this is so this is resonating with me so

so well right now because I am now kind of

recasting my experiences with my boy

yeah um

in life Shawn

you know something

I love how you're very honest about things

it's wonderful

it's really refreshing and I

and to do it on air and and

and live in front of your audience is great

and I any

any dads out there listening to this

you know there's a leaf out of your book they can take

there really is

welcome back to raising men

today

I'm sitting down with the founder of Aligned Parenting

and author of The Parenting Assumption

Jeff Owen

Jeff is here to show us how to take off the corporate

high achiever costume

and intentionally engineer a home environment

where our sons don't feel the need to mask

or withdraw or

or fight back he calls it the golf mindset

Jeff

welcome to raising men

thank you Shauna

I so I

I'll tell you I am so

and listeners to this podcast know that

I have just gotten into golf

and I am just so excited I

it is so unbelievably obvious to me

that golf is this microcosm of life

in the ways that you are just absolutely rewarded

for certain types of mentality

and certain

just ways of thinking and ways of approaching the game

you're really really rewarded for that

and you're really really punished for other things

and life works the same way

although slower and so

I am just absolutely intrigued

in this notion of the golf mindset

and how it applies to the challenge that we have today

as modern parents

wow okay

so um

hmm well

it's all about something I call distinguishing

you know I'll give you an example

distinguishing is really important in any discipline

I feel and it's something that's overlooked

do you know the work of Wernher von Braun at all

no I haven't

no EST

the EST training no

uh uh

oh yes

OK I have heard

of EST and the way yeah

I found out about it from

I was watching a TV show that was set in the 80s

and it was featured in there

and then it turns out I've got a number of friends that

that had gotten into that back in the day

and all of that so yes

I but I wasn't familiar with the founder

we're in a we're in a

Airhart who created it

so it's called the Airhart Seminar training

the EST

I got it okay

he uh

basically it's infiltrated industry

it's infiltrated his his thinking and his ideas

and if you really boiled all his work down

it would be um

it's all about what is and what isn't

and that's basically it really

it's really pure and very

very um

I don't know um

inspiring for me anyway

so I've been and done a few of his um seminars

a 60 hour trainings things

you know looking at um

reality and meaning and and all of that and one of his

в истории цивилизации есть периоды расцвета и расцвета

how how it comes about in everyday life

so let's say you're in in the office yeah uh

you've got kids maybe and you're

you're in the office and you're working away

and you're having a decent day

and then something happens and it

saya tidak pernah menyentuh

you're chewing it over in your mind

and then suddenly someone comes in and say hey

fancy coming have a coffee

let's have some donuts and chat

you know so you say yeah OK

I'll come across you have some donuts

you have a good old laugh and chat

still this thing's gnawing away at you

the day progresses it comes to coming home

you arrive home to your wife

let's say which is the kind of

you know archetypal situation um

you come home to your wife and you slam your keys down

and she says sir

what's up how was your day

I've had a terrible day

and of course um

that's the whole day collapsed into a

a reality that is

a conceptualized version of something

right

yeah yeah yeah so the thing

the thing that tripped you up

I mean it's not even something that happened

it's something that just invaded your brain

and it ruined your whole day

well it's ruined your whole day um but

did it ruin your whole day

yeah right well yeah

you allowed it to ruin your whole day

I mean I

I you could say that Sean

but really you have donuts and you laugh and joke

that was a good moment in the day

yeah um

um it's not the whole ticket

so in other words

the the

the conceptualized idea of the reality of the day

is that you've had a terrible day when

in fact

when you start to distinguish the moments of the day

there were good parts and there were bad parts

there's things that pissed you off

there's things that you managed

things that you try to get through

and yet what you deliver to your wife and the

the the

the space and state you inhabit is one

that you've had a terrible day

and so that's what you carry into the house and

and it's just a

a reality that's just not actually founded on anything

but a conceptualized idea

of something that happened in the past

that you are now living out as if it's real

do you follow me

I completely follow you and we have you know that that

that brings to mind

something that I an observation that I made gosh uh

20 25 years ago I I remember I was having um

I was having a really really tough time

just overall in my life I had a girlfriend that and

like emotionally and mentally

it just a bit yeah exactly

it was just a stage of my life that was very very tough

and I was going into the gym

and I had this great gym that I belonged to and you know everybody

I I got along really well with everybody

I was friends with all the people that worked there and all

of that stuff

and everyone really you know

cared a lot about about me

and I was walking into the gym and one of the

one of the trainers was I was walking down some stairs

and she was walking up some stairs

and she's like Sean

how's it going and I was like yeah

you know I mean

it's alright and she's like

she kind of had a reaction that I

it was kind of like

she distance herself from me at the moment

and I saw that and I recognized that

and what I realized is that the how's it going

question in our culture

is not actually a question of how

how you are doing

that is not what's being asked it what what

what what we're really doing is

it's like this dance where we create this

this this fiction where OK

we're gonna pretend everything is good

and and there's

so there's a very superficial version of that

how are you doing question

that is about

creating and maintaining the shared fiction

that is actually useful because optimism

you can you just

you can decide to just as you mentioned

you can either focus on the one thing that happened

to you that colored your whole day bad

or you can focus on the nine

other things that happened that that

that would color your day good

and that's what the how are you doing

question is about the superficial version

and then there's a deeper

how are you doing question

which is how are you really doing

that is no that's really about what's

what's what's really going on

and we actually have to be asking both questions and

and that's what that's what that makes me think of

no no

sure I get it

so really um

I mean you could be authentic and you could say

well actually

I've just going through this thing at the moment

yes it's on my mind

but otherwise yeah

I'm OK um

and then then it might lead the

way where she's well

what's going on then

and then you can start talking about it

that's right yeah

and you're getting into the deeper question

at that point

something he also talked about was um integrity

yeah and you

you gain

regain your integrity when you've been out of integrity

by being authentic about your inauthenticities

yes

you regain

OK let's say this again

yeah

on what do you want me to say it

uh yeah

so so so um

no yeah

go ahead and say it again

so integrity you know

if a building lacks integrity

it will collapse most possibly

particularly in the foundations or its structure

so integral is

integrity is something that's integral to something

being able to um

exist in a in a whole and congruent way yeah

so when we lack integrity

in other words oh yeah

I'll give you a call tonight

yeah I'll call you at 7

we'll talk about it and nothing happens

the next day comes by

and you bump into the guy and you say hey

what happened to the call last night

you know however

you're waiting for the call and

