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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 429: The Future Belongs to Those With Relational Intelligence | Isabelle Hau, Love to Learn
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- [00:01]
Jenny Yurich
Okay, real talk, February is rough. It's that time of year when everything feels just a little blah and you're questioning all of your life choices. Are we actually going to make it to spring? Are my kids always this loud or is it just cabin fever setting in? If you are feeling it too, I've got the perfect thing to pull you out of your winter slump. We are hitting the road for the 1000 hours outside really Very Crunchy tour and I want you there. It's going to be an incredible, hilarious life giving night with Emily and Jason Mauro from really Very Crunchy and Dustin and Sarah Lally from this Way Home. We'll laugh, we'll learn and you'll walk away feeling like a brand new person. At least until your kids wake up the next morning. We've got stops in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Adrian, Michigan, Smyrna, Georgia, Franklin, Tennessee and Cincinnati, Ohio. This February in just a few weeks. And because we get it, February budgets are tight. You can get $5 off your ticket with the code podcast or grab some friends and make it a double date because we are selling four tickets for just $80. Just 20 bucks a ticket. Go to 1000hours outside do and get your tickets now before they sell out. Come hang out with us. You need this night I can say to my new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger so I can get in more squats anywhere I can. 1, 2, 3. Will that be cash or credit?
- [01:28]
Isabelle Howe
Credit.
- [01:28]
Jenny Yurich
4 Galaxy S25 Ultra the AI companion that does the heavy lifting. So you can do you get yours@sam samsung.com compatible with select apps. Requires Google Gemini account results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy. Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I have a phenomenal guest. You are going to love love, love today's episode. I have just read her book. I took 11 pages of notes. It is wonderful. Beyond wonderful. It's called Love to Learn and the author, Isabelle Howe is here. Welcome.
- [02:03]
Isabelle Howe
Oh thank you Jimmy. I'm so excited about your comments on your. I can't wait to see even the notes.
- [02:09]
Jenny Yurich
Oh, I think that what you were able to do was you were able to take all of the things that parents are thinking about a little bit worried about and their current issues and you put them in this book. The subtitle is the Transformative Power of Care and Connection in Early Education. I got so much out of it and I am pretty well ready. I talked to a lot of people and I kept going, oh, I didn't know that. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, I've never thought of that. And so well done on a phenomenal, phenomenal book. Love to Learn will be out by the time you are listening to this podcast in your ears. We are jumping into all the things and normally we talk about you and how you got into your line of work, but we're skipping over all of that today because there's so many things to talk about. Maybe we'll swing back at the end or I'll put it in the show notes. At the very least, can we start here with artificial intelligence? You just do such a wonderful job of going through basically what's going on and what are some of the things that we need to consider. So let's start with this. There is a company called Replica AI now being used by more than 10 million people, the number you would have written when you wrote the book. And there are people who are marrying their AI avatars. And they say things like, my relationship with my AI partner lacks the complexities of typical human relationships and it's the most fulfilling relationship I've ever experienced, surpassing those with flesh and blood individuals. Can we just talk about ramifications of AI relationships for adults and then kids?
- [03:44]
Isabelle Howe
What a beautiful question, Jenny. So we did actually a lot of work on this AI platform called Yplicka AI at Stanford. We actually published one research already and we are about to publish a second one. So this platform allows any user to create an avatar. So very simple. And then you can start conversing with that avatar. So it's part of this category that's emerging called AI Companions. The scientific terms that my colleagues are using is intelligent social agents. Anyway, that's more fancy name for AI Companions. What research says is so interesting. So number one, users of Replica AI are more lonely than average and we have this massive issue regarding isolation and loneliness right now. So a lot of people who are feeling a little bit more lonely are actually turning to those digital platforms. So really interesting Trend there. Number two, and really, really interesting is that 90%, 9, 0 users of Replika think after a very short amount of using this platform that the interactions are so called human like. So essentially we as humans are very confused very quickly about whether the relationship is a machine or a human. And then three, let me say one positive and one negative. The positive formed research suggests that people who are using Replica AI actually have lesser suicidal ideation. So there was a beneficial effect regarding mental health as part of this study. Lots of caveats there because there have been some dramatic news headlines on other platforms where parents have had their very sadly their child commit suicide and think that it could be attributed to some of those AI companions. So I just want to put a big caveat that this is what had been found on Replika. Very concerned about other platforms and the effect of AI on mental health. And then the fourth finding, which is also a negative one, is that there was a slight displacement of human relationships. So people who are using replica are using it more and more and essentially avoiding more and more humans. So, anyway, so interesting. And that's for adults. So let's now imagine the effects on children. Incredible.
