B (3:59)

And I, you know, I don't. But I also don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Like, there's really cool stuff. So I actually. Thank you. I wonder how, how do you decide what really matters? When you think about this as a developmental psychologist, as a grandmother, how do you decide the distinction? And you talk about this too, between, for example, intelligence and achievement. Like, how do you have that conversation? I know you know that I know you know, but how do you, how do you. How do you get it across?

A (4:35)

Well, you know, it's really hard because we live in such an achievement society. It's really interesting. I mean, I hear from parents that they're so excited when they beat the milestones, you know, so. Oh, my God, did you see my baby? My baby smiled at seven weeks, not at eight weeks. My baby rolled over at three months instead of four months. And I love it. I love that you're watching so closely out there. On the other hand, you know, the data don't show that it's predictive of anything in the future. And the other thing that's just kind of interesting is even kids who read earlier. You know, we've pushed down everything in academics to make it. Well, if it was first in second grade, let's move it to first. It was in first grade. We move it down to kindergarten, preschool. Well, those kids who read earlier are not necessarily going to be the best readers when they're in third grade. So what's that about?

B (5:35)

You know, my mother told me, she was like, you do not wish. And she is a reading specialist. And she said, you do not wish for an early reader. Because she said, it's so sad because everybody gives so much attention to these early readers for doing this crazy thing, reading. And then everybody reads pretty much and then nobody cares anymore. And it like is like the beginning of just this terrible feeling of unworthiness. And it was such a. I remember when she said, I mean obviously you hopefully aren't controlling whether you have an early reader. You just do or don't. But I remember her saying that and I think it was probably because she was observing so much, you know, literacy promotion, which of course is wonderful, but it was just like intense.

A (6:23)

Well, it isn't. I think in a part of the issue is that we are so laser focused on reading as an achievement. Right. Or on math as an achievement. Can my kids count to 100? Well, do they know what it means? You know, so then they see this little four year old or three year old who's going 1 7, 3, 2 8. Well they're actually perfectly normal and they know that different, you know, number words go with different objects. That's already pretty cool. So that's how intelligent grows and intelligence grows when we're explorers and discoverers and gosh, then the whole world is in the palm of our hands.

B (7:04)

Can you help us really think about what are the important questions we can ask ourselves and things we can focus on to try to grow that intelligence without like linking it to achievement?

A (7:18)

I think, I think the best way is to become a really good observer of your kids. Find out what your kids are interested in. What are they drawn to? And sometimes it's the glass of water that's right in front of them or the glass of milk. And sometimes while you're pouring that milk, they get to watch it as it's not really even. And then as they drink it, it goes down. Like what's that about? And what happens when they tilt the glass of milk? Now we don't think of those moments because we don't even see them anymore. As parents, we're so focused on the math and reading that we forget that little physicists are born too. Or how about the 2 year old who's building a tower out of blocks? Again, we don't even think about it. But now let's talk about what it takes for those little hands to put one block on top of another on top of another so that it doesn't just topple. I mean that's teaching that kid about balance. That's incredible. But again, we don't even notice it. And so part of it is noticing what the kids notice. I have a great story about, you know, one of my sons was, would go on A nature walk, you know, wasn't really a nature walk. It was trying to get to school. But every morning we were like trying so hard just to get to school. I was accomplished by 9 o' clock in the morning when I got three kids to school. I'm high five in myself, okay? So the last thing I need is one of my kids to go on a nature walk on my way to the car. But one of them really cared about slugs. So we had to turn over literally every rock along the way to save the slugs. But that kid was learning something about biology, and if I leaned into it, I could have a whole conversation about slugs and where they lived, why they liked it when it was dark and it was moist. Those are the moments where kids are gaining intelligence, even if they're not gaining the achievement that we think we should be looking at.

B (9:29)

