Ep 1123 | Why Boys Are Failing Kindergarten | Guest: Dr. Leonard Sax

Summary

Podcast Summary: Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey – Ep 1123 | Why Boys Are Failing Kindergarten | Guest: Dr. Leonard Sax

Introduction

In Episode 1123 of Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey, hosted by the Blaze Podcast Network, Allie Beth welcomes Dr. Leonard Sax, a renowned family doctor, psychologist, and author with over 30 years of experience. Dr. Sax is best known for his New York Times bestselling book, The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups, among others that explore the differences in raising boys and girls and the pitfalls of permissive parenting. The episode delves deep into the rising screen time among children, the toxic shifts in American parenting culture, the importance of establishing strict yet loving relationships with kids, and the distinct approaches needed for raising boys and girls effectively.

The Impact of TikTok on Youth

Allie Beth initiates the conversation by addressing the impending ban of TikTok, emphasizing its significant influence on young people’s lives. She remarks, “Not from a political perspective, but from a parenting perspective about TikTok. Is this going to be a net positive?” ([02:33]).

Dr. Sax elaborates on TikTok’s detrimental effects, categorizing social media into three generations:

1. First Generation: Platforms like Facebook, focused on connecting with known individuals.
2. Second Generation: Instagram, enabling connections with influencers and celebrities.
3. Third Generation: TikTok, driven by an algorithm that personalizes content to an alarming degree.

He highlights TikTok’s toxicity, especially for girls, noting its association with increased anxiety and depression. Dr. Sax cites research from Jean Twenge, a leading researcher on TikTok’s effects, who advocates for banning social media for individuals under 18. He warns that even if TikTok faces ownership changes, the underlying issues persist as children transition to similar platforms like Instagram Reels.

The Toxicity of American Parenting Culture

Dr. Sax asserts that American culture has undergone a profound transformation over the past two decades, evolving into a toxic culture detrimental to children’s mental health. He emphasizes that this shift is not merely due to social media but is deeply rooted in broader cultural changes.

• Changes in American Culture Over 20 Years: Dr. Sax references a UCLA study analyzing popular TV shows from 1967 to 2007. Initially, shows like The Andy Griffith Show and Family Ties emphasized virtues like honesty and integrity. However, by 2007, reality shows like Survivor and American Idol had shifted the cultural focus to winning and fame, sidelining moral values.

  “American culture changed from the culture that was the culture of American culture prior to 1997, in which doing the right thing and being a good person and being a good friend was the most important thing to contemporary American culture, where winning and being famous is the most important thing.” ([09:29])

• Culture of Envy and Resentment: Dr. Sax discusses the emergence of a culture of envy, exemplified by social media influencers like Charli D'Amelio. He explains how the unrealistic portrayals of success and beauty lead to widespread resentment and dissatisfaction among young girls.

  “The end result of this culture of envy is literally millions of girls who are like, why her? Why not me? It's not fair.” ([…])

• Culture of Disrespect: Another pillar of this toxic culture is the culture of disrespect, where defiance and irreverence towards elders and authority figures become normalized. Dr. Sax cites examples from television and popular music that reinforce disrespectful attitudes.

  “Lil Nas X had this incredibly popular song, number one on the Billboard top 100 for 12 consecutive weeks, where he sings, you can't tell me nothing. Can nobody tell me nothing. That's the culture of disrespect in a nutshell.” ([09:29])

• Normaphobia: Dr. Sax introduces the concept of normaphobia, a societal fear of being “normal” or conforming. He explains how this fear drives youngsters to label themselves as anxious, depressed, or trans, undermining their self-esteem and societal stability.

  “The very language the kids are now using one another, teaching one another to use, drives this… fear of being normal and incentivizes kids to convince themselves that they are anxious, that they are depressed, that they are trans.” ([09:29])

Differences in Raising Boys and Girls

One of the core discussions revolves around the distinct needs of boys and girls in upbringing and education. Dr. Sax emphasizes that boys mature slower than girls, both biologically and cognitively, necessitating tailored parenting strategies.

• Early Developmental Differences: Dr. Sax shares a poignant anecdote about an 18-month-old boy misunderstood as potentially autistic due to his distractibility—a behavior typical in boys. He underscores the importance of comparing children within their gender rather than against a gender-neutral average.

  “Don't compare your son to your daughter. That's a big mistake.” ([46:59])

• Educational Challenges for Boys: The host and guest discuss the shift in kindergarten curriculums towards academic rigor, which disproportionately affects boys. Dr. Sax references Deborah Stipek’s research, highlighting how early educational pressures can lead to lasting negative attitudes towards school among boys.

  “Deborah Stipek… found that these boys develop attitudes by the end of the kindergarten year, they decide that they hate school and they decide that they're dumb.” ([53:08])

Permissive vs. Authoritative Parenting

Dr. Sax critiques the rise of permissive and gentle parenting, which he argues undermines parental authority and harms child development. He distinguishes between authoritative parenting—balancing strictness with love—and permissive approaches that prioritize being a friend over disciplining.

• Issues with Gentle Parenting: Dr. Sax describes scenarios where parents, adhering to gentle parenting principles, fail to set necessary boundaries, leading to behavioral and emotional issues in children.

  “I call the new approach to parenting psychotic in the sense that it is utterly detached from reality.” ([30:37])

• Benefits of Authoritative Parenting: He advocates for a parenting style that combines firmness with affection, asserting that such an approach fosters respect and well-being in children.

  “You have to offer a healthier culture in your home.” ([09:29])

Education System and Boys' Struggles

The conversation delves into how contemporary education systems, with their emphasis on early literacy and numeracy, disadvantage boys who naturally develop these skills later than girls.

• Kindergarten Curriculum Changes: Dr. Sax argues that treating kindergarten as first grade fails to account for boys' slower cognitive development, leading to academic struggles and long-term aversion to schooling.

