Podcast Host (5:02)

Can you explain that study a little bit more? Cause it's so brilliant.

David Yeager (5:05)

Sure. So there was this, again, this collaboration with Jeffrey Cohen at Stanford, who wrote a book called Belonging that I recommend. And in this experiment, we had seventh graders write first drafts of essays, and then the teachers covered them in critical feedback. So they're, you know, red ink everywhere, and the seventh graders get the essays back, and as you can imagine, in their minds are thinking, well, wait a second. Does this criticism mean that the teacher thinks, I'm an idiot, that they're biased against me, that they're looking down on me or not? Or is it the sign the teacher believes in me? And what we did is we had teachers hand write notes in advance that either said, in a treatment condition, I'm giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can meet them. Or in a control condition, it just said something bland. It just said, I'm giving you these comments. So you have feedback on your essay. And the kids didn't know who got which note, and the teachers didn't know who got which note because we, the researchers, appended those notes. They're put in a sealed envelope. Kids go home, they get the envelope, and then they decide over the next week whether or not they're going to revise their essay. And then a whole week later, what we see is that in the control condition, only 40% of kids turned in a revised essay, but it was 80% in the treatment condition.

Delaney Rustin (6:25)

Let me say that this is big. Receiving a note from the teacher expressing confidence in their ability to write an excellent paper really motivated the students, effectively doubling their chance of doing more work on the paper.

David Yeager (6:42)

And so that suggests to us that wise feedback is a way of unlocking motivation. Even in the otherwise unpleasant experience of

Podcast Host (6:48)

getting critical feedback, it was really them feeling like the teacher believed in them, that they could do this.

David Yeager (6:55)

Well, I'd say it was two things. So one is being super clear that the reason for their criticism is the high standard. But also you need an assurance that with the right support, the young person could meet that standard. That is, that it's attainable. So it's not just like a pat on the back like, I believe in you. It's more like, I'm going to walk the walk with you. I'm going to be on this journey of growth so that you can get to an impressive place. And I'm going to do that because I take you seriously and I'm respecting

Podcast Host (7:23)

you and I'm giving you all of this red ink. Like, I'm. This is my support to you. This is like, I took the time to do this and I believe in you, that you're gonna be able to be a better writer. And I'm giving you support. I'm giving you this feedback here.

David Yeager (7:37)

Yeah, I'm giving you the red ink, and I'm giving you a chance to revise it. I mean, a lot of teachers, like, all right, first draft, that's your grade. And that a lot of life feels like that. So there's a structural way in which the kid is able to improve. But kids don't always see it that way. They see it as the teacher has impossible standards. And that's a microcosm of what I think happens a lot, that older adults, you know, people our age are there trying to mentor, trying to care, trying to impart our wisdom and our. And our expertise to the next generation. And it comes across in the wrong way. And in my book, I write about how this is true of my best friend when he was a chief resident at a hospital in Houston, and he's got people making the rounds and he tells them, you ran the wrong labs or you should have asked on this test, or you should ask that question. And it's like in one ear, out the other. And this is a guy who wants to be a great leader and is a great leader and is super charismatic and everybody likes him. And still the residents, at least subset of them, could not deal with the feedback. And I think it's anytime there's a power dynamic you've got, in his case, like a powerful surgeon who's implying that the resident isn't good enough and they're taking it the wrong way.

Podcast Host (8:47)

We feel so vulnerable when we're in our medical training that in your book, when you explain the difference of when he took the time to say, I believe in you, and what a wonderful teaching that would be to all those in power who are in, you know, leadership and training younger people.

David Yeager (9:07)

Yeah, it's something about the human experience that when you're in a situation of status precariousness that you, like, can't take for granted, that people with power over you are taking you seriously and are invested in your success and are going to help you improve. If that's a question in your mind, then negative experiences like critical feedback feel like yet another confirmation that you're being cast aside or looked down on. So you need to be hypertransparent about benevolent intentions.

