:06.820 Well, to me, that's far less kind and, and, and compassionate to a kid.

00:44:13.660 I worry about my kids being put in school and being around other kids whose parents did

00:44:33.740 not give them boundaries and did not discipline them and did not lay a good foundation for

00:44:39.600 them, did not tell them that self-control was a virtue.

00:44:43.800 Of course, I believe it's a fruit of the spirit.

00:44:46.060 It's as a good thing.

00:44:47.460 The Bible tells us that we're supposed to practice.

00:44:50.280 I worry about that.

00:44:52.000 I worry about, I mean, my kids aren't Gen Z, they're younger than that, but I worry what

00:44:57.480 kind of generation they're going to grow up with.

00:45:00.820 Kids who put their feelings first only and are unable to really function in a healthy

00:45:07.820 way with everyone else.

00:45:10.380 Right.

00:45:10.880 I think we're seeing it.

00:45:12.080 I think we're seeing it in the demand.

00:45:14.100 You must use my pronouns.

00:45:16.000 You must change your course to accommodate me.

00:45:20.520 You must, um, you know, we're seeing it in the workplace.

00:45:23.540 Do you know how many young people are having their parents call the, their bosses to tell

00:45:28.980 them that they've got, that they're too stressed out on the job.

00:45:31.840 These are adults.

00:45:32.920 And they're so infantilized and their feelings are always front and center.

00:45:37.800 And honestly, they're tyrannizing others and they're tyrannized themselves by their

00:45:42.020 own obsession with their feelings.

00:45:44.040 No wonder they don't want to get married and don't want to, don't want to have kids

00:45:47.860 because those things, they do require commitment.

00:45:50.900 They require you to give up some of what you want, your complete autonomy and your complete

00:45:58.160 flexibility for the good of someone else.

00:46:02.020 And when sacrifice is seen as not just inconvenience, but as trauma and as something that is actually

00:46:08.440 immoral and dangerous, of course, you are going to avoid any kind of commitment that causes

00:46:14.420 you to put yourself second.

00:46:16.880 Exactly.

00:46:17.680 That's exactly the right.

00:46:18.880 That was perfectly said.

00:46:20.040 You know, um, I, I, you know, I think of at any time when, I mean, when do moms do what 0.95

00:46:25.560 they want to do?

00:46:26.840 Yeah.

00:46:27.320 What feels good to them?

00:46:28.660 I mean, you spend so much time just suppressing your own needs.

00:46:32.640 Right.

00:46:33.360 And, and taking care of someone else.

00:46:35.540 That's the job.

00:46:36.940 And, um, I'll tell you what the best email response I got was from, uh, someone passed on

00:46:42.360 to me.

00:46:42.680 It was from a mom who said, you know, I listened to Abigail on a podcast.

00:46:46.400 And for the first time this morning, I punished my son without guilt.

00:46:51.000 That's amazing.

00:46:51.400 And the reason I liked that was not because she had punished her son.

00:46:54.880 That's up to her.

00:46:56.260 That was her decision.

00:46:57.420 Not because I told her when to punish or how to punish or whether to punish.

00:47:02.500 That's not my business.

00:47:03.460 Yeah.

00:47:03.760 But because she was doing what she believed was right without guilt for the first time.

00:47:08.040 She was parenting.

00:47:09.540 She was right.

00:47:10.660 And that's all I seek to.

00:47:11.960 I'm not, I'm no parenting expert.

00:47:13.500 I'm not, I'm not even sure I believe in parenting experts.

00:47:16.400 Okay.

00:47:16.720 Most of the ones I've seen are not terribly impressive, but I do believe in parents exercising

00:47:23.180 their, their better instincts without being told they're going to traumatize the child

00:47:28.220 because it isn't true and it isn't helpful.

00:47:31.080 Yeah.

00:47:31.620 I think also just like the overemphasis on individuality that everyone is special and that

00:47:39.280 you don't have any similarities to anyone else and you shouldn't.

00:47:42.300 And every single kind of misbehavior or any kind of, um, you know, lack of character that

00:47:50.540 you have is not negative.

