Dr. Gordon Neufeld on Redefining Parental Power & Connection

So this is a show about how to curate your child's education to meet their individual needs. And no conversation about education would be complete without talking about social, emotional learning. Social and emotional education is just as important as academics like math and reading and related to them for that matter. So I am just so honored to have Dr. Neufeld here. I can't even quite believe you're on my show. So. Dr. Neufeld has 40 years of experience as a clinical psychologist with children and youth. He is a foremost authority on child development, international speaker, best selling author of this book, hold on to your kids and a leading interpreter of the developmental paradigm. And I'm just so happy to have you here. And this concept of the emergence of a peer culture I think is so important for any parent who cares about helping to develop healthy social skills in their children. In your book, you talk about the emergence of a peer culture and that young people are increasingly looking to their peers as opposed to their parents, for direction. And this has really only emerged in the last 50 years or so after the Second World War. Could you kind of explain to us why this started, what provoked this change and the development of this peer orientation?

It's difficult to trace something down. There probably were a number of factors involved. Academics first of all pointed the finger at the Second World War and absentee fathers. It was probably a number of things that happened. The school system strengthened tremendously in the United States specifically. But then all the way around, it began to be seen as the way of getting ahead and pushing this education was taken away from parents. Instead of parents being in the driver's seat, there was this huge ideal that peers were necessary for children's development, socialization and so on. And both parents now had to work because of economic issues. This didn't happen immediately. But there is two things. In North America, as Neil Postman put it, the nuclear family was small. It was only mom and dad and the children. This was different than everywhere else, except in the UK and in Australia. In other places, the extended family was key. Now a combination of the nuclear family, like many people simplistically said, oh, it's because moms went to work. No, it's not. Mums went to work. In Italy, most moms work, but who takes care of the kids? Know it's the grandparents, it's the extended family. And that wasn't happening in North America. As grandparents were working, this was the, you know, the industrial age really kicked in and so on. And so a combination of the loss of the extended family, the loss of the attachment village, a loss of a culture to support it. The school became preeminent as a way of being able to get ahead, open doors, be able to do this. And a myth grew up about the importance of peers in children's development. And that myth, which was perpetuated by some of the main educating scholars, took such hold that it seemed to be. Everybody seemed to say it, but, you know, children need to have peer interaction to develop normally. Otherwise they'll turn out a bit weird or geeks. And then they would point to a home education educated child down, you know, down the street or down the block as this.

Right.

You know, they didn't want their kids to turn out weird like this. And without realizing what was happening is children need to be brought up in the context of families. This has been the most harmful myth, the myth of social life, of socialization by peers.

Yeah, for sure. And so how do children develop social skills? Because it seems like parents think children develop social skills by putting them in a group of other kids their same age, and that's how they learn how to relate. Is that how children develop social skills?

We've got a language problem. You're using the word skill, which automatically means it has to be taught. So you're already. You're already duped.

I'm already.

Yeah, you're already duped.

Yeah.

