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May 4, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
20:37
Top 5 Parenting Solutions!
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Hey everybody, Stephen Molyneux from Freedom Inn.
Hope you're doing well.
So these are the top five parenting lessons that I have learned.
I have been a stay-at-home dad full-time.
I do a little bit of philosophy on the side, but a stay-at-home dad full-time for five years, and so I've had some exposure.
Now, when I was younger, I worked in a daycare, so I've had lots of experience with kids, and these are the top five things that I've learned.
I hope that they'll be helpful.
These are questions I get quite a lot on the show.
So with regards to conflicts with your children, the first thing to understand is that conflicts are healthy.
Conflicts are healthy.
Conflicts means that two or more people have individualized ideas, have perspectives, have preferences, and are willing to go to bat for them.
So there's nothing wrong with conflicts.
This idea that everyone should harmoniously get along in some zen kumbaya Jelly-like dissolution of personal identity is not correct.
Conflicts, if they're successfully resolved, breed trust.
And trust reduces future conflicts.
There's no way to gain trust without successfully resolving conflicts.
So you should welcome conflicts as a way of building trust which will reduce future conflicts.
So the first thing you want to do as a parent, well before all of this you read up on it and so on, but you must aim for a relatively peaceful household.
Now that doesn't mean a conflict-free household, it just means the conflicts are resolved in a sensible and rational manner.
So obviously no name-calling, no yelling, no escalations, no intimidations, no door-slammings, Silence, no freezing out, no neglect of people when you're angry so that you withdraw, which causes kids to kind of freak out, and no threatening of the bond with your children and disapproval.
None of that.
None of that.
I mean, if you're an adult and you yell, you're just having a tantrum, and then you can't really complain that your kids have tantrums when you've been modeling that behavior.
So, that's sort of first and foremost.
You have to show the children How to successfully resolve conflicts.
So, of course, if you're married, you're going to have disagreements with your husband, your wife.
So you model for your children how disagreements are resolved.
You don't hide your disagreements from your children, unless they're super young, but you talk things out and you show that conflicts can bring you closer together.
Knowing that you can successfully resolve conflicts means you're not conforming out of anxiety, but rather you are simply being yourself with the full knowledge that you can work things out.
So here's a couple, that's sort of the beginning part.
Let's talk about the number one issue that, these aren't in any particular order, but the number one issue of parenting these days, and it is sugar.
Sugar, when I was growing up, was relatively rare.
Now it seems to be kind of Everywhere.
So, with regards to your children's behavior, the first place you always need to look, if you have a behavior that's problematic, is you need to look in the mirror.
Right?
You need to look in the mirror.
So, do you model saying no to temptation?
Right?
So, if your kid offers you a piece of candy, do you say, no, I'm, you know, cutting down on my sugar, I'm watching my sugar, or whatever it is.
Do you model if the waiter comes and says, would you like dessert?
You say, no, actually I love sugar, But it's not great for me, so I'm gonna have to say no.
Do you constantly guzzle down soda?
Do you put lots of sugar in your coffee?
Are you constantly eyeing the donut tray at work?
And so on.
So, if you have a relatively healthy relationship with sugar, which seems to be rejecting it constantly, sadly, then if you model that behavior, your children are more likely to internalize it.
I mean, just think of that time When your kids are in that massive language acquisition phase, when they're learning a dozen or new words a day and you can't really figure out how, you don't remember teaching them all, you didn't sit down with a dictionary, but they're just absorbing, it's the same thing with your behavior.
And so, if you say no, your kids are more likely to end up modeling that behavior.
Now, the other thing which has been a good perspective to bring to children is this.
So you can say to your child, listen, I am responsible as your parent for delivering you a healthy heart, mind and body at the age of 18 or 20 or whenever it is that you leave home.
So I am responsible for the food that you eat.
I am responsible for giving you shelter and medical care and love and companionship and all that.
So I have to deliver You, as an adult, a healthy body.
Now, if you have too much sugar, you're going to get addicted.
You're going to gain weight.
Your teeth are going to be problematic.
There's going to be lots of issues that are going to occur.
And the question is, like if you can cast yourself down through the tunnel of time and say, okay, you're 18 or 20 or whatever.
