Vishen Lakhiani presents parenting advice centered on shaping children’s core beliefs: rather than diminishing a child’s ego to prevent narcissism, parents should actively build self-love. He relays counsel from psychologist Shelley Lefkoe to always consider what belief a child will walk away with after any intervention, illustrates with a ‘Billy drops a spoon’ vignette, and describes a nightly ritual of naming one thing the parent loves about the child to reinforce worth and disrupt cycles of hurt.
Chapters
Now, today, as I raise my son, I've realized that the most important thing you can give a child are the right beliefs, the right models of reality. See, most kids grow up and parents believe that you do not want to turn your kid into a narcissist. You want to smack that kid and show him that he has to behave, that this is the real world. You can't praise a kid too much because you're going to build up their ego. I believe all of that is wrong. I believe the biggest thing that we're doing to our kids right now is bashing their ego. I was talking to a famous American parenting psychologist, Shelley Lefkoe, and I asked her, shelly, what's the biggest piece of advice you can give any parent in the room? And she said, vishen, this is what you got to know. Firstly, no matter what action you take with your child, ask yourself, what beliefs is he going to walk away with from this? So let's say you have a kid, and the kid's at the dining table, and he drops his spoon. He's angry about something. He tosses his spoon down, and you say, billy, pick that up. And he goes, no. And he drops his fork. And now you're frustrated. You're like, billy picked it up. He goes, no. So what would a good parent do? They would take Billy, put Billy in a corner. Well, a bad parent would smack Billy, but a good parent would go, put Billy in a corner and say, billy, I want you to sit down there and think about what you did, okay? And we love you, but sit down there and think about what you did. Now, is that good or bad? What do you guys think? Not the best. Well, here's the thing. You got to ask yourself, what beliefs is my kid going to take away from that? Now, here's what could be going on in Billy's head. Remember, Billy is like moldable glass. So he could be thinking, well, I dropped my spoon because I was angry, because I asked my mom a question and she seemed to be talking to dad and didn't listen to me. So I wanted to gain her attention because I really respect my mom now. Mom puts me in a corner and scolds me and doesn't ask me why I dropped my scoon. So therefore, I think my mom doesn't really respect me. Now that starts accelerating. My mom doesn't respect me, and my mom doesn't respect me. It means I'm not worthy. It means I'm not important. It means I'm not enough. How many of you here grew up Feeling you were not enough in some way, that's what we do to our kids. So the most profound exercise I've started doing is with any parenting intervention. I asked my child, hayden, what do you think? What does this mean to you? What are you thinking about? Why did you drop that spoon? Tell me. I know it's not normally you, is it because I did this? And every night before I put Hayden to sleep, I asked Hayden, hayden, what did you truly love about yourself today? And he'll say, my hair. I like my hair. It's soft. Or he'll say, I like the fact that today in school, I ran really, really, really fast and came second in the race. And sometimes he'll go, I just want to sleep, dad. And then I'll tell him, hayden, what I really like about you is that you sleep so well. It can be anything, but every single night, I try to point out to my child one thing I love about him. Because you cannot give a kid enough love. You cannot give a kid enough self love and make them appreciate themselves enough because the entire world is bashing them and putting them down. One of my friends, her name is is Veena, said this. She said, hurt people. Hurt people. The teachers who hurt you hurt you because they got hurt. And so the greatest thing we can do is to create self love in our children. I don't believe in narcissism. I believe everyone should be madly in love with themselves, with our kids, because the only way we can disrupt the societal pattern of putting each other down and is to make sure we do not create more hurt people.