and you you know

you're thinking this guy's not calling me

what's going on I mean

you know

and you start to judge your relationship based on his

yes

however he could have called you an hour

hour and a half later and said hey

I'm so sorry I didn't call you tonight

I was meaning to something came up and um

is it okay if we rearrange our call so then he

he's bringing himself back into integrity for you and

and that's lacking in business

it's lacking in in parenting

it's lacking in relationships

people just let it slide you know

that's so true and in fact

actually I think

you know

I think a lot of the current kind of moment we're in

you know

the masculinity crisis that I talk about all the time

is

is born of that in the sense that there's so much for a

we got our culture got to a point where where

where integrity was so

was so absent

that we started to get

attracted to kind of a malign form of integrity

which is like like vice signaling

so there was so much

there was so much lack of integrity in this kind of

posturing

the virtue kind of posturing that people would do that

now they're they're

was this entire crop of conflict

and entrepreneurs that popped up

that their whole thing was

I am I'm just gonna signal vice

and everybody kind of knew that

nobody was as virtuous as they put out on Instagram

and so the people who signal vice are like yeah

those people are being authentic and

and they're not

they're actually being inauthentic in the opposite way

but they were willing to admit that they had foibles

they were willing and

and that seemed authentic that the

the contrast of that compared to the

you know the

the kind of oh

look at me I'm uh

you know I'm

I drive an electric car

and I do all of these virtuous things became

that that became a facsimile of authenticity

and that's kind of where why

where we are now and

and I think what you're talking about is being like

genuinely authentic

yeah yeah

cause that's the only way you can really build

any meaningful relationship yeah

really isn't it

um the reason I bring in I talked about um

distinguishing and relating it to parenting and golf

I might just give an example there that you

if you come home and pollute the

the home environment with your mood

you know even though the mood is completely um

you know made up and not based on any reality really

right

you know you exude and you

I call it broadcasting you broadcast this mood

then your your children are gonna pick up on that

their biology will which is why I call my work

Biologically Aligned Parenting

the reason why I mentioned distinguishing

in terms of golf is that um

well you tell me you're beginning into golf

aren't you you're distinguishing all the time I imagine

you're separating out and looking at what you're doing

and you're trying to do

you know what I mean would you say that

and I would that really resonates with me because about

maybe two or three weeks ago

I had an epiphany that made golf really enjoyable to me

and and part of the epiphany

was a recognition of the fact that I actually didn't

enjoy playing

I enjoyed getting better

but I didn't enjoy going out and playing

and and I

what I discovered I was

I had planned to go out and play

and I got to the golf course

and instead of playing

I just went to the driving range and I was like oh

you know I don't

I don't wanna actually

I don't wanna actually see whether I'm any good

I

it's frustrating out there on the on the on the course

and

especially if you're starting out

yes yes

yes exactly

and what I realized is that I was

expecting myself I would line up

here's a great example

I would line up

let's say I'm 150 yards away from the green

and I would line up so that I'm

aiming directly at the flag

and I'm hitting a club that I know that

if I hit it perfectly well

I'm going to hit it about 150 yards

so I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to do

but 80% of the time I miss hit the ball or I you know

I hit it to the right or I hit it to the left

or I hit it short or I hit it like

yeah that's 80% of the time that's what happens

sure

I shouldn't set up for perfect performance

I should set up for expected performance

and if I do that all of a sudden it all goes away

all of the anxiety

I really gotta hit this shot really perfectly

and all this stuff I have to say

what I do is I go out to the driving range

30 minutes before I'm actually supposed to play

and I hit just three clubs

and those are the three clubs that I'm gonna use

I'm not gonna hit it all irons

there's no wood there's no Fairway metals or woods

exactly all irons

I'm just it's all irons

it's my actually typically it's my 6 iron

my 8 iron and my and my approach wedge

sounds

those are the only clubs I'm gonna ever

hit on you know except on the green

and now I know when I I go to the driving range

and I calibrate those three clubs okay

you know today my approach wedge is doing this

and my 8 iron is doing this

and my 6 iron is doing this

and I'm not trying to improve anything

I'm not trying to get better

I'm not trying to narrow anything

I'm just trying to analyze and predict

what is happening today with these three clubs

and then now when I go out to to play

I don't have any ego about it

you know I'll get up

everyone's getting up

and they're getting out their drivers

and they hit and they crush the ball

we're all wow that was an amazing hit Bob and oh

too bad it went off to the you know

into the woods or whatever

and I just get up and I'll just hit my 6 iron

that's fine and they're like

what

you're gonna tee up with a 6 iron on a 500 yard course

I said yeah

I mean I'm just not like I can't really hit my driver

we can still make it in 3 presumably

I can still make it in three yeah

I can hit because I can hit that 6 iron in 180

yeah amazing

so you get to the green and

and you you're up for a birdie hopefully

you know right

or an eagle even

I mean

like for me

it's actually a big deal if I can just get par

if I can get on the

green where it's possible for me to two putt for par

that's a big deal for me and yet

and so and actually

I can outscore folks who are way better than me at golf

because they can't you know

they're gonna get up and they're gonna hit their driver

and it's gonna go off into the rough

and then you know

they're gonna have a little bit better

harder and they're gonna try and rescue that shot

with the next shot and all of that stuff

I don't have any of that anymore

it's totally I totally release it

sure

doing that

has made the game so much more enjoyable for me

I love now I really enjoy playing out and it's a

it's kind of a mental puzzle alright

I have this picture in my head of what my

what my likely shot pattern looks like for my 8 iron

and and it's the question is alright

which of my three clubs am I gonna hit right now

in order to make sure that I don't get myself

into trouble and where am I gonna aim

to make sure that I don't get myself into trouble

and that's it and now I

I I try to play every day if I can

and if I have time and if the course is open and

and I and I love it

and I love going out there with my boy

and he caddies for I pay him

50 cents a hold a caddy for me

and he loves it and he'll come out and he'll

and he's and he's making good money

he's creating real value he

I mean he he wipes down every

after every single hit he'll wipe down my clubs

he will um

uh he will uh

Rake the bunkers

he will like

if I need him to go fetch something

or fetch a ball or something like that

he'll do that he'll Rake the bunkers

for the other people in my foursome

and and

and and meanwhile

we're out there we're in nature

we're having a wonderful time and there's no screens

hmm

it is it is absolutely the last three weeks that

that epiphany that epiphany

that one epiphany about the sport

and I really enjoyed like

I started playing last November

and so it's been about um

it's been about 11 months

it feels like it's only six months

but it's been about 11 months

no no and

and it is it's almost an addiction for me now

I really really enjoy it

and it has turned and

you know I

it was

it's the same thing with my relationship with my boy

