we have to set up that connection early before things

before things get out of hand

we have to do that work and we have to get

get that connection

set up because once the meltdown starts

and she starts hitting her brother

or any of that other stuff

it's too late we're already I can't absolutely

I can't sit down and

and say oh let me give you a hug you just hit your brother

like that's not gonna work haha no absolutely

not I always teach people boundaries

are not incompatible with connection yeah we connect

first we connect early we connect often

but we do set boundaries when needed

welcome back to raising men today we are joined

by Todd Sarnar Todd is a licensed psychotherapist

and a parent coach who spent over 20 years

helping families move from constant conflict

to deep connection Todd

is a former faculty member of the Newfield Institute

he's the author of The Calm and Connected Parent

he specializes in

looking beneath the surface of bad behavior

to address the root causes of family stress

bad behavior should be put in scare quotes there

if you've ever felt like you're

stuck in daily power struggles

Todd is the guy who can help you

stop reacting and start leading

with intention and science

Todd welcome to raising men

thank you I sound pretty good

that's a that's amazing

you are pretty good and you should sound that way

I'm so thrilled and

and apologies to you and to the audience for my voice

I'm still getting over this

uh this voice thing that I've had

for about a week and a half

it's kind of brutal

yeah you're forgiven

you have a great broadcasting voice

uh Sean

so thank you very kind

your your bad cold day is better than my best day

hahaha

well so this is

this episode is such perfect timing for me because I

I wanna switch gears a little bit

from what we normally talk about the

the podcast is called Raising Men and it's focused on

you know turning boys into excellent men

but I'll tell you your body of work

is so applicable

to some challenges that I'm having right now

with my 4 year old daughter

and I would love to drill into those

and just get as much wisdom as I can from you

in dealing with that with that stuff

how does that sound yep awesome

I'll put you on the clock

immediately super okay

so let me tell you what's going on

my daughter's 4 years old

and the primary thing that we're dealing with

literally every single morning

the morning starts out fine

she walks into our room she gets up

she walks into our room and she is a pleasant

you know beautiful little angel and we're very

everybody's happy we're all happy with her

within about 15 minutes

it always

always descends into an absolute power struggle in

and the family we can't get her to do anything

we start you know

she's she

everything becomes this meltdown and

and we're we end up screaming in each other's faces

and it is very unpleasant

and literally

it's every single morning it's turning into this

it's it is exactly the way that

you know I described it in the intro

where we're just stuck in daily power struggles

so you know

let's start with that first

how should I be thinking about this in a

in a way that is healthy as opposed to just

you know like

starting to lock horns with my daughter every morning

yeah once you lock horns with a preschooler

you've already lost hahaha

that's that's the perfect way to put it

already lost there's no you

that's not your job

your job isn't to lock horns like your

her friend or her peer and don't get me wrong

I'm all about kind um

and strong leadership and that parents need to be in

what we call the alpha position

and the alpha position is not

you're a dictator and you're punishing uh

alpha is more like you're a mama bear

or you're a papa bear

and that your job is to take care of them

your job is not to be their friend

um it's wonderful if they're having a good experience

and you feel close and that's really

really important and we want them to be happy

but that's not your main job

your main job uh

Sean is to be papa bear

and when you're locking horns with a four year old

you're not being a papa bear

you're being a frustrated peer in a way

does that make sense it makes perfect sense

is that is that too harsh of a way to start

not at all not at all

I try to come from like I'll tell you

I really struggle I mean

and I'm conscious of that right

I'm conscious of like I

I don't want I don't want to get in a fight

but it's like she's trying to push my buttons

and get a reaction from me

and the only and the only

the only real tool I feel like I have is to

you know send her for a break right

okay like sure

but go to your room

and let's get away from each other for a little while

yeah so yeah

I do have actual feedback for you I

I mentioned to you before we started recording

um

when my kid was uh

3 or 4 um

my mentor Doctor Gordon Neufeld

um who wrote the book hold on to your kids um

I was in his I was

at that point I

I might have been an intern still with him

or I might have been teaching um

on his faculty

but he did like a three and a/2 hour talk in Alberta

Canada I believe on uh

making sense of preschoolers

and I was obsessed with it because my kid was that age

um and so I ended up uh

transcribing the whole talk

and then talking to him and our consults about it

and I started teaching

that material to preschools around the area

and I I just think

preschools are some of the most fascinating um

you know human beings there are

they're so adorable and beautiful

and we love them so much but man

you could diagnose them with about 10 different things

if you were allowed to diagnose them

you're not supposed to diagnose

because most kids that age would be diagnosed with add

um obsessive compulsive antisocial

