How To Raise Kids Who Aren't Sheeple, Who Swim Upstream & Who Can Gracefully Engage In Divergent Thinking & The Art of Insubordination, With Todd Kashdan.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Podcast.

The idea of you having an authoritarian presence in your kids lives doesn't stop their hormones and their bioengineering to enter the romantic world. All it means is you lose access now and there's no point that you're gonna get to where all of a sudden, well, now that you've graduated high school, your opinion matters. Now that you've crossed the arbitrary threshold of a. I'm gonna listen to your opinion like you're.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

All right, folks, some time ago, not too long ago actually, I released an interview with the author of a very interesting book, very thought provoking book. The book was titled the Art of How to Dissent and Defy Effectively. And it was written by a guy named Todd Cashdan. And I actually wound up interviewing Todd and it was a fantastic interview about how to just gracefully be an insubordinate in an era in which many people are sheeple and swim downstream. The book really teaches you how to swim upstream, how to defy the status quo, how to stand up your rights instead of for what you believe in. And it's a great book for anyone who wants to create a world more justice and creativity and courage. And so that interview with Todd was fantastic. But there's one chapter in the book and Todd and I didn't spend too much time on this chapter, but it was about how to raise just super resilient and impactful children. How to make them or allow them or teach them to think for themselves in a very independent fashion. So I dug that section of Todd's book so much, and also just our conversation so much, I wanted to have him back on the show because as you might know by now, I'm working on a book myself called Boundless Parenting in which I interview 30 plus amazing parents from around the globe who share deep wisdom and practical advice on how you can raise better humans. And I wanted to showcase Todd in.

That book just because of his.

His unique approach and his thinking style and what it is that he's up to. So Todd's back and I'm going to put the show notes for everything, including my previous episode with Todd over at BenGreenfieldLife.com Impactful Kids. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com ImpactFulKids Todd, welcome back to the show.

Man, I am so psyched to be part of this crazily coolly named book.

Yeah, I Think it's gonna be pretty epic. And, you know, just, it allows me to just dig in and see these almost like repeated themes amongst parents, see differences amongst parents. And as I tell people, you know, my kids aren't yet fully grown. There's no proven model that they aren't gonna wind up in prison. But at the same time, I do know a lot of other parents who are doing a pretty good job who are even farther ahead than I am in the game. So I figure at the end of the day, the book's gonna be super duper helpful, at least in my own editing so far. The 800 plus pages that are in it thus far. I wish it had existed when I'd first become a parent.

I cannot tell you how many times they say, where was the parenting manifesto? When they just let you out of the hospital with two twins and say, hey, listen, you have a high school education, so good luck, you got this. And that's all we got to say to you.

Yep, exactly. Now, they don't teach you too much about how to raise a human, even though it seems like it should be a pretty important part of the curricular upbringing of a young human. Learning. Learning how to foster the introduction of new members of our species into the world. But alas, we're working on it though, man. That's part of this discussion. So tell me about your kids.

So I have three daughters. I'm part of that rare breed of man who, if you believe in karma, if you are not an acceptable dater during your young years, you get all women later in life to kind of. To make amends. I've got 15 year old twin daughters in high school freshman year, and their nine year old younger daughter who's in fourth grade.

Okay, got it. Yeah, I had forgotten your daughters were 15. They're actually pretty close to the age of my sons. You know, my sons are twins and they're 14 years old. So maybe we'll get together and bring the families to Disney sometime or Sea World or wherever people go on vacation these days. Legoland.

I suppose if we could get all Legoland, if we could get two 15 year olds and two 14 year olds to join us. That is a sign that we've done well as parenting.

We win. Win. And the interview right here. So in terms of your parenting approach, this first question that I have for you is just kind of a chance for you to maybe humble, brag a little bit and let people know about what it is that your kids are up to. So can you tell me a little bit more about what they do, what their interests are and how it is that you as a parent and I realize that it might seem like a little bit of a humble brag as you go through this. You as a parent, what is it that you're proud for them about right now?

Great, great question. So Chloe and Raven, my 15 year old twins, they have just entered the world of dating in their own incomprehensible way. There's about seven different steps now between being friends and dating someone, which I'm not going to go through because TikTok can offer that to somebody. And one of them, Raven, is on the high school soccer team. She made, she made the high school varsity volleyball team, she's on a travel soccer team. So she right now is a hardcore athlete. And the probably what I'm more proud of than that is because like you, I am really a big fan of mind, body, take care of them for the rest of your life is she has really gravitated towards the two years during the pandemic of me working out in the garage with elastic bands and dumbbells and kettlebells. And she wanted to learn everything, so I bought her gloves and we lived in that garage and it was, she wants to have an athletic Venus Serena Williams kind of body. Not a waif, not to be, you know, skinny. Like she, like she really embraces this new model of women of physically muscular.

Fit, agile, functional fitness type of stuff.

Exactly, exactly. So that's Raven and she's really, you know, I can think of back in, when she was around 4 or 5 years old and we'd go on car trips and I would just, you know, I'm a psychologist, I'd experiment on my kids all the time and I would do word association games of how creative is her thinking. And I would say meatball and then she would say unicycle or I would, you know, I would say, you know, light bulb. And then she would say, you know, you know, vegetarian hamburger. And it was so quick, the reaction time that I remember turning to her mom and be like, oh my God, like, like to figure out the associations in her brain, like how did one lead to the other one? You're supposed to say spaghetti when you have meatball. You're supposed to, you're supposed to say dark when you hear light. So she's the, she's a very creative, quick, extroverted thinking in terms, she's very extemporaneous. She processes information quick. It also has a dark side, right? You're blurting out things you're impulsive, but you also come up with answers quickly in social settings, which is really fun to interact with. Chloe is my more deliberative thinker. She's the analytical machine of my daughters. She reminds me. So my father was one of the first computer engineers for Apple back in the Newton days, long before it was popular and you had billboards and Steve Jobs existed.

Did he by the way? Did he transfer his employee ownership stock onto you so you're independently filthy rich now?

I should be, except he walked out of my family when I was 2.

So it's mostly stories that I hear.

About him as opposed to actually have. He's a part of my life, which is an interesting conversation for us of being a father when you didn't have a father figure when you were young is very interesting. But Chloe is, she's a very rational thinker. She comes up with really good arguments. You know, if I offer discipline towards her, she'll say like, listen dad, here's why it doesn't make sense, here's why you're hypocritical, here's why it's not going to work. And she's usually right and she thinks quickly about that. And I mean with Chloe, my 15 year old, I probably make more mea culpas the next day, which we'll get into, than any of my other kids because she is right more often than not. And she has the going to be a prosecuting attorney, a private investigator or chased down, you know, as a serial, chase down serial killers, as a profiler for the FBI. So that's her. She used to be really into sports and I think she got burnt out, which I'm sure a lot of parents can relate to by being really good really early. Other people, including myself, overly defining her as an incredibly exceptional athlete. Her hand eye coordination is something I could have only dreamed of. Think of Barry Sanders, think of Michael Jordan. Think of Peter Sampras. Athletes, when they jump in the air, they know where they are. Even if they're doing a 360 on a soccer field. That's Chloe.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. By the way, that's the first time I've ever heard someone called Pete Sampras. Peter Sampras.

