How Much Risk Should Kids Take?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Science of Perception Box – "How Much Risk Should Kids Take?"

Podcast: Science of Perception Box
Hosts: Dr. Heather Berlin, Dr. Christof Koch
Guest: Dr. Camilo Ortiz
Date: August 5, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores how much independence and risk children should experience, examining how parental beliefs, cultural shifts, and modern anxieties shape kids’ development. Dr. Camilo Ortiz—developer of “independence therapy”—joins hosts Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch to discuss the impact of parental overprotection, the importance of children making mistakes, and how the “Perception Box” can expand or contract depending on childhood environment, experiences, and risk tolerance. The conversation moves through practical parenting advice, the psychology of risk, generational trends, and the broader societal context for raising resilient, capable children.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

How the Perception Box Forms in Childhood

• Early Formation:
  • Dr. Ortiz explains that in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), children develop a "cognitive triad" (views about the self, others, and future) soon after learning to speak.

    “From a very early age, kids start to make assumptions about those things really soon after they can speak.” — Dr. Ortiz, [03:04]

• Parental Influence:
  • The parental “perception box” serves as a blueprint through modeling and permission, especially in how parents manage risk.

    “There's lots of opportunities...to start modeling the types of behaviors that might be healthy for them.” — Dr. Ortiz, [04:08]

Changes in Parenting and Risk Perception

• Generational Shifts:
  • Parents today are more risk-averse, often due to media amplification and reduced numbers of children per family.

    “Objectively, we live in the safest time ever. But when you ask parents about risk, they tend to far overestimate the risk.” — Dr. Ortiz, [04:48]

  • Stories like the Halloween "razor blade in apples" myth drastically changed independent experiences for kids.

    “Halloween is the single best day for independence...we’ve sort of reduced it to almost a caricature.” — Dr. Ortiz, [05:44]

Weighing Risks: Physical Harm vs. Loss of Independence

• Balancing Act:
  • Overprotection can be just as risky as exposure, leading to increased childhood anxiety.

    “What if we didn’t allow any more independence until they went off to school, to college? Might there be a risk of that?” — Dr. Ortiz, [07:03]

• Irreparable Harm Principle:
  • Minor injuries are part of growth; the focus is on preventing irreversible damage.

    “I don’t mind kids getting hurt...what we want to avoid is irreparable harm.” — Dr. Ortiz, [07:55]

• Tailoring Activities:
  • Activities are adjusted for kids’ needs (e.g., avoiding certain risks for children with ADHD).

    “For kids who have ADHD...we avoid things like riding your bike on an unprotected street.” — Dr. Ortiz, [08:07]

Parents’ Over-Involvement: Is Too Much Ever Enough?

• Minimal Effective Parenting:
  • Most parents are already doing enough to ensure positive outcomes by providing basics and love.

    “If you’re feeding your kids and you’re giving them unconditional love...you’re 90% of the way there.” — Dr. Ortiz, [09:12]

• Parental Guilt:
  • Despite efforts, parents today feel more inadequate than previous generations.

    “Parents feel worse than ever, but objectively, they are putting forth more effort than they ever have.” — Dr. Ortiz, [10:45]

Independence Therapy and Antianxiety Effects

• Principles:
  • Independence therapy gives children daily tasks that challenge them and expand their confidence and risk tolerance.
    • Examples: Chopping vegetables, shopping alone, cooking.

    “There are millions of them, and there are so many that don’t involve any risk of serious injury.” — Dr. Ortiz, [08:36]

• Anecdotes:
  • Kids learn powerful lessons from real-life predicaments (like getting lost), resulting in greater self-efficacy.

    “I just took a bus to school by myself. I don’t think I need to sleep with my parents.” — Dr. Ortiz, [17:19]

• Social Benefits:
  • Group and mixed-age independence activities give unique benefits, including empathy and mentoring.

Dilemmas: Where Are the Boundaries?

• Guardrails, Not Walls
  • The goal is to enable independence with thoughtful boundaries.
    • Parents maintain veto power during independence therapy.

    “We don’t want to allow things where if a mistake is made, can lead to irreparable harm.” — Dr. Ortiz, [14:29]

• Parental Anxiety:
  • Much modern parenting is driven by collective pressures and the anxiety of other parents.

    “From my perspective, this is the single biggest thing that we have to figure out a solution to is this collective action problem.” — Dr. Ortiz, [23:07]

The Four D’s of Growing Up

• Dr. Ortiz introduces the “Four Ds”: Discomfort, Distress, Disappointment, Danger.

  “One way to think about what is development is mastering how to handle those four things.” — Dr. Ortiz, [17:58]

Rewards, Escalation, and Behavioral Conditioning

• The importance of predictable, pre-established consequences (“when-then” commands) for enforcing limits.

  “When I can see the floor of your bedroom, then I will drive you to the mall.” — Dr. Ortiz, [19:30]

• Avoid rewarding escalation or distress in the moment, as it creates maladaptive cycles.

  “You have just exquisitely trained them to scream even more next time.” — Dr. Ortiz, [21:56]

Societal and Legal Shifts

• Demographic changes (fewer children per family), media-driven anxiety, and new child independence laws are shaping the environment.

  “We want to really make sure every one of them survives. And so that means in the moment, making sure they never get hurt.” — Dr. Ortiz, [24:06]

• Recent legislation has begun decriminalizing reasonable independence decisions by parents.