Would you rather have a relatively slender healthy body with good strong teeth or would you rather be overweight with bad teeth and other potential health problems?
Well obviously you'd rather be healthy.
So I'm thinking of the adult that I have to deliver a healthy body to and so It's just not part of what I can do.
It's like the mail.
The mail has to deliver something to people and it has to be delivered in good condition.
Well, I have to deliver a healthy adult body to you and that's the way it is.
Now, the other thing you can do, of course, is explain why we're so drawn to sugar, right?
Because basically, I mean, The reason we're drawn to sugar is the same reason the kids are drawn to bright colors and why candy tends to mimic those bright colors.
We're drawn to sugar because that's how we got fruit and that's how we got essential nutrients and vitamins and so on, particularly in sort of northern climates.
So explaining why we're so drawn to get fruit will hopefully help kids understand that, you know, it's like this hyperstimulation thing.
Like there are some birds, you give them a huge egg and they get even more excited by it, even if it's larger than they are.
So help them understand why we're so drawn to sugar and help them understand that what your tongue loves is not the same as what your body loves.
And in fact, they can be kind of opposite.
And just give them a history, give them an understanding, show them what happens, and remind them that, you know, if you order a toy, you don't want the toy to be delivered half broken, you know, with the corner of the box squished in and so on, so you'd be really upset if you had ordered a toy and it was delivered Not working.
And in the same way, we can't deliver an adult body to your adult self that's not working as well as it should.
So, you know, get their agreement, get their understanding, because what you want to do is you want to internalize saying no to temptation.
You don't want to be the external conscience, the finger wagging.
You can't, right?
It's like...
Black market's in a dictatorship, right?
It just ends up flourishing and it becomes a game of cat and mouse.
If your kids can get away with eating sugar, like if they can hide it, if they can hide the wrappers in the vents, if they can go have sugar at a friend's place or whatever, then they will because they haven't internalized it.
It's like you don't want them to have sugar, they want to have sugar and it just becomes a game of cat and mouse.
That doesn't really work.
Now the second issue is around disagreements.
Now, I have for many years been a very strong and moral opponent of the ethics of spanking.
Spanking Hitting your children is the initiation of the use of force.
It is immoral.
It is not the use of force in self-defense.
It is hitting your children.
Now, people will say, well, it's just a little swat on the behind.
Okay, well then it's not causing any pain.
It's not causing any discomfort.
But spanking is something which is a negative reinforcement, right?
So it is something that it has to cause enough pain or discomfort or fear or startlement So that the child changes his or her behavior, right?
So this, it's just a little tap on the behind.
That is not what spanking is.
So what does spanking teach your child?
Well, it teaches your child that you're bigger and you're stronger and you're willing to use force to get your way or to quote instruct or whatever it is, right?
Now, that's not... I mean, your child already knows that you're bigger and stronger, so it's simply saying, if you have power, then you can use it to get your way.
Now, the problem is, of course, we all know this, as parents, as parents...
We're getting older and they're getting stronger, right?
I mean, so particularly when peer relationships take over in the teenage years, right, you need to have built in the internalized conscience and locus of control in order for your children to resist peer influences, negative peer influences, when they get to be teenagers, right?
So they get to be teenagers, they can roam around the neighborhood, they can go to the mall, they can hang out with other people, and so
Their power gets stronger and your power gets weaker so if you establish right at the beginning that whoever has the most power gets their way regardless of the discomfort for others you're just setting yourself up for when the teen storms and the peer influences take over that the kid is gonna say well now I have the power and so I'm gonna get my way regardless of your level of comfort just as when you spanked me so don't don't do it and you know spanking is historical, of course.
I mean, it comes from way back in human history.
And remember, for most of human history, force rules human interactions, right?
So, if you disagreed with the local king, you could just get killed.
If you went poaching in the local lord's forest, you could get drawn and quartered or hung.
I mean, violence was just incredibly common throughout most of human history.
So, in a way, spanking was preparing children for a life of violence, but we don't have that as much, at least in the West, at the moment, which means that Children have to learn how to negotiate, they have to learn how to hold their ground, they have to learn how to make a good case, they have to learn to win over people to their point of view, because that's how the adult world goes, right?
I mean, you could be beaten as a serf by your local aristocrat, but that's not how bosses work in the world anymore, right?