Oh yeah. Is that. Am I wrong or right?

I don't know. I thought maybe you knew more than I did. But anyways, that's a rabbit hole. Go ahead.

Yeah, so lots of things to play with in there. And then Violet, my youngest, who's nine, she is the imaginative one and in some ways I'm parenting her a little bit differently because she's kind of the last licks on this thing. And she's got. She's still into stuffed animals, even though she's in fourth grade. But she has an entire world. Her entire closet has no clothes. It's just she will create these mausoleums and hotels and large landscapes where the animals have personalities, stuffed animals, and kind of. She'll still spend more money buying them, like food supplies, furniture, food trucks than she will spend on herself. And honestly, it's something we'll dive into is I'm such a big fan of training her to be as big of a divergent thinker as possible. And school provides nothing but convergent thinking that I'm not going to do a premature closure on any of this imaginary play. Even though most of her friends have kind of moved on into more parallel play sports and kind of outdoor activities. Like, she likes to design videos. And she's very perceptive at picking up other people's emotional states. She almost has the instincts of someone that was physically and emotionally abused, where they can recognize just by the pace of someone walking through the household whether this is going to be a good day or a bad day with their parent. But she does this with everyone. So she had this interpersonal intelligence that's off the charts.

Wow. Wow. Now, are you married, Todd?

Separated. Okay.

All right. So. So you're raising these girls as a. As a solo father, author. Do you actually work from home?

Well, from the pandemic, that's an onward. I've sort of changed my lifestyle where I'm going to be spending much more time with them until they go away to college. So, yes.

Okay, Got it. Got it. And so one thing that you already brought up that I think would be a perfect place to dive into when it comes to the unique ways in which you are raising your girls based on what you've learned from things like writing this insubordination book and your unique approach. You talked about training them in the skill of divergent thinking. What do you mean by that? And have you pulled that off? Yeah.

The second one is a tough question, which is why I'm glad you have a diverse series of parents that are going to talk in your book. The first one is essentially convergent thinking is imagine is you have a problem or situation with a clearly defined set of possibilities or answers. So if someone asks you, what's the quadratic formula? There's a very clear answer. If someone says to you, listen, can I have breakfast with. I need at least 30 grams of protein. Because I just read it in the New York Times yesterday. As someone who's 48 years old, it's important. Well, there's an answer. That's convergent thinking. The divergent thinking part is how do you get that protein? The diversion thinking part is, is the quadratic formula the best way to express the mathematical relationship with whatever it is you're thinking about? You're thinking about playing billiards, you're thinking about trying to create a party and thinking about where should people go and where should the furniture go. Once you have a more open ended range of possibilities of exploring terrain problems and decisions, you're moving into the creative world of diversion thinking. And there's also an element of this where as soon as you move away from conventional and orthodox approaches, you're moving into the world of divergent thinking. And a good example of that, not that we want to get too much into, stuck into kind of cultural issues that people are fighting around incessantly, is when someone, when someone offers an idea of, hey, you know, America started with the Mayflower. America started with the slave trade. America started with the Constitution. Those are all taught often in classes and by adult figures as if they are convergent questions. There's very clear answers. And just by me mentioning those three possibilities, it actually could involve great divergent thinking of thinking of, well, okay, when we think about what America is, what are we talking about? Are we talking about a thing? Are we talking about something that's inscribed in text? Are we talking about a culture? Is culture fixed? And as soon as you start exploring questions about the initial question, you're entering the realm of diversion thinking.

Now, are there specific strategies that you use to teach that? Because the reason I ask that is it seems, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the modern educational system largely specializes in teaching convergent thinking. You know, cooperation, putting a square peg in a square hole and a round peg in a round hole lining up in a row and kind of being a good little factory worker painting with a broad brush. There's obviously some exceptions to the rule and some notable exceptions to the rule in terms of public schools or Montessori academies, et cetera, that kind of stand out. But it seems to me that there must be some strategies to train a child in divergent thinking, even if they're simultaneously, as it sounds like your daughters are enrolled in a school that might specialize in a more convergent thinking type of education.

Yeah, it's very challenging when you're not doing homeschooling, which we don't. So they are in public education. There's so many things I do. So one thing I do is I walk my 9 year old daughter and I walked my 15 year olds until high school. Every single day of their lives I walked them to school, except if I was traveling abroad, so we're talking 95% of their days I walked into school. One thing that we. So there's a couple things that you every single morning, every morning I get up before them, work out and then I'll find something in the news just to kind of bring up to them but without me offering my lens of how to view that topic. So obviously as we're talking today, we just had the tragedy in Texas of 19 elementary school kids being shot down by an 18 year old. When I introduced that story to my daughters, obviously very different to the 15 year olds than to the 9 year old. I don't introduce my lens. I allow them space to actually offer their own thoughts and op EDS about that experience and then I'll build off of their experience. So when I talked about it to my 15 year olds, they told me that they heard about it before from their friends and on TikTok. And then I asked them, well, what's the information source? And then what did you hear that you think is true? And what did you hear that you think is you're not, you're not sure about? And it's that unsure piece that I play with almost every single day of their lives because the unsure in terms of what did they, what you know, what did you hear was the motivation behind the killing that happened there? When we go in there and they're like, I don't know, I'm this. So this leads to the next question which is there's no answer, which is what do you think the motivation is? So here you have an 18 year old, we know nothing else about them. Like what are your guesses? And so as they, you know, again, they're being raised by psychologists. So they brought up loneliness, they brought up bullying, you know, they brought up body dysmorphia, something that we talked about relatively recently. They brought up, maybe they're like, they don't have a good relationship with their parents, maybe they're not going to get into college. So they're talking about a whole number of different possibilities. And then it leads to the next question which is how would those adversities, if they happen, lead them down the path of they would actually bring a gun to school. And this is where you have the divergent Thinking and the critical thinking starts to pick up. So every single morning I have no idea where the conversation is going to go and I don't really care. It's really about just having time with them where I'm not the authority figure. We're not trying to find answers, we're just exploring really cool, interesting topics every day. That's one part, by the way, just.

