← Raising Good Humans
Raising Good Humans
Why Your Kid Needs More Chores, More Boredom, and More Frustration (Yes, Really)
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- [00:01]
David Epstein
Part of my take as a parent is everybody is going to grow up and be justified in blaming their parents for some things. Like that's just what it is, no matter how great they are. And maybe that's a cop out. And me just saying I'm not going to be a perfect parent.
- [00:17]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
You're not.
- [00:18]
David Epstein
But that no matter what you do, there are going to be some things that your kid can justifiably blame you for when you grow up. And so it's a question of choosing what are those things going to be? Is it going to be that I stood my ground on them having a regular dinner with the grandparents and so they had to miss some of these parties, or is it going to be, Is it going to be something else? And so I think it's just almost like for me, a little liberating to accept ahead of time that, you know, there are going to be certain things when he grows up. He's going to say like, I didn't like this thing that my parents did and there is absolutely no way for me to get around that, no matter what I do. So I've just tried to choose what those things are and make them also have some value.
- [00:58]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Constraints are one of those things that feel counterintuitive, like are they getting in the way of our kids development or are they actually what's driving it? So I am so excited about this conversation with David Epstein, author of the new book Inside the Box, who has a real gift for translating science that sounds backwards and turns out to be exactly what we should be doing as parents. David has a master's degree in environmental science and journalism and he's a fantastic person to talk to about how our children are positioned to thrive. We get really concrete, starting with chores and how they grow confidence. Then we zoom out kind of to the bigger question of why constraints even matter for development. Why the best coaches and the best parents, which you are. The best parents have constraints designed into their environment, not delivering instructions. I'm Dr. Eliza Pressman, Developmental psychologist, New York Times best selling author, associate clinical professor at the Icahn School of Medicine, and the host of Raising Good Humans podcast. I am so glad you're here. I want to talk about shared obligations and chores. I just want to like dive right into it because you have a lot of really cool stuff to say and it's super compelling for parents. And that's who's listening.
- [02:19]
David Epstein
So in the reporting of this book, I read a bunch of the research that came out of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which Was, I think, the longest study ever. Continuous longitudinal study of human adult development. Basically followed people from cradle to grave. And one of the recommendations that came out of that study was to assign kids chores, which is a little bit surprising, but it turns out that having obligations like that gives kids a sense that their participation is meaningful in the family and work. Following up on that, I found it a little surprising. So I looked for other work following up on it. But there were other studies, 10,000 kids, that found if kids started chores in kindergarten, they had a higher belief later on in their own competence or their ability to deal with challenges. So I very promptly assigned my own kindergartener some simple chores after reading that. And I think it really fits in in general with the larger finding of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which is that a huge, arguably the most important factor for well being and longevity is having a dense network of reciprocal obligation where you have obligations to other people and those people have obligations to you. And those things can sound burdensome or inconvenient, but I guess those are the inconveniences that give us a meaningful life and keep us happy and healthy, for sure.
- [03:58]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
And that is like how if you really think about the close relationships that we have, it's not burden. Well, some of it's burdensome, but I can't think of a relationship that's meaningful, that's sort of like you offer nothing, they offer nothing, but yet you're super connected. I thought it was so interesting that during the pandemic, that was the first time a lot of kids felt like their chores weren't just an obligation, but in fact, they really, really mattered. It wasn't just a job to do. I'm curious, how did your kindergartner take it? Like, where were you in the evolution of this process and where the world was at the time?
- [04:48]
David Epstein
He wasn't yet one.
- [04:49]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
He was too little, too little for chores.
