Using Love and Logic to Raise Resilient Kids with Dr. Charles Fay | 832 | Dave Asprey

Bulletproof Radio, a state of high performance. You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today's going to be a fun show because I get a lot of questions from the Upgrade Collective, which is my membership and mentorship group that you should check out. In fact, there's a bunch of Upgrade Collective members logged in live as I'm recording this podcast, able to answer questions or ask questions at the end of the show. But I get a lot of questions about parenting. And, you know, Dave, what do you do for parenting? Like, I think I'm a pretty good parent. But you know what? Every parent thinks they're a pretty good parent, at least some of the time, even if they're not. So how would I know if I'm good given my sample size is I had two parents, so I'm going to compare myself to them, and everyone says I'm going to do better than my parents. Which usually means you do exactly what your parents did even more. Or the exact opposite of what your parents did even more. You guys have heard me talk about being vi curious, vaccine industry curious in the middle, where, you know, I'm going to pay attention to all the different data sources, then make my own decision. It's hard to be a curious parent because, well, you just haven't seen enough. So then what you do is you go to an expert who has seen a lot of parenting and studied it and say, all right, well, what's going to work? What's not going to work? And then you look for a believable, trustworthy expert. And I think I found someone for you today. And the reason I think so is I recently interviewed Tana Amen about her amazing book. And you guys know Daniel Amen very well because I think he's been on the show four or five times. This is a guy who absolutely changed my life when his work. Change youe Brain, Change youe Life was his first big book, but he showed me I had a hardware problem in my brain. So it wasn't a moral failing. It wasn't a lack of willpower, not being smart enough. It was that my brain wasn't working, and I could hack that versus hack being a bad person. You can hack that, too, because you're probably not a bad person, but you might think you're a bad parent some of the time and have the guilt and shame that everyone has, even if you're mostly enlightened. Not that that's me, but even some of the leaders in personal development that I am friends with are like I don't know if I did that right as a parent, but I did my best. So both Daniel and Tana said, Dave, you gotta talk to this guy. He has something called Love and Logic and he focuses on raising resilient kids. And given that, well, we're telling our kids to do all sorts of nonsensical stuff like wear a mas, ask only when you're standing on your left leg, but not your right leg. And they know it's dumb, right? The rules are not consistent. Kids hate it when adults lie to them. So they're already stressed. That hurts their resilience. So I figured you guys could use this now more than ever. I've got an 11 and 14 year old, I could use this now. And that's why we have Charles Fay, PhD, who created love and Logic as recommended by one of my favorite brain hackers on the planet.

So there you go.

There's an intro, so to speak, but it's based on years of research, clinical experience, and it's all about resilience.

Oh yeah.

Charles, welcome to the show, man.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And I have to say there are plenty of times, I'll be honest with you, where I go to my wife Monica, because we have three kids, we have a 34 year old son who's out and about, and a 24 year old son who's out and about and a 14 year old son who a lot of times wants to be out and about. But I go to her and I say, monica, you know, after the way things went in our house today, you know, I have no business going out there talking to anybody about parenting. And a lot of times she'll just smile at me and say, true, but that's what you do, so get out there and do it. But the good news is we don't have to be perfect. And I want to start with that, that we don't have to be perfect. I mean, nobody is. And you know what? Being a great model, which we all know is important, right? And usually when parenting experts, parenting experts talk about modeling, I start to roll back in our heads because we're like, oh great, now he's going to tell me that I have to be a better person and behave right and well, truly modeling is so important. And of course we want to do the best we can to be good people. But if we can model making some mistakes now, I wonder if any of you are good at that. Modeling, making mistakes so that our kids can see us handle it with grace, handle it with Some confidence and handle it with, hey, you know, I'm going to get back on the horse and. And try again. You know, I had two very imperfect parents growing up, and, you know, they follow me everywhere now because I got to see how much they loved me, and I got to see their genuineness. And as a result of that, I took their values and unconsciously stuck them inside of my heart. And so everywhere I go, there they are. And that's what I want for you, is to have such a tight connection, an authentic connection with your kids so that they put you inside of them. And they wake up when they're older and look in the mirror and say, oh, man, I'm my dad or I'm my mom or I'm both. So modeling is important. But to remember a little sound bite for you, I like to speak in sound bites. Failure is not final. It's informative.

One of the things that I've done with my kids for a long time is at night when I'm tucking them in, is I'll say, okay, three things you're grateful for. And then find something good that happened that day. And then tell me something you failed at today. And then a failure is something that you worked on doing, you wanted it to happen, and it just didn't happen. And then if they go, I didn't have any failure today. I didn't have any fails, as we call them. And then I go, oh, maybe tomorrow can be a better day because you'll do something hard enough to push you.

I love it. I love it.

I got that from Sarah Blakely. Mentioned that a long time ago that her dad did that. She's the founder of Spanx. And I'm like, this is really good. So we added that in probably eight or nine years ago. And is that a good practice? I have no idea. I've never validated it with an expert.

And, you know, love and logic, we. We have been preaching the same thing over and over again, and it goes something like this. You know, hope and pray every day that your kids blow it. Yeah, we got to be hoping and praying every day that they blow it. When the price tag is small, see, when the consequences are still small.

Yeah.

So a number of things can happen, first of all, so they can learn cause and effect. And how many of us know an adult who doesn't quite get that? And they don't get that I make this decision, something else is going to happen. So we hope and pray for those mistakes. I have to hope and pray for the wisdom and self Control to let them make those mistakes. Come in close your audience. How many of you can admit, at least to yourself, that it's hard to allow your kids to maybe get a bad grade on assignment or maybe forget something they need and then have to do without it at school or maybe at a practice or something like that? It's hard because we love them, but it's a gift. And, Dave, you know, honestly, what I want is kids who grow to become adults who, if they mess up, they say to themselves, hey, you know, messed up. Learn something from that. That. That's how we learn.

