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Nov. 7, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

14:54

2250 Life after Politics: Lessons from the 2012 US Elections

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, sifts through the wreckage of the 2012 US elections to find hope for reason, peace and the progress of humanity.

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	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio.
	It's time for another round of philosophical parenting.
	Got this email from a listener which says, as a voluntarist slash non-spanking parent, what do you do with your toddler if he won't leave the playground when it's time to go?
	I tried telling him I'm going and he's going to be left alone and I hide so he doesn't see me but he doesn't care.
	So I'll share with you my thoughts and experiences with that.
	First of all, do not threaten the bond with your child.
	Do not threaten abandonment.
	That is not good.
	That is very dangerous and it's a very bad precedent to set.
	Do not threaten the bond.
	You are the lifeline to your child and your child has no other options, particularly in toddlerhood, for getting Food or shelter or water or rest or entertainment.
	So you are the sole lifeline.
	It's like the umbilical threatening to detach from the fetus.
	It is not wise, it is not right to threaten the bond with your child.
	I understand how you can get to that kind of frustration and what else can I do.
	But questions that I receive like this, and I receive quite a lot, some of them I answer privately for reasons of privacy, but We get a lot of questions of, my toddler is having a tantrum in the store, my toddler won't eat their veggies, my toddler, and what do I do in that moment?
	And I must tell you, it's very similar to receiving questions, something like...
	Steph, I am in a suit of armor at the beginning of the Boston Marathon.
	What do I do?
	And my answer is, if you have to ask when you're at the beginning of the Boston Marathon, it's because you haven't trained, you haven't prepared, you're not ready.
	For the Boston Marathon and you're trying to backfill.
	Whenever you have a lack of preparation, you have a greater capacity for aggression.
	People who haven't prepared for life are much more likely to steal things and so on.
	And people who haven't prepared for the inevitable conflicts with toddlers months or years ahead of time are going to find themselves in a situation of emotional escalation and threat.
	So, the first thing that's important to understand is that you, as the parent, and I do it too, so, you know, I'm not preaching from any kind of immune, from bad habits, ivory tower, but when you find yourself in a situation of significant conflict with your child, it's because you, as a parent, have failed to prepare for that situation.
	And so, I'm going to give you, and so, that's important, right?
	Otherwise, you end up having to blame your kid if you don't accept responsibility for what you've done.
	As a parent, right?
	So you hear from a lot of parents like, well, if my daughter is reaching for a boiling pot of water and so on, hit her.
	Well, no, you as a parent have failed to protect your toddler from the boiling pot of water.
	You have failed to explain it to them.
	You failed to use the back elements, turn the handles towards the back, keep them out of the kitchen, whatever is necessary.
	I mean, when I make, my daughter is very big on eggy toast, right?
	You get boiled egg and you dip strips of toast and it's really good.
	And every time I have to move the pot of boiling water from the stove to the sink, I make sure she's out of the room completely when anything's spilling.
	So it's really, it's around preparation.
	So let me give you some examples of how to prepare your child so that you can resolve these conflicts.
	I know you can never prepare your child so there won't be any conflicts.
	That would actually be unhealthy.
	That's turning them into a soap dish of inactivity and a lack of will.
	But a successful resolution of these conflicts is the important thing.
	So, when it comes to leaving on time, you have to prepare years before.
	And you can backfill, but let's just talk about the ideal.
	So ideally, of course, whatever you want from your child, you first have to provide to your child.
	If you want your child to say the word apple, you have to...
	Teach your child the word apple.
	If you want your child to sing ABC, you have to sing about a million times ABC to your child.
	Whatever you want back from your child, you have to first provide for your child.
	That's in terms of education, but more specifically that's in terms of things like respect and negotiation, peace, reason, and all these kinds of things.
	So when it comes to leaving the playground, First and foremost, you have to, have to, have to make promises and keep promises to your child from a very early age.
	I started this with Isabella a year, 14 months.
	It was pretty early.
	I'm going to do X. I promise I'm going to do X. Now, of course, she doesn't understand that when you first start, but you started layering in what a promise means.
	And you keep your promises, right?
	I mean, it was just the other day.
	It was cold out here in Mississauga, Canada.
	It was cold.
	It was windy.
	Everything was frosty and so on.
	But I'd made a promise earlier in the day that we were going to go to the park.
	So, you know, I tried to negotiate my way out of it, but she really went until we went to the park.
	Driving to Porkfest once, I said it was late.
	She wanted to go to the pool.
	It was an outdoor pool.
	And I said, we'll go in the morning before we leave.
	And of course, the morning...
	Arises and it's raiding and winding and all kinds of unpleasant.