The fact is, is. Is. It's a developmental process. For at least, oh, my goodness, generations, at least. There was the science of development and wonderful discoveries about how these capacities develop. Now we've changed the word to capacity rather than skill. And so you think development. And so the answer, very simply is, if everything is unfolding as it should, everything in development starts first. One thing at a time, one idea at a time, one perspective at a time. And so when Piaget uncovered the roots of social integration, it was, wow, amazing what happens between five and seven years of age. If everything unfolds, if conditions are conducive, is a child starts, is capable of feeling conflicted. I would like the biggest piece, but this isn't fair for my sister. I'd love, but I don't want to get into trouble, but I don't want to do this and everything and develop from a developmental point of view. Everything is born out of the crucible of conflict. And so the issue is conflict. Now, when I was working with delinquents and disturbed at the beginning of my career, I was working with delinquents and disturbed young adults and disturbed preschoolers, and I had my own young children. And I noticed something Absolutely in common. None of them, as Piaget had discovered, none of them were capable of feeling conflicted. They never said part of me feels this way and part of me feels that way. Now Maslow had isolated this for self actualized individuals as a single thing that separates the mature from the immature. Immature is the ability to feel conflicted. This makes marriage work, relationships work, government work, democracy work. As soon as you lose it, you have a great dumbing down of society, a great immaturing. We have one of the most immature societies now because you look around and how often do you see feeling conflicted. Our leaders don't even feel conflicted. And we confuse certainty and dogmatism with confidence and maturity. We're living in an upside down world. Now these social capacities, not skills. Social capacities develop spontaneously if conditions are conducive. If you have to teach them to compensate, they only work in the situation that you taught them in. They don't generalize. And so school is busy pushing the river, which is a favorite saying in developmental psychology. Pushing the river, which you don't have to do because it would be spontaneous if it's flowing is, are busy pushing the river because they say oh my goodness, these kids aren't coming with social skills, with emotional skills. And emotional development is the same. Nature hasn't left us bereft in development means development. They're spontaneous and it all depends upon having mixed feelings. That is the very essence of emotional maturity. And so you can immediately see and divide adults this way, anyone this way. If they don't feel conflicted, they'll be stuck in immature relating, egocentric relating. They'll be stuck in either taking the other person's viewpoint or, or, and they lose their own, or they'll take theirs and they'll lose the others. This is a spontaneous development. And the question then is what do children require for optimal development? And the answer is absolutely essential. And all the research supports this, so I don't understand is that they require safe emotional connections with caring adults. And who is going to care? Moms and dads and uncles and aunts and, and grandmas and grandpas are going to care. To create this context, it is so obvious that children were meant to be brought up in the context of, of, of attachment. And all the neural research now says when there is a, when there is a connection of attachment, the brain is turned on for learning. So it optimizes learning. And it turns out that what is the brain most interested in? It's most interested in anything that serves connection. Why? Because without connection we Wouldn't survive. We don't have a drive for survival. We. We have a drive for togetherness because survival is. We have a greater probability of surviving when we are. When our togetherness needs are met. So everything points to attachment, togetherness, connection, as being the foundation of learning, of emotional development, of social development. Not learning, not skills, not skills. And so nowadays we have this whole horde of people saying, we got to teach emotional skills, emotional, social, you know, skills. We got to get them in at three years of age, at two years of age, at, oh, my goodness, this is the worst thing you could do, because how do you teach a skill? You teach a skill by giving approval and a nod when they perform. And not. So they're not monkeys. And when we give approval for something that we're pleased with, it makes them insecure. And security and attachment is the most important thing. So we are using their attachment needs against them to make headway. And so what is the common reinforcement in school? The happy face? What does it represent? The approval of the adults. We are creating the most insecure children ever.

There's so much to unpack here. And I really appreciate the specificity around language because typically what I see is the word socialization, and I don't like that because it suggests conforming to me. And so I thought, well, let's talk about social skills. But again, that's not really honoring these natural biological processes. So I guess you don't talk about.

A tree having skills. You don't talk about a plant having skills.

Right. And I think that parents, you know, are looking for this language, language, and, and. And they feel so incompetent when it comes to raising their children. So maybe this desire for socialization is really a desire for their children to grow up healthy and with a capacity, with the capacity to make friends and, and thinking about it in that context, then you can really start breaking it down and saying, how do I orient myself as a parent towards nurturing this natural. This natural process? You know, it's like, let's not get in the way of it. So I guess that would lead into. My next question is, you know, there's so many forces that are getting in our way as parents in just doing what's natural and intuitive to us. And. And so. So if a parent really desires to nurture this social capacity in their child, what's the most important thing in parenting?

There's a crisis of confidence. And that's the main thing. That's the main thing. You're right. In terms of the basic desires are obviously we want our children to realize their potential, but our language doesn't even allow us to think straight because it's called emotional, social. What?

Learning, Right?

