Socratic educator Michael Strong with father Ryan Nohea Garcia

So far as my game plan with Alana was to discuss the extent to which no strollers versus jiu-jitsu made her more resilient than other kids, I kind of got stuck because she claims everybody is completely resilient. Nobody ever gives up. Everybody at jiu-jitsu, all kids everywhere, everybody at school.

She's a real sweetie. She doesn't want to stand out or to demean in any way, even by implication, others. She's really sweet.

Very laudable and good, but yeah, made it hard for me to get my hooks in there. She doesn't make it easy, but I assume you would agree that she is exceptionally resilient.

Oh yeah, and she was resilient for her age and by contrast to her peers when she got to jiu-jitsu. And it's only accelerated. I've kept thinking that over the years the gap would shrink between her and her peers and eventually they'd all catch up. And at least with Alana's emotional endurance and her maturity, that gap only seems to be widening. So it kind of highlights to me maybe the importance of giving kids, making them part of life earlier. Because there's just no substitute for that early experience. And she seems to really be going up the curve.

So give me a big picture view. If the resilience started before jiu-jitsu, we already talked about no strollers. What other parenting behaviors did you and Marlo do that you think got her on this path to extraordinary resilience?

We didn't do a whole lot different than other parents other than not using a stroller. We're committed to peaceful parenting as well, which is that we extend the non-aggression principle to our children. And we're not crazy off the reservation with that. We show sternness. We're by no means are we like, we just don't hit them. We have to find common ground. We use information when we ask them to do things. It's because of good rational reasons that we can explain. And if we can't explain it, we don't ask them to do it or to not do something. So they trust us when we say, please do this or please do that. It's because they know that we're making that choice based on facts. I mean, that's something we've done different. I don't think it necessarily bears on her being resilient. I just think that she's had a lot of opportunity to become physically and emotionally strong because she's just on the ground more. She's in the game. She's in that stream of life.

So it sounds like earlier you said that she was kind of involved more than maybe other kids, and you would describe that mostly as an artifact of the no strollers, that because of the no strollers, that's the reason she's kind of involved more fully.

Yeah, I mean, she's either right here or right here holding my hand. Whenever we meet someone, talk to someone, bump into someone, something happens, she's right there experiencing that. She's present. And because she's either in my arms or standing next to me, she's involved. It's more likely that the other person is going to talk to her, interact with her. She's going to see it. I think that's a big factor.

So I'm thinking through this. Something else that's coming up for me is it sounds as if she has extraordinary bonds because of that. So in addition to kind of just the being there, I would think if she's always there interacting, engaged in life with you, She has— well, for one, she has lots of modeling, so she sees you living life, and she has extraordinary kind of security. And I guess I suspect another thing that happens is sometimes parents or adults in general make a strong separation between we are the adults, you are the kids, and, you know, go over and do that while we do our adult thing. I suspect you do not make such a strong separation. Is that correct?

That's correct. We don't, um, some of that is by design. Like, I mean, I don't do— I mean, there's almost nothing that my wife or I do that our children are not able to come and do with us. There's just not a whole lot. Part of that is that we don't have family in San Diego, so it's, so it's either they're with us or they're at a babysitter, $15 an hour post-tax income, you know what I mean? So like, there's times where they have to go to the babysitter. I've got work, meetings, I've got other things. Otherwise, they're with us. So that's, um, by virtue, I guess, of our, um, unique circumstance. The other thing is that I do want them around us. It's one thing that I feel like my parents really did right, is that, you know, we had a little, a little cattle ranch and we were just involved in every aspect of it, for better or worse. And you're there, you're with the adults, you're working, supporting them, learning from them, learning by watching. And, you know, that's kind of hard to do in the city. We don't have a ranch, you know. Um, So wherever we go, they're with us, and all that children never learn is what we expose them to.

You know what's coming up for me is, you know, Peter Gray, the wonderful advocate of unschooling, he talks about, and he's done research on how in indigenous cultures, of course they don't have school, what happens is the children of the tribe really play a full role. They're always around and always engaged, and If they're off playing, hunting or something, the games they play are modeled on what adults actually do in their lives. And so there's no, in a traditional culture, there's no strong separation between adult life and child life. And it sounds like to me in a certain sense what you're doing follows that pattern. That is both Alana and now Logan are just part of your life and whatever you're doing. Um, yeah, sound accurate?

