The Art of Manliness - #448： Your Son Isn’t Lazy — How to Empower Boys to Succeed [RE-BROADCAST]

00:00:00.000 Hey, Brett here. We're taking a quick break for the Thanksgiving holiday here in the United States.

00:00:03.760 So we're rebroadcasting episode number 448, Your Son Isn't Lazy. It was originally broadcasted

00:00:09.060 October 2018. It's one of our most downloaded episodes ever. It's with a child psychologist

00:00:13.420 by the name of Adam Price. And it's a great podcast if you have sons, boys who look like

00:00:18.580 they're disengaged, unmotivated about school, about life. A lot of great insights here and

00:00:23.080 field-tested insights on how to help and reach out to those boys. So check it out. I hope you

00:00:26.560 enjoy it. And for those United States, hope you have a happy Thanksgiving. We'll see you on Monday.

00:00:45.340 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Do you have a

00:00:49.760 teenage boy who struggles in school or do you have a younger son who you can imagine struggling in

00:00:54.380 full as he gets older? He may otherwise be a capable young man, but seems apathetic and

00:00:58.020 unmotivated to the point you think he's not excelling simply because he's lazy. My guest

00:01:02.660 today says that's the wrong conclusion to draw and one that leads to the wrong parenting approach

00:01:06.540 to addressing it. His name is Adam Price and he's the child psychologist and the author of the book

00:01:10.160 He's Not Lazy, Empowering Your Son to Believe in Himself. Today on the show, Dr. Price argues that the

00:01:14.720 real reason many young men are unmotivated is not that they don't care about succeeding, but that they feel

00:01:19.220 too much pressure to do so and are scared of failing. We discuss why nagging and over-parenting

00:01:23.880 simply exacerbates the issue and how stepping back and giving boys more autonomy can help them

00:01:28.300 become more self-directed and find their footing. After the show's over, check out the show notes

00:01:32.240 at aom.is slash not lazy. Dr. Adam Price, welcome to the show.

00:01:50.480 Hey, thanks for having me.

00:01:51.720 So you're a clinical psychologist who specializes in children and teenagers and because of your work,

00:01:58.460 you've encountered a lot of high school boys who, you know, they don't have serious mental

00:02:04.400 issues. No severe depression, you know, no severe learning disabilities, yet they just appear apathetic

00:02:12.040 towards school and life. So can you kind of give us a composite description of this type of boy who,

00:02:18.460 no big, you know, depressive issues, but they just are unmotivated?

00:02:23.680 Yeah. And Brad, I think it's good that you're making that distinction because,

00:02:27.140 you know, depression looks different. Depression certainly has a feeling of apathy and lack of

00:02:33.860 interest in things. We have a big word for it in psychiatry, which is anhedonia, which means losing

00:02:38.840 interest. But that's different than just not having motivation for specific things. And, you know,

00:02:45.420 I would, though, include ADHD in this. We don't think about that as a learning disability, but I think

00:02:52.400 it could be considered that. And so actually, some of my interest in this area of motivation,

00:02:58.060 the teenage boys came from working with and evaluating a lot of boys with ADHD. So my thoughts,

00:03:05.400 my thinking in the book is for parents of boys who do and don't have ADHD, but I would just throw that

00:03:10.700 in there. And so what I see over and over again are boys who, on the outside, look like they're

00:03:18.020 impervious to academic pressure. They really look like they don't care. They make time for video games.

00:03:24.920 They may make time for sports or their friends. But when it comes to school, they seem to find a way

00:03:31.360 of flying under the radar of serious trouble. Yet their parents are really worried about them.

00:03:37.060 They're thinking about their future. And what I've learned over time is that underneath,

00:03:42.620 these boys really are responding to a pressure they feel they can't handle. And so in the face

00:03:48.360 of this pressure, what they do rather than face the competition is they decide to opt out altogether.

00:03:55.120 And they say things like school really is important. I'm not going to be one of those nerds

00:03:59.700 who studies all the time. I'm going to do fine. There's a lot of avoidance and denial that you

00:04:05.120 see. The denial is everything's fine. It's going to work out. Avoidance seems to be the go-to defense

00:04:12.120 for teenage boys, which is I just won't think about it. I just won't deal with it. I'll do something

00:04:17.240 that's more satisfying and pleasurable to me.

00:04:19.700 Right. So I was going to say, so your book, He's Not Lazy, right? Because I think when most parents

00:04:24.260 see a kid who doesn't really apply themselves at school and they're just playing videos of games

00:04:29.520 all the time, they think, well, he's such a bright kid. If he weren't so lazy, if he just applied

00:04:34.640 himself, he'd be a success. But it's not laziness. It's avoidance.

00:04:38.940 It's not laziness. But what's underneath the avoidance is fear, right? So I hear a lot from

00:04:47.920 parents, he's not working up to his potential. And by the way, this is true for girls too, but

00:04:52.600 he's not working up to his potential. And so what parents are seeing is that a young man may be

00:05:01.200 bright, as you said, but there's two things. The first thing is that academic achievement

00:05:06.980 and achievement in general is not based just upon talent, right? You know, it's based upon

00:05:12.740 perseverance. It's based upon maturity. It's based upon organizational skills. There are a lot of things

00:05:17.900 that go into doing well in school. So just because someone's bright doesn't mean that they can

00:05:22.360 nail every subject. But the other thing is, you know, I fear that all this talk about potential

00:05:28.600 is really a wolf in sheep's clothing. Because I think even though it sounds like it's all about

00:05:33.320 growth and development, what parents are really saying is if my son were at the top of his class,

00:05:38.640 if he worked as hard as he could all the time, he'd be at the top of his class.

00:05:42.900 And that just isn't the case. You know, when I was a boy, my mom came home from a

00:05:48.280 parent-teacher conference in fourth grade. And she said to me, your teacher said two things about

00:05:53.220 you. One is you're not paying attention enough in school. You're talking too much to your neighbors,

00:05:57.640 which really is a 1970s way of diagnosing ADHD. But then my mom said, the teacher said,

00:06:04.340 you're not working up to your potential. And I really, I thought she was saying I wasn't smart

00:06:08.300 enough, you know? And I've given this a lot of thought because I think, well, you know,

00:06:13.720 listeners, have you achieved your potential today? Have I achieved my potential? I hope not.

