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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 471: Screens, Safetyism, and the Collapse of Parenting | Dr. Leonard Sax, The Collapse of Parenting
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- [00:01]
Jenny Ert
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- [01:46]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Thanks inviting me.
- [01:48]
Jenny Ert
Dr. Leonard Sachs, a board certified family physician, psychologist, author of many books, phenomenal, phenomenal books. You visited more than 500 schools worldwide. It's probably even more than that now. You've been all over the news and you've had all of these clients, these kids who have come through your doors. And so I would love to start there, Dr. Sacks, with what changes you have seen. I think it is such an important thing to talk to people who have were in a bubble. You have your own kids, you're in a bubble. You don't really know how it was 20 years ago when you were a kid because you weren't paying attention. You talk about very significant changes that you have witnessed over the past several decades. Starting in 1989, you've had hundreds of thousands of office visits. What are some of the main things that you have noticed that are changing?
- [02:39]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Well, one of the most striking changes is kids being disrespectful to their parents. It is now common for kids to talk back to their parents, to use bad language in the office, to not comply when their mom asked them to do something that would have been very unusual 20 or 30 years ago. And it's now very common. They learn this from. You know, I don't. When people look at the title of my book, the Collapse of Parenting, they often think I'm blaming parents. I'm really not blaming parents. I'm blaming the popular culture. One mom told me, she asked me about her 8 year old son. She said, you know, I don't understand where he's learning this. Her father and I never talk this way. And I said, does he watch Disney? Does he Watch Nickelodeon, Nick Jr? And she said, well of course. I said you got to lock that down. I'm not saying all TV is bad. Home and garden television isn't bad. But no more Disney, no more Nick Jr. And three, three weeks later she, she called me and she said it stopped. He was learning this from Disney and, and Nickelodeon. Kids are immersed in a culture beginning with Disney and Nickelodeon that teaches them that it's cute and funny to be disrespectful. And this wasn't characteristic of American culture 20 or 30 years ago and it is today. So again, the first chapter of my book, the Collapse of Parenting is titled the Culture of Disrespect where I explained a pair. I defended at length my claim that American popular culture, the culture of not only Disney, Nick Jr. But the culture of the most popular YouTube videos, TikTok videos, the most popular songs on the Billboard Hot 100. All across American popular culture, kids are taught that being disrespectful is cute and funny and cool. And parents need to understand this. They need to limit and govern and guide their kids exposure to this culture and teach them a different and healthier culture.
- [04:42]
Jenny Ert
And you wrote it is never acceptable for your child to be disrespectful to you. You talked about how this even contributes to weight gain. That there are a lot of factors here that a parent might not know. Why is it so important that our kids are respectful?
- [04:58]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Yeah. And I want to clarify that doesn't mean your kid has to agree with you. It's perfectly fine for your kid to say mom, Dad, I don't agree. I think you're making a mistake. And here's why teaching kids to disagree respectfully is a very important and useful strategy. But it's never acceptable for a child to say to a parent, you don't know what the you're talking about. That's never acceptable. And it's not acceptable because you know, you know, what is childhood for? What's the point? And when you ask a parent that, they'll say, well, it's about growing up, it's about maturing biologically. Well, that cannot be the right answer because a horse is a mature adult at 4 years of age and a horse is a bigger animal than a human. The Kentucky Derby is raced with three year olds, but a four year old human has barely begun. Humans are developing for more years than most animals live. Why? Well, we don't have to guess. We have scholars like Dr. Melvin Connor at Emory, who's devoted basically his career to addressing this question. He wrote this enormous book, 800 pages, Oxford University Press, the Evolution of Childhood, Comparing development in our species with development in other species. And what he and other scholars find is that development takes so long in our species because it takes many, many years for parents to teach kids what kids need to know. Or to put it another way, last year the comedian Bill Maher had a big bestseller. And in his book he said that young people are beautiful but stupid. Old people are ugly but more likely to be wise. So any successful culture will connect the beautiful young people to the wise old people. And that's how human civilization is built. The beautiful young people need to listen to the wise old people. And indeed, in all four of my books, I've consulted with comparative anthropologists. And what the anthropologists have taught us is that every successful civilization has strong bonds of respect. The kids are taught to respect their elders. And we used to do that. That was characteristic of American culture until really quite recently, but no longer. Lil Nas X had an enormous hit with his song Oldtown Road. And every American kid who speaks English at home knows this song. And again, I visit a great many schools and when