- [04:52]
David Epstein
So he was too little for chores. At the time, his only chore was making me smile and laugh at the time. But when I did decide to assign him chores, since it was a little bit out of nowhere, you know, it's like, oh, Daddy's reading this research and now Andre is going to get some chores he didn't have any problem with. He didn't blink. And he's, I mean, I guess I've known for a while that one way I can for sure get him to spend time with me is with a home project. If it involves a screwdriver or a ratchet, he is there, right? So. So these Things that already, to me were work, like, were fun or engaging to him. And so when we added things like take out the trash, set the table, he. He did not blink. So that was kind of neat to see. I think if you started early, it probably. And it was never framed as punishment or even as something that he had to do for reward. It was very much, we're all a team. Mommy and Daddy have their chores. You have your chores, too. We're all going to do them. So, yeah, I tried to be careful not to frame it as something that he would do in return for a reward or that if he didn't do, he'd get punished. It's just something that's expected of you because we all have things that we're doing to make the whole household work.
- [06:01]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Okay. So let's just expand on that, because I think a lot of people think chores are associated with, like, getting an allowance and things like that. So can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think we're both aligned, that that's probably not the best way to get anybody to feel like it's part of. You know, we're part of a community. And the first community we're part of is our household. Yeah.
- [06:23]
David Epstein
And, I mean, I do. I do things. I do some things that I love for my. I love writing, and I mean, it's torture, but I also love it. And I do that, obviously for pay. But I. I was concerned that if I offered him money, I mean, he's still quite little, so when he's taking out the garbage, like the small garbage cans from bathrooms, you know, that it would seem like, oh, this is something that you only do for money. That this is, like, a thing you don't really want to do, so I'm paying you for it. And I think he feels like it's a meaningful thing to do. I do thank him for doing it when he does it well and all those things. But also, it's just kind of something that's expected of you.
- [07:07]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Yeah. I mean, he's so young, so, like, you get to set that tone, but also, you do get paid for work. It's just. This is really about contributing in a meaningful way, and the idea that it's not that work doesn't contribute in a meaningful way, but it's just a totally different game. I mean, I have paid for, like, the extras, you know, beyond what's expected in the household. If it's just, like, a favor to me.
- [07:37]
David Epstein
Yeah, no, I'm not. I'm not opposed to that. At all. But the, but the. I mean, I think what I took away from some of this research was that if, if you can make it feel meaningful, like it's a meaningful contribution, that can improve the kid's self confidence, it improves their feeling of attachment to the family as opposed to thinking like, oh, gosh, this is this thing I have to do. And I think that was the case because once that went really well with my son, then I started having him do other stuff. So then I started having him, you know, make eggs with me in the morning and say, okay, it's our time to make breakfast. Little by little, he could do more of the task and you could almost see him this growing competence. And now it's a thing that he feels like he can do. So if, if grandma and grampy come over now, it's like, no, Andre can do 80%, 85% of the making some eggs for people, and then he is excited to do that. So I think it's building this feeling of competence and of and of contribution. You're part of the team, an important part of the team.
- [08:41]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Right. Like, it's not for show. And then competence builds confidence and this relationship grows. And here you go. But. So you have one simple thing like these tasks that have been like one simple thing. Can you give some examples? Just so in addition to the eggs, in addition to like the little basket of trash in the bathroom, but what are some other kind of one little things? And then we can get into constraints, which I'm so excited to talk about.
- [09:09]
David Epstein
Yeah. I mean, I haven't set the table and then he has to clean it, also wash it off. So he'll be climb up on the table fully with a wet paper towel and clean that stuff there. There are other little. Oh, changing. We have these water filter cartridges and air conditioning filters that need to be changed. And he has to help me do that. So that's. That's not a daily thing, but it's a regular thing. So we have a few things that are daily, which will be like the cleaning of the table or the setting of the table and usually making a breakfast. And then there are these, these less frequent things like changing filters around the house that he now knows just part of his, his cadence of life.
- [09:53]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
I love that so much.
- [09:54]
David Epstein
Watering plants.
- [09:55]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
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- [11:56]
David Epstein
Yeah, I mean, the last part of that quote from Picasso, if I'm remembering correctly, is it obliges you to make a kind of progress that you can't even imagine in advance.
- [12:06]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Ah, thank you.
