2512: How to Raise Healthy & Resilient Children with Erica Komisar

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - Episode 2512 Summary

Title: How to Raise Healthy & Resilient Children with Erica Komisar
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews
Guest: Erica Komisar
Release Date: January 16, 2025

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1. Introduction

In Episode 2512 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews welcome Erica Komisar, a clinical social worker and psychoanalyst, to discuss profound insights into parenting and child development. Drawing from her extensive experience and research, Erica delves into the critical role parents play in fostering healthy and resilient children.

2. Guest Introduction

Justin Andrews introduces Erica Komisar, highlighting her impactful presence at the Ark event in London in 2023. Erica is renowned for her book, Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters, which challenges prevailing notions in child-rearing with data-backed research.

3. The Importance of the First Three Years

Erica emphasizes the first three years as a critical period for brain development:

"The first three years is what we call the first critical period of brain development... 85% of the right brain or the social, emotional brain of a child is developed by the age of three."
— Erica Komisar [06:09]

She explains that during this period, the environment and presence of primary caregivers, especially mothers, significantly influence a child's mental health trajectory.

4. Attachment Theory and Critical Periods

Erica outlines two critical periods of brain development:

• 0 to 3 Years: Focus on social and emotional growth.
• 9 to 25 Years: Emphasis on adolescence and young adulthood.

She underscores that the absence of a primary attachment figure in the first three years can lead to long-term mental health challenges.

5. Impact of Daycare and Alloparenting

Discussing modern parenting practices, Erica critiques the reliance on daycare and misinterpretations of alloparenting:

"Alloparenting basically means there are multiple attachment figures... but when the baby's in distress, those family members have no problem and no vanity and no possessiveness. And so they give the baby right back to the primary attachment figure."
— Erica Komisar [06:50]

She argues that while daycare and external caregivers can provide routine care, they often fail to address the emotional needs during a child's distress, which is vital for healthy attachment.

6. Emotional Regulation and Learned Helplessness

Erica discusses the concept of learned helplessness, where children internalize a sense of powerlessness due to inconsistent caregiving:

"If you don't respond to their distress, all you're teaching them is that the world is an unsafe place."
— Erica Komisar [11:03]

She connects this to the rise in mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and ADHD, framing them as maladaptive stress responses rather than inherent disorders.

7. Gender Differences in Development

Highlighting gender-specific developmental sensitivities, Erica notes that:

"Little boys are more neurologically sensitive than little girls. More little boys make it because they are more neurologically fragile."
— Erica Komisar [21:37]

She explains that societal expectations for boys to "toughen up" exacerbate their vulnerability to stress, leading to behavioral issues.

8. Sleep Training and Bonding

Erica strongly advises against sleep training for children under one year:

"You should not sleep train a child under the age of one. Period."
— Erica Komisar [17:21]

She emphasizes that responding to a baby's cries fosters trust and emotional regulation, whereas dismissing their distress teaches them that they are alone and untrustworthy.

9. Coping with Parenting Challenges

For parents in challenging situations, Erica recommends prioritizing the child's emotional needs over societal pressures:

"If you're putting your children first, then you do what your children need."
— Erica Komisar [37:26]

She advocates for lifestyle adjustments akin to handling crises, ensuring that children's emotional well-being remains paramount.

10. The Role of Fathers

Erica elaborates on the unique role of fathers in child development:

"Fathers help with separation... they encourage exploration and risk-taking, helping to regulate aggression through play."
— Erica Komisar [30:59]

She contrasts the nurturing instincts of mothers with the protective and exploratory nature of fathers, highlighting the necessity of both for balanced child development.

11. Impact of Technology and Social Media

Addressing modern distractions, Erica critiques the pervasive use of technology:

"Our smartphones and the Internet have made dissociation an art in our culture... parents are present physically, but not emotionally."
— Erica Komisar [70:52]

She warns that excessive screen time hinders emotional regulation and deepens attachment issues between parents and children.

12. Addressing Attachment Issues in Children

Erica provides strategies for repairing attachment ruptures:

"The brain is plastic... the sooner you get help, the greater the chance you can repair it."
— Erica Komisar [60:52]

She encourages parents to seek therapy and modify parenting behaviors to mend emotional bonds, even beyond the critical early years.

13. Advice for Working Parents

For families requiring both parents to work, Erica suggests:

• Maximize Quality Time: Ensure that the time spent with the child is emotionally engaging and attentive.
• Advocate for Bonding: Fathers should actively participate in caregiving to support the mother's role and strengthen attachment.
• Gradual Separation: Introduce daycare gradually, allowing gentle adjustments to minimize stress on the child.

14. Conclusion

Erica Komisar concludes by reiterating the foundational importance of emotional presence in the early years:

"The more you are physically and emotionally present for your children in the first three years, the greater the chance your children will be mentally healthy in the future."
— Erica Komisar [77:35]

She calls for societal changes to prioritize family relationships over economic pursuits, emphasizing that a resilient and healthy future generation depends on the nurturing provided today.

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Notable Quotes:

• Erica Komisar [06:09]: "85% of the right brain or the social, emotional brain of a child is developed by the age of three."
• Erica Komisar [17:21]: "You should not sleep train a child under the age of one. Period."
• Erica Komisar [21:37]: "Little boys are more neurologically sensitive than little girls. More little boys make it because they are more neurologically fragile."
• Erica Komisar [37:26]: "If you're putting your children first, then you do what your children need."
• Erica Komisar [70:52]: "Our smartphones and the Internet have made dissociation an art in our culture... parents are present physically, but not emotionally."

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This episode offers a comprehensive exploration of the foundational aspects of child development, emphasizing the indispensable role of parental presence and emotional engagement in fostering resilient and mentally healthy individuals.

Transcript

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[B]

Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal Destefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we have a special guest. So in 2023, the guys and I went to London to the Ark event and we heard Erica Komisar speak and she blew our minds. We wanted her on the show. She's a clinical social worker, psychoanalyst. She works with people for anxiety and depression. She dives into research and she wrote some pretty incredible books. One of them, which I love, is Being There why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters. She says some controversial things, but it's all backed by data and studies. And in today's episode, we talk about parenting, raising children, what matters, how to raise resilient, healthy kids. Some of what you're going to hear might be counter to what you thought, but again, she backs it with data. She knows what she's talking about. She's one of our favorite guests ever, by the way. You can find her on Instagram at Erica Komesar Komisar, spelled K O M I S a r. Now this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Seed, the world's best probiotic. If you want a discount, go through our link, go to seed.com mindpump use the code 25mindpump and get 25% off your first month's order. We also have a sale this month on some workout program bundles. We have a New to Weightlifting Bundle, a Body Transformation Bundle, a New Year Extreme Intensity Bundle, and a body transformation bundle 2.0. All of these bundles are $300 or more off, so massive discounts. If you're interested, go check them out. Go to maps january.com all right, here comes the show. Erica, welcome to the show.

[A]

Thank you for having me.

[B]

Thank you. So we saw you at ARK in London and we were just right afterwards, we're like, we need to get her on the show. We're all parents. And I think I want to start with the book that you wrote. What inspired you to write the book, Being There and what was that about?

[A]

Well, I'm a therapist, I'm a psychoanalyst and a social worker. So for many years I was seeing this uptick of mental illness in children. Children were being diagnosed and medicated younger and younger. I was seeing 2 and 3 year olds being labeled with things like ADHD and serious behavioral problems and medicated for it. And so I was concerned. And what I was seeing in my practice is that the absence of primary caretakers or primary attachment figures, usually mothers, in those children's lives, was impacting them. So I started looking at all the research, the neuroscience, the epigenetics, the attachment research, and basically saw in the research that what I was seeing in my practice was true, that the absence of mothers in children's lives under the age of three was impacting their mental health going forward. And so it took me many years to write the book, as I have three children of my own. And as I say in the book, your physical and emotional presence is critical to your children. So I did a lot of research over about a decade and then wrote the book. And yeah, it's had an impact.