00:47:52.140 It's just another quirk.

00:47:53.460 It's just your personality type.

00:47:54.840 It's just your Enneagram number.

00:47:56.400 It's just something special and beautiful about you that doesn't actually need to be worked

00:48:01.160 on at all, but needs to be applauded.

00:48:03.420 I think that also gives parents a sense of guilt that like, I can't punish, I can't discipline

00:48:09.060 because I am suppressing this snowflake of a person.

00:48:13.320 Um, and while there are, you know, beautiful, unique characteristics of each person, the fact

00:48:20.720 of the matter is, is that we do have to learn how to function in society with other people.

00:48:26.060 Gosh, there's so much to say about what you just said.

00:48:29.120 That's totally right.

00:48:30.180 It's why, of course, it's a huge part of why religious families tend to do well.

00:48:33.920 People who pass on religion because they're always pushing the kids to look outward, to

00:48:38.400 think of themselves as connected to something higher, to a higher purpose.

00:48:42.580 Community is so important for our wellbeing.

00:48:45.800 We never talk about it.

00:48:47.100 Instead, we tell their kids exactly as you said, they're so unique in the world, right?

00:48:50.440 They don't need to ever worry about anyone beyond themselves.

00:48:53.060 Well, that's actually very detrimental to their, to their wellbeing.

00:48:57.720 Um, telling them they're part of something greater is actually really good for their wellbeing.

00:49:01.940 But you know, there's, there's another thing too.

00:49:04.800 And that is that it, part of the reason parents never took away the phones and never even limited

00:49:10.400 their use, even during the school day was because they became convinced that the child

00:49:14.980 would be cruelly treated and emotionally, you know, tormented if they weren't with their

00:49:20.240 friends, if they weren't always connected to their friends.

00:49:23.060 I can't, that was the most common response I got when I said, why don't you take it away

00:49:27.020 from her?

00:49:27.380 If you feel like it's harming her, if you feel like her, you know, transgender identification

00:49:31.740 is getting worse.

00:49:32.740 If you feel like, you know, she's getting more anxiety, more depression, more sleeplessness,

00:49:36.980 less attention span.

00:49:38.000 Why can't you take it away?

00:49:39.560 And the parents would often say to me, because she's connected, that's how she talks to her

00:49:43.060 friends.

00:49:44.020 I can't take her away from her friends.

00:49:46.460 And of course, a generation ago, parents had no trouble saying, I'm sorry, you're grounded.

00:49:51.440 You can't go out with your friends.

00:49:52.780 This is best for you.

00:49:54.560 But in this generation, we were so afraid of the trauma that would come in if we ever,

00:50:00.200 you know, cut them off from their friends.

00:50:02.020 And the mental health experts told us that.

00:50:04.460 They said that explicitly, that, you know, very often kids need to be connected to their

00:50:09.880 friends over their phone and that it was good for them.

00:50:12.660 And they warned parents that it might undermine your relationship with your child if you take

00:50:17.300 away their phone.

00:50:18.020 And so parents couldn't even follow their best instincts.

00:50:22.180 Yeah.

00:50:22.900 I think that also parents just want to avoid bad feelings as much as possible.

00:50:28.300 And if their child says that they feel bad without their phone or they feel bad because

00:50:33.500 their child says they feel bad, the easiest way to numb that pain is to just give your child

00:50:39.340 what you want.

00:50:40.060 So it takes not only discipline for your kid, but discipline in yourself.

00:50:43.940 Like parents have to be able to manage our bad feelings and to say, it doesn't feel good

00:50:49.080 to take this away from my child.

00:50:50.360 I don't want to do it.

00:50:51.280 It's making it a lot harder.

00:50:52.500 I have to deal with the tears.

00:50:53.520 I have to deal with the tantrums.

00:50:54.560 I have to deal with the consequences of doing this hard thing.

00:50:58.860 Parents also have to be willing to go through hard things and to deal with hard feelings if

00:51:04.180 we are going to discipline and parent our kids.