you know uh

disorder all these things

because their brains are just not developed yet

yeah

one or two questions before I tell you a couple things

Sean um

is one

do you does she tend to get up first and wake you up

or are you going in in waking her up

I would know so I

I we never

wake her up we let her get up naturally um

sometimes it it's

it's hardly ever the case that we're asleep

when she wakes up though okay

cool

and does she go to preschool or does she go to daycare

she goes to a daycare yeah

they care so here's

here's some things in terms of understanding okay

the first thing I say to every parent of a preschooler

anywhere is

there's a critical

critical thing to understand about their brain that

I don't know if you've heard yet Shawn

but it defines so much of your experience

and so much of her experience

do you know what the prefrontal cortex is

frontal lobe I talk about this a lot

actually the model that I like to use is

is the Sherlock Holmes brain versus the Conan

the barbarian brain right

so when we're talking about nervous system regulation

which is a big um

focus of mine um

in adults if you're having a fight or flight experience

you do not have access to your frontal lobe

you're more in your lizard brain

you're in your amygdala

you're in your brain stem in your limbic system

your daughter does not have a functioning frontal lobe

she does not have a functioning prefrontal cortex

it does not exist yet or more technically it's there

but it's not connected yet to the cerebral cortex

that means everything

and that is the mixing bowl of the brain

it's what allows you to be

focused on daddy and mommy at the same time

or I have this feeling and this feeling

or I wanna punch something and oh

I don't I'm not going to

because I get in trouble and it hurts the other person

she doesn't have that it doesn't exist

so if she gets locked in on something

she's locked in and if you start battling her

you cannot win

not only because of the alpha thing that I mentioned

but because she's not gonna get out of it

by you butting heads with her

she's gonna stay locked in

if she's focused on separation anxiety and missing you

or being away she's locked in

if she's locked into her frustration inside

she's locked in if you think about the devil

and the angel on the shoulder

you know

like in the TV show when she's upset or she's anxious

there is no angel on her shoulder

it is all the other guy right

and so if you don't understand that or you

you have some understandings of that

but if you don't realize that in the moment

you too easily get locked in

like she should this or she should that

or she can't do this I almost totally guarantee you

there's two things going on

um in those moments

1 your daughter is probably experiencing

separation anxiety

separation anxiety defines so much of human behavior

and uh personality um

including when we're adults

uh I

I'm a parenting coach but

I'm also an individual psychotherapist

and I'm a couples counselor who only works with um

couples who have kids

and I've been doing that a long time

I can guarantee you that

when you're having a fight with your wife

and I I know you don't fight with anybody Shawn ever

but if if any of the guys out there happen to true

right I wish that were true Todd yeah

but when you're fighting with your your wife

I guarantee you there's some part of your programming

or her programming that says

he might leave me

she might leave me 100% remove love from me

separation anxiety is core to our operating systems now

when you take a three or four year old

it's almost everything

they cannot survive they die

it's an existential right

because yeah

my whole science that I work with is attachment science

and attachment science is very clear

it's very scientific it's not controversial

like sometimes it is on blogs

when people are talking about attachment parenting

or helicopter parenting it's all a misrepresentation

attachment science is not controversial

it says the No. 1 thing that uh

determines how we think

how our personalities development develop

how we behave

is how secure we feel on our primary attachments

so when it comes to kids

if they're not feeling secure inside

which is common which is a lot of the time

because it takes years to develop a secure base

it's gonna determine a lot

of their behavior we'll get back to that in a moment

tell me if I'm doing too much

no I think but when it comes to what

what when it comes to mind

there is sometimes it just feels

to me like she's coming in and trying to test

to find out whether or not I'm gonna be around

if she's just a a jerk

absolutely she is but it's completely unconscious

yeah and

and if you think she's being conscious about it

if you think she's doing it on purpose

you're naturally gonna have an antagonistic

point of view towards her

and be like how dare you

you know and even if you don't think you are

if you think she has an agenda that's conscious

attachment is an instinct

it's an instinct in you it's an instinct in me

it is not a thought out thing

where your daughter wakes up and goes

you know what I'll do hahaha

yeah I will go in there and be a little holy terror

right with my father right

she's not she's operating on instinct

so let me try to keep my thoughts collected

in the morning

she's waking up with kind of an empty cup OK

because she can't maintain and I should have got water

um she can't maintain a sense of connection all night

it drifts okay

so she wakes up

and she's already feeling a little empty

and now what is she facing

oh I'm excited Mommy's

here daddy's here

I get connection but what's coming next

what's coming next is daycare

what's coming next is preschool