A real quick thing about the current events piece. I think that's important. My son subscribed to a current events weekly called the Week. Fantastic little weekly digest of current events specifically targeted towards adolescents. Now that magazine arrives once a week and I actually read it when it arrives and then I give it to them to read. And by me reading it and knowing what they're reading as well, it provides really good fodder for the dinner table for me to actually say, hey, what do you think about what's going on in Ukraine right now? Do you think that Putin made the right decision? What do you think the people of Ukraine should do? What do you think we should do to help out? Do you think we should help out or do you think we're contributing to something that, that you don't believe in or stand for? And so I really agree that having some sort of current events digest, even though I know there's a lot of people who say you shouldn't look at the news, the news is negative, just keep it out of your lives. I think it actually is our prerogative to stay up to date on what's going on in the world, even if that simply means we're staying up to date on it so we can figure out how we can help people or contribute to society in some way. But having or being on the same page of the current events digest, that your children are to be able to foster discussion, I think is actually really important.

Yeah, I love imagining, Ben, your dinner conversation with your kid because there's a lot of pieces that come in there. One is you're giving the kid, you're giving your son agency or your sons to have agency in the conversation where they are contributing members. The other section of that is you're treating them as you are not the curator of a three pound brain. That's going to turn into something that's valuable, it's valuable now. And there's no point that you're going to get to where all of a sudden, well, now that you've graduated high school, your opinion matters. Now that you've crossed the arbitrary threshold of 18, I'm going to listen to Your opinion, like, you're starting now. And the thing that I like about that, that you do with your son, which I espouse as well, is one of the modern phrases I despise the most. I don't know if you feel the same way, is when people say, stay out of your lane. This just happened yesterday. It happens every three days with me.

And my response, I get that too, by the way. It's always, stick to fitness, bro.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my response is always the same, like, where do you think creative ideas come from? It comes from, how are you going to find the flaws knowing that you have so many biases and you have so much psychological conflict of interest in that this is your area, you have a paycheck that's dedicated to it. What is your motivation? To find the flaws and see the problems or see possible solutions. And, like, you want tons of people out of the lane. And here's where we get back to parenting. If you say you should stay in your lane, what you're saying is, is that no kid's voice matters because they don't have a lane yet. They're still roaming around the highways if there's no yellow lines or white lines. They're zigzagging and they're taking motor scooters and they're, you know, taking. You know, they're taking their bicycles up and down hills, going through people's yards like they don't have freaking lane. So when you say that, you're saying students and kids don't matter. It's only pseudo quasi experts that have vegetable soup after their names or people who have titles and degrees. And that is an absurd approach to a culture that's trying to continue to evolve and continue to improve in terms of decision making and getting rid of dysfunctional ideas and systems. Thank you for letting me air it out. As my therapist.

No, no problem. That's what I'm here for, bro. As far as the actual development of the style of thinking that you're trying to foster in your daughters, do you actually use any type of curriculum or books or systems or models or resources that you rely upon? Do you just kind of piece things together on your own or. Or do you have any type of approach as far as resources are concerned?

The answer really is no, except for this. After being trained as a clinical psychologist, I found one framework to be most beneficial to me above all and to my clients, which was acceptance and commitment therapy, which, in a nutshell, comes down to being in the present moment, being accepting, accepting, and exploratory of experiences that are outside the self and in the self and engaging in behaviors that are aligned with your values. So it's got these three. It's a triangle, right? You've got presence, you have exploration, and then you have commitment. And that approach to psychological experiences and that approach to being very situationally aware of what behaviors will work best in a particular situation and not being rigid in your thinking or rigid in your behavior is something that I've adopted for my own life. And it's something that kind of. I'm training my kids in as well. You know, one example of this, you know, one of my kids, you know, I've seen that, well have seen a therapist before. And one of the difficulties that they had was just this mental chatter of self doubt and self deprecation, you know, that I'm not good enough, I'm not attractive enough, you know, you know, I'm fat. You know, these, this is at a very young age. And what I did with the therapist was say, listen, I want them to work on the skill, which I can't do it because I don't want to add therapists, formal therapists. On top of being a dad, a coach, you know, and a friend and everything else is I want them to be able to. Want them to be able to see that their thoughts are. Are just these words that your brain constantly producing and that you are not. Your identity is not attached to any of the statements that your brain says. Your brain's always talking to you. And just like a friend that sometimes has good advice and sometimes gives horrible advice, your brain is the same way. Just because it's attached to you doesn't mean the advice is always good or that its statements are factual. And I want them to have this relationship with their brain that they could say like, okay, listen, that's an interesting idea. It's an interesting hypothesis that you say that I'm fat. Let me go test that. Let me go kind of. I can ask three people. I can see whether over the past week has anybody pointed out that I'm overweight? So no to both questions. Okay? So right now I have less confidence in that hypothesis that I'm fat. And that approach fits with acceptance and commitment therapy. And it's a nice psychological toolbox to train my kids to be more tolerant of strain that arises as they're navigating their social world.

Reminds me just a little bit of something that might go hand in hand with mindfulness based meditation. You know, observing your thoughts and feelings as you meditate without judging them or trying to change them and simply stepping back and paying attention to almost like what your brain is doing, almost as though you're kind of observing yourself in the third person. I think that mindfulness based meditation or some form of meditation in which you're just sitting and allowing yourself to observe your thoughts without judgment is pretty important, even for kids. I actually do meditation every morning with my kids for about 10 minutes. And then we do a repeat kind of self examination of the day at the end of the day. And I think it actually, really, really helps them to get to know themselves and to be able to understand their thought patterns.

All of these models steal from other models. So I mean, yeah, this is definitely Venn diagram overlap with mindfulness meditation. My kids, I mean, we're New Yorkers, so my kids are like me. Hyperactive hypomanic meditation has never, never worked. What works for them is what has worked for me. I mean, they have a good genetic linkage to me, which is when we do activities, we really absorb ourselves to the degree where we lose our sense of self and our ego in the activity. And that's the form of meditation that we use. Whether it's playing soccer, whether it's, you know, lifting weights, lifting weights in particular, whether it's, you know, whether it's cardiovascular activity in there is our form of meditation. And I say this, not just about what I do, is that I'm really strong proponent of. Listen, everybody has to figure out, here's a methodology that works as you're saying, mindfulness meditation. Do not think that the only way to do it is to kind of sit down or lay down on a cushion if it's within an activity. The more that the activity is routine and simplistic, the easier it is potentially of like, maybe that's the way that it'll work for you. Some people it's gardening, some people it's knitting.

Yeah, for my kids it's probably art. They do a lot of painting that I would classify as that style of activity. One thing that you mentioned, by the way, that I think is important to note, you know, especially for parents or to be parents that are listening in, is the idea that you kind of outsourced some of that, that cognitive awareness and the assistance to a third party. And I think that's important for a couple of reasons. So that as you noted, you're not stepping into the role of therapist as parents, you know, especially when that's your profession.