00:51:07.320 I think that's, you know, a whole other layer to this.

00:51:10.040 That's right.

00:51:11.920 But here's the other thing.

00:51:12.900 They get no support.

00:51:14.120 Parents get no support from the culture.

00:51:16.380 None.

00:51:17.020 I mean, the easiest thing to do would be, you know, what, what, you know, the wonderful

00:51:20.920 psychologist Jonathan Haidt has suggested, and we have known for years, they take the

00:51:25.720 kids out of, they take the phones out of schools.

00:51:28.540 Yeah.

00:51:28.840 At least during the school day, don't have them on their phones.

00:51:31.460 This was so obvious and parents knew it.

00:51:33.980 Parents had been complaining about the harms to their children, but they got no support.

00:51:37.900 And they were undermined all the time, so they couldn't trust their own instincts.

00:51:43.420 And you're right.

00:51:44.260 Everything we need to do for our kids is hard.

00:51:46.720 There's nothing harder than sending a kid away from the dinner table because he's been

00:51:52.580 rude or disrespectful or done something bad at the dinner table.

00:51:56.180 I mean, it's such a hassle to parents.

00:51:59.340 If anything, you know, it's the hardest thing you ever have to do is discipline your kid or

00:52:04.040 not give them what they want.

00:52:05.540 But it's also necessary.

00:52:07.880 Yeah, man, you're so right.

00:52:09.740 I know moms who are trying now to get other parents on board to take the phones out of 1.00

00:52:18.220 school.

00:52:18.980 They want other parents support and saying, hey, can't you get on board with this initiative

00:52:23.640 to say no phones in school?

00:52:25.540 And the biggest impediment to that, like the biggest obstacle those, you know, anti-phone

00:52:32.040 in school moms have is other moms, other parents. 1.00

00:52:36.380 And the biggest reason is I want to be able to text my kid immediately.

00:52:40.220 I want them to text me back.

00:52:41.500 I want to know that they're okay.

00:52:43.400 Well, guess what?

00:52:44.100 For thousands and thousands of years, we never had that luxury.

00:52:47.540 And now it's parents who are conditioned to that instant gratification of knowing their

00:52:53.700 kid is okay.

00:52:55.820 And so it is an uphill struggle.

00:52:58.560 That's exactly right.

00:52:59.660 We've become so frantic, so anxious.

00:53:02.500 And look, I can tell you my own kids' school, you know, they tried to limit the phones.

00:53:06.600 But I can tell you that every time we have an expert who comes in, they say, well, the

00:53:10.680 phones are good and they're bad.

00:53:12.600 And even the, you know, American Psychological Association, which was so late in issuing

00:53:18.180 any statement when they finally mentioned, you know, the harms of social media, it was

00:53:22.520 incredibly equivocal.

00:53:24.200 It was, oh, it can be bad, but also good.

00:53:27.240 You know, they never, the Surgeon General never did this with cigarettes, right?

00:53:31.420 When they warned parents of the harms, which by the way, cigarettes also have positive things

00:53:37.660 about them, right?

00:53:38.500 They're neural stimulants, they're social.

00:53:40.580 There are things that are good about them, but bottom line is they'll give you cancer.

00:53:44.600 And at least they issued the warning.

00:53:47.160 The psychological associations won't even, haven't even issued a clear warning about these

00:53:53.120 things.

00:53:53.700 So it makes it so much harder for parents to organize and try to take them out of schools,

00:53:59.760 even though we've known for eight years that they're bad for kids.

00:54:04.960 What would you say, and I know that we have to end, there are a million other things I could

00:54:09.060 ask you.

00:54:10.580 What would you say to the physician that says, okay, I hear you, Abigail, but there are some

00:54:16.880 good things about therapy.

00:54:18.780 There are some good things about children learning how to express their emotions and talk about

00:54:25.280 difficult things and talk about their feelings.

00:54:27.640 We don't want all of that pin up because maybe it can manifest itself in bad ways down the line.

00:54:33.140 What do you say to people who say, I've seen some benefits to SEL or to therapy?