[B]

When did you first start noticing this, this uptick?

[A]

So, yeah, I'm old. I mean, I've been in practice for 35 years. So even when I was working in clinics, when I was a young social worker, I was seeing it. And so 35 years ago, I started to see it and I waited to write this book because of my own children. So what I say in the book is, as a woman, or if you're a father, who's the primary attachment figure? But most primary attachment figures are still mothers. But as a mother, you can do everything in life. You just can't do it all at the same time. I'm a very good example of that. And a lot of the women that I interview in the book are good examples of that. So people like Nita Lowy, who is a congresswoman from Westchester, she didn't really start her career in earnest till she was in her 40s. She had four children. And she waited till her children were almost teenagers before she really became one of the longest sitting congresswomen on the Hill. You know, I was a therapist. Sure. I saw, you know, when I Had young children. I saw an hour and a half of patients a day. But I wasn't really, you know, in the scene. And it wasn't till really my children were older that I had the space and I felt I wouldn't be neglecting them to. To really start my career. So I'm. I'm a pretty good example of that.

[B]

So this is referring to, like, working parent caregiver who, you know, mother has their child, takes their initial, you know, however many, you know, two months leave or whatever, goes back to work, child goes to daycare. And what you're showing in. Or what the data is showing is within the first three years, like that, regardless how good you are, how good the daycare, there's problems there.

[A]

Yeah. So the first three years is what we call the first critical period of brain development. There's two critical periods of brain development. One is 0 to 3, and one is adolescence or 9 to 25. And so I've written two books that are out now about each of these critical periods of brain development. But the first one's the most important. And, you know, 85% of the right brain or the social, emotional, brain of a child is developed by the age of three.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And the environment has everything to do with whether that part of the brain develops in a healthy manner. So, you know, it's an inconvenient truth to say that that is a really important and critical period for that child to feel safe and secure and to have a primary attachment figure as physically and emotionally present as possible.

[B]

So this means being there, Literally being there.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

What do you say to the debate around quantity versus quality? Quality versus quantity? I know there's a lot of arguments made that, well, I don't have a lot of time, but the 15 or 30 minutes that I spend with my kid, I'm very, very present. Is there anything there? What would you say to that?

[A]

No, there's nothing there there. So quality time is a ruse because it assumes that children are like objects, possessions that will just sit there waiting for you till you come home and that their needs are dependent on your desires. And that isn't just a lie. Children need both quantity and quality time. So what I say to parents is, you can be there physically and be emotionally checked out. So there's a lot of mothers and fathers who are there physically, but they are depressed or distracted or resentful or mentally ill. So, you know, you can be there physically and be checked out emotionally, but you can't be there emotionally if you're not there. Physically. So the truth is that children need to feel secure and safe. They need a primary attachment figure to be as present as possible. So from moment to moment, throughout the first three years, when they're in distress, because that's when it matters the most, when they're in distress, they have that primary attachment figure soothing them when they're in distress. So in other parts of the world, they have something called alloparenting, which has been misused in our culture to say, oh well, putting your child in daycare or having other people raise your child is alloparenting, like they do in Africa or in India. And it's not. Because alloparenting basically means there are multiple attachment figures, grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, whatever, who, when the baby is in a good state, a happy state, a playful state, that baby can go to those people and it feels very comfortable with them. But when the baby's in distress, those family members have no problem and no vanity and no possessiveness. And so they give the baby right back to the primary attachment figure because there's an understanding that that baby is in need of that mother. In our culture, you have this strange phenomenon of grandparents and grandmothers and aunts saying, I can. Even babysitters going, I can do it. I can soothe the baby in distress. I'm like, no, no, no, that's not alloparenting. Alloparenting is when the baby's in a good state. The baby can go to grandparents and feel very comfortable with numerous attachment figures. But when the baby's in distress, that's when the mother plays a biological role. She regulates that baby's emotions. So basically what we want is think about, you're not born with the ability to regulate your emotions. You're actually born very emotionally dysregulated, which is why babies can go from a very happy state one second to a very screaming, miserable state the next. They learn how to regulate their emotions from us as parents, if we can regulate our emotions, but most importantly that we help them when they're in distress. We soothe them and it brings them back from. So think of it like sailing at the Atlantic, you know, with big waves, 15 foot swells versus sailing in the Caribbean. You want your emotions to be sailing in the Caribbean, not sailing in the Atlantic. And so that's a mother. One of a mother's important functions in those first three years is to help babies to learn to regulate their emotions. It's only after that three year period that babies internalize the ability to regulate their emotions on their Own. So what are we seeing today? We're seeing a rash of adults and adolescents and children who cannot regulate their emotions. And no one wants to ask where does emotional regulation come from? They just want to silence children's and adults pain and not really ask the important questions because we don't like asking those kinds of questions in our culture because then it means having to change something. Right? So if we just silence people's pain, or, you know, if you think of it, medication is pain management, but it doesn't really get underneath the real problem, which is that we have so many children and adolescents and adults who cannot regulate their emotions. That's what depression. That's what adolescent. That's what our depression, anxiety. That's what ADHD is. It's all about emotional regulation or lack thereof.

[B]

So do you see a lot of the dysfunction in society right now?

[C]

Like, could you almost trace that back to that very pivotal moment where, you.

[A]

Know, it's that primary attachment that they didn't have and they weren't able to.

[B]

Really build and develop that emotional regulation?

[A]

Well, what we're seeing is a large number of attachment disorders in children and adolescents and adults. What do attachment disorders do? They correlate to mental illness later on. So when. Excuse me, I'm going to have some water. When a child doesn't get their emotional needs met, they develop what we call pathological defenses. They basically have to develop coping mechanisms to cope with either the absence of that one person in the world who makes them feel safe and secure. And so some of those coping mechanisms will look like avoidant defenses. We call that an avoidant attachment disorder, where maybe a mother or father, whoever is the primary attachment figure, comes home and the baby turns away, or the baby turns towards the caregiver who's caring for them and not towards the mother or father. Many parents who come to me say that is the moment that they know that they've been gone too long because their baby will not look at them. Their baby looks at the babysitter, not at them. Right. Another attachment disorder is called an ambivalent attachment disorder, where the mother comes home and the baby clings to the mother for dear life anxiously because the baby, baby feels the mother could go away at any moment. So now that's a baby who is waiting for the penny to drop, you know, and then you have probably the most challenging of all attachment disorders, which is a disorganized attachment disorder. So think of the other two as strategies, right? They're strategies to cope with the absence of your primary attachment Figure right. And so without a strategy, children cycle through strategies. So first they'll turn away, then they'll cling, then they'll slap the mother out of rage, and then they'll cycle again. And those children end up with. Often end up with personality disorders. And what I was seeing as well is that in adolescence, there's a huge rise in borderline personality disorders in adolescents. And those are kids who probably had some kind of attachments, probably a disorganized attachment disorder, and don't have a strategy. So those are the kids who are cutting themselves. Those are the kids who are jumping in front of trains and out of windows and killing themselves. And most of those kids have borderline personality disorder. So there's a lot of self harming, self mutilating behavior in kids today, much more than when I was a young therapist.

[B]

What about parents who are like, well, you know, I took my kid to daycare, they cried a couple times, and then they, they're fine, they seem fine, they don't cry anymore.