Yep, it's called learning. And the fact is, again, development is spontaneous if conditions are conducive. This is the science of it always has been. So this learning thing, you know. So what is the problem? Well, in all of my travels, I'm convinced that the issue is not education because in some places, with some people, they're doing all the things that are necessary. It is confidence. You need the confidence that you are your child's best, best bet. It's your love they need. It's your invitation to exist they need. It's you holding on to them. So nothing would keep, would, would come in between. It's bridging the things in between. If we had the confidence, you know, you think of a, of a mom, of a newborn and think of what would differentiate two young 16 year old mothers. Most. If a 60 year old has a confidence that she is her baby's best bet, she steps forward to be that best bet. She starts reading the needs, taking the lead. She starts giving the invitation to exist. We have parents now who believe, and even the word parenting never existed before. It's a new word because it wasn't a verb. It wasn't a verb. It's not something you do, it's who you are. And it's a child's attachment to you that gives you that state. You enter into motherhood and fatherhood, and when you enter into that place and take it seriously, you have that confidence. You begin to sense what it is that is required. And what is required is this invitation to exist that is unconditional. This sense of delight in their presence, this sense of being able to preserve a sense of connection and not let anything in between. When you lose the confidence, you look to others to become the experts. And this is my problem, and this is the irony is you lose confidence when you think others have the answers and you don't.

Right. And I just, I think that's such a beautiful idea because I mean, in the alternative education movement, we talk a lot about the idea of permissionless education. You don't need someone else's permission to educate your child in the way you feel is best. And there's so many, you know, I was going to ask you about like, well, should parents spend more time with their kids or should they teach them this or should they teach them that or should they, should they use this technique? But what you're really Saying is check in and trust yourself because you know.

Yes. And attachment isn't just about being with. It's about being like. It's about belonging, it's about affection, love, it's about value. All the different ways of attaching that outline in my book six or seven ways of modality. So it's a relationship, it's. It's a relation. And that relationship is. When I'm saying hold on, I don't mean mean physically hold on, I'm saying preserve the connection. Because it is the single most important thing for a child. And that is throughout life. That's throughout life. That, that doesn't mean that you kick them out at 18 or 16 or whatever it is. That relationship becomes important. It is cascading care that we're after. We take care of our children, including my oldest children are in their 50s now. So that they take care of their children. So that they take care of their children. And so this is the cascading care that. That is required. And you don't, you don't need. I UK was going to go into required parental education and they assumed that I was for it and I was against it. And the reason I'm against it is that it doesn't come from books. It doesn't come from books at all. As soon as you go to a book and you're following a book, your child knows when they're being parented by a book. There is something else. When you step forward to be your child's best bet and you believe you are, something happens in the dance.

Absolutely. And I think the challenge here lies in how does a parent find that self confidence when there are so many people who are judging them and telling them what to do and there's so much fear of failing your child. I mean, what, what's the inner work that we need to do as parents to, to. To really just be able to check in with our gut and what we know intuitively what our child needs and ignore the all the other voices that are saying they have to learn math, they have to learn this by this age and you have to do this and that. It's just, it's a lot.

You don't start from doing your own work. I have seen this as the biggest mistake that parents make. They say, I have to do my own work here. Will you see me as a client so I can do this? I say no, no, because I have witnessed hundreds, if not more children lose their parents when parents start to do their own work. Why? Because it's all about them.

Right.

How do you start? How does it happen with a cat or a dog or whatever? Is. No, focus on your child. What does your child need from you right now? Do they need a sense of safety? Do they need a sense of invitation? Do they need this rise to that occasion? You'll be bluffing a lot to start off with, but at least you know what it is that they require. Focus on your child when you make sense. And that's why the mission of the Neufeld Institute is to make sense of your kids. Why? Because if you make sense of your. Your child, of what it is they need, and you step forward to be that answer, to become the answer they need, everything else starts taking or falling into place is the word I was looking for. You, in fact, start growing up yourself to become the answer your children need. But you're not doing it because you're trying to grow up. Nobody can grow up because they're trying to do so. They grow up because there's certain things that are happening. And what stretches us is becoming the parent our child needs, our teenager needs, our young adult needs, needs. That's what stretches us. But it's not from focusing on ourself. There's nothing more narcissistic, egocentric and backwards than parents having to go, you know, to. To focus on themselves so they can get their shit together, to be able to be the answer to their children.

