In this episode, I explore the contrasting philosophies of authoritative and peaceful parenting, shaped by my childhood experiences within a large family. I reflect on the importance of setting clear boundaries and enforcing consequences, especially in a society that often rewards negative behaviors. Through personal anecdotes, I discuss the balance between authority and emotional connection, emphasizing the necessity of teaching children about the consequences of their actions. I advocate for nurturing open dialogue and respectful communication, highlighting the role of negotiation and understanding in parenting. Ultimately, I encourage parents to introspect on their own standards, aiming to raise emotionally intelligent and respectful children.
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GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND AUDIOBOOK!
https://peacefulparenting.com/
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
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LearningTranscript
00:00Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stephen Mullen here from Freedom, Maine.
00:03Let's take on authoritative parenting and compare it to peaceful parenting, which is
00:09the philosophical approach to being a good mommy or daddy. All right, so this is from Business
00:16Insider, I think it is. Growing up, my parents didn't discipline me. Now I'm doing authoritative
00:21parenting and it's working. All right. People always think the Brady Bunch had a wild family
00:28until they hear about me and my 16 siblings. My parents always wanted to give us the best
00:32childhoods by creating a safe environment for everyone to be themselves. That's why they had
00:36me and my three biological siblings, then adopted 13 other children. Okay, that's a little obsessive.
00:42Our parents adored us, but they also lacked the ability to discipline us when my siblings and
00:46I inevitably butted heads. They were always so exhausted from our busy lives that they struggled
00:50to keep everyone in line. I grew up seeing how constant chaos with no discipline didn't create
00:56the best environment. Some of my siblings lost faith in authority figures. I knew my future
01:01parenting style would incorporate more authoritative style. That's a bit of an awkward
01:07sentence. I knew my future parenting style would incorporate more authoritative style,
01:12which has proven to be the best thing for my five-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter.
01:16An authoritative parenting style was the right choice for my family. Oh my God. Jesus Lord.
01:22Above. Can you, you know, vague badness followed by it's the right choice. For what? Based on what?
01:30Based on outcomes when your kids haven't even hit puberty yet? Based on what you like? Based
01:36on your preferences? Based on what? How about based on morals? Oh no. Apparently that's just
01:42a bridge too far for people as a whole. All right. Evaluating my family's dynamics as a kid made me
01:49vow that my kids would always know there were consequences for poor choices.
01:58There were consequences for poor choices.
02:06Sorry, are you not aware that we live in a society where there are almost no consequences
02:10for poor choices? In fact, people get massively rewarded for poor choices all the time. Women who
02:18have children out of wedlock with unstable fathers get the equivalent of $80,000 a year
02:25in free stuff and benefits. Politicians who fail to deliver on their promises get reelected
02:33all the time by making new promises. People can, they go to school with terrible teachers who never
02:40get fired and who misrepresent and bully the, misrepresent facts and bully the children all
02:45the time. They never get fired. What are you talking about? We've got an entire generation,
02:50well two I guess, boomers in Gen X that wanted more out of the government than they were willing
02:55to pay in taxes and therefore have bequeathed over a million dollars per capita in debt to the young.
03:03What, what negative consequences are they facing? We have a media and politicians who regularly lie
03:11to countries and sometimes the world into war. What negative consequences do they face? They
03:17just went through a pandemic where people made the most appalling statements, turned on their
03:23fellow citizens like a bunch of cannibalistic half-starved jackals. What negative consequences
03:28are they facing? I mean, what world are you living in? Well, you know, there are consequences for
03:34poor choices. Okay.
03:42What, what are they facing in society? What do people in society face as consequences for poor
03:49choices? I don't, I don't understand. People can vote for warmongers who start wars and neither
03:57the warmongers nor the voters ever face any negative consequences. I mean, in terms of like
04:04moralizing or legal, legal stuff, I'm a, I'm a little confused. So if you're going to raise your
04:10kids in a world where people get massively rewarded for bad decisions, you have to say,
04:18we're raising you with the opposite of how a state of society functions as a whole.