[A]

That's called learned helplessness. That's a defense. Yeah. So basically, independence is something that is developed organically. So there's a very famous psychoanalyst named Margaret Mahler who talked about after the first year, where the attachment is really secured, right? Where you feel secure, your mother or your father around, primarily, they're providing you with a feeling of safety. And then after that first year, for the next two years, you do something called emotional refueling, which is you go back and forth between getting a hug and feeling secure and then going out and exploring, physically exploring, like toddling. That's why they call it toddler. You toddle away and you take risks. Right. But you only take the risks if you can look back and see your mother or father is there to come back and touch, touch base with. And so that goes on for another two years. So you could say that attachment isn't something that happens in a few weeks or a few months, which is the misunderstanding about it. Bonding happens in that period. But then attachment takes probably a full year and then another two years of reinforcing and reinforcing and reinforcing. So what would exercise. So this is a fitness podcast. What would it be if someone said, well, I worked out for, you know, a few months and I'm one and done. I'm done, you know, great. And you said, no, no, no, no, no. This is like maintenance. This is like, right. So it needs to be repeated and repeated and repeated. Right. And so, you know, the problem in society is that I think there's a lot of misinformation. So I think people, when they hear attachment, they go, oh, my child's attached after a few weeks in the hospital, a few months. Right. You. Same thing with daycare, the misinformation. There's a few things that are myths. One is that children need daycare for socialization. They do not. Children under the age of three do something called parallel play. They do not play with other children. They play by themselves and they play with the one person in the world who they trust, which is their primary attachment figure. Okay. And maybe an alternative attachment figure like a grandmother, a babysitter. Right. And particularly if the mother or the father are in, you know, in a distance where they could get to them if they're in distress. Right. So this myth that children need daycare is a justification for two parent working families. Okay. The other myth is that, oh, if my children cry and then they stop, they're great, they're okay. Yeah, they're fine. In fact, what you've done is you've taught them. If I were to do a baby voice, I had a. Have a colleague who is very famous who does research on mothers and infants and she does a great baby voice. I don't do such a great baby voice, but the baby would say, okay, mommy is not coming, she's not coming. And I'm all alone in the world and I'm just going to have to manage. And so they suck it up and they hold all of those feelings inside and then they learn something called learned helplessness. It's the same with the cry it out method to put children to sleep.

[B]

I was just going to ask about that.

[A]

Yeah, it's very. First of all, it's neurologically damaging to children under the age of one. You should not sleep train a child under the age of one. Period. I'm going to repeat that. You should not sleep. Train a child under the age of one. When they cry, they need you. When they cry, they're scared. They're in distress. If you don't respond to their distress, all you're teaching them is that the world is an unsafe place. Place. And you are an untrustworthy attachment figure for them. And they go into life believing that and they carry that into their relationships in the future. And they literally feel lonely and alone. So it's a great way to give a child a foundation of mental illness. Okay. So don't sleep. Don't sleep. Train your child under the age of one. After that, you can teach a child to sleep depending on the child Very sensitive children, particularly little boys, because little boys are more neurologically fragile than little girls, do not do well sleeping on their own when they're really little. I mean, children want to be proximate to their parents. Now you can get them to sleep in another room, but particularly if you've given them a good solid foundation, it's a lot easier. So things like sleep training or dropping kids off at daycare, adults want to believe it's okay because it's suits them, but it's not okay because when you teach a child learned helplessness, again, all you're teaching them is that you can't be trusted.

[C]

Now, Erica, can you overcompensate the other direction in that situation? So let's say with sleep training and you like, okay, I'm not going to do the cry method at all. But then every time they do, I'm going to come get them and bring them to me and sleep with me. Is that okay? Or can that be too much?

[A]

In other parts of the world, that's what they do.

[C]

Well, we've talked about that. That's how they used to raise them in tribes, Right. The baby would be attached to the mother 24 7.

[A]

That's it. I mean, we're not meant to. So I've treated a lot of children in my career and, you know, when you have a child come to you and say, you know, I, I don't understand. Mommy and daddy sleep together and I'm really little and I'm sleeping all alone in my room and I'm really scared. And I say, you're absolutely right, it doesn't make sense to a child. And it doesn't make sense, period. So now am I advocating like a Sears method that parents should sleep with their children? Not necessarily. I mean, we live in a modern culture where people, you know, don't necessarily buy into that. I get it. So then I'm gonna recommend that you sleep with your child for the first few months because that provides them. When a child comes out of the womb, they have been in that womb for nine months. They feel completely attached to that, to that attachment figure. And we are nothing more, more than mammals. So that means everything. Instinctual, smell, sound, the eyes of your mother. That's all something you bond with and attach to and makes you feel secure. So, you know, have your baby in your bed for the first few months. Contrary to, again, another myth, you know, sleeping with your child in the beginning is dangerous. Right? All right. If you're a drug addict or you're an alcoholic or you're taking. So the reason that it came out with the American, I think it was the American Psychological was the American Pediatric association came out and said, don't sleep with your child. Well, I'll tell you why. Because half of America's on Ambien or Melatonin. If you're on a sleep medication. Yeah, it's probably true. If you're taking pills to sleep, first of all, you should be seeing a therapist. Cause the first thing we ask as therapists is if you're not sleeping, sleeping, then you're probably suffering from either depression or anxiety. So it's one of the first signs of mental illness, is not sleeping. So, you know, instead of asking the questions of what's causing me to not sleep, people just go to the doctor and say, give me some Ambien. Give me some Melatonin. So I'm guessing the American Pediatric association said, well, we're not going to conquer this. Alcoholism and drug addiction and Melatonin and Ambien use. So we're just going to tell everybody not to sleep with their children. So I'm telling you right now, sleep with your children. If you're not a drug addict, an alcoholic, or you're not taking sleep medication because it's better for your children and it's better for you, you'll sleep better in the first few months and your child will sleep better.

[B]

You said little boys are more neurologically sensitive than little girls. What do you mean by that?

[A]

So more little boys are more little. Sorry. More little boys are born in the world and more little girls survive. And that's because little boys make it. And that's because they are more neurologically fragile and physically fragile. There's also a lot of research on the fact that more little boys get autism. So autism is something that we now know generally, if it's, you know, of a biological nature, develops in utero and has something to do with cortisol. So little boys are much more sensitive to cortisol, both in utero and when they come out. So, you know, and that's important because little boys who are very sensitive and who are labeled as having behavioral problems and adhd, instead of understanding that they are more sensitive, they're more sensitive to stress. So. And what does stress look like to a baby? It's precocious or premature separation from a mother. It's the cry it out method. It's if there is some kind of trauma in the family or, you know, a divorce going on or moving or a father loses his job or an alcoholic parent or a mentally ill parent that little boys are more neurologically sensitive to stress. And there is a gene now that they found for sensitivity to stress, which can occur in boys and girls because there is no genetic marker for depression and anxiety. And people don't know that either. The myth is, oh, I'm depressed because my parents were depressed, and it's genetic. No, you're not depressed because your parents were depressed. Genetically, you're depressed because your parents were depressed because of something called the inheritance of acquired characteristics. If you're raised with a depressed parent, you're more likely to be depressed. If you're raised with a narcissistic parent, you're more likely to develop narcissistic traits. If you're raised with a borderline parent, you're more likely to be borderline. That's something called the inheritance of acquired characteristics. It's environmental. The genetic markers are for things like schizophrenia, and there's some genetic markers for bipolar. But what they have found, and I couldn't have written being there without this piece of research, there's a few pieces of research that I couldn't have written the book without. And one piece of research that came out right before my book came out, was they found the gene for sensitivity to stress that many, many children have. So what does it mean? It means that those children if provided with sensitive empathic nurturing, attachment, security, and the physical and emotional presence of that sensitive empathic parent in the first year, it can neutralize the expression of that gene. Because we have genes, right? We have genes for cancer, we have genes for ms, we have genes for all kinds of things. They don't necessarily get expressed. That's what epigenetics talks about. Like, to get expressed, something has to trigger it, right? So for those children, if they're provided with security and physical and emotional presence and empathy, those children can be as normal feeling as any other child who's born without that sensitivity. But if that child who is born with that sensitive gene, basically it's a short allele on the serotonin receptor. If that child is met with daycare or insensitivity or sleep training, then there are correlations to things like depression, anxiety, adhd. So ADHD is not a disorder. ADHD is a stress response. And the fact that we have, I don't know, 40% of children in America being labeled with ADHD says that we have stressed out our children. But again, nobody's asking, why are all these children getting a disorder that's not a disorder? Because we're not Looking at the underlying.

[B]

Causes, does the way we've organized our education system contribute to that? I mean, we're talking about the first three years, right? Daycare. But what about as they grow up and go to school and that whole environment, is that, have we messed up there too?