Right? Yes. I mean, that, that is so powerful. And I feel like right now I have several friends in my life, I mean, who I have known since childhood, who are wonderful people who are raising children, and they're at a point where, you know, you know, according to what you talk about in your book, I think that, you know, that attachment has been so broken that they are just at their ropes end. And even, you know, and I think it's important to get this out there, feel like sometimes they hate their child and they're also deeply ashamed of that. And, you know, everything is so stressful and so upsetting and the child is, you know, acting out, hitting, saying I hate you, that they don't even know where to start. And, you know, when you talk about attachment village, I feel like I want to help my friends and help them with their children, and I don't know where to start.

I'm not against getting help at all. Help is different. Like, I would, I'd be dealing with parents who had mental health diagnosis who were, you know, had all kinds of difficulties, traumas and so on. And I said my best way of helping you is that I will come alongside of you to assist you in becoming the answer to your child. It is only for love that we make sacrifice. It is only for love that we stretch ourselves. Nothing else in our world, world as humans has ever made, you know, given us the courage, the stamina to do the thing that was necessary to do when we step forward to take care of another. All I'm saying is the lead foot in this is I am here for you. I am going to try to be the answer. You're the answer that you require. I may need some assistance in doing this, but the focus is on being able to deliver the care you need. Everything else will follow from that. I will be stretched. I will be humbled. I will find my dignity. I will find my tears. I will find all the things that will. That automatically, that will start growing me up to my own potential. Because we all have potential that we, that we haven't had. It's been my kids, my seven grandkids, it's been my five kids that grew me up. But they didn't. They. They grew me up not by teaching me anything. They grew me up by me taking responsibility to become the answer they needed.

Yeah, wonderful. And I think what I'm learning from that too is that, you know, if, if the situation has escalated to a point where you need help and always it's good to get help. I mean, that's part of the attachment village, is that you're not just alone in your parenting, you have support in that. But actually for the parent to get help, rather than simply sending their child away to get tested or to work with a psychiatrist, and starting there and recognizing that your child's best teacher is you, that's your birth rate.

That's why, again, the Neufeld Institute works through the model of parent consulting. And so everything is putting parents back into the driver's seat. I've created 40 courses for that purpose in the Neufeld Institute in eight different languages. Now is to put parents in the driver's seat, helping them become the answer their children, their adolescent needs. And this is what we were meant to do. Now, originally, in cultures that evolved in sync with the developmental needs of a child, there were rituals, traditions. The culture kept this going. You didn't have to know anything. The wisdom was in the culture only until we can get a ritual, you know, if the ritual is a sit down meal, you know, at least three times a week, where we collect our kids, get the eyes and smiles and the nods, get a sense of connection and you Know, you find the rituals that help foster the relationship. That's a context through which we parent. They, you know, we're trying to work it the wrong way. You know, what did you learn at school? What was your homework? What is this? One of my main concerns about today's home education, and I speak about this and hold on to your kids, and I've witnessed this a number of times, is when the parents, in their eagerness to be able to become their child's teachers, the child loses their parents.

Interesting.

And that is the main concern parent, you know, our youngest child, when we were homeschooling him from a number of different reasons, but he was so clear, mom, Mom, Mom, I can't have you teach me. You're my only mother. And it was so clear. And so this was a case where we organized experiences, we, as you use the word curated or organized or supervised or did whatever it is so that mom could be mom, dad could be dad, and the learning experiences that we orchestrated could be be delivered to him.