It's kind of like, you know, bringing.

Your work home in a way. But Then also I think that it's important to rely upon others and accept that even if you don't have the mentality of it takes a village to raise a child. Outsourcing certain things can be important. For example, my sons have done rite of passage and traditionally rites of passages are not overseen by the father. They're overseen by an uncle or a tribal leader or some other man who is overseeing it. So that the child is actually able to. To cut the connection with the father, to not be dependent on the parent as they're going through a difficult scenario so that they're required to think for themselves or at least not think that their parents going to be there all the time to help them. Because that's simply, as we all know, not the case as you grow old. So they have a guy named another guy who's going to be featured in the book. Tim Corcoran, he's their wilderness survival instructor. He oversaw the rite of passage and he even does a monthly mentorship call with them as they go through their nature awareness and self awareness course that they go through right now. And sometimes I get a little jealous as a father, you know, listening at his long calls with my sons in which he's telling them stories, hearing their thoughts and feelings and emotions. But then I think, no, no, this is good that they have someone other than their parents teaching them something that goes beyond what some. What they might learn in a traditional schooling setting. You know, I'm not talking about the idea of outsourcing your entire education to a schooling system which I think is a failure of a lot of parents. Right?

Like sending kids off to school.

School and assuming all the work is done and you have nothing left to do when they come home aside from just hang out with them and have fun. There's a lot that you have to teach them. You know, the convergent versus the divergent thinking patterns that you were talking about earlier being a perfect example. But this idea of having other people come on board to actually help to foster your child's progression towards becoming a fully grown human being, I think that's important. I think some parents kind of struggle with that, with that idea of opening themselves up to having other people who are pretty close to playing the role of a parent be in their kids lives.

This might be one of 20 places that are the most important parts of your book. I love that you mentioned how you sometimes feel a little bit jealous because I think by naming it as parents and caregivers we can kind of really kind of do this better. So I do this a lot. They have a bunch of the parent. I mean, it's different. I was, you know, when you were an 80s kid, you would sleep over someone's house for sometimes for like a week, then not come home. I mean, it was just a different environment. And I'm not saying it was better or worse, it was different. And to try to foster some of the good parts of the 80s, I've encouraged by talking to my kids, also talking to the parents of kids who they really like click with and then talk to them like, listen, I really value that my kids appear like very comfortable disclosing stuff to you, especially because I have a cross sex relationships. I'm the only male in the house with three daughters. And so some, some of these moms that are out there, I communicate with them, like, listen, I hope that they tell you stuff. You don't have to tell me everything that they say. I wish that they would tell me all the things they tell you. I'm just glad you exist in their lives. And I show them a ton of gratitude. I should give them a ton of very explicit free range to work with my kids however they want to. Right their styles of incentives and punishments and interacting with them. And with that, my kids regularly say, it's like we have other moms and dads that exist in our lives. And it's so touching to me. And yet still, as you said, there's a level of jealousy of, oh my God, I should be able to do it all. Like, why would I need other parents to play this role? But my kids need a little bit of a buffer or some degree of a force field between the person that's basically responsible for their physical welfare and then all these experiences they're having in their lives. They need some separation there and it's good for them also because they learn how to communicate with other adults and that just prepares them for real world practical intelligence.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Now, regarding your book, the Art of Insubordination, you know, in writing that book and preparing to write that book, were there certain elements of knowledge that you learned that you, you specifically made it a point to pass on to your daughters?

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's this great, like this. The fun part about writing a book is you get to unearth science that nobody's talking about. And there's a guy in Greece, I'm not gonna even try to pronounce his name, who basically like he would introduce.

I'll bet it has a variety of constants, including most notably K In it though, right?

There's a lot of O's and U's in there unnecessarily. And he would, he tested out this of maybe we can get people into science, kids into science if we told the stories not just about that there are these amazing innovators, but the psychological and social difficulties of being an innovator. I mean, one of the things about if you're Galileo or Tesla or, you know, is that you get socially persecuted because you're basically being told, listen, this is not the way. You can't do it your way. You're gonna under house arrest, we're gonna try to kill you. If it's involves something with civil rights that happens there. So you have this researcher in Greece that few people know about who basically asked the question, how do we get people interested in science and innovation who show no passion for this? And he tested out of. If you tell the stories of people like Galileo or Nikola Tesla and you don't just talk about their inventions, you talk about the social difficulties they had, the adversaries. So Tesla and Edison had for decades, they would subvert their own work, they would try to steal each other's patents, they would try to burn down each other's laboratories. So that's part of the storyline. And then there's Tesla's loneliness and his difficulty like, of having, you know, friendships and romantic relationships because he was so obsessed with his work. So this lack of balance in his life. And if you tell the stories with the emotions and you know, the psychology in there are. People are interested. And he found, not only is this the case, but people are more interested in being a scientist is they realize like, oh, it's, this is exciting and challenging and this is like climb. This is like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. And this is like fighting for the civil rights of people who are being marginalized. This is an adventure. And it's not just learning formulas, learning math and learning engineering. And that approach is something that I've adopted having learned that into the kids lives. So for example, for Martin Luther King.

Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day in school I would talk about the things that they wouldn't talk about in school. So one of the interesting things about Martin Luther King Jr. Is that he had some tough, he had a tough marriage and he had some very interesting friendships that kind of frayed at the seams because you had some people that wanted to have a more violent approach for the civil rights of blacks in America. And he wanted a nonviolent approach and having conversations about how he navigated that humanizes him. That here's a Florida guy who had a lot of infidelities, who had a lot of difficulties with friendships, who made some questionable decisions, and yet he changed the world. And when you do it that way, when you tell this story with the warts and all, then all of a sudden a kid doesn't just look up to Martin Luther King Jr. They say, oh, someone like me who's all messed up with the weird jagged profile of strengths and weaknesses can be a Martin Luther King Jr. And that's what you really want for kids, is you don't want them to idolize people. You want them to see templates of what's possible. Now.

You said your twins are 15. How old is the other daughter?

Nine.

Nine, okay. So having gone through that many years of child rearing already, are there things that you did with the 9 year old that are different than what you did with your 15 year old as far as something you learned raising them that you did or didn't do with your nine year old?

The category would definitely be physical and emotional affection. I mean, when kids are young and you can carry them, I mean, I was like someone from a third world country. I mean, I had them on my back, they'd be in a Bjorn, they'd be physically next to me. But when they get older, for my older ones, I kind of let them loose and stop hugging them as much or tucking them in. Every single night. And my nine year old, every single day, I will make an effort to come home from a concert early and miss. And miss, you know, the. You know, miss. What's it called when they have the. The epilogue to a concert? The combat.

The encore.