[A]

Well, think of it as a very stressful. So why are you guys necessary? Because you're telling people that exercise is important, it relieves stress, it helps with mental health. But the truth is that we live in a very stressful society, much more stressful than ever before. And so one of the things that stresses out children is the separation of very young infants from mothers at such a young age. So that's the first thing that stresses out children. The next big thing that stresses out children is how we educate children in our country. We educate them by forcing cognitive development on them before they're actually ready. Because the analogy I use is that social emotional development is like your socks and cognitive development is like your shoes. You always want to put your socks on before your shoes. Although we're in California, maybe you don't wear socks, I don't know. But you know, the idea is, yeah, social emotional development has to precede cognitive development. Now if you force children to learn things like numbers and letters and what do they say, reading, writing and arithmetic when they're 2 years and 3 years old, you can force that, cram that into their brain. But the repercussions of that are that to learn, we must be able to cope with a good deal of frustration, right? And to cope with the frustration of learning, we have to have had the social emotional development that helps give us the emotional regulation to cope with the frustration of cognitive learning. So you don't want to force children, you want it to be play based education that's social, emotionally oriented until they're then capable. So in my day, you didn't have to learn your letters and your numbers till you were at least in first grade. That means you were six years old before you were even introduced to letters and numbers. Before then it was free play. Kindergarten was garden of children. It was basically free play. Nursery school was organized chaos. It was free play. It was to get children into the framework of being in a group situation, but without structured group activities. And so it's been perverted. The whole educational system is based on cognitive development crammed into children as early as possible. And it's stressing out particularly little boys. So little boys are the ones who are really suffering because they're going off the rails, right? So they're Going into fight or flight mode. So you all know what fight or flight mode is, right? It's the evolutionary response to stress that human beings either, you know, if the sable toothed tiger is chasing you, you're gonna fight the tiger or you're going to run, right? Flee. So think of the behavioral problems we're seeing, particularly in little boys, as the fight part of fight or flight. And think of the ADHD or the distractibility as the flight part. Again, no one's asking why are our kids all in fight or flight and what changes do we need to make? Or how far have we gone in society away from a healthy structure?

[B]

It's interesting that you're saying this about boys too, because I can see how this get compounded by the, the idea that, well, boys need to toughen up. Oh, my kid's crying or my kid's whatever, he's going to toughen up a little bit. Whereas with your girl or your daughter, you may be a little more sensitive to those types of things. Is that, am I putting together something that's true?

[A]

Well, I mean, that idea that any child who is under the age of five should toughen up. Well, okay, so mothers and fathers are different. And this is a controversial thing to say in a society that tries to say that we're all the same. So. And the truth is that the differences are really important. They have been important in an evolutionary way for thousands of years. We're mammals, and for thousands of years, males and females and species take care of different parts of the, of the nurturing behaviors. Right. So our hormones connect to our nurturing behaviors. So, you know, that's, you know, mothers, when they nurture, they produce a lot of something called oxytocin, which is the love hormone, which makes mothers sensitive and empathic in their nurturing behavior. So if a baby falls down, the mother goes over and says, oh, sweetheart, how are you? Let me, you know. And the father, instead of having so much oxytocin, has a lot of what we call vasopressin, and it's called the protective aggressive hormone. The father goes over and says, come on, get up, you're fine, you're good. Wipe yourself off. Let's go, let's go play now. Why? Because in the old days, if the father was responsible for protecting his young, he would be looking out for other male lions behind and say, come on, get up, get up. You got to keep going, keep moving. And so there are reasons for it. So there was research done in the UK where mother and father lay side by side in bed. And when the baby cried in the middle of the night, was in distress, the mother woke up, was vigilant, the mother woke up immediately. Father slept through it. But when there was a rustling of leaves outside the window, the father woke up and the mother slept through it.

[B]

Yeah, I've experienced that. It's very strange.

[A]

Yeah, well, it's not strange. It's actually instinctual, and it's based on your nurturing hormones. So fathers have a way of being the counterpoint to mother's sensitive, empathic nurturing, which is they say, come on, let's expand, explore. Let's play a little roughhouse. They help with separation. So this whole idea of be tough came from the idea. It originated in the idea that fathers were encouraging a little bit of risk taking. Right. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's actually not a bad thing. That's different than toughness. You know, it's. You know, I think that the idea that fathers help with and encourage exploration, physical exploration and risk taking and physical play, I think, is a very important thing. I think when little boys are raised without fathers, there's a lot of research now to say that those little boys have more behavioral problems because they don't have their father helping to regulate things like aggression through physical play. So what fathers do when they do roughhouse play play is they're helping to regulate aggression. They're showing their sons, how do you, in a contained and, you know, moderated way, express physical aggression through play without going over the top. Right. They also show through their own way that they. How fathers regulate their own aggression and anger. They model it. Right. So when fathers are not around, little boys will have more behavioral problems, will have a harder time separating from their mothers. So society's kind of out of whack right now. Yeah, yeah. I've heard you talk about, you know, in the first, like, three years, the.

[C]

Mother'S impact on the child is so important.

[A]

At what point does the father come?

[B]

What's the most pivotal age?

[A]

Where. Where the father has that, like, moment.

[C]

Of development where he can make an impact.

[A]

So the father's always important. The father goes from being a buddy, kind of a buddy to their child, whether it's a little girl or a little boy. They're the play. They're the, you know, so we say mothers are the love objects of attachment, and fathers are the love objects of separation. So almost from the beginning, and they're both necessary, and one can't replace the other because you need both. Right. So from the beginning Mothers are the nurturer. So when babies are infants, you'd say they need mostly sensitive, empathic nurturing. But that doesn't mean that fathers can't hold and love and bathe and be sensitive, empathic too. I mean, the good thing about modern society is that fathers now know they can also be sensitive and empathic. But there's a funny piece of research, which is there was research to show that they were trying to show that fathers and mothers could be the same. So they gave fathers intranasal oxygen oxytocin. So fathers produce oxytocin too, but it again makes them more playful, tactile stimulators of babies. But they gave fathers intranasal oxytocin to up the ante kind of thing. And fathers ended up not being more like mothers, but being more manically like fathers. Like throw the baby up higher in the air, tickle them more aggressively, like run faster. And so you know that. So to say that fathers are always important, they are always important to support mothers first and foremost. There's a lot of misunderstanding. Again, a myth that couples today don't believe that mothering is important. This is the myth that anybody can do it. So I'm telling you right now, not anybody can do it. So there are a lot of fathers who discourage their wives from taking time off. They say, you promised me the mortgage, the car payment. I married a professional woman, I don't want to stay at home. Wife, you know, you got to go back to work right away. And they don't realize that they're not just doing harm to their relationship with their wife, but they're also doing harm to their child, you know, and ain't nobody got time for that.

[C]

So when you, I imagine you have to have a lot of parents that are in the situation though, where they are two incomes, both have to go to work, yet they have a kid. What are some of the things? And they don't have a choice, right? They've got themselves in this mortgage, they're over leveraged maybe whatever the reason be. And they had a kid, now they're here. What are some of the things that you give them as far as advice since they're in that position? Obviously, ideally would be the mother staying home with them for the three years, but they're not in that situation. So what do you tell them?

[A]

So if you knew you had a crisis, let's look at it from a different angle. If you had a crisis, let's say you lost your job or something, or somebody was ill in your family, you would make adjustments, you'd sell your car, you'd get a cheaper apartment, you wouldn't take vacations for a couple of years. You wouldn't buy. You'd get hand me down clothes for your kids. You wouldn't buy your kids new sneakers every. You take your cousin's sneakers for your kids. And you'd accommodate. No one seems to be able to accommodate anymore. So we're not talking about really poor people, because that, you know, if we're talking about really poor people who are living on minimum wage salaries just to be able to pay their $1,500 a month in rent and be able to provide food for their kids, I am always advocating. In fact, I was supposed to be in Washington last week speaking to the entire Republican Senate, and I'm hoping to get there in the next few weeks about the importance of some kind of creative paid leave. Because we are the most uncivilized country in the world. I go all over the world to speak, and we are the. And I'm ashamed. I love America, but I'm ashamed of this aspect of America that we're the only country, I think, other than Papua New guinea, that does not have a national paid leave. So how can we say we're a country of families if we don't even have paid leave? Right. For very poor women who have no choices. Now, if we're talking about middle class families, what would you do?