  “We now have…12 states that have so called reasonable child independence laws.” — Dr. Ortiz, [36:51]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On overparenting vs. growth:

  “Doing less gets you better outcomes. I think that’s very clear.” — Dr. Ortiz, [12:39]

• On societal pressure:

  “So from my perspective, this is the single biggest thing that we have to figure out a solution to is this collective action problem. We somehow have to make independence cool.” — Dr. Ortiz, [23:07]

• On resilience:

  “There is a little bit of risk, although if you look at the data, the chance of something going wrong in the subway is unbelievably low.” — Dr. Ortiz, [15:09]

• On emotional safety:

  “Discomfort is really important and it's okay...once you get to college...to be able to clean other people's perspectives and not be sheltered.” — Dr. Heather Berlin, [27:40]

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Practical Parenting Scenarios – "Independence or Interference?" (Segment begins at [42:19])

• Letting your 8-year-old walk to school: Independence, unless there’s genuine risk like frostbite ([42:29])
• Texting teen to eat lunch: Interference, let them get hungry and learn ([42:45])
• Dropping 12-year-old off at mall: Independence, positive experience ([43:03])
• Stepping in during friend/sibling disputes:
  • Don’t intervene in the moment; discuss strategies or roleplay afterward ([43:10], [44:33])
  • Step in only if there’s victimization due to size/age difference ([44:37])
• Sitting next to child during homework: Interference—encourage self-direction, minor help if diagnosed issues ([44:48])
• Tracking location: OK initially but phase out to foster real independence ([46:01])
• Device independence: Restrict social media/short-form content, encourage real-world freedom ([46:36], [47:21])

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The Perception Box Question – Self-Forgiveness (Segment [38:42]–[41:50])

• Dr. Ortiz: “When I screw up, I know it doesn’t sum me up....I tend to not think of myself as the summary of one particular behavior.” ([39:26])
• Dr. Berlin: Shares a story of infidelity and self-forgiveness catalyzed by the partner’s forgiveness.
• Dr. Koch: Reflects on the deep-rootedness of guilt, especially in cultural/religious contexts. Quotes Jud Brewer:

  “Guilt is...your inability to give up the hope for a better past.” ([41:50])

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Practical Takeaways

• Let Children Struggle: Allowing discomfort, missteps, and minor risks is essential for resilience and self-efficacy.
• Guard Against Over-Parenting: Most parents do enough—doing less, not more, is often beneficial.
• Embrace Goldilocks Parenting: Balance independence and support, watch for irreparable harm, and adjust by temperament.
• Independence Therapy: A structured, evidence-based approach to reducing childhood anxiety by increasing daily autonomy.
• Societal Change Needed: Legal reforms and cultural shifts are necessary to enable parents to give children the freedom they need.

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• [00:00] – Parental over-explanation vs. natural consequences
• [03:04] – Formation of children’s perception boxes
• [04:48] – Generational risk perceptions
• [07:03] – Balancing independence vs. irreparable harm
• [08:36] – Examples of safe independence-building activities
• [12:39] – The “Goldilocks” scenario: Doing less can be better
• [17:58] – The Four Ds: Discomfort, Distress, Disappointment, Danger
• [19:29] – “When-then” parenting commands
• [23:07] – Collective action problem: Making independence cool
• [27:40] – Emotional discomfort and distress tolerance
• [29:49] – Structure of independence therapy
• [38:42] – Forgiveness, self-perception, and cognitive reframing
• [42:19] – Independence/Interference game: practical scenarios

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Tone & Style:
The conversation is candid, evidence-based, and compassionate, with a mix of professional expertise and personal parenting experiences. The speakers encourage “just enough” risk, support, and reflection for kids and parents alike, consistently advocating for balance and self-forgiveness in an era of intensive, sometimes anxious, modern parenting.

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For full resources, more questions, and access to the Independence Therapy manual, visit Let Grow or Unlikely Collaborators as referenced in the episode.

Transcript

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So this is one of the biggest mistakes I think parents make, is that they think the best way to teach behavior is the transfer of information through speaking, as opposed to the natural consequences of kids making mistakes.

[Elizabeth Koch]

Hi, I'm Elizabeth Koch. What's a perception box? It's this invisible mental box that each one of us lives inside, built from the material of our beliefs, life experiences, and the meaning we've made out of those experiences. You could think of it as a kind of reality filter that's constantly shaping how we see ourselves, other people, and the world around us. This podcast explores how, although the walls of this box are always present, they can expand in moments of curiosity, awe and wonder, or contract in response to fear, anxiety, and anger. In each episode, we invite experts to share how to create last shifts in our perception. I'd like to introduce our esteemed host, Heather Berlin, professor of Psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. And Christoph Koch, Chief scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot foundation and former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Welcome to the Science of Perception Box. This week Our guest is Dr. Camilo Ortiz. We tend to think of childhood as a time when we're learning about the world, but it's also when our perception box is forming. Camila's work shows us that these early beliefs, while they made sense at the time, they can become limiting as we grow older. They can hold us back from believing in ourselves, from connecting with others, and from stepping into new possibilities. Through his independence therapy, Camilo is creating a new way forward, both for adolescents and, and their caregivers.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Heather, you have two children, I believe. How old are they and how do you deal with the question of their independence and their autonomy?

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So yes, I have a 12 year old daughter and a 9 year old son. And you know, I try to give them enough independence that they can learn from their mistakes and not sort of over controlling them. But you know, with the exception that they're still that are not fully developed and they don't have the same kind of decision making capacity as adults. And so there still needs to be some limits, right? So I think it's just sort of independence, but with guardrails. So to help us with this conversation, I'd like to welcome Dr. Ortiz to the show. Thank you for being here.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Thank you.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So how early in a child's life does their perception box start to form?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Well, in cognitive behavioral therapy, which is the type of therapy that I practice, we think about what's called the cognitive triad, and that's how people Think about themselves, think about other people, and think about the future. And from a very early age, kids start to make assumptions about those things really soon after they can speak.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So you think that it's that early. What about influences even before they can speak? You know, safety behaviors of parents. And does that impact how the child sees the world?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Probably a little bit. But the last message I want to give parents is to be overly stressed about every interaction they have with their little kids. But there are plenty of opportunities, even with toddlers, to help them learn that they are capable. And I sometimes tell the story of being at a party and I saw this little girl trying to take her sweater off and she was kind of stuck in the neck of it. And out of nowhere, this dad comes running across the room to do what no one would think anything of other than a child psychologist and help her take her sweater off. And from my perspective, that's a lost opportunity for a child to learn that they can tolerate, struggle a little bit and they can problem solve.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So do you think that a parent's perception box kind of acts as a blueprint for, for their child?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