04:25We're going to teach you how to think. And generally in society, those who think face
04:30the most negative consequences of all. And those who mindlessly repeat propaganda face the most
04:35positive consequences of all. I mean, they, they know this in school, you know, you raise your hand
04:41and you criticize the teacher and what happens, right? I get these messages all the time.
04:50I'm in university. The teacher is telling lies. Should I correct the teacher? Should I correct
04:54the professor? Should I correct the TA? Right? We all know what happens if you oppose what the
05:00teachers and professors say, if you think for yourself. So it is a poor choice to think for
05:09yourself from a practical, consequential standpoint, but it is a poor choice to think for yourself.
05:17From a practical, consequential standpoint. So if you say kids, you know, it's really important
05:23that you're, you're going to face negative consequences for poor choices. You also have
05:27to say that this is the opposite of how society as a whole functions at the moment. And you want
05:36one of the poor choices that you're going to make is thinking that, that there are negative
05:41consequences for poor choices, because that's just not how society works. So you can't, you
05:47can't be more moral in your family than you are relative to society as a whole. So if you say,
05:54well, we're going to do this radical thing where there are negative consequences for poor choices.
05:58Now, this is not how society works as a whole. And this is, if you make good choices, you will
06:05end up with negative consequences. So, you know, if you're responsible and you work hard and you
06:10get an education and you're entrepreneurial, or you're just a very, very hard worker,
06:15then you're going to get the living crap taxed out of you. But if you are lazy and indifferent
06:20to your future, you get free stuff. This is this great tweet that people wrote,
06:30someone wrote a long time ago, you know, what's the biggest lesson you learned
06:34regarding adulthood? And the biggest lesson was that efficient workers are punished with more work.
06:40Right? It's the old thing. I learned this in business. If you want something done,
06:44give it to the busy person. Because the person who's not that busy is not that busy for a reason.
06:52Yeah. Consequences for poor choices. I mean, you make a lot of people make poor choices and then
07:00just sue people. Anyway, so, you know, kids, there are consequences for poor choices.
07:08And that's fine. I mean, negative consequences for poor choices. I get that. I'm not opposed
07:12to that. I'm just saying that you have to put your kids out into a society where the opposite
07:20of your parenting is generally the case. Right? Because you say to your kids, listen, man, don't
07:28whine to get what you want. Oh, it's a democracy. Well, you're never going to see that again.
07:33Right? All right. So when my husband and I decided to have children, I knew it was a woman.
07:39When we start with personal anecdotes and what works in my family, and it's never no principles.
07:44We discussed how we'd raise them. I wanted to parent them from a place of logic while
07:48prioritizing discipline in response to bad behaviors. That kind of authoritative parenting
07:52means having age-appropriate conversations about how actions have consequences,
07:57in addition to enforcing those consequences, such as temporarily revoking some of my kids'
08:01childhood privileges. So that's interesting. Right? So consequences can mean two things.
08:07Right? Consequences can mean if you are careless on your bike, you will fall and scrape your knees.
08:14Right? That's reality enforcing consequences. And the other is if you do something I disapprove of,
08:20I will punish you in some manner. And that is not the same as generalized consequences.
08:26So I don't... Actions have consequences. Yes, for sure. Right? The action of, in general,
08:35giving free stuff to the population is getting political power. Right? So those are consequences.
08:41And passing the debt to the unborn. Right? All right. So my role in parenting our kids is more
08:47logical. I understand that... Let me just say my husband and I... Yeah, my role in parenting our
08:54Yeah, my role in parenting our kids is more logical. I understand that both having
08:57conversations with kids and enforcing consequences help them learn to do better next time. And again,
09:04all of this is better relative to what? Relative to virtue, relative to negative consequences.
09:10Meanwhile, my husband has always handled our children's emotional well-being more naturally.