The encore. Thank you. Oh, my God, how embarrassing. As a music lover. Okay, so I will miss an encore from an amazing band like Pearl Jam, where they normally play cover songs of Jimi Hendrix to make sure I tuck in my kid. Like it's so important, it's so essential to my life that they go to bed knowing they are physically loved and emotionally loved by them. And I don't think I did that as well. I think my masculinity and my being raised by a single mom who couldn't do everything as well as she optimally could, but she did amazing. Not having that physical affection as much I want to. I got caught up in how I was raised as opposed to, I can invent anything any way I want to raise my kids. And I just, I think I got it better. I got this right with my 9 year old.

Do you ever struggle with the idea? Because obviously, I mean, I assume they're going back and forth between your place and mom's place. Do you ever struggle with things she's teaching them that you might disagree with or vice versa? And how do you navigate that, like in terms of conversations? Like, I would imagine that it's a little bit more difficult when, you know, when the parents are together and living in the home. And there might be a little less fluidity in terms of the type of things your daughters are learning from her versus what they're learning from you. I mean, have you run into that at all?

Yeah, of course. It's a. SO one. I mean, one thing this gets more into relationships other than parenting is I think people are starting to realize you can create any type of relationship you want to. And so one of the things is when my 9 year old says, hey dad, can you stay here for the night? I almost always say yes, and so I'll sleep at the house. And so the boundaries are much more fluid than I think the prior generation, much less two generations before we get along with that.

When you say you'll sleep at the house, you mean you'll sleep at mom's house.

That's right. Yeah.

Okay, got it.

Yeah. So multiple. I mean, whenever they ask, and I'll often ask them, hey, do you want me to sleep over it? Because it's no big deal. I mean, what's happening? I mean, the only reason we have non permeable boundaries between two houses is because society said that's what happens when people separate. But there's no rule. And I think this is a good lesson about everything in life is what's the norm? And then is that norm working for you? This is the conversation we had last time. And so we have these much more diffuse boundaries about that. And some of the areas where we have disagreements, we will regularly say, this is a place where I want us to be united front or okay, let's just make sure that you're respectful to my approach to this. And I think if you can separate it into those two categories, then you can navigate this a lot easier. So what we don't do is have, you know, a battle of MSNBC News versus Fox News in terms of like two approaches that and you get. Your job is to choose which one you like. It's more like, listen, we have two perspectives on this. There's probably other perspectives of looking at this. Here's what I think, here's what mom thinks, and there's no right or Wrong answer. The thing is that the way that you're doing it now is not the best way. And here's why. And I think this is a. So just take a concrete example. Profanity. As a New Yorker, I'm very comfortable with even my nine year old, she just saw her first R rated movie this week. So my, my 15 year old, her first R rated movie was Deadpool, which is an amazing first R rated movie. As we were, a plane was stuck on the tarmac for three and a half hours and she just asked me, can I watch my first R rated movie again? My approach is, yeah, of course. Listen, we're stuck in a horrible situation right here. You know, relatively speaking, I'm like, let's enjoy it. And this, if you hit something weird as you're watching it, like, we'll talk about it. And what a great one.

But you were aware of what she was like, you were aware of what was on the screen. So if there were conversations that needed to come up about something she was seeing, you were able to have those conversations and kind of like foster her introduction to certain elements of, let's say the, the, the, the rougher aspects of society that you might not have been exposed to yet.

Right. So, and because I've seen the movie multiple times, I knew if there was a sexual innuendo that I didn't want her to hear, I would just off her headphones like, hey, hold on for 20 seconds and you're back in the movie.

Oh, Ryan Reynolds never has any sexual innuendo. So I don't know what you're talking.

About, but the beauty was actually watching so much of it go over her head and her laughing at something that had nothing to do with the dialogue. I mean, again, this is the fun part. Enjoy. Like parenting should be fun. Along with the difficult, you know, moral, the moral imperatives you're trying to introduce to your kids. So to go back to kind of the complexities of two different perspectives that they're hearing, which is basically any kid that has two parents, you're going to get two perspectives. Is there's something really powerful of having the humility to realize this is not for you to win. The question is, what's in the best interest of the kid and for the best interest of the kid, sometimes multiple perspectives is great. So when it comes to profanity, I am of the belief, let your kids be exposed to all of the scary, difficult things in life. In the safe environment of a caregiver who's going to be able to answer questions and be non judgmental as opposed to them learning about profanity being the last one of all their kids to learn it, and then it being like an unnecessary humiliating enterprise. And they learn the wrong things, the wrong ways, and they don't learn which words can be said in front of an adult, why you wouldn't use this word. So for me, learn all of the profanity that exists and just you can't use them in front of other people outside the household. And so there's no taboo. You take away the taboo. And kids don't have the desire to be delinquent with their language outside of the household.

And that's what I think doesn't create a, like a forbidden fruit. You know, it is kind of funny because I grew up in a very strict household. I mean, we even had my mom's interviewed for the book and she talks about this in her chapter. I was chuckling. So I was editing it the other day. We had this thing called TV Guardian when I was growing up. And it would literally make the movie quiet every time a swear word or profanity was uttered. And what would happen is me and my brothers became obsessed with reading mouths, figuring out what these people were saying that was getting covered up every time it went silent. And then we'd go and look up those like, it almost made us good at swearing to have that forbidden fruit of swearing but you know, placed on the threshold every time that we were watching tv. Now, now with my sons, you know, I, I do use a couple of websites. I use one called Common Sense Media and I use another one called Screen it to, to, to look up movies before we watch them. And for me, it's not a no go if the movie have sex or violence or swearing, but I'll always look at the context of it and also, you know, investigate, you know, is it the hero? Is it glorified? You know, is it something, you know, that, that's, that's depicting the good person in the movie doing something that we might consider to be a moral failure? Or is it more depicting the moral failures as something that, that, that the evildoers in the movie would be doing? And in most cases, you know, I'll be okay with the latter as long as it's not explicit and, and you know, extremely graphic. And I can explain it to my sons. It's very similar with swearing, right? Like I've taught them every single swear word, exactly what it means and the very rare context in which those swear words would be acceptable. Like here's where the F word could be used for dramatic emphasis, or here's where the sh word could be used to show an emotion of disgust or something like that. But don't use these words in this situation, this situation, this situation, be careful who use them around, etc. Etc. And so I do agree that you have to. Instead of completely shielding your child from things that they're going to experience at some point when they're outside of the house, it's better for them to experience that when they're actually under your care. I mean, even things like pornography, for example. Even though I have protection software, one called Canopy, installed on my son's itouches and on their MacBook so that they don't accidentally stumble across something that might shock them or might show them something that they really aren't ready to experience, I also do not completely shield them from aspects of sex or the opposite sex. And what I mean by that is we're. We're very open and transparent in our household about how sex works. You know, what happens. And, you know, I've taken them through all the anatomy books and rather than them Googling, you know, what does a naked woman look like when they're 10 years old? You know, they've gone through all that stuff with dad. And so I think it really is important as parents that we take on the responsibility of fostering, you know, some. Some of the more fringe and risky aspects of the world and exposing our kids to that in the house before they grow up and discover on their own or, you know, find something on, you know, a sleepover at their friend's house, you know.