- [12:08]
David Epstein
And I think he's describing something that neuroscientists later basically proved, which is that in order to be creative, you actually have to. To restrict yourself and to block the familiar and convenient things. When you mentioned modern life, so many things we do now are so convenient. Everything can be delivered to you. Entertainment can be beamed into your face in a very passive way every second of the day. You never have to spend any time with your own thoughts, all these things. And for creativity, that's kind of disastrous. So, as the cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham has said, you may think that your brain is made for thinking, but it's actually made for preventing you from having to think whenever possible, because thinking is energetically costly. So if you can, you'll just default to the most convenient thing or to what some cognitive psychologists call the path of least resistance. It's what. What's easy or familiar to do. And so if you want to be creative, the best thing you can do is actually block whatever the easiest, most Creative thing is literally, as the psychologist Patricia Stokes calls it, a preclude constraint. You preclude the easy solution and it makes things harder on you, but it forces you to explore in ways that you would not have otherwise. Right. We're all familiar with this at some level, like the necessity is the mother of invention, where when you're in a tight spot, you start thinking in all these creative ways. But I think the convenience of so much of what we're doing all the time now kind of can have us in autopilot, basically. Like, it's never been easier to make everything easier in a certain sense.
- [13:50]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
This just was like a moment that I had last week. I was in a room with a bunch of brilliant people doing a journaling exercise, which sounds really strange, but it's where I found myself. And in this journaling exercise, the direction was a little bit more vague than everybody was used to. And so many people had some. So many questions. And the direction was draw a picture of your childhood home. And people wanted to know, is it three dimensional? Is it supposed to be the front, from what angle, what room? All of these different things. And I was thinking, gosh, when we get to a certain point in life, because everybody there was middle aged and older, it's even harder to figure out the balance between constraints and. And like how we even deal with openness. And so that's just one thing that I wanted to address because it was kind of the opposite, as you would experience with kids. Right. I would imagine. But I want to go back to the real constraints providing the opportunity for growth and how you've architected that. You'll tell us the phrase that you use in your own household.
- [15:13]
David Epstein
Yeah. So with respect to my son, for example, one thing I've noticed where it's so easy to get stuff to our house now, whether it's grandparents sending items or toys or whatever it is, you can have stuff delivered so easily. So everything's a commodity. And often around a holiday or a birthday, stuff pours in. And what I've noticed is that he'll almost be. If a lot of things arrive at once, he'll almost bounce between them. It's like taking inventory or something, just checking on all the things. Whereas if we're outside and I have a stick and a ball and I'm like, we gotta do something with this, he becomes instantly very creative. A game will be made up.
- [15:58]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Right.
- [15:59]
David Epstein
It will not occur that he'll say, ah, but I'm bored. You know, there are other case times where we'll Say I'm bored. Not a ton, but. And so something will be made up. So I think I've become very conscious about putting him in or being in those situations with him where you can't just default to lots of shiny objects. And we actually have to create our own games and think and create our own entertainment because it's, again, it's just so easy to just get so much stuff. I mean, one thing that is not convenient, but that is important in our household is I don't. I don't want to. I don't want to make anybody feel bad about screen time or anything like that. But.
- [16:38]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
But you're like, but we won't.
- [16:40]
David Epstein
No, it's. It's quite limited in our household. You know, maybe that'll change later. But I think screens usually are a very passive form of consumption where the consumer is not really having to do much work or think it's incredibly convenient. One of my friends described it to me as hitting the easy button on parenting. Like you just pass the iPad and you don't have to do anything anymore. But it is so short term, right? Yeah, in the short term. In the short term, but it's so passive. And so I think I'm always looking for these sort of almost more difficult situations or they require him to be more active thinking. And I'm constantly, actually, because I'd read about something in psychology called the degeneration effect, which is people learn better when they're forced to try to generate their own answers to things or even to guess. So it's like, even if you have no idea what the answer is, if you force yourself to guess, it primes your brain for the subsequent learning. Then that I'm always. Whereas screens are very passive information consumption. I'll be reading the one magazine I read basically cover to cover every week is New Scientist. And I'll just read it with my son. And when I get to something that maybe it's something about animals or the universe, I'll make him guess. And of course, now he does it to me too. And then we'll read the answer. We'll both guess, and then we'll read the answer. And so it's just forcing this much more active kind of processing. And that's what I view as a type of constraint where it's. We're not just going to hit the easy button and passively consume things. We're going to force ourselves to guess before we see the answer and do this much more active processing.
