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July 13, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
58:40
Parent Effectiveness Training - An Introduction
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Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain Radio.
So after relentlessly flogging parent effectiveness training, I have finally managed to bring down one of the trainers in her natural habitat, which is of course a book line study.
This is Judy Pardo.
She is a parent effectiveness training guru, webmaster, ninja.
I'm not sure what the correct phrase is, but thank you so much for taking the time today.
Oh, thank you.
I think we can go by the humble title of instructor.
Parent Effectiveness Training Instructor.
Okay, I'm just going to refer to you as a Jedi.
Oh, that's fine.
For my younger listeners.
Or Yoda, either way, it works for me.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Okay, so obviously with every training there is evidence or belief in a deficiency, and that of course is usually just a deficiency of knowledge, not of morals.
But with Parent Effectiveness Training, what are the aspects of parenting that could be strategically enhanced with better knowledge that is of particular interest to the program?
Well I think that I guess the biggest thing is with parents when they fall back on patterns that they have learned either through osmosis or have gotten through the parenting that they received very often if the parenting you receive is something you don't like People tend to do the opposite, which usually doesn't work out that well.
The thing with Parent Effectiveness Training is it's a whole system.
So it's really a system with specific skills and techniques that are taught.
And I think what it does is it gives parents options.
Because I think a lot of times what happens is if you haven't had any training, you wing And very often when you're in a difficult situation and you don't know what to do, you don't have the education, you don't have the experience, you end up doing something that very often you regret.
So, here we have a system that is going to give you tools to use in just about every situation you encounter, so that you don't feel at a loss and you have more choices.
Right.
It has often struck me, there's a movie called Parenthood, I don't know if you've ever seen it with Steve Martin, but it's...
Yeah, so there's a very young and incredibly charming Keanu Reeves tells a very sad story about his dad flicking cigarettes at him or whatever, throwing a box of cigarettes at him.
And he says about parenting, and he says, you know, you need a license to drive a bus.
You need a license to drive a car.
Heck, you even need a license to own a cat.
But any butt-wielding a-hole can be a parent.
And I mean, obviously, we don't want to refer to them as butt-wielding a-holes.
I think that's not in the promotional literature.
But there is a strange thing in society where we feel that everything that is important and potentially damaging needs training, but parenthood is like this sort of, you know, hands-off, you know, somehow we're just instinctually supposed to know how to do it.
And I've sort of made the case that, you know, a lot of parents will spend more time researching a car purchase or a computer purchase than Trying to figure out how to be a better parent.
There's lots of science out there, lots of proven techniques that, you know, the right kind of parenting has been relatively well established to raise your child's IQ by up to eight points.
I mean, that's not bad!
It's not bad, you know?
Eat your veggies is one thing, have some good parenting would seem to be something else, but somehow we bypass this and we feel that it's, we just know how to do it, and telling other people how to do it is infringing on their liberties.
Do you come across that perspective much?
Well, I do think that in terms of what I come across, people who end up seeing me are people who are more conscious and want to do a better job.
Know that something is going awry.
They're not happy with how things are going.
So, fortunately for me, the people who are interested in Parent Effectiveness Training are already at a different place.
But I do agree with you and Keanu Reeves We train ourselves for all kinds of things, and yet parenting, we think, I don't know, sometimes I think it's because since we can have children so easily that we figure we must be natural at parenting.
But I don't find that often to be the case, that it's a natural thing, that you know what to do to raise your child.
I think it's quite often the opposite.
Yeah, I mean, I think that you can raise your child's innately in a world that is static, you know, like in a world that doesn't change, then yeah, okay, do what your parents did.
But I mean, the world is changing so enormously rapidly that the idea to think that, you know, if your parents, if you do what your parents did and they did what they did, you're already, you know, 50, 60, 70 years back in time trying to parent a child for the 21st century It just can't conceivably work.
I mean, we wouldn't use textbooks for anything else from 70 years ago, and yet somehow the most important aspect, which is parenting, is considered to be just something we look backwards in time rather than to the future.
Well, I agree with that, and as you said before, we're not even We're not looking at textbooks.
We're not looking at anything.
We're just in seat-of-the-pants parenting.
And I think that the philosophy of Parent Effectiveness Training, my own personal philosophy, and I think from what I've listened to and seen on your podcasts, is very different from the way children, about children, the way they were regarded.
The fact that children are, they're people.
They're fully formed.
They have all the same thoughts.
They have thoughts.
They have feelings.
They're complete.
They just lack the experience and education.
Right?
Or I think as Steve said when I did the podcast on Two Beers with Steve, they're often height challenged.
Right.
And actually that is sometimes an example I'll use is that people have expectations, unrealistic expectations for their children.
And I will say you wouldn't expect your child to reach something on the shelf that's at a level of six feet.
just on their own.
You wouldn't say, well, just reach it, right?
And yet people have expectations of their children that I think are sometimes not well thought out or unreasonable based on the age and developmental place that they're in.
Well, I think that's true.
And I think another thing, and I want to get to the core of the... I just wanted to chat about this stuff first.
We'll get to the core of the pet stuff in a sec.
But the one thing that... I mean, I'm a stay-at-home dad, have been for four years now.
And one thing I think is truly remarkable is the degree to which a child who's really listened to can teach you something about the oddities of the adult world.
Because we kind of have this thing, I think Lloyd DeMoss calls it the socializing mode of parenting, where you're just attempting to get your children to fit into the weirdly shaped containers of culture.