[C]

I mean, you already framed it the right way, I think, which is if you treated it like it was a crisis. Yes, I just, I think that's the problem. Lies right there is that we've been conditioned to believe that this is norm, this is fine, this is healthy.

[A]

Well, we've been conditioned to believe that lifestyle matters more than relationships, and that's therein lies the problem.

[B]

So in other words, what you're saying is this is such a big problem or potential issue that you need to adjust your lifestyle to make this happen because it's so impactful and you're going to go speak to politicians because of the downstream or societal effects this has on us as a whole. It's that big of a deal, is what you're saying.

[A]

I mean, if our children are breaking down, so one in five children will not leave childhood without a serious mental illness. Houston, we have a problem. And so we can turn away, but it's not getting better, it's getting worse. And those children then grow up into adults, and then we have much less functional adults in the world. So, yeah, it's not something we can turn away from any longer. No.

[B]

What about your. I'm sure you have critics who are saying, well, this is sexist, this is oppressive. You're just trying to get women to stay at home. You're trying to. What do you say to these people?

[A]

Oh, gosh, I've been called misogynistic. Like, I mean, I'm a woman, so how could I be misogynistic?

[B]

It's internalized misogyny.

[A]

It is. There you go. I've been called all kinds of names. You know, the thing is, this is not about. It's not about you. It's not about you as a grown up. These children did not ask to be brought into the world. This is about your children. And if you're going to put your children first, then you do what your children need. And children have irreducible needs, and they've had those irreducible needs for thousands of years. So because you want to switch up society and have everybody work and focus on economic success and career success and material success over relational success, that's not your children's problem, that's your problem. So what I say to them is, this is not sexist. This is an evolutionary need of your child. And so, you know, you're either going to listen to that need or you're going to ignore it. And if you ignore it, there's going to be consequences.

[B]

Since we're going down that path, do we see a difference between fathers being stay at home and mothers being. So you have a couple mom and dad. Mom has a baby, she works, dad stays at home. Is that a disadvantage? Is that suboptimal? Does the data show that there's. It's better when mom stays at home.

[A]

So there are some dads who are more sensitive, empathic, nurturer than mothers. I mean, that's the truth. There are a lot of mothers today who, you know, the title of being there was originally called the Lost Instinct. I liked that title.

[B]

I like that.

[A]

I like being there too. But I like the Lost Instinct because. And that's the title I had in my head for a decade. Because women. How many. You know, when I was a kid, there was a lollipop commercial. How many licks does it take to get to the center of the tootsie? How many generations does it take to kill women's instinctual connection to their children?

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

And three generations in, there are many women who would rather be at work than with their own children. Now, mind you, it is not uncommon if you're Not a lover of babies. Like, in my field, I'm a lover of babies. But that's what I do for a living. It's what I sleep and eat and breathe professionally and personally. Okay, but not everybody's like that. You know, you could be in any number of professions where other people's babies don't turn you on, and that's okay. But it is instinctually incorrect for your own baby not to turn you on. So when mothers say, I would rather be away from my baby than with my baby, so there's something called maternal preoccupation, which is the instinctual need to be with your infant. So what happens is your hormones take over and you can't think of anything else. You don't want to do anything else. You don't want to be any. So when you hear women say, ugh, I can't, you know, I hate this. I hate breastfeeding, I hate pregnancy, you know, what you're seeing is the destruction of women's instincts. And so as a society, we go, that's great. That's fine, Fine. That's normal. And what I'll say is, everybody has boring moments in their job. Probably you guys do too, right? That's okay. But that's different than being pervasively bored or resentful or uncomfortable being around your own child. So then we know some things happen to that, Some trauma, some attachment disorder, some. You know, I always say when a woman has a baby and a man, when he's a father, it opens up a door to the past, a door that's been closed. And it's a door that. Where you're the child and you're experiencing being parented by your parent. And so when you have a child as a woman, a door opens to the past of. Of the experience of being a child. And if that experience was joyful, if you had a mother and a father who loved being parents and just that you were the most important thing in the world and the most interesting part of their lives. And they love being with you, and they love playing with you, and they loved engaging you. Then when you have a baby, it's the happiest moment of your life. But when you have a baby and you've had a parent who. Who's been resentful or mentally ill or physically absent or the door that gets opened up is sadness, anger, grief. And you want to shut that door really fast. And so that means you want to get away from that baby as quickly as possible, because what that baby triggers is a lot of Anger and grief and depression and loneliness. Right. So if that's not treated before you have a baby, you end up with postpartum depression. There's another myth, so many myths that postpartum depression is normal and everybody gets it, and it's only hormonal. Hormones are just the catalyst. They're the key that opens the door, but they're not the reason that you got postpartumly depressed. Postpartum depression. So in my field, we say anytime you feel. Feel something very intensely and the intensity of the feeling doesn't match the current situation, then you know there's history in it. So if you have a reaction that's over the top, whether it's anger or depression or, you know, there's history in it, again, we're not asking the right questions.

[B]

What do you say? So you're so you. You've worked with lots of people. What do you say to the mom who feels what you're talking about, or she feels depressed or detached or wants to get away? And then the shame sets in. Why do I feel this way? I shouldn't feel this, which I feel like could only make things worse. How do they work through that?

[A]

Well, if you told them that they're probably feeling, maybe for the first time in their lives, the abuse and neglect of their own mothers and that it's not their fault and that they need treatment, that they need to address their own sadness and anger and feelings about their mother that they may never have acknowledged feeling, then it relieves that woman from feeling like a bad person. Because shame is basically when you feel like a bad person, that your character is involved in something that's happening, right? Something you can or can't do, that then your character is implicated. And so, yeah, I mean to say to women that having a child is a psychotic experience. And what do I mean by that? You've grown this little person, like a little alien. You can watch them, you know, your stomach moves and everybody goes, ooh, look, isn't that nice? But it's kind of a crazy experience, right? If you think about it, it's incredible, but it's also kind of crazy. And then this baby comes out in what seems like this almost violent, bloody experience of coming out of a woman's body. Now, if you've had that healthy attachment and that loving relationship, it mitigates whatever trauma there is in having a baby. Right. And it turns that trauma into what, post traumatic growth? Yes. It turns it into almost a joyful mountain that you've climbed and come out on the other side with this beautiful baby. Right. But again, if you had a lot of trauma and loss and depression and loneliness as a child, that psychotic experience can actually trigger a psychotic experience. Now.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

Do we see attachment issues with like surrogates? Like we donate sperm and egg to another person, they have our baby. As soon as the baby's born though they're with us. Is there anything there? Because they were growing in a.

[A]

You're bringing up a good question. So can that surrogate, meaning can the woman who's getting the baby from the surrogate be attached or can the surrogate be attached? Because those are two really two important questions. Are you asking a woman to carry a baby who then you're taking that baby away from who's developing an attachment to that baby? And the answer is, of course there's something that we should be looking at there. But if they're going into it voluntarily and you know, I'm not going to say anything about that, but I'm going to say that we are very detached from the idea that the surrogate could have feelings too. We treat the surrogate like an object, like an incubator. They're not incubators, they're women and they're growing a baby in their body and you have to think about them. Okay, how about the woman who is receiving the baby? So the research shows that when you adopt a baby, you can develop an attachment response. You can produce oxytocin from adopting a baby. It can be very strong if you've had a healthy attachment to your own mother and somebody hands you a baby and says, this is your baby. Now you can and you know that you're responsible for that baby. That baby is your baby, no one else's baby. Because remember I said not being interested in other people's children is perfectly normal. But yeah, you can develop attachment to a baby that is your baby by, by adoption.