Yeah, and let me play with that. With. For the critics who are listening to this conversation right now, which is you. You're not doing it also just for your kid to learn it and so that they can kind of. Kind of apply this to their own knowledge system. It's also psychological armor. So, you know, you're raising boys, I'm raising girls. So for me, I want them to be exposed to pornography because I want them to realize is that there are some boys, this is the. This is the only way that they're learning about their, you know, their bodies and how they're supposed to relate to women. I'm focusing on heterosexual relationships here because my kids are heterosexual. So in this case, I want them to recognize the cue when there's a. When there's a boy that pressures them to do something which is. And the intent is actually not malevolent. It's just they don't know Better. And here's one of the avenues where boys are learning things from. And so if you don't have the boys that don't have a Ben as a dad and they don't get to bounce this off somebody, I want them to pick up like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey. This isn't. This is not what romance or a relationship with me is like. So I've trained my girls to have psychological armor, and I've trained them also is to not fall under the role of the social script where there's, you know, boys are the hunters and they're the hunted. I've trained them of great neutrality in terms of, listen, here's. Here's what's going to happen most likely in terms of the scripts. If, you know, if boys spent more time with women, they're going to be treated like heroic creatures for girls who are in high school, they're going to be treated kind of have the kind of, you know, the kind of. The, you know, this kind of slutty kind of stereotypes can be applied to them. Your job is kind of basically not to. But be in the camp of accepting what they're going to say about you or apply to everybody else. Like be like a heroine waiting for every. Every other girl of just hanging with the opposite sex. 50% of the people you associate with is the other sex. This doesn't mean that you are doing anything with them. It means that you gravitate towards that energy, those personalities that happen there. So I'm training them to be very, very agenetic in their lives and not allow any. No matter how modern society is, we still have these incredibly divergent, acceptable modes of behavior romantically for boys and girls. And the only way that you could have your kid transcend that is, is for them. Serendipitously, they figured out themselves, which is unlikely, or more probabilistically is you work with them. Here are the likely scripts, here's what you can do with them, and here's why they're relatively. They're nonsense. There's just not the Ten Commandments that Moses is bringing down on, you know, on rock in terms, these are laws. These are just beliefs that people have held and pushed down for, you know, a few hundred years. That's all they are. And you get to challenge them anytime that you want to. And I will always defend you if you have good, benevolent intent as you're doing it. And this is how I approach their lives. And because of that, I get all the intel that I want from my kids. They tell me everything about their lives because I don't judge them and as much as humanly possible. And part of the reason for that is I really want them to kind of figure themselves out their own like who they are as distinct from me and their mom. And the other one is, is that I want, is I want more intel. So the only way you get access to intel is can you be open and receptive to hearing something that you don't want to hear. So when your kid tells you they tried pot and your kid tells you they drank a beer before their time, if you slam down too hard on them, great. You punish them. And now you lost access to information. So for the future, you know, micro delinquency that they engage in.

Yeah, yeah. It's so interesting hearing you talk about raising girls and especially you know, when it comes to relating to boys. And we get, we got on this, this chat when we were bringing up pornography, for example. You know, from my perspective on my end, you know, I'm educating my boys about it. From the standpoint of how do you think you're going to interact with women when you're training your mind to objectify them in that matter or how do you think you're going to interact with this or that girl if you're fantasizing about her or masturbating about her or something like that and then you're hanging out with her at a birthday party, it's going to totally change the way that you interact with her and what you think about all of a sudden. She's not a sacred human being or a friend. She's somebody who you're objectifying sexually. It's very interesting to hear the difference between raising boys and fostering their thought patterns versus raising girls.

Yeah. And there's, I mean, I love that what we're modeling here because these are not like, these are not warring factions. These are, I mean this is the origin of the greatest source of well being in people's lives, which is healthy romantic relationships and friendships. And if you, if you, if you're not willing, I mean, just think about how many fathers that you've met, that I've met over the years, which is want to come out. That's why I work out. I'm going to come out with my guns, I'm going to intimidate these kids that come to the house. Nobody's going to touch my daughters whatsoever. Just think about what that attitude, the idea of you having an authoritarian presence in your kids lives doesn't stop their hormones and their, you know, their bioengineering to enter the romantic world. All it means is you lose access now and basically and you've stunted the growth of your kids to figure out what works and what doesn't. And it's complicated. And you know, people, you know, I'm 48 and I haven't figured it out yet. So how do you expect your, you know, your 15, 16, 17, 18 year old to figure this out if you have this machismo approach that's actually overriding your kids motivations, intentions, attitudes and personality traits?

Yeah, it's tough.

It's tough.

But you know, hopefully this conversation is helping some people out with that. And you know, one, one thing that comes to mind, it's a little bit of a shift from the discussion we're having right now, but I got to ask it because you're a dad with twins. I know it's even more difficult, but in terms of like the one on one time, have you decoded that? Like, do you, do you have protocols for really carving out quality one on one time with your girls?

Yeah. And the reason that I'm able to figure this out is because I'm a twin also. So I'm a twin with twins. And when my parents got divorced and my dad left us when we were 2, I got a letter when I was about 17 years old, one of my cousins gave me a letter of like, listen, you've never seen your dad's side of the story. So just, just as some background information, my mom passed away when I was 12. I was raised by my grandmother, so I really had no male. And my grandfather died a year before my mom. So I had no father figure. My grandfather figure also kind of. So I had no male figure in my teens, adolescent years or later. And so when I was about 22, around then I got some letters from my father where my cousin said, listen, you've never known his side of the story. And this letter was really tragic. It was an apology. It was an apology that he never differentiated between my twin brother and myself and he never spent sufficient time with us individually. And part of it was, part of, part of the divorce was he only got us for the weekend. And because of that he just, it was so little time that he couldn't figure out how to separate time with my brother and myself. That letter, long before I had kids, had a profound impact on me of I don't want to reconcile with my father, but I want to make sure that if I have kids, I spend sufficient time one on One. So one thing that I do is part of my work is doing public speaking around the world is I'll take my kids separately with me. And so Raven had came with me to Japan and I gave a talk out there and we climbed Mount Fuji. We explored Japan beforehand in terms of learning some of the language to make sure that we can start some conversations. We hired a guide together, we went to temples together, we did everything together. We Woke up at 5:30 in the morning and kind of took the rule was no cabs unless necessary when we travel. So all mass transportation. And so she got to see all of that cultural, that culture shock and cultural anxiety of not knowing what to say, not not sure where we are, not knowing what to do and experience that with me. And as you're pointing out or alluding to, that one on one experience is like the most profound moment in my relationship with Raven. And I've been meaning to write an article about that trip to Mount Fuji because you know, if I died today, like that would be that two week period is what created our relationship today. Like it's cemented for both of us. And then so, you know, for Chloe and for Violet, you know, the idea is like traveling with the individually you learn so much about a person. There's so much grumpiness, there's so much novelty, there's so much discovering of how people respond to stress and potential opportunities that you don't get that in your domesticated life. And I strongly encourage not just one on one time with my kids, but literal adventures with one on one with my kids.