Now for a quick break so I can tell you about my sponsors. I love Avocado Green mattresses. When I had my babies, I was very aware of how many gazillions of hours they spent with their little heads on a mattress. And I would have loved Avocado Green Mattress. Their mission is to be the world's most sustainable brand, the pinnacle of guts, certified organic mattresses, luxury pillows and bedding, and quality American made bed frames and furniture. And they donate 1% of mattress revenue to the environmental nonprofits through their membership with 1% for the planet. So you can feel good not only for what you're spending so much time on, but also because they're sustainable and doing good things. So I love a company that's doing good things. And out of Avocado Green mattresses are made using premium organic materials and they deliver luxury performance and durability. And they're so darn comfortable. Yes, they're green gold certified for low emissions. They're made safe, certified non toxic, and physically support growing bodies because there's an array of infant toddler and kid mattresses. They're soft, but they're comfy and supportive. I just got one for my little baby cousin who's so cute and I think she's pretty into it. Avocado is a certified B Corporation climate label. Certified. I mean, the whole thing, you can feel so good about supporting this company and you can use the code humans and you will save an extra 25 on crib and kids mattresses on top of their holiday sale, which is a huge sale going on right now. That's an extra $25 off their current sale at avocadogreenmattress.com with the code Humans avocado dream of better. Okay, I am lightly obsessed with Irestore because I am, you know, I really like hair. And Irestore has this fantastic. Basically a hair mask with LED light. So it's like the face mask, which they also have. It's actually like an amazing product. So easy, it looks like a bike helmet. So you put on this bike helmet, it's like an LED mask, but for your hair, and then go about your night. And the Irestore Elite is what I have. It is amazing. And if you feel like after you had babies, for example, your hair got a little thinner, this is so fantastic. And there's a massive discount. It's so worth it. So holidays mean getting together photos, wanting to look good and feel your best. So grab an ir. It's also a really good present, probably for yourself, realistically. But Irestore is here to help with big seasonal savings happening all month long. And with the code humans@irestore.com you can unlock and exclusion exclusive discount on the Iristore Elite. That is the ridiculously amazing but probably silly looking helmet that I wear. That's humansirestore.com Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. Okay, so let's talk about. That's a perfect example of learning through play. And I don't, I don't know if it, it sounds to people like learning through play. Like, like, I wonder if you can clarify how wild and vast play is, maybe with more examples, because Absolutely. I was thinking about how so many times you hear people say things like they're not learning anything in preschool and the frustration. And then I was thinking about, like, I wonder if people really know what play is.

A (13:27)

So let's, let's just take a second to talk about what play is all about. And then I want to give you some examples that I bet you didn't see, but they were so powerful. So one is definition. Boy, have people had a hard time figuring out how to define play. But when something's active and the kid's engaged, by the way, not distracted, but engaged. Hear screens in the background there. And when it's meaningful to them. Okay. When it's socially interactive, because we have social brains. One of my colleagues says you have a socially gated brain. You learn by being in interaction with others. Okay. When it's iterative, it moves a little bit each time you try to play with it. You know, you're changing each Lego part as you put it on to make a better building. And when it's joyful. Now let me take you in to the living room of an 18 month old, okay? And that 18 month old sees a ball and that 18 month old hits the ball. I was going to say rolls the ball. The ball does roll, but maybe it's not as intentional as that. And the ball goes over to you and then you get the ball and you roll it back to the kid and your kid rolls it back to you. This is a little squirt, an 18 month old. Now I want you to look more closely at what just happened. That back and forth sometimes called serve and return when they're learning language, right? That's the basis for language, conversation and as it turns out, a whole lot of other skills as well as social, social interaction, all in ball play. That's unbelievable. How did that happen?

B (15:13)

And so how do we interrupt that accidentally?

A (15:17)

Oh my God, we do it all the time. Let me take the case of a kid is drawing. Here's a four year old and a four year old sitting there with her crayons and she is doing a magnificent picture. Problem is you can't tell what the picture is, right? So you go up to the four year old who's engaged and playing and you're looking over and you're playing too and you say these are the words you shouldn't say. You co opt, it's called the helicopter. Parent says, oh, you're drawing a picture of your family. No, I'm not. This is a picture of a circus. So when we lean in and let them tell us what they're drawing, it's much more engaging and they can create a whole conversation because you can ask questions. Oh, what's that? Don't say oh, there's the clown. I see it now. Right? Then the kid says, oh, can you see? Here's the tent. Doesn't look anything like a tent, who cares? But the kid then uses play as a way to express what's going on in her world. And play is really powerful like that. And I'll even go further in saying I need a little bit more active, engaged, meaningful, joyful, you know, iterative and social stuff myself. I believe we should have more adult recess because adults are being slammed. We're so anxious. So you know, let's make the case for all of us to have a little more play and learn through it.

B (16:50)

So you've committed your career and life to like getting play that like taken seriously? Frankly, the very serious nature of play.

A (17:01)

No, but how crazy is that?

B (17:03)

My curiosity about this is how do you get buy in. Because here's like most people listening right now. Buy like clearly they care about their children or other children that are around them. Clearly everybody here is like so excited about understanding the science behind all of this and loves the young people that we're raising. And also it's. You get those voices in your head or on the playground or you hear all the things that you know are not happening if you're spending too much time, quote unquote playing. Here we have this world renowned expert. I feel like I need you.