- [18:18]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
I just remember that when I was a kid If I asked my stepfather like what the meaning of the word was, he not only would have me go look it up myself in the Dictionary because I'm 100, but also you're
- [18:35]
David Epstein
nearly as old as you claim to be.
- [18:38]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
But he also would first ask what's my best guess? And it was so annoying. I mean, it infuriated me, but I am so grateful that he took the time to do that even as I got old enough to just be such a brat about it. And it's really harder nowadays to do because of all of the technology, because it's actually right in front of you. So I think the example that you're giving is we can keep doing that. And you mentioned two phrases that come out of kids mouths so often. I'm bored. And what does this mean? Both of those feel like opportunities to sort of send it right back to them to figure out how to solve this problem. So how do you orient between the frustration and the liberating feeling of getting more capable of thinking through these constraints?
- [19:39]
David Epstein
I don't see some measure of frustration as a bad thing. I don't think we should aim for frustration free existence for ourselves or for children. And so in many ways I would say that I am more concerned about. I mean, there's plenty of stuff to be concerned about, but I'm more concerned about my son having an adversity deficit than of having too much adversity. Both of those things I think can be concerning. But right now I'm more concerned that he won't have enough frustration and challenge and things like that. You know, he's growing up in a household that has built in bookshelves like he's, you know, he's going to have an enriched experience. So I don't rush to fix that frustration necessarily. So if he says I'm bored, instead of saying here's what we're going to do, you know, maybe we'll point to an object or say, what, what do you think we could do with this? Or what do you think we could do with that? Or you know, here's an idea. What, what, what else could we add to it? And with the guessing stuff where I'm making him guess answers, now that he does it to me, I can see that it can be a little bit annoying. But when he does it also I'll participate in it and whatever he guesses, I'll be like, that's a great guess, whether it's right or wrong. And then we'll talk about it. So he's gotten used to it now
- [20:51]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
and you can walk through it like okay, so if that's your guess what would happen like let's walk through the steps and then they can kind of problem solve.
- [20:58]
David Epstein
Totally. It's really interesting because when we do that often this will know be like, well, why that, why that this the sequence of whys will I never try to say that's just the way it is. So we very often end up getting all the way back to the Big Bang because that's sort of the adult way of saying that's the way it is. And I, I should say I, my, my academic background's in environmental science and astronomy, so this is like the coolest I will ever be to him. Oh, so you know, I, I, I use my background for what it's worth. But yeah, I don't, I don't rush to alleviate some of that frustration. It's not like I want him banging his head against the wall constantly, but I think that's where growth happens.
- [21:46]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
The reason why I thought this was such a thoughtful and you've been thinking about this for longer than I think it's been on our minds as a society. But frustration tolerance is not growing in an era where things are put in front of you right away. And even in the last few months as I've tried to dive into what AI can do for you, I'm like, oh my God, this is incredibly time saving and really scary because when I think about my brain and how long I've gone being frustrated and having to push through things, I can't get super comfortable with the idea that all that work could get eliminated.