You know, like, oh, if you're in the Muslim country, he'll grow up shockingly a Muslim.
And if he's a Tahitian, he'll grow up with those cultures.
But there's something about when you look at the world through the eyes of a child, There's something that is so essential that we can learn about the limitations of our adult culture because the idea that we've got it all right and we just need to teach them everything about how it is, is so fundamentally not humble.
I mean, trying to explain why we have to stop at a border when we drive to the United States, it's deeply bizarre when you think about it.
There's no canyon, there's no lasers, there's no waterfalls, there's no different dimension.
It's just a weird arbitrary line.
And that's kind of weird when you think about it.
And I think that we have this idea that adult society is the good and children need to be kind of poured into this vessel of adult society.
And when they fit perfectly, everything has been accomplished.
And I think we fail to learn how odd some of our adult customs are if we fail to listen to children encountering them.
Does that?
I don't know if I'm making any sense.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I agree with you that it's very humbling.
When you actually listen to your child, especially in situations... I mean, I know I have this experience, I have had this experience with my own son, who's now 29, but back in the early days, when he would have... he would mention a situation to me that I would absolutely know for certain could not possibly work out the way he planned to work it out, but I would listen, I would say nothing, and And miraculously, whatever it was he was doing worked out perfectly.
I remember one time, three friends were going to buy one book together.
They were going to share this book.
They were in elementary school.
And in my mind, it's like, three people can't buy one thing.
Because what are they going to get?
The pages?
It cannot possibly work.
But I said nothing.
And they bought the book.
And a couple of months later, I remember saying, so whatever happened with that book?
And he said, oh, yeah, we got tired of it and, you know, This one boy wanted it, so we gave it to him.
What other people would do that, right?
I would have been zooming in to say, that's not possible.
You can't do that.
It doesn't work that way.
You know, and another example in terms of our culture is that again, elementary school, my son is invited to a birthday party.
He says yes.
Okay.
And then the next week he gets invited to another birthday party by his best friend.
So obviously you have to turn down the best friend and you have to go to the first one because you made that commitment.
So once again, I was able to keep my mouth buttoned up and just talk to him about it and said, you know, what do you want to do?
What do you plan on doing?
And his solution was to talk to his friend and say, you know, I know I said yes to your party, but I really want to go to his party.
The friend said, Oh yeah, I figured that.
I figured you'd want to go to his party.
He said, you know, my mom said we could buy you a present anyhow.
He said, great.
And the whole thing was fine.
Right?
And again, that would be a situation where you could jump in and say, Oh no, you accepted this.
This is what you have to do.
Right?
Your whole adult acculturated head.
is going to dictate the way you would have to go.
And here we have a kid who he and his friends have it all worked out.
If we don't interfere and we just listen and allow them to do it the way that works for them and actually learn from that.
Yeah, it is.
I think that's really important.
And that to me is one of the things that makes parenting reciprocal.
Because I think, as we know, for the authoritarian parenting style, which I mean, obviously I want you to get more into, is the idea that we provide, the children receive, and it really is just a we're the potters, they're the clay, and there's no reciprocity.
We have nothing to learn.
from our children.
You know, there's these abstract things or just kind of goofy things like, hey, let's learn how to play again.
And well, we already know how to play.
We're all kids.
We know how to play.
But the idea that I can learn something about reality, culture, nature, philosophy.
I had a conversation with my daughter.
It was fascinating today.
About 15 minutes on some kid in the States was thrown out of school for, or was threatened to be thrown out of school for making a toy gun out of Lego.
Talking about, you know, is this appropriate?
Is this not?
Is it scary for the children?
Do they have the right to, you know?
I mean, she had great things to say, you know, it will hurt their feelings, not their bodies.
And that's interesting because if feelings are hurt, you know, just it was just a great conversation.
And I mean, I've been studying ethics for like 30 years and she came at it from angles.
So the idea that we teach our children and we have all the answers and they are the passive receptors is kind of dehumanizing because it doesn't give them the chance to have reciprocal relationships with with parents, especially.
So anyway, let's start with the gist of the matter.
If I remember rightly, the Parent Effectiveness Training kind of looks at three kinds or styles of parents.
I wonder if you could delineate those for us.
You're talking about the authoritarian parent and the permissive parent, which are right to opposite ends of the spectrum.
And I'm not sure what the current phrase is.
Is it authoritative?
Some people say it's too close to authoritarian.
Democratic, I think, was another one that I read.
Well, I guess in parent effectiveness training, the theory is that the family, as is that of the democratic family, right?
Democratic in the sense that everyone in the family has a right to get their basic needs met, that everyone needs to be treated with respect, And just the value of family.
Family as an important unit and that the relationships among everyone in the family are valued tremendously.
So I think with that, with the mutual respect and everyone getting their needs met, it's a completely different framework than either authoritative or authoritarian.
I guess depending on which version of the book you read, you'll get a different word, where it's all about power, just what you were talking about before, where the parent as above the child, right?
Parent as teacher, instructor, there to take the clay and model it the way they want.
Permissive, now you're at the other end where there's no structure, there's nothing really going on.
The child is sort of just free to roam around and graze and, in a sense, raise themselves, which doesn't work either.
So I think with Parent Effectiveness Training, the balanced approach is really one of, really, the basic thing to me is respect.
That you have respect for your children and that you're all equals.