with respect to golf I

I would love for him to get into golf

and I would love for us to

to do this stuff together

and I was like okay

you gotta come out and here's and and

and you gotta you gotta learn to play and you

gotta line up this way and hold your arm straight

and do it and I'm giving him all this

all of this stuff and now what I do is I drop the ball

we don't even we don't go to the driving range together

he hates the driving range

because that's all about getting better

and but

but he likes hitting the ball

and so I will drop the ball

if the the

as soon as I get within 100 yards

I will drop I'll throw his ball out there

more or less where my ball is

and I'll say OK

go hit to the green

and he will go out there with his club

his one club and he'll just swing and swing and swing

until he gets to the green

and sometimes he'll get these amazing shots and be like

look dad

and I'll see how far it went

and that's it that's all we're doing

and we're just out in nature having an amazing time

yeah

and maybe it'll take hold and maybe it won't

he might end up loving the game

he might get into it and he might go crazy

or maybe it won't but at the end of the story

we're having this great time

and it's and that epiphany

that one epiphany where it's not about

it's about what you're capable of doing right now

as opposed to what you theoretically could do

if you are operating on all cylinders

yeah that's a very

and and it so

I and I

as I'm as I'm

as I'm telling the story now

what I'm realizing is

it's basically impossible to perform perfectly in golf

like even the best players in the entire world

who have dedicated their lives and who are like

unbelievably talented and all of that

even they only perform at

you know only have peak performance

something like I don't know

maybe 20 or 30% of the time I'm guessing

I totally agree well

most professional golfers uh

miss the Fairway 50% of the time

50 that's crazy

that's crazy that's amazing

watching the golf

I can't remember which competition it was and um

they were interviewing the golfers about how many

Ja

in a round

one maybe

in a round

so this is like 70 shots and they've hit two good ones

Oberg he said uh

he said one if I yeah

he said if I flush it and it

it pure one he said in a round

and I I suspect that that also has to do with

the definition of flush for them

is way different than the definition of flush would be

for me it's probably so the

the the goal post moves such that you will never

ever hit it flush

it's right out of the middle

right out of the middle for them and us

we will be catching it within that zone somewhere

that's right yeah yeah

I mean yeah yeah yeah

but man it's so

I also they play with blades

they play with blades as well

which are a much smaller club head and it's a solid

it's got no um

a cavity backing which gives us a bit of a forgiveness

you know

is that right I didn't realize that yeah

I didn't but it makes perfect sense

yeah

they got blades they call blades

they literally a solid metal blade

and so and that

I guess that's just more mass

and so it gives them it gives them more distance

at the expense of amplifying small mistakes

yeah accuracy yeah yeah

yeah okay

that makes a lot of sense

so yeah

yeah just yeah

going back to distinguishing yeah

it's because um

oh golly

modern

in parenting distinguishing is vital in terms of um

being able to look at your child's behaviour

and understand what where

why the behaviour is happening

that's a big big problem in modern parenting

because modern parenting

and I feel very strongly about this

and I spent the last nearly 40 years

looking at why kids behave the way they do and um

that's why I've ended up with looking at the biology

our biology their biology

and what they are born expecting within their DNA

within their ancient blueprint programming yeah

yeah so um

if we if we are looking at their behaviour as a problem

we've got a big problem and that's the

the basis of modern parenting

you see the behaviour in front of you

understandably you want it to stop understandably

particularly if it's like uh

difficult aggressive oppositional

um withdraw uh

whatever the behaviour is

that comes to you

in a way that you are either curious about

frightened about or concerned about

um

the modern parenting way is to correct the behaviour

um

uh try to stop the behaviour

uh and try to explain about the behaviour

that's what we do in modern parenting

and it just genuinely it doesn't work it really doesn't

that strikes me as so true

and

my reflex with my boy is to do things that

would have zero chance of working with me

and I have a prefrontal cortex

they have less than zero possibility with him

and yet that's my reflex every time

say say some more about that

say some more about that give well

so what's your example

so so like I

my reflex is to shame him for behavior so I I

I just had this this example happen uh

not too long ago and I was actually um

my wife

has been struggling with him

because he doesn't listen to her

she will ask him to do something

and it will go in one ear and out the other

and she feels to her that it is

um

like he does listen to me but he doesn't listen to her

so she feels like it's about her or it's about like

he's like

he doesn't like women or he doesn't listen to women

but he will listen to men and those sorts of things

like that's all yeah

understandable actually understandable

totally hundred percent understandable

maybe there's elements of truth to it too

it's it's a model and so

so she asked him to take a shower and wash his hair

so he went in the shower

he got out of the shower and his hair was dry

and she says to him she goes

what's going on like what is going on

why I your hair is wet or I mean

your hair is dry

I asked you to rinse your hair and it's dry what

what's like like

I asked you three times

and you're not doing it like that you

if your dad asked you what's going on with that

and all of a sudden she starts

her reflex was to shame him

and when we talked about it afterwards and so this is

you know that's my reflex too

and I said you know what

I dealt with the exact same thing

by the way he does

he does a good job of listening to me and

but I I

I have something I want your feedback on in a minute

when we get done with this I'm gonna ask you

I really love this is wonderful

uh the

this entire project

is to be uncomfortably open about stuff

um

so I said to her and so I

I used to deal with the same thing and

and I said to her I said listen

here's here's the way I think about it

I said first of all

what you essentially

tried to do there was to make him feel shame

for what happened

and that's just not gonna work um

and and it's not I mean

it's not a good thing even if it did work

but it doesn't work either and

and so the the approach that I take is

what you're what you're asking for is a force

of will solution he's supposed to just like

he's incapable of remembering the thing

that you've asked him to do because

and the reason is

is because his mind is just all over the place

taking a shower is boring

washing my hair is boring

and so he gets in the shower and he starts to play

and he starts to do all this goofy stuff and

and that distracts him from from the task at hand

and I said I said

we have to solve the problem systematically

the systematic solution to the hair washing problem is

he doesn't get to decide it

like it's we we

he washes his hair every time

the reason that he forgets to wash his hair

is because he's not forgetting to take a shower

he's not forgetting to watch in and do soap

he's not forgetting to do any of the other parts of

he's not forgetting to dry off

he's forgetting to wash his hair

and the reason he's forgetting to wash his hair

is because he doesn't do it

every time he does it

you know every two or three times

so the solution the systematic solution is

you now have to wash your hair every time

he's not gonna wanna do that

and so when he gets out of the shower

instead of trying to shame him for not remembering

to wash his hair

I think what I would do if I'm taking this approach

which is the right thing to do

