In this solo‑host episode of the Parent Whisperer podcast, Richard Ramos addresses parents who feel disconnected from their children in today’s hyper‑connected world. He explains that the rules of influence have fundamentally changed: the rise of the internet, social media, smartphones, and especially AI‑driven algorithms has moved the “goalposts” of parental influence. Ramos reassures listeners that they are not failing, but rather parenting in the most aggressive influence environment in human history. He traces the historical shift from agricultural to industrial societies and then to the current high‑tech era, highlighting how platforms learn from users and manipulate emotions to capture attention. Drawing on Edward Bernays—the father of modern public relations—Ramos describes the concept of “manufactured consent” and how modern tech functions as a form of psychological manipulation that first hooks emotions, then shapes identity, and finally drives behavior. He argues that all children, even those from stable homes, are vulnerable because they trust adults and lack skepticism. The episode concludes with a call for parents to move from fear to clarity, develop discernment, and strengthen influence through understanding rather than banning technology. Ramos invites listeners to share, subscribe, and review the podcast, emphasizing that good parents can improve their influence without trying to control.
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Foreign. It's Richard Ramos. Welcome to the Parent Whisperer podcast. And I hope that you've enjoyed the first two episodes of the second season. So I'll. Today, I'm going to. First of all, let me pull my notes over here where I can see them better. I'm going to talk about the art of deception and winning the battle for influence without losing your child. Those of you that are familiar with my books, you know that I talk a lot about the. The winning of loyalty and how we can win that loyalty. Well, it has everything to do with influence. It's really kind of like who's going to win the battle of loyalty is going to win the battle of influence and vice versa. So if you're a parent right now, with everything that's going on, and there is a lot going on, I'm, you know, the stuff that's going on in Minnesota, the stuff that's going on around the country with ice and all these things, and you're thinking to yourself, what is happening? And I don't even recognize the world, this world anymore, or my neighborhood, or you might even be feeling that way about your kids. Or maybe you're saying, you know, why does it feel so much harder these days to. To be a parent? And why is my kid. Why are my kids so involved in social media? Why are they so addicted to it, enthralled by it, influenced by it? Those are some of the questions that a lot of parents are asking. And if you're feeling that way, this series is for you. And I want to say that from the very start, this series is not about, you know, inciting fear in you, about deception and what's going on through social media and technology, but rather, it's to provide insight and understanding and mostly clarity, because as parents, we need to have that clarity. Over my career, I've spent a lot of times with parents, and sometimes they feel confused. They're not sure if they're doing the right thing. And these are good people. These are good parents. Maybe their kids are involved in this or that. They're struggling with different things at school or in the neighborhood. But the parents, they're good people. They're loving parents. They're involved in the life of their children. But a lot of the. The theme that seems to be around surrounding this, all this craziness that's going on is I feel like I'm losing ground, Richard. With my kids, I feel like I'm not having that same connection, the same influence, the same camaraderie, an exchange of Just, you know, having a conversation. And these are parents, it isn't. Has nothing to do with that they stop caring or that they stop trying. No. What's happened? I want, I want to suggest this to you. What has happened, and that is that the rules of influence, it's changed. And I use, I like to use sports metaphor to explain certain things, if you understand football. What I'm saying is that the goal posts have been moved. The goalposts of influence, they've been moved. And so, you know, you, you, you can't beat yourself up or start doubting yourself and, and, you know, giving up. If things are hard right now, you know, so many parents, you're showing up, you're providing, you're setting boundaries, you're doing what you're supposed to do, you're engaged. And yet there's just something that, you know, fills off. And maybe conversations are harder to have. Maybe the pushback of your kids, you know, is a little more bold. You know, maybe they, they're getting all these ideas, you know, from the Internet and, and different things like that. And the truth is, the voices outside of our home are way bigger and louder than they were when we were kids. But there's a couple of points I want to make here that I want you to realize, I want you to hear very clearly. Number one, stop beating yourself up. You are not failing as a parent. You're doing your best. You're showing up, as I said, you're providing, you're working hard. You. You're not doing anything wrong or failing. That's the number one thing, secondly is you need to realize something. You are parenting. I mean, I'm. My kids are all grown. I could say I'm grandparenting, but, you know, you are parenting in the most aggressive influence environment in human history. Realize that. And that's not an exaggeration. We have never been in this kind of