Delaney Rustin (9:37)

Transparency about benevolent intentions. I think in parenting speak, it's about reminding our kids at times the things that we want for them. We care about the fact that they can develop different interests. So let me support you in your efforts to find a club. And we want you to create your own games and drawings and not just be consuming entertainment. For example, it's not about an off the cuff, just listen to me, I know what's good for you type of language. Not that at all. Here's David with more about transparency about benevolent intentions.

David Yeager (10:17)

Transparency about benevolent intentions. We do studies of police Officers, this is with Kyle Dobson, who's at University of Virginia and in his class collaborator. And whenever police officers approach people on the street, the officers in their mind are thinking, oh well, obviously they know that I'm here to serve and protect. I'm here to help the community. And the civilian, like just see someone with like a gun and a badge. So civilians are like, am I going to be arrested? We did a study where we had civilians wear stress monitoring wristbands and be waiting at a table at the street. And then an officer wearing a gun and a badge comes up and talks to them and we tell the officer to go make friends with them. Basically, if they just come up and start asking you questions, where are you going? Where have you been? Then people are very threatened and they give one word answers. They're very short and they can't remember a thing about the conversation except that they felt terrible. But if there's a transparency statement, if they're like, hey, we're just walking around to get to know the community, would you mind if I ask you some questions? Then people are like, oh, okay, this is just a conversations. They're not accusing me of a crime. And then the conversation goes a lot better. There's a rapport. And I think that's a good example of, you know, when we were, we were doing that, we were also thinking of a boss who stops the 22 year old in the hallway on the way to their office and then ask them a million questions about their weekend. And the boss is thinking, oh, I'm doing chit chat. And the employee's like, are they trying to judge whether I had too much fun this weekend, whether I'm serious or am I a loser or are they hitting on me? Like there's just all kinds of weird dynamics and in that power disparity and

Podcast Host (11:50)

what could the boss say at that moment to say, how was your weekend? It would be a little awkward to say, I'm just asking because. But what would you recommend?

David Yeager (11:57)

I have some really hardworking, great 22 to 25 year olds and they're serious about their work, they don't really want to waste time. And so I say like, look, I don't always get to connect with everybody. I'm trying to get to know everyone on the team and it's really important to me that everybody, you know, that I know them as a person, not just as, as a worker robot. And so can we just chit chat for a second? And then they're usually like, sure, we'll be asked for a second before the meeting. But if I don't do that, then they're like, when are we going to get to work? And is he going to be mad at me later that I didn't do all my work because we wasted this meeting? You know, there's just a little stuff in the back of their minds that you have to be aware of. And it's not because they're weak or entitled. It's because they're reasonably wondering how someone who has power over them will be treating them.

Podcast Host (12:45)

Well, that gets us to then a big focus of the book of what value tweens and teens are particularly biologically and developmentally prone to. Can you speak to status and respect?

David Yeager (12:58)