  “Kindergarten has become first grade. So enroll him in kindergarten at 6 years of age. And I still think that's a good idea.” ([53:08])

• Socioeconomic Disparities: He points out that affluent communities are more likely to delay kindergarten enrollment, while lower-income areas push children into rigorous academic settings prematurely, exacerbating educational inequalities.

  “In affluent communities, parents have figured this out… But in lower income communities, it is not at all true.” ([56:54])

Conclusion and Future of Parenting

Dr. Sax concludes by highlighting the confusion many parents face today, feeling compelled to choose between being strict or loving. He advocates for a balanced approach, reinforcing that authoritative parenting—combining firmness with affection—is essential for fostering resilient and respectful children.

“Many parents feel they have to choose between being strict or loving. They don't understand that the best parents are both strict and loving.” ([58:59])

He expresses optimism for the future, hoping that more parents will adopt this balanced strategy to counteract the toxic cultural shifts affecting today’s youth.

Notable Quotes

• Dr. Leonard Sax on TikTok’s Toxicity:

  “TikTok is pulling girls, especially down into a rabbit hole that valorizes self harm and anorexia and suicide. You have to change it.” ([02:33])

• On the Shift in American Culture:

  “The culture of the United States is now the culture of American Idol and Survivor, which is all about winning, which is a much more toxic culture.” ([09:29])

• Regarding Permissive Parenting:

  “These gentle parenting are psychotic in the sense that it is utterly detached from reality.” ([30:37])

• On Authoritative Parenting:

  “Good parenting has to be built around a loving parent child relationship.” ([41:17])

Final Thoughts

Episode 1123 offers a comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted challenges facing modern parenting, particularly for boys. Dr. Leonard Sax provides evidence-based insights into how cultural shifts, educational pressures, and parenting styles converge to impact children’s development. His advocacy for authoritative parenting serves as a guiding framework for parents striving to navigate these complexities and foster healthy, respectful, and resilient children.

Transcript

[A]

Doctor Leonard Sachs is a parenting expert. He has been a physician and a psychologist for over 30 years. Has written several books on the differences between parenting, girls versus boys, also the rise of permissive or gentle parenting that has really led to what he calls the collapse of parenting. He's got a second edition of this New York Times best selling book out now. The Collapse of Parenting. How we hurt our kids when we Treat them like grown ups. So we are getting lots of wisdom from him today on the rise of screen time, the toxicity of parenting culture in the United States, how to properly build a strict but loving relationship with your kids to help them flourish, and the distinctions between boys and girls and how we raise them. Lots of good stuff here on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Life or Death Con. I will be speaking at Life or Death in Washington, D.C. on January 23rd. Get your [e-mail] Use code ALI10 for a discount. That's Life or DeathCon.com code ALI10. Dr. Sachs, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Many have heard you on various shows, but for those who may not know, can you tell them who you are and what you do?

[B]

Okay, so my name is Leonard Sacks. I am a family doctor and I have written four books for parents. Why Gender Matters, Boys Adrift, Girls on the Edge and the Collapse of Parenting. And I travel around the country, I lead workshops for schools and I speak to parents.

[A]

Yes, and I have heard much of what you've said about gender and we will get into that. Uh, first, I do want to talk to you about TikTok. I'm sure that you've heard the news that TikTok is going to be banned. I personally have never been on the app. Maybe I'm a little old or maybe I just feel like with three kids I'm too busy to have another thing to be addicted to and scroll on. But this is a big deal for a lot of young people who feel like so much of their lives is on that app. What is your thought? I mean, not from a political perspective, but from a parenting perspective about TikTok. Is this going to be a net positive?

[B]

So we have a lot of research on social media. Researchers who study social media divide social media basically into three generations. First generation social media is Facebook and apps like Facebook. First generation social media is about connecting you to people you know. So Facebook, you can connect with your first grade classmate, find out what they're doing. Second generation social media is Instagram. So Instagram, not only can you connect with your classmates from school, you can connect with celebrities and people that you'd like to follow and influencers. TikTok is different. TikTok is not about connecting you with your school classmates or even primarily with connecting you with celebrities. When you sign up for TikTok, the app begins by asking you, what kind of videos do you like to watch? Tell me a little bit about what kind of videos you'd like to watch, and then it starts offering you some videos. And the algorithm is crazy good. And within minutes it's showing you things you didn't know were out there. And it's very common to find teenagers saying, TikTok knows me better than I know myself. TikTok knew I was gay before I did. TikTok knew I was trans before I did. And four years ago, researchers reached out to TikTok and said, look, the algorithm is really toxic. It is pulling girls, especially down into a rabbit hole that valorizes self harm and anorexia and suicide. You have to change it. And TikTok said, okay, thank you very much, we'll change it. And then last year the researchers said, you didn't make it better, you made it worse. It is an astonishingly toxic app. And we know this. This is not a guess. We know that girls especially who spend time on TikTok are much more likely to become anxious and depressed. And I have corresponded with Jean Twenge, our nation's leading researcher, studying the effects of TikTok, and she has said that the evidence supports a ban on social media for all children and teens under 18 years of age. Now, what is happening in the courts and at the Supreme Court is not a ban on TikTok. It is a ban on Chinese ownership of TikTok. So kids are still going to be on social media. And what is most likely to happen is that they'll Simply move from TikTok, assuming that TikTok is not simply sold to another owner, in which case kids experience might not change much at all. But if it is indeed banned, first of all, kids will still be able to use it. They just wouldn't be able to download. A new kid who isn't on it wouldn't be able to download it. It would vanish with the App store. If on January 19th TikTok has not been sold, then won't be able to download it from the App Store, but kids will still have it on their phones. They'll still be able to use it, okay? And if indeed it it kids want to download a new app and they're not able to download TikTok TikTok they'll most likely just download Instagram Reels which is very similar app, just less popular. Foreign.