which you know is also hard

it's

cause you have to stay in your Sherlock Holmes brain

but you you say to him OK listen

you forgot to wash your hair and I get it

it's distracting

you don't like washing your hair and all this stuff

if we're not gonna be able to remember washing our hair

then we're gonna have to wash our hair every time

so that's part of just the normal course of stuff

and he's not gonna like that

he's not gonna wanna do that

I said the next time

so so I'm we'll keep doing it the old way for now

but the next time you forget to wash your hair

then we're gonna have to switch to this new way

cool and he's not gonna be happy about it

but he'll say cool and then that's what we do

and and that type of

that type of system has worked out really well for me

with my relationship with my boy

and I don't feel like he doesn't listen to me

I feel he fails to listen to me from time to time

and I get frustrated from time to time because

you know we we have system fails

but but I don't

I don't think about that as he's doing it on purpose

and that's I I think that's

the big mistake she was making in that moment

is that is that she was

she was feeling like he

was being intentionally this way and

and what I've discovered about myself is

anytime that I feel like he's being intentionally

anything he's not

in fact like

I'm not intentionally anything like that

I'm not intentionally you know

trying not to listen to my wife

when she asks me to do something

but it does happen

and so he deserves the benefit of the doubt

even more than I do

and and so

but okay

so I wanna get your feedback to any of that

and then I wanna ask you the question that uh

that that popped into my head about this about

about some

a technique that I have that I think is controversial

but I wanna get your feedback on

alright so um

biologically aligned parenting

starts off on the basis that every child is born

exquisitely social like exquisitely

yeah

and that's really um

nature's design to ultimately

guarantee the continuance of our species

yeah if they weren't born exquisitely social

you would not let them survive

and they need you to survive yeah

so modern parenting has us

believe that we have to teach them

and show them how to be social

how to have manners how to listen

that they got to listen

and if we're asking a child to listen

then we're it's because we believe they don't listen

so that's one premise and also they come along with um

a kind of survival toolkit

which is something that's innately in them

in their bodies

particularly in the body of your youngest child

your daughter four years of age

yeah she's 4

yeah

she's 7 yeah he's seven

so in the early formative years

it's very very pronounced

that children really communicate with their bodies

not with language or their intellect

yet most parenting is based on communication

through language yeah

yeah so

we talk and we talk we talk

we talk we talk

we talk a lot we talk a lot

you know and we talk some more and we talk some more

and what's going on what's going on

did you hear me say what I said

I told you to do this and you didn't do it

what's going on you know

so we're relating to them on a completely

we're talking one language and they're they're actually

um talk

communicating in another language

partially lang partially through words and language

yeah yeah

it's like a holistic thing

yeah it's all to do with their biology

making sure that and this is not them conscious

they don't have any conscious awareness of this

that's why you can say to a child

why did you do that and they'll say

I don't know and they don't know

it's because their body responds so

so these innate expectations are that

they are close when they're born

so if a baby is away and they cries

the alarm goes off and you go to get the baby

yeah that's

that's the mechanism of survival of our species yeah

now if you take that analogy and

and set it up for certain other things

like

a child expects to be in the company of an adult

OK thank you for calling how can I help you

they know exactly what goes on in this

in this world they're born into

they expect to be

looked on as very capable and competent

they expect to be on the periphery of life

so they can observe what goes on around here

and learn what you do and take on what you do

and emulate and join in on an age and stage um

basis whatever

you know

what they're appropriately able to do or not do

yes I do

and um

the problem with modern parenting is they become every

when they're born

everything stops generally and life becomes about them

and that's very confusing to the biology

and so what what the biology does

it has a real response to it

which we say is Defiance which is rudeness

which is not listening

you know it's quite something

I promise you

this stuff works once you align yourself with the

the child's biology and you listen to your own biology

and you get it you get

you get in in alignment

the behaviour

if the child's getting what it biologically expects

unconsciously there's no reason for the behaviour

so the behaviour settles it always does

it's wonderful it's absolutely mind blowing

this is so this is resonating with me so

so well right now because I am now kind of recasting

yeah um

in life Sean

you know something

I love how you're very honest about things

it's wonderful

it's really refreshing and I

and to do it on air and and

and live in front of your audience is great

and I any

any dads out there listening to this

you know there's a leaf out of your book they can take

there really is

you know I

I talk about I

I

and it's it's

you know it's the same sort of thing it's

it's it's like it's biologically consistent and

and you you

it it dovetails nicely with what you were

saying like your biology and your this

this system wants you to do something

and that doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do

and doesn't mean that's perfect

and doesn't mean a lot of things

but it means that your

the wind is gonna be at your back if you do it that way

hmm

and the more that I've talked about difficult truths

and the more that I've just kind of like just throw

put myself out there with respect to this stuff

it felt it feels like the winds at my back

yeah yeah

yeah that's right

that's right and

you know I mean

it's not like yeah

so and and

but and I think back to the times when

I've really been at loggerheads with my son

or it's it's been really difficult and

versus when it's felt easy

and that that rings what you just said rings really

really true to me as and and

and the

it is treating him as very capable

it is treating him at the periphery

and letting him kind of like

he's not the center of my world

he's at the periphery

but he gets to be involved as much as he

as much as he wants and as much as he is capable of

right and um

and and

and and yeah

so the times when I've treated him

like he knows what he's doing

that he's very capable and

that I've given him I

I put him at the periphery

and gave him the ability to participate as much

or as little as he wants those are the times when um

and and that yeah

these most recent golf experiences that way

sure sure

it's um

God it's so

it's so interesting so powerful

um

when when you

when you get to decode the behaviour

which is what I help parents do

when you get to understand what

what the behaviour is about

through the lens of it being a signal

uh huh

yeah

yeah the baby

you start to hmm

yeah the behavior is a signal

not a problem and as soon as you adopt that mindset

yeah that's it

yeah

if you see it as a signal

the question you ask yourself

you become curious about it

so what is what is missing for this child right now

what what isn't

what is this environment not providing for this child

yeah

yeah you don't get mad at the baby for crying

when it's hungry

yeah

well some parents do actually

what what yeah

and actually yeah you

you take my point so yeah

so the thing about the biology for the parent is

I haven't met a parent yet

that likes disciplining a child

they hate it

yeah that's true

and that's because the biology is saying to them

their intuition is saying to them