A (17:51)

I'm here. Yeah.

B (17:53)

To help people understand that you're not talking about this instead of growing intellectually robust thinking human. But actually because that is the path.

A (18:09)

Yeah, no, I totally hear you. So the first thing I'll tell you is that there's a lot of good research to say that when kids play their way to a learning goal, they learn it better than when you just teach them what the outcome should be.

B (18:25)

What?

A (18:26)

Because then they have agency. And when kids have agency, by the way, you're the same way. You learn it better than when someone robs you of your agency. Okay, now here's the real kicker. Not only do they learn it better, but they learn more skills than just the skill you're trying to teach. So we call these the six Cs. What are they learning? Well, the first thing they're learning is how to collaborate. They're collaborating with other humans because remember I told you play is socially interactive. Right. All right, then once you have collaboration that builds the foundation for communication. Language is built on collaborating with other people. Then let's move to the next one. By the way, collaboration and communication. Aren't they two of the skills that everyone in business says you need right now? Oh, let's go on. Once you have those two, then you have the skills to build content, whether it's reading or math or social skills or science or the arts. And then once you have content, you can have critical thinking. Oh, that's a biggie today. And curious creativity. Really biggie today. And then the last one is the confidence to persist and have the grit to stay on it even if you fail. Because failure isn't an F. It doesn't mean you did badly. It means, wow, I learned something and I'm ready to do it again and make it better. Now, it turns out the people who are really caring about play right now is the business community. Because the skills for the future are collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and the confidence to keep at it. And AI can do the rest so if you want your kids not to be outsmarted by AI, one of the best things you can do is play with them.

B (20:29)

Like if we can cultivate these skills instead of trying to outpace AI.

A (20:37)

Right, right.

B (20:39)

You know, so now you have this beautiful, like, revenge of play.

A (20:46)

Exactly. It's again, it's bringing back the human to human connection. Look, I know AI is pretending to be human. I get that. And, and I know the new AI toys, which, by the way, were some of the most horrific things I've ever seen on the marketplace.

B (21:02)

What are new a. I don't even know my.

A (21:06)

Okay. Oh, my gosh. So there were a couple toys that were introduced this year. Some of them were flooding in from, from China. And you could put on, on two of them, you could put like a little necklace around one of your stuffed animals, get ready to be horrified by the way. And then your 4 and 5 year old could be connected to the entire world wide web. And it says that it gives you companions for your kids. Nope, it doesn't. And that it makes parenting easier. No, it doesn't. Just one example from, from perg, which is the public interest research group that asked the little teddy bear for a five year old. So where do you think mommy hides the matches? And it answered. And it told the child how to strike a match. No, no, no. Skip them this holiday season.

B (22:06)

Wow. You know, I have just been deep diving into AI for older kids and learning about all of that, and I just didn't even consider AI toys.

A (22:17)

Like, why would you. But AI made a deal with Mattel and in China, they're. Yep, happened in May. So. Right. The gasp is all you can possibly do at this point. Just. We do not need this.

B (22:32)

No.

A (22:33)

Kids need humans.

B (22:35)

Now for a quick break so I can tell you about my sponsors. Okay. I think Quince is epic. And it is sweater season. It is cashmere sweater season. It's football games. I mean, not for me, but for most of America and most of my family. And lattes. And Quint's is known for their Mongolian cashmere sweaters. And they start at $50. And all of Quint's items are priced like 50 to 80% less than similar brands, including these amazing cashmere sweaters. And they are able to do it because they partner directly with top factories. So they cut the cost of the middleman, which passes savings to us. And don't worry, Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices. So of course, it's premium fabrics and finishes and luxury feel and all the pieces and that stuff. But it's also ethical. I love my cashmere sweaters. They are such good presents. I wear them so much and they are indistinguishable in quality from my more expensive cashmere sweaters. Separately, my stepdaughter got her bedding from there because she loved my bedding so much and it was so soft and cozy. It's just great. They have so much on that website and the costs are incredible. Get Cozy and Quince's high quality wardrobe essentials go to quince.com humans for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C ce.com humans to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com humans so let's be honest, we all blame the dog. I mean, sometimes it's the kids and sometimes it might even be you and a wine glass. But either way, let me tell you about the green Mitt Kit from Clean Safe because it is the easiest way to keep your fabrics looking brand new and clean in five minutes or less. This is the easiest cleaning, simple process and it works on carpets, couches, car seats, wool rugs, even delicate upholsteries, even dry clean only materials. Spray the solution first, then stick your hand in the mitt wipe and then you just rinse the mitt and repeat. It's so easy. No bleach spots, no harsh chemical sprays in your living room. The green Mitt kit is non toxic and fragrance free. And it's made with just three ingredients and it's soap free so there's no sticky residue or stain that sort of goes away and then magically reappears the next day. And it's safe for kids, pets and every soft surface you love. And it lasts for so long. One bottle of concentrate makes up to 16 full size bottles. Sixteen full size bottles of soft surface cleaner. Go to cleansafeproducts.com humans now and get $15 off the green mitt kit. That's cleansafeproducts dot com humans for $15 off the world's easiest soft surface cleaning solution. Okay, so along those lines, along those lines. Back to all these very beautiful seas.