I visit the kids, they all know this song. At assembly they can all sing along. Gonna my horse to the old town road. They all know this song was 12 weeks at number one spot on the Billboard Hot 102 Grammys, hugely popular. In this song, Lil Nas X sings, you can't tell me nothing. Can nobody tell me nothing? And that's the culture of disrespect in a nutshell. You can't tell me nothing. Can nobody tell me nothing? Well, if you can't tell me Nothing. Why go to school? Why learn about the War of 1812? Why go to church? You can't tell me nothing. That's the culture disrespect. The culture disrespect breaks the bonds across generations. John Haidt had a huge hit last year with his book the Anxious Generation and talks at great length about the rise in anxiety and depression in American kids over the last 15 years and notes quite accurately that that rise in anxiety and depression is also seen in Canada, in the United Kingdom and Australia, New Zealand. One thing he does not mention in his book is that that rise in anxiety and depression is not seen in Greece, is not seen in Russia, is not seen in Bulgaria, is not seen anywhere actually in Eastern Europe, where there's been no rise in anxiety and depression. Actually been a great rise in happiness among children, among young people, tweens, teens. Tweens and teens in Greece and Russia are just as likely to have smartphones and just as likely to be on smart social media as American kids are. But they're not anxious, they're not depressed. They're actually a lot happier than they were 15 years ago. And Derek Thompson made this point in an article he wrote for the Atlantic magazine titled America's top export is anxiety, which we export to other English speaking countries. And I wrote about this for the Institute for Family Studies in an article titled Toxic phones or Toxic Culture. Now, with all due respect to John Haidt, he's an atheist who lives in Manhattan and he loves American culture and he's, he doesn't see that it's not the smartphones, it's not the social media. Those, the smartphones and the social media are vectors. That means that they transmit the virus, but that the, the toxin is not the smartphone, the toxin is the culture. American culture has become toxic. It wasn't 30 years ago, it is now. And that's the point I'm trying to make in my book, the Collapse of Parenting. It's not the parents fault, it's the fault of a toxic culture. And so parents have to understand what is toxic about the culture. The culture of Lil Nas X and Drake and Kendrick Lamar and Bruno Mars. And you need to limit your kids exposure to this culture. You need to introduce them to a healthier culture. You need to understand what's going on.
- [10:47]
Jenny Ert
I was really blown away by when you talked about peer influence. This is something I'd never heard of, Dr. Sacks, or considered. So you talk in this book, the Collapse of Parenting, which is a wonderful book. All of your books are wonderful. You have Boys Adrift, the new edition is coming out next year in 2026, where you're adding information about Internet pornography, which is incredibly important. But you're talking about peer influence. And we are parents of teens and some younger kids. And you just sort of think, well, they're going to be off with their friends. They love to be off with your friends. And you are reminding, no, the parent child attachment has to be the first priority. Then you said this, and I have never heard this, Dr. Sacks, and it makes so much sense. These kids are on their phones. You have the, the data in here. I mean, it's exorbitant amounts of time that kids are on their phones, on their laptops, on their screens. They're at school for part of the time. They're just the parent. Child attachment just is not there, or at least as it used to be. And you wrote this, and I think this is so critical. Nothing in the world of children or teens is stable. And this is so true. We were all teens. I remember this. Everything can change in a day or a minute. As a result, when relationships with same age peers are paramount, kids are understandably anxious.
- [12:08]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Yep.
- [12:09]
Jenny Ert
So this is such a critical reminder to keep your relationship with your child, the parent child attachment, as first priority.
- [12:18]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Yeah, absolutely. When the relationship that kids have with other kids their own age becomes the most important things in their life, they become anxious and they, they become fragile. Because as you not that relationship can change overnight. And so kids are anxious and fragile. The parent child relationship has to be primary throughout the teenage years and should be.
- [12:41]
Jenny Ert
It's such a great reminder. The book is phenomenal. The Collapse of Parenting. Okay. One of the things you also talk about that you've seen a change in over the past 30 years is an increase in fragility. You say, I didn't see it 30 years ago. And you wrote this. If your daughter gets through elementary school without a sprained ankle or a scraped knee, that is a deprived childhood. This is strong language. These are the kinds of experiences kids need to become strong. Without them, kids are fragile. Fragility has become a characteristic of American children and teens to an extent unknown 30 years ago. The group of parents that are listening are parents who are trying to get their kids outside. It mitigates actually a lot of these problems. You're with your kids, if you're outside for about a thousand hours, outside with your kids for a year, you've got that bond, you're experiencing things together, you're having fun. But inherent in that is a lot of risk taking. And parents are scared of that. Can you talk about what's happening in terms of changes and why it matters?