Again, the difference is perhaps height as well as Education and experience.
So, the approach is really very, very different.
If you're going to look at the family and at all the members of the family in that way.
Right.
So, the authoritarian style of parenting is where the parent says, I am the law giver, I am the rule maker.
And even there can be some volatility if the parent breaks their own rules.
I think there's a movie called Tree of Life, I don't want to be overly media, Tree of Life, where the father says something like, no talking with your mouthful, and then one of the kids points out that the father is talking with his mouthful at some point, and he kind of gets really angry, because it's a unidirectional, top-down, kind of Old Testament approach.
So, we're not that.
We're definitely not that.
And there are lots of negatives that come out of that.
I mean, the children, as far as the research seems to be quite clear, that the children who come out of that parenting style have greater socialization problems.
They tend to have either submissive or overly submissive or overly dominant interactions.
They don't have internalized a moral center.
Because somebody's just basically saying, do what I say or I'll punish you.
That just teaches fight or flight.
It doesn't teach anything about internalizing or negotiating an ethical standard.
Absolutely.
I mean, one example of that that I think of is You end up with a child, if they're raised in that way, that they end up, they can end up looking at a situation and saying, okay, well, if I do this thing, I'll be grounded for a week.
It's worth it.
I'll pay the price.
Right?
No.
Why am I doing it?
And why is, is it, is it something I want to do?
And, and the impact it's going to have on other people, right?
Very relational.
So you don't get that with the, um, Autocratic authoritarian system as you say where you're just being told everything and it's definitely do as I say not as I do It's unquestioning, right?
It's just it's really basically pure power Like I have the power and I'm gonna use that on you.
I want to add another piece to that which is With When you are thinking in terms of having a relationship with your child or actually with anyone You have the potential to have a lifelong, close, loving relationship.
So you can use the authoritarian model and you can get them to do what you want to do, but are they going to want to actually be with you once they have the chance to escape?
Like with anyone in your life, depending on how you treat them, will influence whether they want to have a relationship with you.
So when you use that method, because I get parents who will say, well, I do this and it works.
And I'll say, well, yeah, it works.
I mean, if the kid is frightened to death, they're going to do whatever you want.
But then what's going to happen down the line?
So I think that keeping the The thought of what kind of relationship am I going to have with my child is something that can have a big impact if you're conscious and you keep that in mind.
So it's not just the model affects the child inherently in how they're going to be able to function in the world, but it also has a tremendous effect on whether or not that child wants to have a relationship with you or what kind of relationship you're going to have down the road.
Yeah, I mean, I guess bullying wives worked until feminism and no-fault divorce, at which point it really ceased to work very well, and that was to the benefit of women.
Depression rates went down, suicide rates went down, and so if there's this concept of voluntary relations in the family that seems, I think, seems to be kind of coming along nicely, then I think in the past you could really count on a lot of social pressure to kind of herd children you'd mistreated just by, oh, they're your mother, your father, you have to go, you have to, family obligations, Thanksgiving, Christmas, whatever, you name it, you've got to go.
But I think with the more distant kind of relationships now, lots more traveling and people aren't sort of jammed up so much close together, I think that it's tougher for parents to just sort of not treat their children as equals and then just rely on guilt later to have them come over.
And so I've been urging parents for a long time to recognize that this kind of change is coming, where there's just not going to be as much social pressure to stay with the family, and therefore you've got to work to really win your kid's love, because I mean your husband and wife are there by choice, your kids aren't, and so you've got to be even... that has to be the very best relationship, the highest standards that you have, because of the involuntary and dependent nature of it, should be highest standard, and tragically it is so often the lowest standard relationship.
Yes, yes.
I agree a hundred percent.
Okay, so what's wrong with free-range childhood, the permissive approach in your view?
Well, one thing that's usually absent in the free range, we like it for chickens but not for children, is that it lacks guidance, education.
I think that is a big area because a lot of times
The, what you were talking about before, even with your daughter, having that kind of conversation, a lot of times the children are just sort of left to do whatever they want, you know, to, and I mean, I've seen this in families, no bedtime, no mealtime, no structure, and children really need, they need us to be there for them, to give them some structure,
For them to know that there are people there they can talk to, they can learn from.
So with sort of that free range, it's almost like an absentee parenting.
The parents are there, but they're really not involved.
And it has just as negative an effect on the children as the parents who are overly involved or using power.
There's no power, but there's really no anything, right?
Yeah, I mean, I think that relationships are like the gravity of the physics of the children's world.
And I think that that intimacy, that connectedness is so important.
And I sort of get the image of, you know, the dad's at work, the mom's kind of working at home, and it's like, food's on the table, and there's this sort of this pass-by kind of thing, like parallel train tracks rather than...
Something where people are really really connected.
I want to make sure I understand because I know as far as I understand PET is a punishment free area and so people think okay well so there's a lot of punishment which is authoritarian and then there's no punishment which is permissive so I want medium punishment which is and I think we don't want to be on that plane at all is that right?
Oh absolutely there's no punishment.
There's no punishment at all.
There's no need for punishment because Well, instead of punishment, we have conversation, we have dialogue, we have exploration, education, and relating to each other as two equal human beings.
I always keep going back to the same thing, where you're two equal human beings, you can have a conversation, and even with children who can't really, are not even pre-verbal, you can still have a conversation without words.
with your child, so that I know that there are people who will talk about, well, how do you get the kids to do what you want them to do, right?