00:06:18.240 I hope it's something we're always working towards. So parents talk about laziness. Yeah.

00:06:24.820 I mean, so have you, you've been doing this for, you know, 20 plus years. Have you seen an increase

00:06:29.940 of young men disengaging from school because of this pressure?

00:06:33.580 I have. I think that we are seeing it in many, many different ways, you know? And

00:06:39.480 part of the reason I wrote the book about boys is that boys often handle stress differently than

00:06:45.200 girls. You know, girls have this pressure to be perfect and to do everything without breaking a 1.00

00:06:50.220 sweat, by being beautiful, but also by meeting everybody's expectations. Boys, as I kind of

00:06:56.620 described, they experience the stress by shutting down more often. And we have seen a rise in anxiety

00:07:03.340 among teenagers, depression among teenagers, you know, a lot of behavioral problems. And a lot of

00:07:09.580 people speculate what that's about. You know, I think a lot of it has to, I mean, the world is,

00:07:14.100 you know, there's, there's forces out there that kids are worried about in terms of their future,

00:07:18.440 like global warming. I mean, kids are thinking about this stuff, but also college has become a

00:07:24.160 whole different ball game than certainly when I went to college. There's, it's more competitive,

00:07:29.340 resources are tighter, you know, it's much more expensive. So a lot of people who might've been

00:07:34.560 able to afford it, you know, or, or, or kids could take out loans and be able to pay them back. It's

00:07:39.120 just not accessible for a lot of families. So I think that there is a lot more fear out there.

00:07:45.960 Kids are under more pressure.

00:07:47.180 Yeah. I mean, I think in the book, you describe what life was like, you know, before this intense

00:07:53.360 pressure to go to college and to be the best in college and get scholarships. I mean, it seemed like

00:07:58.260 there were more options for young men, right? You could go to college or, you know, you go

00:08:03.900 learn a trade or you go do this. So there was, I don't know, it wasn't that what the pressure wasn't

00:08:09.300 so acute as it is today. I can tell you, I went to an Ivy league college and if I applied today

00:08:15.880 with the same, you know, SAT scores and grades, they would laugh me off the campus. And a lot of,

00:08:21.780 a lot of my peers say that as well. It just is, it is different. You know, there's economic shifts,

00:08:27.140 you know, even the way the internet has changed our economy and change the type of jobs people can

00:08:31.920 get, you know, all these things I think are factors, more temporary jobs. You know, I think

00:08:36.820 this is all part of what kids are facing either directly or indirectly. And so the, the, you know,

00:08:43.320 the future just doesn't feel as bright or wide open.

00:08:47.560 And I thought it was an interesting comment you made. You know, today we call boys who are

00:08:50.600 unmotivated in school lazy, but there was a time when we called them, well, they're just a late bloomer,

00:08:55.460 right? You know, I, I, yeah, I really appreciate you say that because I think what's happened is

00:09:01.840 that, is that yesterday's late bloomer has become today's underachiever. And the thing is that a

00:09:08.540 late bloomer, they, they still have time to catch up, but underachiever, he's already behind and boys

00:09:15.880 do take longer to develop and boys develop at different rates. And kids who have ADHD, they're,

00:09:22.160 they, you know, their development, and we're talking about a broad scope of development,

00:09:25.520 but particularly, you know, the, the executive functions, the prefrontal cortex, the part of

00:09:30.420 the brain that plans ahead and that does organization, you know, that's going through a

00:09:35.240 whole reorganization for teenagers, for all teenagers. And if you have ADD, it's, you're going

00:09:40.960 to be even 20% behind, you know, what we consider normal development. So we really need space for

00:09:48.160 boys to feel like they can be late bloomers because many of them are many of them. I've

00:09:52.860 seen so many kids who I saw in high school and I get feedback as they go into college and even the

00:09:57.740 workforce, they end up doing okay. Yeah. I mean, I think I've read research where like,

00:10:02.800 basically it's like the adult, like their brain doesn't really settle. Their adult brain doesn't

00:10:07.280 settle into like 25, 26. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Right. And you're, and you're, and you're expected

00:10:13.440 at age 18 to like pretty much have your adult life planned out and ready. Yeah. I think parents

00:10:19.340 don't realize that. I think we, we, we forget how disorganized we were as, as teenagers and kids.

00:10:25.920 We think we were, you know, more on top of it, more focused. And, and, you know, I think what

00:10:33.440 we're trying to do is I think because parents are afraid of the future and because they're worried

00:10:38.080 about it, you know, they're trying to take full control of it by, by offering tutoring and, and,

00:10:45.760 and even therapy and, you know, all sorts of services. And, and the problem is, you know,

00:10:50.880 we can't commandeer the future. And, um, even though, you know, the, the natural course of development

00:10:57.880 is to take your time to develop and to grow, we're trying to speed up the process. We're trying to

00:11:03.680 raise kids who at 18 are ready to go out there and make their own decisions and, and, and be full

00:11:09.940 functioning adults and it reach their potential. And it's just not possible. So, uh, you related to

00:11:15.820 related to this just a moment ago, but let's kind of get into the details of it. What is going on in

00:11:20.660 the body and the mind of a teenage boy that exacerbates that feeling of pressure that, so that

00:11:28.260 intense pressure where the only option is to just give up? You know, I, I, there's a lot there in

00:11:35.800 that question because obviously there's a lot going on in adolescent development. There's obviously

00:11:41.320 puberty. There's obviously all of the changes that are going on in a teenager's body as they mature

00:11:46.720 sexually. There's the effect of hormones on both boys and girls, which can create a lot of moodiness and

00:11:53.400 a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, you know, ups and downs. Um, we know all that. And, and, and so what I would

00:12:00.400 focus on in terms of the effect of that on academic achievement on motivation is that a lot of what

00:12:08.180 happens for teenagers is that they have a, it's almost an identity crisis, Brett, although I'm not

00:12:14.540 sure crisis fits because it's really an opportunity, but you know, when, when, when, when you're a child,

00:12:20.720 you look at the world through your parents' eyes and, you know, they're the ruler of the realm and

00:12:25.680 all is good in the kingdom. And kids tend to look at, they tend to follow the same sports teams as

00:12:31.260 their parents or, or, or the same political party if they're, you know, so inclined, whatever.

00:12:35.700 But then as they become teenagers, they realize, well, you know, I got to differentiate here. I, I,

00:12:39.800 I gotta, I want to, and have to become my own person. And so what they do is they try on different

00:12:44.840 identities and some of those identities fit and some of those identities don't fit. And one day your

00:12:50.320 teenager will come home and say, I'm a vegetarian, you know, I, and I don't want to hurt animals.

00:12:54.620 And sometimes that will stick, but often it doesn't because that they're going to then try

00:12:58.360 on a different identity. What happens with underachievers though, is that they're scared

00:13:05.280 of doing well in school. Or the other thing for boys is they don't get a lot of social status by

00:13:09.640 doing well in school. Boys get social status by what they can do, how far they can throw a baseball,

00:13:15.020 how far they can, you know, run, how fast they can run on a football field. They don't get status.

00:13:20.320 For doing well in school. So that's not going to become their identity. So they'll tend to push

00:13:25.200 that identity down and look for other identities to promote. That's the first part of it. The second

00:13:31.060 part of, of, of development that I think is really important is ambivalence. Teenagers don't enter,

00:13:38.720 uh, adolescents full fledged wanting to be adults and having their own dependence. They'll tell you that

00:13:45.240 they'll scream and yell when you give them a curfew, but there's a part of them that really

00:13:49.920 wants to stay a child and be taken care of. And so you'll see them, parents will see them acting

00:13:54.760 like babies at home, you know, expecting to be waited on, expected to be, you know, or wanting

00:14:00.560 to be taken care of in that way. And then pushing back and saying, you know, no, I can make my own

00:14:05.260 decisions on my own person. So, you know, I call adolescence, the bridge of ambivalence.

00:14:10.060 And so I think a lot of this gets acted out in, in academic achievement also, because there are

00:14:15.380 some kids who recognize that if they do well in school, it means that they are growing up,

00:14:19.700 that they are going to do better. But then there's another thing that happens, which is that for the

00:14:24.660 underachiever, I call it the, the, uh, the, uh, the fight for false autonomy, because what they do is

00:14:31.420 their parents are pressuring them. You got to do better in school. You got to do better in school.

00:14:35.400 So they feel like I can exert my independence and my autonomy by making my own decisions

00:14:40.840 and not do well in school. I can make that choice for myself. So they feel like they're being

00:14:45.840 autonomous when really they're, you know, they're, they're closing off options for themselves.

00:14:50.280 And then, then the more the parents push them, the more parents get a paradoxical response is it

00:14:55.480 is that the kid then uses that as leverage to fight against the parent for their own independence.

00:15:01.660 And it, it's no longer about their own conflict about doing well in school or worrying about it.

00:15:08.580 It's about their conflict with their parents.

00:15:10.820 Right. So the pressure, the increased pressure actually backfires. I think that's the typical

00:15:13.980 response from parents. Like, well, we're going to, we're going to lay down the law. We're going to do

00:15:18.380 these things. And then that just doesn't work. Cause it's a power struggle. And then you're always

00:15:21.920 going to lose. It's a power struggle. And you know that, yeah, I don't know if you have teenagers

00:15:27.980 or you just remember being a teenager, but power struggle is like the epitome of being a teenager

00:15:33.400 because it's a battle of will. And they're fighting for their autonomy and they'll usually

00:15:38.420 win because they don't have anything to lose. Right. They don't care necessarily if they're

00:15:44.320 disrespectful or swear or whatever. And you do, and you're not going to, hopefully a parent won't

00:15:48.640 lose it. So, you know, the way out of that is always to offer a teenager a choice. Sometimes

00:15:53.340 one of the, one of the choices is not something they want to do. Like you can, you know, you can

00:15:58.480 clean up your room and then go out with your friends or you can not clean up your room and stay

00:16:01.640 home. It's your choice. But I want to go back to something that you brought up earlier that I think

00:16:05.480 is really important. And that's this concept of laziness. Cause I said briefly that underneath laziness

00:16:11.140 is fear underneath this sense of apathy is really self doubt, really a question as, as we were

00:16:17.860 talking about before, about whether a young man feels like they can handle the pressure.

00:16:23.280 And so calling a kid lazy only serves to alienate them more to make them, you know, you're calling

00:16:29.540 them a name and they just feel worse about themselves and then angrier at you. So that's

00:16:34.840 something else that often backfires. And I don't really believe in laziness. I believe that there

00:16:39.560 are things that get in the way, such as what we're, what we're touching on today.

00:16:43.480 Yeah. I mean, these kids sometimes, oftentimes aren't lazy when they find something that

00:16:47.060 interests them, right? They'll apply themselves heavily to sports, maybe video games, or maybe

00:16:52.560 some other hobby that they, they enjoy music could be anything. And they're, they're not lazy there.

00:16:58.080 That goes back to your initial point about depression, right? There, they, they, there are

00:17:03.120 certain things that they find pleasure in and that they're motivated for. Not in every, not in every

00:17:08.460 kid. And, you know, it's also funny because I hear parents say a lot, you know, I want my,

00:17:12.220 I want my teenager or even my child to find a passion. A neighbor of mine once came up to me

00:17:17.820 and said, you know, should I push my daughter who was eight years old at swimming? And I said,

00:17:22.640 I don't know, maybe if, you know, if she, if she wants to, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't, you know,

00:17:27.120 throw her into the pool. And he said, but don't I have a responsibility because she's talented?

00:17:32.380 And I thought, Ooh, that's, that's not necessarily going to go in the right direction

00:17:36.140 because kids don't always have a passion. You know, sometimes they don't develop it until they're

00:17:40.200 older. The flip side of that though, is I've also seen kids who have an incredible passion

00:17:44.740 and have developed a business for themselves. One young man I worked with was failing out of

00:17:50.100 school, but making all this money doing it, being a DJ. And he had a whole film production company.

00:17:55.760 I really wasn't like, he needed to graduate from college, but I wasn't too worried about him being

00:18:00.880 successful because a lot of the people that, you know, become superstars in certain fields,

00:18:06.060 they started when they were young. So, you know, there's always a balance.