[A]

Pause for the first sponsor for the day and that is We Heart Nutrition. I rely on my supplements from We Heart Nutrition every day. I take their postnatal vitamins, I take their Omega 3s, I take their iron supplement and I also take their magnesium every day. They help me feel really good. I also think they help keep me healthy during cold and flu season. I'm just so thankful for this company. They are a Christian family owned company and they care about every single ingredient that they put in their supplements. It all comes in the most via bioavailable form so that your body is actually absorbing the ingredients in each supplement. Take their 22nd quiz to find which supplements are right for you. Go to we heart nutrition.com for your first order place of 50 or more. You'll receive a signature bamboo capsule box for free. Use my code ally for 20% off we heartnutrition.com code Ali Is your belief that people under the age of 18 should not be on social media? Whether it's TikTok, Instagram X.

[B]

It'S my belief that kids in the English speaking world should not be on Instagram or TikTok. So John heightened published a book last March called the Anxious Generation and it makes a great deal of the rise in anxiety and depression among kids since roughly 2012 and asserts that cell phones and social media are driving this rise in anxiety and depression. But one point he doesn't mention in his book is that this rise in anxiety and depression is confined to kids in the English speaking world. In the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, it's actually not seen outside the English speaking world. Kids in Greece, kids in Russia are just as likely to have smartphones and just as likely to be on social media. But the rise in anxiety and depression has not been seen there. So I think it's important for parents to understand that the smartphones, the social media are the vectors. They are spreading this toxic culture, but they are not themselves the cause. The cause is the culture and parents need to understand what is toxic about American culture, about English speaking culture that is driving this rise in anxiety and depression. Just in the last 15 years or so, American culture has only recently become a culture that is toxic and harmful to children and teens. It was not so 20 or 30 years ago. Again, this is not a guess. It's not nostalgia. We have very good data on this point, which again is the point of my book, the Collapse of Parenting, where I show how American culture has changed and how it's become a harmful and toxic culture for children.

[A]

Yeah, tell us specifically what you mean by that. What has changed in the past 20 years and what do you mean by toxic?

[B]