That's wonderful. I mean, I think now especially homeschooling is so much about taking classes and tutors and other experiences. And there's also something really intimate about learning along with your child. And I often suggest to parents that rather than trying to teach them, they become co learners. And in that way the parent can model learning, model pushing past frustration and it can actually be incredibly intimate experience. I just Talked to a 14 year old who was taking a physics class with her dad. It doesn't. We have just like we have this idea of socialization as being just throw your kid in with another group of kids. There's this idea of teaching as something that you are like inserting this information into your child's brain instead of supporting a natural process that's unfolding.

And that is true. But there's a caveat there. And the caveat is that in the role of parenting, there's one person in charge of taking care of the other. One of, you know, you asked what was one of the great, you know what, what was the cause of an upside down society. One of the great causes was putting our children in the lead. Because when they get, when they're in the lead in charge of this idea, there was this idea that the child knows best, that parents were dumb and all the TV programs reflected that and that you put the child in the lead. When your child is in the lead, they become incredibly alarmed. And anxiety is now the number one problem of children. They are incredibly alarmed. Why? Because they don't feel taken care of. They don't feel safe anywhere because they have to. There's two modes of attaching in the dependent mode and in the alpha mode. Now, when you have a whole generation of Alpha children who are bossy, who are alarmed, who they have eating disorders because you were meant to be taken care of, an Alpha child always develops an eating problem because they don't eat what they're fed and so on. It occurs to them that they belong with their peers because they're more like their peers. And so it's another thing that feeds into this incredible peer orientation phenomena. Instead of this cascading care and cast and dependence, you don't feel cared by someone you're not depending upon. Children were never meant to depend upon their peers to be taken care of, never meant to do this.

And you actually make a really important distinction in your book between power and coercion. And if I understand correctly, coercion can take many forms. It can be extrinsic rewards like I'll give you a candy if you do your homework. Or it can be, you have to go to bed now or else you'll get spanked or whatnot. And so. But then there's another kind of power that is very different than coercion. It's not manipulative. Could you talk a little bit more about what that power looks like? Because it seems like what you're suggesting, suggesting is that when parents have this power over children, it actually makes them feel more secure.

Yes. And, and so the. I've talked about the power to parent, even though power is a kind of a dirty word, you know, because we, we want to believe in inequality. But if you have a responsibility and there isn't anything more, more responsible role than the parents role to take care of the young, that's the most important evolutionary role in society. You have to have the power to do the job. You can' and no power but that power is given to you by the child's attachment to you. But nature in its wisdom is always invisible in its work. It never draws attention to itself. So you can always tell if a parent is looking to have power over someone instead of the power to take care of the child. If it's power over, they'll draw attention to the power. If you don't do this, I'll take that away from you. If you go to your room, I'll withdraw my contact and closeness with you. They will draw attention to how they're trying to manipulate the child. What the parent doesn't know is they're making themselves look weak. The kids I worked with in prison, that had been done to them all their life. And they knew the adults didn't have any power and they would just refuse to do these things. True power is invisible. I would never have said to my children, and now even my, you know, my youngest grandchildren, I know I can count on you to do this. Because you love me so much. You would never ever say that. Like Samson, you don't give your secret away. You know, he did, and look what happened to him. But you don't give your secret away. Why? Because we need the power to do the job. That power is invisibly given to us by our child's attachment to us. They're wanting to be with us, to be like us, to belong, to matter to us, to be known by us. That power is our sacred trust. We must be careful with it. We must never abuse it. We must hold it sacred. Without it, we can't do our job. And, you know, we must support it, but never draw attention to it. So the whole idea of using reward is to manipulate a child. It's using their needs for approval against them. And, and Skinner, who popularized this was obvious. He said that obviously we are so fortunate. So did A.D. we're so fortunate that children are so hunger hungry for affiliation or for approval so that we can use those needs to manipulate and shape their behavior. So that's a behavior. It's a learning theorist. Now, if you're a developmentalist like Carl Rogers was, and I speak, and you don't need to know these people, but there's this huge controversy, there always has been, went back to Jean Jacques rousseau in the 1700s. You either either we. We bring children to potential by fulfilling their attachment needs, or we shape them through using their attachment needs against them. So which side are you and what I speak and hold on to your kids and say, look, if you're a developmentalist at heart, if you believe that love is the answer, then get on with the job. If you are cynical and you think they have to be shaped like some kind of sculpted, and there isn't some spontaneous life force that makes the geranium a geranium and the oak tree an oak tree, now you are going to be preoccupied with teaching skills, with reinforcement, with reward, and all of those kinds of things. It just saddens me that so many parents are trying to sculpt their children instead of grow them up. They're good in the garden, and then it comes to their own children. They're even better with their Pets. And then it comes to their own children and they're busy using reward and reinforcement of shaping their behavior instead of trusting in the natural spontaneous life force to grow them up. All they need is conditions that are conducive. The rest will unfold.