It is accurate. And like in Hawaii where I grew up, I mean, if it was fishing or working or hunting or cooking or anything else we might be doing as a family or with other people, kids are just a part of it. You do what you can do, um, and at a certain age you can do other things, a certain level of maturity, and it's just a real natural thing. Um, unschooling, we do try and apply that philosophy when and where possible. For instance, with handwriting, we never bothered to teach our children, so, you know, how to write, but they both picked up writing. Um, we haven't taught Alana cursive, but she's wanted to do it on her own and she's picked it up on her own. She's watched a YouTube video about cursive and other people show her, and it works. It's amazing. And they have— whenever they learn something on their own, they, they, they learn it better because they want to learn it. It's, you know, it's great.

But I suspect part of the reason it works in your circumstances is because she does see you and Marlo living your lives, and so she sees what capacities— and that's the other thing Peter Gray focuses on, is if children are constantly exposed to the skills and behaviors and attitudes and expertise that are required to be an adult, they naturally model it. Whereas we think maybe if a child was, you know, sitting watching TV all day or something like that, then then they might not spontaneously learn to write.

True.

You know, the other thing that comes to mind is that, you know, you're also giving them the sense that what they are doing as being with you, that it is normal for families to be together. And it sounds strange, but In a modern society, it's no longer normal for families to be together. And in some ways, you're doing something so simple but so wonderful, it's sort of like I would hope everybody would see it as obvious. Do you find some people in your circle don't see your way of parenting as obvious?

Yeah, a lot of people. My wife and I have worked pretty hard over the last few years to try and organize our lives in a way where we get to spend as much time as possible with our kids. It comes at the expense of, at least in my case, working normal hours. I mean, I have to get up really early and stay up really late to get my things done. You know, Marlo works night shift rather than day shift. So we've done things so that we can make this happen. And that's not normal. The benefits of the children being around, I guess, adults more often and modeling adults is paramount. Just relative to martial arts, one of the things I like most about Alana's jiu-jitsu class is that because it's mixed ages, she's a 5 or 6-year-old in a class with 8, 9, 10, 12-year-olds. She's modeling the behavior of well-behaved, more experienced, better disciplined older kids, rather than if she was on a, I don't know, soccer team or basketball team, everyone would be 5 or 6. So at best, they're, they're modeling the best behavior of a 5-year-old or a 6-year-old. So getting kids, getting children around older people, I think is important. Like you said, it's natural. That's how it's been forever. And the last couple generations have kind of been a sharp break from that, but we do value them being around us, being around other adults, being in adult environments. You know, how else are they going to learn?

Yeah, no, I'm very sold. I want to kind of wrap this up, but just as an FYI, I recently met virtually a woman in Connecticut who has a co-work, co- co-working, co-learning place where both parents can be co-learners, co-workers, like at a WeWork or whatever, right? They've also got kind of various co-learning spaces including an acting academy and unschooling and virtual classes and whatever. But again, I think it's trying to kind of rebuild that experience of parents living and working around their kids because I think I think that integration is so important.

Yeah, I mean, I bring my daughter and my son when necessary or when possible to my coworking office because I think it's good for them to just see, even though it's just a bunch of adults sitting around typing, right? It just shows a certain level of behavior. They, you know, if I'm doing a call and it's a little harder with Logan because he's 3, he might make noise, but Alana will sit right next to me on a 45-minute conference call. And just watch and listen and draw alongside. And, you know, it does matter to me that they can do that. Maybe in the future, I mean, I'd love to be in a coworking space that also had a space for children alongside, you know, all they need is a couple of mats and they could be doing jiu-jitsu, gymnastics, running, playing. It'd be awesome.

Very cool. Very cool. Well, let's keep this short. Lots more to talk about, Ryan. Thanks so much for insights into your parenting.

I don't know. Thank you, Michael Strong.

Thanks. Bye-bye.

Bye.