So I call the book 10 to 25. Because our community of developmental scientists tends to think about adolescents not as the teenage years, like 13 to 18, but more as from the onset of pubertal maturation, specifically gonadarchy, which causes an increase in testosterone in both males and females. Um, which often happens around 10. Could be earlier, could be 8, could be later, 12. And then the brain continues to develop until the mid to late 20s. So 25, 27. And so 10 to 25 is a period at which there are surprising similarities in the motivations that can capture the imagination and engagement of the young person's brain. And what I like to say is that babies cry. Usually it's the baby's hungry, the baby's tired, baby needs to be swaddled, right? Or the baby has a dirty diaper. It's like one of those. And as you're. And I have four kids, so I've done this a lot in the middle of the night, and you just do the checklist in your head. You're like, is it this? No. Is it this? No. Is it? You figure it out, and then eventually the baby falls asleep. Not as fast as you'd like it to, but the baby falls asleep or is soothed. And then you spend your time just staring at this beautiful, snuggly little baby, right? So you understand the needs, you address the need, and then the baby's wonderful. But the minute puberty strikes, we, like, forget how to do any of that. We just say, you're being outrageous. Or you have a hormonal, raging teenage brain and you're irrational, and I can't deal with you. What I argue is that, no, we need to figure out the equivalent to teenagers of, like, sleep, diaper, and food for the baby. And I think it's, of course, teenagers need sleep and food as well. But I think a lot of times what causes their most frustrating behaviors is more of their social motivation. And specifically the motivation to have a sense of status and a sense of respect. And those are loaded terms. I'm not talking about maximizing number of likes on Instagram or something frivolous and superficial. I'm talking about the feeling that others who are influential in your social milieu view you as a worthwhile contributor, as bringing something to the table. The anthropologists talk about the phrase earned prestige, the idea that you've engaged in some behavior that's socially valued by the community and the community has noticed that, and you've gotten a reputation, a positive reputation in response to that. Something powerful in this idea of demonstrating through your behavior some kind of social value and status to others. And so there's a sense in which how you're perceived by others in the group is like natural feedback about your social value. And in our evolutionary history, that was key to survival. If you don't do anything that eventually you're just left behind on the savannah. Yep. And so I think there's a real reason for young people in their brains, the second puberty strikes, how do you demonstrate social value? It can't be given to them by their adults, but they can be earned by impressing those adults. Sometimes, yeah. That's just a deep seated motivation that if we figure that out, rather than work against that drive for status and respect, instead honoring it.

Podcast Host (16:16)

One of the hard parts is video gaming, for example, is an incredible way for them to gain status and respect within that social milieu. And so I often really validate to young people, families that I'm working with and teenagers like, it makes sense. You get a challenge, you get to level up. The brain is designed for that. It's designed for you to have challenges. And the games actually will change in real time to make that a satisfying challenge for you. And then you're playing this game with your friends, so then you're one upping each other and whatnot in a very fulfilling kind of way.

Delaney Rustin (16:51)

All this makes me think of Joshua, the teenager who's in Screenager's next chapter. We learn about how in 8th grade he started really enjoying video gaming. And he says this quote. I really liked getting the feeling of winning, that excitement, also the feeling of winning with my friends, hearing them over the mic screaming, you got this. Eventually we learned that Joshua's grades plummet and there's lots of problems. And without giving too much away, the mom eventually gets rid of the gaming console and Joshua ultimately starts Lifeguarding his first job. I got to spend the day filming him at the pool when he was working. And just seeing him in that role, helping kids, talking with adults. I witnessed the pride he felt in this work.

Podcast Host (17:42)

Let's talk about testosterone, because I don't think that gets spoken enough about. And the fact that we're talking about females and testosterone as well.

David Yeager (17:51)

In both biological male and biological female humans, the start of gonadarchy causes a striking increase in testosterone. And then that has all kinds of effects on the brain. Some are what's called organizational. So it organizes how the brain is just kind of wired. And then others are activational. So what gets priority in a moment to moment type experience. And for a long time, people thought of testosterone as activating a drive for sex, a drive for dominance, a drive for those kinds of like roid rage, you know, male behaviors, aggression. But now we understand it more. It's about social success. And so in both males and females, that increase in testosterone in longitudinal studies is correlated with things like, you know, risk taking. But some of those risks can often be positive social behaviors. So Eva Tellzer has done a lot of this interesting research on how if you reframe the reward as instead of a gamble where you personally win, but it's a gamble where if you win, you give money to someone you care about, so it becomes a pro social act. Then you see teenagers doing a lot better and they're making wiser choices and they're sometimes outperforming the adults when they're doing the gamble for the sake of helping others.

Delaney Rustin (19:12)

Let's hone in on that. What a great study to share with young people science showing what we adults see in young people all the time, that they are loaded with kindness.

David Yeager (19:24)

And that's especially true when the rules of the game change really fast. So if there's a certain gamble task and then all of a sudden the probabilities shift or you have to suppress what used to be the good strategy. Adults often will keep doing the old strategy, but teenagers will switch to the new strategy. And that just suggests that testosterone is sensitizing the brain to social reward so that you can adapt more quickly to the changes in our culture and our society and then therefore figure out what's relevant for authentic status and respect in that culture and in that group.