this isn't right this isn't right

but they don't know what else to do

in fact this isn't about blaming parents

by the way it's not the parents fault

this is the culture and the

the informed the informed um

conditioning as I call it

we've got informed conditioning through movies

Kramer versus Kramer all those old movies

you know TV programs

books the newspapers

what we see in the streets

we have this image

this fantasy image of what being a good parent is

and we try to fill that role

and I call it a role very importantly

and because it we end up performing

it's almost like we're we're

we're trying to work out what lines to say next

as if we're in a play'cause

we don't know how to handle our children

you know yeah

we just don't know cause

and they say don't they

children don't come with a manual

but they actually do in my book

but it's just not written in words

it's in their biology

and it's an amazing trip once you get into it

you start seeing you it just dawns on you think

of course of course

and then you suddenly

you start to occupy a position of um

I wanna say power in a very um

positive way and authority that that

that your children um

are yearning for

they're yearning for it and their behaviour

often is to provoke you into taking that ground

and that's their biology pushing them

yeah

yeah I

I I believe it

I I believe it

and so yeah

I uh

well so let me get your feedback

I think this is a perfect segue into I

there's a controversy between me and my uh my

my wife my parenting partner on

on something that I have decided to do

with respect to our boy

you're courageous man

let's go to here does she listen

does she listen to this

yeah she does

yeah she does

and I and

and she I

I I will make sure she listens to this episode because

because I really have no doubt

I'm so interested in and she's so bright and she's well

she's a great partner I really

we're really fortunate

to to

to have each other as co parents um

OK so the

the controversy is that I have decided it's very

very frustrating for me to have that situation

where I ask my kids to do

something 15 times and they don't do it

they're just sitting there

you know

they're looking at their tablets or they're doing

playing with Legos or whatever it is

and they don't even acknowledge what I'm saying or

or if I if I say hey

I you know

I need you to buckle your seatbelt and

and the response is why

I want them to ask why

I want them to feel comfortable questioning authority

and

and getting to the bottom of things and all that stuff

but I really need them to acknowledge what I said

and agree to do it

especially when it comes to certain things

and the fact is that by and large

I let them do more or less whatever they want

unless I need them to do something

at which point I will ask them to do it and and

and I you know

if they ask

if they ask me for permission to do something

I will default to yes

unless there's some good reason why I have to say no

and then I will say no and I will say why I said no

and so like

those are those are helpful assumptions there

but one of the things that I do is it was

it was very frustrating for me

if they're not listening to me

or if they're not acknowledging me

or they're or they're starting to argue with me

before they've even done the thing

and so I insist that if I ask them to do something

the first words out of their mouth are yes dad

or yes Ma

and so so hang on you

you insist on this

is that internal insistence or is it really

it's part it's part

like I say lake

I need you to say if I ask you to do something

I need you to acknowledge that

I've asked you to do that

and I need you to agree to do it

and if you don't and

and any push back

any questions that you have about the thing

if you need clarification on how to do it right

if you need to

if you want to know why I need you to do it

or if you think that it's a bad idea

and you want to push back

then you may do all of those things after you've said

yes dad

so lake I need clean off the kitchen table please

now his reflex might be why

or it might be well

but but Mo made the mess

and why should I have to clean up her mess

those those are things that happen

that's not I

that's not okay the

the thing that is okay is to say

I'll say lake clean off the table

he says yes da

but it was Mo that made the mess on the table

can she at least help me

or can we have her do it instead

and that will often times lead to a discussion

you're right about that okay

well let's make sure that she cleans up this

what part of the mess did you make

and what part of the mess would she make

and let's cordon off those things

and we'll have her clean up this part

how about that will that work

yes it will okay

super and those conversations go really

really smoothly

but it creates this situation where it's almost like

like it feels like

like to to my wife

it feels like it's an authority

a kind of an authoritarian militaristic kind of thing

um and in fact

we have an issue

she says that she feels that way

she feels like

it's like the drill sergeant coming in and saying

make your bed yes sir and

and that's not the vibe

that's not the vibe that I'm trying to create

and in fact early on when we first started this system

lake was like started saying

yes sir

and I said actually

I don't want you to say yes sir

that's not something I want

what I want is you to say yes dad

and he's like okay

and then and then

and that's the way it worked

yeah so okay

so that is the situation

that's the controversy between me and my wife

and I I mean

by the way I

she's going to come to me

when she listens to this episode

and she's gonna say you didn't represent my my uh

my point of view properly yeah

that is correct I did not I

I I I

I'm I'm not making really making an attempt to do that

so like don't

don't draw any conclusions

no I don't at all

cause I don't know your wife

and I don't know the situation

that's right so I got lots of questions for you

uh

draw conclusions either this is a

this is a straw man of what she might say um

but I'm interested in your feedback as to the

the authoritarian aspect and that overall thing

got lots of little things

little things

what I'm interested in is

why does your wife think you're being like

authoritarian what is it about you in that situation

that makes her think that do you think

I think it's because that is

it's like the drill sergeant

it is like the the militaristic

you know the father demanding absolute obedience

so what's the tone of your voice

it's not particularly that way

it's it's so actually sometimes

you know if

if

it feels like I really need to get him to listen to me

I will lower the tone of my voice

and I'll speak more slowly

and I'll be like lake

I need you to clean up the the uh

the kitchen table this is the third time I've asked you

if I have to ask you again

we're gonna have a problem

I got that OK

so in terms of the environment

that the biology of a child is expecting

um is one that is

without threat is

okay yeah

and we might add on to that safety

but it's not about safety

it's about certainty

so just like you will be on the top floor of your house

alone at night and

you hear something bang downstairs on the ground floor

your head will go like that

without you even thinking about it

and that's your biology making

responding to the environment that hey

something's something's not right

something's going on here

so if you imagine a child is constantly doing that

just as we are

they're constantly scanning and broadcasting

for that sense that everything is under control

everybody knows what they're doing

I'm in my place

and I can just get on and just contribute

and be with everybody and

and do what I need to do what's expected of me

so

so that involves how you move how you speak your tone

are you one that has a difficulty with time

so you're rushing out the house at the last minute

come on come on

hurry up we're gonna be late

you know

and by the way time and distance doesn't come on board

intellectually for children until

some research says as late as 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 wow