So, Gordon, maybe you can give us an example of what does that look like when a parent is creating, is in conducive, the creating the conducive conditions and something is happening. Maybe you could give us an image of how that unfolds, what that looks like parenting from that place of love.

Well, let's say the meal is breaking down. There's disruptive behavior. The siblings are getting at each other, the arguing, they're not listening, they're, they're not closing their mouth when they chew. And it's just chaotic. So what happens is parents will say, I said, if you don't do this. So they get more coercive, more powerful when clearly something is wrong. So how would you do this as a developmentalist? How would you go? Well, if you know where your power lies in attachment, what might you do? Well, you might try to get the eyes, a smile and a nod. Collect the child, divide and conquer, get them on one. I, you know, I need to take you to the living room right now. Are we going to have a little talk? Try to do that. Get them, get the smile, the nod, first of all. So you got a sense of attachment. You got sense that they are now attending to you. We speak to children when we've lost their attention. You can't get that that way. You've got to get the attention back. You get the eyes, the smile, the nod, do a little bit of homework. When you do the homework now, come alongside that you were wanting to do this you were wanting to do. There's a time and place for that. Get a few, you know, get a few nods. And while they're nodding in now, when you have more influence and power, I tell you what mommy is, Mommy is. We're going to have a conversation or we're going to play a little bit of a game. Games play is always great to orchestrate behavior. And it will be a game of conversational ping pong. I'll tell you what I mean. You say something, then I say something. We'll pass it along. This will be great fun, you'll see. And can I count on you to give it a try? Wait till you get the nods, get some nods that are easy to get. Wait to do it, go back, keep the connection and start working it along. Now that might not work, but you got the idea that what would work and what you do is you go back to retreat, find out where your power lies, nurture it, get the connection, and then be able to solicit the right intentions and do this. You can handle any problem that way.

I believe that's true. And I feel like it's almost a combination of equanimity. It's not attached to you being right or wrong, and also just deep trust in that power. I mean, I think, like I, as an example, I was hanging out with a little girl and she wanted to go outside without her coat and it was very cold. And I said, you know, I, I know that you feel that way, but you are going to wear your coat because I don't want you to get cold. And I wasn't angry or, you know, just. That's just what's happening. And, and you know, she eventually put on her coat and it was all.

Good because you can feel into your power. That's fine. You can feel into it. You can, you know, Alpha, you can say it. If you think that in the dance, you can, you have enough power to lean into it, go ahead and do it. If you don't feel you have enough, you would change the subject, conduct, get the eyes, a smile, nods go in the interaction, increase the connection. Now with your increased power, try and move into it from a different place to be able to get the right result. But the adult is doing the work rather than just simply their voice getting louder, the consequence, the bribes, the sanctions, getting more. That's a dreadful scenario. If we did it with our spouse, we would be in, in. We would be risking a divorce so quickly. And we're not even, you know, like, we would never do this with a friend. How much less should we ever do it with somebody that we're responsible for caring for? We're hurting their feelings, we're wounding them, recording their defenses and so on. No, we mustn't go that way. We wouldn't do it with our beloved pets, never mind with our children. We just need to come back to our senses. Relationships. Relationship is first and foremost. Hence the title of the book, hold on to your kids. Relationship is first and foremost. What are you to hold on to? A sense of connection. That is the sacred part. Find a way of doing your work inside that connection. When the connection is broken, restore it. When the connection is weak, strengthened it. Don't be in a hurry. You've got lots of time to parent. Retreat to where you can do your work. Then do Your work in a way that respects the dignity of the child, that doesn't wound and that comes and where your power is invisible. The child won't know why they feel like being good for you. All of a sudden, they're in love.