And in PET, it's not about getting them to do what you want them to do, it's about having a discussion about what your needs are, what their needs are, what needs to happen, what's going on in the family, so that One of the things that I'll tell people is that there's a lot more talking, right?
And I was accused of that very early on when I first took the course.
My gosh, you talk to your son all the time!
And my answer would be, yes!
It's great, right?
I recently had someone, it was interesting, who's working on the course with me and on a one-on-one basis and said, well, you know, to talk about these things.
I don't have the time.
Like, I don't have the time to sit there and explain and I said, well, you just told me about a situation where you were kind of in an argument and acrimonious and yelling at each other for ten minutes.
I said, I think if you would have talked about it maybe for five minutes earlier on, You wouldn't have had this.
Oh, yeah.
It's like, oh, wait, I didn't think of that because that's what we think of.
We think of, well, no, that's what we do.
Right.
That's just how it goes.
So knowing that back to knowing that there's another option, knowing that if you have this, this relate a relationship where you're talking to each other, you're sharing ideas, you're letting people know what's going to happen.
You working with some prevention in terms of We're going to leave soon, or tomorrow we are going here, or that you avoid a lot of the problems.
I mean, in the PET system, we have three areas.
We have where the other person or the child has a problem, the no problem area, and then when a parent has a problem, and we teach different skills to address those areas.
All communication.
And the skill set is the same for all people.
It's just with parent effectiveness training, all of the examples are
uh... aimed at children but this is a system of communication that really is for everyone there's leadership effectiveness teacher effectiveness uh... effectiveness for women it's really universal system it's really communication so you have a situation where if you have this kind of dialogue ongoing you're increasing your no problem area increasing increasing because you're
You're getting to know each other, you're getting to know each other's wants and needs, and people, children, adults, will naturally want to be in harmony, you know, unless there's a huge conflict that prevents you from doing that.
In which case, you talk about that and try to work it out.
Right, right.
I'm afraid that you've pushed about four rant buttons on my forehead.
They're right here.
So I will just do one and I'll try and keep it brief because it... OK, two.
But the first one is that when people say, well, how do I get my child to do what I want him or her to do?
I mean, substitute spouse into that sentence and see how, how, how do I punish my wife?
How do I discipline my wife?
How do I get my wife to do what I need her to do?
How do I stop my wife from running out into the road?
What happens if my wife reaches for something on a hot stove?
I'm allowed to hit her then, right?
No!
You're not allowed!
You take coercion and aggression off the table and creativity flowers.
If it's on the table nothing else will come to the table.
So that's the first thing is just substitute some other human relationship.
You know like, well I had to spank my employee because he didn't get his report in on time although I did ask him three times.
So it just doesn't work in any situation except with kids and that's where we should be the most sensitive.
So I think that's That's sort of the first thing.
And the second thing is that people say, well, you know, I don't have time to get into a long discussion.
It's like, you really do.
Because what happens is if you get into a long discussion at the beginning, you save your 10 minutes for the rest of your natural born life.
You know, so you can get your kids to understand.
If you get your kids to understand why brushing your teeth is important, then you don't have to have that fight.
For the next 10 years of your child's life, and smelling their breath, and did you really, and did you get the back ones?
I mean, yes, it takes probably a week or two off and on of explaining, at least to my daughter, you know, well, there are little bugs that will bite your teeth, and they might leave holes in your teeth, and if it gets bad, it's owie, go to the dentist, and here's a picture, and whatever it is, right?
I mean, explain it, explain it, explain it.
My daughter can give you a huge lecture on diabetes, and this is why you can't have too much sugar, and it also glues your poop together, and that makes it owie, and all that.
If you take the time up front, then you save so much time over time.
And we understand this with other things.
You know, I don't have time to exercise.
I only have time to have a heart attack.
It's like, we all understand these kinds of things, right?
I don't have time to be intimate with my wife because I've got all the time in the world to have a divorce.
It's like... Anyway, sorry about the pushing the rant buttons, but I just wanted to mention that.
No, I'm with you 100%.
I mean, it's really true.
I think the whole thing with time is that it's really sort of changing your mind, right?
It's reorienting your mind and the way you think about things because people are so conditioned to think, to do things the way they normally do them, right?
And even that phrase, I don't have time, right?
I don't have time.
It's an empty phrase, right?
We just plug that into any situation.
But if you give it some thought, just as you're saying, well, if you do spend that 10 minutes over here, you're going to save so much time, right?
How about the fact that people are reinventing the wheel every single day when they have the same argument with their children every single day and they'll come in to me and say like, you know, we just go over the same thing every single day.
It's like, well, maybe you need to stop and sit down and talk about it rather than It's a little bit crazy, you know, but we get stuck in these crazy patterns and sometimes, again, you don't know any other way, you just keep going along.
Well, and that's the challenge with the authoritarian mode in particular, is that all you do is repress problems.
You just play whack-a-mole for the rest of your child's natural-born existence until they, you know, chew their leg off and escape the trap of the family.
I mean, it's... sorry to mix metaphors horribly, but...
It's horrible to see, like people who spank, they say it works and it's like, but if it works, why are you still doing it?
Why do you, I mean, why is 40% of junior high school kids still being spanked when it's more than 10 years since or maybe 12 years since they started being spanked?
Why do you still have to do it if it works?
Well, because my kid is just resistant.
You know, that's like saying slaves are lazy.