Yeah, I almost got chills when you were talking about that letter because that's a little tiny piece of angst for me. Always questioning, gosh, are my kids going to grow up and wish, you know, their names are river and Taryn, you know, is river going to grow up and wish he'd have more one on one time with dad? Or is Taryn going to grow up and wish like he had some time away from his brother river to be able to express himself in a different way. And you know, I do carve out time. You know, we go on one on one dates every month. I go on walks with them, we do eye gazing at night, you know, one on one solo once a week where it's like five minutes of playing a song, hands on each other's hearts, looking deep into each other's eyes, just not saying anything or you know, saying very trite or you know, just like short things like I love you or you mean so much to Me. And at the same time, though, I'm constantly asking myself, gosh, I do kind of like you're talking about Todd, like a one on one vacation with one of them or, you know, it just makes me think about the importance of that all the more. So thanks for sharing.

I mean, what you do with your boys, I've never met anyone remotely who does that with their kids. I mean, that's amazing. I can say that having a dog is also a nice thing because going for walks and intentionally choosing one kid to come with you and there's so many opportunities to swap out, and this is a lesson from being a clinical psychologist, is particularly with boys, but also just with teenagers in general, is talking side by side. It's amazing how unfiltered the conversation comes when you don't have the eye gazing and you have to have the freedom to kind of let your, let your, your body go elsewhere as you're talking. I just noticed that in the car, shooting hoops, walking the dog. This is when real intimate details of their lives comes out about, you know, feelings of, am I, you know, was I depressed as I was experiencing this despair here? The rejections, the doubts, and also the triumphs of. In terms of, like, the things. There are things that your kids want to tell you that they won't tell anyone else because it seems so stupid. Because in terms of them, you know, them figuring out how to do, you know, an ollie on a skateboard, that's a weird thing to tell your teenage friends. But your dad and your mom and your primary caregivers, your grandparents, like, they want to hear everything. And so your job is to really be receptive and curious and exploratory for not just the bad stuff, but for like the wins and the accomplishments and the achievements and really breaking it down into molecular parts. Like, tomorrow night is going to be my youngest 9 year old. She's going to be in a volleyball tournament. And when we go after her practices, which I try to go to every single one, because she wants to be there, not because I'm a helicopter parent. I would rather not be there because I'd like to give her the independence, but it's whatever she wants. And I can point out of, hey, listen, you know, I noticed that, like, you're getting a lot more, you're, you're doing a lot, a lot better job of like standing on your toes and your lateral movements side to side. My God, you're getting so much closer to the ball so much often that molecular detail that win, it's not that she got the winning point in the game or that she had 30 bumps. I'm noticing like her physical movement of her, you know, of her calf muscles and her toes is different. And I say this because to me it's this attention to detail which is a marker to them that I care about their well being, because I do care about their well being. It's not enough to say, nice job getting an A in science. It's not enough saying nice job. You're now a brown belt in taekwondo. Like the very small details trains your children. This I strongly believe. And it trains them that there are milestones that are unmarked by society because there aren't words to capture it. And your job is to find the words to find all the mile markers on their mission in every domain of their life. That's interesting. Or that they care about.

Yeah, I love that. Well, you know, I've got a few kind of fun and final questions for you, Todd. These are going to be interesting to hear your feedback on. So if your child or your children could inscribe anything on your gravestone after you've passed, you know, it could be a big gravestone if you want.

Doesn't have to be a small one.

What do you wish and hope that they would write? Like, what do you want them to most remember about you or remember you for?

I think the unique one is that you taught me how to be an independent, critical thinker in the world that can create my own path through life.

Independent, creative thinker in the world who can create my own path in life.

I really spend a lot of time, I mean, you know, I mean, I wrote a whole book on this. I really spent a lot of time of them. You have to find your own niche and really allow it to deviate from anyone else's approach to living their lives. I mean, it's like the conversation we had before about, you know, the way that you can have your marriage. I have a friend of mine who, you know, who just decided that like, you know, it's. They might have a better relationship if they live in separate apartments, they're married. But they actually realized that spent living together five days a week, seven days a week wasn't working and now they're happier. And many people look on that and say, oh, there must be something wrong with their relationship. It's like it's no, this is their personality, their values, this is what works. And if it's not in favor infringing on anyone else's well being, we should just look and say, cool thanks for pointing out another way. And I want my girls to actually have that approach to everything that they do.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. I like it. All right, so what do you, what do you think they're going to say is their fondest memory of being raised by you something that you do on a regular basis for them, for example, or something they wake up to or something you do at night, something that they'll think back specifically, like a specific memory that you think will really come to mind for them?

Well, I'll do one for each kid. I mean, Raven is definitely Mount Fuji. I mean, one of the things about climbing Mount Fuji is we spent overnight in. They have different levels as you climb the mountain lodges. And we stayed at a lodge and she was sick and I have this cute picture of she kind of got like the cold or the flu. And she's laying on her stomach and her palm is up backwards, she's holding a wad of tissues. And I was like, God, this girl did not complain once climbing this whole mountain. And she's got some illness. And she's. I think she was nine when she climbed Mount Fuji with me in there. And I, and I took her and when we got to the top of that mountain, we got there, you know, we left with, with the, the 20 something crew at 4:30 in the morning so it could be there with the sunrise and holding her because it was. It's so cold on top of Mount Fuji and we did not dress appropriately. Holding her, drinking hot chocolate on the, on top of Mount Fuji and saying like that. Like, literally, we are on the top of the world in a foreign country that. Where we can't speak the language is. That's the moment for me and Raven. I mean, and I have pictures of it of like being above the clouds like the films. And it's just, it's, you know, I mean, it just excites me just to.

Even talk about it out loud. Oh my gosh. Like, speaking of common threads throughout this book, some of the most amazing parents, they have gone on some kind of adventure with their child that elicited even a little bit of discomfort. Something you might even consider to be like a mild rite of passage for a child. But usually it's like climbing a mountain, taking them on their first fishing expedition or hunting expedition, going and doing something hard, some kind of hike or tour or climb. And it's something that pops up over and over again, getting outside the norm of their extracurriculars and baseball and football and volleyball games, just going off and Doing something epic. So I get it and I'm sure she'll remember you for that. So what about the other two?

Yeah, I love the rite of passage. It's such an antiquated term that should come back into the modern day life as we have less religiosity and less tight knit communities. So thank you for bringing that term back in. So Chloe used to be, she is the greatest cash in athlete ever. And so when she played soccer, we would travel 3, 5 hours to get to some of her games. And there was, there was one game in the rain. They made the finals of a soccer tournament and then she scored this goal and then she came right over the sidelines to give me a hug. I mean, what I love is that she was young and she's never been trained. That kind of stoic approach of like, hey, when you score, act like you've been there before. I've never believed in that. I believed in like, listen, savor the most. Like, don't be a prick and jump and point at the other team. But if you're excited, why would you suppress the emotions in that moment? I mean, it's just, it's. I mean these are, this is what you. This is, this is what sports. This is what rite of passes are about. And just on the sideline, me hugging her and just kind of like, and, and explicated exactly how she got from midfield to score that goal in detail. Like that moment of like this like real pinnacle of like winning, winning the game for her team. That's me and Chloe, like, that was just like it was her moment and I just made sure that it got stuck in her brain. Dog eared, underlined, italicized by like really describing exactly what she actually did because it's so natural for her that she probably didn't even notice. Wow. Wow. And for Violet, God, there's so many freaking. I mean, honestly, like nobody makes me laugh as much as Violet. I mean, I mean I'll just, I think what she will remember is like just yesterday, last night we, we went to one of these like modern Chuck E. Cheeses that aren't as creepy and they don't have vermin. People dressed up as vermin chasing you around. And we won these balls, these big huge like rubber balls and a claw machine. And just even just last night we were going to play ping pong against each other and she's like, hey, do you want to like, like I invented this new game. And we basically kind of try to keep the ball up as much as humanly possible. And every time you do more than five, you have to take a step back. And we were smashing each other in the face and, like, hitting each other, like, in the privates, and then just trying, you know, trying to gas each other out, like, you know, by eating as much black beans as possible as we were down there as just a. As a strategy. And we would just laugh so much when we kind of design these games that I think that she's going to remember these moments of, like, we constantly are creating new rules for every single thing that we do together. And that's. I hope she'll remember them, because I write this down in my journal of delights every day of. It's, you know, they're like the. Again, it's. It's the idea of being a diversion thinker of. You have rules for games, but we're not trying to be in the Junior Olympics here. We're just trying to have fun and trying to also try and, like, figure out a way to kind of make it a competitive approach to doing things. And why would you not futz with the rules and add all sorts of idiosyncratic approaches? And we do this, and damn, do we laugh, man, it's like such. Such a great salve to the tragedy of the human existence.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're an inspirational father. I mean, just, you know, the information that you're sharing with me definitely convinces me that you care a lot about your daughters, which is.

Which is just.

Yeah, it's inspirational. I mean, it's gonna be really cool to be able to feature you within the book. You know, I take a lot of these interviews and I. I turn, you know, I take the best of the best, and I write out little articles and essays and chapters. And so it's going to be cool to take some of the. Some of the snippets from this interview and weave it all in. But there is one more question, Todd, and that is, what message. What one message for parents would you put onto a billboard?

The key to being a good parent is recognizing that flexibility is more important than positivity. And I know there's a lot of messages about being empathetic and rightfully so and compassionate and positive, but I think the most important thing is being flexible, and that's that sometimes what kids want is novelty. And some kids. What kids want is structure, but they're not going to tell you, you know. You know, we haven't talked about screens, thankfully, because that comes up in almost too many of my conversations. But, you know, kids, they Won't tell you they want structured time, but they do want, like, limits and constraints and other times they need absolute freedom. And your job is not to be about positivity. Your job is to be agile enough to kind of to know your kid well enough. And also keep updating your beliefs about your kids as you learn, as they learn and change over the course of time. Be flexible enough to realize, oh, what they need here is for me to step back away and not ask any questions. What they need here is for me to elaborate on their stories and help them do that by asking questions, a ton of questions. And what they need here right now is someone that's going to support them because they really like this kid, even though I think they're a bad seed that they're potentially going to be dating right now. Because now is not the time to point out all the flaws of this kid. Now is like a kid who's really proud that they landed, like, a really cool catch in their eyes. And later maybe you might kind of point out those things. And so flexibility trumps positivity.

Flexibility trump's positivity. I love it. And related to the screen time issue, don't worry that it didn't come up. Sometimes I think it's best to. To not make it as big a deal as many other people make it. Like, for example, my sons have a phone. We didn't make a big deal at all. They didn't even know they were getting one. We just got them a phone and put it in their room and said, hey, if you ever need a phone, here you go. You can call us or do whatever you need with it. And we don't even talk about screens. We don't set screen time rules. They're probably on a screen for like 15 minutes a day. We just make the rest of life strength so much more fun as far as, like, what we put outside and the toys and games and books and family adventures that. And mom and I also, when there's downtime, we aren't looking at a screen. We're playing musical instruments and hanging out and, you know, and hitting the jazz mitten ball or playing tennis or, you know, playing body ball and cornhole outside. So our sons have just grown up, like, seeing the functional utility of a screen. And that's about it. It's like, oh, we use this for business and I make a phone call and that's. That's it. And so, yeah, it is interesting. I think sometimes when you make screens a big deal, kids make screens a big deal. When you're just like, oh yeah, here's a phone, whatever, then, then the kids don't even think about it being this thing that's so, so special that they've waited for so long to get, you know.

Oh my God, I gotta tell you, man, I wish I was raised by you guys, man. This is, I mean, honestly, this has been such a nice two sided conversation. I mean, listening, listening to what you do, it is so antithetical to the people in my suburgatory world where I live. It's just like, man, it is cool to know you, man.

Oh, well. Well, thanks. I mean, and honestly, I've gotten to know you quite a bit over this, over this two Pete series. So I am just, I'm super stoked to know you, even though we've never actually hung out. Next time I'm in New York or next time you're on the west coast, we'll have to do it. But in the meantime, for folks who are listening, it's BenGreenfieldLife.com impactful kids. So if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com impactfUL kids, I'll link to the first interview, as I did with Todd, about his book and then also all the shown as for this interview. And you can leave your own questions and comments and feedback. I love to read them and I sometimes even shoot them over to the guest too, so Todd might see them too. But anyways, Todd, thank you so much for coming on the show, man.

Yeah, love talking to you. This is even better than the last one.

Thanks, man. All right, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield with Todd Cashton signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com have an amazing week.

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed, and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode of today. If you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.