that is separation so she's starting to feel that okay

and frustrate it is frustrating

and if she has a build up of frustration inside

she will become aggressive

she'll have a meltdown she'll have a tantrum

she'll hit she'll say you're the worst daddy ever

all these things the core of it is separation anxiety

the frustration causes aggression

and Newfeld used to always joke that um

you know uh

honestly and also jokingly

that preschoolers are the most naturally aggressive um

human beings in the term of

in terms of human development

because they have all this frustration

they don't have the frontal lobe to temper it

and so they just hit

or they just tantrum or they just explode right

so that's me telling you drinking from a fire hose

all sorts of stuff right

what the answer is is we get up before her

we are really ready for her

we collect her in a big way

meaning we get her face and we get her smile

and we really connect before anything else

it makes all the difference in the world

but then we help her hold on through separation

by what we call bridging

we talk about what we'll do when daddy gets home

after daycare we really get a vivid

image in her brain of what it's gonna look like

when we get back together at the end of the day

and that I'm gonna give you 100 kisses

and we're probably gonna have to wrestle

and we're gonna have to play

and you know what

when daddy's at work today and you're at daycare

I'm gonna be thinking of you

and maybe even you open up your lunch at daycare

and there's a little sticker that says

I love you or a little note or some right yeah

I could go in depth if you can probably tell an hour

about any of the things I just said right OK

but I wanted to give you a general sense

you have on the one hand a a first overarching

you have a undeveloped brain that can't temper

that can't weigh things out

then you have separation anxiety

that's too much to handle sometimes

which also leads to frustration it's like at night

when you give your kid a bath

a lot of times that's where trouble starts

or they start acting up

or they act up at the dinner table why

because they really love being together

they love being with you

they love being with the family

and what's happening soon

bath means bed yeah

right and so the separation anxiety

so we have to switch our entire mindset

get in that alpha position

understand what your kids are doing is mostly instinct

it's not thought out yes

and that your job is to be a good guide to be a

person who's a big papa bear

who sees the big picture of what's happening

with this little girl is

she's just facing separation

and it's my job to help her focus on togetherness

and reunion instead of the separation

because even if they love their daycare

even if they love their school

my kid loved his kindergarten

but he would drag his feet

not want to get his shoes on in the morning and

and he would come home sometimes with an empty cup

and he would be a little holy terror

sometimes when he would get home from preschool

because he was having a hard time holding on

during the day our job is to rise above it

help them construct these things in their brain

the neuro pathways that hold on

and boy

is that a lot of answer for a simple question

but that's just where I would start off

and we can go into any aspect of it

I love that I

I one of the things I

the the

one of the real keys to that for me

and I really struggle with this

as you can imagine and I suspect everybody does is

I need to retain that conscious thought that

this is not being done on purpose

it feels like she's intentionally being manipulative

intentionally trying to test boundaries

intentionally trying to do all of those things

and she kind of is but it's instinctual

and it feels to me I find myself

drifting over into that authoritarian kind of

parenting style where I want no

you know

you can't act this way and we don't do this and

and that sort of thing and it I

I I

end up in this tension

between the authoritarian parent over here

and this total you know

gentle parenting kind of you know

right but with no boundaries kind of style here

and I I

I struggle to find the balance between those two things

yeah and what you just described Sean

I've been doing this 20 3

24 years a parent coach

been a therapist for 17 or 18

I was working with kids for years before that

and fostering and adoptive programs

and in group homes and things

what you just described

is exactly what happens in the parenting industry

every two years every two years

it's gentle this gentle that

I'm all about being gentle with our kids

and being a kind leader absolutely

but what they don't talk about is that

boundaries are also necessary yeah

we also have to have consequences

those don't need to be punishing

but they need to exist yeah

and gentle parenting doesn't necessarily say

you're not supposed to do those things

they just don't talk about it all the time

so then

everybody sees their kids acting up

and walking all over them

so then they swing to f around and find out

parenting and authoritarian

and then they feel awful and they feel guilty

and they go back

when you're a parent and you have a kid

and you're right in it

you don't see those swings because you're just in it

but when you've been doing it a couple decades

you see that it just keeps doing that

yeah and the answer is a third way

and I had another mentor Stan Tackin

I had a couple mentors in the couples realm

Sue Johnson who just passed away a couple years ago

and her EFT methodology

and Stan Tackin who's down in Calabasas and um he

um

brilliant guy a friend

um in his packed method

he said this thing that I

I don't know if it's attributable directly to him

but it really stuck with me