Okay, so again, my brand, if you like, is evidence based. When I make a claim, I'm always going to show you a scholarly study, a peer reviewed study that's going to support the claim I'm making. So again, it's a book, the Collapse of Parenting, that has over 400 studies. But let me just share with you one or two that makes this point. One of the studies I Cite is from UCLA. They looked at the most popular TV shows marketed to children and teens every 10 years starting in 1967. And they analyzed these TV shows based on what is the show teaching kids about what's important? So, most popular TV show, 1967, the Andy Griffith Show, 1977, Happy Days, 1987, Family Ties, 1997, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Those are very different shows. But the researchers found that each of those shows, 1967 through 1997, was communicating the same message, that the most important thing is to do the right thing, to tell the truth, even if it hurts to be a good friend, even when that's not easy. Being famous was number 15 out of 16, or number 14 or number 16 over those 30 years. There was great consistency in the values that the shows were communicating. Even though the themes and the production values very different, the values were very consistent. But then the researchers found that between 1997 and 2007, American culture flipped upside down. And in 2007, the most popular shows, shows like Survivor and American Idol, the most important thing, the number one thing, was winning and being famous. Doing the right thing, that's going to get you voted off the island. Doing the right thing dropped from number one to number 13 between 1997 and 2007. And winning and being famous jumped from number 15 to number one. Why did that happen? Why did American culture flip upside down in 10 years time? And it's only gotten worse since 2007? The researchers asked that question and the answer they gave is social media. Social media transformed American culture. Suddenly it became all about having likes and followers. That's one key element. It's not the whole story, right? It's one key element of how American culture has changed in the last 20 years. American culture changed from the culture that was the culture of American culture prior to 1997, in which doing the right thing and being a good person and being a good friend was the most important thing to contemporary American culture, where winning and being famous is the most important thing. I call it the culture of envy, where. So again, example from my own practice, Charli d'Amelio, a name that I find a lot of old people, by which I mean people over 30, don't even know who Charli D'Amelio is. But basically every American girl who speaks English knows who Charli d'amelio is. She has over 11 billion likes on TikTok, which is more than any other human on the planet. At age 15, she started posting dance videos of herself dancing on TikTok. And she's hugely popular. And last year she earned over $20 million on TikTok. But when you watch her videos on TikTok, what's really striking is that they're nothing special. She's not that pretty, she's not that great a dancer. And girls look at her and they're like, wow, I'm prettier than she is. I'm a better dancer than she is. And this girl spent two weeks making this perfect TikTok video and posted it. But it fizzled. Nobody saw it. No likes, very few likes. And this girl is now seething with envy and resentment. Why her? Why not me? It's not fair. The end result of this culture of envy is literally millions of girls who are like, why her? Why not me? It's not fair. And parents don't understand this. If you've got these girls immersed in this culture where this girl, with very little effort, as near as the other girls can see, becomes this celebrity with 50 million followers and 11 billion likes, earning tens of million dollars a year for not doing a whole lot, you know. They recently surveyed 12 year olds in the United States and the girls number. The number one career aspiration of 12 year old girls in the United States now is to be a social media influencer. It's not to be an astronaut or a teacher, it's to be a social media influencer. Well, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. You're setting yourself up for frustration and resentment. Because you know what? There's a million other girls who have the same aspiration. And there's only room for three or four Charlie D'Amelios at most. So that's one element, this new culture of envy and resentment. Anybody can be a good person. As Martin Luther King said 50 years ago, anybody can be great because anybody can serve. More than 50 years ago 60 years ago, that was the culture of The United States. 60 years ago. Anybody can be great because anybody can serve. That was the culture. The Andy Griffith show, that was the culture that Martin Luther King was trying to teach us. But that's no longer the culture of the United States. The culture of the United States is now the culture of American Idol and Survivor, which is all about winning, which is a much more toxic culture. That's one change. A second change I highlight in my book, the culture, the collapse of parenting is the culture of disrespect. And that's also new. That was not characteristic of the United States 30 years ago or 50 years ago. And so where to begin with that? The Disney Channel. So again, in my own practice, mom of an 8 year old boy says to me, I don't understand. My 8 year old son is so disrespectful. I don't understand where he's learning these words. His father and I never talk like this. And I said to mom, does he watch Disney? Does he Watch Nickelodeon, Nick Jr? And she said, of course. I said, lock it down. No more Disney, no more Nickelodeon, no more Nick Junior. And she called me three weeks later, she said, it stopped. He's learning this from the Disney Channel. Jesse Dog with a blog bunk'd. These shows on the Disney Channel teach kids that it's cute and funny to be defiant, to be disrespectful. But that's just the beginning. You look at the most popular songs, The Billboard top 100, Lil Nas X had this incredibly popular song, number one on the Billboard top 100 for 12 consecutive weeks, which is an incredible string. On the Billboard Top 100 Old Town Road, where he sings, you can't tell me nothing. Can nobody tell me nothing. That's the culture of disrespect in a nutshell. You can't tell me nothing. Can nobody tell me nothing. So the comedian Bill Maher had a big bestseller last year. And one of the things he says in his book, he says one of the fundamental truths of the human experience is that young people are beautiful, but stupid old people are ugly, but more likely to be wise. So Beaumar continues that any successful human culture will create strong bonds between the beautiful stupid young people and the wise old people. Yeah, you can't tell me nothing. Can nobody tell me nothing? The culture of disrespect, which is now the culture that kids who speak English are immersed in, breaks the bonds across generation. You can't tell me nothing. Well, if you can't tell me nothing, why Should I spend my time with you? Why go to church? Why hang with old people on weekends? Kids in the United States do not hang with adults on weekends. They used to. We actually have data on this. 30 years ago, 50 years ago, it would not have been unusual for children to do stuff. Actually, Robert Pundran at Harvard has documented this, that 50 years ago, you could drive around an American community and you'd find a bunch of men working on a car. And he has photographs documenting this in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and even the 90s, of boys and men working under the hood of a car in a street, in a neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon. This was a common sight in this country as recently as 30 years ago. Not anymore. Today you drive in an American neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon. You might see two old geezers working under the hood of their 65 Corvette, but the teenage boys are not with them. The teenage boys are more likely to be indoors playing video games. The bonds across generations have been broken. The culture of disrespect has broken the bonds across generations. That's factor number two. Factor number three. There's only three. The big changes in American culture is normal phobia. So 15 years ago, I wrote a book called Girls on the Edge, which I'm very proud. The Atlantic magazine called the best book about what's going on with girls and young women in America today. But that was 15 years ago. So I interviewed. This is not just girls in my practice. I interviewed girls across the United States. Fifteen years ago. American girls wanted to be effortlessly perfect. That was the thing back then. So the publisher asked me to write an updated version, which I did. But interviewing girls today, I find that girls today don't want to be effortlessly perfect or any kind of perfect. That's boring. That's lame. Now you gotta have something wrong with you. Anxious or depressed. That's good. Trans. That's even better, you know? Seventy years ago, C.S. lewis wrote a book for children called the Magician's Nephew, in which he said, the problem about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Substitute more anxious or more depressed for stupider. The trouble about trying to make yourself more anxious than you really are is that you very often succeed. So I earned my doctorate in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Very strong program. Same program where John Haidt earned his doctorate, Marty Seligman. And that's the same place where Aaron Beck based. Aaron Beck, the father of cognitive psychology, and Aaron Beck developed this whole theory that. That anxiety and depression arise because you think yourself into being anxious and depressed, and you can think yourself out of being anxious and depressed. And the strategies he developed that he coined the phrase cognitive behavioral therapy, are really effective. And he showed that you can think yourself into being anxious and depressed, and you can think yourself out of being anxious and depressed. The terms that young people now teach each other to use, are you gender conforming or are you gender non conforming? Are you neurotypical or are you neurodivergent? Well, who wants to be typical and conforming? That's boring, that's lame. You want to be non conforming, you want to be divergent. The very terms that kids teach each other to learn to use on social media in the English speaking world teach kids that being normal is typical. It's conforming, and nobody wants to be typical and conforming. So the very language the kids are now using one another, teaching one another to use, drives this, what Mary Harrington coined the phrase, normaphobia, this fear of being normal and incentivizes kids to convince themselves that they are anxious, that they are depressed, that they are trans. You know, 30 years ago, the American Psychiatric association posed a question, how common is transgender? And they said, well, it's so rare, it's very hard to rise at any accurate number. But we estimate the frequency of transgender as 1 in 30,000 men and 1 in 100,000 women. Last year, the CDC updated released their latest figures estimating that 3% of high school kids in the United States are trans. So we went from 1 in 30,000 30 years ago to 3 in 100. Last year. We could have a long talk just about trans. And again, I devote a big chunk of my book, why Gender Matters, second edition, to exploring that. First edition has two sentences on transgender. Second edition has a great deal more. So American popular culture transformed in the last 20 years. It became a toxic culture. And that's why I had to write a new edition of the Collapse of parenting to explain to parents, look, the culture has become radically more toxic. You need to understand this. Yeah, you do need to lock down the phones and block the social media, but you also have to offer a healthier culture in your home.