Delaney Rustin (20:00)

The teenage brain is primed to want status and respect in part due to testosterone. And David shares supporting science. All of this can help us think about the language we use with young people.

David Yeager (20:13)

When I was on sabbatical 10 years ago at Stanford, I met up with Ron Dahl, who's a neuroscientist at Berkeley, has been in your film maybe a couple. And he was telling me this whole testosterone story, and I was like, oh, it's interesting. What if we could leverage this for behavior change? And one implication is that the language we use could come across very respectfully or very disrespectfully. And if that's the case, then testosterone should be sensit teenagers to that disrespectful language. So in like, the meta story here is super interesting. It's like all the ways we talk to children where we're in charge, all of a sudden. That same language that worked for us for the first 10 years of life is now seeming to be disrespectful and therefore is going to work against their pubertal hormone sensitized brains. And so the way we tested this was we needed, like a medicine that was good for them in the long run, but like, not good for them right now in the short. And we wanted to study the problem of why teenagers often don't take their medicine. And that's because, like, 50% of teenage cancer patients and organ transplant patients don't take their daily medications as prescribed. So anyway, we needed a medicine, but we couldn't take real transplant recipients because you can't have your control group, like, lose their kidney or whatever. And so we had to have something that was a good stand in for medicine. And my lab manager tested lots of different substances and then she picked a spoonful of Vegemite. So for people who don't know, Vegemite is like, imagine you brewed a barrel of beer, and then at the bottom, if you took all the delicious beer part out, you just had a bunch of yeast sitting there, and then you spooned that out and put it on toast. That's more or less Vegemite. And so it's pretty gross to people who are not raised with Vegemite.

Podcast Host (22:07)

Gives you a lot of B vitamins.

David Yeager (22:09)

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And so that's what we told you. We were like, here's the vitamin supplement. It's plausibly good for you in the long run, but it might have an unpleasant taste now and then they take a bite of it and then they're gagging. It's so gross. And then we either ask them respectfully or disrespectfully to take a large sample. So a heaping spoonful of Vegemite. And in one condition, we use conventional disrespectful language, which you might call grown splaining. So, and now let me mansplain grown splaining to you.

Podcast Host (22:41)

Thank you, David.

David Yeager (22:42)

That's just when adults are like, I know it's good for you. I've pieced it out of my mind and you just need to listen to me. And if only you would listen to me, then you would make a wise choice. That's Groan's planning. So in one condition, in the Vegemite experiment, we had the medical professional who's offering the medicine say, I'm a trained medical professional, I know it's good for you. You should just listen to me. You know, there's an unpleasant taste. You should try to ignore that. Lots of statements about, basically, if you know what's good for your health, and I do, then you would take this. And then it ends with, thank you in advance for your cooperation. Right. So it, it doesn't grant any autonomy or agency, et cetera. In the respectful condition, we say things like, you're a college student. You can understand the deeper reason for this. Let me explain the medical reason why we're asking you to do this. Please consider taking this medicine if you have an unpleasant taste. Think of that as you doing your part to help science and to help others. And then thank you in advance for considering this request. So it presumes competence, it grants autonomy and agency. It's a subtle shift. And we found that the young adult participants in our study were twice as likely to take the Vegemite when they were asked respectfully versus disrespectfully, which is great. So that means that there's something to this language. But the most interesting part is we also took saliva samples of testosterone at baseline. And what we found is that people who were high in testosterone really distinguished between the respectful and disrespectful language the most. It's like they have like a testosterone induced allergy to grown splaining that we think causes them to really distinguish in terms of whether they take the second Vegemite spoonful. But the last little footnote is among the low testosterone people, we also administered a nasal inhaler of testosterone or not. So we took, I don't know, 20 year olds who were post pubertal and we turned them back into 13 year olds with this big nasal inhaler. And then there, what we found is that you could take low T people. When you give them the inhaler, they look just like the high T people from baseline. So they, they dramatically distinguish between the respectful versus disrespectful language.