It can. And I think there's a couple of ways that that happens. And so one is by what parents model for children, what they permit children to do, and how they talk about risk. And so there's lots of opportunities there, even with little kids to start modeling the types of behaviors that might be healthy for them.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Is it likely or is it possible, or even likely that the perception box of parents has changed over the last 50 years, that they perceive the world to be a much more dangerous place for their children, and then they transmit this implicitly to their child. Oh my God, I constantly have to watch out for danger, for being kidnapped.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Or I think it's more than possible. I think it's likely. And that's interesting because objectively, we live in the safest time ever. But when you ask parents about risk, they tend to far overestimate the risk. So there was a recent study that came out, a survey of parents, and it asked them, if two 10 year old boys are playing by themselves in the park, what is the likelihood that one of them will get kidnapped? And the majority of parents said that it was likely that one of the two boys would get kidnapped.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

It was likely.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

It was likely.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

I remember when my kids were trick and treating, this was in the mid-90s, there was this rumor, there was a rumor that someone in America had laced an apple with cyanide or with razor blades.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Both.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

And. And over the next Three years, there was this dramatic change in kids, and I don't know whether they even still do this trick or treating unsupervised today. Probably not.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Well, they do, but there's a growing trend of parents putting their cars in a circle and opening all their trunks, and the kids just walk around getting candy from each car. And so for me, that's a tragedy, because Halloween is the single best day for independence. There's tons of people out there. Everybody's looking for each other and helping each other, and we've sort of reduced it to almost a caricature, I think,

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

because of this one. I don't know whether it was ever substantiated. And even if it was substantiated, that's one incident. Over 330 million people.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

You know, I mean, having young kids now, like, I let my kids go out trick or treating. I. You know, they go out and play and ride their bikes like I did in the 80s. I mean, I was a latchkey kid. And I think having independence is really important because when you're overly protective, as you've written a lot about, you know, it causes the children to perceive the world as a dangerous place, and then they can get overly anxious. But my question is sort of, where do you draw the line? Right? Because, yes, leaving them alone to play is one thing, and that can be really healthy. But like anything else, you know, when it becomes too much because they don't have adult brains, they can't make their own the same kinds of rational decisions as a adult with a fully formed prefrontal cortex can. When is it too dangerous? You know, where do you put the boundary in?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So when I look at contemporary parenting behavior, we are so far from what we would consider reckless that I'm not so concerned about it, because really, we're talking about two risks. There's obviously a risk. If you allow much more independence, kids are more likely to get hurt. There's no question about that. What I talk to parents about when we introduce independence therapy to them is, is that there's this other side, there's this other risk. And so I pose the question to them, what if we didn't allow any more independence until they went off to school, to college? Might there be a risk of that? And so now we're weighing two kinds of risks against each other. And I think that's a more reasonable way to approach this conversation. But to be more specific and answer your question, I don't mind kids getting hurt, actually, and it's in some ways good for them. But what we want to avoid is irreparable harm. And so, for example, kids who have ADHD have a well documented, much higher rate of injury. It's 50% higher than kids who don't have.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

You mean physically injury, Physical injury.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Right. And so when we design independence activities for kids who have adhd, we avoid things like riding your bike on an unprotected street, which we might allow a kid without ADHD to do. But if they're not paying attention, there could be a really serious risk of injury or death. And so that's the beauty of independence activities is there are millions of them and there are so many that don't involve any risk of serious injury.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Can you give us some examples of what you mean?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Chopping vegetables, baking cookies, going to a grocery store with a list of 5 to 10 things with your parent in the grocery store or right outside.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So there's that on the one extreme, but then there's this other extreme where it can actually be dangerous. And I think the difficulty for parents right now is finding what is that middle ground where you give them enough freedom.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Is it really true or are parenting in general far too much involved in there? I think you've written about this, right, that parents in some sense are far too involved in the lives of their kids and it may not necessarily be to the benefit of their kids.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

That's right. So this is what I said before, that I think for most families we're nowhere near being on the point where we're allowing too much independence. You know, when we look at what is actually predictive of positive outcomes in kids, these sorts of specific behaviors have such a small correlation with overall outcomes that what I tell most parents is if you're feeding your kids and you're giving them unconditional love, which does not mean being around them all the time and you are clothing them, you're 90% of the way there. And the last 10%, if you're lucky, that will sort of be a wash. And for some kids, we're seeing that that extra effort is actually hurting them.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Jimmy, all my time spent driving my kids to piano and ballet and baseball and all of that wasn't really, probably

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

didn't do that much, I'm sorry to say.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

But you also want to nurture their interest. I mean, the amount of after school activities that parents have their kids in right now, I mean, I often also tell parents of kids like they're over scheduled, but at the same time, again with the balance, you know, you know, my daughter loves gymnastics now and she never would have gotten that love if I didn't have her try everything. And then she found something she really is passionate about. And now I help her nurture it. And I have to drive her back. I'm not doing this because I want to be with her all the time. Like, I have to drive her to these practices. There's studies that show, like, the time that parents spend with kids since the 1960s has doubled the amount of time we actually spend with our kids.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

So I think this prescription feel less adequate than ever. Right?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Right.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

There's never enough.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

That's the tragedy of it. Parents feel worse than ever, but objectively, they are putting forth more effort than they ever have. And money as well.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Isn't the statistic that working mothers today spend more time with their children than stay home moms 40 years ago, yet feel far worse about spending enough quality time with their children? That seems highly adult.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

You know what makes me feel better as a working mom? This study that came out. And I can't remember who did it, but it was that. That daughters of working mothers actually tend to have better outcomes, like for a bunch of variables later in life than not. So that made me feel really good. That's a valid study. Correct.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

And they're a good male. Certainly.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

It is. It is. It is.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Yes, it is. It is. Definitely.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