- [06:26]
Jenny Yurich
Yeah. Yes. So I'm going to read some of this. This is a phenomenal book. It is called Love to Learn. Adults are increasingly confused about these new forms of relationships, interpreting artificial love as human love and in some cases redefining love entirely. And if adults are confused, what about children who are even more sensitive, less experienced, and less discerning than adults? But what you talk about, and that's why I think this is so important, and Isabel, you did such a wonder job of being so current. These are the things that are happening right now. And you talk about how when it comes to kids, this stuff is already embedded in so many of the products that are available for children. AI avatars are popping up in the world our children inhabit, whether in the form of social robots, apps, toys, or learning tutors. Given research showing that humans tend to respond to emotional robots as though they were sentient beings, even though they are aware of the wires and circuitry involved, no one will be surpr to learn that the same research shows children to be even more likely than adults to treat intelligent devices as sentient social beings. So what's interesting is that there is this promise versus peril. There are good things. There are kids that maybe their scores go up in certain areas, and there are positive things for, let's say, the elderly. But what you balance that out with so beautifully are the perils. And you ask this question, is a child better off with artificial love than no love?
- [08:02]
Isabelle Howe
Exactly. That's a really important point because there are some areas where it can be beneficial. So let me give an example here. If a child is not confident about a certain skill. So let's say for me, for example, when I was a child trying to learn English, maybe not comfortable in the classroom, speaking in English, okay, that's a Great tool. Those machines could play a great role in building a child's confidence in training outside of a social context. And those particular beneficial effects, by the way, are quite strong on children with learning differences. So there are some benefits. Okay. However, if we start saying, okay, this is a solution for all, when we know that all of us humans, but certainly children learn through human connections. And we learn overall, but certainly learn about over relationship, how to socialize, you know, critical relationships through interactions, if we think that this can be replaced for machines, we have a deep peril indeed.
- [09:16]
Jenny Yurich
Yes. And you write about how this is really going to accelerate. And you've talked to all sorts of different, different people, you've read these different books, and the AIs tutor trend will accelerate. But you say there is a delicate balance between technological convenience and the human connection that is essential to learning. So there are good things, but you have to read the book because it talks about all of the things that you need to consider when you are making these choices. I thought this was really interesting. You talked about future careers. So we're focused on play, we're focused on unstructured, getting outside, giving kids some of their time back. And one of the things that you talk about, that's why I say the book is so applicable and so timely. The average American will change jobs 12 times between the ages of 18 and 54 and will switch careers between 3 and 7 times. Switch their entire career. The future belongs to those with relational intelligence. How can we make a focus on relational intelligence, especially now that we're going to see this probably trend of AI in education, this trend of AI and algorithmic toys for our children. How and why do we need to place a large emphasis? You call it the relationship rq, right? Relationship quotient. I love that.
- [10:40]
Isabelle Howe
Yes, for a long time we have focused on cognitive intelligence. Most of us are very familiar with iq, which is a form of cognitive intelligence, which has translated in our education systems into a lot of focus on rigor and on achievement and on all these things that we are very familiar in the education context. But there are two other forms of intelligence, one that has been rising over the past 20 years, which is EQ emotional intelligence, especially in the workplace. More and more workplaces are starting to speak about emotional intelligence and in education settings that has been translated in social, emotional learning and all this trend. But we haven't actually spoken a lot about relational intelligence, which I call rq. I think this is the competency of the future. This is not one of those little soft things that should be on the side this is the skill of the future. And I'm not the only one to say that. For example, the Chief Economist of LinkedIn has been quite vocal saying that in this world of rising artificial intelligence, in our economies, economies will become relational economies. So what he means by this is that in our work, we need to know how to collaborate. We need to know how to connect and relate to others. We need to be a good team player. You know, like there's a big Google study on this. That's what makes a good, you know, successful person at Google is actually team skills. All those things suggest to me that the future belongs to those with relational intelligence. This starts early because of, you know, how our brains are wired with all these neurons when we are born and the need for neurons to be connected with each other, what scientists call synaptic connections to do this. The synaptic connections are fueled by relationships and love. So we need that early on.