Podcast Host (24:57)

So testosterone levels, it's individual differences.

David Yeager (25:00)

So this story's a little complicated that. As far as I understand, the first time you're fully awash in testosterone is when it has its largest effects. Later, you can just have high circulating levels, but your neurons have, like, accommodated to that and they've. You've reached an equilibrium with your personal levels of hormones. Imagine you are 15 years old in Paris for the first time after three espressos. You know, you're looking like just the level of intensity. There's something about the magic of being there for the first time in that moment that caused you to remember everything and pay attention to everything. And that's kind of what it's like when you're newly awash in testosterone and then some social status event happens to you.

Podcast Host (25:50)

We want our kids to do certain things. We want them to clean the room and we want them be off screens at times. And we often yell at our kids. I call it the. For me, it was the grab and stab, where I would grab whatever device they were on and stab them with my eyes. What do we know about Silk and Dolls study related to how effective it is when we yell or just nag our kids?

David Yeager (26:17)

Yeah, I mean, first of all, just. I just have so much compassion for parents. I mean, it's a constant struggle to figure things out. And just as a side note that for my book, I interviewed these great mentor mindset leaders. And mentor mindset is this is basically being the walking, talking embodiment of the wise feedback note with the respectful Vegemite language being what you say all the time.

Delaney Rustin (26:41)

Let's zoom in a minute again on mentor mindset. It's about having high standards with high support, not impossible standards, not destructive support.

Podcast Host (26:51)

It's our work to figure out our

Delaney Rustin (26:53)

actions, our words that are aligned with this mindset.

Podcast Host (27:00)

Can you explain the study by Silk and Dahl?

David Yeager (27:03)

Yeah. So I've mentioned the term groansplaining, and there's an interesting study of what happens in the teenage brain when your parent nags you and tries to grow and explain something to you. And this study is led by Jennifer Silk in Rondahl. It was a part of a broader study of moms and teenage daughter depression. They could have done it with dads and sons as well, I think. And the way the study works is that the moms completed the sentence. What bothers me about you is, which is like you're already off to a bad start with that sentence.

Podcast Host (27:38)

So they would record a bunch of their responses.

David Yeager (27:40)

Yeah, mom's Pre recorded these phrases, okay? And they say things like, what bothers me about you is I'll ask you to take your shoes downstairs and you won't. I ask you to play with your siblings and you know, you don't. And then you yell at me, get off your screens. Yeah, but like I'll walk by your room and, and say it needs sweeping and dusting and then you won't do it. You just need to calm that down. That's in the actual paper. And so the teenage daughter is then in this big magnet that's spinning around her head while they're listening to the mom's recording. And what they find is an increase in regions of the brain related to anger. So the affective regions of the brain. So the one way to interpret is the daughters are pissed off by this groan, splaining, nagging, and then a decrease in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the regions of the brain related to planning, logical reasoning, et cetera. And also interestingly, a decrease in regions related to social cognition, the temporal parietal junction. Which suggests that the teenagers aren't like trying to make the most charitable possible interpretation of what their mom is saying. Combined across these, the teenagers are not saying, you know, mom, you have a point. I'm really glad you raised all these important ideas for me to change. So good chat. I'm going to get to work and I'll report back like, they're not, it's not what's happening. Instead it's like their brains are shut off with respect to planning and they're just super angry. And that's not really what you're going for as a parent. What you want is willful compliance or you want them to be independent and to proactively do the right thing without needing to be told what to do. So we're just basically not going to get there with our conventional groans, planing. But I do want to mention, you know, the reason why I think grown splaining and nagging is so popular is because we fundamentally don't think young people have good reasons for failing to do what we've asked. Like we, their reasons don't matter. Too many people, right? I mean, it'd be like if a three year old is climbing on a chair, on top of a chair to get a cookie. There's like no good reason for that in our minds. You should just not do that. And so we talk to teenagers who, I don't know, stay out too late or refuse to get off a screen or, you know, need to Finish this one last thing. On the video game, we talk to them the way we talk to a three year old who is on a precarious perch trying to grab a cookie.