I'll just say with like your example of driving your daughter to gymnastics. I certainly did that. My daughter was a gymnast. A nice middle ground is you don't have to stay for two hours each time.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Wait, can I give you an anecdote? Cause this happened this weekend. So my daughter had a gymnastics meet this weekend. It was five hours. I did stay for that. But she said to me, mom, all the other moms on the team, they're gymnastics moms and you're not. And I said, what does that mean to be a gymnastics mom? She said, they come and they stay for the practices, which are two hours, three days a week. Okay? And they stay for the practices. And she goes, but don't worry, mom, they've taken me in and so now, like, they'll do my hair for me and whatever. And I was like, you know what? That's great. I'm never gonna be a gymnastics mom. I'm here for, I take your practices and that's enough. And, you know, I don't feel guilty because there's other things that I'm showing her, you know, by doing and being, you know, whatever career woman.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So that's a great example. I would argue she is better off and you now have more time.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

There we go. See, we can end it here.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

So it's a win win. Well, it's what you articulated in the New York Times article, right? So tell us more. It's a win win for both sides, right?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Absolutely. This is not helping parents, and it certainly is not helping kids. And this is, again, the tragedy of it. If parents can, in smart ways, do less, everybody benefits. It's one of the rare Goldilocks scenarios in psychology where actually doing less gets you better outcomes. I think that's very clear.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So I think, you know, we're talking a lot about a certain segment of society that is sort of, again, overdoing it. But I still want to bring it back to this idea of where is the line between freedom and letting kids be kids and safety and also neglect? Like, there are some people that are on the other side of the spectrum where it can border on being neglectful. What age is it okay to leave a kid alone? At what point should you intervene? Like when they're actually doing something that's unsafe?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

When we do independence therapy, parents always have veto power on every idea that kids come up with. And we've had kids come up with some pretty interesting ones. So we had a boy who was doing really well with his independence activities and wanted to up the ante a little bit. And so he wanted to take an Amtrak by himself. And he started how old? He was 12. And he started investigating state laws to see how many states away from New York he could get by himself. And his mom said, there's no way you're doing that. And so of course, we supported her. But I loved the initiative. So as a society, we really have taken away risky play from kids. And it is probably the most powerful antiphobic activity that exists. And so it's not a surprise that kids are more anxious because. Because the number one thing that they are shaped by natural selection to do, which is to practice risk, we don't allow them to do that anymore.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Again, what about the other end of the spectrum? You're allowing too much. Let's say you have a kid with ADHD and you're letting him play with matches or whatever.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So this is the principle of irreparable harm. So we don't want to allow things where if a mistake is made, can lead to irreparable harm. As I mentioned before, I think there are. We have a list of 200 independence activities. 190 of them, if you do them the worst you possibly can, don't lead to any Irreparable harm.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Having my kid, my 10 year old kid take the subway in New York City, to cite a famous example. What do you think about that today, if that would happen?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So Leonor Skenazy, who's the president of Let Grow, she allowed her son Izzy to take the subway by himself and a bus.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Actually, this was roughly 20 years ago, right?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

About 15, so he was 9 years old. And that started sort of this movement in some ways. So I'm a big fan of kids taking the subway. It hits on all of the antiphobic properties. So there's uncertainty. You don't know exactly where to go. If you haven't been there, you don't know when the train is coming. There's discomfort. And so those two things, intolerance of uncertainty and intolerance of discomfort, are two of the most persistently shown vehicles for child anxiety. Kids don't have practice with these two things. There is a little bit of risk, although if you look at the data, the chance of something going wrong in the subway is unbelievably low. So again, these things will involve some risk. But again, it is this sort of equation of we increase risk a little bit in the short term and does that actually decrease risk in the long term? And I would argue that it does.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

But how many safety measures would you put in? Let's just say, okay, you have a nine year old kid, you're letting them out in New York City on their own on a subway. What if they get lost? Things like an Apple Watch or a tracker, you know, how do they find their way back? If there is a mishap, they could ask an adult.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Well, that's literally what happened in Lenore's case is Izzy didn't know where to go and he asked an adult and the adult pointed him the way to go. So this might be kind of a interesting answer, but I love it when kids get lost because that is when you get the biggest sort of change in their perception box. So, for example, they might learn that most people are fine to approach and ask for help. They might learn that they don't need to immediately call their parents and they can figure it out. And those are two very powerful messages for kids to learn. And the other thing is we're finding that when that happens, we sometimes see beneficial effects on unrelated fears. So we had a little girl who took the bus to school and missed her stop and she had never slept in her own bed by herself. She was nine years old and she, despite that, wanted to take the bus in Brooklyn to school by herself. So she missed her stop and figured out how to get to school. It was three more blocks that she had to walk.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

And.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

And that night, without telling anybody, she slept in her own bed. And when I asked her during our next session, why did you sleep in your own bed? I thought you were scared. She said, I just took a bus to school by myself. I don't think I need to sleep with my parents.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

So it's a mechanism that they develop in a locus of control. They have the feeling that I can be the agent of my own life.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

We don't know exactly, but that is one of the theories that they learn very important things about themselves, about other people, and about the world, which then translates into anxieties that they have even without directly confronting those anxieties.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

You talk about the four Ds in this context. What are those?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So discomfort, distress, disappointment, and danger. One way to think about what is development is mastering how to handle those four things.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Distress, danger, discomfort, and disappointment.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

And modern parenting, for some reason, and I really can't figure out why, there's probably lots of reasons, has become equated with protecting your kids from the four Ds. And again, this is a ton of work for parents. And it ends up, I think, making kids weaker. So this is another example where doing less, you would get better outcomes.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

I think, what about things like getting them to do the things they're supposed to do, like do your homework. Because again, you're giving a kid without a fully formed prefrontal cortex freedom and independence. That's great. But they might not make the kinds of decisions that are gonna be the best for them. And like, where does parents sort of advising parental structure come in?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So when I talk to parents who I'm working with, I always have them do a thought experiment. And it doesn't mean that this is what I'm suggesting, but I always say, what do you think would happen if you did nothing about X? And often that is quite instructive because either they'll say the teacher will correct it and give them a low mark. And then I'll say, does your kid even care about that? And some parents will say yes. And so that becomes self corrective. But there's fascinating tool that we use called the when then command, which I