00:54:39.340 And how dare you take that away from us?

00:54:42.240 So, um, I think that, you know, I, I try to look at the studies because, um, I think that

00:54:49.860 people tend to exaggerate.

00:54:51.440 You, you often see this with young mothers, they'll see one, you know, one thing that was

00:54:56.840 positive.

00:54:57.300 And then they go around telling every, in their five-year-old and they go around telling everyone,

00:55:00.620 no, no, no, no, SEL is good.

00:55:02.280 It really helped my daughter today.

00:55:03.940 I mean, you have to wait and see how these things play out over time.

00:55:07.300 Now, um, so, so I do think it's good to look at research.

00:55:12.120 Um, there's new research out of Australia and England in which they had a control group.

00:55:17.560 One was a meta study of several different kinds of SEL and the other, and then the other looked

00:55:23.480 at, um, coping techniques and teaching specifically kinds of regulation skills, coping techniques

00:55:29.880 and social emotional skills.

00:55:31.280 The other looked at anti-bullying techniques that were taught.

00:55:34.160 They had a control group, they had, um, and they followed these kids over a year and

00:55:39.120 the kids ended up sadder, more anxious, or not helped at all and, um, more alienated from

00:55:46.420 their parents.

00:55:47.600 So, um, does giving kids a vocabulary about their emotions help them?

00:55:52.680 Of course, but that's not actually what the schools do.

00:55:56.440 You see what they do is they go in and they, they give them gobbledygook.

00:55:59.820 Sometimes one parent shared with me that her child was being taught anger is red.

00:56:05.660 Um, it was like, happiness is yellow.

00:56:08.080 You know, it was all arbitrary nonsense.

00:56:10.180 They aren't always, I mean, I'll give you an example.

00:56:13.140 Let me, let me just say something real fast.

00:56:14.900 I'll give you an example to, to strengthen that point that you were making.

00:56:18.500 Okay.

00:56:18.880 Here's a good example.

00:56:19.800 And my, my husband told me the story when he was a little boy, um, his father came to

00:56:23.760 pick him up from a friend's house early.

00:56:25.300 And he's gotten to the car and he said to his dad, I'm so angry that you picked me up

00:56:31.880 because I was having a good time.

00:56:33.320 And his father said to him, no, you're not.

00:56:35.320 You're frustrated.

00:56:36.740 And that was helpful because now he was saying, no, you're not, you're not angry.

00:56:41.800 Let me, let me give you a new word.

00:56:43.260 That's actually going to help you because it's not exactly anger.

00:56:46.120 And there's no question that's helpful.

00:56:47.960 But if you go into the schools and look at what they're actually doing, all of this

00:56:52.440 feelings focus inevitably funnels towards obsession over bad feelings, obsession over

00:56:58.520 bad pain, and who's in charge of you when you're a kid, who's in charge of making sure

00:57:04.440 that you're not hurt.

00:57:05.880 Inevitably, it ends up as a criticism of the parents, the people who were supposed to keep

00:57:09.780 you safe.

00:57:10.760 So in practice, those things very, very often go together.

00:57:14.780 That's a really good clarifying point.

00:57:16.640 Thank you so much, Abigail.

00:57:18.180 I'm so excited for people to read this book, Bad Therapy, Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up.

00:57:23.940 And I just want to say like your chapter titles are amazing.

00:57:27.040 The chapter titles are sufficient and getting someone to want to read this book.

00:57:32.200 So good.

00:57:32.700 Thank you so much, Abigail.

00:57:34.400 This book, I'm guessing, is available everywhere.

00:57:37.680 It's available everywhere.

00:57:38.720 Thank you so much, Allie.

00:57:39.620 I really, really appreciate it.

00:57:40.980 Awesome.

00:57:41.440 Thanks so much, Abigail.

00:57:42.280 Have a good day.

00:57:46.640 I don't know.

00:57:48.180 Thank you.

00:57:51.420 You

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 06, 2024

Ep 963 ｜ The Dangers of Gentle Parenting, SEL & Empathy ｜ Guest： Abigail Shrier

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