No, they're just controlled.
Anyway, I'm trying to keep the veins from going out and knocking over the webcam.
We could do a rap fest here about that kind of thing.
I didn't have decaf after 6pm, so I'm afraid you're getting the full flecks of foam coming on your screen there.
Okay, so I'm not even going to throw you these scenarios because I'm sure you've heard them all before, but let's take a couple of obviously typical scenarios, you know, bedtime, hot stoves, running into the street.
All that kind of stuff, which is where parents say, well, I have to use authority because the consequences of not using authority are so dire that I simply have to use authority and it has to be top-down and it has to be power-based.
What's the response that you would have to those situations?
Well, it's really in line with what you were talking about before, which is having conversations.
Education, education.
Discussion, exploration.
A give and take.
In advance, right?
So you're going to be talking about situations that your child is going to encounter.
You're going to be talking about why people don't put their hands in the fire, right?
Why you wouldn't do it.
Maybe you want to even go with the child and go a little close to the fire so they can see that, yeah, really it is hot, right?
Or you do a hands-on where you take the hot pot and you pour a little water in it and they get to see All the steam coming up.
So it's really about, we're back to the basic kernel of this is communication.
You're talking, you're explaining, right?
And then, to me, I was listening to this the other day in one of your podcasts, if you substitute anyone instead of your child, yes, they run into the street, they're going to get hit by a car, I'm going to grab them and pull them away.
Right?
But again, I'm going to do that with anyone who's going to run into the street and doesn't see and is going to get hit by a car.
So I think that when you're thinking about how are you going to accomplish these things without power, if you substitute your friend or another person and think about how you would treat them or how you would go about it, that usually works.
But I'm going to put in a caveat because for some people, That's not a good example, because they may use power with other people in their lives already.
So we have to say that that's not always the best way, is to substitute another person.
But I think with our children, if you have the mutual trust and respect, and you have conversations about it, and you have this continuing dialogue about it, and you're listening as well as speaking, so that it's an exchange, Kids have, as you know, they have plenty of ideas about things, even if they don't have the experience.
So, it's having that dialogue, that conversation, that you can impart your values, your beliefs, what you think is, you know, how you think it's important to live your life, what will be of benefit to them, what might be harmful to them, but ultimately I think kids will, no matter
Ultimately, I would not, even if they don't agree or they don't want to do it the way you want to do it, I would still not use force to get them to do, again, back to get them to do what you want them to do.
I don't think that... Well, I mean, as you know, as a parent, it's your responsibility to keep your children in a safe environment.
So if you give them a fork and a whole lot of exposed electrical sockets when they're two, you don't get to smack them For going close to those electrical sockets because that's what they're going to want to do.
You as a parent have failed to keep your child in a safe environment.
I don't know how on earth it's justified that the child gets punished for the failure of the parent to keep the child safe.
If I put my four-year-old daughter on a driving lawnmower tractor and she bumps into a tree, do I get to yell at her?
No!
I'm an idiot, excuse me, for putting my daughter in a hazardous situation.
If your children have access to a road with cars before they understand that there's no fence and you're not between them, then you have failed to keep them safe as a parent.
You don't get to punish them.
for that.
You know, if they don't understand the stove thing and you have pots with their hanging over them, that's your failure as a parent.
And I don't mean to sound harsh, like you've got to beat yourself up as a parent, but you sure as heck don't get to hit your child for you not keeping the child safe or preparing the child to be in an environment that's not safe and being aware of when they can do that functionally.
Right, so we're talking about really conscious parenting, right?
Really thinking about, I mean it requires the parent to think about things in a way that many parents don't, because they're used to just thinking in terms of controlling their children, directing them, controlling them, right?
The parent as, you know, the parent's the driver.
The kid has to sit in the back seat, keep quiet, and just follow the instructions and follow along the parent.
When you're not in that model, it does require more thinking.
I mean, that's a fact.
You have to think more about what you're going to do.
I want to say this.
People would think more about how things are going to affect their pets, their dog or their cat, than they would about their children, right?
So you're... I mean, I hear this, like, well, no, they don't have certain plants in their house because of their pets, and they wouldn't have a certain, maybe a sculpture or that kind of thing, but your children, at whatever age, are supposed to just listen to whatever you tell them, blindly, And squelch whatever curiosity they may have.
Right?
Why shouldn't I put my finger in that outlet?
What is it about that flame that it looks very pretty?
I like to touch pretty things.
So instead of having that conversation and giving that information, in a series of conversations, we're back to parent doesn't have time, children should just listen.
And of course it doesn't work.
Right?
And then when it doesn't work, the parent is now frustrated and is going to yell at the child.
But as you say, what does the child have to do with any of this?
Right?
There's sort of a pawn in the system.
They don't know.
They don't, I mean, they don't know.
And the fact that they don't know, we go back to means they need education.
Not that they need someone to yell or punish them because they don't have this education.
Yeah, I mean, I today made a truly stupendous couch fort with my daughter.
I mean, this thing was, Frank Lloyd Wright would have been proud.
It went up nine stories, hanging gardens, dragons, sconces.
It was fantastic.
And of course, she climbed up the back where the couch was over and she started jumping up and down.
And of course, the fabric is not strong there.
I didn't want her to go through.
And I said, oh, you've got to stop.
And she said, why?
And I said, well, it's, you know, and I said, I'm sorry, because I didn't tell you that when we climbed up.