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

think the what command?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

The when then command. And it's my favorite parenting technique. And it gets us out of saying things to kids 20 times. This is probably the biggest complaint parents have of their kids is I have to tell him 20 times to brush his Teeth. And we have this power that we're not using. So kids need us more than ever. Actually, this is one of the side effects of having less independence. So parents, in a way, have more power. And so when we need kids to do something, we just link it with something they want. So, for example, dad, can you drive me to the mall? This is the best situation where a child asks you for something. Now you have all the leverage. Sure. When. When I can see the floor of your bedroom, then I will drive you to the mall. Now, only three things can happen. If you make a when, then command, the kid goes, fine, because they really want to go to the mall. They clean up their room. You don't have to repeat yourself another time. Or they say, you know what? I don't feel like going to the mall. That's okay. Now you have time. You're going to drive them. You can go do something on your own. Number three. They escalate, they get very upset. As long as you don't give in, that escalation will tend to be temporary. We call it an extinction burst.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Why does everyone engage in this behavior? I remember this from my kids, and I see it in my grandchild.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

I mean, so as a psychologist, you don't do this? Well, no, as a psychologist, I do try to. You know, it's all about, like, rewards and, you know, incentives and. Right. So I'll give you an example. My son, who has ADHD and is defiant, so he's actually particularly difficult. And so although I love him very much, he's wonderful. But he won't, like, get dressed in the morning, you know, and I'm just, we're late. We gotta go to school. And I could tell him five, ten times to get dressed. It's not gonna work. He just won't follow that instruction. But then I have to link it to something. Well, if you wanna have iPad time later, the only way you're gonna get it is if you're. It's up to you.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So the. The only caveat to that is sometimes parents will introduce a reward once a child has escalated their behavior. And if you do that, you are training them to escalate. So as long as you are doing that beforehand, it is a standard thing. IPad is if you're ready.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Well, actually, what it is, is if you're late to school, you don't get your iPad later. So he knows that.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

It's a standing room.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

It's a standing room.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Your point is maladaptive. If I don't link the reward to what I want them to do. Then they start screaming. And then you say, oh, okay, I'll give you a reward. You were scared.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

You have just excluded exquisitely. Train them to scream even more next time.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Because they have learned that if I scream, I get what I want.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

That's right, that's right. So you asked like, why do parents fall into these traps? And there are lots of reasons, but the first one is just in the moment. If you have a screaming child, you have this beautiful way to get out of this bind, which is to say, all right, I'll give you a cookie

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

if you stop in the short term.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

In the short term it works amazing, but in the long run, you are really getting yourself into trouble. And the human brain is often driven by getting out of discomfort. You know, we've talked about that. And a screaming child has also been shaped by evolution to be as uncomfortable as possible to a parent. And unfortunately, we have these easy ways of getting rid of that behavior. It just causes problems.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

That's the thing is once they escalate, like, you know, you talk about this extinction burst, but they escalate. And if you give in to that, then you're rewarding the escalation. And so you can like, it's just like with sleep training. I remember once they start crying and then they cry more and more and more, and then you eventually go in after half hour, they've learned, oh, I just have to keep crying. And you've just reinforced the crying. So you really have to stay strong as a parent. Which again brings it back to parents.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

We are really in a bind here. Because when we talk to parents about independence activities, they will often say, sure, I can send my kid to the park, but he's gonna be the only one there. Or sure, I can let him run around in the playground and maybe bump his head, but the other parents are going to look at me like I'm doing something wrong. So from my perspective, this is the single biggest thing that we have to figure out a solution to is this collective action problem. We somehow have to make independence cool. And it's possible that if we frame it as actually making your kids stronger and more antifragile, that that may be meaningful to some parents because they are stuck in the short term benefit of over parenting. And that's very hard to break out of.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

What are the large scale social forces that have caused us to reassess the risk of childhood, to try to minimize them to an absolute lowest level than ever before that may cause these rise in anxiety?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Well, I think the Main one is we have fewer children. And so from sort of a demographic perspective, we want to really make sure every one of them survives. And so that means in the moment, making sure they never get hurt. I think we can't ignore the role of the media here. And the way that our brains work is to remember the most extreme cases. There's no newspaper stories about planes landing safely. And so I feel for parents, they are dealing with very powerful forces that are pushing them to over parent. And again, as we talked about, even in the short run, when they over parent, that is often reinforcing to them and it is hard to let go. The good news is that we have found that when kids do independence activities, the first two or three are really difficult for parents. And they do all kinds of stuff, including tracking them. And we can talk more about whether that's a good idea. But once they see about two or three successes, they very quickly let go. And we see this virtuous cycle where they trust their kids more and their kids become more capable. And then we and the kids learn to trust themselves. Yes, they trust themselves. And then we say that independence therapy is loudly a treatment for child anxiety and softly a treatment for parent anxiety.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

But there is a mismatch between like, I felt it again as a mom where like, so I mean, my daughter who's very independent and you know, but also I think there are different kinds of kids. Like, some kids can really thrive in independence and others not so much. But she created sort of like a little like, kind of like a lemonade stand, but like, you know those cigarette girls that used to carry the things in the, like, whatever. So she wanted to go door to door and sell her like lemonade and snacks and stuff. So she had a friend over, I think they were like maybe 10. And I let her go door to door in my neighborhood to do this with her friend. And the mom afterward found out, she

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

said, are you crazy?