[A]

Second sponsor is Good Ranchers. We love good ranchers in our home. We ate their chicken and their salmon last night. It's so good and very versatile. We love their ground beef. I mean, we eat good ranchers most nights of the week. It's a great way to make sure you're getting in your protein and eating healthy, at least for one meal a day. It makes your life easier. Too. You don't have to go to the grocery store and wonder, okay, where's this meat from? You're getting hit with inflation. You don't have to worry about that with good ranchers. You get a box of meat to your front door every month when you subscribe. If you subscribe right now, they add one kind of meat to your box every month for the next year. So that could be a bag of chicken, a bag of beef, a bag of salmon. It's really an amazing deal. Plus, when you use my code ALI, you get 25 off your order. That's goodranchers.com ally. Code ally. You know, as you were talking about the difference in American culture and the non English speaking cultures and this kind of emergence of a new value system that does not value respect of elders. You know something that I've noticed, I've got three kids and as they watch some Disney movies that I watched growing up, I've noticed a common theme. And a lot of them, most of these movies, whether you're talking about Cinderella or the Little Mermaid or even Lion King, that we think, okay, this was the 90s and so it has to be innocent or good. Almost all of these movies, Frozen, start out with parent death and or rebellion from parents. Same thing with Moana. Like all of these stories are about parents not really knowing best and kind like an inhibitor of their kids happiness or freedom and kids going down this path of liberation at a very young age to find themselves to chart their own path. When you think about like Elsa and now this is, you know, this is old. I think it came out in 2013, but Frozen is still very popular among young kids today. The song that she sings, there's no right, there's no wrong there's no rules for me I'm free. And she talks about, you know, breaking free from people's expectations and being who she wants to be and going off on her own and all of this. And so it does seem to be extremely ingrained, maybe even over the past 30 years to some extent in American culture, this kind of not only independent spirit, but this rebellious spirit. And the more rebellious you are, the more you reject your parents, religion, their belief systems, their authority, the more of a hero you are and the happier you'll be. Do you think all of that, that narrative that I'm describing kind of plays a part in this toxic change of culture that you're talking about?

[B]

Well, we could have a lengthy discussion of the first Frozen movie. I'm actually a huge fan of the first Frozen.

[A]

It's amazing. I mean, it's amazing music. I agree.

[B]

Great movie. Because in fact, Elsa comes to realize that she is mistaken, that there is no escape from the curse inside. And I think there's, there's some very profound messages in that first movie. The second movie I thought was a great disappointment, but the first movie I thought was well constructed. And she comes to realize that a lot of things she said in that first song that she was mistaken, that moral truths go deeper than she realized. So I'm a big fan of the first movie. But you're right, it begins with the children being orphans, but it also shows that being orphans comes at a tremendous cost and that you need your parents and when you don't have them, that's a really bad thing. As opposed to the Disney TV show Jesse, where the parents are absent and the kids are completely liberated. And Jesse, I think is a very toxic show. So that the TV shows, I think tend to be much worse than the movies from the 80s and 90s. But no, there's been a real shift since the 90s. And I think, again, I don't want to make this just about the Disney studios, but I think the Disney studios have shifted since the 90s in a direction that has been harmful. But again, it's not just about the Disney studios. It's about American popular culture. And I do look at what's happened not only in television, but in the songs that kids are listening to, the videos that kids are seeing on YouTube, the social media that kids are watching. The culture has become a toxic culture across the board, in social media, in the songs that kids hear. And parents need to understand this and parents need to create strong bonds across generations. You can't just say no to the bad culture. You have to say yes to a healthier culture. You have to offer your kids a healthier culture, your culture, the parent's culture.

[A]

Tell me about permissive parenting. Is it the same thing as gentle parenting? This has definitely been emergent over the past few years. Good, bad. Tell me about it.

[B]

So that was another reason that we had to have a new edition of the collapse of parenting, because gentle parenting wasn't really a term ten years ago when I read the first edition, but it sure is now. And there are many different gurus of gentle parenting and they each have their own definition. But one thing they agree on is that gentle parenting means letting kids decide. And I begin the new edition with a story from my own practice where mom brought her six year old daughter in to be seen. And mom explained that her daughter is sick. And you can see her daughter was sick. She has a fever, she has a sore throat. Mom explains her daughter has a fever and a sore throat. I say, okay, time to take a look. Would you please open your mouth and say ah? And daughter shakes her head no. I say, okay, mom, looks like I'm gonna need your help here. Would you please ask your daughter to open wide and say ah? And mom says, her body, her choice. Okay, my body, my choice. Longtime slogan of abortion rights activists, more recently adopted by activists opposed to COVID 19 vaccines. Mom is adopting that slogan to defend her daughter's refusal to allow me, the examining physician, to look at her daughter's throat. That's an extreme example of what you might call gentle parenting, that good parenting means letting kids decide. Look, parenting works only if parents have authority. This is really not a guess. What is childhood for? Literally? Is it about biological maturation? Well, no, actually. A four year old horse is a mature adult. The Kentucky Derby is raced with 3 year olds. And a horse is a bigger animal than a human. So it cannot be just about biological maturation because a horse only needs four years and a horse is a bigger animal than a human. Humans are children or adolescents for more years than most animals live. Why? We don't have to guess. We have scholars like Dr. Melvin Connor at Emory who's devoted his career to studying this question. And he wrote an 800 page tome, Oxford University Press, the Evolution of Childhood. Comparing development in our species with development in other species, especially other primates, asking the question, why does it take so long in humans? Why is development so prolonged in our species compared to other species? And the answer that he and other scholars give is that it takes many years for parents and other adults to teach the kids what the kids need to know, to teach with authority what the kids need to know. That's what human development is about. It's about authoritative teaching of the grownups to the kids. Letting kids decide is upside down. It's not what human development is supposed to be about. Now that example I gave of the mom saying her body, her choice, that's an extreme example and that's unusual. But what's more common, what's much more common is the parent who's unsure, who's uncomfortable exercising authority. So much, much more typical example again from my own practice. Boy not paying attention in school, 12 year old boy not paying attention in school, and the parent. The teachers have filled out these Connors scales, which is a measure of inattention. The boy's off the chart. In every class, not paying attention in any class. Parents take him to the child psychiatrist who looks at the Connor scales. He's off the chart. And the doctor says, well, let's try Vivian and see if it helps. Yeah, he's got add. Here's some Vyvanse. Prescription for Vyvanse. Tremendously helpful, huge, huge benefit. Medication is tremendously helpful. But now the boy develops palpitations and loss of appetite and jittery. And the parent Google sings and finds articles I've written for the New York Times and Time magazine about the dangers of the medication. So they bring their child to me for a second opinion and I do a more careful sleep history. And I say, does your son get good night's sleep? And mom says, oh, absolutely. We make sure he's in bed every night at nine and he's in his bedroom at nine and wake him up next morning at six. So that's nine hours, that's enough, don't you think? And I say to the boy, do you have a video game console in your bedroom? He says, of course, doesn't everybody? Were you playing last night? Of course, doesn't everybody? Well, who are you playing? RDR2. Excellent game. When did you finish? He says, 1:32. And mom's like, you were playing video games at 1:30 last night. He's playing video games till almost two in the morning. He's trying to wake up at six. He's getting four hours of sleep, he needs eight or nine. He is sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation perfectly mimics ADHD of the inattentive variety. There is no Connor scale, there is no Vanderbilt interview that can distinguish inattention due to sleep deprivation from inattention due to a adhd. Vyvanse. Immensely helpful. Why? What's Vyvanse? What's Adderall? They're amphetamines. Their speed, they compensate for the sleep deprivation. But the appropriate remedy for sleep deprivation is sleep, not schedule two amphetamines. So I said to mom, look, you gotta get the video game console out of the bedroom. No screens in the bedroom. When he goes into his bedroom at 9 o'clock he should be sleeping, not playing video games. And mom says to me, oh, I couldn't do that. He'd totally freak out. We're talking about a 12 year old boy. This is a mom who's uncomfortable exercising her authority even though her son is clearly being harmed by playing video games. But mom is uncomfortable exercising her authority shutting down the video games. This is very common and that's a good Illustration of what I mean by the collapse parenting parents who are reluctant to exercise their authority and their failure to exercise their authority is harming their child. This is a kid who is sleep deprived because mom cannot bring herself to turn off the video game so that her son can get a good night's sleep.