09:13He's there to guide us through the first step while we talk with our kids about how they can
09:16do better next time. Our parenting style encourages emotional stability while equally enacting the
09:22consequences that help children go into better versions of themselves. Okay, it's all just a
09:26bunch of words and nonsense. What are the principles and what are the practical actions?
09:31Don't get me wrong. I'm a softie deep down. Disciplining my children is hard. In those
09:35moments, I'll remind myself they'll achieve greater things because they develop core values
09:39and an understanding of consequences. My God, can you get to the point? What are these core values?
09:44And what do you mean by consequences? We channel both of our approaches through disciplinary and
09:48actions and kindness. This gives our parenting a higher purpose than just trying to keep the
09:52peace to get through the day as a family. I've thought about how I parent my kids for decades
09:57and yet I still can't give you any principles. Even as a teenager, I saw how important it was
10:02to give attention to your children because my parents didn't always have the time to do so
10:05and for good reason. They rarely had a moment to rest. Well, they adopted 13 kids.
10:11That is negative towards your biological children.
10:16Oh good, what our parenting style looks like in action. I keep these values in mind. What values?
10:22What are your values? Consequences, attention, kindness. Those aren't values. Those are just words.
10:28Okay, I keep these values in mind during moments such as yesterday. My husband and I had to enforce
10:32our authoritative parenting style in the grocery store even though we were rushing to get home.
10:38Our five-year-old son grabbed a box of mac and cheese off the shelf and threw it
10:42in our cart. While I put the box back, my husband told him it wasn't on our list.
10:50Okay, so what is wrong with your son wanting mac and cheese?
11:03Your five-year-old son wants mac and cheese and he wants to contribute to the family shopping.
11:08He finds the packaging attractive. He's probably had mac and cheese in the past,
11:13so that's what he likes. So he wants mac and cheese. He wants to contribute to the family shopping.
11:20What is wrong with your five-year-old? Your five-year-old is a little, little, little kid.
11:26He's barely out of toddlerhood. What is wrong with your five-year-old wanting a 99 cent box
11:33of mac and cheese? My husband told him it wasn't on our list.
11:44What is a five-year-old supposed to understand about a list?
11:51And have you explained everything beforehand? That's the key. You must never, ever, ever,
11:57ever enforce any kind of rule that you haven't explained and got the child's agreement with
12:02ahead of time. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. I mean, can you imagine that you have a cell phone
12:10contract and they say we're reducing the data you have by 80 percent, right? Instead of 50 gigs,
12:18you're now down to 10. You'd raise holy hell because you didn't agree to that ahead of time.
12:22You bought for 50 gigs. Now, they might raise the price and tell you all of that,
12:25but they can't drop the service. If you sign up for a plan that says I can call in Canada
12:31and the U.S. and then they increase the price of your plan and say you can no longer
12:37call to the U.S., you'd raise holy hell because that's not what you agreed to.
12:39You don't just have rules imposed on you arbitrarily and consider that just.
12:48What you need to do is have a nice chat with your five-year-old if you think this is some
12:52important rule, which it's not. You sit down with your five-year-old and say, okay, here's the list.
12:57Do you agree with everything that's on the list? We're not going to do things that are off the
13:00list. Here's what the list is for. Here's why we're doing this. Here's why we're doing that.
13:04Do you agree? What do you think? Give me your input so that he's part of the decision-making
13:08process, right? Because you can't inflict a rule on a kid that the kid has not understood and
13:13agreed to ahead of time. Rules are all about the negotiation ahead of time, not the arbitrary
13:18enforcement in the moment. Did your son say ahead of time, I agree with everything that's on this
13:25list? And you can do that at five. Here's this, here's that. Is there anything you want to add
13:28to the list? He says, well, I want mac and cheese. You say, well, there's a lot of chemicals.