- [22:30]
David Epstein
And I'd say it doesn't look good. Right. So to the learning aspect in general, if something feels difficult, that's not a sign you're not learning. But if something feels really easy, it is a sign you're not learning if it feels really easy. To your point about AI, we're just on the first sort of generation of this research that's coming out about how AI affects cognition. But some of it looks not very good. I mean there was this MIT study that gave students they had to write essays on topics and some of them could use, had to use only could use ChatGPT and some of them had to use only their brains. And then a month later they were brought back to write essays on the same topics. But now the conditions were reversed where the, the brain only group could use ChatGPT and the ChatGPT group had to use their brain. And the finding was that the, the group that started with ChatGPT, that had access to ChatGPT, which essentially meant that they turned to it first. They had much lower brain activation connectivity between regions of their brain. And when they came back a month later, they couldn't remember anything from what they had written. Whereas the brain first group, a month later the brain activation looked fine. They, they actually did quite well, even though they could then use ChatGPT. So I think the, the lesson that came out of it and some other subsequent researches, brain first tool second. So that we need that behavioral restriction because otherwise it just is tantamount to using GPS for everything where you don't learn your way around because you're just relying on the machine. So I think there's some kind of scary signs for what it does to human cognition. Again, we're in early days of this research, but it's not, I think we're going to, if we want people to still be able to learn their brains to develop, we're going to have to put some behavioral restrictions in place or else they're just not going to learn the way that you want to.
- [24:24]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Yeah, no, I really think it's very concise to say brain first tool second. Really love that. Okay, I want to go a little bit through the constraints led approach that you talked about because I've never heard of that.
- [24:39]
David Epstein
So the constraints led approach, or cla, as the adherents call it, is a model of teaching motor skills so used in sports. And it's actually been around for decades. But it's having a public moment because Victor Wembanyama, one of the stars of the NBA, Shohei Ohtani, one of the stars of Major League Baseball and Kelsey Plum, one of the stars of the WNBA have identified with it publicly recently. And what it is is it's a model where instead of viewing the coach or the trainer as this sort of teacher at the front of the classroom, it views them as an environment architect where they set up boundaries within which the learner is forced to explore and find their own best solutions. What's called in constraints led approach research called self organizing, which basically just means finding the solution that's best for your unique physiology. You know, the first example I ever saw of this in the wild was, was at an Olympic development swim club in Australia where kids were, instead of being told, you know, this is what, do this with your arm a million times and do this with your leg, there were hoops in the water and they had to try to swim through them without touching the sides and the hoops would get smaller and smaller. The idea was to try to force them to experiment with how to get their body into as linear a position as possible. Another instance I saw was with soccer club in Europe, where they had. They used a ball that was really dense, and so you couldn't really lift it off the ground or kick it way downfield. So it forced you to make very little, little kicks and very short passes in a small space to try to get around the defenders. And so that's the. The general idea. Or Kyrie Irving, famously, that's one of the greatest finishers in NBA history. This was not programmed by a coach, but was missing part of the backboard of his childhood hoop when he was a kid. And that forced him to come up with all these weird spins to score. And the idea is that if you set up these boundaries, that. That essentially take away what would be the typical path, the easy path for someone that they will end up exploring much more actively and much more likely find these solutions that are best for them. And I should say, I think this approach not only is wonderful as a teaching technique, but it's also fun. So instead of just telling somebody to do something repetitively, it's like you're setting up these little challenges. And it's individualized because the core of the model is everyone has different physiology. And so telling everyone to solve this problem in the exact same way is not optimal development. And so I think it has this potential to kind of merge some of the best of what we know about skill development with fun and individualization, which I think would be great, because I think there are a lot of worrisome trends in youth sports development in general that might undermine all the good things you can gain from youth sports.