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Yes. She never let the kid play with

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

her again because she felt this was a dangerous thing.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

It was dangerous? Yeah, it was dangerous. Cause for there was a short period of time when they were around the block where I didn't know exactly where they were, you know, cause they were going in the neighborhood.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

It's a societal problem.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

And it was the pressure on me. And so this girl never got to play with that friend again. But I want to ask you also the difference between emotional safety and physical safety, you know, how much should we allow for emotional kind of damage, let's say, versus physical harm.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So I just want to say one thing about your example, which is there is again this beautiful middle ground, which is when kids do independence activities together, especially if they are of mixed age, we see unique benefits for the older kids in terms of caring about someone else who's younger and they have to look out for that other person and then for the younger child of seeing a model of how to act. And so the chance of kidnapping, for example, when there are multiple children together is basically zero. We see that those kids tend to do quite well because they are in charge of babysitting, even babies when they're eight or nine years old. And they get a ton of experience with looking out for the safety of another human being, which gets you out of that egocentric sort of 8 to 12 year old range, particularly among boys where they don't seem to care about anybody else but themselves.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

But no one has done a formal study linking anxiety to sibling number of siblings.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

I would guess that they have. I haven't seen that, but you got me thinking, that's the first thing we're gonna do after our talk.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

But I think it's what, you know, the point that you made before is like discomfort is really important and it's okay. Especially, you know, like you said, once you get to college and to be able to clean other people's perspectives and not be sheltered and have trigger warnings and safe spaces and all of that. Right. We need to be able to have a dialogue and that require some level of discomfort and distress tolerance, right? Yes. But again, what about this idea of some children really want boundaries, they really want structure, they want some of that attention from their parents. And so can you describe independence therapy and also when is it also healthy to spend time with your kids and give them some attention and set some boundaries which they often want and need and thrive on?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Yes. All right, so independence therapy is a succession treatment. It's purposely made to be simple and easy for practically any clinician to use. Our manual is free on Let Grow's website. In the first session, it's only parents and we just talk to them about all the things we're talking about now. What are the risks of allowing independence? What gets in the way in terms of laws and other parents?

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

But it seems that this therapy is meant for a specific kind of subpopulation, which is the anxious kids and the over protective parents. Can you apply this therapy to things like ADHD or an oppositional defiant kid, which is a different kind of, you know, treatment? Would it be the same treatment? Do you modify the treatment in any

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

way so at this point, I would say the answer is no, we cannot transfer it to those. But we don't have enough data to know. There are theories to suggest that allowing independence could be helpful to kids who are depressed, for example, or have poor social skills. We just don't know the answer. Right now we're focused on anxious kids

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

and how old are they?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So 8 to 13 is where we have tested this so far, although it seems like we had enough information of people trying it with younger kids and older kids that it probably is going to be helpful for those ages as well.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

And so in each lesson. So you said in the second lesson, you ask the kids what they want to do and then what?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So we pull out a calendar and then we bring the parent back in and we brainstorm a whole bunch of independence activities.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Very specific activities.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Yes. And we literally write them into each day they need to do one a day. So this is a pretty big dose of independence for most kids. So then they come back for the third session.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Cooking, going to the supermarket, anything at

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

all that a kid, it has to be fun. And interestingly, for many kids, doing chores is fun. This is another Goldilocks scenario of kids doing chores and them loving it and parents having less work to do. But it's really like imagine think about your own childhood and how you would spend a day. It's all that stuff.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

How does this therapy expand the child's perception box?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Well, I think in a lot of ways. So it gives them direct experience with things that are challenging. And so that teaches them about their own capabilities. It teaches them about how to tolerate risk, how to tolerate uncertainty. It teaches them about other people. Generally, people are quite helpful. And if you get lost, most people are very happy to help you. And so it teaches them that the world is generally a safer place than they might have thought.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So you have these kids on one end who are very anxious and need to be encouraged to go out and do independent things. But what about the kids on the other end of the spectrum who are overly independent and need to be reined in a little bit? How would you advise parents?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

I guess I would want to dig into the term overly independent more because I can see, given today's parenting sort of culture, that many normative, healthy activities might be viewed as overly independent. But to speak to what you were saying, there are certainly kids where allowing more independence is not a good idea. And as we mentioned, these are kids who are accident prone who do need independence, but again, not in a way where a bad decision is really irreparable

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

like say ADHD kid who's not on their medication. Right. You wouldn't want to give them more and more freedom, which they can actually get hurt potentially.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Well, I would want to give them some kinds of more freedom. So I would have them whittle with a knife, for example. They might cut themselves, they're probably not going to cut a finger off. But I again wouldn't have them ride a bike in an unprotected street to a park where if they're not looking and they veer into the lane, they can get hit by a car.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Right.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

And I think for kids who have adhd, it might even be more important for them to be out in the world because kids with ADHD tend to have poor social skills and they tend to be intrusive sometimes in how they speak to other people. And the best way to change that is immediate feedback from the environment. So they go to the store, they order some salami, they cut someone in line and they don't realize it and then the person says no, actually I was first. That's really good for kids to have that immediate sense.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

That's how they learn.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

You can't teach a child with words all of the social rules that exist. They have to make mistakes. So I would argue that we just need to change the kinds of independence activities, not that we wouldn't do them for most kids.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Right? Yeah. I think a lot of the work has to do in changing the parents perception box as well and that actually allowing your child to have some level of maybe emotional discomfort or whatnot is going to help them grow and be more resilient. But as a kid again of the 80s, I mean, I came home, no one was home. Eight years old, latchkey, make your own food.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

And here you are, very successful.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

But I'll tell you this though, I will tell you this. I, I wish that my parents were around a little bit more. I miss that. I wish I had a parent who was there like, hey, do you want to do this thing together? Or whatever.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

So yeah, but that's different from a helicopter parent who's there all the time.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

I keep saying that there's two sides of the coin though, and I think that there is a level of kind of, I don't want to say neglect, but like kids also want some intervention from their parents. They want to know their parents care. I wish there was more rules and structure and they were around a little bit more. So I know that we're sort of trying to overcorrect for these parents. Who have become overly, you know, helicopterish. But there's still that other side of it where you want some intervention from your parents.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Sure.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Right. You want them to just not be like, oh, go do whatever you want. And I'm, you know, all right.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

But there are two against that. I hear you against that. I said two statistics. One is the ever increasing rate of anxiety. It's been very well touched.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

It's a subsection of society.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Yeah. If you look at. Not everyone, but if you look at, let's say, freshmen and sophomore college students, where it's been well documented each year over the last 30 years, the fraction of kids that declare themselves to be anxious, concerned is now 40% or something. And b, objectively, we are safer and safer. Longevity has just hit another peak in this country. So objectively, you know, people are safer than ever. And so there's some disconnect there.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