yeah yeah yeah

we talk about time all the time

especially with toddlers come on

Mommy's gonna be late move

you know

no it's not it's a waste of time waste of time so um

also logic

doesn't come on board in

in a detailed intellectual capacity

until way beyond seven

they can do logical things

but to to process logical arguments in a mature way

which we can come onto a maturity in a minute

um is not necessarily accessible to them

in the way that we think it is

and needs to be in order for them to understand us

so that's why they can't you can't reason with a child

because reasoning requires life experience

to discern and compare

so since you start reasoning with a young child

you jam them up they just they

they just can't they're not able to process it

yeah and then their biology goes off because

um they're being asked to

things they just cannot do do

I I'd like to

I'd like to get your feedback about a distinction there

because I I found that yes

on the front end reasoning is counterproductive

but on the back end after

the thing is happening talking about what

the thing that happened

and then reasoning it through then is pretty helpful

well I'm thinking no I

I agree with you I'm I'm trying to be

more symbolic really

as opposed to factual and nitty gritty

got it

yes yeah

and and on that yes

complex stuff um

often is is

is not easy for a child to process

however here's something

if a parent expects them to understand

they will feign understanding

which is an adaptive behavior

yeah so we think they're

they're understanding because they're nodding and yeah

and they might come in with a

they might even copy things you've said and you think

oh they're really getting this

you know and that might be an adaptive behaviour

because just as them becoming oppositional and defiant

um if their

if their opposition and Defiance is trying to correct

their biology

is pushing them to correct the environment

so it's it's a

it's a great place to be and an easy place to be and

they fail having doing it time and time again

they then start to adapt

and some of that adaptation is compliance

being over compliant

being a nice kid do homework perfect

everything's great um

you know

gives themselves to everything they do perfectly

or they may even in

in the animal kingdom would be play dead

so they go um

they they reduce their communication and availability

so they they zone out slightly

as a preservation

it's so interesting when you go into

it's so interesting

one of the things that is really different

about her childhood versus my childhood

and it really informs how

how we parent our kids and how we are

are are our respective philosophies is

my childhood was idyllic

it might as well have been like

I don't know the kids in The Chronicles of Narnia

before they found the wardrobe it

it I mean

it was amazing it was absolutely

uh it

it was it was really great

and obviously there were struggles

and there were things that are difficult

everybody has a tough life in a lot of ways

but I I didn't have a ton of excuses for

for having a tough life

and it was very safe and it was very

it was just great

very predictable and very safe

in exactly the way that you described

hers was exactly the opposite

it was very unpredictable and very unsafe

and as a result she developed that over compliance

I think

um

say that again

and she she developed the

the

yeah so she was like a nice

a nice girl

yeah

I think I mean

I think that's what she would say and um

I don't even have that struggle because I didn't

I I grew up in a

like in a safe

predictable life and and

and my world and

and actually the other thing that

that does is

it makes me expect that life is safe and predictable

like this is the way the world is safe and predictable

my world I grew up in this safe

predictable world and that's the way it should be

and so if things aren't safe and aren't predictable

but yeah

what happens to you when it's not safe and predictable

I start to get I

I get irritated I get I wanna make it that way

so yeah so you're about

you could argue you're about

it's trying to again yeah

it never stops broadcasting this

have you sorry

did you want to go on to something

no no

I didn't want to talk to you yeah

well this thing

you know you

I don't know if you've ever been in a situation

where you go into a room I mean

let's just let's talk about a made up story

there's

you go into a room and there's two people and you know

as soon as you go over the threshold

they've had a row and no one said anything

yeah now

depending on the size of the room

if it's a particularly small room

you're gonna go right back out again

right but if it's

a big room you might go to the corner and move away

right you've been

because what they're broadcasting yeah

they're broadcast and we're doing it all the time

and children pick up on this like there's no tomorrow

so you can say to a child

I'm in control here you're going

I want you to do that table

and inside you can be panicking

they're not going to obey you

or you can be frightened they're not gonna be you

or you can feel less than

because you're having to explain for them to do this

they should respect me LA LA LA LA LA LA yeah

so there's a contradiction in terms of your um

emotional and physical state

yep and what's coming out of your mouth

and what they're listening to is your physical state

yeah it's 80%

there's no good acting calm

you know hmm yeah

that the words don't mean anything

no but the physical state does

that's it yeah

it's so interesting so um

so that's why when we say um

parenting is a job or it's a role

a performance most parents perform

they're trying to act out a role

yeah instead of just being who they are

yeah you know

and what I say is that parents

parenting is a responsibility

to provide the optimum environment

for their child to mature

and in modern parenting

we don't ever talk about maturity

what maturity means

and if you're talking about raising men

you know men need maturity

like there's no

tomorrow because at the moment

we got a lot of very powerful people

who are really children in adult bodies

they're adult children really

they're just not mature I mean

Trump is not mature at all

no no

I don't think anyone would argue that he is

do you know what I mean I mean

I would judge that that would be my judgment

I don't know the man same here

of course but yeah

yeah yeah

same here do you know what I mean

and I think people who

support him would say the same thing

and yeah quite

you know so he's

he's basically a loose cannon because he's he's

you know he's

there's no there's no um

well let's not talk about him actually