00:18:10.740 Yeah. I mean, I think that's a good point of how parenting has changed. Cause you mentioned the

00:18:14.140 kid who, you know, in high school started the successful DJ company. I would say maybe 70 years

00:18:20.140 ago, if that was the case, you know, and he dropped out of high school, the parents would be like, well,

00:18:24.760 okay, that's fine. As long as you're making money. Cause I remember reading, you know, read the

00:18:27.840 biographies of these, these people from the, like the early 20th century, late 19th century. And you have

00:18:33.520 these like 14 year old kids who they drop out of school and they go off on an adventure or do

00:18:39.120 something. And the parents are like, oh, okay. I mean, I think it was like, you know, Jack London

00:18:42.760 would like, you know, when he was a teenager, just leave and he would be gone for months and not tell

00:18:47.840 anyone where he went. And then he'd come back and, oh, Hey Jack, how's it going? And not a big deal.

00:18:53.080 If that happened today, it would be pandemonium. Yeah.

00:18:57.080 My grandfather grew up in New York city. And when he was a boy in the depression, he would,

00:19:01.340 he lived in the Bronx and he would tell his parents, I'm going to, I'm going out. And he

00:19:05.580 would walk from the Bronx down to Manhattan, which is, that's where I'm sitting right, seated right

00:19:10.500 now, but it's quite a walk, walk around central park. It would take all day and then walk home.

00:19:14.980 It was, it was, it was like, you know, 11, 12 years old. That wouldn't happen today. But, you know,

00:19:20.020 back then we didn't have, you didn't need a graduate degree to do everything. You know, there,

00:19:25.040 there are degrees now. I mean, a lot of boys are interested in sports. And so they go to college and

00:19:28.960 they major in sports marketing or business, business sports. You didn't need to use to do

00:19:33.500 that maybe even 10 years ago. So that's another way that kids feel pressure. Cause the, you know,

00:19:37.980 the entry bar has been raised by all the requirements that are needed, even an MBA,

00:19:42.380 you didn't need that to go into business. You just, you know, so things, yeah, things are very

00:19:45.620 different than that. No, no doubt. The other thing though, is where, where I also hear parents

00:19:50.200 talk a lot about achievement is with athletics and sports. And, you know, it's the, it's the same

00:19:56.580 thing that applies to school. Well, he's such a gifted athlete. Why isn't he kicking the soccer

00:20:01.240 ball, you know, practicing his, his shots on goal, you know, when he comes home from school

00:20:06.100 or, or, or, you know, practicing layups. And so parents expect kids to apply the same level

00:20:13.460 of maturity and achievement to sports that they sometimes do for school. Not every kid is able

00:20:18.980 or willing to do that. And, you know, they're, they're also not necessarily headed for professional

00:20:24.840 sports or even scholarships. Although a lot of parents, you know, hope that with, as I said,

00:20:29.420 before the rise in, in, in, in a college tuition. So that's sometimes a part of it.

00:20:33.680 So besides the intense pressure, maybe nagging, we'll call it that parents do on a lazy son,

00:20:40.360 what are some other responses you see parents take when they see an unmotivated teenage boy?

00:20:46.160 Well, I, you know, I'll go back to this, these, these concepts that I talked about,

00:20:49.840 cause they're really central to what I write about in the book, the paradoxical response. So

00:20:54.180 prodding, poking, pleading, nagging over parenting, looking at the, whatever online grade website

00:21:03.540 school system uses, which is, boy, is that going down a rabbit hole? Because if, you know,

00:21:08.620 if, if a parent is looking at that every day or even every week, the teachers don't always put,

00:21:14.440 you know, the kids say, the teacher hasn't posted the grades. Well, sometimes they haven't because it's,

00:21:18.560 you know, it's another responsibility for the teacher and you can't measure what's going on,

00:21:22.200 on a day-to-day basis. So, you know, so parents will just get involved in all sorts of ways,

00:21:28.320 going, you know, walking into a kid's room and saying, you know, do you need anything when they're

00:21:32.460 really checking on their homework or making sure they're doing their homework? And kids,

00:21:37.180 don't get me wrong, kids need structure. They need supervision. They need limits. And I'm not an

00:21:43.480 advocate of, you know, letting a teenager do whatever they want and fail if they fail,

00:21:48.040 but they do need some space to make mistakes. How else are they going to learn to deal with

00:21:53.440 anxiety? How else are they going to learn to deal with adversity if they don't make mistakes and learn

00:21:58.460 from them? That's really what autonomy is about. It's not just about making, you know, doing whatever

00:22:02.620 you want. It's about making a choice and then seeing what the consequences are. So what I, what I

00:22:08.440 lay out in the book is, is a program for parents to be able to step back and set some parameters,

00:22:16.440 work with kids on some goals, figure out if they need some support, and then step back and let their

00:22:23.360 kid figure it out and maybe even not do so well. And it's really hard. You know, parents, sometimes

00:22:29.560 parents have to, one parent even told me it was so hard to, to keep from going in to get their kid out

00:22:34.740 of bed in the morning, they went to the gym because they knew they needed to be out of the house.

00:22:40.960 And then that, and their son needed to be able to get, and that's a big one, but to be able to get

00:22:45.440 out of bed on their own or not. And, you know, and it worked. It took, it took, it took a couple

00:22:49.320 weeks, but, but this young man did eventually after being late, after getting detentions, he finally

00:22:54.720 figured out how to do it. I think another response, a common response parents do besides the

00:22:59.400 pressuring, like they'll just basically do everything for their kids. So their kid will, I mean,

00:23:03.820 I think the idea is that they're, if they do everything for their kid, chores and whatever,

00:23:07.860 like the kid will have more time to focus on schoolwork, but that also doesn't work as well.