[A]

Next sponsor is EveryLife. EveryLife is America's pro life diaper company. I've told you that we only use Every Life diapers in our home. And I love that they're fully clean, but also that they really work. And they have a new product out that we've been using that we love as well, and that is their shampoo and baby wash. It's made in the US with very gentle ingredients like chamomile, oatmeal. It's cleansing and moisturizing. My kids kind of have sensitive skin and they've had no problem with this at all. I love it. It smells really good too. So check it [e-mail] use code ALI10 for 10 off your order. That's everylife.com code ALI10. Do you think most parents who are permissive in that way uncomfortable with exercising their authority? What would you say is the most common reason? Is. Is it because it's just difficult? It takes time and effort to argue with your child or to endure their temper tantrum or, or whatever. Is it because they want their child to like them and to be their buddy? Is it because they truly are ideologically philosophically driven to believe that their child should have full autonomy, creativity, the decision making, power to do whatever they want to do? Are they lazy? Are they dumb? Like, what is, what is going on? Even when they see the bad effects of this kind of permissive parenting, why won't they exercise their authority?

[B]

It's a mix, but I would say some of the most common problems are the parent wants to be the child's friend and they want the child to love them. And they are terrified of the child saying, I hate you, I hate you. And they read the New York Times or they listen to National Public Radio which says that you should validate your child's feelings. Or they have succumbed to this notion of gentle parenting, which absolutely tells them that good parenting means letting kids decide and letting kids live with the consequences of their decisions. Well, then this boy says, I want to play video games. Well, good parenting means letting kids decide, so you let him play video games. These gentle parenting is psychotic in the sense that it is utterly detached from reality. Again, the researchers find that human civilization works when you have authoritative Parents. When you have parents who set firm boundaries, which they enforce, and that means that children have parents so that parents can set those guidelines, because parents know better than their children. Parents know that kids need a good night's sleep more than they need to be playing video games. So the authoritative parent needs to limit video games, limit, govern and guide what video games the kid is playing and how much time they spend playing those video games. And I offer detailed guidance in answer to those questions based on the research. And again, the motivation for writing the Collapse of Parenting is to empower parents. It's not to berate parents or rant. It is to empower parents and say, look, you have to do this, you need to do this, you can do this. I've seen parents do this. It's not too late. You can do this.

[A]

As a mom of three, I've noticed so far that it's around two and a half, three years old that all of my kids have kind of started to assert their independence and their defiance to a certain extent. And I'm curious what you would tell parents of little kids. What is the best way that you've seen to enforce boundaries early?

[B]

Well, I always encourage parents to read or reread my chapter titled Joy in the Collapse of Parenting. Good parenting has to be built around a loving parent child relationship. And parenting is easy if the love is there. Because if the love is there, your child wants to please you, they don't want to disappoint you, and then it's easy because your child wants to please you. So make the time to do fun stuff together. That should be your priority. I have a presentation for parents of children 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 years of age titled Cancel the Play Date, Make a Family Date Instead. Because again, in my own practice, I've seen The parents of 2 and 3 year olds and 4 year olds, they're spending that precious Saturday driving their kids from one play date to another because they seem to think that it's really important for their three year old to spend time with other three year olds. It's much more important for their three year old to have good time before you. So cancel the play date and instead take your kid to the part and do fun things with your kid. Do fun things with your kid, things that you enjoy. Spend that time with your kid doing fun things with your kid. And if your kid, if the most fun time that your kid has had has been doing fun things with you, then the love is there. And then your kid will want to please you. And then parenting is a breeze because your kid doesn't want to disappoint you, they don't want to let you down.

[A]

So when they do disobey you, or when they don't want to eat their vegetables or do something that you want them to do, like get dressed in, you know, a quick manner so that you can go out the door and they're disobeying or they're arguing, like, what do you think is the best strategy for parents? To not be permissive parents, but to enact discipline.