I think we need to. The pendulum has swung too far in this direction. I agree. I mean, and I, you know, I did a study once with freshmen in college and on their. And did a survey of all the mental health issues. And it was like in the Ivy League schools, it was something like 50% of them came in already on medication for anxiety or depression. 5, 0. This was the Ivy League. This is the problem. But this is, you know, we're talking upper middle class, like a certain subsection of, you know, society that is overprotective and, you know, and contributing to this over anxiety problem. I just think that we want to push it back a little bit in the other direction, but not too far where you get the other extreme. And I think that's just an important thing, that it should be a balance. And it's not just do whatever you want and everything is fine. That there has to be a little bit of constraint. But we've gone too far. I agree.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

I'm just not too worried that we're anywhere near going too far in the other direction.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

I mean, 50% of kids.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

I did a survey. This was back in. Oh, God. I mean, like, probably like 202006 or 7. It was early. Yes. And suicide rates and things, you know, it's not a good situation. And I do think there is a societal problem, but it's also, you have to take each case as an individual case. I think there's no blanket statement that we can make agree. And parents, you know, shouldn't feel guilty. I mean, parents are made to feel guilty all the time. You're doing too much, you're not doing enough, you're working Too much, you're not with your kids enough, you're never feeling, you know. So I think we need to give parents a break and say, I think one of the most interesting kind of statistics or research was, you know, Steven Pinker's book where it's like they did genetic studies and they found that, you know, the biggest influence on the kid, what you do as a parent doesn't make that much of a difference unless it's extreme neglect or abuse. Right. But outside of that, the main thing is genetics and their friends and their peers. Right. So I would often say as a parent, the best thing you can do is make sure your kids are like in good company.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Well, we now have, I believe the latest number is 12 states that have so called reasonable child independence laws. And Connecticut was the most recent one where we are decriminalizing, well, meaning reasonable parent decisions. So there's 38 more states to go on that.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So if your kid is, say nine years old, you can let them be alone and play outside or go run an errand while they're playing. And that's not against the law.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Not against the law. That's not gonna stop someone, a well meaning stranger, from calling the police. And so it doesn't stop these awful situations. But at least we know that we have the law on our side in 12 different states. And by the way, just as a side note, in all the time we've ever done independence activities, the only adults that have ever sort of caused problems, there has not been a single nefarious adult. They have always been well meaning adults who say to the kids, where are your parents? And so we equip children with these little passes that they can flash to any adult. And it says, I am allowed to be here. Here's my, my parents name and phone number. It's people like you that are keeping people like me safe. I'm allowed to talk to strangers. I'm talking to you. It literally says that right on the card. And our kids are almost wanting an adult to step in so they can flash their official looking badge at them.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Oh, I love that.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

That's sweet.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So at the end of every episode, we ask one question to open our own perception box. And I think Christophe chose this week's question. I don't know what it is he's going to ask us both. So what's the question you have?

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Is there ever something that you have not forgiven yourself for? And if so, why not? What are you afraid of? It's a challenging one.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Yeah. Not forgiving yourself for so in cognitive

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

behavioral therapy, we think of types of distorted thinking, and one of the most common types is to sum up a person as either their very best moment or their very worst moment. And that is just not accurate. People are way too complex. And so maybe this is a cop out, but I have really taken that to heart. And when I screw up, I know it doesn't sum me up as it doesn't my very best moment. So I tend to not think of myself as the summary of one particular behavior.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Okay, that's a perfectly valid answer.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Okay.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Damn, you got out of that real good. I had an instance very long ago, and I was very young and not fully formed yet, where I cheated on a partner that was very bad. And I really had a hard time forgiving myself for that. But he forgave me. So years later, and that was very cathartic. And then in him forgiving me, I kind of was sort of able to forgive myself. I feel like I was almost like a different person at that time, you know, because I think you grow and evolve and change. That took me a very long time to forgive myself for that.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

By the way, this is not uncommon for people to not be able to forgive themselves despite the world forgiving them. We are the harshest critics.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Agreed. Of ourselves. Agreed. Agreed.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

And particularly if you grew up in certain types of setting. I grew up, you know, Catholic, where guilt is a big thing. Well, yeah, it's not even if, sort of even intellectually, you know. Yeah. I should, after, in my case, 12 years or 15 years, should forgive myself. It's not as easy as just making this intellectual commitment because it's so deeply part of your psyche that I still feel shitty about it. And, you know, with time, you know, it goes and it comes in waves, you know, and with time sort of it decrements. But I cannot take my perception box and flip it where I say, okay, I forgive myself.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Can I just add that I don't think it would be good if you felt no guilt, because it's a signal of how to totally act going forward.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Right, Totally. But sort of the function of guilt loses its power if it's still there many years afterwards because, you know, you've learned your lesson. But then you can't just turn it off like that or reassess your life and say, yeah, that was just what I did at the time. That's fine.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Yeah, it's a very good social emotion to have at some level. But then I think we overdo it with the. Sometimes it's religious belief or Our own internal, like whatever you want to call superego, you know, that's telling you you're wrong, you did a bad thing and you can't.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

It's a prefrontal cortex that I believe.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Yes, it is.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

It is.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

As Albert Ellis, famous psychologist, used to say, just because you act like a shit doesn't mean you're a shit.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Oh, that's very profound. It's like a cigar just doesn't always. Sometimes cigar just doesn't.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

I think Judd Brewer has this beautiful saying. So guilt is. What is it? Your inability to give up, to give up the hope for a better past. I cannot give up the hope that I wish I would have been a better person at that time.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Yeah, but you probably would have done something else wrong anyway, so you can't really get out of it. But now we have time for a little game. So I'm gonna share a little real life parenting scenarios with you and I want you to tell us if it's independence or interference.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Okay? Love it.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Okay, great. Or maybe it's a little of both. I don't know. So the first one is letting your 8 year old walk to school every morning.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Independence. Love it.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Okay, what if it's sub zero? It's freezing outside.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Are they wearing a coat?

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

They are not wearing a coat.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Would they reasonably get frostbite on the way to school?