A (25:52)

Yeah.

B (25:53)

When you're with your grandchildren. Yeah. Because you have this whole age span of grandchildren from nine weeks to ten years.

A (26:01)

Ten. Yeah.

B (26:02)

How are you noticing that we can cultivate through play as, as time goes on?

A (26:11)

Well, I mean, my kids are, are good players. They, they invent games. One of them has this club that they did at school and by the way, I'm not anti tech. So you know, one of, I think.

B (26:24)

It'S just to say you're not anti any of the things that, that I think that's what is so relieving is like you're not saying don't do things that are going to be of positive benefit or part of this new world. It's just like, right, think about it. Right.

A (26:45)

And think about what's good. So you know, you take a case like Minecraft where the kids have a lot of agency. By the way, Minecraft's been well studied, you know, and it really does help kids learn, especially in Tetris and spatial games. I mean there's like amazing stuff out there if you know how to choose between the good stuff and the not good stuff. But, and we can talk about that later. But my kids have whole groups of folks who act out Minecraft even when they're not on the screen. And for my 10 year old's birthday party, we did a whole Dungeons and Dragons birthday and we had problems that everyone had to solve and all the kids came. I think I was the dragon master for how you were going to go in a misty room where the floor was slippery and still managed to get the food at the other end of the room. And the kids came up with brilliant solutions to this problem. Yeah. So they still play.

B (27:43)

Okay. And so, and with your nine week old, what are you, I mean, just so delicious. But with, when you're thinking about this like new little one, are you noticing a difference? I mean, I guess your family has the benefit of having been exposed to you, but are you noticing a difference in even this last decade?

A (28:07)

Oh, oh yes. The last decade has changed so much. As I say, you know, first of all, we're introducing A.I. okay, let's figure out how to deal with that. And there's so much sophistication going on in tech toys, tech games, chips in everything. Let's give you one from the last decade. They put chips in shape sorters. Now why would you put chips in shape sorters? What happens is as the kid finds the little triangle and puts the triangle in the right or wrong place, now the shape sorter speaks to you or at you and goes, oh, triangle. Okay, what happens? We studied this. Mother stops saying, wow, look, you found the triangle. See, the triangle has three sides and three angles. No more do the parents get engaged because the toy's talking. So yes, the world has changed. And again, I'm not anti tech where tech makes a difference, but I am anti chip in everything. We don't need it. Cardboard boxers are still incredible.

B (29:18)

Isn't that amazing? We haven't outsmarted development in that way.

A (29:23)

No, no. Evolution takes years and years to outsmart. So I'm not too worried about that. Like the kids haven't changed, but we've changed. And I will say the last 10 years has also brought about something very troubling, and that is parents have changed. For one, we're hyper. We're hyper that the kids have changed. And no, they have not. They'll be fine. And two, we're on our phones all the time. Every time we do the analytics about how much milk our kid drank, we're on the phone. So basically we're showing our baby. It's very important to record literally everything that you have done. I mean, that's what we're doing. And when we do that, our eyes are off the kid and on the phone. And we've studied this pretty extensively now. I think we had the first study out on it, but now there's, now there's a lot of them. It's called techno ference. When technology gets in the way and somehow we have to put that phone down and look into the eyes of another person and have an authentic human to human conversation with them. Just one more example. Sometimes I'm out to dinner with my two older ones and there's a television at the restaurant. If my kids are facing the television or even see it out of the corner of their eye, I promise you they will not look at me over dinner.

B (30:52)

That's the answer.

A (30:53)

If on the other hand, they sit the other way, and by the way, I don't hand them a phone, I don't hand them an iPad. We balance spoons on the cups and my kids have a great time and they're learning a little physics along the way.

B (31:09)

These are great reminders. And I think what also you have a lot of examples like this in your book of like not heavy lifting play.