13:32Let's make it from scratch, blah, blah, whatever, a lot of space powder in the cheese or whatever
13:37it is, right? So ahead of time, you get the kid to agree with the list. You get the kid to agree
13:47with the list and we don't buy things that are not on the list. Does he agree to that ahead of
13:52time? And then when he's in the store, if he grabs something and throws it on the cart, then you can
13:57just smile and say, is that on the list? Well, we agreed that we weren't going to do things that
14:02weren't on the list and you can't just change the rules, right? You can't just change the agreement,
14:07right? If I say I'm taking you to Chuck E. Cheese and then I take you to the Department of Motor
14:14Vehicles because I need to renew my driver's license, you won't be happy. Like I can't just
14:18change things in the moment, right? And so he doesn't say anything like, well, we talked about
14:24this ahead of time and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And listen to this story, right?
14:33Our five-year-old son grabbed a box of mac and cheese off the shelf and threw it in our cart.
14:38Okay, so this is aggressive language, right? This is a parent who's already annoyed at the child
14:43and then you're not being honest. So grabbed and threw, all right? This is aggressive language.
14:51While I put the box back, my husband told him it wasn't on our list. Our son immediately started
14:56crying and yelling. He said we were mean, which I shut down right away. I told him he couldn't speak
15:02to us like that because he needed to respect us. And if he said it again, he'd lose TV privileges
15:07after dinner. Okay, so your son needs to respect you, but you can take the food that he wants to
15:15eat and his contributions to the shopping and just immediately invalidate it and tell him he's
15:20wrong. It's not on the list, even though he never seems to have agreed with the list ahead of time.
15:26So you're being kind of mean because he's trying to contribute to the family shopping and he's
15:32telling you what he wants to eat and what he thinks the family will want to eat. And you're
15:36just grabbing it out and saying, no, it's not on our list. So that's disrespecting his contributions.
15:40And then you get all pouty and say, well, you need to respect us. He said we were mean. Okay,
15:46so if your child says you're mean, what do you do if you are a reasonable, decent parent?
15:52What you do is you say, what do you mean by mean? What is it that you think that we're
15:56doing that's mean? What are the principles? Why are we doing something that's mean?
16:01Right, so he's saying he's experiencing what's happening as parents being mean.
16:07So you ask questions. What do you mean by that? How are we being mean? Tell me, help me understand,
16:13right? So you shut it down. No, we're not being mean. We're going to punish you if you say that
16:18again. It's like, how's that communication? How's that communication? So, and of course,
16:26he started crying and yelling and said we were mean because when he has a complaint,
16:31he's just punished. He has a complaint. He's experiencing his parents as being mean.
16:35Okay, so listen to that as a parent. Help me understand. How am I being mean?
16:40What is it that you would prefer? And so on, right? Because what was his big thing?
16:47He wanted to eat some mac and cheese. Oh no, he's basically an arsonist. Hey, mom and dad,
16:52I'd really like to eat some mac and cheese and I'd really like to help contribute
16:56to the family shopping outing.
17:00No, it's not on the list. You're being mean. All right, we're punishing you if you say that again.
17:04You need to respect us, okay? So how do you get a kid to respect you? You respect the kid,
17:09right? You can't teach a kid a language you don't speak. If you want to speak the language of
17:14respect, then you need to respect your child. He wants mac and cheese. Now, that doesn't mean he
17:20gets mac and cheese. I mean, it's not like everything I want, I get, but you got to listen.
17:26As opposed to this immediate escalation, right? He wants mac and cheese. You take it out, you put
17:30it back on the shelf. It's not on the list. And why does the kid start crying and yelling and
17:37saying you're mean? Why? Why? Why does the kid do that? Kids tend to really care about their
17:43parents. Kids tend to love their parents. Kids need their parents. Why? You have no curiosity
17:48as to why he might think you're doing something mean. And of course, the parent is the parent.
17:52As to why he might think you're doing something mean. And of course, the parents in all of these
17:56stories, the parents are always perfectly innocent. They didn't do anything wrong.
18:01They weren't short-tempered. They weren't snappy. I mean, look at this.