[B]

So you'll notice I never address that ever. In the Collapse of Parenting. I never talk about punishment. Those strategies differ from one family to the next. And certainly it's important for kids to know that actions have consequences. If a child is defiant and disrespectful, then they're going to lose privileges and parents need to enforce those punishments. In the first edition of my book, why Gender Matters, I did have a chapter on punishments and I addressed corporal punishment because we actually have a great deal of research. Again, my brand is evidence based. So I cited all the research. Yeah, and we actually have a lot of research showing that appropriate corporal punishment to two spanx on the behind is actually very helpful for four year old boys, but not for four year old girls. Spanking on the behind is appropriate for four year old boys, but not for four year old girls. Because when you spank a girl, she thinks you don't like her and that can linger. She thinks you don't like her and that gets in the way. Because as I said, good parenting has to be based on love. And if she thinks you don't love her, that can really be a problem for the parent child relationship. So in first edition of why Gender Matters, I said limited corporal punishment. Two Spanx on the behind for a four year old boy has a place, but not for girls, based on the research. This is not a guess. I had lots and lots of scholarly papers that I cited in support of this. In consultation with my editors at Doubleday, we struck that chapter from the second edition. There's no mention of it for a number of reasons. The American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a policy paper saying corporal punishment is absolutely unacceptable for any child in any context ever. Now we can talk a lot about the American Academy of Pediatrics. Some of its guidelines are evidence based, some are not. This one was not. Because again, there's lots of evidence showing that corporal punishment is beneficial for young boys, but not for girls. But they absolutely did not want to go there because they had decided they don't want to honor the categories of male and female. On the contrary, they absolutely want to deconstruct the categories of male and female. We can talk about that if you want to, but Doubleday is my publisher and non celebrity authors, you can't argue with your. They're part of Random House. That's a very big publisher. So you basically do as you're told. And I was fine with that. We deleted that chapter.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I'm interested to hear more about the differences between parenting boys and girls because it goes well beyond corporal punishment into how you raise not just little kids, although that's what I'm most interested in since I have little kids myself, but also preteens and teens. So can you start from the earliest years? Like, when do we see the differences between boys and girls when it comes to how they respond to certain parenting tactics?

[B]

Well, again, beginning with that talk that I do for parents of two through seven year olds, which is titled cancel the Play Date, Make a Family Date Instead. But there's a lot more in that talk. And the key point of that talk is again, the overwhelming evidence we have from brain imaging, beginning with brain imaging of babies in their mother's womb in the third trimester of pregnancy, is that boys mature much more slowly than girls. And this is true all the way through. Girls reach full maturity and brain development by 22 years of age. Boys not until 30 years of age. And that explains a lot if you think about it. So again, a story from my own practice. A mom of two children, an older daughter and a younger son, said to me, you know, when my daughter was 18 months old, I could bounce her on my knee and I'd say, goo goo gaga. And she'd say, goo goo gaga. And I'd say, ee, oh, and she'd say, ee, oh. And we could do that for like 20 minutes and we'd just crack each other up. We'd just get the biggest kick out of making nonsense noises and bouncing back and forth like that. And I tried that with my son, he's 18 months old now, and I tried it with him. And somebody rode their bike past the front door and he turned and looked at that and the house made a noise and he turned at that. He's very distractible. He's very distractible. And I googled that, and it said it could be a sign of autism. What do you think, Doctor? Could he be on the spectrum? I said, well, it could be a sign of autism, but it could also be a sign of boy. It could Just be that he's a boy. But I could not reassure her. This was many years ago. Many years ago. I was less confident then than I am now. She insisted on a referral. She insisted on an evaluation. I said, all right. Treatment and Learning Centers TLC next to Shady Grove Hospital, Rockville, Maryland. They are very good at play based assessment of 18 months old. I shouldn't have done that. That was a big mistake on my part. I should have talked her out of it. But I agreed to write the referral. Huge mistake. So she comes back after the assessment and she's in tears. She said they're concerned. They said he's significantly below average. They estimate his vocabulary is 40 words. They said the average 18 month old child should have a vocabulary of 65 words. He said 40 words. Okay. We actually have lots of research on this. The average 18 month old girl has a vocabulary about 90 words. Average 18 month old boy has a vocabulary about 40 words. 40 plus 90 is 130. 130 divided by 2 is 65. The average 18 month old child does have a vocabulary of 65 words. But there's no such thing as a child. There's only a boy or girl. Well, there is something called intersex. But intersex has a maximum incidence of about 2 in 10,000 live births. So for all practical purposes, when we're talking about kids, we're talking about a boy or a girl. A statement can be true. The average 18 month old child has a vocabulary, average vocabulary of 65 words. That statement is both true, but it's also meaningless because you don't have a child. You either have a boy or a girl. For girls it's 90, for boys it's 40. Don't compare your kid to the average child. Girls should be compared to girls. Boys should be compared to boys. This boy has a vocabulary of 40. Average boy has a vocabulary of 40. He is not below average. He's fine. There's nothing wrong with him. And this was many years ago. This boy did fine. He is not on the spectrum. So yeah, what I say to parents who have both boys and girls is don't compare your son to your daughter. That's a big mistake.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Boys. Compare boys to boys. Compared girls to girls. Yeah, they're very different.

[A]

Last ad for the day is America's Christian Credit Union. They are a financial institution that serves God fearing Americans like you. In an age when we fear things like debanking your bank, deciding we don't want to work with you anymore because we don't like that you buy guns or you speak out about being pro life. That's a really real threat that Americans are facing. You don't want to have to have that anxiety. So switch to a financial institution that backs your values. That's America's Christian Credit Union. Right now they will donate a box of Every Life diapers to a Christian pregnancy resource center for every new member who opens a checking account before January 31st. All you have to do is go to America's Christian cu.com ally enter promo code ally when you apply. Plus they will pay you a hundred dollar bonus to your new account. America's Christian Credit Union is federally Insured by the NCUA Americas Christian CU.com ally code alley this seems to be an issue in school too. And you know, I hear a lot of people talk about how the normal school setup is harder for boys, especially young boys who are typically a lot more active. Kind of what you just described. I didn't think about it like that. That I'm not saying every school, but education in general is looking at, okay, what is the average for a child and not is what is best for boys versus what is best for girls? Because those two things aren't the same. And you've talked about the change in kindergarten assessments and first grade assessments, like what is expected for a kindergartner and first grader versus what was expected 10 years ago or 20 years ago.