A (31:18)

Right, right.

B (31:20)

So I was thinking like it might be good to kind of go through a few examples or even just one example. Yeah, or numeracy and math.

A (31:32)

Sure.

B (31:32)

Where there's like a misunderstanding of what is play versus what is just I don't know what is happening. And then same with language and then maybe literacy. Do we have time to do this?

A (31:45)

Sure, sure. So let's, let's just have some fun with numbers. I mean, numbers are everywhere. Right. I mean when you're, when you're sitting there waiting for the train or you're waiting well, waiting for the bus, Whatever you're waiting for, look around. How many blue cars pass? That's play. How many yellow cars? Probably not a lot, unless they're taxis. But that's fun. Then you can talk about taxis. You can count them. In fact, we have this wonderful thing called playful learning landscapes that we've developed where we are turning transportation hubs, parks, libraries, grocery stores into playful activities. And parents are finding it's easier to go to the grocery store. So what do we do? Let's just look at one of them. We're in the grocery store in Santa Ana, California. In Spanish, we have these wonderful signs that say, can you find the heaviest tomato? And the kids get all excited and they start weighing tomatoes on the scale. I call that numeracy. There it is. Stem. Okay, so that's just one example of playing with stem.

B (32:59)

And how's that different for everyone than just teaching, like memorizing numbers?

A (33:05)

Oh, when you memorize numbers, they generally forget it. But when they. They may be able to spit it back. But I mean, a parrot can too. But what's a number really mean? Like, what's a two? You know what I mean? It's a symbolic. It's symbolic information, but it actually stands for information. It comes after one. It's less than three, and there's two items. And what's so cool is that two's the same whether it's a pair of socks or whether it's two pennies or whether it's two cars. While you're waiting for the cars to go by, that's what the kid really needs to know if they're going to understand number.

B (33:44)

And so if you're feeling really excited to just teach. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. You're missing all this really cool stuff.

A (33:54)

That is really. Yeah, you're missing the point. Cook with your kid. There's a good number game. Does your child. Oh, yeah, I get it. Sometimes the flour might spill. I sometimes spill the flower too, but my kids love it. She has to. She has. The 10 year old has to count out seven cloves of garlic and two cans of tomato to make the marinara sauce. So recipes are just stem games. And then the kids really learn what you're talking about. All right, let's take language. I mean, language is just wonderful. But where does language come from? It comes from having conversations with kids. So we think we can just point at something and give them a vocabulary word. But did any of you guys ever take the sat? Do you remember what Syzygy means, okay, no you don't. And that's the same with your kids. When you use it in context, they can remember honest to God, anything. So I have to give you a story about that. So when my, when my grandson was four, my grandson became, as most four year old boys do, an absolute expert in dinosaurs. And I'm talking expert here. In fact, one of my colleagues actually studied it. Real expert. So I made a really bad mistake. I knew about Tyrannosaurus rex. I was like cool with that. I knew about brontosaurus. I wasn't entirely sure how to tell the difference in an herbivore and a carnivore. But let, let me tell you, my four year old and almost all four year old boys know herbivore and carnivore because of dinosaurs, okay? And they can tell you the traits. So I walked in one day and I was like beyond excited. I had found a fossil that was a plesiosaur, okay. And my kid thought plesiosaurs were really cool. I did not, but he did. Okay. So he said to me, I'm so excited that you got me this fossil. Thank you so much. And I said, why are you not more excited? He said, oh, it's cool. Except that a plesiosaur, it's a marine animal, it's actually not a dinosaur. I said, well, I looked at it and it looked like a dinosaur to me. He said, come on, let me show you the book and I'll show you why it's not a dinosaur.

B (36:19)

Wow.

A (36:20)

And he did. Now I ask you, are they going to learn vocabulary words more in context or by us spitting them out? That's language development.

B (36:32)

So let's do literacy.

A (36:34)

So a lot of times, you know, we think we have to read the book just like the book is, and we kind of don't. Now I will admit by 4 and 5, the kid notices every time you deviate from a word in the book. So you could get stuck. It could get stuck. But books are really platforms for language. So take something like Curious George. You're reading Curious George and you want, you know, to have a fun time with your kid. And by the way, when you are reading aloud at bedtime to your kid, it is one of the most special moments ever because we've done physiological studies on this. The mother and the kid show bonding, or the father and the kid, or the adult and the kid. And that doesn't happen when your kid is reading an iPad. Just saying the ebooks don't function the same way. So these really special books. What do you do if you're really reading it in a way the book is intended? You say, wow, do you remember when we went to the zoo? We saw the monkeys too. Do you remember that one monkey? And then you go into a whole conversation and your kid says, yeah, who climbed on the top of the rock? That was amazing. Now you're talking. Language development through literacy. And then when it's time to turn the page, your kid turns the page with you and they start to learn the magic that the books aren't just about those words. It's about a world that we're introducing a child to through the magic of a book. How special is that? And there's a recent study came out last week that showed all the gadgets and gizmos we're putting into books, all they do is distract the kid from the storyline. When you study it at the end, the kids don't even remember who the characters are. So here's a case where good old fashioned books win and where the ebooks with all the whistles and bells, they don't.