	But you grit your teeth and you go and do it anyway.
	And you do that because it's just easier to keep your promises than it is to have endless fights until the end of time.
	So you make a promise and you keep a promise and that teaches the child the language of commitment.
	You demonstrate it consistently for a long time before you ask for it in return.
	So the first time you sing Twinkle Twinkle, you don't expect it to come back right away.
	You have to sing it to them a thousand times before they get it and sing it back.
	It's the same thing with all other behaviors that you want.
	If you want your child to listen to you, you have to demonstrate what it's like to listen to your child for years ahead of time.
	If your child is not listening to you, most likely it's because you have not consistently demonstrated listening to your child.
	If you come across a child who doesn't know the word for apple...
	That child has not been taught the word for Apple, at least not consistently and not over a long period of time.
	So that's really important to understand, that it's you who's creating these bounce-back behaviors.
	It's you who's serving the squash ball that comes back.
	And so if something is happening with your child that is discomforting or unpleasant to you on a repetitive basis, you have to first examine your own behavior and figure out how you have contributed to what's coming back.
	So have you made promises and kept promises even when you have to grit your teeth to do so?
	Over a consistent period of time.
	And, you know, occasionally you can't keep a promise, right?
	You want to go to Chuck E. Cheese, but hey, it's closed for renovation.
	And then you have to explain and all that kind of stuff so that the child really understands.
	So once you have that in place, and we can talk another time about how to backfill that if you haven't done it.
	It's really just around apologies and a recommitment and then a consistent behavior and not expecting the child for at least a few months to return to you the consistent behavior that you're providing to the child.
	But, um, you, once you've got that in place, that you make, that we keep our promises, I keep my promises in the family, you can trust when I give you my word, and you explain the concept of promise, and you have consistently shown what a promise is, then, before you go to the park, you say, I would like to go to the park with you.
	We have to be back at six o'clock, because...
	Mommy is cooking, and food is going to be ready just after 6, and we've got to take our boots off or whatever it is we're going to be doing.
	So let's say it's sort of 4 o'clock.
	You say, I really want to go to the park with you.
	You really want to go to the park, right?
	Yes.
	So, you know, invest in an analog watch, you know, because that has the...
	The time that you can see swinging around, right?
	So you say we have two hours.
	Even if they don't know what two hours is, just give them some sense, right?
	This is on the four.
	The little hand's on the four.
	When the little hand's on the five, I'm going to tell you.
	When the little hand's on the six, we got to go.
	Do you promise?
	Right?
	Yes, I promise.
	So you know.
	So you have to negotiate these things ahead of time.
	We will stay for two hours at the park.
	I'm looking forward to it.
	But if we're going to go to the park, you have to promise that we're going to go at six and you're not going to fight and whine and complain and run away.
	You have to get that commitment before you go to the park.
	Again, it's all in the preparation.
	It's not in trying to backfill in the moment.
	You don't just sort of start charging down the street of the Boston Marathon just hoping blindly you'll find your way to the end somehow.
	It's all in the preparation.
	It's all in the training.
	It's all in the preparation.
	And so, you get the commitment from the toddler beforehand, you know?
	So, and again, they may get it, they may not get it, but this is how you layer it in.
	And then, so you get that ahead of time.
	And then you keep reminding them, right?
	Every half an hour, you know, okay, it's now half past four, five, you know, whatever, right?
	You know, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes, and so on.
	And you remind them of them.
	Remember, we had a promise.
	We had a deal, right?
	In our family, it's called a deal.
	We had a deal that when you leave...
	The park.
	At 6 o'clock, there's not going to be any fighting.
	And you have to explain why you're leaving at 6 as well.
	So it's not some arbitrary thing.
	And, of course, the circumstances change.
	You can renegotiate and so on.
	But, you know, because Mommy is making food and we want to have it...
	I like a nice hot meal and Mommy doesn't want her food to get cold.
	That would make her sad because she really likes it when we enjoy her meals and so on.
	So the child really understands.
	So there's an irrational framework for what it is.
	And then go have a blast at the park, right?
	And just have a real blast at the park.
	And then, when it's time to go, then you remind the child, remember, we came here, that's the deal, and so no, you know, let's go, no fussing, no fighting.
	Now, they may fuss and they fight.
	We all, you know, we all try to wriggle out of commitments from time to time, and there's nothing wrong with that.
	In fact, it's quite healthy.
	There are times when you should wriggle out of commitments.
	But you have to remind them of the promise, right?
	See, this was the deal.
	We came to the park with no fussing and fighting when we have to go.
	You made a promise.
	Now, do I always keep my promise to you?
	This is the leverage that you have when you have integrity with your children, is that it is, and I found this to be inescapable for children, right?