[B]

What about the baby? Does the baby have any negative effect from being.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, so. Well, let's talk about the obvious again. The inconvenient truth, that breastfeeding is best. Why? Because breastfeeding isn't just about the immunological properties of the milk. Right. We know it's not just about the nutrition. It's the experience of breastfeeding is an attachment experience. You're basically feeding a baby with your own body. You're having skin to skin contact. If you hold the baby. I could get into left sided and right sided cradling. If you hold the baby on the left cause right sided cradling Even though you have to alternate breasts, most healthy mothers cradle on the left side, not the right side. Interesting, because what we're looking for is right brain to right brain connection. So most mothers will have bigger breasts on the left side than the right side. Yeah, that's one of the things that we use to diagnose. If a mother breastfeeds or cradles when she's not breastfeeding more on the right side, then we look at that as an indicator of maybe some attachment issue. Anyway, but breastfeeding on your left side is very perfectly so. If there's a God, he made it perfectly attuned to right brain to right brain connection. You have the baby skin to skin. You're making eye contact with the baby. It's very hard to do anything else while you're breastfeeding. Although I've watched mothers on their phones. Please don't look at your phone or scroll on the Internet or watch television while you're breastfeeding. Pay attention to your baby because the thing about breastfeeding that's important is it's the attachment. It's the skin to skin.

[B]

It's super connected.

[A]

It's super connected. So that you're not gonna get with. When somebody hands you a baby so you don't get, you get a bottle experience. Now that is not the end of the world. You can take your shirt off. So I say to mothers and fathers, if you want to get attached to a baby, you have to have skin to skin. Now, you can't not be skin to skin with breastfeeding, but with a bottle you can be not skin to skin. Right. I've seen mothers in restaurants feed babies by putting the bottle in their mouths with the babies facing out. And my husband has to restrain me from going up to them gently and saying, you know, I'm an expert in this. And if you turn the baby, he like holds me back from, you know, like, he's like, stop it. You don't know them. But I have to tell them, don't feed your baby with the bottle facing out. If you're a father and you're feeding the baby at night, cradle the baby on the left side. Look at the baby, take your top off. It's a little hairy. So what? The baby doesn't care. You might care because the baby's going to grab that hair and man, is it going to hurt. So you might want to shave your chest if you're going to play the role of mother. But skin to skin is very important. So there are ways of Creating the attachment. So one thing I tell mothers where the baby did not come out of their body is that you crawl into bed with that baby naked. That even though you can't feed the baby with your breasts, let the baby touch your breasts and fondle your breasts and feed the baby with the bottle skin to skin. You know, they even have these contraptions that you can for women who have had breast reductions where they have these little tubes, very intensive time intensive little tubes that attach to the milk. And a mother who's adopted a baby or a mother who has had a surrogate can use these tiny little tubes, they attach to their nipple and they can breastfeed. How about that?

[B]

Wow. That's absolutely remarkable. What about the birth process? Like C section or I have two little ones. And both birth experiences were so different. One of them was the, you know, the cascading interventions of, you know, Pitocin. Then, you know, then you had the epidural, then C section, and then the second one we had with a. In a birth center. And it was so different. It was so different. I have to imagine they both have different effects on attachment.

[A]

They do. Well, it depends. Yes. The answer is yes. But that doesn't mean some of those adversities can't be overcome.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

One thing I'll say is if your wife is having a C section, you have to be, you know, whether your wife is having a C section or not, it's your role to be the advocate for your wife. And that means that you tell the nurse, don't take that baby away for more than a minute. You follow that baby to the nursery and you make sure that baby gets whatever they're going to do, they try to do it in the room with your wife and not take the baby away. If it's a vaginal birth, and then you make the baby come back and lie in the room with your wife. And you have to advocate because hospitals will take that baby away and the baby will disappear for hours. They don't care. It's not their baby. So, you know, I remember saying to my husband, we have three kids. You follow that baby to the nursery, whatever they're doing, you bring that baby back immediately to me. And he did. He was my advocate because I couldn't get out of bed right now. If it's a C section, you make sure that that mother bonds with the baby before they take the. Because what they'll do is they'll take the baby away and they'll say, oh, you need to rest, dear. Oh, we'll bring the baby. No, no, no, no, no. That baby needs to see that mother and that baby needs to lie on that mother. And there needs to be a bonding moment immediately. Right? And you know, again, the insensitivity, you have to be the advocate for sensitivity. So that's your role, particularly if there's a C section. So that mother needs to bond with that baby, and then that baby needs to come back into that room with the mother, even if the mother's had a C section. Even if it means you lie there with that baby in your arms as a father, next to that mother while she's sleeping and overcoming the C section, as much contact with that mother as possible. Because the truth is that in the early hours after having a baby, a lot is happening neurobiologically in a mother and a lot of it has to do with contact with the baby. The more contact with the baby, the better. Even when, like when you hear preemies, lots of people come to me and say, I had a preemie. And what do I do? I say, you have as much contact with that baby as you can. You make them let you hold that baby. You put your hands in, that baby has to smell you. I don't care. Unless it's a real dire emergency and it's a two pound baby, you need to have contact with that baby.

[B]

What else can dads do in those first few years to support mom? What is important for us as fathers to really help this process?

[A]

Support your wife. If she says to you, I think I want to stay home with the baby, don't say, well, why don't you go to work for a few months and see how you feel? Don't do that. I'll tell you the don't do's. You know, when she says, you know, I'm exhausted, I'm absolutely depleted. Can you help me in the middle of the night? Don't say, well, I need to sleep because I'm going to work tomorrow, so I'm going to go in the other room if you. You know, the idea is that for the most part, being a mother of a newborn is like being in the trenches. It's absolutely exhausting. Now we're built for it. We're built like steel tanks, or at least we used to be. It's really interesting. Mothers are much more fragile now and it's because they're more emotionally fragile, right? So if you're emotionally fragile, it makes you more physically fragile. They say, I can't stay up, I can't, I Can't now. You know, I was up every night and my body was made to do this. We were made to do this. Something has happened in society that has killed biological instincts. So mothers will now say, I can't, I need a baby nurse. I can't do it. But here's the thing. Being a partner with them means supporting them in any way you can if they need you to hold the baby while they shower, or if they need you to give up your golf match to be with the baby so they can nap for three hours on a Saturday. Or, you know, I always say golf isn't a great thing to do when you have babies anyway because you're basically abandoning your family. But okay, nothing about that. You know, go get a gym in your house and get a peloton and you know, do your thing, but don't go play golf. But, you know, the idea is support your wife in any way she needs you. But exhaustion, it's, it's, how can I support you with your exhaustion? What can I do for you? So you can sleep? So self care is critical for mothers to be able to last the long term. So whatever you can do to help her so she can care for herself, so she can get sleep, so she can eat well. Yeah, that's what you can do as.

[C]

A father, Erica, talk about communication to the baby, around the baby. At what point is that critical? Like, what is that like? Talk to me about what that looks like as parents speaking to their babies and speaking around their baby.

[A]

So talking to a baby is really important. Now there's another myth. I'm giving you a lot of myths that you should talk to children, particularly young children, like they're adults. No, there's research to show that motherese and fatherese, we call it motherese, but it's that, you know, when you see a baby, what do you see?

[B]

You go high pitch with your voice.

[A]

You do. Even fathers do. Oh, honey, how are you, honey? And it's a lilting, kind of beautiful up and down. And it stimulates the right brain of the baby. It's been known to grow the social, emotional part of the baby. So there was some research done about how Chinese is the most up and down melodic tonal language that stimulates babies right brains. And so, yeah, motherese is actually critical to the development of a baby's brain. So even as a father, if you, you know, the idea that fathers talk to babies and like, you know, son, you're, you know, no, like, you know, talk to a baby like they're a Baby until they get older, you know, as my kids laugh. Because I have a friend who's a nursery school teacher and she still talks to my 25 year old as if he's like in nursery school, that's not so good. But young children benefit from being talked to because when you talk to, to them, they learn to speak more quickly. Unless you speak multiple languages. And that's important. If you speak multiple languages in the home, then children are going to develop language skills later. That's important to remember. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with them. But speak to them, read to them. It's really important. They learn language by you talking to them.