B (38:41)

Now for a quick break so I can tell you about my sponsors. I want to tell you about Groons because it feels like it's a great time to add Groons to your lifestyle because it's so hectic and on the go right now and holiday treats and schedules are totally wacky. But amid all of this, don't forget to grab a pack of Groons and stay on top of your wellness goals. Okay, so basically it's a daily snack pack of gummies that tastes good and it's not quite a multivitamin or a greens gummy or a prebiotic. It's all of those things and then some and at the fraction of the price. And I don't like taking pills. This does not. I just don't. It's not fun. But a gummy, that's good for me. I'll take any time. So it also has 6 grams of prebiotic fiber, which is three times the amount of dietary fiber compared to the lean greens powders and more than two cups of broccoli. And let's be honest. Would it be awesome to have two cups of broccoli every day and get all those nutrients that way? Yes. But are you. So get Groo. Get up to 52% off with the code humans. R u n s co. That's code humans R u n s co. Try Groons. They also have it for kids. It's free of all the junky ingredients, so you don't have to worry about that. It's vegan, nut free, gluten free, dairy free and artificial color and flavor free. Groons co I love Bobbi so much. I'm so excited to tell you. If you have littles, I would have loved Bobby when I had my littles. You can feed with confidence with Bobbi's USDA organic European inspired fertilizer formulas. Bobby loses sleep over what goes into your baby's bottle so you don't have to. And every batch goes through 2,000 plus safety and quality tests, plus third party testing before it ever leaves their US manufacturing facility. It's founded by moms, trusted by parents and loved by 700,000 plus babies. And even if you're exclusively breastfeeding, this is the one you want to have as backup in your pantry. If you're combo feeding, if you're exclusively formula feeding, Bobby has your back with high quality infant formulas modeled after breast milk. That whole thing of making moms feel bad about how they're feeding their baby is over. So I love what Bobby does because it supports moms who are breastfeeding, it supports moms who are doing formula who are doing a mix. It supports them all. And it has a range of formulas that are all certified. They've got awards like baby's list 2025 top choice organic formula and a top choice by Consumer Reports. I really think it's an innovative leader in this whole industry. If you want to feel good about what's in your baby's bottle, get 10% off with the code humans@hi bobby.com. that's H I B O-B-B-I E.com B promo code HUMANS. And if you are exclusively breastfeeding, I want you to feel supported too. You rock. You all rock. However you're feeding your babies along those lines, what is happening with attention? Like what, what's the trajectory of our attention skills now? And well, like is this. Is there an urgent need to shift things?

A (42:19)

I would say urgent is probably not a strong enough term. You know, adults are terrible in an attention economy. Let's just go talk about adults for one second. How many people out there, I'll ask you, how many people out there do you really think are multitaskers?

B (42:40)

No people.

A (42:42)

You're very close.

B (42:43)

I know this because I really try to multitask in every single time time. I'm just spent and broken after and I've made mistakes.

A (42:52)

Okay, so. So you have your answer. You know, for, for years people have been doing research on texting and driving okay. And texting and driving. I mean, this is like amazing. Texting and driving. You lose 25% of your attention when you text while you're driving.

B (43:11)

That's. I actually did not know that statistic as the mother of drivers. That is terrifying.

A (43:18)

Yeah, it's terrifying. Okay, now, now let's ask about how many are multitaskers? You were really close. It's 2% of the human race come out as multitaskers. That means probably you're not one of them. Okay. Yeah. Now. Yeah, yeah. What? And, and let's just look again. I, I mentioned before the parent with the cell phone case. Okay. That's been studied too. Guess how much your conversation with your kid drops off when you're looking at your phone. Four fold. Drop in conversation with your kid. Now, if you can't do it, let me assure you, your kid can't. So we wonder why 1 out of 10 kids has behavior problems, diagnosed behavior problems. Why 1 out of 10 kids in elementary school now has anxiety issues. What is going on? We're not giving them the time in their day to be bored, to come up with their own things, to play, to explore, to discover. We need to reset. And I would say we need to reset as adults too.

