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- [00:00]
Kennedy
Foreign.
- [00:11]
Asman
Welcome to this episode of Kennedy Saves the World. Joe Frost, the super Nanny. Do you remember? Did you ever watch Super Nanny when it was on abc? It was a great show. I loved it. I watched all the time. It definitely influenced some of my parenting. I found some of the techniques to be very, very helpful. She's no nonsense and she was a skills based child educator who found a way of simplifying things to make complex problems manageable for parents. Because every parent, it doesn't matter how old your kid is, you are going to come up a set of challenges that you don't have a solution for. And she was always very, very skills and solution oriented and I appreciated that about her. So one example of a super nanny technique that worked for us when my older daughter was very young, she was super athletic and found out from a young age how to get out of her crib. And then all of a sudden I looked down the hallway and there was this 16 month old ghost child standing in the hallway and I screamed. I didn't realize it was my child who I could not conceive of her being able to climb out of her crib. But she would put one leg up on the side of the crib and then pull herself up, rest on her belly and then wriggle her way over to the side of the crib, extending both of her arms and then she dropped down to the ground. So from that moment on, it became very, very obvious that she had to get out of a crib and into a princess bed, which, you know, it's a crib sized mattress and a smaller bed. And then she transitioned into a big bed when her sister was born and they shared her room. So in order to get her to sleep in the princess bed, we had to use the super nanny technique, which totally worked. And it required one night of no sleep for me, the chosen parents, to use the super nanny technique. And basically what it is, is every time your child gets out of bed or tries to get out of bed, you pick them up and put them back in bed and you do not emotionally react to them, you do not soothe them, you do not make eye contact, you stay in the room, your back toward them, and every time they get out of bed, you put them back in bed and then slowly you inch your way out of the room. And it, it can take several hours and in this case it did, but it was worth it because from that moment on, she never got out of her princess bed unless, you know something was horribly wrong. She slept through the night and she Learned how to soothe herself. Joe Frost is taking aim at parenting because she says that kids don't know how to sue themselves. They don't have enough independence. They are so dependent on their parents because parents have allowed kids to be dependent on them. And I think part of that, frankly, is ego driven. Like, you know, there are parents who want to be needed, just like there are parents who want to be best friends with their kids. And that can be incredibly destructive because, as Joe Frost points out, that there are so many children today who do not have basic skills. And I do agree with this. You know, raising kids in New York City is different than raising kids in the suburbs. I have done both. And, you know, in New York City, there is a lot of walking. And so you do tend to see kind of bigger kids in strollers. But if you're in the burbs, your 4 and 5 year old should not be in a stroller. They should be walking. And I understand it might slow you down a little bit. And I will never forget, as soon as my older daughter could get out of a stroller, that's all she wanted to do, was walk. And did she walk quickly? No, no, she wanted to walk slow. She wanted to investigate because that was how she was learning about the world. And of course, as a parent, you have to take a deep breath and take a step back and allow them to do that. Which sucks when you're time crunched, but, you know, that is part of the process. But kids who are in strollers too long, they are not going through the typical physical development that kids are supposed to do. Especially as we evolved into anatomically modern humans, we did so because we were climbing, we were walking, we were running. And that's what human beings are designed to do, but that's what a lot of parents are not allowing them to do. One of the other issues she has with kids is they have pacifiers for too long. And, you know, at some point it is good. You know, for some kids, they love pacifiers. Other kids, they can't stand them. But my younger daughter, she loved her pacifier. And when it came time for her to go to preschool, when she was almost three years old, we gave the pacifiers to the baby mermaids. We boxed them up. We did it as a ritual. We wrapped it and sealed it and addressed it and sent the pacifiers to the baby mermaids who needed pacifiers themselves. And it was a way of saying goodbye and a way of marking it. A new era in childhood. And from that point on, she didn't Have a pacifire and it was great. And again, that was another technique I learned from other parents who we all go through the same challenges and that one was incredibly helpful. But a pacifier should not be used as the soul soothing device. Kids have to figure out how to do that for themselves and any adult who's been in therapy. One of the things you learn is if you don't learn to soothe yourself as a child, if you don't learn how to, you know, be bored for a little bit or fall asleep on your own, then when you were adult, when you become an adult, you will look for ways to self soothe. And oftentimes those ways can be very harmful and they can activate addiction. And it can be alcohol, it can be drugs, it can be pills, it can be shopping, it can be sex, it can be any number of things and you don't realize that is what you are doing. But when you are teaching a child independence from a young age, one of the first things you teach them is self soothing. And it's critically important. Of course you can learn it as an adult, but obviously it is much better to lay that foundation. But we have for some reason gotten into the mindset that no one should ever be uncomfortable. And I think that is one of the most harmful things that parents can do for kids is not allowing them to be uncomfortable. You know, whether it's climate controlled or, you know, water filtration systems, we don't let kids walk in the rain or play in the mud or, or experience failure on a number of levels because it is uncomfortable. That is how you grow, you grow from discomfort. Don't go anywhere more. Kennedy Saves the World right after this.