I'm laughing because this morning my son's like, I can't find white socks. And he has a school uniform. And I'm like, sounds like a problem, Daddy. I'm have to wear mismatched socks to school today. Maybe you should do the laundry. I don't know. Not my problem. But then he went and he woke up. Mom, who knew where the white socks were?

Yeah, but you said something so important, Dave. You really hit it on the head. Whose problem is it? Yeah, I mean, ask in all relationships, whose problem is this? And we got to be able to offload problems onto the shoulders of the people who really need to own them. And we do it with love, but we do our friends, our family no favor when we're solving all their problems for them.

So this is something that all parents do. When our kids feel pain, we feel their pain because we're connected, because of mirror neurons, because, gee, it's almost like mother Nature wired us that way so that we would protect our young instead of selling them when they got irritating. And so we're innately wired to feel their pain, and we feel when they suffer greatly from the things. So before we think about it, we're going to intervene and help them do whatever the thing is that they really could have done themselves. How does a parent learn to not do that?

Well, I believe so much of it is immersing ourselves in this paradigm. And I'm biased, but the love and logic paradigm is a great paradigm, because every story you hear in the materials, the books, the audios, the courses that we have, every story, every example, every part of it reinforces this paradigm shift. And, Dave, I really think it is a huge paradigm shift that mistakes are great, okay? We're going to rescue if the mistakes are too big, right? Life and death. We're going to jump in, of course, and save our kids. But immersing ourselves in that language, and it reminds me of a mom who she was driving around the car and, and little kid in the back seat, about three years old in the car seat. And mom drives past the exit she's supposed to take and she's kind of beaten up on herself, like, oh, why did I drive past that exit? You know, and, and here's a little girl in the backseat. Oh, that's so sad, Mommy. That's okay. You're learning. You know, mom is thinking, yes, yes, that's where we want to be. So it really does require that, that immersion, that repetition. And you know, the reason that little kid knew love and logic somewhat better than her mother did was because everywhere they went in the car, mom had it playing on the, on the stereo. And this is not a conspiracy or something that we're trying to do kind of sneaky, you know, against our kids. It's something that the whole family can learn.

What's the age when kids first pick this up?

Oh my goodness. I saw my kids in terms of learning the basic skills I've seen kids learn starting at about age 10 months. And I'll share a little story with you about that. And Love and Logic, by the way, is really big on loving actions. I mean, how many times do we run into parents, friends, relatives, neighbors, co workers, never ourselves, right? But the other parents who talk a lot, but they never take any action, for crying out loud, if you keep doing that, such and such, but there's never any action and the kids just tune them out, right? So love and logic is more about very few words, loving actions, and it can start very early. And I remember my son cody, he was 10 months of age and he's crawling across the carpet towards something he's not supposed to have, you know, touch. And we're at the grandparents house. And so I, I like to teach parents this signal with little kids. Uh oh, just the little. Oh, just sing it. Uh oh. See, it's hard to yell when you're singing. Oh, oh. And then walk over and just pick them up and stick them in your lap with their, their face facing away from you and let them have a little fit. It's okay if they're upset. And we put him down and he, he crawled over about three, four more times and we just repeated right back in the lap. And we got home and he was heading off to something that he shouldn't have. And I said to him, oh. And he just laid down the middle of the floor and kind of pounded on the carpet because in his mind he had this limit that was getting ingrained. And see, when we set limits Kids learn self limits, see, you know, they got to have them from the outside first, otherwise they'll never develop them from the outside or from the inside out. I mean, self control, so important.

So you can start even before the year they're a year old with just a little thing like that. So let's say that what he's going to is crawling to is painful, but not deadly or maiming. Would you. And you said, oh, would you let him keep going?

Okay, so here, here's the. He's crawling very gradually, okay. And he's going to touch something that is really going to hurt. Maybe it's really hot, but it's not going to cause any damage. I mean, it's going to hurt. And so a love and logic parent at the very most might say, oh, I'm not sure I do that. That might hurt. And then after they say that, they go to prayer. Please let him touch it.

That's kind of dark, but it's also perfect.

Please let him touch it. And please, please give me the strength to allow it to happen. And of course, parents, I think we're all on the same page here. Nothing that's going to have serious consequences for the kid and serious damage, but really painful. And oh, I know an awful lot of kids who've done that. And well, Dave, how many additional times did those kids do that after that experience? What do you think? You know.

They'Re still gonna do it, at least as far as I can tell. We put those little foam things up on the dangerous edges when our kids are really young. If there was one exposed edge in a room, they have radar. They'll find it and they'll just bang their head on it. I swear that if you did a statistical analysis, kids look for those things. And even though gravity is one of the best teachers ever for young kids, because they fall down, they hit things, they keep doing it. It seems like the 10,000 repetition thing and how to not lose your mind as a parent is I think, part of this.

Yeah.

What's going on with all that?

Oh, you know, it's. Well, so much of it is it's because they're little and their brains aren't fully develop. I mean, that's the truth. And so it's going to take a lot of repetition. But the more real experiences they have that are safe, the better. And so let's talk about that. We look around our house and again, we childproof the things that are going to cause the real damage. We don't hesitate to do that, but we Leave enough temptations out there so that kids can actually learn. I mean, they need to learn the laws of physics. Kids can learn the laws of physics, gravity, kinetic energy, you know, velocity and the effects of kinetic energy when they suddenly come to a quick stop. They can learn all that stuff by the time they're two years of age if we stand out of the way. And when they do it, we model a sense of confidence. See?

How do you model confidence?

Well, two different types of parents. Let's look at them. It's kind of fun to look at two different types of parents dropping a kid off at daycare. Let's just use that for an example. That's an exciting place to hang out. I love watching kids being dropped off at daycare, but I don't like police looking at me strangely. So I stopped the practice.

That's probably best.