- [13:47]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Yeah. Here's a point where I actually agree with John Haidt. In the opening of his book the Anxious Generation. He says a lot of American parents really have things backwards. They have over regulated kids time outdoors and they are signing them up for sports teams at 8 years of age so that kids are being coached by adults in what they're doing outside. But the parents don't let them have unrestricted, unsupervised free time outdoors. But the parents let the kid have an iPad at 8 years of age and he can do anything he wants with the iPad. And John Height points out quite correctly, I think that's exactly backwards. We need to let kids have unrestricted free time outdoors to do whatever they want outdoors with other kids or alone and just explore. And I know growing up in Ohio, many of my favorite memories as a kid are just wandering through the extensive park network, finding trails and just exploring the woods on my own without any grownups around. And that's much less common today. But those are the kind of things you need. And you might fall and you might get hurt. It's not that big a deal. You're not going to die. A few years back I visited a Waldkindergarten. So in Ober Ammergau in Bavaria in Germany, Wald kindergarten. That's an outdoor kindergarten. There is no classroom. The kids are outdoors every day all year round, including in the winter. And we're talking the Bavarian Alps. So it's cold, it snows. And Americans will say, you know, what do you do when it snows? What if there's a blizzard? And, and the Germans always say, which means there's no such thing as bad weather, just unsuitable clothes. And I have some great pictures. You know, the kids love, love snow because they make forts and they play. We don't like snow because we have to drive in it. But the kids love snow. They do have a little run in shelter in case thunder and lightning. They have a running shelter with a lightning rod. But otherwise they're outdoors all day, every day. And I have great photos of these kids climbing trees. You know, there's no net, there's no grownup and they might fall and they might get hurt. They're not going to die. These are the kinds of activities kids need to become strong. And I've got a presentation on this called Unfragile. You want your kid to become unfragile. And part of becoming unfragile is you get hurt and you recover. And one of those pictures, one of the pictures in my PowerPoint is my own daughter. When she was 8 years old, she climbed to the top of the jungle gym and she fell on her outstretched right hand and she broke her wrist. And the picture I have is of her admiring the cast which I applied the short arm cast, admiring the cast which I put on. And she recovered. And she's smiling as she admired her cast. And then More recently, at 16 years of age, she went on a 30 day H through the Wind River Wilderness of Wyoming. That's 30 days at 11,000ft. There's no Internet, there's no roof, there are no toilets. And the rule is leave no trace. This is a regulated wilderness, so when you need to poop, you dig a hole. I would pay a great deal of money not to go on such a trip. But the moment I told my daughter about it, she was gung ho. She wanted to go. And she did go 11,000ft, there's snow on the ground and there's no heat. You wake up, it's very cold. But she loved it and it really changed her. She came home and she said, I don't want to work indoors. I want a job where I work outdoors. And that was when she was 16. She's now 18. She's going off to college this fall and she wants to be a large animal vet. It really changed what she wants to do because large animal vet is a job where you're outdoors all day every day, Just about all day every day. We signed all kinds of waivers for her to go on that trip because kids have died. It's dangerous to be outdoors. There's thunderstorms. And they talk about how you try to protect yourself in a thunderstorm, but you don't have a lightning rod. In the Wind River Wilderness of Wyoming, you don't have a shelter. There is no shelter. You have a tent, but a tent is not fail safe protection from a thunderstorm. They talk about lightning position, as they call. They do the best they can, but it's dangerous. And you're climbing mountains made of granite. And she sustained some minor injuries, but she didn't die. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. As Friedrich Nietzsche observed. And that's a very robust truth. In order to become unfragile, you have to be willing to get hurt. And this is something that many American parents don't understand, you know, and, and I'm a family doctor and mom brings her daughter in, and she was her daughter was running around a playground and, and, and tripped and fell. And we have X ray in our facility and do the X ray. And I explained to mom that she did sustain a, a non displaced fracture of the distal fibula, a broken ankle. And mom is furious. And she's like, I'm not paying all this money for my daughter to get a broken ankle. And I said, look, if your daughter gets through elementary school and she never breaks an ankle or scrapes a knee, that is a deprived childhood. These are the experiences your child needs to become strong and she will recover and she'll be fine. Again quoting John Haidt and in this case his colleague Greg Luciano. If you don't want to fall into this culture of safety ism, term coined by Greg Lukianoff and John Haidt that's very common in the United States. By safety ism, they mean if any child might get hurt, then no child's allowed to do it. And again, I have visited a great many schools and I find many schools where administrators will say, if any child might get hurt, no child's allowed to do it. And playgrounds have changed over the last 30 years. They're removing the jungle gyms because a kid might get hurt. If any child might get hurt, no child's allowed to do it. Many schools now don't allow dodgeball because if any child might get hurt, no child's allowed to do it. Many schools now don't allow tag because a kid might get hurt. If any child might get hurt, no child's allowed to do it. You know, I have visited schools across Germany and German speaking Switzerland. German is my 1 language. And the difference is so profound, it's really culture shock for an American. When you visit a German or Swiss.