B (44:32)

It's so hard to get. It's like the space between knowing we need to reset and actually doing it.

A (44:43)

Yeah.

B (44:44)

But I think knowing is helpful because I do. I. I don't know if I think we. We kind of can tell that things like attention is really a problem, but it's not. I mean, I was on a plane yesterday and I was going to work because I had a big flight and I opened up my online mahjong.

A (45:09)

Yeah, there you go.

B (45:11)

To say I can't even. Anyway, there was also a movie on. I was like, not of sound mind and I was trying to like, respond to emails. It was an absolute. It was like an absolute nonsense trifecta.

A (45:27)

A trifecta.

B (45:29)

Yeah. And I'm sitting next to my teenage daughter, who I insist should only be doing one thing at a time, one screen at a time, whatever. And she's like, you are the problem here.

A (45:41)

That's right. We are the problem. No, you're exactly right. So here's a trick I use. I use hacks all the time because I have to, you know, So I put things in. I shouldn't say this on radio, I'm realizing, because now everyone will know. But, but I put, I put into my little schedule meeting. Okay. And I put it as an hour long activity so that everybody thinks I'm in a meeting. Okay, what am I actually doing? I have given myself an hour of downtime or I've given my fabulous, or I always put in meeting when I'm going to play tennis with my buddies. There it is, meeting. Now everyone for all the world can think I'm as busy as they are, but I feel like I need to recharge my creativity and you know, my writing ability. And if I can't do that, then I'm not going to outsmart the robots and I'm certainly not going to outsmart AI.

B (46:46)

It's so interesting because like it's, if you have meeting written down, it is respected. But if you have tennis with your friends, which is a huge part of like yes, having a good life and your brain working and your social connections, but it feels like dispensable.

A (47:07)

You're entirely right. But I have to tell you, my 40 year old son just had a birthday party and he decided to have it at a camp. And all of his 40 year old friends and 35 year old friends and 50 and 60 year old friends came, okay. And we played tug of war and we had relay races and I never saw people have so much fun.

B (47:38)

It just, these are all good reminders that while you're writing about younger developing brains, this doesn't kind of run out.

A (47:48)

No, no, I'm telling you, we have to push for adult recess. We are desperate, desperate for it. And look, I'm not saying you should never play a video game. It's, it's fun and at least I remember playing them all the time when I was in college. But they're much more sophisticated now. But, but we have to, we have to give our brain a rest. And, and our brains aren't getting the rest. They need to have the six C's. We need humans. I mean, who was it? Vivek Murthy wrote this beautiful book about. We are lonelier than ever right now because we don't call friends. We think that texting them substitutes for talking to them. I don't know about you, but when I'm on the phone with my adult kids, I know more about them than when I get a one word text. Oh, well, let me say one thing about critical thinking. Just because it's just a fun thing, you know, I, a lot of people tell me critical thinking in a kid, no way. You know, and, and that's just not true. So I have to give you the example of granddaughter Ellie when she was three and she called me with an emergency. Now as I know, you know, developmental psychologists do not have emergencies. Right, Right. It's not our thing. Okay? So I said to her, oh, my God, what. You know, what possibly is going on? She says, well, the ball rolled under the couch. And I was like, oh, my God, the ball rolled under the couch. That is bad. I can't figure out how to get it. I tried with my projected arm, and I could not reach the ball.

B (49:31)

My projected arm.

A (49:34)

And I'm like, okay, I see that. This. I now get it. This. This is an emergency. I said, well, we're going to have to get something larger than your projected arm to reach the ball. What are you thinking? She thinks and she thinks and she thinks. And she looks at me and she goes, a spatula. I said, I don't know. Let's give it a try. So she goes into the kitchen and she gets a spatula. She comes back, the spatula with my projected arm, it's not long enough to get the ball out. And I went, oh, this is a crisis. I wonder if there's anything longer than a spatula in your house. The broom. And so she went and got the broom, and she tried the broom with her projected arm. And of course the ball came out. If that's not critical thinking, I mean, if I were at Google or Amazon, I'd hire her. She figured it out.

B (50:30)

You know, I mean, kids are magnificent.

A (50:35)

Brilliant, brilliant. If we give them the chance.

B (50:38)

If we give them the chance. That is such a great example of how brilliant development unfolding is. And if we could just slow down and do this this way. It's so delightful.