- [27:44]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
When I think about all of this, it really does pull at a thread for me about how. And this is the sports is one way of looking at it. And this is one approach. But it's the same thing if you were trying to learn how to write or you were trying to learn, like, any kind of growth or emotional development. So it feels so important. And also, I'm not sure how it happened, but constraints and boundaries really scare people because of how it makes them feel, probably. And parents don't want to see distress. And some of this is going to have, like, initial discomfort and distress, which you're not afraid of. But can you talk to some parents who. I mean, you kind of have. Because at a certain point, you realize this is what. What is our option, if not this? But can you talk to some parents who feel like they were Doing really well, kind of removing constraints and making things easier out of a loving home and just kind of misunderstanding what is helpful and what's maybe accidentally not. Can you talk about if you have a 16 year old or a 9 year old and you didn't start at 5 or we can even start at infancy with some of this conversation,
- [29:11]
David Epstein
what could you say in terms of implementing useful boundaries? Yeah, I think, right. Nobody likes to see distress. But at the same time, I think there's a saying that came out of the advertising industry, but give me the freedom of a tight brief that people actually, when they have clear guidelines, and I think everybody's probably found this in their work too, when it's not really clear to them what they're responsible for, what they should be doing, it actually doesn't feel freeing, it feels frustrating or chaotic. And so I think it is certainly true that some young people need more freedom than they have or more agency and feeling of autonomy. But I think for every one of those, there are probably several who would thrive more if they had a clear sense of what the box is. And I think we can always help with that, no matter what the age someone is. Because I've been around enough companies now to see that it's still one of the main tasks for organizational leaders is to help people understand what is their role, what skills should they be using, what should they be working on, what should they not be doing right. So I think a big aspect of creating culture, whether that's in a family or in a sports team or even in a society, is defining that which we will not tolerate. Like the things that you don't accept is a really important part of culture. So the status quo story of the group and the things you won't accept, and I think having those things be clear at any age can be helpful. Like what is the story of this family? What are the values? What are things that we insist upon? I mean, my wife, to hammer some of that home in our family, started making us do joint volunteer days altogether and again inconvenient, but actually ended up being something that we love. And so I think outlining those things clearly of kind of what are, what are the behaviors that we don't tolerate here? And what is the story of the proactive values that we have for our family can be helpful for people at really any age. And then you have to stand on those things. And I don't think, you know, I think sometimes that can create frustration in the short term, but I think it'll actually create less frustration over the long term, if people have some clarity, just like they want, just like you as a parent want in your own job, I think younger people can thrive with that in their lives.
- [31:45]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Well, there's no question that we have, like, we talk a lot about anxiety and we talk a lot about, you know, this whole generation of kids experiencing high rates of anxiety. And when you're talking about constraints, one of the things that you're talking about is everybody. For everybody who is terrified to have constraints because they don't want anxious kids. It's actually part of the reason we have so much high, you know, so much of this is because we got so afraid of constraints.
- [32:20]
David Epstein
Totally. And I mean, in the book, I talked to Jonathan Haidt a little bit about this. All of his books have this concept called anime that was. Came from the. One of the founders of sociology, Emile Durkheim. And it means rulelessness, that people become depressed and anxious when they feel like they're in a situation that doesn't have clear norms and rules. And that. That one of the amazing things in Durkheim's work is that he shows this is the case even when a society is on the rise. So if a society's on the decline or the economy is declining, people get more anxious and depressed. But if it's on the rise and it's so fast, it's dislodging all these normal social norms and rules, they also get more anxious and depressed. So it's not just about the money alone. It's about pulling up these things that anchor your identity and your coherent life story and all these sorts of things. And so I think never before has less of our lives been structured by rulers and religions and all these things. Even, even for people who are very religious, less of their life is structured by that than it would have been in the past.
- [33:27]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Yeah.
- [33:28]
David Epstein
And so I think really proactively finding these other values, if we can kind of articulate certain values for our families, those can be sort of a North star in this otherwise kind of chaotic feeling time.
- [33:44]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
I think that is a beautiful thing for people to remember, especially because there's like anxiety about anxiety. And it's such. We are setting up a system right now that really needs some support. And I think this is like a very simple daily task that we can do that will change the game.
- [34:07]
David Epstein
Because the rise of anxiety among young people is different in different countries and cultures. It's not uniform around the world. And it. It tracks quite a bit within the places where people. Where people have more obligation to one another. Where there's more in person interaction, where they have obligations to things, where they physically have to be in their community, they have better wellbeing, including if they have religious obligations or family obligations or community obligations. Those rates of anxiety are not skyrocketing the same way that they are in, you know, in America.