- [07:17]
Kennedy
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- [08:01]
Asman
You know, discomfort is not necessarily Failure. Failure is not necessarily the worst thing in the world. And you know, I remember reading about some advice for parents. Stop saving your kids if they forget something at home. You don't necessarily have to take it to school. They have to learn from that. Now I do admit if my daughters forgot something, whether it was part of a presentation or a costume they needed for a dance, of course I took it to them. And I don't think that I was creating a toxic cycle of dependence that they would not be able to overcome later in their lives. But I do think that Joe Frost is onto something. And it goes back to an article that we were talking about today on Outnumbered in the Free Press by Arthur Brooks that gen zers are so risk averse to the point where they meet, they are a detriment to their own generation. And you have kids in high school who are not drinking. They have not a majority of them have not tried alcohol. And that is real. If you talk to younger gen zers, they don't have premarital sex like they used to. They don't drink alcohol like they used to. They. And it was very interesting because part of the article focuses on how gen zers are investing. Because the assumption was they were investing in crypto and meme stocks, but they are so risk averse they are staying liquid or at least investing in investment strategies that allow them to become liquid quickly because they are so scared. And they are so scared partially because parents have been there to pick them up whenever there was anything to be fearful of. Because fear and discomfort go hand in hand. But for some reason, my generation of parents, we did not want our kids to be uncomfortable. And it's not like we grew up in the Great Depression. You know, go and talk to your grandparents, if they're still alive, talk to them about what real discomfort was like. We don't know anything like that. But if you are thinking about a generation of kids, you, they, they don't want failure, they, they are scared of the world, they are scared of discomfort, then you know that it means that they will be withheld from challenging experiences. And that is not a way to go through life. That is not a way to go through life. As an American kid. You should want challenge, you should want risk, you should want to be able to dive in head first, invent and experience new things even if you don't have an immediate solution for it if the bottom falls out and you happen to fail at it. So if you've got a risk averse generation like what are they going to be like when they are pushing our wheelchairs into retirement homes. It's terrifying. And you also. That also goes hand in hand with socialism and the idea that rich people owe me something, the government owes me something. I don't want to work. Work is uncomfortable. Hard work is meant to be uncomfortable because when hard work pays off, it is better than any professional experience you will ever have. The success that comes from your incredible idea and your perseverance and your refusal to quit when everyone else says no, there is no replacement for that. Socialism will never invent something, provide something that replaces that feeling. And that is the point of American society. It really is. Because a meritocracy is supposed to say, if you have the good idea, if you have the work ethic, then you are the one who can enjoy the triumph. But you cannot be triumphant. If you are scared of the world and if you've got parents who are fearful of your fear, you are going to create a set of problems that will metastasize into a generational issue that at some point, if it goes too far, it is insurmountable. But I am here to save the world. To tell you, let your kids try. Let your kids fail. Don't allow them to be dependent on you for everything. Foster independence whenever you can. And and it starts with little things like teach your kids how to brush their teeth and let them brush their teeth. Allow your kids into the kitchen with you and they will know how to make meals for themselves before they leave your home. That is an absolute gift, baby. That's what I'm here for. This Asman Kennedy Saves the World. I'm Kennedy. Listen ad free. With a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts and Amazon prime, members can listen to this show ad free on the Amazon Music app. Oh, go ahead and leave me a review while you're there. I'd love to hear what you have to say. You've been listening to Kennedy Saves the World on the Fox News Podcast Network.