Anyway, we have one parent driving up and the kid is doing what kids do. I don't want to go. I want to be with you, Mommy. I miss you so much. I love you. I want to stay. I know. I don't want to go. And the parents feeling horrible. So the parents saying, you're going to have so much fun. You're going to have snack. And I hear you play a lot of games, and I did background checks on your teachers and they're okay, and you're going to have such a great day and you're going to have. So. But I don't. Now, now, honey, you're going to have fun. That's one parent. Okay, here's the second parent. Kid does the same thing. This parent feels equally guilty, but the parent knows that kids need great airline pilots. I mean, I don't want to get on a triple seven and have the pilot, like on the announcement saying, you know, I'm kind of freaking out up here, man. There's a lot of buttons and it's really bumpy. You know, I don't want that kind of pilot, right? And so this parent, when the kid says, well, I don't want to go, they say something like this, have a great day, sweetie. And then they lay tracks out of that parking lot. They do not exceed the speed limit, but they get to that speed limit pretty quick. And if you have a kid who won't get out of the car, you might want to call ahead and say, hey, I have a kid. And by the way, she's choosing to go to school in her pajamas this morning. See, I told her, we can either go with your clothes on your body or your clothes in a Bag. And we're leaving precisely when my timer goes off on my phone. And here is, I'm going to pull up, she's going to have pajamas on, I'm going to have a bag with her clothes. And please help me put. Pry her gently yet forcefully out of the car and I'm going to leave quickly. Now, whenever I stand in front of early childhood educators and ask them which kid was the happiest during the day, it was always the kid where the parent said, goodbye. Love you. Very few words right out of the parking lot. And you know, we're talking not just about little kids today, we're also talking about teenagers, right? And they need the same kind of response from us where we're compassionate but we model strength. And can I tell you a story about that?

Please. Yeah.

And by the way, we're not on my outline. Are you okay with that?

You had an outline? Geez.

Well, I felt obligated. Okay. Because, you know, you're an important guy.

And it's a conversation. There's only a few hundred thousand people listening. No pressure.

I love that. I'm going off the outline. Okay. And. And this is a true story. See, I grew up in a, in a ranching community and ranching communities, all the dogs were border collies, blue heelers, dogs that ran after things. They chased everything, they herded everything, including cars. And now my dad was of the variety that believed that kids needed character building experiences. Now what, what's a character building experience? It's doing something hard that you don't want to do, but it's good. And then afterwards you say to yourself, I'm strong, I'm capable, and I did something good. So he'd engineer all these character building experiences for me, one of which was playing my baritone at all the different places like elks, lodges in the small towns and, and Rotary clubs and all those plays, VFWs, you know, and so I'd go and play those little recitals and, well, got my baritone in the car. And there's Buster. Now Buster's running after a sob. The sob's coming down the road and Buster knows that anything that looks as strange as a sob has got to be evil. So he tears off after this thing. He's going to hurt it back where it belongs. And he gets hit by this car right in front of me and he manages to stumble himself up the driveway. And I still remember kneeling over him and petting him. And my dad ran out and Buster died right there. It was a horrible thing. And my dad loved that dog, too. He loved me. And my dad cried just a little bit. This is kind of a silent tear. And he said, son, I'm so sorry that happened. And I remember how strong his arms were when he hugged me. And he said, I know how much you love Buster, but, you know, son, it's time to go. I said, where? And he says, well, we promised that you were gonna play a solo over there at the Elks Lodge. And I said, I can't do it. My dog just died. And he said, son, when we get back, we're gonna. We're gonna take care of them. And. But I know you're strong enough to. To handle this. And I. I didn't know how to feel about that as a kid, but I rode with him, and I. And I played that solo. And I remember seeing him looking at me, just. I could tell how proud he was of me. And we got home and we cried together, and we. We put Buster to rest in a good way. And that stuck with me. And never once did I think my dad was mean or uncaring. But he taught me that we can get through tough times, times that almost seem unbearable. And we can get through tough times when we're also focusing on serving other people and not just ourselves. And so, you know, in my outline that I put down here, there were three things, and I'll just mention them real quick. The first is, if we want to rebuild our families, raise really strong, resilient, capable kids, there's got to be relationship. The kids have got to look at us and think, my mom, my dad, they're strong, and they're also firm. Okay? And the second piece of it is that kids need limits. They need to know that we love them enough to give them the boundaries, and we can talk more about how to do all these things. Little overview for you. But, you know, my dad had set a limit with me there. We're going.

Your dad's a recognized expert in building discipline with kids and all that. So you were raised by a parenting expert and all of that. And that's a pretty powerful example where you're saying, okay, integrity in your word. You're going to do what you said you were going to do, and bad things happened, and you can still deal with it. I think some listeners hearing that are going, your dad was kind of cruel. He could have just given you a break. But you're a grown adult now with your own kids, and you look back on that, and you look back on that as it was the right call.

Yeah, it was Definitely the right call, and it had to do with how he did it.

So what did he do right?

What did he do right?

So what did he do right?

What did he do right? Well, first of all, all the things that he did way before Buster ever came along. See, what my dad did right is he was there for me a lot, and he spent a lot of time with me not doing anything purposeful. He believed and still does. And by the way, he lives next door to me. We're good friends to this very day. He believes that being with people is. Being present is more important than doing stuff. I mean, we can have both. But how many times, Dave, do we get pulled into this idea that we got to be accomplishing something all the time, or we have to be doing some sort of structured activity? We. We got to be entertaining the kids. You know what the kids want? They want us to be there with them. And Daniel, Amen, who's so great and really models this, I think, in a spectacular fashion, talks about special time, and that is where we just hang out with the kid. And there's no shoulds or coulds or maybes or whys. There's just us hanging out next to the kid, not saying much at all. So he did a lot of that. He did a lot of empathy with me, and that's a big piece of love and logic. And the empathy sounds like this. I can't imagine how hard this must be for you. Oh, and you just forgot to do your chores, right? And we had talked about those before, and you had your little list, and. And now you're asking me to drive you someplace you really want to go. Yeah. Well, that's rough. Well, perhaps next time when I see those things get done. See, so the empathy is not. You poor thing. Don't worry about it. There's no accountability. The empathy is, wow, I really care about you. I'm feeling for you. But you know what? I believe that you're strong enough to handle what life serves up for you. And I believe that you're strong enough to handle the poor decisions that you make and those consequences that come as a result. So I have to say, those two things were so powerful in my life growing up with him up to that point. And I grew up again in this family where the show must go on. And as I. As I get older and again, Dave, I can certainly see how some people would hear that story and just. Just be heartbroken, and it's a heartbreaking story. I mean, my dog is, like, right. Right next to me. Right now, you know, and I love her and I was just devastated. But are those things going to happen in our children's lives?