environment before. I mean, our parents probably thought they had it bad, you know, the old, you know, drugs, rock and roll drugs, and, you know, all that, the stuff that was going on in the 60s when I grew up. But we're dealing with, you're dealing with the World Wide Web, the Internet, social media, smartphones, and the main thing now is high tech, or in other words, AI, artificial intelligence. And, you know, it's true that for the most part of human history, children were shaped primarily by us, by mom and dad, by you, by parents. And that doesn't mean parents were perfect. My parents weren't perfect. I am not a perfect parent. But primarily that's where the influence was. But over time, our culture has changed. Things have. We went from, as history tells us, from an agricultural society and then to an industrial society. And when that happened, people were moved to the city and living in the city. And so the cities grew. And then along comes the music and then the movies and the drugs and television. And all of those influences grew. But today, something entirely new and different has happened and has grown. And as I said, that is big tech, high tech, artificial intelligence, smartphones, screens. I mean, these things didn't just change the conversation, they've reorganized it. And that's what we need to understand. You know, the phones and the platforms, the algorithms. Here's what we need to understand. They don't just deliver content. That's not all that's happening. What they're doing is that they're learning. That's what they're programmed to do. Artificial intelligence. And everything that your kids are doing on those phones and iPads and all the rest of it on. On the Internet, we. And we're su. We're doing it too. I mean, I'm susceptible. The thing about it is, as long as we understand it. That's why I said at the beginning, this is not about fear. It's about clarity. It's about understanding. It's about insight. Because what we're doing, every time we're on our phones, on social media, even on the Internet, we're training artificial intelligence. We're teaching it about us. And that's what it's doing. It's learning about us. We just feel like our kids are getting information. No, they're getting information too, about us. And that is what's happening. These algorithms, as they're called. I think I'm pronouncing it right. These are systems that were programmed to learn what captivates our attention, what triggers our emotions, and what keeps us engaged. So when you think about kids, that's what it's picking up. You know, tick tock and. And Snapchat and Facebook and all of it. Instagram, yes, we're being programmed, but we are also programming it to know us. And so that, you know, relationship with high tech and our kids is happening. And we weren't, as parents, we weren't trained to deal with this stuff. You know, you wonder like, wow, what is happening with. With my kid, with my daughter, with my son? And they just seemed so much more connected with all their friends because they all have this thing in common around social media and artificial intelligence and all that stuff. Well, it's Inescapable, I'll say that, but it's what I'm. The point I'm making is that the game has changed and we weren't trained for it and we weren't given a new playbook. So we're, we're just learning this stuff. I'm just learning this stuff. As I'm learning this stuff, I want to share it with, with parents, with you, mom and dad. Because as I said, if you're feeling that estrangement from your kids or they're pushing back more or they're just not connected and they're just always, you know, looking down at their screens, That's the world we're living in. But, but here's the thing. We don't have to fear it, we just need to understand it. Now I want to introduce you to a man you probably never heard of, maybe you have, by the name of Edward Bernays. And he, Edward Bernays is, is often called the father of modern public relations or ppr or if you ever saw. I think it was on, I think it was on Netflix admin. The, the series admin was on for a few years. He's the father of all that, of advertisers, of people that write copy, the people who influence us, the people who write the commercials, basically. And he understood something that still shapes our world today. Every day we're hearing it, we're seeing it on. If you notice, a lot of the platforms now that used to use watch movies, now they have commercials. And of course, if you have television, we're bombarded with all these things. But see, it's very intentional. And here's what he taught and said. He believed that people don't choose what they want, they are taught what they want. Listen to what he said. Quote. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of. Close quote and again quote the propagandist, which. That's what advertisement is propaganda. The propagandist rules the propagandized. That's usually if we're not aware, do whatever he would have them do exactly as he tells them to. And here's the key. And without knowing it, close quote, that's who this guy was. That's what he said, that's what he believed, that's what he developed. And it is just today, with social media, artificial intelligence, commercials, all of it, advertisement, that is what is behind it. It's intentional and that is what's happening. But my point is in a bigger, a much bigger way the game has changed, the rules have changed, the goalposts have been moved. Because that is a really powerful idea. It's psychological manipulation. And that's exactly what technology and AI are programmed to do. That's what social media and smartphones are really all about. And as parents, we assume that our kids are