he said conflict versus deficit

and he said that in the context of couples

but I think it absolutely applies to kids

the conflict mindset is what I just said

my partner on purpose isn't helping me

my partner on purpose isn't

um being who I need them to be

my kid on purpose is uh

testing my limits and pushing my boundaries

and it seems intentional

you will naturally just antagonize

you will naturally just gridlock

we've already covered that

yeah the deficit model is

my partner

or my child just doesn't know how to do something

when it comes to my partner or me

it's because I probably didn't get it myself

okay um

I'm making this up entirely Shawn

I don't want my mom to get mad at me

but when I was my 80 year old mom

who if she stumbled across the Raising Men podcast um

if my mom when I was little was a germaphobe and she um

was really afraid of me when I was sick

and she left me alone when I was sick

I would have the experience of feeling really alone

and like I'm used to that

that's what it is right

and I would just think that's what people do

yeah so then I'm an adult and my husband um

you know if it was your wife or my partner my

my wife was sick

I leave her alone because that's what I'm used to

yeah because that's what you do

yeah what's

what's my partner's experience

why is Todd leaving me alone

yeah why is he abandoning me

you're supposed to help each other

I don't know any better

because I wasn't given any better

yeah

so I just give the adult example to help make it real

right guess

guess what's true about your daughter

she doesn't know how to do anything anything

yeah like if you

they would

they get to be preschoolers and we start going

oh look at them

they look like little mini me's

and they look like little mini adults

and they must be a lot more capable

no they're not

they're this far developmentally from a toddler

yeah they're this far developmentally

from somebody who didn't even

know how to talk okay

but we start projecting these capacities upon them

that they do not have

and so you have to remember that with our partners

the chances are the things that they're not doing well

are because they don't know it

they weren't taught it

and if we think they're doing it on purpose

we're gonna feel like mad if we get

oh crap they just don't know how to

now I can be more compassionate

now I can explain to them hey

I know this isn't something you were used to um

and maybe I didn't even get it

but now I know it's right or um

I got it so that's why I feel bad

but I just really in those moments

I need you to help me out with this

and maybe be there for me and maybe bring me

you know some soup and tell me I'm gonna be

you know but that is like when it's your daughter

your son it's most of it

yeah and we have to have that deficit model

they just don't know how to yet

so then what's your job if it's a conflict model

I'm gonna fight with you

and I'm gonna show you that you should do this

when it's a deficit model

you're like I'm your big papa bear

my job is to help you learn this

mm hmm right

yeah and it's yeah

a child at that age baseball from first base to

second base OK

you're you're gonna

my kid could at that age my kid could at that age

I'm just kidding but he was

my kid was an outstanding Team USA

that is so cool you know

kind of baseball player but

but I would just get ego father there

but you have to understand that for

you know the child

it is mostly instinct it really is

and what her instinct is I believe

just from what you told me

and I've again 22

23 clients at this point for parenting

is she's feeling anxious

she doesn't know how to use her words

she doesn't know how to process the feelings

on the front end she needs you to connect with her

and she needs you to help her hold on when apart

giving her little things to hold on to

a little bracelet a little thought

but she also needs you on the back end

maybe not in the morning

but she probably needs you to say no to her in a firm

but loving way a little bit more often

so she can feel her feelings and get them out

we can talk about that as a whole another thing

but when kids have a build up of frustration

it's our job to notice it

and set limits with it in a firm

but loving way so they can cry and get it out

and then they feel better

so I know I went into another area

and I think one of the things that I'm hearing from you

that I need to make sure that we're doing

and it seems that we're trying to do this unconsciously

but but we haven't really been intentionally about it

intentional about it is that

we have to set up that connection early before things

before things get out of hand

we have to do that work and we have to get

get that connection set up

because once the meltdown starts

and she starts hitting her brother

or any of that other stuff

it's too late we're already

I can't absolutely I can't sit down and

and say oh

let me give you a hug you just hit your brother

like that's not gonna work

no absolutely not

I always teach people

boundaries are not incompatible with connection yeah

we connect first we connect early

we connect often but we do set boundaries when needed

um one of the ways to think about it is like

we're managing two cups going back to my

my analogy here with my empty water cup yeah

is on the one hand

we're trying to maintain a level of connection

that's not perfect not all the way full all the time

but we're trying to keep the connection um

kind of at a good level

because when people are this way

how are you Shawn

how are you Shawn

when you're feeling connected to your partner

you're feeling loved you're right right yeah

do you listen do you cooperate

do you do well right

how are you when you're here

a lot less that way pain in the butt right