So, you want to prepare your children for a life of negotiation, which is what The mostly somewhat free market that we have tends to encourage.
So you are training your children for a bygone age if you're hitting them, rather than reasoning with them.
Because children are always suspicious.
Well, I mean, it doesn't just end when you're a child, but children are always very suspicious that parents don't really know what they're talking about, but just want the children to comply.
that it's not morality that instructs the children, but power, strength, size, willingness to use coercion.
So here's the thing, as a parent You need to have a good reason for what you're saying.
Now, of course, some of it makes perfect sense, right?
Don't run on the road and all of this kind of stuff.
Don't eat antifreeze and so on.
So, but you can explain all of that in terms of like sugar and we'll get to tableting and so on.
So, you have to have a good reason.
Now, if you don't know why, I mean, it's funny because as a parent, I have occasionally said to my daughter, don't do this, and she says, why?
And I'm like, you know, I don't actually have a good reason.
I'm so sorry.
How interesting.
And, you know, we can sort of figure it out why I had that impulse.
But if your child says why and you don't have a good reason, it doesn't mean that they can immediately do that thing.
But you have to be honest with your children because honesty brings trust.
Striving to be the perfect lawgiver, Old Testament style, does not breed a lot of trust, because there will be times where your rules overlap or contradict each other and so on, and so you have to have a good reason for what you're saying.
If you have a good reason for what you're saying, then you can explain it to the child, and then you never have to be in that terrible situation of saying, do as I do, not as I say.
And the other question you have to ask yourself is, okay, what if your kids make a good case?
for whatever it is that you're doing, right?
That is a very good question and my answer has always been that if my child makes a good case then she gets her way.
Like if she wins the argument then she gets her way, right?
Because that trains them or teaches them that reasoning is very effective, right?
So if your kid makes a good case but you just override your kid then what you're saying is Words are useless to you.
Debates are useless.
Arguments, I mean discussions, not arguments like, right?
But discussions, making a good case is pointless.
So then your kids will stop trying to reason with you.
They'll stop trying to make a good case for what they want and they will submit.
And then there will be a game of cat and mouse.
And when they get the power, the shoes on the other foot, they'll torture you in the teen storms and the peer influence age.
So let your kids make a good case and encourage them to make their case.
And if they make a good case, let them have their way.
Because that's preparing them for adulthood.
Now, tableting.
It's not a hugely new phenomenon, right?
I mean, TVs have been around for forever and, you know, this idea, oh, don't sit too close to the TV, your eyes are going to turn square, all this kind of stuff.
So, there's a couple of things about tableting that is important.
There is, of course, a physical aspect of just if they're staring at a tablet all day, it's bad for their eyes, right?
So, that's just, you can explain to them all of that and maybe if you take them to an optometrist, get the optometrist to explain it.
So, you know, 20-20-20, right?
So, every 20 minutes, take a break for 20 seconds and look at something at least 20 feet away, that's something.
Now, there's an interesting challenge with regards to tableting, which is, as a parent, you have to compete with the tablet.
That could be very frustrating, or it could just be an encouragement to up your game, right?
So, if you're more interesting to have a chat with than tableting, then your kids, if you want to have a conversation, your kids will put down the tablet and they'll chat with you.
If you have more engaging play...
You know, if your kids are young, you know, build a fort and play Invasion or, you know, I used to do a game with my daughter and her friends called Smorg, where you lie on the couch with, like, various bits of faux jewelry and so on under your belly and they have to extract it without, quote, waking you up and stuff like that, which was a really hysterical and fun time if you, you know, you snort and wake up just as they come in the room and they can't laugh.
So if you get those kinds of games going, Then your kids will want to play with you rather than tablet, and that way you can engage them.
And that's a challenge, right?
Now the other thing is that you can say to kids, look, tablets are not super great for the imagination.
Like when you're tableting, you're not you exactly, because you're just reacting to what's on the screen.
It's kind of like a real base of the brain reptilian side.
So, it's not very good for your imagination.
When you don't tablet, then you tend to daydream more, you tend to come up with your own games, you tend to have conversations.
When I was a kid, of course, I wrote stories and scripts and had my friends act them out and all that kind of stuff.