They're in love. That's the way I have no idea.

That you know that it is. And before that, their feelings were hurt, so they were defended and they, they didn't want you. They say, I hate you, mommy, you're a pizza face. And they're doing all of these things and then suddenly they want to be good. Well, the same is true for us. Sometimes we want to be good for our partners. Why? That's when we're connected, when we feel, you know, when we're depending on them or we're. The answer. It all stems from relationship.

Yeah, absolutely. So back to this idea of peer culture and all the myths around how we develop social capacity. There's this thing I see a lot on social media, this idea that kids, I mean, you can imagine how I feel about this, but that a kid needs to be teased and bullied and not go to the teacher in order to learn how to be strong. And I especially see this in terms of boys.

Oh, yeah, no tattletales. Oh, my goodness. Kids need to work it out on their own. Own. This is the worst kind of way of relating that. They need to work it out on the low, on. On their own. You'll have a Lord of the fly scenario. The one with the most power will always win. And so, no, that's again, the idea that they need to learn. They need to learn to work it out on their own. And so it's all. When you start that learning is a primary paradigm, you bark up all the wrong truth trees. And so. No, it's not. Children are dependent for a reason. One of, One of the most important interventions I did with, with my. The boys were the youngest was the invitation to depend upon me. Okay, you're both using the trampoline right now. There were four years apart, so you can imagine how it would work. And I would say, I, you know, it's. It's only going to last for about three or four minutes and you're going to run into trouble. Right now. I am. I am just going to be around the corner and when something isn't working for you, when you're frustrated, one of you, whoever remembers call me daddy, it's not working for us. Now please help. So you invite to depend to ask you for assistance that would give me the Invitation to come and say, okay, Braden, what were you wanting here? Say, what were you wanting here? Sometimes we can't both get this way here. I have a suggestion. So I would model problem solving. Sometimes there was nothing left to do but have one's tears and so on. But all of this was done. But it all started with an invitation to depend. Because how else are you going to be able to take care of them and the youngest and so on. And so it always was cascading care. The oldest of our sons was responsible for the youngest. Dad, can I my friends over? Sure. But remember, the rule is no shaming of Braden. He's four years younger. It's easy for people to make fun of him for not having the skills and so on. The minute he's put down or shamed, it means your friends go home. And then I would listen and hear the older brother lecture his friends. This is the deal. You're not going to put my brother down. You're not going to do this because our home is a shame free environment. But I could only do that because the older brother loved his father so much. I had the invisible power to be able to take care of my young one. Everything works with this invisible power. No, but leaving them to their own devices is the worst possible thing we could do. And the school is based upon it. Because they don't have the resources to do anything else. They can't. They don't invite dependence there. They. They can hardly get recess, a bit of time off. And so. No, it just feeds into the Lord of the fly scenario.

Yeah, I mean, and the subtle distinction I see here, and I'm trying not to use the word words, teach and learn.

Yes. Good for you.

I'm learning a lot myself right here. But I think you know what you do. When a child invites an adult to intervene, they're asking for support around how do I negotiate this situation? So instead of becoming someone who just asks for their boss for help whenever they have a problem with a colleague, they're actually learning how to deal with it themselves by asking this someone who knows better how to do it.