18:06So the parents are rushing to get home, right? So we all know what that means, that they're
18:12short-tempered, that they're going to be snappy. No, that's not on the list. Put it back,
18:16right? So they're going to be short-tempered and snappy. Now,
18:18a failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. That's something I learned
18:24very early on in the business world. So the fact that you as the parents are in a big rush does
18:30not in any way, shape or form mean that your kid has to be in a hurry too, right? So if you have
18:36something that you have failed to plan for, if you have something that you've committed to,
18:40if you're late for X, Y, and Z, you had to work late or there was slow traffic, that's not your
18:44kid's fault. The fact that you're in a rush does not give you the right to escalate with regards
18:51to your child, because that's your failure to plan. If you're trying to rush through the groceries
18:56because you want to get it done because you're late going somewhere, that's not your kid's fault.
19:00He's not in charge of your schedule. He's not making you late. He's not making you rush. He
19:04didn't set your next schedule. He didn't make traffic bad. It's not his fault. The crying
19:09continued as we walked down other aisles. When my husband shushed our son, he repeated that we were
19:13mean, right? Shush. Okay. That is mean and contemptuous and dismissive. Can you imagine
19:22if the mother, right? If the mother, the wife was upset about something harsh or mean or snappy
19:30that the husband said, and she was trying to talk to him about it and he just said,
19:35what would she? She wouldn't say, oh yes, that's perfectly reasonable. I just got shushed.
19:40Quiet woman. Come on. You wouldn't accept that behavior. You wouldn't accept that behavior.
19:47It's just a power play. This is just a wretched, wretched power play. We're bigger and we have
19:52authority and we have control and we have economic independence and you depended on us and we're
19:57bigger. My gosh, this is pathetic. The kid is crying because he's upset. Rather than asking
20:05him about what he's upset, I mean, because they're in a rush, right? They're saying, well,
20:10sorry kid, I'd love to know what's going on in your heart and mind, but sadly we have a schedule
20:15to keep and the schedule is more important than your wounded heart. So the crying continued. So
20:21now you're in a battle of wills. So the parents are perceiving that the child is being manipulative
20:26and cold and mean and nasty and this and that and the other. And the kid is just sad and upset.
20:30And he's experiencing the parents as being mean. As would I, as would you, as would any other sane
20:35person, right? Can you imagine if the husband was grocery shopping with the wife and she wanted
20:45something and he said, that's not on the list, took it out of the basket and put it back on
20:50the shelf, she'd be upset too. She'd be like, what are you talking about? That's kind of mean.
20:53And he's, shh, quiet woman. It's like, okay. So yeah, this is just escalating. The crying continues.
21:00When we got home, we stuck to our word and he didn't get to watch Paw Patrol. Excellent.
21:04My parents would have tried to quiet him in the store and eventually given up.
21:09Instead, my husband and I explained why our son's language was wrong before enforcing the promised
21:13consequences. While our son pouted in his room later that night, oh yes, he's not sad. He's just,
21:20he's just crying and he's calling you mean. He's being disrespectful and now he's pouting. Do you
21:25see the contempt that people have for the emotional lives of children? He's just pouting.
21:30He's just manipulative. He's just pouting. So look at the disrespect that is being shown to
21:36the child here. And you disrespecting your child's emotional life, disrespecting your
21:43child's preferences and his desire to contribute to the shopping, his desire to eat something like
21:47mac and cheese. It's not like that's four pounds of cocaine and candy. So where's the respect for
21:52your child? Where's the respect for your child? Shush. Where's the respect for your child's
21:55feelings? And now he's just, he's just pouting, right? No, he's sad. He's sad and upset. And he
22:01has something really important to tell you about respect. So now the idea that my parents would
22:09have tried to quiet him in the store and eventually given up. No, you don't try and
22:12quiet your child. Your child's feelings are more important than your goddamn grocery trip. Like
22:18your child's feelings are more important than sticking to the list. What are you? Some sort
22:22of toilet trained at gunpoint, anal tent of German engineer. Oh, it's gotta be on the list.
22:28Gotta be on the list. It's gotta be on the list. The list is more important than your feelings.