influenced. Like the old deal, the old way. We hear an idea, we think about it and then we decide. But psychology and modern influence and propaganda works in reverse. It's all about emotions. And first with that emotional hook, then kids start forming an identity and then comes the behavior. By the time your child is making a choice, they've already been groomed. And that's how it works. And that's why kids, a lot of times they can't explain why. Why do you like. I don't know. Why are you joining that crowd out there? I don't know, you know, why, why are you feeling the way? I don't know. And that's why. Because again, they're being programmed emotionally and identify them because we all want to belong to stuff. So. But what we need to understand as parents is that they were our children in many of these cases are being emotionally escorted and it's a, it's a form of psychological manipulation or what. Another, another one of these propagandists, matter of fact, who, Edward Bernays, who his mentor was Walter Lippman, he said, or he called it manufactured consent. So here's something that might surprise you about all this. You might be thinking that the only kids that this influences are, you know, the high risk, at risk kids, kids that are, you know, don't come from, you know, solid homes, maybe broken homes, and that they're the targets, they're the vulnerable ones. But you would be wrong because even kids from stable homes, as a matter of fact, kids who are raised in healthy homes can be even more vulnerable. Why? Because they're raised in healthy homes and they tend to trust adults. They feel like people have good intentions, they want to belong, and they don't have the skepticism. See, a child that's raised, you know, in a dysfunctional home and there's no trust, there's all this dysfunction. They're skeptical, they don't. They're not so easily trusting as people who come from a healthy home. So these things are affecting kids all across the board. But this manipulation environment that our kids are in, that's what in this series I want to talk about in this episode, the next episode, and maybe one more after that. It's not that our children are naive that that's not what it's about. And it doesn't mean that you are doing something wrong. I'm saying to you that the rules have changed, the environment has changed. We were never taught any of this. It's all just coming on us. And we see the impact that it has. So understand that, mom and dad. So let me offer you, offer you this reassurance in ending this, this session today. Influence. This is what we're talking about. Because that's what parenting is all about. Influence and loyalty. We don't want to lose the loyalty of our children, the heart, the mind of our children that has been influenced psychologically. Technology, manipulation, deception, okay? But influence is not something you can gain overnight, and it's not something you can lose overnight, but it is something that you can change and grow in and, and improve on and strengthen. That's what I want to leave you with. And that is the core, really, of what parents On a Mission is all about. Don't think that you need to out tech your kids. Don't think that you just need to know all this stuff and know all the platforms and you certainly, mom and dad don't need to panic. But what we do need, what you do need is discernment. And that's what we're going to talk about next time. So let me say this. In our next episode, I'll talk more about deception, emotional hijacking and how that happens with our kids and the power of our emotions over logic and what we as parents can do differently to offset those things that are happening. Because I'm not telling you to take the social media away from your kids, the phones away, the computer. That's not going to work. That's counterproductive. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is to understand it, what's happening and how it's working. And then with that insight and discernment, then we can approach our children in a way that we have the influence, we have their attention and we don't lose our connection with them. So I want to end by asking you to share this episode. If it's resonated with you of what I'm trying to say, and if you know parents that you feel are losing that connection with their kids, they don't know what to do. The kids are, you know, just, just addicted. That's the word I'm looking for, to their smartphones and their friends more than in their relationship with their mom and dad, then I, I ask that you would share this episode if you feel that it's going to help them dealing with what I'm talking about. And to help me reach more parents, I want to ask you a favor, if you will like this episode. Subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. Those three things will really help me reach more people a lot. Getting likes, getting subscriptions, and getting reviews. And again, the review. You don't have to agree with everything I'm saying, you know. And as I said in my last episode, you don't have to take my word for these things, you know, you can do your own research. I'm just trying to do do my best to inform you the different things that I'm learning, always with the intention of helping that connection. Turning the hearts of parents towards their children and the hearts of children towards their parents as the best method for preventing children from joining negative lifestyles. So until next time, I'm Richard Ramos and I'm reminding you that the goal of parenting is not control, its influence. And as I always leave you with parents on a mission is not for bad parents. It's for good parents who want to get better. See you next time, Sam.