Podcast Host (30:07)

And that was one of the biggest take home messages I had early on. And making screen ages and working with my daughter and my son is I wasn't validating to them, which is the same thing that you're saying that I understood how much it was important to them. Whatever the screen time thing was, once I started to validate and I said I might not fully understand this and I would repeat back and like this is what I think you're saying. Did I get this right? They would feel heard and I do this as a doctor all the time. Did I get this right? Is because ultimately people want to be understood as much as they want what they think they want. But as a parent, it is so not natural to ask it as a question and to validate. I mean, that's what is so weird about this, David. It's like, I mean, part of parenting in our communication style is definitely learned stuff. We just have learned it and it's this way. But I want to give voice to communication science. It's great, but it's really hard to do. And it really takes ongoing work to start, for example, to validate to our kids. And how have you been able to do that in terms of trying to see it from their perspective or examples of that?

David Yeager (31:24)

Yeah.

Podcast Host (31:24)

And letting them know that you're understanding how much they need it or want it, even though it doesn't mean that you're going to always be letting them have it.

David Yeager (31:32)

Yeah, I mean, I think that the idea of it being hard to do is multifaceted. The expert mentor mindset leaders that I found and studied, they ask way more questions than they tell information. They're constantly asking questions and then the next thing they say builds on the answer from the question that they ask. So linguists call this an authentic question with uptake. So it's authentic because the speaker of the question is authentically curious about what the answer is. And there's uptake, which means that the next thing the speaker says builds in some way on what the conversation partner has said. So for instance, saying what were you thinking? That's not an authentic question with uptake because a, we don't think they were thinking anything or at least not anything good. So what were you thinking is actually meaning you were not thinking. And also we're not going to change what we say based on their answer. We're going to immediately explain to them how their thinking was wrong or what they should have been thinking instead. So the mental mindset experts are almost always using authentic questions with uptake, and it doesn't take that much more time. It's not like every single conflict is a Socratic dialogue where you got to go, you know, 19 questions deep to, like, probe the meaning of life. It's more. More what I call collaborative troubleshooting, that it's like, all right, we've got a problem. Let's just figure it out together. But it's very critical. They're not assuming anything, really. And it's because teenagers hate when adults make assumptions about them. And if what you say involves assumptions, then they're immediately shut off.

Podcast Host (33:04)

I like that. So if you were to say, I know you love social media because that's where all your friends are, and this, that. That doesn't feel validating to them. But if you say, I really want to make sure I understand, let's. Can you tell me what you're enjoying about it?

David Yeager (33:17)

And, well, it could be like, I know you're a very social person. I know people like you.

Podcast Host (33:23)

I know you're caring and you're empathic and you want to get back to your friends if they ping you.

David Yeager (33:27)

Yeah. Or like, my suspicion is that you're trying to get back to them. Yeah. But you know, what I can't figure out is why this is on top of the other things that you need to be doing, you know, And. But you have to be authentically curious about it, because they might say it feels like life or death, that everyone is going to move on with their inside jokes, and I'm going to miss all of them, and I'm going to go to school and I'm going to not know what they're talking about. And when that happens, there will be nine people sitting there laughing, having the most fun they've ever had in their entire lives. And I will sit there on the outside feeling like a phony or a fake that I don't understand what they're laughing about.

Podcast Host (34:05)

Good example. So then what would you respond, David?