- [12:43]
Jenny Yurich
So great. Oh my goodness, the book is so good. You wrote that education, we're talking about, education needs to adapt. Then if you focus on standardization, everything can be replaced by machines. Education needs to focus on differentiation for every learner to be the best of themselves. The future belongs to those with relational intelligence, and it's vital to instill these skills from an early age. The workplace increasingly values the skills that are typically nurtured in a preschool like environment. Paradoxically, however, preschoolers are starting to shift toward a more rigid, academically focused model, reminiscent of the pedagogy of the industrial era, potentially neglecting the importance of play and peer interaction. Wonderful, wonderful information about AI in this book. Lots to consider. Pick it up with a group of friends and read it and talk about these things. It's really important. You have a ton in this book about play. Play is learning. What a wonderful thing to have in this book. I was thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to read about it. I'd love to talk about this piece. You talk about cognitive flexibility and building imagination and skills for the future, as well as interpersonal things like interpreting verbal cues and non verbal cues. Can you talk about why play, and free play in particular is considered a public, or should be considered a public health issue?
- [14:02]
Isabelle Howe
Yes, play is one of those really magical activity that most animals, by the way, most animal species have play and certainly it's one of those critical, critical, foundational activity for all of us, but certainly children, but also, I would argue adults. And I was speaking to recently to an entrepreneur friend. You know, I'm in the Silicon Valley, so I interact with a lot of entrepreneurs and we Were discussing about how play is so related to entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial skills. Anyway, I diverge a little bit, but just to say that play is critical for all animal species, including humans. And we have a lot of evidence on how play drives, of course, better social interactions. That's pretty intuitive. But also a lot of other benefits around greater creativity, greater cognitive skills, play drives better academic outcomes, all these things and so all these merits. But here is the issue which obviously you have been speaking, Jeanne, a lot about and focusing a lot in your work and in your podcast. Play has actually been decreasing in our society as if it was this kind of side thing that is not as important as other things, when in fact it should actually be the core piece of learning and thriving.
- [15:34]
Jenny Yurich
So there's a whole chapter on play in this book. It is wonderful and I think that parents will be very, very encouraged by that. You talk about resilience and it's really interesting. I think there's a misconception here. I want to talk about this one study that you cited that I was blown away. I was like, no, that's not what I would have thought. But you say children are not born resilient, they are made resilient. They become resilient through relationships. And if you are entering into your adult life and you are going to have four to seven, whatever the number was of career changes, you're going to have to be a resilient person. And you're not born that way, you're made that way. And so you talk about. I was like, whoa. You talk about when in a child's life is the optimal time for a family to move. And you think, oh, when they're four, they have no friends, it doesn't really matter, you know, or when they're six, who, who really cares? And you stick put in high school. But you said no, the. It's actually opposite. Can you talk about why and how that's related to resilience?
- [16:36]
Isabelle Howe
Yeah. So that's a really interesting, obviously one anecdotal data point, but such an interesting and relatable one. Youngest children are much more impacted by whether it's a move over, over, over events in their lives. So as children, resilience is very connected to what is referred to in technical terms as protective factors. So we have. This is actually a very misunderstood area that says, okay, to be resilient, you need to be strong and by yourself. You know, these. All these themes of bootstrapped and all these themes that we have heard so many times when in fact the Science is very clear that we become resilient if we feel like we are loved and we feel very safe in our human and relational connections.
- [17:33]
Jenny Yurich
Wow. It's so important. And you talk a lot about in this book about holding your babies and attachment and how important that is. There's so much to talk about. I don't even know if we're going to get there, but I want people to know that it's in there when we're talking about play. One of the things that's so critical, and this is something that I'm seeing as a mother, as our kids are getting older, is there are less opportunities for playmates. You wrote there are absent playmates. And you talk so much in this book about relationships, both for adults and how important that is for the adults. And that trickles down to the kids and also for the kids. We'll start with the kids. The greatest predictor of long term success in adulthood is pro social behavior in kindergarten. And the greatest predictor of student engagement at school is having a friend at school. Yet the conditions for sustaining early friendships are deteriorating. Less unstructured play means fewer opportunities for friendships. This is a cultural problem. And what happens is you end up with a child and there's less kids for them to play with because there's everyone's at structured activities or they're doing tutoring. And you write about all the benefits of free play. What do you think are some of the solutions here?
- [18:43]
Isabelle Howe
Yeah, and let me speak a little bit about the research on, on, on this briefly. So there are lots of benefits, clearly of benefits on play, which we briefly discussed, but also a lot of benefits on structured activities. You know, to learn an instrument, a musical instrument or a sport, or all good things okay for a child to do. However, societally we are evolving into a place where these structured activities are too much. What I called over scheduled activities and research has shown, and there's a recent, really interesting recent report on this, that they lead to increased anxiety, increased stress in children and parents, by the way, as well as lesser creativity, lesser independence in young children and autonomy. So we have to be mindful as parents that while it seems like a good thing that we want to prepare our children to do all these amazing things and learn as many things, that over scheduling them is also not a good thing. What has been happening, and I've been really fascinating about this genie, is that this actually translates also in play dates, in these forms of, in those spaces that traditionally have been like more free play. So around me I've observed that A lot of play dates have become more and more structured too. Even the concept of play dates has become more and more structured, which I find really interesting and has some negative consequences for children. So we really need to be mindful as parents that the concept of play is very important. Guided play is a good thing and those structured activities are good. But free play is also critical.