It's not, oh, you're bad for, you know, I, if anyone was at fault, it was me for not telling her, listen, when you get up there, don't jump because it's the fabric is more thin and blah, blah, blah.
And so I don't know.
She doesn't do things that put herself in danger.
I mean, who would, right?
Stick your hand in a blender or something, right?
So it's just a lack of knowledge that I'm responsible for not providing to her or creating an environment where she could hurt herself.
It's my job to make sure that... Anyway, I just wanted to mention that because this idea that your children are doing something dangerous and therefore you'll use aversive conditioning like some sort of taser and cattle prod to get them to stop doing it.
I mean, I think that's illegal for cow farmers.
Somehow we're allowed to do it with kids.
Anyway, let me ask you a question, because I've been asking a bunch of experts on the show recently.
I've been really graced with some great thinkers and I really appreciate your time as well.
Do you think, for children in the West, just sort of looking over the past, say, century or so, does your gut feeling, do you think that children are Having improved childhoods, is it about the same or is it deteriorating?
Ah, it's a big question, a complex question, but do you think it's getting better or worse overall for kids in the West?
Well, that is a very big question and I would probably hedge my bets here and say both better and worse.
I think that Such a negotiator.
Right?
Let me see if I can straddle this fence.
No, I agree, I agree, but go on.
We're talking about different aspects, right?
I mean I think that in some ways I think it's better for children because I think parents are becoming more conscious and not blindly going where man has gone before.
And making more decisions, getting more education, and treating their children more like human beings than, you know, little possessions.
So I think in that way, I think things are getting better for children.
Of course, that's not happening everywhere.
But I think the world in general, Believe me, I love technology, but I think a lot of technology is keeping people from having the kind of relationships that are more rewarding.
You know, having more... I know that, you know, I'm a psychotherapist in private practice in the city, and when I have... And I also do the parenting training.
But when I get some of the young people, let's say in their twenties, and they tell me, I spoke to someone, I know that I have to... Was it an email?
Was it a text?
Right?
Because more often than not, I mean, if we went back 20 years, if someone said they spoke to someone, it was either in person or on the phone.
Right?
It wasn't Skype.
It wasn't a text.
And sometimes this whole thing that they're talking about, to me, all occurred in texts, back and forth.
So that, I think it's great.
And I really do think it's great.
And yet, at times, I think it's taking people away from that more personal connection.
So I think kids growing up that way, now, I think that that may be a piece that's missing, unless, as an adult, as a parent, again, we educate, we talk about, we model, you know, relationships and how they go, and what we consider to be the most rewarding, and I think that we're back to the beginning, because that starts with your relationship with your child,
how hands-on and how much dialogue you have.
So I don't know.
Right, right.
I sort of answered and skirted your question.
Yeah, I mean, I think that, yes, there does seem to be growing skepticism about corporal punishment.
Or I had a psychologist, Robin Grill, on the show recently who said, well, yes, it's true that 80 to 90 percent of parents still hit their children, but not with implements.
And this is how we measure progress.
And it's like, oh, how sad.
But I think that I was just reading this article the other day about in England, just heartbreaking, how the 10th most wished for item on a children's Santa's list was a dad.
Because of course the rise of single parenthood is just, and of course divorces and so on, I think that's been Pretty rough for kids.
Of course, not that all marriages are meant to last or should, but I think that stuff's been pretty rough.
And of course, the two parents working kind of thing, I think that's been pretty rough.
And I think that if parents have less time with their kids, I think that's a very strong argument for really laying the foundations for more positive communications.
Because I think some of the permissive stuff comes out of, you know, two parents working, they come home, you know, I only got an hour with my kids, if I don't count sort of dinner, bath time, homework or whatever.
So I don't want to spend that time fighting.
And so there is this idea that you just try and control the variables and then if you don't fight with your kids it's good.
But I think that deferring those conversations and those conflicts does really lay the foundation for a lot of repetitive conflicts.
And it is always important to remember that your kids will probably be smarter than you.
That's the Flynn effect.
Their IQ points go up every generation.
So I have no doubt that my daughter is is going to be smarter than me.
And she's also going to get stronger as I get weaker.
You know, that's just the circle of life.
You know, we are aging and they are getting stronger.
And so the other unfortunate thing with the permissive style, again, is a lack of connection.
But the authoritarian style, you know, it's one thing to do this to a child, but pretty soon you're doing that.
And that's a whole different perspective when you're looking up their nose rather than down at their lowered foreheads.
And to remember that the kids are going to get stronger, that they are going to be smarter, And that they're going to have access to a lot more information about parenting than you ever did, and that the kids will judge you not by the standards of your parents, but by the standards of parenting when they become adults.
And if you're real Neanderthal and retro, it's really, I think, going to show up.
Sorry, that was a long and tangential thing, but this is another case that if you have less time with your kids, you need to lay more foundation and to prevent these kinds of conflicts, which can all be done.
Right, and if you have less time, you want to spend that time Having a real connection, real communication, real conversations, right?
Not just avoiding or, you know, doing... Not that you can't be doing something fun, but that you want to really have that connection.
I think also that you don't have to wait... I think with children, you don't have to wait until they become parents for them to look at your parenting.
I think once they get out of the house and they're with other children, and they hear about what goes on in other people's houses, Then they have more of a comparison, right?
I know that when you're growing up, you figure that whatever's going on in your house is the same thing that's going on in everybody's house, because that's all you know is your house, right?