okay and you're a grown ass man

but you probably don't act like it sometimes right

I'm I don't yeah again

maybe you're above that like I am

ha ha

yeah right

so on the one hand

we're trying to maintain that cup of connection

and we understand that the younger they are

there's almost like there's a hole in the bottom

because they just can't hold on to that connection

forever right

and so we have to kind of top it up just like a waiter

a good waiter will give you a little bit more water

before you're thirsty right

okay and that's our job on the other hand

we have a cup of frustration and that will grow

little things where her she's facing

she has to go to school or daycare

and she doesn't want to

or she misses daddy or she misses Mommy

or her sibling is getting more attention right now

or whatever and that's gonna build

and our job is to notice when it's getting high

and set limits in a firm but loving way

so she can cry and get it out

and then that cup resets but if that cup gets too full

they will regress no matter what

they will hit they will kick

they will scream they will tantrum

my friend Kim John Payne

the parenting author

we are having a dinner once here in town and he said

but Todd I'm not gonna try to do his accent

but he's from Australia he lived in England

now he lives in America but um

he said there's a third cup of frenetic energy

that if there's too much going on with kids

and too much activity

they need that cup to be able to empty

so maybe we'll do that on another day

but yeah Sean

I love that model I love the model of the separate cups

right the thirsty analogy is the one to go with

I'm riffing on what you said

you wanna feed them before they're hungry

you wanna give them water before they're thirsty

because like they say when you're thirsty

you're already dehydrated right

yeah so I get there with a big connection

I get there with big love

I get there at that age

and again I know I'm going

I told you

I had a nice big cup of coffee before we talk

um at that age

the No. 1 need

because there are six different defined needs

that kids have for attention

I guarantee you she absolutely needs to feel special

okay and that doesn't mean you just give her a sticker

and tell her she's special generically

what is it about this little girl that is awesome

that is unique that makes her her

and it's not outcome it's not you drew

that picture perfectly okay

because then what if she can't do it right next time

and then she'll feel bad it's oh my gosh

you love coloring oh

you use so many amazing colors

you love singing yeah

not you sing perfectly you love singing yeah

you know you

you know and you

you feed that need and you do it early

and you do it before she knows she needs it

you tell her a story about herself that is amazing

you know and it will just light her up

and that is the quickest way to fill the bucket

um it's like you

you know her you absolutely

I love preschoolers yeah

yeah man

I I absolutely love that

now talk to me about

I feel like I've recognized a pattern and I

I feel like screens make this stuff worse

uh huh and

but without screens I like

I can't I can't live my life

I mean it the kids need something

how do I think about screens with respect to this stuff

um

I'll I'll

I'll do a smart ass answer first

uh what age group are you in Sean

like I am 51 I'm 55

um

did you have screens when you were little

okay so obviously our parents survived somehow right

and again

I know that's like an antagonistic kind of answer

but I'm like such a great observation

I grew up in Silicon Valley

so if anyone was exposed to these things I

was because like

there was an IBM computer plant near my house

in San Jose there was

you know apple and my

my middle school's

one of the first middle schools that had

apple computers as a lab

I was on a

a documentary about American kids being into computers

when I was little

I was on the Pizza Time Theater board of directors and

and uh

video game show when I was 13

so it's not that I'm anti technology

and it's not that I haven't been exposed to it

but it's just important to start off for

from the the perspective that

almost all technology is completely optional

and it's important to understand developmentally

how it affects things because

I'm not interested

in telling you that screens are all evil

all the time and any parent

whoever uses a screen is bad

I'm not interested in any of that stuff

I don't believe that but if we're just to be practical

we need to completely understand the

in like settled science on how screens affect things

my No. 1 concern is that kids develop

what we were just talking about

what John Bowlby the attachment um

pioneer called a secure base

that your daughter and your other kid

your sons develop inside a feeling

I'm good enough I am loved

I am healthy I want to be around healthy people

I have good boundaries I know how to say no

I know how to do things that are

constructive and healthy

I'm not obsessed with getting my needs met

I just feel okay inside

so I go and I do creative things

and I use my brain and I right

that's what we want

that takes 18 years minimum for that to be like

built over time right

mm hmm so that

that's an important thing to understand

the No. 1 thing is that we create a secure base

a byproduct of that secure base is like

the secure base is like roots of a tree

that's what I say in the book

that's what Newfield taught me

that the secure base is like roots of a tree

growing deeper over time yeah

and then maturity is branches of a tree that grow

and when these maturities grow strong

our kids are what we want them to be

meaning they um

can weigh things out they can be creative

they don't get bored easily