[C]

Yeah. And then what about the communication and the dialogue and the way we communicate as a couple in front of the child too?

[A]

So the greatest gift you can give your children is to love each other. Now I'm saying this as I'm about to release a book in a year on divorce. So you'd say, how is this woman who's writing books about attachment now writing a book about divorce? Because as a therapist, I know that divorces are going to happen and so inevitably. Right. How do you do it without doing so much harm to your children? That's what I was trying to get out. But the idea is that the greatest gift you can give to your children is to love your wife or love your husband and show it lots of affection, lots of words of affection with each other. The more love that you surround them with, the greater the gift to your child.

[B]

Let's say somebody's listening right now and their child is three or four or five and they're like, oh man, I'm seeing signs of some of these attachment issues. Is there anything they can do now to help mitigate some of those or help backtrack a little bit?

[A]

So the brain is plastic. And what that means is the right brain can grow and shrink depending on the environment. The first three years sets the stage. Right. But it doesn't mean that what happens after isn't important, because it is. And there's a lot of repair that can be done after three years of age. But you know, if you. I'll use an analogy. If you tear your acl, are you going to wait three years to deal with it? The sooner you get or you sprain your ankle, the sooner you get to your physical therapist, the sooner you get to your surgeon, the more easily it will repair, it will heal. It's the same thing. If you hear this today and your child is 5, go get help now. Because the sooner you get to that injury, the greater the chance you can repair it. And I mean, not to say that there are miracles, but the truth is I wrote the book, the first book I did, because in my practice, which is a parent guidance practice, people come to me from all over the world, remotely or in person, to talk about their children and the experience of being a parent. And so little changes that you make in your parenting can make all the difference in your child's behavior. And much of the time you see those changes almost immediately. So it's never too late.

[B]

Are there ways to repair some of these ruptures in age appropriate ways? Like for a five year old, a six year old, a ten year old, what does it look like? If you have a kid who seems avoidant, do you then just tend to every need to show them that I'm here, or is that too much? Depending on the age, what does that kind of look like?

[A]

Well, you end up having to do a lot of backtracking, so you end up having to really make up a lot of the things that they didn't get in their infantile experience. So you do end up having to change the way you parent. So the reason I do parent guidance even before I ever send a child to child therapy is because sometimes when parents get help and they change the way they parent, children don't even need to be in therapy.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

So it's certainly the first place you want to go. And even if children do need therapy, their parents need to be in therapy too. Because unless you change the environment that a child goes back to, you're basically putting that child back in the same environment. Right. So changing the way you parent can change that child's behavior at any stage. You know, I always joke that sometimes with teenagers, parents will come in and say, you know, I. So the second book that I wrote is called Chicken Little. The sky isn't Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety. That is a mouthful. And the original title that I wanted to give that book was Second Chances. Because the second critical period of brain development gives you another opportunity to be there for them. Not exactly in the same way as you would have been zero to three, but it's another opportunity because zero to three is a period of what we call neurogenesis. So it's a period of cell growth. Think of a garden. And the garden grows and grows and grows. And by three, if you do it right, it's an overgrown garden. And then in adolescence, the garden needs to be pruned back needs to be trimmed back. Because if you don't prune back the cells, the cells you don't need, then the garden doesn't function, you know, so it's another period where the environment matters a great deal. And you are a lot of the environment. You're not all of the environment. When 0 to 3, you're all of the environment. 9 to 25, you're a lot of the environment. So they have other things in their environment. They have peers, they have school, they have activities. Right. But you're still a lot of the environment. So in adolescence you have a second chance.

[C]

How important are the friends that our kids choose? Are they. Do they play a massive role? I've heard some parents say it, and I have a five year old, so we're not here yet. But Katrina and I have talked before, like, you know, would we move to another state just to get him out of a, a bad school or bad friendships? And like, would that be something we would consider doing? Because you can see how sometimes there's these kids that can impact a really good kid in such a negative way because of the influence that he has. Or if we are so solid as parents, do we protect him from something like that? What are your thoughts around that?

[A]

So that's a difficult question. I think there are really good reasons to change a child's environment, if you can, to help them, to give them an opportunity to reinvent themselves at certain points. If they're being teased in middle school, if they're getting into drugs and alcohol. And changing their environment can be very effective in helping them to reinvent themselves in a new environment. But if that's all you do, then that's problematic. So you'd have to do that also while you're getting that child some help. Right. You don't just want to treat the environment as if it's the geographical environment, as if it's everything. But they're really good arguments to be made about if you can afford it, if you can, if your child is not doing well socially. Because interestingly, the most important thing in school, contrary to what we talk about another myth is not academic growth and development, but is social growth and development. If you have a child who's doing fabulously academically but is socially suffering, those are the kids that I worry about the most now, the kids who are socially doing well and academically suffering. I worry about them too. They have low self esteem and whatever, you know, it's. You have to tend to both. But a child who's not doing well socially There are very good arguments to be made about if you can find a better match for them. So think of life as match, right? Your partner or your wife, whoever you chose is a match. The school that your child goes to, if you have the privilege. Not all, not everybody does have the privilege. You're in a school district. You don't have the money. You're stuck. You know, I think a lot of people are turning to homeschooling when their kids are struggling now, because that's not, you know, that was never an option before, and it's an option now. But there is a good argument to be made about changing an environment. Not in every situation. There are some situations in which you want to help your child to become more resilient. You certainly want to turn over every stone before you do that. Right. You don't want to impulsively jump to that. You want to get them help. You want to get them some therapy. You want to talk to the school and the school counselor. You want to talk to the other parents of the kids. You try everything that you need to try. Sort of like, again, I'm going to use an analogy with your body. You know, if you, you know, some people would say you don't get an ACL tear repaired. You just work on the muscles around it and see if, you know. So you try to do everything without doing surgery.

[C]

Got it.

[A]

But the surgery sometimes is necessary.

[B]

Do we. What's the impact of technology that we're seeing? Are we seeing anything now? Like, people on social media, parents are present physically, but not really present because they're on their phones or maybe kids who are put in front of iPads. I mean, when we were kids, we could watch tv, but there were like five channels and it wasn't, you know, so enticing today. It's like they could be so distracted, both parents and children. Are we seeing that having a similar impact to what you're saying in terms of, you know, having issues with attachment?

[A]

You know, this is also an interesting question. In our gener. My generation, so I'm 60, so when I was growing up, we watched a lot of tv. Okay. Now, it wasn't good for us, for sure. And I don't recommend that people just plop their children in front of TV, unless it's Mr. Rogers. And then I highly recommend it. But then I. I recommend you, you download every segment of Mr. Every rerun of Mr. Rogers and watch it with your children.

[B]

You know, can I stop everyone? We do that with my kids. And I tell you what, if Your kids are used to what they show kids now. Mr. Rogers will seem so slow, so boring. So.

[A]

And that's the point. That was the whole point.

[C]

That was the point he made.

[B]

There were whole episodes where he'd have you watch a, you know, a whole minute go by, and you're just sitting.

[A]

There watching it take you to factories. I mean, isn't there a podcast, how we make it or something? He would show you how things are made. He would talk to children with great respect, and he would. Anyway, I could go on and on about Mr. Rogers, but. So there is some television that is perfectly fine. The thing that really ruined children is our smartphones and the Internet and social media. So in Australia, I don't know if you heard, but they just passed a law that no children under the age of 60, 16 are allowed on social media. Great. They won't do it here. It's so upsetting. Why not do it here? Why did Australia have to do it before us? You know? But the idea is that television can be addictive because it's dissociative behavior. So if you go and sit and watch Netflix for an hour at night with your spouse, you know, after a long day, that's not, you know, that's a little dissociation where you're, you know, tubing out to whatever. But, you know, watching six hours of TV or four hours on your social media, on your smartphone, that's dissociative behavior of a different kind. And so we know that a little bit of dissociation. Everybody does. Babies do it. So when they're overstimulated, what do babies do when they're overstimulated? They look away or they go to sleep. Right. That's a little bit of dissociative behavior, but it's protective. It's defensive. But we've made dissociation an art in our culture. We've basically said, yeah, you dissociate for 4, 6 hours at a time. You go, you know. And then it becomes addictive because you.