Once you're out there with more people and you find out that, wow, it's different elsewhere, I think you start to realize that maybe it's not so good.
I know with my son, I started doing the parent effectiveness training when he was three, And when he was in high school, we had a conversation about, talking about parenting and how, what did he think of the parenting that he got?
And he said, well, he said, I don't, I can't really comment on that because this is all I know.
Right?
He said, I don't really, I didn't have other parents.
You're my parents.
He said, the one thing I can tell you is that when all, all of my, when I'm, you know, hanging out with my friends and they're all complaining about their parents, I don't have anything to say.
So, you know, I scored.
I said, oh, all right, I'll take that.
That's good.
That's a positive zero.
I'm in.
Yay!
I didn't want that zero.
That was a great zero.
I don't think he realized what he was saying and he gave me that great zero.
But that's tremendous in my book.
That's tremendous that, you know, kids will talk about, oh, I was grounded or I was punished.
I remember my son coming home saying to me, how come I've never been grounded?
Don't you love me?
I said, oh, is that something you want?
Do you know what that is?
So, you know, we had some very amusing moments when he is comparing what goes on with him with other people.
He even one time came in and said, how come I don't have a curfew?
I said, I don't want one, you can have one.
Well, we never really needed one because we've had talks about all of this.
So, but if you want one, yeah, I want one.
I said, well, you tell me what you want and it's yours.
Well, you don't want to be that.
I certainly don't want to be that dad where there's this old joke when I was growing up in England where one kid turns to the other kid and says, you know, my dad could totally beat up your dad.
And the other kid turns back and says, really?
How much would that cost me?
That is not where you want to be.
OK, let's finish off, if you don't mind.
Thanks again for your time.
With some of the nuts and bolts about, if I understand rightly, it's a 12 week course.
Can you give me a sense of time commitment, homework?
I can't oversell this for me, this is just go, go do it!
But if you could give people who are watching this some of the nuts and bolts, where to go, how to find the courses and all that, and of course the book which I'll put a link to underneath the video.
So the website for the Parent Effectiveness Training is GordonTraining.com, named for Thomas Gordon, who by the way was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize based on this work.
Three.
A whole three.
And unlike Barack Obama, without drone strikes and starting three wars.
So, yay!
Excellent.
That's right.
With promoting a peaceful way of communicating.
I think there's like seven million people around the world have been trained in this.
So, Gordon, G-O-R-D-O-N, GordonTraining.com, there is a wealth of information.
They will list Where the courses are taking place throughout the United States and they're in many, I mean, throughout the world.
There are many countries.
But for this country, you could go to GordonTraining.com.
You can look to see where workshops are being given.
And if you don't see something in your area, you just email them and they will try to find someone close.
You know, they'll tell you who is the closest to you.
I know I personally will travel to give the training.
It's usually 12 two-hour sessions.
When I do it, I usually do like 10 two-hour sessions or 10 two-and-a-half hour sessions, depending on how big the group is.
You can also learn it one-on-one, and here in New York City I do a lot of one-on-one with either one parent or both parents, which is even better.
Let's see, what else?
It's one of these things, like learning anything else, if you do the reading and you do the homework, you're going to get more out of it.
If you don't, then all of the skills will be discussed and presented, but you're not going to get as much in that 10-week period.
I like to have a lot of flexibility in terms of teaching it, so it could be 10 weeks in a row.
I had one couple that took them a year, but they finally managed to get those ten sessions in.
I also want to say that it is a challenge, because you're learning.
In the beginning, I would say to people, it's like learning a new language, and my class said to me, no, no, no, it's harder than learning a new language, because we already speak English, and we know how to speak English, and now you're telling us No, don't speak English that way.
Speak it this way.
So it really is sort of an unlearning and relearning.
But the good news is that as you learn it and as you practice it, just like learning a foreign language, the more you practice, the easier it gets, the more you become fluent, and then you're not even thinking about it.
It comes trippingly off your tongue when you speak to your children and everyone else, because what often happens is that people realize that as they're learning these skills to use with their children, they're using them with their spouse, with people at work, with their friends, and it sort of has a far-reaching effect of more peaceful communication among people.
The cost I can't really address because it depends on where you are in the country and are you doing one-on-one, is it going to be in a group, So, you'd want to check in with whomever you're going to get the training from to find that out, right?
And get your friends to come, too, and of course the cost will go down proportionally, right?
Absolutely, yeah.
I mean, there's a book, which I know you said you'll put on your site.
The book is tremendous.
When you do the course, there's a workbook.
And what I want to emphasize is that this is not theory.
You're not taking a lecture course.
You're in there, you're talking about your own kids, things that are going on, and you're getting, it'd be like taking a course in carpentry.
You're getting the skills, you're getting the tools, you have your little toolkit, you know what to do in different situations, and it may not give you instant success every time, but it's the way I look at it, having looked at all the other methods there are, you have the best chance of of success using this.
And there's empirical evidence.
I mean, it's been run through.
People have written PhDs and master's theses on it.
It's gone through the empirical mill, and I'll link some of the studies below.
Because I'm, you know, a staunch empiricist, and, you know, we can all paint our word castles, but can you actually move in?
And this stuff is really well-validated.
The research is also a part of the Gordon training website.
You can link up to There's weekly emails, there's conversations, there's a blog.
There's a wealth of information that's going on there.
But most people reading the book is really not enough.