- [20:50]
Jenny Ert
School, this episode is brought to you by better help. You know, over the years, we've made some big strides in talking about mental health, but there's still work to do. A recent survey found that 26% of Americans avoid getting help because they're afraid of being judged. And that just breaks my heart because when someone is struggling and doesn't reach out, it doesn't just affect them, it touches their kids, their marriage, their work, everything. Mental health isn't just about major trauma. It's about learning how to set boundaries, how to cope in healthy ways, how to show up as the best version of yourself. That's something we all need, especially in the world we live in today. That's why I love what BetterHelp is doing. With over 30,000 licenses, licensed therapists, and more than 10 years of experience. They're helping over 5 million people worldwide connect with support in a way that's easy, affordable and completely online. And if it's not a great fit, you can switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. We're all better with help. Visit betterhelp.com 1000hours to get 10 off your first month. That's better help. H E L P let's keep breaking the stigma together. Vacation season is nearly upon us. We are actually spending a week at the ocean in South Carolina soon and I can't wait. This year I'm treating myself to the luxe upgrades with Quince's high quality travel essentials at fair prices. There are super cute lightweight European linen styles from $30, washable silk tops and comfy lounge sets. And they even have premium luggage options and stylish tote bags to carry it all. The best part? All Quince Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top 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. I can't wait to slip on their 100% organic cotton crew sweater and slide into their Italian leather platform sandals for those cool evening walks on the beach. For your next trip, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve from quince. Go to quince.com outside for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q U I N C E to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quinn's.com outside.
- [23:28]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
This episode is brought to you by Amazon. Sometimes the most painful part of getting sick is the getting better part. Waiting on hold for an appointment, sitting in crowded waiting rooms, standing in line at the pharmacy. That's painful. Amazon One Medical and Amazon Pharmacy remove those painful parts of getting better with things like 247 virtual visits and prescriptions delivered to your door. Thanks to Amazon Pharmacy and AmazonOne Medical Healthcare just got less painful. So I was accompanying Swiss kids, third graders, on a field trip into the Dolder Forest, which overlooks the city of Zurich. And the kids, you know, the wadschuler and the woman naturalist, is showing them around the forest and teaching them. And then it's time for lunch and she instructs him to take out their Swiss army knife, what we would call a Swiss army knife, and go and find a stick and sharpen the stick so they can roast their hot dog. Well, one Boy forgot his Swiss army knife and they didn't give him one, and they didn't give him a sharpened stick. And I have a great picture of him sitting. His punishment was to sit on a bench and eat crackers and watch as the other kids got to roast their hot dog over the fire. He was punished because he forgot to bring his knife to school. In this country, if you bring a Swiss army, if a third grader brought a Swiss army knife to school, he would be punished. But in Zurich, you are expected to bring your Swiss army knife to school every day at eight years of age. So things are really different. And I think in this country, we have in many, many, many schools this culture of safetyism where kids are constantly being told, if any kid might get hurt, no kid's allowed to do it. Kids are being told, don't do that, you might get hurt. Don't do that, you might get hurt. And the result is a lot of kids sitting at home looking at screens, playing video games and scrolling through TikTok who are risk averse. And the result of telling kids, don't do that, you might get hurt is kids who are timid and risk averse and anxious. And American kids are many times more likely to be anxious now compared with German kids. We have good numbers on this. There are many factors that I think account for that difference, but one of them is that in this country we have a culture of safety ism, which is certainly not the case in Germany. As I said, I have visited schools across Germany, and German schools are mindfully and intentionally building risk into their playgrounds. They've got very tall jungle gyms, whereas in this country we are removing the playgrounds because of fear of liability and cost and other factors.
- [26:09]
Jenny Ert
So good. The book is so good. And you include, and I thought this is a part that I have never heard anybody talk about, Dr. Sacks, that if parents don't come first, then kids become fragile. So that's a part of it too. And you talked about how most parents do not prepare their child in any serious way for disappointment, for failure, for heartbreak. One thing that's going on, the kids are not outside playing. Obviously, that's what we've got going on over here. The kids have to be outside playing. You have to set time aside for it. What's happened, and I've seen it, I've seen it as a mom, you know, of teenagers and from when I was a kid, is that we are taking the time that kids used to play and it either goes to screens or it goes to Extracurricular activities. So one of the things you talk about in this book in the collapse of parenting is the middle class script. And you say your job as a parent is not to reinforce the middle class script but to challenge it. Schools make kids more fragile rather than less. We have to prize failure. Can you just talk? Because what's happened is the parents are scared. They don't want to put their time toward.