[B]

Don'T learn any other way to regulate. This is how you learn to regulate is by disassociating.

[A]

Well, you don't learn to regulate. You avoid regulation. It's not actually. And that's also a myth. It. It regulates. It doesn't regulate. You're in limbo.

[B]

Pause right there. So I want to stop right there. When your kid is freaking out, whatever. And you're like, no, no. If I put them in front of the iPad, like, they stop crying. They're calm.

[A]

That's Dissociation.

[B]

That's not regulated?

[A]

No, that's dissociation. So the hard work of teaching children to regulate means you have to put everything you're doing down and be with your child and be where they are. If they're sad, you have to be able to reflect their sadness. If they're angry, you have to be with them. You gotta get their back. And parents just don't seem to have the inner resources. And a lot of it has to do with upbringing. So we say that this has now become generational expression of parents really struggling to regulate their own emotions and therefore not being able to regulate their children's. So what is regulation? Regulation is emotional reflection. That's what it is. That's what regulation is. If you are sad, I sit with you and I hold your hand and I say, I'm so sorry. I see you're sad. Or if you're angry, I say, I can see you're so angry because Jimmy took your toy. Or, you know, if you're, you know, angry, like. Or sad or confused, or you. You just be with the child. That's what regulation is. It's about reflection. And parents who weren't reflected don't have the capacity to be with their children in their discomfort, in their distress, in their sadness, in their anger, even in their excitement.

[B]

Wow. So you see your kid having a tantrum and you're like, I can't deal with it. Go in your room.

[A]

That's right. I can't deal with it.

[B]

I can't deal with it.

[A]

So a tantrum is. This is what we call an emotional blown fuse. It means that the old time speakers, if you listen to them too loudly, they would blow, you know, like the old time speakers. I don't think they do that anymore. But whatever, the woofer or the tweeter or something would blow. They would have, like an emergency brake on them. That's what's happened to your child. It's like the speaker blew, right? They lost control. They're not in control in that moment. It's not a discipline issue. It's actually that your child lost control. Like a seizure. Think of it like a neurological seizure. Like if somebody was having an epileptic.

[B]

Seizure, you wouldn't just leave them on.

[A]

The floor, would you? Leave them on the floor. Seizing. So it's so interesting that parents, because.

[B]

We'Re taught, like it is socially taught to us, like, oh, your kid's having a tantrum and you're with them. No, no, you got to tell them to stop. They can't act that way, you know.

[A]

Put them in the room, because they misunderstand it to be a discipline issue. It's not a discipline issue. It's an emotional issue. Right. And so if you look at it from a different angle and say, my child is suffering, it's distress at the greatest level. Are you going to leave your child in distress? No, you're going to stay with them, be calm, tell them you're there, sit quietly, tell them they're safe, tell them that you're not going anywhere. You can see they're so upset, and you're not going to leave them. You're right there. That's what you do when someone is having a seizure. Right. So, again, so many myths in our culture that are myths that I think over the last 30 years really have become myths.

[B]

A lot of it is just, well, I grew up that way. I turned out fine.

[A]

Again, no, no, that's the problem. If you're not capable of regulating your child's emotions because your emotions weren't regulated, then it's not fine for you either.

[C]

How often are there tantrums? And when they act out like that or have blow a fuse is a reflection of something that we're doing as parents? Is it always connected? Is it sometimes connected? Is it more often than not?

[B]

Are they supposed to throw them or not?

[A]

So it's stress. So now there's a lot of things that cause stress that are just developmental. So at 2, when kids start really throwing tantrums, what's happening is they're internalizing structure. So until two babies can do whatever they want, you have to poop. You poop in your diaper, you want to eat, you cry, somebody feeds you. Like, there's basically, you're not told no until you're about two. Right. For the most part, you're just kind of floating. It's awesome. And then at 2, suddenly parents start using the word, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. No, don't do that. And so now you're internalizing structure. And so it's so hard for children to go from a place of, I'm the center of the universe and everything I need is taken care of to now I can't do something I want to do. So there's a structure issue, which is that internalizing structure is painful. It's like fitting an elephant through a hole that a mouse would go through. I mean, that's how painful it is to them. And so when you have a tantrum, you're actually seeing the pain that Your child is in. And really the problem is that most parents can't remember what it's like, like to be children. Parents who are the best parents are parents who can remember, who can break through their amnesia and can remember what it's like to be children themselves. But the parents who are so disconnected from their memories of childhood or their emotional experiences of childhood, those are the parents that struggle the most. Because if you to empathize, you need to have a reference point. So if you can remember what it was like to be left at daycare and feel the pain and the abandonment and the terror, you would never leave your child at daycare. If you can remember what it was like to have a tantrum and to feel so overwhelmed with your emotions and with anger and sadness and excitement and all mixed together, you would never yell at your child when they're having a tantrum. It's amnesia. It's when parents don't remember what it's like to be a child that they react in the way that they do, negatively.

[B]

All right, just to wrap up in an ideal situation, a couple has a child, how long? Three years. Mom stays home, is with the child and is there for those first three years. And then afterwards you could look at possible daycare, school, type of, type of situation.

[A]

Anything over three is in daycare. It's nursery school. But I caution people that you want to make sure that your nursery school is not more than a few hours a day. At three years of age, they're just cutting their teeth on the idea of separation. So, you know, this idea that you put them for six hours in nursery school is ridiculous. It's as bad as daycare for them. Again, you're taking a child who's been home primarily with their primary attachment figure, and you're putting them in six hours. No. So the idea is a gradual buildup. So maybe at three you find a nursery school. That's the way nursery schools used to be. A few hours a day, right? Where they get to practice and where it's a gentle separation where it takes a couple weeks and they let you be in the classroom until you can move out of the classroom. You know, gentle separation process, few hours a day, that's all at three, at four, maybe you move up to five hours because it prepares them for kindergarten. Right, but. But that would be the ideal. If you're asking me what the ideal is now, do mothers have to stay home full time? Mind you, this is where people misunderstood my book. The book said being there. Why prioritizing motherhood in the first three years matters. For some women, they can stay at home. For other women, they want to work a little part time. So there are ways of managing working, but still prioritizing your children. So the problem is we prioritize our work and not our families. That's the problem today. So it doesn't mean you can't work. And not all women either can financially stay home full time or can emotionally. But the idea that the more is more is what I say, the more you are physically and emotionally present for your children in the first three years, the greater the chance your children will be mentally healthy in the future.

[B]

You know, it's interesting I have to say this before we end here. Is that a lot of what you're saying? I can hear some people go, oh, that's going to make a soft society. It's going to make a bunch of whatever. But it's like actually doing the opposite of what you're saying is what's causing a lot of what we think is.

[A]

So resilience is built. So say to get to resilience, you have to provide a foundation. Think of the softness and the sensitivity and the empathy as the. I don't know if California has basements, but on the east coast you have to put in the basement and the cement foundation of the house. If you just build a house on top of the ground with the first sign of a hurricane or a storm, that house is going to blow down. Think of the Three Little Pigs. You know, the foundation for resilience is sensitivity. On sensitivity, you can build a house that withstands adversity, that can deal with stress. But if you take that foundation away and you just expect too much of a child, you force them to be tough too early. Yeah, you may get what you want, but that house will break down as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

[B]

Wow. Thank you so much. This has been fascinating. Yeah, very, very good interview and episode. I really appreciate you coming.

[A]

Thank you for having me.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

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