00:23:13.960 Uh, it was, I think, I believe it was Madeline Levine who said, she's a psychologist who, who

00:23:20.100 writes about over-parenting and affluent kids. And I believe it was her, I don't want to misattribute

00:23:24.980 it, but I believe she said, don't treat your kids like royalty who are expected to bring honor

00:23:30.820 to the family, you know, make them do chores. And, and, and that's, you know, I tell parents

00:23:35.820 the same thing, make them take out the trash. It's really important. And that's the first

00:23:41.180 part of it. And the second part of it is over-parenting as we've talked about. And I,

00:23:45.980 and I talk about the four or five different types of over-parenting that we get into with

00:23:50.840 kids, different, you know, the warrior, the perfectionist, I talk about that and how to deal

00:23:54.880 with that. But I also tell parents to do this experiment, get some paper and you probably need

00:24:02.920 a whole pad and write down everything you do for your kids, even the little ones, write down

00:24:07.800 everything you do for them in a week, and then look at the list and then figure out what are the

00:24:14.120 things they can do for themselves, cross it off the list. Then look at the things that they can do part

00:24:19.740 of. They need some help with, but, you know, especially younger kids, we call that in, in

00:24:24.180 education, scaffolding, giving them the support for the part of the thing they can't do yet.

00:24:29.120 And then letting them figure out the rest, you know, the, the, you know, the, the, if you remember

00:24:34.120 in primary school, the paper that had the, the two dark lines and the dotted line in the middle,

00:24:39.180 I don't even know if they still use that anymore, but, you know, that was an example of, well,

00:24:42.400 here's where the lowercase letter goes, that scaffolding, but it, but, but around the house,

00:24:46.400 it's, you know, let me figure out what, you know, maybe they can't, they can't do the laundry,

00:24:51.860 although most kids can, but they can, you know, they can get their clothes down there or whatever.

00:24:55.340 And then what are the things that you really need to do for them? They can't do for themselves.

00:25:00.020 And it's usually pretty eyeopening and it gives parents a chance to step back and let kids have

00:25:05.080 more independence and do, do more for themselves. We're going to take a quick break for your words,

00:25:09.760 more sponsors. And now back to the show. So going back to a more appropriate,

00:25:16.400 response, that's more productive. So you talked about setting boundaries. So what does that look

00:25:21.380 like? So you're setting boundaries, but allowing them autonomy within those boundaries. What would,

00:25:26.900 what, what would a good boundary look like that also allows for autonomy in a teenage boy?

00:25:32.160 Well, I think about limit setting as a fence you build around your child and you build it around

00:25:38.900 your child to protect them. The thing about that fence is it, it, it, it, it can't be static. It can't be,

00:25:45.400 you know, grounded in cement. It has to grow. It has to become bigger as a child becomes bigger

00:25:50.800 so that they have more opportunities to explore, to, you know, make mistakes, to have fun.

00:25:58.640 It should never also for teenagers be so high that they can't climb over it. Occasionally,

00:26:03.380 they're going to get into trouble, but that's where they learn. And that's where they understand

00:26:08.280 their limits. For things that involve safety, limits are absolute. You know, there's no question about

00:26:14.760 letting a new driver who says, oh yeah, I want to go visit my friend at college, you know, four hours

00:26:19.660 away. I just got my license. No, I don't think so. You need a little bit more experience with that.

00:26:25.500 Drugs and alcohol, you know, when you, and that's, I'm sure that's a whole other podcast,

00:26:30.060 but when you, when you catch a kid doing something, you need to, you need to set a limit. It could be

00:26:37.180 grounding. It doesn't have to be, you know, they can't go out of the house ever again, but nor should

00:26:42.120 it be, you know, well, they're safe if they're doing it in my house because they need to know

00:26:46.120 where the limits are. They need to know someone is watching them. It's the, it's the kids whose

00:26:50.900 parents condone that I find get into the most trouble. And the kids who know that their parents

00:26:54.700 are watching and they get into trouble, they don't necessarily stop, but they definitely stay within a safe

00:26:59.180 range. So that's, that, those are the safety issues. There's a whole set of, of, of, of issues

00:27:05.900 that probably go in a different basket. Sometimes they're important to enforce. Sometimes they're

00:27:10.200 not important to enforce. Sometimes it's really important to set a bedtime. Other times you can be

00:27:15.840 more flexible. Obviously it's related to what's going on in school. Sometimes there's, there is less

00:27:21.060 homework and there can be more, you know, more flexibility. Other times you want to say you got to do

00:27:26.280 your homework first. Again, this is for younger kids. And then there's a basket of things that

00:27:30.340 you may feel are important to you, but you can give the kids some autonomy. Clothing, you know, is,

00:27:39.520 is a, is a, is a good example of that, but that's just one example. And, and, and, and different people

00:27:45.040 have different, you know, sets of standards for that. But when it comes to school work though, and

00:27:49.820 that's really what we're talking about, my suggestion is to set a standard with, with kids,

00:27:56.960 which is usually to get B's. You know, if they want to get A's, that's up to them. A lot of parents

00:28:02.780 don't like to hear this, but, but that's what I believe. They may get a C in a, in a, in a class

00:28:07.640 that's difficult for them, but basically to get B's. And then to ask them how they're going to do it,

00:28:14.060 and then to step back and then to observe how they're doing. Probably not to wait for a whole semester.

00:28:19.820 But also not to do it on a daily basis. So somewhere mid-semester to see how things are going.

00:28:24.480 And if they're not achieving what you think they should, or what you've agreed that they should,

00:28:28.720 that's reasonable, then it's time to say, you know what? I think you have too much free time.

00:28:34.780 I think maybe we need to cut down on or eliminate social life, computer time, whatever, so that you

00:28:43.960 have more time to do your homework. If, if, if a kid has social issues, you don't necessarily want to

00:28:48.540 take that away, but there are plenty of other things too. That is not going to force the kid

00:28:52.860 to do their homework. You can't, you can, you know, you, you can put them in front of a computer

00:28:57.240 and a desk. You can't actually make them work, but it'll make it much more, much more possible

00:29:02.100 that they might. And so, yeah, within those boundaries and you give them those choices,

00:29:06.080 you have to let them fail because they're going to flounder and you have to be okay with that.

00:29:10.340 You have to let them flounder. Yeah. I think that's really important. What hap, what's happening

00:29:16.060 that we see more and more. And Brett, I see it in my practice, even just more this year than last

00:29:22.040 year and last year than the year before our kids that go to college and can't cut it and, and have

00:29:28.020 to take a leave. Um, I, I often have a few kids in my practice that are in that situation, but it's,

00:29:34.620 you know, it seems like I've been flooded with it, you know, uh, last spring and even this fall.