22:31The list is more important than your mac and cheese. The list is more important than your
22:34contribution. You have more respect for the list than your son's heart. What's the matter with you?
22:41And then you shush him. You threaten him. You call him pouty. And then you're like,
22:47but it's very important to respect family members. Like, holy crap. I don't understand
22:52his thinking at all. While our son pouted in his room later that night, we talked about why
22:56respecting us was important, how much we loved him and how he should apologize. I know he'll
23:02learn over time that he can't do whatever he wants, which will make him a happier adult
23:07who people love to be around. Yeah, well, he doesn't love to be around you.
23:13Last week, we also discussed how actions have consequences with our eight-year-old daughter.
23:16She wanted to ride her bike to a friend's house after dinner, but it was too late on a school
23:20night. My husband said no, and our daughter rolled her eyes and ran to her room, slamming
23:24the door behind her. So, she asks at the age of eight, she asks, and are there rules agreed to
23:33ahead of time? No, she's just on her knees begging the Father God for permission to go.
23:40Now, after dinner, so dinner is usually six o'clock, so 6, 630, 645, maybe seven o'clock.
23:46Why can she not? She's eight years old. Why can she not ride a bike to her friend's house?
23:52I mean, she can go for an hour. She can go half an hour. Let her do it. Why not?
23:56She wants to do it. Why not? My husband said no.
24:01So, then she's upset. Why? Because there's no negotiation. There's no rules agreed to ahead of
24:06time. She's just begging for permission, and the husband is no. Okay, why should he say no?
24:11Where's the negotiation? Right? Oh, it's all about teaching our children how to function
24:17productively and positively in the real world. Well, in the real world, you negotiate stuff.
24:22You don't just beg for permission unless you're a slave. You don't just beg for permission.
24:26You negotiate. So, you negotiate with your children. Oh, you want the mac and cheese.
24:30Okay, let's talk about it. That's the other, right? Oh, you want to go to your friend's
24:34house after dinner. Why? Why is the no? It's too late on a school night.
24:41It's not. After dinner is not too late on a school night. And if her friend is willing to have her
24:49come over, it's not objectively too late. So, let's say your eight-year-old says at 10 o'clock
24:53at night, I want to go and spend two hours at my friend's house. We'll say, no, it's too late.
24:58And then we even phone the person, put them on speakerphone and say, my daughter wants to come
25:01over at 10 o'clock for two hours. They'd say, no, it's too late. So, if a friend is willing to
25:06accept her, it's not objectively too late. Like, it's not every parent would agree it's too late
25:11because her friend is willing to have her come over. Right? So, you have a problem in that why
25:16is our rule different than the other parents' rule? And that's just a challenge that you have
25:21to deal with, but nope. So, she rolled her eyes and ran to her room, slamming the door behind her.
25:26She's frustrated that there's no negotiation and she's not allowed to make her case. Always let
25:31your kids make the case. Always let your kids make the case. You know, I'm open to talking about it
25:36and not even like I'm open to being convinced because that's saying that you're the final
25:39arbiter. But no, I mean, let me hear the case. We immediately went to her room and told her we
25:45don't do either of those things because they're disrespectful. Right. So, it's rolling your eyes
25:52is disrespectful. However, refusing to negotiate with your children and enforcing arbitrary rules
25:58is not disrespectful. Not even telling her why or explaining things or having rules ahead of time,
26:05that apparently is not disrespectful. My god. She needed to apologize and accept her punishment.
26:11No bike for the rest of the week. So, she rolls her eyes and slams the door and the punishment
26:19is no bike for the rest of the week. So, yeah, well, welcome to your teenage years when they'll
26:22be influenced by their peers and the internet more than you. She's old enough to see how other
26:27parents treat their kids and she pointed out how her best friend slams the door and never gets
26:30punished. She thought it was unfair that other kids could express their anger without punishment
26:33while she couldn't. My husband told her she was allowed to feel mad. He also explained that she
26:38should tell us about her feelings with words so we could work through them together and said that
26:43would be more helpful than slamming doors or rolling her eyes. Okay. Well, are the parents
26:49also explaining to the children what their feelings are and working through them with words
26:53or they're just saying, they're just shushing them and saying, it's not on the list. We're in a hurry.