Like most self-help.
It's really not enough.
You really need to be able to have a discussion, have interaction.
It's about communication.
You really need communicating.
You need to get feedback.
But I can say, you know, I just started with people this week.
I had a consultation where they're deciding whether they want to learn PET or not.
And they said, what's my, what is my success rate?
I said, I never thought of it that way.
I said a hundred percent because it is a hundred percent because everybody comes out learning something that has a positive effect on their communication with their children and other people.
So there's no failure.
It's a hundred percent success rate.
Whatever you get out of it, Whether it's a few things or the whole program, it's always positive.
So it was nice to actually be asked that question and think about it.
Right.
Right.
And again, for the people who say they don't have the time, you know, if you don't want your kids living with you till they're 30, which is also going to eat up a lot of time for you, you know, this is the kind of stuff where they do internalize values, they internalize thought processes, they internalize, boy, teaching your kids how to negotiate.
I mean, gosh, what an incredible skill.
to give them in the world.
I mean, it's one of the most fundamental skills.
I mean, I come from an entrepreneurial background.
Once you get above like, you know, washing the floors in any business, negotiation is how you're going to rise and it is where you're going to show your real value.
And so you are giving them incredible financial capital, human capital, business capital, or, you know, artistic capital, wherever they go, they're going to learn, have to learn how to negotiate.
They're going to have to learn how to internalize standards, although standards are going to have to be internalized.
And the way you teach kids how to negotiate is by negotiating with them.
That the number of jobs where people are just going to whack their finger at you and tell you what to do are vastly diminishing.
They're all being shipped way overseas and so you want to give your kids, you know, upper management and executive level skills.
That's sort of my pitch as well and it is a real way to get them to accelerate their career wherever they end up going.
You know, art, medicine, business, wherever.
This kind of thing is... Sorry, go ahead.
No, no, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Actually, no, I was just within a half a syllable of ending, so that was an excellent jump.
I was going to add to that that their relationships with other people, even if we're looking outside of the business and the workplace, but we're looking at the personal, you're teaching them how to relate, how to communicate.
You're teaching them that there are other people out there.
And it's not just them, right?
That it's how they can be with other people, how they can form lasting relationships, rewarding relationships, deep connections with people.
It all comes out of communication.
It all comes out of the way you treat other people.
So I think the one other thing I want to add is that one of the big areas for parents is when their children have problems, they think their job is to solve them.
And that is a big area in Parent Effectiveness Training where what we want is to help your child learn how to solve their own problems.
Not solve them, but help them to figure out their solution.
And I think that is really tremendous.
First of all, it's very liberating for parents because they don't have to have all these solutions in their mind.
They don't have to constantly be thinking, oh, I have to come up with something now and I don't really know.
But again, it's that vote of confidence to your child that they really have the solution within them.
They just may not have access to it in that particular moment, but you can help them to figure that out.
And I think that in terms of relationships with them, with themselves, with other people and in the workplace is a tremendous opportunity for parents to help their children with that.
Yeah, without a doubt, the only way I think to have a happy life is to learn the principles of win-win negotiations.
Otherwise, you're either parasitical or submissive.
And you really do need to find, and I think the PET is a great way of modeling that, of inculcating that in your children, which I think they're kind of born with.
It's almost like we have to power that out of them.
But learning the essence of how to get your needs met while enhancing how other people can get their needs met and thinking creatively about win-win solutions is so essential.
And I think that the thesis underlying the philosophy is excellent, which is that not only is this great for families, not only is this great for marriages in the future, business careers, artistic careers or whatever, but if we teach children win-win negotiations, we are really laying the foundation for a much more peaceful world in the future.
Because society I think as a whole, I've made this case many times, but society as a whole I think it reflects pretty early childhood experiences.
You know, I mean, people who are brought up in tyrannical households often end up in a tyrannical society or society reflects that because it's just how they're used to being dealt with.
And so if we bring children up in an egalitarian win-win way, I really feel that we're going to end up flattening coercive hierarchies.
We're going to end up having less acceptance for coercion as a way of pretending to solve human problems.
I think incredibly far-reaching.
Whatever reaches deep into childhood has a massive impact on the world stage as a whole.
So, you know, think globally, act locally.
That's my little pitch as well.
I couldn't agree more.
You said it very well and I personally, and I think you share the same feeling, see that learning these skills so that you can raise your children in a way that so they can flourish and be in the world and work peacefully in the world and interact with other people in a respectful way.
I think you're really setting the framework, as you say, not just for your children and your own personal relationship with them, but their relationship with everyone in their life as well as the world at large.
So I've studied many different systems and to me this one is really, it does the trick.
I guess there was a reason they nominated Thomas Gordon for the Nobel Peace Prize three times, because I really feel if everyone would do it this way, things would be a lot different for us in the world.
Yeah, I mean, 1.5 million parents in training and continuing.
So thank you so much.
Of course, Judy, I appreciate that.
I appreciate, obviously, the work that you're doing.
Everyone who helps make better parents is, you know, close to my heart because they're all, you know, children are catch-and-release animals.
You know, they all go out into society.
So, everyone who's helping make them better is great.
So, thank you so much for your time and efforts.
I really appreciate that.
I'll link to everything that you have, what we've talked about here, and have yourself a great night.
Thanks, Emil, again.
Well, thank you so much.
It was a pleasure speaking to you about this.
I really enjoyed it.
Take care.
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