And so, tableting, again, in moderation, it's fine, I have no particular issue with it, but...
It does evacuate your children's personalities a little bit and they become nerve sense response stimuli machines rather than imagination.
So if you can come up with something that is more fun than tableting, with my daughter and I we've for a couple years now constructed this elaborate fantasy world where she has adventures and conversations and and so on and Whenever, if she's tableting and I say, well, let's roleplay, right?
She's like, throws down a tablet, let's go roleplay.
And the great thing is, is that we can do it in the gym as well.
So that's, if you have something where you can engage them, tell them stories of your childhood, what it was like in the past, what it's like overseas, find interesting stories from history, find interesting stories from the news and explain the world, you know, get them engaged so that you are more interesting than the tablet.
Now, That is, of course, it's a challenge, right?
Tablets really can be kind of absorbing, but just model the behavior.
I mean, the other thing too, if you're on your phone all the time and then you say to your kids, I want you to do less tableting, what are they going to say?
Well, what about you, right?
You say, well, but I'm doing work and so on.
It's like, well, it's kind of a challenge, right?
So when it comes to modeling the behavior, do you engage your kids in play, in playing cards, or do you read whatever they're reading and discuss it.
If you watch a movie, do you talk about the sort of themes and the meanings and so on?
Do you have board games that you can engage in or Jenga?
And this is particularly true for boys, although it's also true for girls.
Do you get involved in roughhousing?
Because roughhousing is the one thing that tableting obviously can't provide in any way, shape or form.
And so roughhousing is pretty important, particularly for boys, but again for girls as well.
And so that's more of a dad thing.
So just make sure that if you're a father that you get involved in the roughhousing.
That's That's really, really important.
Now, with tableting, we get to sort of number four.
With tableting, the challenge, of course, then becomes exercise, because tableting plus exercise is not a great combo.
So, of course, again, modeling the behavior.
Do you take them out for a bike ride?
Do you take them out for a hike?
And do you engage them in conversation at those times so that they're interested and involved in what's going on?
Keep them moving by you moving, and see if you... I'll get to that in a sec, right?
So that's really, really important.
Just model the behavior, and because exercise generally, if they're involved in team sports, that's fine, but exercise in general, if it's you and the child, is really only leavened by good conversation.
So again, get your kids involved in conversation.
Number five, this is, you know, my kids don't listen to me, my kids don't respect me, my kids don't obey me, and so on.
So here's the thing.
If you take pleasure in your children's company, and if you play with them, and if you engage with them, and if you enjoy them, right?
Then they will enjoy your company.
And if they're enjoying your company, then your disapproval is really going to mean something.
And by disapproval, I don't mean this sort of tight-lipped, slamming the cupboards, withdrawal, what's wrong, nothing, you know, or this, like, I don't mean anything like that.
I just mean, like, no, I don't really, like, if something bad happens, it's like, I don't really feel like playing, right?
And that's not manipulation.
I mean, I assume that If something bad happens, you honestly don't feel like playing, or you don't feel like having a conversation, and so your kids then are missing out on something good rather than fearing something bad.
And I'm a big one for carrot, not stick.
So, if you have an engaging and enjoyable time with them, then when that doesn't happen, they really recognize that if you do something, quote, bad, Then you end up not participating in something that's good.
And that's not the same as a punishment.
A punishment is the infliction of a negative.
Withholding of a positive, not in a manipulative way, not in a manipulative way, but in an honest way.
You don't feel like playing if you're annoyed or upset or whatever, and being honest about all of that.
Now, if you follow these general rules to have a peaceful household full of negotiation and fun and engagement, if you don't yell, don't call names, don't hit, not just with your kids, but with anyone, if you don't allow people in the environment to do that kind of stuff, then you have the real foundations for
I mean a family life of just such enormous fun and enormous positivity and enormous enjoyment that, you know, if you were raised not with these conditions, with these environments, and of course I think most of us weren't, that kind of turnaround, that kind of recovery to a wonderful situation is such a positive thing that I think you can pretty much Go to your grave knowing that you've done the greatest good humanly possible.
So thank you so much for your time.
I hope you find this helpful.
Let me know any other tips and tricks that you have in the comments below and I will do another show on this.
This is Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain.
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