00:29:40.020 And part of the problem is that we're not letting kids figure out how to do things on their own and

00:29:47.240 manage their own anxiety. And we can talk about that in a minute, but, you know, manage the anxiety

00:29:51.800 that comes from not being sure whether you are able to do something, uh, figure out a math problem,

00:29:56.620 write a paper, master a sports, a sports skill. And so by rushing in too quickly and over parenting,

00:30:04.620 we're preventing kids from learning about themselves in ways that are really important.

00:30:09.660 We want parents to ask me all the time, you know, what, how can I give my kid coping skills?

00:30:15.140 You know, well, the way to do that is to let back and let them cope, give them something to cope with

00:30:19.740 and let them cope, you know, to let them have a little risk in their life. There's actually a, uh,

00:30:24.980 a school in, in, in, in England that decided this, this is for younger kids, but they wanted to bring

00:30:29.820 risk back to the playground. They had made it too safe. So they, they brought in,

00:30:34.620 things that had sharp edges and they brought scissors back into the classroom. And the, the teacher

00:30:39.240 said, uh, you know, for the first time they cut themselves, they learned to be more careful.

00:30:43.260 So I don't know if I advocate all that, but, uh, I think it's really important. And, and, you know,

00:30:47.960 I hear about parents who, and this is the extreme, but parents, one parent who went to a college

00:30:55.720 admissions interview with the kid and had the kid sit in the waiting room. I heard this from a college

00:30:59.900 admissions officer while he went in and told the college college admissions officer how great his

00:31:05.840 kid was. It's kind of crazy. There's, there's been reports of parents even going to work with

00:31:10.940 their kids or calling their kid's boss as a young adult. So this is really preventing kids from being

00:31:16.940 able to trust that their, their own independence and their own future.

00:31:20.780 Yeah. I mean, it's funny. The parents are like, I want my kid to be responsible,

00:31:23.420 but I'm not going to let them be responsible. It's like, that doesn't make any sense.

00:31:28.800 And it comes from a place of caring. It comes from a place of love.

00:31:32.360 It comes with the best intentions. It comes from, as we said before, a worry and a fear about the

00:31:37.080 future. You know, parents aren't doing this just because they want to make, you know, make life

00:31:42.280 more difficult for their kids. They want to make it easier, but that's, yeah, the end result is not so

00:31:48.400 good. And in some of the consequences too, like say like cleaning your room, you talk about

00:31:53.400 this. Like, all right, he needs to clean his room or do his, if, you know, he needs to put his laundry

00:31:57.440 in the laundry basket or do his laundry. Well, if he doesn't do that, then he's got to suffer the

00:32:02.580 consequences of wearing smelly clothes and you have to be okay with that because that's, that,

00:32:07.980 that's how he's going to learn.

00:32:09.120 This is, this is really true. And I have actually heard kids tell me that they, they, they had other

00:32:16.140 kids tell them your clothes smell and that's when they decided to do something about it. But laundry is a

00:32:21.380 great example because, you know, you say laundry day is on Wednesday or whenever it is and your

00:32:27.780 clothes have to be in the hamper on Wednesday. And if they're not in the hamper on Wednesday,

00:32:31.620 you have to do the laundry. And I'm going to show you how I'm going to teach you now how to 0.79

00:32:36.100 do the laundry, you know, make it simple, cold water only, you know, and separate the college from

00:32:42.440 the white clothes and you're all set, good to go. And then if they don't, then they don't do their

00:32:47.220 own laundry, then they have to wear those clothes. Yeah. So that's, that's, that's a perfect example.

00:32:52.680 The room thing is a little more difficult. I think every parent has their own feelings about this.

00:32:59.720 I do believe that to some extent a kid should be able to have that as, as their own domain. It's

00:33:05.380 probably not worth the power struggle every day. There does need to be hygiene. So food in the room 1.00

00:33:13.080 is not a good idea. Every, it could be every once a week, the room needs to be, you know,

00:33:19.180 picked up and clean so that it can be vacuumed and dusted. But that, that's once a week or whatever.

00:33:24.520 It doesn't have to be every day. That's, that's how I feel about that. Different parents feel

00:33:28.700 differently though. Yeah. There's an example of my own life. After reading your book, I was like,

00:33:32.260 I want to put this stuff into practice. I have a son, he's eight, right? So he's not a teenager yet,

00:33:36.540 but I'm, I want to inculcate these, this sense of responsibility in him. And last week he gets like

00:33:42.160 homework every night. It's like a worksheet takes like five minutes and it goes in a folder and we're

00:33:48.500 on the, driving him to school and he realized he forgot his folder. And he's like, dad, you got to

00:33:53.600 go get my folder and bring it to me. I'm like, sorry, man. Like it's not my job. And he was just

00:33:58.560 like, Oh no, it's going to, it's like the end of the world. But yeah, the consequence was he had,

00:34:03.560 he had to miss like 10 minutes of recess so he couldn't do his worksheet. But ever since then,

00:34:08.320 yeah, I didn't go get his, I didn't go get his folder. Ever since then, the guy,

00:34:11.200 the kid's been on top of it. Like at night he has everything packed and ready to go.

00:34:15.640 Haven't had to worry about it since then. So it works. That's a great example. And you know,

00:34:21.940 you already did some scaffolding by giving him that notebook to put his homework in, right? You gave

00:34:26.200 him that, you organized that for him. But, but, but Brett, was that easy for you or was it a little

00:34:31.340 bit hard to, to, you know, to do that? No, that he was going to, it was pretty, it was pretty easy.

00:34:36.160 I don't know. I didn't have a problem. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's, it's just 10 minutes of

00:34:41.720 recess. You're going to be okay. Good. Well, that's good. And that's a good attitude,

00:34:45.500 but a lot of parents really have trouble seeing their kids suffer and be uncomfortable. And you

00:34:50.300 know, that's part of the root of this. Yeah. I read an article. It's not, there's,

00:34:54.420 we're seeing not just helicopter parenting, it's, it's lawnmower parenting. And it's because the

00:34:59.500 parents mow over all the obstacles that come up for their kids. Yeah. I've seen that too.