- [27:18]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
All right, so what I mean by the middle class script. The middle class script runs as follows. Work hard in school to get into a good college. Work hard in college. Get a good job. Get a good job. Have a good life. That is what I call the middle class script. And the problem with the middle class script is that it is false. Work hard in school in order to get into a good college. Well, first of all, there's a lot of problems with that. First of all, I can tell you about kids who have worked incredibly hard and had their dreams set on a particular, particular college and didn't get in. Secondly, for years I have visited schools where they have said, hey, work hard and go into computer science. You're guaranteed a great job and you'll always have a great income. Well, wrong. Turns out that artificial intelligence can write code as well as most programmers. And now we've got a lot of unemployed coders. So that turned out not to be very good advice. And it turns out that we've got a real shortage of tradesmen, of carpenters, plumbers, mechanics. Maybe you don't have to go to college. Maybe there's another way to make a very good living which we're slowly waking up to. So that line number one of the middle class script has a lot of questions attached to it and is not as simple as it sounds. Work hard in college and get a good job. Well, there's, as I said, there's a lot of avenues to a good job besides working hard in college. Get a good job, have a good life. David Brooks has pointed out this is the fundamental lie of American popular culture right now, the notion that your happiness is a function of your income. It's not, not above a threshold of about $50,000 a year. If you're earning $10,000 a year and that's all you have, you're going to be unhappy because you don't. You're going to be hungry, you're not sure if you can put food on the table or support your family. But once you're earning 50,000 a year and living within your means self control, further increases in income. Do not Buy happiness. We have a great deal of research on this topic. The man earning 800,000 a year is not any happier than the man earning 80,000 a year. The man who earns 80 million a year is not any happier than the man earning 800,000 a year. And there's some interesting research on the super wealthy suggesting he may be less happy. Happiness is not a function of income, and yet American popular culture relentlessly tells us that it is. And David Brooks, I think, has made a very good case. This is the central lie of American popular culture, that more money buys more happiness and we need to fight back. And the final chapter of my book, the Meaning of Life, the final chapter in Book the Collapse of Parenting, is titled the Meaning of Life, where I say, you have to impart to your child your understanding of the big picture. Why are we here? What's the point? And it better be something better than getting into Stanford or earning a lot of money, because those answers will not satisfy. A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. That's a robust empirical finding. So you're going to have to come up with your answer. And I describe how I visited Shore School in Sydney, Australia. You know, I. When I meet with high school kids, I often will post. Well, I always post questions. And one of the questions often is, what's school for? And the kids will give their answer their version of the middle class script. They'll say, well, let's get to get in a good college. And I'll say, why do you need to get in a good college? They'll say, to get a good job. And I'll say, why do you need a good job? They'll say, to earn lots of money. I'll say, why do you need earn lots of money? And they'll say, to have fun. Who hired this guy? These are stupid questions. So Dr. Wright hired me to speak at his school, and of course, we'd worked out the agenda, and a big chunk of my time at the school was going to be meeting with the kids one grade at a time and asking them questions. So Dr. Wright said he picked me up at the airport and as we were driving in, he said, I want you to ask me the questions you're going to ask the students tomorrow. I said, all right. What is school for? And he said, school is preparation for life. It's not about getting into university. School is preparation for life. So I answered him as I would answer one of the students. I said, all right. What is life for? And he answered again. Without hesitation, he said, human life is for three things. Meaningful work, a person to love, and a cause to embrace. And I said, okay, that is an answer. I'm not saying it is the answer. I'm not saying you have to embrace Dr. Wright's answer, but you have to have an answer, an answer, and you have to share that answer with your kid. That's the point. That's one of the points I make in, in my chapter, the Meaning of Life, the closing chapter of my book, the Collapse of Parenting. You have to share the big picture. Why are we here? Because if you fail to do that and you're pushing your kid to work hard to get to do well in school, without that big picture, working hard for a good mark just becomes a race to nowhere, to borrow the title of a documentary, making that point. And the result is kids who are anxious, depressed and disengaged. If you are, you know, just pushing kids relentlessly. If, if you're the just pushing kids without a break. But you can't be the Irish setter dad just letting kids do whatever they, they want. Unless you have first educated desire. Because researchers find if you just let American kids do whatever they want, what girls want is social media and what boys want is video games and pornography. You have to educate desire so that kids want something better and more lasting than social media, video games and pornography.
- [33:42]
Jenny Ert
Your job as a parent is not to reinforce the middle class script, but to challenge it. The rules for success in life are different from the rules for getting admitted into a top college. Let's talk about the pornography and the video games. And this is going to be also, this is in your book Boys Adrift. And then the new version is going to include Internet pornography. One of the biggest things that you talk about is motivation, that pornography and video games undermine real world motivation and what the consequences of that are. One of my favorite sentences in the book Dr. Sachs was when you know, you're dealing with all these parents and they have different, you know, I use this filter, that thing, and you wrote that's very 2007 of you. But basically like, there's a lot more going on, things have changed. There's artificial intelligence, there's AI, girlfriends, parents have to be up to speed on what's going on. Can you talk about this overarching concept of how both of these things affect a boy's, a teen boy, a preteens boy, motivation and why that matters?