Yeah.

And one of the things that when I, when I talk to so many people all over the world and so many people who've lived many, many decades, really wise people, what they'll say is that they're really concerned about the number of people who can't really handle adversity.

Yeah.

And hold on.

Do we need a trigger warning for this part of the conversation?

Probably. Okay. Yeah. And you know, there is great hope. I mean, let's, you know, we're talking about some really deep stuff, aren't we? Yeah. Okay. And you know why I like to talk about deep stuff? Because I want my life to be meaningful and for people to have kids who go out there and like, they make it through the hard stuff. And so much of the time. I'll share another little story with you. This listeners often tell me they like stories, okay? And so, well, this lady says to me, my son lost. He lost two and a half coats every school year.

My kids do that. Drive me insane.

How do you lose two and a half coats? And she is one of them. A vest or something, you know. Anyway, she says that I took the love and logic course and the love and course basically taught me to stand beside my kids rather than be cute between them and the world. And so standing beside them means that, you know, if something's really dangerous or will be traumatic, I step in and protect them. I mean, I'm like a mother bear, you know, I'll do that if my kids are in danger. But much of the time I kind of step back and allow them to handle life and learn from it. Well, so he comes home one day and he says, mom, somebody stole my coat. You know, and they're always stolen. They're never lost. Right. And so she practices her empathy. She says, oh, honey, oh, that's, that's rough, you know. Yeah. My teacher doesn't even care, you know. Oh, that's got to be rough. What do you think you're going to do? All lock in that question, listeners, what do you think you're gonna do when somebody comes to you with a problem? What do you think you're gonna do? Real loving? Well, I'm telling you what I. And you need to buy me a new coat. Mom says, would you like to hear some ideas about how you might solve that problem? He says, what? And she says, well, some kids decided to get all their money together and they asked their mom to take them to the mall, and they buy a brand new coat with that money. And you know what the kid said? Coats are expensive. Forget it. Then he runs in his room and she feels terrible. Isn't it interesting that she's doing the right thing, in my opinion, right. Building a strong kid. But she feels horrible about it.

I wouldn't feel horrible about that one. Don't lose your next coat. Does that make me a monster of a parent? You earn that, use your allowance.

It just makes parenting easier for you, Dave. Okay, so anyway, he comes back out, and now he's talking like this. Now, any of you ever hear your kid talk like this? And it's like, what? I can't hear you. Will you take me down to the thrift shop so I can buy a coat? And she said, well, are you sure you want to do that? I mean, some kids just wear a lot of shirts for the rest of the year. How would that work? Well, this is Michigan, you know, she gets the car with him and drives him down to the thrift store, and he buys this old coat. Okay, himself, and. And they're riding home and he. Now he's showing everybody this coat, and it's pretty tattered looking. And by the way, they just. They happen to be a family that has some money, you know, and so people are like, well, what happened? You know, are you having problems with your business? Things like that. And mom said, that coat, that old, worn out coat that he bought for $3 was a Greater gift to him than all of the expensive things we ever bought him for holidays. And so the point here, friends, is that, you know, we often talk about adversity as being like a really hard thing, which it is, okay? But there's a flip side of it. How does it feel when you see yourself working through it and you get to the other side? We steal that from people, don't we? We steal the struggle. And then as a result, we also steal the tremendous sense of confidence and joy that they can have, knowing, hey, I got what it takes. I can live this life. I can be honorable and solve the problems I face. That's resiliency for you.

What a great story and what a great lesson that is for parents and for kids. One of the things that I've found is my kids enter their preteen and teen years, and it's well documented, kids listen less and less to you and more and more to their peers. And some of their peers have been taught to be victims. And as soon as something bad happens, they're Entitled to a whole bunch of stuff, you know, the whole victim culture. And I would just say high anxiety, high fear, peers. As a parent, what do you do when your kids start hanging out with a bunch of kids who don't have any resilience and start picking that stuff up?

Well, we're working through that right now with one of ours. And so this is. This is really personal. It's a great. This discussion. So, first of all, the basic goal is for them to work it out, not for us to work it out. See, we're going to facilitate them working it out rather than us working it out. See, because if we work it out, is it really part of their being? No. And so that's one basic principle that I have to say is very important. And so there's a lot of times where, you know, there'll be all this drama, you know, associated with hanging out with the kids. And then our kids will come home or after they visit with a kid on the. On Instagram or whatever, they are having a trauma moment and hysteria and all that. And I think it's very important for us to set a limit with them that sounds something like this. You know, you're. You're more than welcome to hang out with me and your mom, you know, right here in this room, as long as we're being treated with great respect and we're not having to hear about negative things. So I sure hope you can stay because we love you. But, you know, this is. This is a no drama zone.

Setting a no drama zone for your kids is really cool.

And we have to come across kind of like that because sometimes. Okay, here's the deal. I'll admit it. My mirror neurons are too active sometimes. So the kid gets all this drama hysteria, and then I get hysterical about their hysteria. Why? Well, why do you hang out with kids like that? Oh, my goodness. You know, I'm just modeling what I don't want. So I want to be real, matter of fact, but loving. Hey, I hang out with kids, I do extra things for kids when I know it's going to be pleasant for me, and it's just not pleasant when I just keep hearing this and that about so and so and this, about that and all of the anxiety and worry, just not fun for me. So that's part of the message. And a big part of love and logic is this, take really great care of yourself in loving ways. I mean, you know, when I was a kid, I loved those movies. They were the old westerns and some guy's horse didn't make it or whatever. Stuck in Arizona desert crawling along water, water, you know, and that's like many of our kids now in a desert crawling, begging for somebody to give them the leadership that life sustaining water that they need in order to be successful. And I don't know how to give somebody life sustaining water if my bucket is totally empty.

So it's the self care and modeling.

Self care and you know what do we want our kids to be able to kind of learn how to distance themselves from unhealthy peers? Of course we do. Do we want them to know how to take care of themselves around unhealthy peers? Absolutely. And how well does it work? If we're a doormat, we're teaching them to be one.

Yep.

Yeah. And my son mark, now he's 24 and when he was little we were, we were constantly practicing. We call them enforceable statements. Love and logic does. And it essentially where we describe what we're going to do rather than tell the kid what to do. You, oh, you feel free to keep the toys that you pick up, you know, and dinner is served until such and such a chime. And I allow teenagers to drive my car when I don't have to worry about when they get home or where they are. And I'll listen when your voice is calm like mine, things like that. And, and so one of the things, one of the rules we had is, oh, you get to play with us and hang out with us when you're being sweet to us. Okay. And well, he had a friend over a little playdate and he's four and they're in his bedroom and I sneak around the corner because I just love to watch little kids play, you know, and they don't know an adult's watching and they're having a good time, little Matchbox cars on the floor. And before long the, the friend is taking my son's Matchbox cars and smashing them against the baseboard. And here's little Mark, little Marky, he's got a baseball cap on. He takes it off. He puts all the Matchbox cars in his baseball cap. He puts it back on his head. He turns to this little kid and he says, I play with kids who are nice to my stuff. And he just walked out of the room. And I thought, how did you learn that by say it over and over again. And so, so much about how kids handle peer influences is determined by how well we take care of ourselves. Now there's something else you mentioned, something about problems. Whose problem is it? You know, when I solve my kids problems as a habitual response all the time, you know what I'm doing? I'm renting them a life and teaching them helplessness. Yeah, I'm renting them a life. It's not really their life that they have. It's just. It's a rental. And how do people treat rentals with not as much seriousness or care? Rental life or real life? I mean, when a kid is in a position and somebody says, hey, let's do this crack, let's go down to this part of town and hang out, let's break into the store, what do I want going on in my kid's head? Rental life that, you know, I can just trade in and get another one. Or real life. And I want the kid to know it's. It's a real life. And that's when we have to have some. Some very brief but loving but serious conversations. And usually I like to have those in the car drive so they can't run away. Yeah, drive it along, son. Boy, aren't you fortunate to have so and so for a friend? Well, what do you mean? Well, you know, I'm just. I was just thinking how fortunate you are to have so and so as a friend because you're gonna have so much practice learning how to keep yourself out of trouble. I just think that's just fantastic. Think, you know, some of these other kids who always make good decisions, they don't teach you anything about life, you know, and then you shut up. Well, what do you mean by that? Oh, just never mind. I'm. I don't want to be one of those lecturing parents. See, you throw something out and then you let it percolate. It's like a great farmer. Plant the seed, walk away. Great farmer knows I plant the seed, but I'm not the one who makes it grow. And another little conversation. Son, daughter, do you think that your life's going to be gratifying and joyful or not so gratifying and joyful if you hang around with people who treat you like a doormat? No, no, you just. You're just trying. You're just using that psychology on me. Well, I was just curious about that. And then you shut your mouth. Little seed. Not a huge bag of seeds. Just one little seed. Lots of little seeds. Son, I know that some of your friends really like to drink, and then they drive around after they've been drinking. And whose life is really going to be affected if that ends poorly? Love you dearly, but who's and that's it. Wow, son. And by the way, if you're the one who's driving, I want to make you a promise. And that. That is that I promise you, is my solemn oath to you that if we were ever to need your mom and I legal assistance because of the dui, we would never expect you to pay the cost and take care of.

That is brilliant parenting right there. That's a ninja move.

You know, it helps when you're like me. Honestly, we don't drink and drive, so. But yeah, it's. It's. I call it a dynamic equilibrium. Equilibrium parenting is a dynamic equilibrium. You know, we're always thinking, okay, how can I be really loving and make sure that my kids are well taken care of and rescue them when they need to be rescued? But then on the other side of the line is, how do I allow them to have enough struggles in life, have enough accountability so that they are strong and strong people with great character. Right. And as the years have gone by, I've realized that it's not a system. It's not something like steps you can follow. Right. It's a process of keeping our eye on that. On that line and doing the very best we can and using the best judgment we have in that situation, given the dynamics of the situation. And if we are working on that equilibrium, chances are we're going to make mistakes, but overall, we're going to be real successful.

All right, I want to talk about bullying. I've had so many entrepreneurs who come through my 40 years of Zen neurofeedback program. This is one where you kind of go deep and you can edit emotional patterns so you have to talk about them. So you get this peek inside it. And it's really common for people to go, oh, my God, I just realized I've driven to be this unhappy but very successful entrepreneur because I was bullied. So how do parents respond most effectively when there's bullying happening at school?

Well, the backdrop. The context is always the most important piece in the backdrop. The context is the kid has no doubt in their mind that they are loved because they're loved. The parents just love them. It's unconditional. You don't have to earn it. You can't lose it. You're just loved. What a gift that is when we can have that. And that's part of the context. The other part of the context is that the kid has had a lot of experiences with cause and effect and seeing that they are capable of making decisions, capable of handling hardships. So I'm truly loved unconditionally. I don't have to prove anything to anybody. I am loved. Secondly, I'm strong, I'm capable. Okay. When I have a kid who have. Has those two basic belief systems, they're a little easier to work with over the bullying. So I would say the first step, if there's steps, is you listen. Truly listening and reflecting feelings, you're never going to go wrong. So what you're telling me, my daughter, is that there's some girls and anytime you go and sit down at the lunch table and they just move and then they roll their eyes at you. Yeah, they do that. Wow, that's gotta feel. That's gotta hurt. Unbelievable. I mean, tell me, you know, how is this, how often is this happening? So I'm having a conversation and all I'm doing is getting at feelings and trying to understand. I'm not trying to solve the problem. See, too often we just jump into problem solving mode before we listen and then things go poorly. Kind of like when our spouse has a bad day, you know, and we want to be good listeners and empathetic and no information shared whatsoever during that first stage. Oh, hand on the shoulder of the kid. Just love you. Yeah, I'm so sad that you're having to go through this stuff. And then I kind of start moving into a little more directive role. Would you like to hear some thoughts?

Absolutely.

You know, okay. Cause the kid's interested in hearing it because I've spent time listening. Okay.

Okay. So you're getting them, you're soliciting them to ask for advice. Okay.

But I'm going to ask permission first. So, son, would you like to hear some ideas about how to handle kids like that or. I mean, what do you think? Well, I guess, you know. Okay. Yeah. Because I don't want to be bossy or anything, but I know you're really hurting. Now, some kids always use that language. Some kids or some people decide to. Well, some people decide to trick that kid. And when the kid is hassling them, they say to themselves, the more upset I get, the more unhealthy power that person has. And they, they kind of do a good job of acting, you know, like. Like a really good actor does. And then they just have something just kind of relaxed. They say to the kid, so we could practice that if you're interested. Well, that's weird, dad. What do you mean? Well, you know, some kids just. They kind of put on a cool look or a relaxed look, and they don't have a lot of eye contact with the bully, but the bully says, well, you just, you're just such and such, you know, and, and the, the kid might say something like, oh, I was really wondering about that. Thank you. You know, and then they just wander over and stand next to an adult or some kids they know will be kind to them, kind of watch out for them, but they don't say anything to that other. That, that, that bully right then and there. They might talk to a teacher later on, but they just kind of wander over and hang out by somebody who's going to take good care of them. So how do you think that might work? I don't know. It seems kind of weird, you know. Well, it might be weird. And do you think it's possible that it, it might not work? All the time, just like everything else, I always get kids prepared for the fact that sometimes things won't work.

Yep. What happens then?

Yeah. So what do you think you might do if it doesn't work? Well, depending on the bully, some kids decide. And again, this is where judgment really has to come in. Parents, okay? Some kids decide to look at that bully and just say something like this, that's bullying and that needs to stop. And they turn away and they walk somewhere where they won't get beat up. Okay. Because some kids only understand that type of approach. Now, you know, this is a process. But notice what I'm trying to do here. Most of the time I am. Most of the time I am going for giving the kid the skills they need in order to handle not just this bully, but all the other bullies they will encounter for the rest of their lives. Because if they run a business, they'll run into bullies. If they work in a business, they'll run into bullies. If they live life, they will run into bullies.

It's very true.

What's so interesting is when kids have that confidence of knowing that they can handle bullies, they don't get bullied as much. It just kind of oozes out of them. It's kind of like, hey, I can handle you. You know, I can handle life. Now, there are times when a parent may need to say something like this. Now some kids decide that they really are going to need to get some extra help from people at the school, and they're going to ask their parent to go to the school with them and they're going to talk to the principal with their parent there. Now notice who's still involved in solving the problem. The kid. Now, I'd probably call the Principal ahead of time and say, we got the situation. I'd like to bring my son in and have him talk directly to you because I want him to be empowered to know that he can handle himself. And so I just want you to know why I probably going to be fairly silent. There's method to the method madness here.

Okay.

Okay. And then if I need to, I'll throw some things in. But very important for the kid not to be sitting back, you know, the feet up in the air, you know, just kind of glazed over while I'm solving the problem. Okay. And so there are times where we have to go to that level. And I have actually seen times where, you know, parents have had to go, and this is the last resort, of course, but take some legal action or whatever is required to resolve the issue. But so much of this can be handled with the kid just learning some very simple, kind of silly strategies of showing for showing the bully they just aren't bothered so much.

I love that.

Yeah. I had a kid. I'll share with you one little fun story. The kid was always hassling him about his mom. Your mama does this, your mama does that. And so he goes to this kid the next time the kid says it, and he says, you know, I've been thinking about that, and I've tried to get her to stop doing that stuff, but she just won't listen to me. And he walked away, and the bully actually laughed. You know, it was kind of the end of the story there. So anyway, just had to share that with.

Those are the positive endings. There's also the bully who keeps hitting you whenever there's not a teacher around kind of situation.

Yeah, yeah. That's when we need to believe our kids. And if we have to make a change to a different school or different situation, it's worth it because it's that destructive.

And I was in that situation with one of the kids a while ago, and finally I said, all right, here's the deal. If you can't get away and there's no teacher, then what you do is you hit them really hard, and then they'll stop hitting you. And this is actually how school has worked throughout all of human history. And that's just how it is. Actually. This was my daughter, and she says, but it would probably hurt my hand. I said, yeah, but it'll hurt their face more. And you only have to do it once, right? And it's not like this kid hasn't hit you dozens of times. And finally I said, look, if you have to do it. She goes, I'll get in trouble. I said, yeah, but if you'll get a day off school and I'll buy you ice cream, like it's okay. You're allowed to protect yourself if you need to protect yourself and your teacher isn't doing your job. Well, I don't know if that was the right, the right parenting answer. The teacher sure didn't like it when I told the teacher about it.

Yeah, it falls under the category of fairly solid advice that is politically incorrect. Yeah, but, but one of the things that we see is that, that bullies, they play by a different set of rules. Like real, real bullies, aggressive people, sociopathic people play by a different set of rules. And I had one in my life when I was 13 years of age and I was a pretty passive kid. But yeah, I had a three day in school suspension as a result of solving that problem, I'll put it that way. And it was one of the best decisions I had ever made in my life. So I'll just leave it at that.

Yeah, it's sad because sometimes we're 10, 11, 12 year olds, there's police on campus and they're over enforcing it and sometimes a scuffle happens.

Right.

And I think that's missing from school. I wish I hadn't been bullied. I'm also glad that when I was bullied and there was no teacher around, that I protected myself because otherwise I think I would have grown up to be a victim. And that's what I wanted most for my kids. I don't care if you missed some school or not, but you'll learn that it's okay to protect yourself. And that's what I told the teacher. You know, when my daughter's off in college, there's an aggressive person who won't stop. It's up to you to stop them if you can't get help.

Right.

And I feel like, like that's missing from a lot of our schooling. But I'm glad most people don't get bullied, or at least many don't.

And the issue is we already have enough victims. It's like we just don't need any more. And so, yeah, I love the idea of raising kids who understand that of course we want to handle things with great honor and respect towards other people, great love. But there are times where we have to get pretty strong to make a point.

Yeah, sometimes you do. And let's talk about that in the context of the pandemic. So parenting the pandemic. I've seen people, lots of followers. There are kids who are getting bullied for getting the vaccine, and there are kids who are getting bullied for not getting the vaccine or for wearing a mask. Or not wearing a mask. And there's all this weird tribal polarized behavior around people trying to force other people to do whatever makes them feel safe, regardless of science. You know, it's not a logic. It's an emotional discussion. How do kids handle that? And how do parents help kids handle the weird social pressures around illogical behaviors?

Well, I. I think that as parents, we are. We welcome discussion about it, of course, in our house. So we're discussing things, and we're discussing the concept of freedom. Freedom is precious. See, the problem is, is that freedom. Now, here I go. Okay, Warning. Warning. Right. Freedom is extreme, expensive. Freedom comes at a risk. And freedom terrifies so many people that when they see other people enjoying freedoms, even when those freedoms don't hurt anybody, it's threatening to them. Okay, Freedom is a threatening thing for a whole lot of people. And it really. In our home and in the love and logic philosophy, you know, I'm all about, you know, Patrick Henry, give me liberty or give me death. In our family, we are going to live free. We are not going to be abusive or hassle people who are exercising their freedoms that are not impinging on ours. We are going to respect those. We may not agree, but this is just what the value is in the Fay household. And so what can you say? So I'm a real big fan of. Okay, let's talk about what you can say to somebody if they hassle you about, well, how come you're vaccinated, or how come you're not vaccinated, or how come you have a blue mask instead of a purple one, or how come you only have three instead of four on at the time? You know, it's like all this stuff. Okay, how am I going to respond in a way where I do my best to maintain the dignity of both people involved?

Wow. Maintaining dignity.

How come you're. How come you're not wearing a mask? Because it's my personal decision and it's my freedom, and because we're not being required to now.

Very, very well put. I've seen a lot of frustration from my kids, and they'll say, daddy, last week it was safe for me to have recess without a mask on, and this week it's not. But the government rules say that I don't have to wear a mask, but the school says that I do, and they didn't make me wear a mask when I was standing with Susie, but I had to wear the mask when I was sitting in my first class and not my second mask. And they look at me with, like. With pain, and they say, it doesn't make any sense. It isn't doing anything because we're not doing anything consistently. What's a good parenting answer to that? Because I've been struggling with that.

Well, I think you handled it very well. It doesn't make sense. One of the things that will make you crazy is here's how to make yourself crazy or make somebody else crazy. Just in case you want to know how to do that. You try to make sense out of something that doesn't, and you obsess over it. You're like, I gotta figure out how this makes sense. Okay? The truth of it is, is it don't make no sense. Okay? That don't make no sense. Okay. And the way I've explained it to my son is that, you know, there's a lot of people they're truly trying to help in. In their hearts, they're. They're trying to do the right thing. They have all different perspectives on this. Most people. Honestly, most people are just trying to live their lives. They're trying to love their kids, they're trying to love their family. They're trying to make a living. They just want to get through the day with some joy in their hearts, and that's all it's about. And some of those people wear masks. Some of them don't. Some of them are vaccinated, some of them don't. But they're just good people, and they're trying to make the best decision they can, given the fact that none of us know anything. Okay?

Yeah.

Right. Okay. But let's not pretend that this makes any sense. Okay?

Critique what I did as a parent here. Tell me what I could have done better whether this worked. I said, kids, sometimes you wear a mask so the Muggles feel safe. And you know very well that it doesn't do anything at all, but you're just doing it because it's less work and it makes other people feel safe. And there's other times where you are allowed to choose not to do it, but you get the consequences of choosing not to do it, which can be social shaming or someone not letting you into the store or someone yelling at you, or, you know what? Whatever the deal is. And you get to pick.

Right.

And I'll support you either way. Is that a parenting win? Or the Muggles Thing was judging and shaming and all that.

Well, you know, I don't want to judgy and shaming with you because, you know, when I. I figure when I get my act together completely, then I'll, you know, really, I mean, totally flawless, then I'll be in a good place to judge other people. Okay. So. But with that said, I would probably. My delivery would be slightly different, but not that.

How would you do it?

My response. Let me see if I can put, put, put myself right in the mood there. I'd say, you know, say some people truly are scared, and some people are just, you know, they don't have any choice because they work someplace and it's required or whatever. And sometimes we just show people love by doing things that make their lives easier, you know, and it's kind of a little sacrifice we make, but we don't have to do it a lot. You know, fortunately, it's becoming less and less, and I have to say, I do that as well. That's been my stance on it. If somebody's uncomfortable and, you know, I'll do such and such, you know, just to kind of help them feel more comfortable. Because I. I don't want to be mean. Okay. But when I am in a situation where I get to make my own choice, then I get to make my own choice. And so. So that's pretty similar, I think, to what you said, Dave. Yeah, Everybody's going to have a different take on it.

I like what you said there. Sometimes you choose to wear it out of love because the other person's afraid, or they're required to, and you're just doing it to be nice, even though it's dumb. That dichotomy is the hard part for teenagers, right?

Yeah. And the problem, the great thing about being a teenager is that suddenly your brain develops to a certain extent and you realize that things don't make sense.

Yeah.