- [34:38]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Frankly, I can see how paralyzed parents feel about, you know, like, let's say they had a ritual of Sunday dinner with grandparents or Friday night dinner with family and friends. And then as kids get older, kids are like, I don't want to do that, or I don't, you know, like, I have too much homework or I want to go to a party. It's so hard for parents, particularly in the United States, to say, well, that's. This is part of our family culture and it's really important. So I'm sorry that you can't go to that party, or I'm sorry that you're going to take a break from the workload. And I think it's just like an actual fear of. Of displeasing and making our kids uncomfortable. And it's just such a sad irony.
- [35:23]
David Epstein
I get that. And I mean, I feel that tension. Right. And, you know, I think there's hopefully room to stand your ground on some obligations, then maybe you can give in other areas. But at least one thing I think, and you can tell me if I'm. I'd be interested to hear what you think about this, that part of my take as a parent is everybody is going to grow up and be justified in blaming their parents for some things. Like, that's just what it is, no matter how great they are. And maybe that's a cop out, and me just saying I'm not going to be a perfect parent. You're not, but that no matter what you do, there are going to be some things that your kid can justifiably blame you for when you grow up. And so it's a question of choosing what are those things going to be? Is it going to be that I stood my ground on them having a regular dinner with the grandparents and so they had to miss some of these parties, or is it going to be something else? And so I think it's just almost like for me, a little liberating to accept ahead of time that, you know, there are going to be certain things when he grows up. He's going to say, like, I didn't like this thing that my parents did, and there is absolutely no way for me to get around that, no matter what I do. So I'm just trying to choose what those things are and make them also have some value.
- [36:36]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Yeah, no, I think that's a great way of putting it because there's more clarity. You're like, I know what's important to this family. This is important enough that you will be able to complain about this later in therapy or to your friends. But, yeah, we're not getting out of. We're not getting out of that. And by the way, the things that I would complain about from my childhood are not the things that irritated me at the time.
- [37:01]
David Epstein
Oh, that's true.
- [37:01]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
If anything, like the things that you tell me more. Well, just like the silly example of my stepfather insisting on this process for defining a word, I am so grateful for that. And I didn't grow up and say, like, I'm never going to, you know, make my kids look up a word or talk through a problem. If anything, I got, like, some insight into something that I'm really glad he did that I just didn't give him credit for at the time. But there are many examples of my childhood where I think, God, the stuff that bothers me is the opposite of what, you know, like a curfew. How annoying was a curfew? But I didn't grow up and say, like, I'm never going to make my kids have to have that embarrassing moment where they have to leave a party because I realize it protected me from so many different things.
- [37:57]
David Epstein
That's right. You don't necessarily experience the good side of it at that time. Right.
- [38:01]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
No way. Yeah, but, like, we're not getting a thank you. And I think we have to upset our kids plenty, as long as it's in the loving arms of, like, a parent who's doing it for. For the good.
- [38:13]
David Epstein
You just reminded me of the saying I hadn't thought of in a long time. I can't even remember who says it, but this was about leadership.
- [38:18]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
And it's.
- [38:18]
David Epstein
You have to disappoint people at a rate they can tolerate, basically. That's great. You're going to disappoint people sometimes. Right. You just. That's inevitable. But you just have to do it at a rate that they can tolerate.
- [38:31]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Oh, I love that. And also, that's where you get into sort of tolerable stress, which can grow resilience versus toxic stress, which is a rate that we shouldn't ask of people. Okay. There's so much more that people can dive into in your book, so I'm excited for them to get it because this is such a timely but also evergreen topic. So thank you.
- [38:55]
David Epstein
Thank you. I really appreciate it.
- [38:58]
Dr. Eliza Pressman
Thank you for joining me for this conversation. Please stick around and subscribe to this channel for more episodes and practical content that you can learn from and use in your parenting in real time. Watch the next video here or sign up for my substack newsletter@drelizapressman.substack.com and consider becoming a paid subscriber for access to Me Live each month in our subscriber Q and A.