- [34:46]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Yeah. So men have been motivated really for most of recorded history by the drive to achieve, to impress their peers. To accomplish, number one and by the drive for sex to, you know, have sex with a woman, number two. Video games have gotten so good. A game like RDR2 earned more money, incidentally, than Avatar. The top grossing movie of all time also costs more money than Avatar to make. It's a phenomenal achievement. You are immersed in a fascinating world as the Wild west is becoming civilized, as the Wild west is changing into what we would recognize as a civilized community. And you have to decide how you're going to live. Are you going to be an outlaw? Are you going to be a good person? It takes about 40 hours to play the game and to achieve the missions. And when a boy has completed all the missions, it's a tremendous sense of accomplishment. It gives you that sense of achievement. You feel like you've really achieved something, but you haven't. You've played a video game, but it is so realistic. And your actions in the game have consequences. If you treat your horse well and it runs off, it will return to you. If you don't treat your horse well and it runs off, it will not return to you. And the same is true of every person you engage in the story. It's phenomenally well done. It's a real world, except that it's not. It's a virtual world. It's fake, but it feels so real. And boys lose themselves in these worlds which come to matter more to them than the world of Spanish grammar and algebra too. It is now very common to find boys who care much more and their whole peer group cares much more. If you complete all the missions in RDR2, you will greatly raise your status in the eyes of your peers. If you get an A instead of a B in Spanish grammar, you may lower your status in the eyes of your peers. Because doing well in school now has come to be seen as unmasculine for white, black and Latino boys in this country. And I document that at some length in in Boys to Drift. So that's a problem with video games and likewise with pornography. And I documented this in the the current ie second edition of Boy Strip. Because, you know, porn has been with us for a long time.
- [37:37]
Jenny Ert
Subtle results. Still you, but with fewer lines. Botox Cosmetic out of Botulinum toxinae is a prescription medicine used to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow's feet and forehead headlines look better in adults.
- [37:51]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
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- [38:34]
Jenny Ert
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- [38:39]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
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Jenny Ert
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Dr. Leonard Sachs
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Jenny Ert
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Dr. Leonard Sachs
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Jenny Ert
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Dr. Leonard Sachs
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Jenny Ert
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Dr. Leonard Sachs
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Jenny Ert
Are you looking for your new favorite podcast that's both entertaining and will challenge you in your walk with Jesus? Hey, we're Mac and Kenz from the for the Girl podcast. Every Tuesday we break down everything that we wish someone had told us in our 20s, from faith and relationships to wild career transition. We're getting real about all of our mess ups and the things God has.
- [39:29]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Taught us along the way.
- [39:31]
Jenny Ert
Think of us as your hilarious weekly dose of honest conversation with your Internet besties who've been exactly where you currently are. So come check out for the Girl on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen to podcasts. And make sure to click follow on our show so that each new episode is dropped right into your personal feed.
- [39:56]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Now the new edition, we explore some really scary things going on with Internet pornography and virtual reality and AI girlfriends that I don't talk about in the second edition. But there was plenty about porn in the second edition because, as I said in the second edition, boys have traditionally been motivated to impress girls. But the porn has gotten so good and so realistic and so inexpensive or free that, you know, college administrators have told me, you know, we've had a traditional spring dance for years, we're canceling it because the boys have no interest. They'd rather stay in their dorm room and masturbate over porn. You know, there's a Very useful book that I'm recommending for parents who are trying to understand this, called your Brain on Porn, where they cite a urologist who says, you know, medical research tends to lag many years beyond the reality. It'll probably be 20, 30 years before the research catches up, by which time half the men will be incapacitated. We now have a growing proportion of boys who would prefer. Well, I'll tell you a story from my own practice. Tell you a story from my own practice. So mom confronts her son and says, what's the story? You wake up late every morning. You work a few hours a week at the coffee shop. You're 28 years old. You don't have a real job. You don't even have a girlfriend. And he laughed and said, well, I used to have a girlfriend. Then she found out I only worked a few hours a week at Starbucks. She dumped me. And mom was like, well, duh. What woman wants to be with a man who's got no ambition beyond working a couple hours a week at Starbucks? She insisted he come see me. He was fine with that. So I asked him about his girlfriend. And she. He said she was fat. She wanted me to take her places, do stuff. 1995amonth. I said, wait, I don't follow. What's 1995amonth? And he mentioned a porn site. And he said, and the girls are way prettier. I said, wait, those are not girls. Those are pictures, pixels on a computer screen. Wouldn't you rather be intimate with an actual woman? He said, no. And this is now common boys who would rather masturbate over pornography rather than be intimate with an actual woman. And I talked about that in the second. The current edition of Boys Adrift, because that was a thing 10 years ago when I was writing the second edition. It's gotten a lot worse for the third edition because the porn has gotten a lot better, a lot more addictive with virtual reality, which I did not discuss in the second edition. And. And which just takes everything to a whole new level.
- [42:40]
Jenny Ert
Yes, you could have an AI girlfriend.
- [42:42]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
And an AI girlfriend, which is a second. A separate issue. A separate issue.