A (50:56)

It's so delightful. And I've often thought, you know, we have these real crises in the world, like, wow, you know, the oil spills or the plane crashes. Don't you just wish you could say, what could we have done to prevent that to a kid? Or go to a kid and say, how do you think we should design this playground? Honestly, what you would get back. I just. Can I give you one more example? I told you, we do these endlessly. I mean, in playful learning landscapes. We, you know, we design activities for places where people wait. And what we're seeing is all of a sudden, the adults and kids, even adults who aren't your adults, come over and play with their kids, and everybody's getting into it. It's just marvelous. So this is really spread, and we're now in 13 countries and 33 cities, which is amazing. And one of the countries that's building stuff right now is Singapore. So I was showing some of the Designs to my 10 year old and they've come up with a lot of designs based on Singapore math. And my 10 year old said to me, huh, I actually think there's a better way to do that design. And I said, you do show it to me if she didn't. Now, by the way, all this is happening on FaceTime, so remember, it's happening through tack, but it's authentic communication. Okay? So she takes a pencil, a white piece of paper. For the next five minutes, she's lost to me, okay. As she's like busy scribbling, she holds it up to me and I'm going to make it one of the designs that they use in Singapore. It's brilliant.

B (52:34)

That is so cool. Also, your relationship with her.

A (52:38)

Well, with, with all them, you know, what I do after they get to be a certain age is I call them my creative assistants. So I bring them the problems people bring me. And I said, what do you think we should do? Now, my, my grandson says one of the biggest problems in the world is what he calls two legged screen watchers. I don't know who came up with that. I said, julian, how do you think we can possibly help people get off their phones? And he says, well, they need to play games, they need to do activities more and then they'll get off their phones. It's the elixir.

B (53:15)

I have two last questions if you have a moment.

A (53:17)

Sure.

B (53:18)

I don't know if they. I'm just curious what you think. The first. So one question I have is because I'm fairly obsessed with sort of temperament and how much do you think temperament influences the play between parents and kids or the kind of play, or like, how can we help parents play for the kids they have?

A (53:47)

Yeah. And, and look, some kids have, are much more active than other kids, you know, and you have to go with that. You're not going to be able to totally slow down a kid who needs more. And it doesn't mean they're bad kids. They're looking for more. So sometimes they act out, you know, But I've always found that if we give them challenges, you know, then we're feeding into their interests. And by the way, notice that's the biggest thing that we need to do when we get off our phones. Notice what they're interested in. Because I always figure if you play to their strength, you're playing to their temperaments too. You say, how do you want to do this? What can we do with that? Take it home, you know, and, and even kids who Are very active. I remember one day we were trying to figure out how sculptors could ever sculpt. I mean, really, how do they do that? You know? So we got rocks, actually, I think we got marble. And I just had screwdrivers and stuff. And I was letting my kids go at it. And when they found out how hard it was, then when I showed them what a real sculpture was, they were dying. Okay? So play into their interests is the way to do it. The other thing is to be careful. Some kids need space and time. We are a society that over schedules our kids by a lot. We don't want them to sleep in on a Saturday. We have to have swimming lessons. We have to drag them to the next sports event that they have to go to. It's okay if every day they aren't piled up with three activities. Let them guide the clock sometimes. And if it means hanging out at home, then that's the kid you have. That's not to say you want to give in all the time you want to do interesting stuff with them. So say, hey, you know, I thought maybe you'd decide of these three activities what we might do at 12 o'.

B (55:46)

Clock.

A (55:47)

And if you don't want to get out of your pajamas till then, it's okay.

B (55:52)

I'm that kid.

A (55:54)

Yeah, and I like that too. I need to be on my. I was talking about boredom earlier. Do you know what the research and boredom tells us? It actually increases motivation and it increases creativity. Because then the kids fill the space instead of you filling it for them.

B (56:15)

Because I think there's such well intentioned weekend planning. Curate the best and get the best for and out of our kids. And so to remember how valuable boredom is, maybe it just needs rebranding.

A (56:33)

Well, and maybe what we do is we make that one of our meetings or one of our activities. You know, do your schedule and then wipe out something every day. You know, to put in downtime and to put in. Yeah. And you secretly may tell everyone else you were out running around going to all the art classes. The truth of the matter is that if you really want your kids to be the bosses instead of the worker bees of the future, then they got outsmart AI and they're not going to do it unless they're creative critical thinkers. It isn't going to happen. Please note that this episode may contain.

B (57:29)

Paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a.

A (57:34)

Direct or indirect financial interest in products.

B (57:36)

Or services referred to in this episode.