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Yes, they would.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Then they must wear a coat. I think they'll be fine.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Okay.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Yes.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Texting your teenager to remind them to eat lunch.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

No way. No way people do this.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

I don't know.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Not really. That is the lowest hanging fruit of parental endurance.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

That's what you're talking about. Even I could say no. Don't.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Just let them start. They'll be hungry.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Let them start. I'm with you on that one. Letting your 12 year old girl go

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

to the mall by herself, like you're dropping her off and then she.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Yeah, she's in the mall.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Amazing. Great.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Awesome. She loves it.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Yeah.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Okay. Stepping in when your child argues with a friend, or maybe I'm going to go even further to say that there's some mean girls or mean boys that are either, you know, bullying or being mean. What do you do?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So I would not step in in the moment, but afterward I would have a conversation with them about what they're thinking, what their approach is. We might even role play a few different things. So this is a good example of later on where you're not interfering with the discomfort. It's great for parents to talk to their kids about difficulties they're having.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

What about siblings fighting, Physically fighting, Getting into it. Do you intervene?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So this is something I work with quite a bit and also draws on evolution and our understanding of mammals. Kids need to fight with each other. Siblings need to. They learn. It's a baked in right in your home. Practice every day at what's too far. What can I get away with if we look at every mammal? Siblings fight all the time. And this is so hard for parents because that scream that they hear from another room is so hard to ignore. And so generally the rule is if one child is victimizing the other child because they are different in size or in age, then we do suggest stepping in, but for the typical back and forth. He said I'm stupid, that kind of stuff. No. No intervention.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So unless there's going to be some, like, real physical, serious harm or something like.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

But some physical. Physicality is fine. But if there's really a distinct difference in their physical power, then you do want to step in.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Okay. Sitting next to your child while they do their homework.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

I hate it.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So I'm all about that too.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Yeah, I really just. As a pretty general rule, I say to parents, this is why you pay property taxes, so teachers can correct homework. It is not for you to do it. And it always leads to fighting. It's a reliably terrible idea.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Yeah, I say it to my kid. If you're going to nod to your homework and fail, like, that's up to you. They learn pretty quick.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

I'll give you one caveat. I sometimes say to some parents whose kids actually have trouble or have adhd, for every problem you answer on your own, even if it's wrong, I will help you with one. And then over time, we increase that ratio so that you are less and less helping them. Because what tends to happen is this sort of feigned incompetence. Oh, I don't know. You do it. And so many parents tell me that they end up then doing almost all

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

of the homework or that kids with ADHD get distracted and you sometimes just need to keep them on track. Not to help them solve it, but like, you know, well, the when then

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

command is great for that one because then they can't do the things they want to do until they're done. Really helps to focus them.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Okay, what about tracking your kid's location, just in case?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So it depends. If kids have the ability to contact you, then I don't like that. Because what ends up happening is that the first sign of discomfort, they will call you. What should I do. So there's no practice with the problem solving with independence activities because parents are anxious. We often say it's fine at first, but then as they get into more challenging independence activities, we at least suggest the possibility that they not track their child.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

It's also better for the parent. Right. So they can also learn that my child can actually do things independently without me constantly tracking them.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

That's right.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

What about when a child is on say a device like an iPad or something? Because I think if you give them total independence with that, they would just be that for 12 hours a day.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Agree.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

So where do you give independence and where do you intervene?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So I think Jonathan Haidt has really sort of nailed this in as simple a way as possible is kids have too much freedom online and not enough freedom in the real world. So there's no space between our two positions. Social media should be delayed as long as possible. And I don't even really like anything that you can swipe that sort of disrupts your ability to focus on anything. And so the bigger the screen, the longer, you know, like a Disney movie. Far superior over TikTok.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

That's what Jonathan Isaiah says. Long form. It's not that the screen itself is a problem, it's the kind of media that's being consumed. So more long form media that has a story that you can attend to versus the scrolling.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

There was this recent story, I think, in the Wall Street Journal that even film students now have difficulty sitting through long classical films because they're used to. Every 10 seconds there's a change in point of view in a new story. So it's not just books, it's all media. Because the reason you mentioned. So in your own case, how long did you delay for your kids access to social media?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Well, so this is an interesting question and it speaks to what you said about differences between children. So my daughter, who is older, we really didn't delay things and it was never a problem for her. She actually has a visceral dislike of social media, despite the fact that she's a pop singer, which is weird to say, but she is.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

How old are your kids?

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So she's 25. And my son, totally the opposite. He'll sit scrolling forever. And so we had to be much more restrictive of his use of screens.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

Like my kids are 12 and 9 now and they don't have phones. They don't. The only thing they have is an iPad with some restricted use but no social media. So I do restrict them in that capacity. But I think that's the, the idea is more online kind of restriction, less restriction in the real world.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Although there's a caveat with social media, there are also many benefits from social media. And the generalized increase in anxiety predates social media. I think it's more to do with autonomous play that over the last hundred years we have lost effectively.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Well, the beginning of it, I think you're right. But I think John Haidt makes a very strong case that around 2011, which is when it gotten worse, the iPhone really became ubiquitous, is when we saw a dramatic rise, particularly among girls and particularly among the youngest cohort of girls.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

And I think there are some social benefits about the technology that we have.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

Sure.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

But like, for my kids, it'll be like being on FaceTime with their friends. You know, they can play a game together while on FaceTime with their actual real life friends. And that I think is really, I let them do that. But on that note, I want to thank you, Dr. Camilo Ortiz. You've been amazing. It's been really insightful. Thanks for being here.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

So fun to talk to you both.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

Thank you. Thank you, Camilo.

[Dr. Heather Berlin]

And if you'd like to learn more about your own perception box, spend some time this week answering the same perception box questions that we asked our guests. And check out other questions on our website@ unlikelycollaborators.com youm can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch the show or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This has been science, A perception box created by unlikely collaborators in collaboration with pod people. I'm Dr. Heather Brunlien.

[Dr. Christoph Koch]

And I'm Dr. Christoph Koch. Thank.

[Dr. Camilo Ortiz]

You, sam.