- [42:47]
Jenny Ert
Yeah, we've talked about that on this show because we have a friend of ours who is an adult man, married, who has done testing for it because he works for an AI company. And he said the emotional attachment that you end up with, with that AI girlfriend, even though you know in your mind that she is fake, is unfathomable. And she always thinks you're funny, and she never forgets to ask you how your day went. And you can make her look however you want and sound however you want. It's wild to think what the ramifications of all of this will be.
- [43:15]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Yeah, well, and it's not expensive. So you can work a few hours a week at at Starbucks and live at your parents house. And your, your earnings from Starbucks will be sufficient to pay for your AI girlfriend and your virtual reality porn and your video games. And some of the boys don't see a problem with it. Other boys do. And these boy men in their mid-20s, early-30s become very depressed because they're like, I've ruined my life. But I feel helpless. I am helpless to do anything about it. I cannot do anything about this porn addiction. I cannot do anything about this video game addiction. I've ruined my life. I dropped out of college years ago and there's no point in trying to go back now. I'm done. It's very sad. It's not easy to intervene at that point.
- [44:12]
Jenny Ert
The book is called the Collapse of Parenting. And you are very straightforward in this book. You say, because you've seen it. You've seen the decades of change. You say, do not put your kids in jeopardy. You say, do your job. Three words, do your job. And you talk about now. There's a lot of parental peer pressure. There's parental peer pressure. You told the story. It was. There's parental peer pressure. This was a crazy story. There was a parent who did not give their daughter a phone. I'm not sure the age, but no, she's not having a phone. And there was parental peer pressure to the parent that was like, why don't you just get your phone? What are you doing? And you wrote this. If you live in the United States and you want your child to grow up to be happy, productive and fulfilled, then you will have to parent your child in ways which are different from those of your neighbors. Your neighbors may not understand. They may whisper to one another about how strict you are. You will be so uncool. Do not be intimidated. You have to be courageous for the sake of your child so that he can grow up to be brave and humble like you. To become a better parent, you must become a better person. Can you give us the charge here? We need it. We can't be back in 2007. We can't be doing things like, you know, you talked about. These kids are coming into your office, they're uncomfortable. The parents shoving a screen in their face. And the kid is learning that if they're uncomfortable you turn to a screen. If you're stressed, you turn to a screen. You use the smartphone to change the baby's diaper to calm a child down. I mean, this is the book that says, look, you had your children. This is on your shoulders. You have to rise to the occasion.
- [45:58]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Yeah. Just to clarify for people listening, a mom with a baby said, I don't understand how you guys did it before smartphones. I said, did what? She said, change a diaper. And I said, you need a smartphone to change a diaper. And she said, oh, absolutely. She said, when I'm changing my baby diaper, I turn on the spongebob Square pads. One of the TV shows, not the movie. And he just loves it and just really helps him settle down. I prop it up so he can watch it. And I took a deep breath and I said, look, I understand changing a diaper is mildly stressful, but this is a great time for you to bond with your child as you're changing the diaper. You can make your funny faces, you can do your sound and make your eye contact and communicate to your child. Okay, this is mildly stressful. But you and I, we can get through this, you and me, by playing a video you're teaching your child when you're stressed, look at a screen. Do not send that message. And in the collapse of parenting, I cite many studies, we now have many studies, which I cite, showing you that when parents do that, when they put a screen in front of their kids when they are stressed, those kids will be more impulsive, more anxious, less able to control their feelings. Two years down the road, we now know this. We've already got the research. Don't do this. Do not use a screen to settle an anxious child. It's a terrible, terrible habit. Don't do it.
- [47:37]
Jenny Ert
Yeah. So these are the things. And you tell us, and you also talk in this book, which is wonderful. This is a great fit for this audience to go outside. You wrote, the biggest change is simply that many American kids today would prefer to play with an electronic device rather than going outside to play hopscotch or jump rope or dodgeball. And you use this phrase, and you brought it up earlier, I love this phrase, Educating desire. You also talked about family meals, and I didn't know this. Dr. Sacks, you say every meal counts. If it's six over five in a week, that extra meal matters. And you wrote, I think parents are making a mistake. The family should be a higher priority than the after school class or the sport. Can you talk about how we should be Setting up our family life.
- [48:25]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Yeah. So my brand, if you like, is evidence based. When I make a claim, I'm always going to provide you a study. And in that chapter, I cite a study by Frank Elgar and his colleagues where they interviewed more than 10,000 adolescents coast to coast and asked them, in the last seven days, how many evening meals have you had at home with at least one parent? 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7. And then for each of these 10,000 plus kids quantified factors like anxiety and depression. And they found a huge effect, not just from zero to seven, but at every step along the way. Comparing five eating meals a week with six evening meals a week, going from five to six, they found a significant decrease in anxiety and depression. So, yeah, you gotta fight for every eating meal at home. And you know, I see these parents picking their kids up in Caroline and going from school to travel, team soccer to computer coding class, and the kids gonna eat a sandwich in the car going from one activity to another. And the unintended message the parent is sending is that being amazing and doing all these activities is more important than a relaxed meal at home with family. Do not send that message. Cancel computer coding class. It's more important to have a relaxed time at home with family eating around the dinner table than doing all these extracurricular activities. This is not a guess. We know this.