	So if I say to my daughter, do I always keep my promises to you?
	Can you think of a time when I haven't kept a promise?
	No, you always keep your promises.
	So you made a promise to me.
	And because I've always kept my, I don't have to say it, because children are universal morality machines, right?
	Because I have said, because I've always kept my promise to my daughter, when I say to her, But you made a promise to me.
	She then doesn't say, yes, but I'm not going to keep it.
	Because that would be like calling an apple a fatang-fatang-ole biscuit barrel for no reason whatsoever.
	Things just don't randomize that way.
	Once you've put that behavior in place, right, it's like lying, right?
	I mean, I don't lie to my daughter, and therefore, if she lies to me, I say, I don't lie to you.
	And, you know, how would you like it if, right?
	This is very important, right?
	And the other thing, too, is that you can talk about consequences for next time.
	Right, so if there's lots of fussing and fighting, you know, it's going to happen, of course, right?
	This isn't a magic switch, but it's something that you layer in over time.
	It gets much, much easier.
	But you can say, and first of all, feel free to express your frustration towards your children, right?
	You're not supposed to be these spark-like parental robots.
	They need to know that you have feelings and that you care and that you're upset or angry or whatever.
	And you can say, listen, I'm really upset about this.
	And then you can explain...
	That, you know, we came to the park on the deal that you would not fuss and fight when it was time to go and you promised.
	So I will tell you what that means for me is that next time I don't want as much to go to the park because I don't know if you're going to keep your word.
	I don't know if you're going to keep your promise.
	I don't know if you're going to respect our deal.
	Whatever age-appropriate language, right?
	But help them to understand that the decisions that they make now Will affect your enthusiasm and motivation.
	I don't mean this for next time.
	I don't mean this in a manipulative way.
	Just be honest.
	So if my daughter makes a commitment not to fuss and fight, and then she fusses and fights, say, I'm honest with her.
	I don't want to do this as much next time.
	Because we went there because you weren't going to fuss and fight.
	And if you're going to fuss and fight, I don't know if I want to go as much next time.
	And it's a true statement.
	And again, we've only had one or two of those, but for the most part, they kind of will get it.
	But the most important leverage that you have as a parent is that you make your commitments, you keep your commitments, you put fun and pleasure with the child first and foremost, and also talk about the effect that fussing and fighting has on you.
	Be honest, to have empathy, the child needs to know that you have emotions.
	And so I say...
	And you can say this not in the moment, right?
	You can say this sort of later or even the next day.
	But, you know, it's important to go back and revisit problems that happened and talk about them again.
	That's really important, right?
	So that there's not just these little beads of isolated moments with no threads between them.
	But you can say that, you know, in a moment of calm, right?
	It's not usually the easiest thing.
	We'll get to that in a sec.
	In a moment of calm, you can say, I don't want us to fight every day when we have to leave someplace that you're having fun in.
	That's not fun for me.
	And I think about all the time we're going to have to spend together over the years.
	And there's going to be...
	Thousands of fights.
	You know how many grains of sand there are on the beach?
	This is how many fights we're going to have if we don't fix this.
	If we don't figure this out, we're just going to keep having these fights and it's going to be upsetting to go places because you're going to be fussing and fighting and I'm going to be frustrated and so on.
	So we need to find a way that we can go and have fun without the fussing and fighting at the end, without the whining, without the whatever.
	So help me.
	You know, I have this idea, like we make a deal, we have a promise, and then we keep that.
	But tell me, you know, how would you like to solve it?
	How would, you know, invite the child to help solve the problem called, we're just having too many fights.
	And do that in a moment of calm.
	You can't do that in the moment where they're upset because, you know, they're overwhelmed by their nervous stimuli.
	So...
	Find ways that you can have the child engage and be involved in the resolution of these disputes.
	And you'll be really surprised what kids are capable of.
	I was driving with my daughter yesterday.
	She's three.
	We were just chatting about something else.
	There was this little pause.
	She said, Daddy, are children people?
	I said, Oh, yeah.
	Children are the people that are the most important people.
	Children are absolutely people.
	She said, Huh.
	Are babies people?
	Absolutely babies are people.
	Daddy, can babies think?
	I had this great conversation about how I was able to figure out what she wanted as a baby, even though she couldn't talk.
	I talked to her a little bit about, you know, the nice lady Allison who came on my show to talk about how babies think and how they can figure it out, how babies look at things longer that they're interested in and they can measure that and, you know, hold up a toy that she likes that's similar to another toy that she likes, see if she likes it again, all that kind of stuff.
	So, all very useful stuff.

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