David Yeager (34:08)

I'll be like, that's totally normal thing to feel. I mean, I can't imagine how hard that would be. And, like, you really want to be a part of that. So then it's like troubleshooting. How do you get enough on the inside joke that you think is going to happen without it consuming your life? Because there are consequences of it consuming your life, which is other things you also care about are getting Neglected. But it has to be what the young person cares about. There's an example of this in the book that I got from a parenting coach. It was a, a dad who, his daughter was on screens all the time because she had an out of town boyfriend. And he couldn't go in there and be like, stop being in love with this other person. Like, that would not have worked, you know, and he couldn't be like, you've hit your 45 minutes of screen time. Because she's like, this is my most important relationship. Like, I'm not gonna put a cap on that. And if it was down the street, you wouldn't, you know, that you would let me talk and talk and talk. So what's the difference here? I don't understand. So it had to be a whole troubleshooting about sleep, health, other goals that she has for her studies. She wants to get a lacrosse scholarship. It needed to be about the daughter setting the boundaries in the context of all of her health goals and actually goals, et cetera. So she created the rules for her screen time in collaboration with her dad. And in this case, the mom was out of the picture.

Podcast Host (35:37)

Okay. Yeah.

David Yeager (35:38)

So it was just the dad and the daughter. And so the dad was super worried about pushing the daughter away and losing her forever. So they co created the rules around the screen time. But it came from this place of, I know that being accepted and loved matters to you. I know that this relationship is a source of acceptance and love. And there's nothing pathological about wanting to be loved. In fact, it's the most normal thing for a teenager. Like there's Romeo and Juliet. Rings true for a reason is because every person your age throughout all of human history has wanted to feel the way that you feel when you're having a great online conversation. So I get it. But here's the other goals. Let's figure out a plan. And then she ended up spending more time offline doing her activities and then met a physical boyfriend and then, and then ended up breaking. So the dad didn't have to kill the relationship, it just happened naturally. And then she's much happier now.

Podcast Host (36:29)

And I, I try to help parents have mindset of. As hard as all this is, it's actually an opportunity for complex conversations with our kids that they're learning to be good negotiators. With us, we're having, we're showing healthy conflict. We're showing collaborative problem solving. Like you're saying how to not just throw up the hands and say, ah, I hate that there's all this back and forth around screens.

David Yeager (36:52)

Right. I mean the enforcer mindset, which is one alternative to the mentor mindset, is all standards, no support. And that's where you just say rule is 30 minutes and if you break it, you're grounded and you're just going to enforce some rule without any kind of collaboration. And you would do that if you thought the young person really had nothing to contribute in terms of their ability to collaborate and think about it. But what's kind of interesting is this idea that if you are just the enforcer, then you end up with solutions that are imposed from the outside, from the adult and, and then the young person is not likely to follow through on them. So you've kind of wasted your time.

Podcast Host (37:29)

Yeah.

David Yeager (37:30)

And so you just created less of an ethical person, which is the opposite of most parents goals. The parenting coach I always talk to, Lorena Seidel is her name, she's like, never waste a crisis. You've got a conflict. That's a chance to build a skill, whether it's a collaboration skill, a problem solving skill, and if you force them to think about, all right, well, what are your competing goals? How are you going to meet those competing goals? What is your plan? That's like a very important skill and they need that when they're in college, for instance, or they're just out of the house and they have to prioritize and think about how much stronger that muscle's going to be at 18 or 19 when they're out of the house. If for the 10 years before that they've had to troubleshoot and plan ahead and collaborate on competing demands like screen time versus in person time, that muscle is going to be really strong. And then now you've done your job.

Podcast Host (38:22)

As a parent, what I really like is this idea of support for it because what we've done like in schools where we've allowed kids to have devices on them, we're setting them up for failure when we're asking too much of them. When you have all of your friends on these devices.

David Yeager (38:35)

Right.

Podcast Host (38:36)

The idea was, oh, they just need to learn how to self regulate. We've learned that many students that's too big an ask with all the temptations of devices. Same thing here as a parent, it's not like, like we're just going to talk about this and you figure it out. You're 15 because you're going to need to know this later. That would be just the opposite of the enforcer protector. Yeah, that would just be the protector. Like I'M going to protect you from any kind of struggle with me or anything. You're just going to be however you need to be. That wouldn't be being a supporter in the way that we want them to have high standards of full life with some screen time, of course, but all sorts of other things. But we're going to support, we're not going to just step away and say you figure it out on your screen.