- [49:44]
Jenny Ert
What about hands on experiences?
- [49:47]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Well, outdoors. And again, throughout the book, I'm citing research showing that just being outdoors and connecting with outdoors has tremendous value. Less time indoors, less time looking at screens, more time outdoors, more time in nature improves mental health for everybody, but especially for kids.
- [50:08]
Jenny Ert
Your mom bucked the system. I loved reading about your mom. You wrote about her in the collapse of parenting. Dr. Janet Sachs graduated in 1953 from the case Western Reserve School of Medicine. She was one of just two women in the graduating class of more than 100. And you talk about how, what would she think? You know, what would she think of the AI girlfriends? And what would she think of this rise in Internet pornography? But I was really impressed and intrigued that she bucked the norm. She did something that other people were not doing. And I think that is one of the key pieces in this day and age is that we have to be brave enough to do what other people are not doing. What advice do you have for the mom that's scared to do that?
- [50:53]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Courage. So I talk a lot about the virtue of courage. Courage means that you recognize your shortcomings and your inadequacies and your failures and you find the strength to push forward. Anyhow, none of us are, you know, super men or super women. But you have to find the courage for the sake of your kid. And you quoted the last chapter of the book where I said that in order to become a better parent, you have to become a better person, which is not easy. You have to. And I acknowledge in the last book that I have many failings, recent failings, and you have to be gentle with yourself and accept your failures. But you have to also insist on trying again and pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and start all over again.
- [51:47]
Jenny Ert
I think a book like yours is so important. I know the message. I just read this book recently where they were talking about how the messages from screen manufacturers and just the messages that coming, that are coming through screens in general are relentless. They never stop. The computer never sleeps. We grow weary. And so to me, picking up a book like the Collapse of Parenting or Boys Adrift, any of your four books, it's just that reminder. It gives you that resolve, and you're so direct about it. And I so appreciate that. You talk about conscientiousness. That's something else that's in the book. People should pick that up. Intelligence does not predict happiness. You talk about the importance of conscientiousness and why that is a predictor of happiness and success in life. You wrote, many parents act as if good grades and test scores are the best measures of achievement and the most reliable key to future happiness. But they are mistaken. And you wrote, find a different perspective. Boast about how you and your child spent an afternoon lying on the grass, looking up at the sky, trying to find shapes in the clouds or, what a book. What a phenomenal book. And what an honor, Dr. Sachs, that you said yes. I'm so excited. So, so excited. I'm so thrilled and pumped that this new version of Boys Adrift is coming out. Parents need it. Read the original one. And then this new edition coming out next year will include more about Internet pornography. We always end our show with the same question. The question is, what's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside?
- [53:21]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
My favorite memory was when my girlfriend and I, Kathy Gray, spent a day outdoors at Shaker Lakes at 14 years of age. That was 50 years ago. And last April, my wife and I met with Kathy and her husband at her home in Scarsdale, New York, to celebrate that on our 50th anniversary of that day in Shaker Heights, Ohio, in 1974.
- [53:53]
Jenny Ert
I love the answer. It's very unique. Dr. Sacks, these books are phenomenal. Thank you so much for giving your time and for helping all of us be better parents in this day and age. Thanks for being here.
- [54:04]
Dr. Leonard Sachs
Thanks for inviting me. Are you hungry for guidance about mindset, relationships, health, finances, career decisions and dealing with your past? I'm Trey Tucker, licensed therapist and speaker and host of Rugged, a podcast where I help young men and women navigate life's challenges and find solutions to help them live lives of service and meaning. In this podcast, you'll learn mindset strategies to harness your thoughts and emotions in ways that help you achieve your goals. I bring a blend of straight talk and empathy, and I'm open to addressing any topic and treating it and the people connected to it with respect and curiosity. Come join us. We have a space for you. Search for Rugged with Trey Tucker wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure to hit the follow button so new weekly episodes will be delivered straight to your personal podcast feed. My hope is that this podcast will leave you feeling encouraged and empowered to take charge of your life and close the gap between who you are and who you want to be.
- [55:11]
Jenny Ert
Hi dear one. I'm Dr. Edie Wadsworth, your new favorite Christian life coach, and I want to invite you to the House of Joy podcast. If you're a woman over 40 or the daughter of one who wants to build a positive mindset, healthier habits and thriving relationships, this is the show for you. We talk about personal growth, faith resilience, and creating a life you're obsessed with. So if you're tired of feeling stuck and ready to step into more joy and purpose, come join us. Listen now wherever you get your podcast.