26:58Right? No. So, you cannot ever, ever, ever justly inflict a rule on your children that you have not
27:07consistently followed for years yourself. So, if you as the parent say, I'm bothered by what you're
27:13doing. I'm not sure. I'm not saying it's your fault. I'm bothered by what you're doing. Let me tell you
27:17what I'm thinking. I'd love to hear what you're thinking. Right? So, are you as a parent
27:21explaining your feelings by talking through them with your child? Are you? Because if you're not,
27:28then asking your children to do that is asking the impossible and being a complete freaking hypocrite
27:33of the lowest and basest kind. Right? So, she says, tell about her feelings with words so we can work
27:39through them together. Right? So, the girl rolls her eyes and slams the door and the parents are
27:44upset and angry. So, are the parents working through their feelings by talking about them
27:49with the kid? No, they're just inflicting a punishment. So, the parents are angry and they
27:53just inflict the punishment and then the child is also angry and just rolls her eyes and slams
27:58the door. So, the parents are not talking through their feelings and then they're saying, well, you
28:03have to talk through your feelings even though we don't. You can't inflict negative stimuli on us
28:08when you're angry but we will inflict negative stimuli on you when you're angry. So, you doing
28:13what we're doing is the opposite of good and you not doing what we're never doing is also the
28:18opposite of good. So, you have to do what we never do in order to be the good. It's madness. It's
28:26staggering. So, he made a great point by asking how a daughter felt when her best friend rolled
28:30her eyes at her. My eight-year-old said it was annoying. I saw her realize in real time that it
28:33wasn't as helpful as talking through her feelings but how are the parents modeling talking through
28:37their feelings? Oh my gosh. When we need to take a loving approach to discipline, we do so by
28:42discussing why the consequences happen and how much we love our kids no matter what. I believe
28:46that our kids benefit from my slightly emotionally detached logical approach. My husband's strength
28:52in emotional vulnerability. Emotional vulnerability is not characterized by put that
28:56mac and cheese back now shush when you're crying. Enforcing rules sometimes make me feel like a bad
29:01mom. Really? Really. So, enforcing rules sometimes makes you feel like a bad mom but rather than talk
29:09through your feelings, you just repress them and say, right? Enforcing rules sometimes makes me
29:17feel like a bad mom but these moments when I see the light bulb spark in my children's minds are
29:21worth it. When I doubt myself while setting boundaries or making disciplinary decisions,
29:25I remember that we're preparing them to be well-rounded adults. My kids are incredible now
29:31and they'll be even more amazing in adulthood because we are committed to consequences.
29:37Yeah. Don't enforce any rules on kids that you have not repeatedly and consistently modeled
29:43for years ahead of time. If you want your kids to control their temper, you need to control your
29:47temper. If you want your kids to talk through their feelings, you need to talk through your
29:51feelings. If you want your kids to listen, you need to listen to them first. If you want your
29:56kids to respect you, you need to respect them first. Do your kids say, I don't want to go to
30:01school? And you say, well, you have to go to school. That's not listening to them talk through
30:05their feelings. If you ever said, well, maybe we can homeschool or maybe we can find some
30:08alternative or maybe this or maybe that. Nope. So, it's really sad. I don't understand this
30:15thinking. I mean, I may be a little bit oversensitive to hypocrisy, having grown up with
30:19so much of it myself, but it's all over the place in society. But if you think that simply inflicting
30:26negative consequences for them, not following the principles you've never seemed to have followed
30:32yourself is good parenting. Well, yeah, they're incredible now, I suppose, because they've just
30:37given up. See, people say, well, I just inflict negative consequences through rank hypocrisy on
30:43my kids and they're amazing. They've fallen in line. It's like, no, they haven't fallen in line.