[B]

40 years ago.

[A]

40 years ago. Okay. I'm curious if you can talk about that and if you see that having an impact on boys in particular in School.

[B]

So 40 years ago, a pastor named Robert Fulgham wrote a book called Everything I really need to Know I Learned in kindergarten.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And he described his kindergarten experience and the experience that his kids had in kindergarten, which is every day you learn some and play some and sing some and dance. And that was a pretty accurate description of kindergarten back in the 80s when his kids were in kindergarten, which was about duck, duck, goose and singing in rounds and arts and crafts and field trips to go to the park and splash in a pond and chase after tadpoles. And that's actually what kids were doing in kindergarten 40 years ago. But beginning in the 90s, there began to be an academic push to get kids to learn to read and write in kindergarten. And beginning 20 years ago, that academic push really took hold. And kindergarten, what kids do at 5 years of age in the United States today, what kids do in kindergarten today is pretty much what kids did in first grade 30 or 40 years ago. Kindergarten has become first grade kindergarten today is about literacy and numeracy. It's about learning to read and write and do arithmetic. It's not at all what Pastor Fulgham had in mind when he wrote his book 40 years ago. And that turns out to be a big problem because the language areas of the brain of the five year old boy, it turns out, look like the language areas of the three year old girl. It is not developmentally appropriate to expect a five year old boy to sit and learn about phonics and diphthongs for 45 minutes. And the result is that many five year old boys fail and decide that they're dumb and they decide that they hate school. And researchers, most notably Deborah Stipek, dean of education for many years, dean of education at Stanford, found that these boys develop attitudes by the end of the kindergarten year, they decide that they hate school and they decide that they're dumb. And she and her students came back and tracked down these boys four years later, and they find that they still hate school and they still believe they're dumb. And other researchers have found that once those attitudes are formed, they are global, stable and non contingent. Meaning this boy doesn't think global means. He doesn't just think he's dumb in reading and writing. He believes he's dumb in every subject. Stable means you track him down in 10th grade. He still believes that he's dumb and that the teacher hates him. Non contingent. He doesn't think there's anything he can do about it or anything that you can do about it. So the kindergarten year is very important. And so I wrote a paper back in 2001 saying, don't enroll your boy in kindergarten at 5 years of age. Give him the gift of an extra year of childhood. Enroll him in kindergarten at 6 years of age. Kindergarten has become first grade. So enroll him in kindergarten at 6 years of age. And I still think that's a good idea.

[A]

You know, I have noticed a change in that, and maybe this is largely due to your paper, but back when.

[B]

I was not through the paper, but a lot of parents have figured this out.

[A]

Part of it, maybe so, but when I was in kindergarten, most of us were five turning six. Well, nowadays most kids are six and maybe they're five turning six, but they're turning six really close to the beginning of the year. And it's changed a lot for girls and boys. Do you see this as a positive development, that kids are starting kindergarten later than they were 30 years ago?

[B]

Well, unfortunately, that is true only in affluent communities.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

In affluent communities, parents have figured this out, that kids need that gift of an extra year of childhood. And in affluent communities, they can afford an extra year of daycare or paid nursery school or whatever it is they're doing. But in lower income communities, it is not at all true. Parents who cannot afford an extra year of daycare are putting their kids into public school kindergarten at the earliest opportunity. And kids in low income neighborhoods are starting kindergarten at five years of age.

[A]

And kindergartens in those low income neighborhoods are still too hard for most five year olds, you're saying.

[B]

Yes, they're, they're all about literacy and numeracy.

[A]

And so these kids are being set up for failure, especially in those areas, which means that we could see an even bigger education gap between the socioeconomic classes because of that.

[B]

Yes. And Richard Rees wrote a book last year called Of Boys and Men in which he said, hey, guess what? I just came up with this incredibly brilliant idea to solve the problem of boys. Let's start Boys in kindergarten at 6 years of age. He had not seen my article or read about it in the New York Times, which covered my article back in 2001, but I'm glad he thought of it, came up with the idea independently 21 years later. But he also has documented in his book that indeed, boys of color in low income neighborhoods are the ones who are suffering the most from this accelerated kindergarten curriculum.

[A]

Well, Dr. Sachs, thank you so much for all the work that you have done over the many years. What would you say is the biggest shift that you've seen in parenting over the past 10 years? And if you were to be as optimistic as possible, what is the shift that you hope to see in parenting over the next 10?

[B]

I would say the biggest shift is that parents, they are confused. They think they have to choose between being either strict or loving. I've been a family doctor for 30 years. And 30 years ago, I would say many parents understood that the best parent is both strict and loving. But today, I find many parents feel they have to choose between being strict or loving. They don't understand that the best parents are both strict and loving. And I hope that we can somehow change that. That we can. And again, that's what I'm trying to achieve in my book, the Collapse of Parenting is to persuade parents to show parents examples from my own practice and parents who are both, who are both strict and loving. And I give examples from my own practice using real parents who I name with their permission. Parents who are both strict and loving, who've had wonderful outcomes of adult kids. Who. Again, who. Who I name, with their permission, who've turned out great? Who? Maybe one young woman. Marlo, wasn't happy with her parents as a teenager, thought they were too strict, and now loves her parents. You can do this. You can be both strict and loving.

[A]

That's really good. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Saxon. Your new edition, the second edition of the Collapse of Parenting, how we hurt our kids when we treat them like grown ups, is out. So thank you so much. I appreciate it.

[B]

Thanks again for inviting me.