they um

can deal with feelings inside of frustration

and they can move through them and get them out

when kids are integrative in the brain

once that's possible and they can do it

when they're uh adaptive

they can deal with frustration and they're emergent

they wanna learn how things work

and they grow

and they're interested and they're creative

when they have those three things

I will take that any day now

your kid is gonna be different than my kid

from the next kid but if they have those capacities

we're good

does that make sense so far

100% okay so how does technology interact with that

technology can be when it comes to our first thing

it can be a blocker for secure deep human connection

we talked about I I don't know if you like beer

you don't like beer Sean

but we have some great pubs here in town

in Sonoma County yeah

Russian River Brewing Company

I know Dan in San Diego

you have dozens one of my favorite

it feels like there's a zillion breweries all over the

oh gosh it's like Portland and in San Diego

one of my favorite breweries in the world is in Alpine

uh michelani a brewery down there um

but anyway I

I have walked in to my favorite pub and gone to hey

I wanna be social

I wanna get out from behind the screen

I'm gonna go have a a

a beer with my wife or with one of my friends

and every single person on the bar

at the bar sometimes is on their phone

uh huh I'm not saying all the time

it's a great social place

where everybody talks and things

but sometimes you walk into a pub

and everyone's on their phone yeah

why am I not turning to the person next to me

and talking about sports or about life

or about beer right

why am I on this phone why didn't I just stay home

so my point in a roundabout way

is obviously

we're not talking about your daughter getting a beer um

probably just kidding but not yet if I

screens are addictive in a lot of ways

and they become something where

if I'm gonna talk to you Steve Steve

I keep wanting to call you Steve Sean

you look like somebody I know named Steve um

if I wanna talk to you about something

that's vulnerable or you're my friend and I'm hurting

or you might be hurting

or we might have something difficult going on in life

that's hard that's difficult sometimes right

like to talk about things that really matter

and that are vulnerable and that maybe I wanna be seen

maybe I wanna feel special when I'm 4 years old

or when I'm 55 years old

that's vulnerable screens are not vulnerable

but they they

we think they're meeting our needs

does that make sense yeah

they're like a junk food version of connection

yeah right

and I'm not saying they can't be used for good

they can

but I'm just talking about especially when we're young

especially when we're feeling anxious

or we're sensitive it's like oh

I could talk to this person but um

I'll do this and I'll just like me

I worked with kids in group homes

like I said before I was a coach and I

these kids in this group home in Petaluma

used to tell me hey

can we go to library hey

can I'm like oh my

goodness you wanna go to the library

that's amazing

normally you wanna play video games or you know okay

great let's get

you know why they wanted to go to the library

because MySpace had just been introduced

and they were addicted to this

idea that they had 3,000 friends

they did not have 3,000 friends yeah

so I might be making this point a little too long

and not as directly as I'd like

but when people can easily go on a screen

instead of dealing with another human being

it it becomes

something that gets in the way of connection

that's all and the younger a child is

the more that that can be true it's safer

it's easier but it's not filling it is junk food

and then

I'll try to make this point a little bit more briefly

but can you tell Shawn I love talking about this stuff

yeah um

is those three branches of maturity

they can also be affected by screen use

if I need to learn how to weigh things out

and figure out what different perspectives

are in things is that what we get on social media

is that the political scene these days

where everybody's like

all the way in my camp or all the way in my camp

there's not like a lot of hey

this is kind of true and I can see your point

but I kind of think we should try to do it this way

yeah that is not on social media okay

so that one aside

the the ones that I'm more concerned with

with kids is emergent energy

I wanna learn and explore

and play and figure things out

and I wanna be a good learner

I'm not bored I right

if I can just like look at other people being creative

and I can just be like watching a screen all day

I'm not getting my emergent energy out

does that make sense and then

one that I'm also concerned with is adaptive energy

I can feel my feelings I can process them

I can get them out

screens are like any other addiction

and they are an addiction

let's be honest they raise dopamine levels OK

so this applies to the last one

and this one

if I watch an algorithm that gets me stimulated

and gets me excited and is like

cut cut cut cut

do I want to go take a walk in nature

yeah probably not

because I don't get a dopamine rush from nature yeah

I love nature

it's one of the best things you could ever do

for yourself

I go on a walk almost every morning for an hour

and I just get the daylight and

and get around some trees okay

like it's so important for our psyches

it's so important emotionally to get out into nature

but if I'm getting a dopamine fix you know

like we all know the algorithms are designed

to make you buy things and to agitate you

because if you're agitated and you're engaged you

you buy more things mm hmm right

so I hope it doesn't sound like I'm too much on a