00:35:06.800 Yeah. In, in, in, in, in Sweden, they call it curling parenting, because if you've ever watched

00:35:12.040 curling on the Olympics, parents sweep all the obstacles out of the way. So I think that's my

00:35:17.020 favorite. No, that's a good one. I like that. And so let's, how long, let's say you start working

00:35:21.140 with a unmotivated boy, you start providing him more autonomy and making choices and floundering.

00:35:28.880 Like how long does it typically take? I'm sure it's different for every boy,

00:35:33.200 but how long do you start seeing the change where you start seeing them taking on more responsibility

00:35:37.380 and making and getting more motivated about say schoolwork? You know, I have yet to be asked that

00:35:43.020 question and, and it, and I'm really glad that you did because you asked me because it takes a while.

00:35:49.080 You know, sometimes it can take three years of high school for some kids. Remember those are the late

00:35:55.980 bloomers. That young man may not go to the college that if he's college bound and college is an option,

00:36:04.900 he may not go to the college that his parents dreamed of sending him to. He may not go to the

00:36:11.700 college that he wanted to go to. He may not even go to the college that his friends are going to. But

00:36:16.020 the thing is, first of all, he will probably go to a college that will be the best fit for him.

00:36:22.900 He probably will be a kind of kid who needs to be a big fish in a little pond. And that's where he,

00:36:27.680 that's where he will blossom and grow. And the other thing is that, you know, with the competition in

00:36:32.200 colleges, these institutions, they all offer such amazing things. I mean, it's unbelievable. You know,

00:36:38.240 it doesn't have to have the stamp of Harvard to be a phenomenal institution. So sometimes it takes that

00:36:44.260 long. It depends on the kid. It usually takes a while. What I see in my practice, you know, and as

00:36:49.820 a therapist, I have different ways of talking about these things with kids that parents don't

00:36:56.960 necessarily have because of the parents. And my approach is always to try to help the teenager

00:37:04.260 figure out what's in it for them, you know, to separate it out from their parents' needs. This

00:37:12.160 is a little bit different, but it's an example. I saw a teenager who started in therapy not too long

00:37:17.060 ago, and his parents forced him to come to the first session. And he was really unhappy about it,

00:37:20.740 but he came. And so about midway through, I said, well, or actually at the end, I said, you know,

00:37:27.260 you seem to have talked a lot today. Why don't you come back next week and come back for you,

00:37:31.920 not for your parents, and then see how therapy is. And, you know, he really likes being in therapy

00:37:37.940 now. But that's an example from a little bit of a different arena that comes to mind about

00:37:42.320 looking into the teenager and seeing how they can get more engaged. It's frustrating for me

00:37:50.040 sometimes because, you know, I feel like I'm being paid to do this. I need to produce results.

00:37:54.300 And sometimes it takes longer than I want it to. But what I do notice is along the way,

00:38:01.740 the young man in therapy or the young woman too is getting more confident. They're fighting less

00:38:07.880 with their parents. They are, there are signs that they're finding school a little more interesting

00:38:13.360 and they're happier. So I can kind of monitor things along the way that lead to,

00:38:18.460 you know, improvement in school. I once gave a young man a challenge. I said,

00:38:24.780 I want you to turn in your homework every day for this marking period. I don't care if it's incomplete.

00:38:35.180 Maybe sometimes it'll just have your name on it. Maybe sometimes it'll be perfect.

00:38:39.040 I want you to commit to turning in your assignments every day, which he did. He turned in his assignments

00:38:43.520 every single day. And that was what changed, turned things around for him. He's now, he's actually now

00:38:49.120 a teacher. He got a, he got a graduate degree in teaching. Wow. So as we've been having this conversation,

00:38:55.040 you know, our conversation has been about what we can do for kids. And your primary focus is counseling

00:39:01.380 children. But I imagine you have to do some counseling with parents at the same time. Unwittingly,

00:39:06.780 like they don't know that the parents are getting counseled, but you have to do that in order to help the kid.

00:39:10.320 Yeah, I do. And I work with adults too in my practice. And so sometimes I'm coaching parents.

00:39:16.660 Sometimes parents come to see me about, you know, how, and that's really touching when a parent is willing

00:39:21.900 to get into therapy themselves to figure out how to help and improve their relationship with their kid.

00:39:27.500 But yeah, there is a lot of parent coaching that goes on. It is often what I want to do is have a family session

00:39:33.820 and have the parents come in with the, with the teenager. 99% of the time, the teenager does not

00:39:40.240 want to do that and refuses, but would be fine with me talking to the parent. And you know, it takes time

00:39:46.160 for the parents too. It takes time for them to trust me, to trust the process and mostly to trust their

00:39:52.220 kids. And you know, what I say to parents is parenting isn't a skill, it's a relationship.

00:39:57.100 It's not a skill, it's a relationship. And if you trust the relationship, things are going to work

00:40:03.440 out in the end. And I think that that's very reassuring for parents. Some, they usually often

00:40:09.500 get the message to back off, but it's sometimes harder to put into place. And then there's also

00:40:14.700 work that I do with kids in terms of being better advocates for themselves, being respectful, but

00:40:20.760 stating their needs with their parents when parents are too demanding. And that's also really

00:40:26.100 important for kids because it gives them a voice. I often prepare the parents first and I don't,

00:40:31.860 you know, I'm not trying to incite riots here and I have to be respectful of every, every family's

00:40:36.200 values, but nonetheless, it's really important to be able to have kids and parents talk to each other

00:40:41.760 and have that dialogue. Right. Because I imagine, I mean, a lot of the problem, I mean, issues with

00:40:46.100 the parents putting pressure on their kids is the parents feel like their identity and their worth is

00:40:51.480 tied up in how their kids do in school. And if they're failing at school, it means they failed

00:40:56.460 as a parent and not necessarily. Right. You know, that's very insightful. If you ever get tired of

00:41:02.620 being a podcast host, you can become a therapist because that's very insightful. And I think it's

00:41:07.160 true. I think that we put everything into our kids. You know, it's, it's the most powerful

00:41:13.720 relationship there is. You know, it's different than a relationship with your spouse. It's different

00:41:18.160 than a relationship with your, with your parents. You, you know, parents hope that their kids are