cause I I don't know him

but yeah but can you see what I'm saying

I do really the job of a parent

if it is a job is to provide the optimum environment

and I mean the home

the structure the dynamics of your life

how you communicate how you're being

what you're bringing home yeah

what you get up with the food

everything is all about optimising their ability to um

mature

yeah and in modern a parent

I I've been thinking about my job as

is giving him the optimal environment

so that he can thrive

sure

and I think those are two ways of saying the same thing

because the best way to thrive in our culture

will be to be a mature capable adult

sure sure

yeah well

let I agree

but let's talk about then um the word raise and rear

you know we say we raise children

uh huh whereas raise

we raise a bomb

we raise cattle yeah

we raise the temperature it's a very active something

it's very creative it's

if you're gonna raise the barn

you're seeing the barn built before you raise it yeah

yeah parenting in my view is about the environment

and rearing requires a it's like a seed

no no one teaches a seed to turn into an oak tree

does it do we

we don't we can't

all we have to do is provide the optimum environment

so it needs soil alright

it needs water nutrients

do you know because it already knows where it's going

yeah it's already it's all determined

and that's what human beings are really

until we get into modern parenting

which starts to fuck it all up yeah see what I mean

well so now I'm gonna need to change

the name of this show

ha ha

what would you call it

rearing men growing men

well I mean

hang on raising men

I I get the title

I get the title and it didn't even occur to me looking

I did I mean

I didn't associate one with the other to be honest

yeah yeah

cause I know I know the

the feeling

and flavour and direction of what you're talking about

I really get it yeah

but I'm I'm just saying it's a very interesting on yeah

it's interesting on words

isn't it yeah

it's interesting that that

that is a that's a really that's a great analogy

and it is yeah it you are needing to cult

it's it's more of a cultivation exercise than

it is a design and execution thing yeah

you're not

you're not going to design a barn and build it

you are going now it is important to have kind of a

an end goal or or an end state

a desired end state

or a set of desired end states in mind

so that you can nudge things in that direction

so it's not it's not exactly like

hang on say let's go back on that

let's just talk about that

what are you saying

well what I'm saying is okay

if you're gonna plant an oak tree

yeah

you want to be intentional

probably you cause you you want to have the end

cause you're doing it on purpose

you're just gonna let the whole tree happen

no hang on

okay I see

I see okay

I'm talking about the seed itself yes

one yeah

you're talking about the seed okay

let's say no one plants it

let's say you know

an apple tree a bird eats the apple seed

it shits it out and it grows

yeah no one's making it

no one's shaping it

no one's telling it how it's gonna end up

where it needs to go

it's just it's already done

and I think children are like that

and I think they are too

I think the way they shape themselves

there is room to make sure that you're planting

the seed in the in the right spot

you're gonna you yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

well that's what I'm talking about

yeah the environment

so a child a child's environment is crucial to their um

flourishing

no

we're not grow based on yeah

whatever

so if your child isn't helping you is resisting

is not joining in yeah

there's a few things you can

you can start thinking

well why is that

wonder why what's going on for him yeah

what's missing here that you know

what's missing that

what are we creating around here for him to

to really fight me on right yeah

when he's programmed to follow you

the tree is going sideways

and instead of

damn it tree grow

grow up go straight up and down

you have to ask yourself

why is the tree growing sideways

a better analogy is not to feed the soil with water

and you're wondering why the tree is not growing

yeah that's right

yeah yeah

or to start pruning its branches off too soon or

you know you can

the analogy is endless yeah

another analogy for modern parenting

in my view is it's like a fire alarm

so a child a kid's scribbling on walls

chucking food doing its stuff

right and

that for me is like a fire alarm OK

but what we do in modern parenting

we wanna quiet the alarm

and we don't care where the fire is

we don't care where the fire is no

yeah and the fires meanwhile

the fires are still burning

but the alarm gets quiet and everything

oh yeah yeah

OK we're good

oh it's

everything's good we're not on it

suddenly it flares up again

yeah yeah

you know

it's like um

a river I mean

I come up with these analogies

cause they're really useful

it's like a river you sit by the side of a river

and the surface of the river is covered with dead fish

the last place you're gonna look at is the fish

you're gonna think about the water right

you know what I mean right

so this is the problem Jeff when

when when

both of us have this superpower of coming up with

metaphors and analogies really

really easily and so

like literally

our conversations will never end

because there's always another better analogy

I love it I love it

well actually

so the last thing that I love to ask people in these

in these conversations is I

I try to ask everybody more or less the same question

which is

if you had a principle that you could share

about raising men in in the

in the modern world give me one principle that uh

that people could take home

what comes to mind when I ask for that

is it if I'm raising a man

if I'm the father

if you're the father or or for

for our listeners or for me or for anybody just uh

just give me a principle that comes to mind

be in your own life and enjoy your life

so they've got something to watch and emulate

man we haven't even talked about that

that is so profound honestly

yeah that is

they expect it they expect you to show up

yeah and I'm not talking about leading

I'm not talking about demonstrating or showing

or teaching even

I mean really

we don't need to teach at all

in fact

I don't think we learn through being taught at all

actually it's through experience

yeah that's right

and finding out and failure and

you know like a child trying to walk

they stand up fall down

stand up fall down

you know unless modern

like modern parents tend to come in and scoop them up

and have them try and walk on their little pinkies

you know what I mean but um

no but that it's really

that's a whole another conversation about

about that it's it's really

yeah it's a bit an about inhabiting your life

for your life and not not feeding your

not feeding the content of your life

through your child

cause that is a very unconscious burden

that they are there to please you

hmm

yeah totally yeah

but they won't be necessarily aware of it

but they'll pick it up yeah

hmm

totally

can't live that way and then you're

you're gonna resent your kids for

for taking up all your time

and all the sacrifices you're making

yeah all of that

yeah yeah yeah

so you become the victim

and no kid wants a father as a victim

for God's sake no

no no

or or mother

no yeah

yeah quite yeah

but um

yeah so that's a principle

I guess let's learn that

I um

we're gonna have to do a follow up episode

I think what I would love that

I would love that we should tell me where

where can our listeners and me

and everybody will find out more about your work

and read more about about these concepts and um

and and you know

okay I got two things you could go to is a

Jeffrey Owen dot com that's J E o w e n o w e n dot com

that's my website yeah

there's loads of stuff there

you can book a conversation with me absolutely free

no charge no pressure

no sales love talking about this stuff

you got an issue we'll identify an issue

and I'll give you some input on it that's

very fine um

I've also got a um

an AI agent that I've created

I've spent the last

getting on for a year programming with all my writings

I've got two books one is called odd

which is oppositional defiant disorder

have you heard of that yes

I have yeah

and it's it's basically a non clinical approach

for children who say no

might want to read that

and the other one is a parenting Assumption

yeah and I got two more books in the in the works

one is um

the parent who seems fine and the child who seems fine

because a lot of

lot of parents I deal with are very fun

they function they're capable

they make huge decisions they they got

you know positions of authority

but when it comes

when it comes to being at home with their kids

it's like none of that stuff works yeah

for the very reason we've been discussing actually yeah

you know and on that AI uh

address is Jeffrey Owen dot com forward slash ask

ask ask but if you use it um

I uh

I I love that

it's you can talk to it or you can type and um

it will talk back to you if you like yeah

and I've really been put it's

it's not my voice cause I don't wanna pretend it's me

yeah it's just reference to all my work

and you can just literally talk to it

say I'm pissed off today what the hell's going

on my kids this my kids that

and it will come back and just say okay

well let's just see

you know do you know what I mean

I yes

I do I

I've I have thought of creating that exact same thing

uh for

for raising men based on on

oh yeah

you could probably put all these transcripts into it

and blah blah blah

you know yeah

okay

well all of those

so I all the links uh

for anybody who's listening are in the show notes for

great and do you know

contact me let's chat

I wanna get it out there you know

I agree cause otherwise

you're just banging your head against a brick wall also

do you know the consequence of it

his parents get exhausted

yeah and they start

they get exhausted I'm gonna finish now

I know I'm going on a bit

but I get very passionate about it

they get exhausted they start to doubt themselves

and that doubt leads to them losing confidence

and then they lose themselves

and they feel they've become someone else

so you can set up a vicious cycle like that

yeah yeah

where where it's the opposite of that

and being with your kid energizes you and makes you

and it's a vast majority of 95% we're on the same page

it is are you two on the same page

you and your wife do you think

uh vast majority of 95%

great we're on the same page

great that's

cause that's important too

isn't it

that's why it's really fun to talk about

the controversies and even in the controversies

we're like it's a genuine struggle

like what is what is the best thing to do here

yeah can I ask you one more question Shawn

okay sorry to cut you off there yeah

about the table and him

to your child clearing the table yeah

what's your fear about him clearing the table

that's a great question my

my fear is that we're gonna live in this freaking mess

and like

we're gonna be in chaos in disorder because nobody

is I mean like in in the abstract

nobody's ever cleaning up anything but yeah

and like my fear is also

we're not gonna have a place to eat breakfast

sure sure

so when parents say to me about that

I say to them

stop asking him and do it yourself and enjoy it

because he's socially he's programmed to be social

he's already orientated to join in

but if you're telling him to do things all the time

it's backwards yeah

do you know what I mean yeah

yeah yeah

he wants to join in yeah

yeah every kid does

but we just

we block them because we expect them to do shit

and they're thinking

hang on a minute yeah

you know

and there's reason why you're you're you're

into the area where they have to clean the table

you're closing down the opportunity for them

just to come willingly yeah

you're you're almost by asking them

you're saying you're not gonna do this

are you right

you're not gonna wanna do this right right

I can't rely on you to do this

I gotta ask you

do you know what I mean yeah

I do it's very interesting

you have to think about that yeah

try and have a go play

just start playing the table and enjoy it

and maybe just pass him a cup right yeah

so you can oh yeah

I can handle a cup oh

next time two cups

I can handle two cups and then you're

you're radiating him

he's capable and you're relying on him and he's here

find his place more more readily

it it won't happen overnight

but you know

you build it up yeah

hey look

I I've got this amazing

I I absolutely love this

I have enjoyed this conversation so much

I um

I really really appreciate the time

Jeff and I

I know I could do this for for for many more hours

well we will

I'd love you to let me know

let me know

send me an email and we can arrange another time

all of Jeff's details are in the show notes

all the links that he referred to

earlier are are all there

try that try this

the app yeah

speak to me yeah

and I you know there's

there's stuff you can do with me on my website

you can look that up too so sounds good

my name is Sean Dawson as always

thank you for listening to Raising Men

and you are a great parent

true

raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez

this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino