Doug NollI'm called in when human dynamics are getting in the way of strategic leadership execution.

Kids Aren’t Rational - They’re Overwhelmed. Here’s What Works. #shortvideo

23 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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In this short, the speaker denounces the common parenting advice that children should be treated as miniature adults who are expected to behave rationally and calmly. He argues that both parents and children are fundamentally emotional beings, and that the prevailing advice to maintain a calm, reasonable environment is misguided because it ignores the emotional reality of children. The speaker proposes a shift from trying to suppress or rationalize emotions to actively working with them, introducing affect labeling—listening to and naming emotions—as a constructive method for parents to help children navigate their feelings.

Chapters

This whole idea that children are, children are supposed to be little adults where they're supposed to be rational, reasonable people is beyond stupid. And that's another great setup. And you can just go on and on and on and say, so how many have you been told that, you know, you got, you know, you gotta be rational and reasonable with your kids? You gotta create a nice calm environment. Yeah. And how does that work? How well does that work for you? The advice you're being given is wrong. And the reason it's, the reason it's being given to you is because nobody's really taken the time to figure out what really does work. So here's the basic proposition. You're emotional. Your children are emotional. Accept that. And now let's figure out how to work with those emotions constructively rather than try to shut them down or suppress them or be reasonable or be rational. And we're going to do that through a process of listening to emotions, which is called affect labeling.