David Yeager (39:16)

Right? Yeah. I mean I think the protector mindset is that it's my job to protect you from any kind of distress.

Podcast Host (39:22)

And I would add to that, David, because what I hear so often from parents is I, I just can't deal with their pushback and so I step away. It's not that they're the protector in terms of worrying that they're imposing too much hardship. That is one thing that you do talk about in the book. But there's also the parent who just gives up and says I can't handle it. They just, there's too much pushback and that's a worrisome situation. That's why the work that we're doing is trying to. And what we're doing with you right now is trying to give them more resources, more tools.

David Yeager (39:52)

Yeah. I mean there are different reasons why the pushback causes parents to relinquish their kind of authority over kids behavior. One is we just don't have the time. Like parent. I honestly think one of the biggest detriments to mentor mindset parenting is just the fact that our kids are over scheduled and our parents are over scheduled world. And I, I find in my own life like the it is when I'm just constantly on the go, it's like, nope, I need 110 compliance first time I ask right now because I have no time. But another reason is people think if I'm doing a good job at parenting, my kids will never cry. Like they will. They'll be logical and reasonable and they'll never scream and they'll appreciate me. But like that's not the case. I mean even the great teachers I write about in the book, you know, you'd think, oh, it's a classroom full of wonder and learning and happiness. And it's like sometimes. But there's a lot of crying in great classrooms. And the reason why is that the subject matter is legitimately hard. Right. Like physics was a mystery for all of human history until a hundred or two hundred years ago and now we expect every sixteen year old to learn it in like seven months. And that's amazing. And so like, if you truly uphold the standard of understanding the mysteries of the physical world and as a physics teacher, for example, like there will be some crying, like for some subset of kids. And that doesn't mean you're being a bad person or you're an enforcer. It just means that the reality of the world is in contrast to what the kid wants it to be.

Delaney Rustin (41:30)

There's a lot of communication science that David and I have been discussing to help youth feel respected and heard. Asking questions and really letting our kids know that we care and are listening. Questions with authentic uptake as shown by our thoughtful follow up questions. To remember that with a mentor mindset, we have high standards. We want our kids to have full lives and we will keep working and experimenting with ways to give them support, including around screen time issues. But will we be perfect at this all the time, calm and rational in all of our different interactions we have with them? Heck no.

David Yeager (42:11)

You can get a do over. You can accidentally be the disrespectful condition in the Vegemite study and then come back and be like, all right, that was not our values. I'm sorry, I should have been more curious about what, you know, what was going on with you. And then you can do it again. And often they'll remember the do over rather than the first one.

Podcast Host (42:28)

That's what they're going to remember. Like, wow, that is cool.

David Yeager (42:31)

Yeah, they'll remember that.

Podcast Host (42:35)

This has been great talking with you.

David Yeager (42:38)

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.

Podcast Host (42:40)

Bye, David.

David Yeager (42:41)

Bye. Bye.

Delaney Rustin (42:42)

Hey everyone. It's such a gift that you tuned into the show today. I want to thank David Yeager for his time with us and you can find out more about him, his book, his research and all the studies we mentioned by going to screenagersmovie.com, the podcast page. And there you'll find show notes. And remember, by following or subscribing to this show, you will get each episode automatically. And if you can one time rate the podcast by checking off some stars, we would super duper appreciate it. I invite you also to sign up for my weekly blog about parenting. Hundreds of blogs@screenagersmovie.com and the search bar makes finding specific topics easy. And each blog has discussion questions to jump start conversations with your kids, students, soccer players, you name it. And at the website you'll find out about how to see our four screenagers, movies and much more. Finally, I love hearing from you, so email me@delaneysquereenagersmovie.com Today's show was produced by the following people. Me, your host, Delaney Rustin, Lisa Tabb, Rebecca Tolan, and sound editing was done by Alan Gofinski.