It's like when you're little, you know, everything makes sense. Everything is right with the world, you know, and then all of a sudden, your brain shifts and you're like, my parents have stupid rules. Like, you know, it's like my mom, bless her heart, I mean, and she, you know, we couldn't have sodas in the car, okay, because they were glass bottles. And, you know, we couldn't have lollipops in the car because they jammed down our throat. But we could ride in the back of the pickup truck down the highway with, like a chainsaw loose in there, sliding back and forth. And when you're A teenager. All of a sudden you're like, what? This is nuts. And with teenagers, so much of it is listening and not automatically judging and then asking if they'd like your thoughts. So I think such and such, and inside, you're gone, you know, I can't believe this kid said that. Well, tell me more about that. Why do you think it would be okay for. Why do you think it's okay for people to do any drugs they want to. Want to do? You know, let's say the kid says something like that, because they will, Right. Just to shock us. What do you. What do you think the pros are of that? You know, like, the good part of it. And they'll share stuff that'll just. Yeah. You know, but you're listening, trying to keep a straight face, and then, you know, just going, oh, so tell. Yeah, great. Do you see any cons with it? You know, like, bad things about it and say, no, it's all good, you know, and that's when you can say, hey, hey, you know, would you be interested in my thoughts? As long as I don't judge you or tell you what to do, I guess. And then it's like, you know, I suppose that at some point I may have believed some of those things. And then I got to see a lot of people that I love dearly start to experiment with drugs and saw some lose their lives and others lose their wives and others lose their kids and everything in between and kind of change my thoughts on it. But the great thing about it is you have a powerful mind inside of that skull of yours. That's the great thing. And then you close it up and, you know, the interesting piece about this is that they come back around as long as you're not fighting with them about it. You know, nine times out of 10, if you're not fighting the power struggle, they come back around, you know, and then you're. They're like 25 or whatever, and you're. They're saying things like, well, really think it's inappropriate that people. They've legalized all these, you know, like, wow, you know, what happened? It's a miracle. No, it was great bonding, and you didn't ruin the relationship by fighting with the teenager when they were pushing buttons.

Wow. It's. It's a complex path, and I. I love the way you're sharing this actionable advice because I'm always replaying the day, this conversation. I wonder what else you could have done, but honestly, the. The set of options to pull from when you're doing it is relatively limited. You don't really know where to go to get info. As a parent, we talk to other parents and all this. I appreciate what you've been sharing on the show and you have all of this put together@loveandlogic.com is your URL for this and it's pretty neat. And the frameworks you have, I went through them after Dr. Amen recommended it. And just this whole idea that there's only five things you have to do. I want to recap that sort of the five non negotiable core principles. Can you walk people through those as we wrap up the show?

There's five core principles. They're pretty broad. Okay. But they really do nail it down. And the first one is that I want to handle the kid with mutual dignity. So my dignity is intact and the kid's dignity is intact. And the biggest issue there is is limits. Can't be any dignity in the home if there aren't limits. Another piece of it is shared thinking. You heard a lot of that today where we're asking the kid, what do you think you're going to do to solve this problem? See, I should never be consistently thinking harder about my kids problems than they are. Another piece of it is shared control. That's the third one, shared control. So I want to give away the control that I don't have or need. You know, do you want to be home by 10 or 10:30? You decide, hey, do you want to, do you want to have carrots or celery? Just little choices. Bombard them with that stuff. Lots of control. People love control. The more you give away, the more you have, the more you hoard, the less you have. And so then we have empathy, sincere empathy. And oh, that that's what sends the message that I'm on your side, kid. And when I am on your side, kid, the hard part for the kid is that they have to think about their own poor decision rather than blaming us for what they did. And you know, these four things all boil down into relationship. So number five is relationship. It is how are we going to connect with this kid where the kid actually puts our values inside their heart. And I have to say, my mom struggled with bipolar depression. She struggled with all sorts of trauma and pain and anxiety and she really struggled with parenting. But you know, one thing she consistently did is she didn't give up. She just didn't give up. And she consistently sent this message to us kids, you're the apple of my eye. It's that Simple. You're the apple of my eye. And when you make decisions, you'll need to get yourself out of your messes, that kind of thing. But she struggled a lot, and she had such a profound impact on me. And she passed away a few years back. But, you know, she's. Like I said, she's always with me, just hanging out there. And now she's this strong person who doesn't have that terrible illness or those struggles. And now her voice is in my head saying things like, you can do this and doing the right thing for people is the right thing to do. And when you mess up, that's okay. You just get back on that horse and you'll be okay. And here we have a person who really struggled with life, who had such a big impact. I think that gives all of us a lot of hope.

I like that a lot. When people struggle and overcome and still do their best and end up being good parents despite whatever got in the way, that's one of the hardest things you can do as a human being, because it's one of those jobs that's unpredictable, never stops. You don't get to take a break when you want to. So my full respect to people who parent and do their best, and my full respect to people who say, you know, I decided I didn't want to do that because it's a whole lot of work and I had other priorities. I get it, guys. It's all good either way.

That's right. That's right.

Well, thank you, Charles Fay, and thanks for love and logic. And also thanks, Daniel and Tana Amen, for bringing you to my attention, because I hadn't heard about your work, but it's a logical, useful framework, and it's got a lot of really cool parenting ninja moves in it. So I'm learning from it. And I thought a lot of our guests would enjoy that. I don't know what percentage of people have kids who listen, but it's a meaningful percentage, I would imagine. So, guys, hope you enjoyed it. And if you listened and you didn't have kids, just think what your parents did to you and what it installed in you. And next time you talk to a little kid, even if it's not yours, maybe there's something in here for you. Again, that's loveandlogic.com yeah.

Thank you so much. Such a joy. And I'm so thankful that I didn't have to follow my outline. That was fun.

I wouldn't be doing my job right if you had to follow an outline. All right, guys, I will see you on the next show. Thank you, Upgrade Collective, for tuning in live. I didn't mention it, but I normally do live questions, but they're like, Dave, every question that we wanted to ask, you already asked. So they're all waving at me right now. Guys, if. If you are thinking about this for one monthly fee, me, this is the stuff I can say that's not on public websites. So you want to get inside my head. Our upgradecollective.com and again, our guest today, loveandlogic.com I'll see you all on the next episode.