00:41:23.360 going to have a different life than they had that make different, you know, and not make the same

00:41:28.820 mistakes than they made. And, you know, I often tell parents, you can't shortcut that. They need to

00:41:33.940 learn. They need to make, you know, they need to have some pain, as I said before. So, so it's really

00:41:39.580 hard. And, and some parents over-identify with their kids. I have an exercise in my book about that

00:41:45.060 because sometimes parents feel like it's their problem. You know, they see their kid go through

00:41:50.240 something and they think, well, I went through that. It must be the same. You know, Jim must,

00:41:55.360 Jimmy must be having the same reaction I had when I was cut from the team or whatever. And it's not

00:42:00.140 always the case. So there's also space that needs to be given. Yeah. I heard this great piece of

00:42:05.660 parental advice that I've sort of used as a guiding principle with my parenting is like your job as a

00:42:10.900 parent, your primary job as a parent is to keep your kids safe physically, right? It's not your

00:42:16.120 job to make them happy. And I was like, you know what? That's good advice. I can't, you can't make

00:42:20.820 someone happy. You can provide, you know, a foundation for that, but it's up, you know, they've got to make

00:42:25.560 those choices for themselves. I really liked that. I really liked that. And it makes me think of

00:42:30.560 something a parent said to me years ago, which is I don't want my kid to be happy. I want them to be

00:42:35.520 able to work hard because if they work hard, they'll be happy. Yeah. I love that. I mean,

00:42:40.280 and also another issue that parents might have, let's say there's a parent listening to the show

00:42:44.040 and they've got a son who is unmotivated in school and you're trying to talk to him about it, but he

00:42:50.860 just clams up. I mean, any insights that parents can use to, you know, get a disengaged boy to talk to

00:42:58.180 them? Oh yeah. And there's a lot to be said about that. I'll tell you the most important thing a

00:43:04.040 parent can do to get a child to talk, keep their mouth shut. Because what happens is that we want

00:43:11.460 to give advice. We want to give solutions. We want to tell them what we went through. And, you know,

00:43:18.740 it's true for parents. It's true for therapists. The less you say, the more the person on the other

00:43:23.660 side of the room is going to say when they know that you're listening. So if, if, if that's the only

00:43:29.760 thing, you know, a parent can take from this, that's, that's really powerful. The second thing

00:43:35.160 is to use empathy and to validate how a child feels. And this isn't true for kids, just for kids.

00:43:44.660 It's true for adults. It's true for everybody. We want to have our feelings validated. Now that does

00:43:50.700 not mean that you have to agree with the feeling, right? They're just feelings. It doesn't mean you

00:43:54.480 have to agree with the perspective. All it means is that you understand where the person's coming

00:44:01.020 from. And you can say, I understand where you're coming from, or I get that, but you know, it's

00:44:06.220 really important to do the work to really get it, to really understand, you know, a kid comes home and

00:44:11.140 says, my teacher hates me, you know? Well, probably not, right? Kids often say that it's rare for a

00:44:18.700 teacher really to hate a kid. And, but the first thing that you want to do is say, oh, you know,

00:44:22.820 you're perfect. How could anybody hate you? Or I'm sure they don't hate you. Well, don't do that so

00:44:30.560 quickly. You know, try to get their perspective. But how do you get their perspective? By asking

00:44:35.020 questions. So rather than first listen, but also ask questions and try to ask questions that get at

00:44:44.260 what they're feeling. Now this process is going to take some time because the teenager is going to

00:44:49.680 have to trust that you really are interested in listening and understanding. Not trust that you

00:44:55.340 love them, not trust that you're taking care of them, but trust that their opinion counts because

00:44:59.380 that's really so important for teenagers to feel as we were talking about before with identity and

00:45:04.300 autonomy and transitioning to adulthood, you know? And they sometimes have some wacky ideas and they

00:45:09.240 think they've figured everything out. I love this quote. It's Mark Twain who said, you know,

00:45:13.820 my father, my father didn't, when I was 16, my father didn't know anything. You know,

00:45:18.340 he didn't understand how the world worked. I'm amazed at how smart he got by the time I turned 23.

00:45:24.320 So that's kind of how they look at things. But I think that listening, asking questions,

00:45:29.240 validating feelings, getting them to talk more is really important. And if they're really clamming up,

00:45:39.880 you can say, well, you know, we'll talk about this later, but we really need to talk about it.

00:45:45.000 So I want you to think about this and I will really, I will set some ground rules and the

00:45:48.940 ground rules are, I'm not going to judge you. I'm not going to give you advice. I just want to hear

00:45:53.020 it from you. And sometimes a parent just has to listen and say, great, I'm glad we had this

00:45:57.580 conversation. You know, there's a joke. I just got off the phone with my mother. She had a very good

00:46:02.480 conversation. You want to, you want to try to flip that and have that with your kid too. Sometimes

00:46:07.900 you just have to listen and let it be that. And then eventually you'll be able to talk more.

00:46:11.340 Well, Dr. Price, is there some place people can go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:46:15.220 Yeah, absolutely. They can go to the he's not lazy.com. They can, or go to my website. I have,

00:46:21.300 I have a blog on psychology today called the unmotivated teen. The book just can't,

00:46:26.580 it's obviously available, you know, at quality bookstores and on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

00:46:31.040 And it just came out in the audio version last Friday. So I'm really excited about that.

00:46:34.640 Well, fantastic. Dr. Adam Price, thanks for coming on. This has been a great conversation.

00:46:37.740 It's been a real pleasure. Thank you for having me.

00:46:40.040 My guest today was Dr. Adam Price. He's the author of their book, He's Not Lazy. It's available

00:46:43.660 on amazon.com. You can find out more information about his work and his book at he'snotlazy.com.

00:46:48.480 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash not lazy, where you can find links to resources,

00:46:54.280 where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:46:55.700 Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast. For more manly tips and

00:47:11.820 advice, make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy the

00:47:16.020 show, you got something out of it, I'd appreciate if you give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher helps

00:47:19.860 out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend

00:47:23.340 or family member who you think would get something out of it. As always, thank you for your continued

00:47:26.780 support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - November 25, 2020

#448： Your Son Isn’t Lazy — How to Empower Boys to Succeed [RE-BROADCAST]

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