- [20:30]
Jenny Yurich
Yes, yes, and there is so much to learn in here. Children engaged in unstructured play had more than double the number of friends than those who frequented parks with parental oversight. Additionally, the free playing children exhibited superior social and motor skills and spent more time overall outdoors. The amount of free play has dropped so much in the past several decades. Even recess, you talk about recess time has dropped as well, and that the extracurriculars should not be about resume building or trophy accumulation because what's happening is that children have less opportunity to develop authentic connection with peers when they're in these structured environments. The structured and competitive activities as well as social media and screen time have edged out relaxed friendships amongst our kids and teens too. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. What are some of your relationship green flags? 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That's T H R I V market.com 1000hours thrive market.com 1000hours There's a lot of pressure here that it's important to read the book. It will help remind you. You even talk about how they have like underground tutoring in China. There's so much pressure for this. The long march to college admission starts younger and younger. So that's our kids friendships. But then you also focus on adult relationships and how it's important for the adults, but also because that trickles down to the kids that they have these other built in protective factors of adult relationships in their lives. In fact, you quoted this statistic that said only 3% of children in the United States have ever met a person older than 65 outside their family circle. So we are in this trend of losing friendships. The number of Americans without friends at all, no friends, grew from 3% to 12% in 30 years from 1990 to 2020, 1 in 10Americans do not have any friends. How does this impact us? And then how does it trickle down to our children?
- [26:19]
Isabelle Howe
Yeah, so it's impacting us in so many ways. You know, there's a lot of impacts on what is referred to as the loneliness epidemic. For example, one that's maybe really interesting is health impact. So people who are more lonely have more cardiovascular disease. And actually the opposite is true. If you have better, better relationships, you live longer. Let's focus on the positive. So as adults, relationships matter tremendously, but they also matter a lot for young children. So what the science says is very simple. The science says that a young child needs at a minimum one strong, nurturing, loving, safe adult relationship. But really it's at least one. But here's a problem with at least one is that if you have young know one single parent, single parent may be working or may have things in their lives that happen. So ideally there's a little bit more than one and a number of people have said okay, at least, you know, three seems like to be a good number because at least you have backups essentially for relationships and then maybe even more. And so I show a chart in the book that suggests this is for high schoolers, but that the greater number of strong adult relationship a child has, whether it's a teacher, a parent, a coach, maybe a faith leader or other, other, other adult relationships, all the benefits in, in whether it's academic outcomes, academic motivation, Social emotional outcomes, all those go up. And the more you have, the more it goes up. So it seems like we don't even know how. What is a limit limit of the number of relationships that the old child has. But anyway, let's focus on number on three relationships. That means that or single digit of strong adult relationships around a child. That means that ideally in the family context, parents have friends that the child can also interact with. So if that adult doesn't have friends, there is lesser opportunity for their own child to also connect with those adults. I, by the way, believe this is so intuitive and this is baked in into a lot of our religions. A lot of our religions have similar concept in common, which is a God parrot. It is essentially a backup to a parent. And that's exactly what we may be missing today if parents do not have strong relationships themselves.
- [28:58]
Jenny Yurich
So many important things and it's tricky because there's less of a pool of people to choose from. There are less things. Like I know there's a book that came out and maybe you wrote about in here, but like the like bowling. There used to be bowling clubs and now there's not that anymore. And so there's just fewer and fewer places to find people. You wrote even the Knot. So the wedding site, the Knot has noted a downward trend in the average number of wedding guests. What was interesting, Isabel, is that when you talk about the things in here, the dates are so current. I mean, this is something that's happening right now. We are in the middle of this. Because you talked about 2007 to 2022. I'm like, this is the last 15 years, this is now. You wrote people used to have 153 people at their wedding. Now they have 117 in 15 years. We are just losing the amount of relationships that we have. You wrote the data from the American Time Use survey show it shows that American adults have have reduced time spent socializing by 40% over the last decade. Right now, just right now, 40%. For teens, the decline has been even steeper, 60%. There is no record of any period in history where young people spend more time alone than they do now. And then you say this, our social skills. You talk about this concept of social fitness that when you lose it, it's harder to enter back in. Talk about why that's important.
- [30:23]
Isabelle Howe
Yes. Social fitness to me is a little bit like physical fitness. You know, most of us, when we haven't gone to the gym or we haven't exercised for a little while, it's harder to go Back, you know, we have this big mountain to climb in a sense, and then. Which is very different than if we practice on a regular basis. Social fitness is a little bit the same when we are not practicing that skill. It becomes harder and harder to socialize. There is this beautiful study that was done several years ago for children with cancer. So pretty sobering research, of course, but actually some, you know, this was done on children who had gone through remission. But this. What the study showed is that these children had, obviously because they had been hospitalized, had to. As a result of this, naturally they were less social during that period of. Of hospitalization. And when they were past admission, it was much more difficult for them to find friends and make friends, which I find really interesting. Just, just really interesting in our ability to socialize is. Become more difficult if we are not doing it really actively. Like, like physical fitness.
- [31:36]
Jenny Yurich
It's a good reminder to pursue it actively because it is hard. It's gotten harder. It's harder and harder to find people. And relationships are tricky. You talk about social trust, that people view other people as not as reliable as they used to be. And I thought, like I said, there's so many things I was like, oh, I've never thought about that. Social trust is akin to a missing puzzle piece that everyone is desperately searching for but can't quite seem to locate. Is that worth talking about a little bit?
- [32:06]
Isabelle Howe
Yeah. Especially in education. There's one data that I've been tracking closely that really is concerned deeply, deeply concerning, which is trust with schools. Schools used to be this environment that everyone trusted. You know, everyone has an amazing story. I certainly do. With teachers changing our lives and our trajectories. Many people do have similar stories. But here we go. We have the latest stat is 26% of Americans have a high level of trust in our school system. So trust is really at a low point. How low can we get? And we are speaking about schools which tended to be the sacred environment of where our children learn and thrive and play. And in a way that seemed to be this trusted institution and it's no longer one. If only a quarter of people believe this is a trusted institution, it's a low point anyway. I just find it really, really interesting and certainly telling across institution. By the way, it's not only schools, it's, you know, various types of institutions and generally social trust.
- [33:24]
Jenny Yurich
Yeah, it's just a really, really good reminder to keep at it because you also talked about, and I think I'm going to pronounce it right, hikikomori where in Japan, 2% of the population. That's high. Two out of every 100 people are not leaving their home. They're doing everything through the screens. And you even talked about this thing called double hikikomori. So where it's something like there's a the parent and the child, or there's more than one person in the home that's not leaving the home. And in the long term, it just becomes harder and harder to re enter. You wrote, we, we adults are experiencing a friendship recession. We have fewer friends and we spend less time with them. This matters for our kids because any of those adult friends could have acted as extended family. We dedicate significantly less of our time to the limited number of friends we do have. Oh, are these such important issues? I was really impressed. I thought, how is someone able to just take this book and be like, yes, this is the problem, and this is the problem, and we need to talk about this, and this is important. We've never talked about this on the show, but people. It's one of those things that's swirling around a lot. So I'm very excited to talk about this. You talked about how kids are falling out of their chairs at school. I think probably most parents have heard of this, but, like, that's all, oh, they're falling out of their chairs. What's going on? So you know more about it. You've talked to all of these teachers, and you said one teacher even experienced that her students had experienced more than 40 falls in a single week. Now, I grew up going to school. No one ever fell out of their chairs. We would even tip our chairs back so far, and no one was ever falling. We had really good balance. You wrote, this is a result of proprioceptive and vestibular senses, which are honed through movement and especially swinging or spinning, that they are failing to develop. And so kids are getting vertigo. They're not moving, they're not playing, and they're falling out of their chairs. Can you give us a little bit more insight into that?
- [35:25]
Isabelle Howe
Yeah. So that goes back to, you know, development, child development, where we. We really need play and we need to, you know, to have a lot of movements to acquire a number of attributes and traits. And certainly our capacity to balance and so forth comes from a number of, you know, brain development aims. Anyway, point being that play is absolutely critical and movement is critical. So if children do not have enough movement and enough play in their early years, then we have those manifestations around balance. And that's manifest in early classrooms in ways That I was really surprised about, which is that children simply like this ability to balance because they have not been exposed to enough movement in their early years, by the way. And relating to your other comment on Hikokomari, which tends to be more younger adults, it's started in Japan but is expanding in Southeast Asia. And so, for example, the South Korean government now offers stipends, so literally a little bit of money for people for young adults to go outside. Because of all these reasons we are just discussing, people are not, you know, a child today in the US plays outdoors only between four and seven minutes a day versus about eight hours on screen, depending on the age groups, of course. But that's the average from, you know, so it's a little bit lower in youth, younger age groups, a little bit higher in high schooler. But those are averages. But still it's just a few minutes a day of play outdoors versus hours during the day in front of a screen. Yeah. When I was reading about South Korea providing little financial incentives for people to literally get out of their home, we are in a situation that's just, just crazy. On how to tackle those major loneliness societal issues both for children and adults, of course.
- [37:42]
Jenny Yurich
Wow. I talk about those statistics all the time. You and me are right there on the same page with the four to seven minutes versus four to seven hours. I mean, it's just a wild imbalance. And so we're, you know, we're trying to get outside and it's hard. That's why we have a goal for it. It's because it's hard to prioritize and hard to fit in when there's so many other things you could be doing. When you're talking about kids are falling out of their chairs, they're not having enough opportunity to move. You also tie that into overprotecting. Our parenting has changed. We've become intensive parents, but also emotionally absent and distracted parents at the same time. Which is kind of an ironic paradox. But you say over the past three decades, American childhood has changed considerably. Our society has prioritized safety at the expense of encouraging children to take reasonable risks and academic expectations over joyful play based learning. Why is it important that kids take reasonable risks? Yeah.
- [38:37]
Isabelle Howe
So there's so much here but you to unpack. So on parenting, this is a beautiful thing, parenting are spending a lot more time with their child. And that, by the way, one of the fastest growth is in favors, which I love. I think it's beautiful. You know, parents generally, whether it's mom or dad, but Certainly dads are spending more and more time with their child. Amazing. Okay. However, because of a number of factors, the time is not necessarily quality time. And here is maybe a tagline for all parents listening or educators. I would love for family time, this very precious time, to be relational time. So that's what I mean by quality time is making sure that that time that we spend with our children, and maybe not every minute of it, but some of that time is protected from any devices and really being present with the young child. So critical from a relational and future development. So, so critical. We have so, so many data on this, but I could pick some negative ones or some positive ones. But essentially the brain size and activity in the brain is greater when they are nurturing relationships. If you want your child to have a bigger brain and, and be successful later on, invest in this relational time.
- [40:12]
Jenny Yurich
And you talk about, you have to set your phone aside. You talked about studies at restaurants, you talked about studies at the playground, and that the majority of these parents are on their phones the whole time and that the phone actually has like an addictive quality. So that when the parent is pulled out of that state, they might be kind of crabby. And I have felt that I would love to see a study done if I take a novel, because, you know, I think one of the things you also talk about is the big squeeze that parents are so squeezed. And when we would go to the park, I would have an opportunity to have a conversation with a friend. Or if, you know, I see pictures now, it's like, you know, I don't have any pictures because I was doing this before. We were taking a lot of pictures. But, you know, if the kids are old enough and they're playing, you could sit and read a novel and. Or you, you could read something that's interesting to you. But the interruption out of a novel is completely different than when you get interrupted out of a smartphone. It's like you've been sucked down a hole and it's more jarring to come out of that. And I think you talk about techno fearance, the detrimental cycle of inattention, and you have to make sure that the smartphone isn't even around because those in the vicinity of a smartphone found it harder to bond. Smartphones, even when not being used, can disrupt social interactions. Really important things there. Who doesn't love the good things in life? Even though I enjoy a little luxury, it doesn't mean I can always afford it. Until I discovered quince. Quince is my go to for when I'm trying to step up my luxury essentials game but doing so at affordable prices. Quince offers a range of high quality items at prices within reach like 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $50 which I got and absolutely love washable silk tops and dresses, organic cotton sweaters and 14 karat gold jewelry. The best part? All Quince Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factory factories, Quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings on to us. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. I love that. One of my favorite things is the all black puffer jacket I got. It's super cute and most important, nice and warm for these cold winter days here in Michigan. Give yourself the luxury you deserve with quince. Go to quince.com outside for free shipping on your order order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com outside to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com outside this episode is brought to you by Shopify. Forget the frustration of picking commerce platforms when you switch your business to Shopify, the global commerce platform that supercharges your selling wherever you sell. With Shopify, you'll harness the same intuitive features, trusted apps and powerful analytics used by the world's leading leading brands. Sign up today for your $1 per month trial period@shopify.com tech all lowercase. That's shopify.com tech.
- [43:19]
Isabelle Howe
In the mood for.
- [43:20]
Jenny Yurich
Something crunchy, saucy and boneless? Try Jack's new Crispy Boneless Wings from Jack in the Box. Get em with honey garlic Sriracha or Smokeshow smoky barbecue sauce if enjoy so much more. Mothers are distracted and stressed. So this is a big thing. Yeah, the big squeeze. This is an important thing you talk about in this book. The most important thing you talk about in this book, and I'm like, hopefully we hit it by the end is that loving relationships are the key to all of the things this is. You know, the book is called Love to Learn the Transformative Power of Care and Connection and Early Education. But I want to make sure that parents have a really good understanding. Isabelle that this is about kids of all ages. You talk about young kids, but you talk about teens. And the premise of the book is about these early relationships and making sure that you're holding your babies and talking to your babies. You talk about this thing called the Talk Pedometer. Never heard of it. I thought it was the coolest thing. All of this stuff is so fascinating. So I. We're not going to get to every single thing, but I want to make sure that listeners have a good understanding of the amount of information and inspiration they're going to find in this book. Love to learn. Let's talk about the big squeeze. The big squeeze. Those who are raising children are not just squeezed. They are super squeezed. They simply can't do it all. Squeeze for time. Squeezed by the amount of digital information and judgments you wrote. 83% of these parents that were surveyed, 6, 500 parents. Parents, 83% agreed with a statement. Others think my child's academic success is a reflection of my parents. Parents are squeezed by the expenses. They're squeezed by the expenses for enrichment activities. They're squeezed by student debt, and they will no doubt be squeezed by artificial intelligence. But this is a silent issue, you say, because parents feel like they can't really talk about it or complain about it. What advice do you have for parents of today?
- [45:22]
Isabelle Howe
Yeah, we are supposed to be those perfect parents. We're presenting ourselves as, for the most part, as those perfect, you know, perfect parents. Especially, you know, the Instagram ideal parenting. Yeah, we have all these societal factors that make us as parents more and more stressed in our lives. Whether it's financial stress, whether this is relational stress, all these factors, technology and others. And certainly just tying back to the playdate discussion we were just having, this is one of those big factors because parents are more and more feeling like they are being judged on their parenting. So this notion of you need to be the perfect parent and have these perfect play dates, you know, all of this has been very new trends overall that are driving, you know, more and more intensive parenting. So what can we do about all of us? Ideally, we really focused on, on these very special times and relationships. And we, we are much more intentional about it. So, Ginny, in, in writing this book, I was sometimes thinking, oh, this is really obvious. Like that relationships matter if we. Everyone knows this. Every parent loves their child. It's just very intuitive. Okay. However, we have all these forces that are very, very difficult to even understand perfectly. So as a parent, my biggest advice is to be intentional. Intentional about those very, very special times every day with a child that are protected, that are for play, no devices present. Very, very simple advice in many ways. But that actually is what leads to, again, all these amazing outcomes of bigger brains, more active, better life outcomes. Also, one other really important point is this is what the future needs. We need those brains. The future will be for people who have all these relational competencies.
- [47:33]
Jenny Yurich
Wow. And I think you just, you feel seen. When you read the book you were, you wrote something like trapped in our own version of Groundhog Day. Parenthood might be the most precious experience in our life, yet we yearn for meaningful adult conversations. We may feel grateful for the child, but simultaneously long for the life we lived before missing the camaraderie of co workers and mourning the fading connections with friends who have grown distant. You talk about it's a silent battle with loneliness behind closed doors. And parents are reluctant to expose their vulnerability in a society that prizes self sufficiency, selfless devotion to children, and the appearance of unwavering strength. You talk about how the situation is even worse for stay at home moms. They are more likely to experience sadness, anger and depression than employed moms. And that the notion of the stay at home mom squad is a myth. Half of the participants in the study when moms began to stay at home, experienced a reduction in their circle of mom friends after leaving the workforce and found it challenging to form new relationships as stay at home parents. Yes, it's so hard. You've got kids. I went to this play date one time and our oldest, I can't remember how old he was. He was like he was one maybe not yet walking though maybe like 14 months. And when you have your oldest, that actually seems kind of old because then you have a new baby and you're like 14 months seems old. Like they are, they're moving and all of these things. And we went to this playdate and he wanted something that another kid had and he screamed so much that he threw up all over me. And then we had to leave. I'm like, how are you supposed to build a friend in that environment? I was like, I'm getting puked on. I'm trying to like calm down. I had another baby too, so it is so, so hard. More than 1 in 10 stay at home mothers say they don't have any mom friends. Yeah, this is really important and it helps you to be seen and it helps you to know it's okay to talk about it. Parents are among the loneliest of adults.
- [49:32]
Isabelle Howe
Yeah, that was something that I but somewhat intuitive when I think about my own experience or, you know, when most, most of us moms are thinking about, about our own experiences, especially in the earliest years of life. But I was actually struck by this data generally, at least for me, a PhotoKV Lonius group is probably Elders, you know, that was my, you know, my thinking, but it's not. The loneliness group is mothers. And that, as you said on the societal norms, make it so difficult to admit that we are lonely because we need to show that we are those perfect mothers and that motherhood is this really joyful and a beautiful thing, which it is. But also admitting that there is these moments of loneliness, I think would help other mothers maybe relate to others or increase opportunity to maybe connect among us in different ways. I love, by the way, these. Whether it's playgroups, physical, if people can go and participate in those playgroups and social groups. But I also love those that are online. This organization called Peanut that was started in the uk, that's kind of a tinder for moms, where you can connect with other moms. I like those concepts of connecting with other moms and being more social and admitting also that this can lead also to many of us, if not most of us, if not all of us actually have gone through those moments of loneliness and sometimes at least to postpartum depression for some of us. Yeah.
- [51:16]
Jenny Yurich
What important things to talk about. I'm going to swing it back around here right at the end. The premise of the book is that relationships literally change your brain, that children who are loved become lovers of learning, and. And that touch changes the brain, that oxytocin changes the brain, and that learning is a social endeavor. And so I hope what I have highlighted is that you're going to get that. That's the main premise of the book. You're going to get that, but you're going to get all these other things as well. And that's what I wasn't expecting when I picked up the book. I was very excited to read it. And as I'm going through, I was like, oh, I didn't know that. And I didn't know that. And this is interesting. And here's a study I haven't heard of. So the way that you wove it together within this larger general topic of loving our children. You talk about feral children, ones that are raised, you know, it's very rare, but ones that have been raised by animals. I actually didn't even. I mean, you, like, you hear about that, but I was like, that's really happened. So you go through these different situations about the relationship piece and, well, let's just hit this last one because I thought it was so cool that learning is a social endeavor. We all think it's individual because we put kids at solitary desks and we, you know, we give them their AI tutor. And it's, it's individual, it's individual learning is improved by the mere presence of another person or even by the perception that another person is present. Babies who were in the presence of another baby learned more. And the more babies, the more they learn, learned. There is something about being in the presence of another human being that drives human learning.
- [52:56]
Isabelle Howe
I know this is so these, this is one study that actually love, it's older, but children watching Sesame street in front of a tv, they actually. So the research has shown that those children have learned a lot more in a mere presence of a. An adult next to them. And this is really interesting. It's. Our brains are wired for those social connections and learning is deeply relational. So love, connection and care, all those ideas, they are not soft. They are the foundation of development, of resilience, as we discussed, and of lifelong flourishing.
- [53:41]
Jenny Yurich
What a book. You nailed it. It's so good. It is called Love to Learn the Transformative Power of Care and Connection in Early Education. One of the favorite books I've ever read about child development, about family. And I think because it's so current, I was so impressed that you were able to hit on like what am I going through right now? It's all in this book you wrote. And this is from the Grant study, which has been around for a very long time. The key driver of human flourishing is close relationships. Social ties are a better predictor of a long and happy life than social class, IQ or even genes. And this is true across socioeconomic, gender and ethnic groups. Thank you for coming on. What a gift. I was thrilled to read the book. It was more than I could have imagined that it would be. There's so many things I didn't even talk about. You have been in a 20 year old book club that is still ongoing. You come from a family that is so prominent in education. Your mom and your sister have received the highest distinction in education in France. You yourself were a late. Late at walking, late at talking, late at crawling, late at everything. But then you graduated as valedictorian and attended Harvard. I mean, this is just an incredible story. We always end our show in the last few minutes here with a favorite memory from your childhood. That was outside.
- [55:00]
Isabelle Howe
That was outside. So I, I use. When I. When I was younger, we used to plant a tent in the garden. So we had this old tent that my dad had kept from his old Boy Scouts years. So very old. Okay. But anyway, it was still somewhat functional. And one of my favorite activities was installing that tent and then inviting a few friends for a sleepover in that tent. But you have to figure out the tent was literally just right outside in our little garden area. So just really, really fun moments and fun memories of playing outside with a tent concept as a meaningful place for discoveries and creativity and friendships.
- [56:02]
Jenny Yurich
Yes. And unstructured. Unstructured that you'll be out there with your friends. Unstructured. Thank you so so much for being here.
- [56:10]
Isabelle Howe
Thank you Ginny and thank you for reading the book for all your enthusiastism and also for having me on today. I want really loved how prepped you were and how far and how you coat with all the themes that I was hoping we would cover. So thank you Jeannie. It's really, really touching actually for me because really touching discussing about those very important ideas together.
- [56:34]
Jenny Yurich
Thank you. I I sincerely, sincerely loved reading it. I mean just a page turner. So thanks for what you put out into the world.