a soapbox I'm just saying

in terms of healthy development of security

and attachment and development of um

you know capacities and maturities

screens can be a thing that pauses those things right

okay because instead of feeling my feelings

I can distract myself on something or when I'm adult

I can take a drink or smoke something or

you know get obsessed with work

you know

those are all things that are distracting me from

there was a philosopher who once said

most of man's problems stem from the inability to sit a

alone in a room with his thoughts right yeah

I forget which Greek guy said that

I remember that as well yeah

I would say feelings I would say most of men's

or women's problems

stem from the inability to sit alone with our feelings

because we don't want to but we have to yeah

so very long answer very enthusiastic answer

but that's what I keep in mind

it's like technology Newfeld would say

is like dessert

we have to have dinner before we have dessert

I wanna make sure my kid goes first

to connecting with other people

I wanna make sure my kid um

has these capacities

and if my kid has these capacities and they're secure

inside then they will use technology for good

they will use it to connect things

they will use it to solve a problem

they will use it to be creative

but up until then so I know it's hard

and you think back to your actual question

but what do I do

we set them up with creative endeavors

we set them up with things where they can paint

where they can build

we have lots of structure where they know we do this

and then we do this and then we do this

just like at school do you think a daycare provider

is arguing with your daughter about

what to do no

absolutely not you're right yeah

no yeah because

a preschool teacher knows we do this

and then we do that

and then we do this and then we do that

and the kids do not argue

because they know it's time for soup

they know it's time for building right

that's how we do it

did I come close to even answering your question

I I

one of the things that I definitely wanna

kind of double click on or just call out in

in what you said and it cause it really

really rang true to me was this notion that once the

the dessert thing once they've had dinner

then they can responsibly consume dessert

but if they're just eating dessert

then they're we call it the sugar worms in our family

that's what's gonna happen

they're gonna get the sugar worms

they're gonna be bouncing across the wall

and the same is true with technology

once if they're coming from it

from a base of having the appropriate

amount of connection and all and

and and everything else

then they're going to consume technology responsibly

they're actually gonna do the things with technology

they're gonna use the learning programs

as opposed to the games or the

or just watching videos

I I remember I it sorry to interrupt but uh

I I will um I remember being in San Diego

with my son for the All Star Game

a number of years ago um

at Petco Park we were there for three days

we did the Home Run Derby

my son had never used an iPad ever okay

and I forget how old he was at that point I'm 12 10

11 12 I forget what year it was and um

we're just sitting there in this Airbnb

with my brother and sister in law

and getting ready to go to game

and my son goes dad

is there an app on your iPad that like

helps us design a house because I wanna design a house

where you and I can live someday right

yeah and I'm like

probably and I go on there and I find this app

and I decide to do it with him

I'm not just gonna give it to him and you know

send him off but I'm gonna sit there

he figured out how to use the app better than I could

yeah it's amazing with their kids

who was grown who grew up in Silicon Valley right

who was always right my kid was like oh

you probably do this and you probably do that yeah

that made me so happy

because it wasn't that he was a super genius okay

he had other friends that were super geniuses

when it came to computers

he had a friend that was taking apart Kindles

and putting them back together

but his brain worked he could figure things out

and that is what we want

we want our kids to be in that kind of place

and then use technology so sorry

when you double clicked

it made me think I love that sentiment

that's yeah I

that's a really good um you know

we're coming up with some really good nuggets here that

that the glass model of the of the various

you know the frustration and the

and the connection and frenetic energy

I I love that model and and I love this notion

kids need downtime they absolutely need downtime

or they have too much built up frenetic energy

we need to give them a little space

and when you give kids space

they get a little bored at first

but then if you notice they always figure something out

right yeah

my friend again Kim Jong pain

he his daughters would come to

him and go dad we're bored and he'd go oh my

that's it

right oh my and they'd go

oh dad and then they would figure out creative play

they would figure out something to do always

but parents don't let their kids get past that right

sometimes okay

let me give you something

to helicopter parent in a different way right

if right yeah yeah

yeah don't let your kids yeah

they're not gonna be able to exercise that muscle

boredom is always what comes right before new thoughts

new creativity you know

and and we kind of gotta let our kids experience that

yeah

yeah I

I like I've told them many times that oh good

you get a you get a chance to practice being bored

you you need to get better at being bored

and yeah that's where emergencies come from

that's literally what the term is

is something emerges from inside right