But that's secondary. The learning is secondary. The primary is that enables you to take care of them, all of them. Okay. And care is always primary because that serves. That's the whole purpose of it is, is that we take care and that's our responsibility. If teachers even thought of it, oh, my goodness, you have given me your child for now this to take care of them. They would think so differently and all of the learning would Unfold in that sense when the child feels taken care of. Let me give you just one illustration of one of my grandchildren. He's 10 and he was in the Neufeld Institute office here in our home. And he saw Making sense of Bullies on the shelf, the course I did. And he pulled it off and said, papa, can I take this home? And I said, oh look, if you want to, if you want a picture of me, I can give you a lot better picture of me. But yes, you can take it home. But can you tell me why, Papa? I'm having trouble with a bully at school and I'm hoping that if I watch this, I'll be able to figure out what to do. And I. And I said to him, I said, oh my goodness, I will help you. I will help you. We will talk about this. You just call me and we will walk it through and I will help you with this. He's. He's such a tender heart. Such a tender heart.

That just brings tears to my eyes. I mean, it's so. It's just so sweet on so many levels that he is looking to you for wisdom, but he doesn't want to waste your time. So he's going to read the book and just, you know, and.

Or in this case the DVD he was going to watch.

There you go. Oh, how lovely. Yeah, that. That made my eyes water. So tender. And I also just love seeing how your face lit up when you started thinking about your 10 year old grandson. Oh my goodness. Well, this has been such an extraordinary conversation and I have so many more questions to ask you. But I feel like already the way that I think about social capacity has changed the relationship between the parent and the child and even the teacher and the child. And how, I mean, what I'm really taking away is that when problems arise, go to the root. And by creating that loving relationship, by reigniting that feeling of being in love with your child and your child being in love with you, learning just naturally flows from that. I mean, you know, billions of years of evolution have made parents into what they are, made children into what they are. And we can really trust, trust that all the learnings in the world are going to flow from that safe space of love.

And trust is imperative here. We can trust that spontaneous life force that is yearning to unfold the potential of our dependence. We can trust in that and step forward without. Without knowing a whole lot to be the answer that our child needs. When we get that dance. Yeah, the rest. The rest will.

Beautiful. So, Gordon, maybe as we Finish up today. Perhaps there are some people listening who are really going through a hard time. Their teen is rebelling or they have a 7 year old who's, you know, says I hate you. Where, where do we start? What's a good place to start? If you could maybe share some words for these people who might be in pain right now about their relationship with their child.

Well, first of all, to remember that bottom of most things is a relationship issue. So be prepared to retreat there to look at the relationship. If, if, if you need something to read, well, hold on to your kids. The whole thing about that was to treat the relationship and from there things happen. So it's there. And, and again, as I told you, I. My life's work was to create 40 courses just for this purpose.

There, there you go. So there's Lux. Great place to start.

Just a little trip on the Internet to the Neufeld Institute, you know, just, just like that. Newfeld institute.org and you'll see that I'll. All my life's work is to help make sense of kids to the adults responsible for them so that the dance can. Can, can happen. The dance that always was meant to happen can happen.

Perfect. And I will just add to that. It's. It's never too late. I really rebelled in my teens. I was raised by a single mom and I think we had a very difficult relationship. Lots of fighting for 10 or 20 years. And recently I moved back in with her for six months. And it was weird, you know, because I felt like this is a kind of odd, like being the age I am living with my mom, it felt very. And, and we just had this time to really cultivate our relationship and it was just so beautiful and I feel, feel so close to her and it's so intimate and, and that I think has also made me feel more secure and confident in life. So it's never too late to start.

It's never too late and it's never too early. Yeah, with. If, if you're pregnant, then it's the relationship. It's the relationship. It's never too early and it's never too late.

Your inner child, right? Yeah. So, I mean, you're. Your book, I think is probably the number one book I recommend to parents who are thinking about homeschooling and raising their children. I just, it's had such a huge impact on my thinking and kind of made my thinking whole in a way. So I'm just so grateful that we have this opportunity to have you. I learned so much and feel so much immense gratitude for your work and can't wait to continue following it and learning more from you over the the years to come.

My pleasure was an honor. Thank you for me.