30:48They've just given up. See, kids can't, I'm here to articulate on behalf of children. In other words,
30:53to talk about the instincts that children have that they can't articulate or will face too much
30:57negative consequences for articulating. So, yes, this is terrible, terrible, terrible stuff.
31:03It's terrible stuff and it is not going to work. Yeah. So, you've dominated them, right? Yeah. So,
31:08they've come out of the terrible twos, as they're called, and now they're in what's called the
31:11latency period, which is sort of four to five to, you know, nine to ten, maybe into puberty,
31:16depending. So, the latency period is when kids just kind of give up. If they try to negotiate
31:21through their toddlerhood, they try to look for their parents to actually manifest the principles
31:27that they inflict on the children. And if they don't, and they, you know, it's really tough for
31:30kids to make that case. It's really, that's really edgy and difficult for kids to make that case.
31:36So, I'm here to tell you on behalf of your children that if you inflict rules you never
31:40follow yourself on your children, if you dismiss their feelings as whining and pouting and so on,
31:48rather than, if you're disrespectful towards your children and then you punish them for being
31:52disrespectful towards you, if you don't see that your children's upset is the result of you not
31:58listening and your daughter rolling her eyes and slamming the door is the result of you rolling
32:04your eyes by calling your children pouty and difficult and then slamming the door of your heart
32:08by refusing to empathize with their upset, by calling their upset negative, by disrespecting
32:14their emotions and having contempt for the operations of their instinctive hearts, they
32:18don't have any control over their emotions. Their children, I mean, most adults don't either.
32:24Then that's not parenting, that's just dominance. So, yeah, your kids will give up.
32:28They will absolutely give up and they will say, okay, I can't negotiate with these people. I just
32:32get punished. I can't express a complaint and I don't know how to talk through my feelings.
32:38Because they don't talk through their feelings, they just inflict punishments.
32:42So, I give up and having your children give up looks like compliance. It looks like you've won.
32:47Absolutely, you can break kids this way and then the storms of the teenage years will hit,
32:55the hormones will hit and then you'll wonder why your parenting didn't work at all.
33:01Peaceful parenting is the way to go. Every time you want to inflict a consequence on your child
33:07or you want to punish your child, ask yourself, have I consistently for years modeled the behavior
33:12that I want out of my child? If your child is acting out their emotions, you have to say,
33:19where did they get that from? And you are responsible as a parent for everything that
33:23your child does. Because you say, well, they don't get that from me, they get that from school.
33:27You chose to put them in school. You chose to put them in school. It's still 100% on you.
33:33Well, they don't get that from me, they get that from their friends. Well,
33:36you are in charge of their social life. You choose who they socialize with, still 100% on you.
33:43So, every time your child is doing something quote negative, you need to look in the mirror and say,
33:48where's that behavior coming from? Most parenting, this kind of parenting is literally
33:54teaching your children swear words and then punishing them for swearing.
33:59There's not one instance where these parents talk out their feelings and work through those
34:04feelings in negotiation with their children and then they punish their five and eight-year-old
34:09for not doing what the parents themselves have failed to do. Consistently and repeatedly,
34:13the parents have had 40 years to learn how to do what they're punishing a five-year-old for
34:19not doing and an eight-year-old. If you haven't mastered this or done it consistently by the age
34:25of 40, how dare you inflict this standard of talking through your feelings on a five-year-old
34:30and an eight-year-old? I can't tell you how much contempt I have for this stuff.
34:34It's absolutely ridiculous. If your kids don't talk through their feelings, it's because you
34:39haven't talked through your feelings. Kids will mirror their parents. Kids will do what their
34:43parents model and show and display and teach. It's not authoritative parenting. It's just rank
34:50hypocrisy masquerading as imaginary parental perfection, which is always combined with
34:55contempt for the children and a punishment on the children so they never figure out exactly
35:00how ridiculously hypocritical the parents are. That is raising them to be good little serfs
35:08in the modern world. Well done. Congratulations. We get another generation of slavery.