we don't want our kids to to

it's called intrinsic versus extrinsic right

intrinsic comes from inside

extrinsic comes from outside

if we're like here let me show you what to do

let me show you how to be creative

let me show you how to play whatever all the time yeah

that's extrinsic

and that makes them dependent upon extrinsic

yeah we have to have faith

they have all sorts of creativity inside

and all sorts of imagination right

when when my nephews were your daughter's age

I didn't have a kid yet

and I would buy them the most involved fancy

well rated toys for 150 bucks or something

what would they play with

the box the box right

you knew that right

they would play with the box

and I'm sitting here going

that toy got awards worldwide for how creative it is

and awesome it is and I paid all this money on e toys

or whatever the website was back then right

don't you know how brilliant that is for your brain

they're like this is a treehouse

this is a rocket ship you know right

that is what we want to allow

William Yate said

education is meant to be the lighting of a fire

not the filling of a bucket right

and that's emergent energy

we wanna get that fire you know

we want them to be like oh

I wanna figure it out and yeah

it's it's yeah

maybe that's a I that's

that's really what we're trying to do right

we're yeah

and if we hand them a tablet sometimes and fan the

we're filling the bucket yeah

yeah yeah exactly

we're creating a we're creating a

a bonfire yeah

and yeah that

that that's an interesting metaphor to explore

I have to think about that because

because it can go get out of control too right

and so you need to uh

there's there's some interesting aspects to that

yeah

we always love to have two or three more conversations

about it I

always love to finish up these conversations by asking

uh each guest for a principle

that they'd be willing to part with

give me one give me one principle that uh

that that parents can think about when uh

when when raising their kids

oh gosh I've probably set a few of my main principles

and I'd be pressed to like

think of one brilliant one to drop right here I

for me I really loved as a new father

hearing Doctor Newfeld talk about

you are the answer for your child

not an expert not Sean

not Todd not anyone else

we're here in the background to help support you

to help whisper something into your ear

to inspire you

to educate you on something maybe you didn't know

but at the end of the day

I could never be for your kid

who you could be for your kid

your kid doesn't need you to be perfect

they need you to try not to be perfect

they just need you to try to understand these things

if if you're bumping heads about some things

they just need you to be the one

who figures out the pathway out

they can't okay

they can't they're incapable of it

and so my main message and principle is that

you are meant to be the alpha leader

you're meant to be the papa bear

the mama bear the mother goose

and it it

it's like you know

if you watch a a Mother Goose with their goslings

are they getting behind the the goslings and going

hey guys it would be really great if we went over here

you know or are they smacking them around

no yeah

I meant that metaphorically right

no but no

don't suggest

any of your good listeners are smacking around right

I'm just saying that the the Mother Goose

what does she do she leaves away

and then if one of the goslings gets too far away

she goes and gets him yeah

but in general when she goes

they go

oh okay

and they go after her right

yeah that is the energy of parenting

it is we are meant to be the mother goose

we are meant to be the papa bear

and we don't have to be perfect

we have to understand that

how much more wisdom and knowledge

and capacity and resources do you have at 51 years old

than this three or four year old has right

yeah you're not better than her

you just have more ability to take the lead

and she will follow you

just have to figure out where that energy is

because she wants to her instinct is to follow you

but she also has instincts

if she doesn't feel connected to you

or if she feels anxious to not listen to you

because that her instinct tells her not to

and we have to understand it's all instinct

and if it's all instinct we

understand why the goslings follow the Mother Goose

right so I

I guess that if if pressed

that's what I would say

oh Todd

thank you so much I love that principle and uh

and

thank you so much for being so generous with your time

and uh

and your wisdom it has been just an absolutely delight

uh an absolute delight getting to know you

and I I really appreciate

I genuinely hope we can do it again

because I love what you're doing

it's so needed and um

there's not enough good resources out there for dads

yeah and um

you know I help moms and dads

and usually moms are the ones who call me first

um but um

we just need good models for engaged involved um

dads um

who are trying to raise the best boys

and best girls that they can

and so I really really genuinely appreciate what you do

and do hope that we get a chance to talk again

me too me too

and for those listening who are ready to

to who wanna learn more

or ready to stop the power struggles and

and start leading with connection

you can find Todd at transformative parenting.com

I've got some links in the show notes for you guys

uh Todd

thanks again

and thanks so much for joining us on Raising Men

had a good time thank you

and our guest thanks for watching and listening

please like

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remember that you are a great parent

raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez

this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino