Understanding the Kids Who Challenge Us Most

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Understanding the Kids Who Challenge Us Most"

Podcast: This Is So Awkward
Hosts: Dr. Cara Natterson & Vanessa Kroll Bennett
Guest: Dr. Doug Bolton
Episode Date: August 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Dr. Doug Bolton, psychologist, educator, and author of Untethered. Bolton draws from decades of experience working with children at the edge of educational and emotional systems—those often seen as the “final stop” in their educational journeys due to behavioral, academic, or social challenges. The episode explores the roots of challenging behavior, community and belonging, attachment theory, and practical, compassionate strategies for parents, educators, and trusted adults.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to Doug Bolton and Untethered

• Both hosts express immense admiration for Bolton's book, calling it a “game-changer” in parenting literature.
• Their excitement sets the tone: “It literally changed how I parented my kid in the midst of reading this book.” (Vanessa, 04:15)

2. The Power of Community and Belonging (08:41–13:00)

• Doug’s Educational Framework:
  • North Shore Academy’s “zero reject” policy: every student stays, creating powerful, long-term support opportunities.
  • “When you don’t have the option of quitting, it’s amazing how resilient you can be…how transformational the work can become.” (Doug, 09:27)
• Evolutionary Function of Community:
  • Humans survived by bonding in communities—modern society’s focus on competition and scarcity undermines this innate need.
  • “As a result, we find ourselves more in competition with…even our good friends than we do in collaboration.” (Doug, 12:24)
• The “loneliness epidemic” affects all children, not only the most challenged.

3. Attachment Theory and Its Real-Life Impact (18:08–22:48)

• Real Attachments, Real Consequences:
  • Attachment is about building felt safety in relationships—starting in utero.
  • Insecure attachments early in life create “templates” that can require years to rewrite; repetition of healthy, safe connections is critical.
  • Example: Student with severe behavioral challenges eventually says, “When I walk into North Shore Academy…I feel like I’m walking into a hug.” (Doug, 21:35)
• Key Takeaway:
  • "We need to be resilient as adults to stick with kids…as much as [they] push us away, we can stay connected." (Doug, 22:44)

4. Navigating Nontraditional or Stressed Family Structures (28:16–31:20)

• Family structure (adoption, divorce, remarriage) inherently can create hurdles to attachment, but insecure attachment is “not a life sentence.”
• Advice:
  • Continually “remodel” attachment systems with “doses of connection.”
  • “Don’t just do something. Stand there.” — sometimes just being present is the best support.

Notable Quote:

“Insecure attachment is not a life sentence. It’s a constant remodeling of our attachment system.”
— Doug Bolton, 30:10

5. The Imperfection of Experts (32:20–37:09)

• Doug shares personal struggles as a parent, despite professional expertise—his own children and adoption journey brought unpredictable challenges.
• Vulnerability is key: “I wanted to make that struggle real. And it’s okay, it’s part of the process.” (Doug, 34:23)
• The difference between supporting other people’s kids (professionally removed) and remaining regulated at home—with your own children—is huge and common.

6. The Stress Response, Dysregulation, and the Brain (41:51–47:14)

• Brain Science Simplified:
  • Limbic system (alarm system) overrides the prefrontal cortex during stress, making rational or empathetic responses (from kids and adults) nearly impossible.
  • “Our brains are really built for survival…not built for rational thinking.” (Doug, 43:58)
• Recognizing that both adults and children become less flexible, less empathetic, and less capable of problem-solving when stressed.
• Notable Moment: Vanessa confides, “My stress response initially was as if the world was coming to an end…Kids do well when they can…What can I give this kid to set them up for success?” (Vanessa, 47:14-49:25)

7. From Punishment to Curiosity: Reframing Problem Solving (49:25–55:42)

• Ross Greene’s Mantra:
  • “Kids do well if they can. Doing well is always preferable to not doing well.”
• Urgency and exaggeration are natural parent reactions under stress, but the best approach is curiosity: What’s the impediment to success? What stress is present?
• Practical Shift:
  • Rather than asking, “What can I take away?” ask, “What can I put on the table? How can I help?”
  • “Misbehavior is stress behavior." (Doug, 51:35)
• Model accountability and recovery instead of demanding forced apologies or meting out “natural” consequences that aren’t truly natural.

Notable Quote:

"When a kid is struggling, I think about two things. I think, what would I need if I was in their situation? And what can I put on the table instead of what can I take away?”
— Mike Lyons (quoted by Doug), 53:25

8. Strategy Speed Round (56:01–66:56)

• Predictability:

  • Predictable schedules and emotional responses make kids feel safe (“…our nervous system can be more aware of other things.” Doug, 56:55)

• Punishment vs. Accountability:

  • Punishments can work in the short run but don't foster community or future-oriented thinking. “Accountability is: I’m taking responsibility for what I’ve done—punishments are just about doing what someone makes you do.” (Doug, 59:21)

• Forced Apologies:

  • “Terrible idea.” They encourage cynicism. Instead, model empathy and allow space for genuine reflection and amended behavior.

• Natural Consequences:

  • Let kids learn from true natural consequences where safe; support them in coping with distress, but don’t overwhelm.

• Intervening:

  • Use the “Goldilocks” approach: not too much, not too little support. Give enough help to avoid drowning, but let real learning happen.

9. The Gift of Time and Developmental Empathy (64:05–66:56)

• Children’s brains—especially prefrontal cortex—are far from fully developed, often into their late 20s.
• “We'd never put a kid on a behavior plan to grow facial hair—so why do we expect developmental skills before they're ready?” (Doug, 65:32)
• Pushing kids to do things that outpace their brain development leads to stress and, ultimately, many of the crises observed in educational systems.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “A lack of belonging can be lethal.” (Doug, 27:55)
• “Don’t just do something. Stand there.” (Doug’s daughter, 31:03)
• “We don’t have access to our best thinking when we feel some level of threat.” (Doug, 44:38)
• “Misbehavior is stress behavior.” (Doug, 51:35)
• “Accountability is really, I’m taking responsibility for what I’ve done…Punishment is: I’m going to do what you tell me I have to do.” (Doug, 59:21)
• “We would never put a kid on a behavior plan to grow facial hair. So why do we expect developmental skills before they're ready?” (Doug, 65:32)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [08:41] ‘Zero Reject’ Therapeutic Schools & Community
• [11:20] Why Community is Crucial for Kids’ Wellbeing
• [18:08] Attachment Theory Explained for Modern Families
• [30:10] Adoption, Family Complexity & Attachment
• [32:46] Parenting Imperfections—Even for Experts
• [41:51] The Brain on Stress & Why Kids Can’t ‘Just Listen’
• [49:25] Reframing From Discipline to Curiosity (Kids Do Well If They Can)
• [56:01] Speed Round: Predictability, Punishment, Accountability, Natural Consequences
• [64:05] Brain Development & Why Time is an Ally

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Tone & Closing Remarks

The episode is compassionate, vulnerable, and full of practical wisdom—mixing science, lived experience, and humor. Doug’s central message is to prioritize connection, manage your own (adult) dysregulation before addressing kids’, and extend grace—for your children and yourself.

“We all need a rope...At some point, they won’t need the rope. At some point… But don’t they always need the rope?”
— Cara & Vanessa, 55:42

Final Recommendation:
Buy, borrow, or read Untethered for grounding, science-backed, and profoundly empathetic insights on supporting the kids who challenge us most.

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Transcript

[Doug Bolton]

I'm Gwen Washington from Snap Judgment, the storytelling podcast from kqed. Imagine an iconic piece of paradise overrun by one of the most horrific fires in recent memory. Everyone flees. Everyone except one person who decides to fight the flames alone. The moment when nature, institutions and technology fail at the exact same time. That's all. Systems down and new Snap Judgment miniseries from kqed. Tap to listen now.

[Vanessa]

Cara we're re releasing this episode with Doug Bolton because his book was really one of the most moving and powerful kind of parenting trusted adult books we have ever read. And I can speak for both of us in this because we've shared our reaction to it and landed at the same place. And also his advice on this episode, in the wonderfully calm, thoughtful and vulnerable way Doug both writes and speaks, is about dealing with the situation when our kids are challenging us in the hardest ways, when our students are frustrating us, when we feel like we don't know where to turn and our instinct is to kind of punish. And that's not what Doug recommends.

[Cara]

So for the uninitiated, Doug is a psychologist, he's an educator, and now he's an author. And what he really focuses on is helping us to understand how to connect with kids rather than to punish or discipline them. Not that there's no space for discipline, but what happens when you prioritize connection over that more negative framework. And he's incredibly compassionate in his delivery of the information, whether you're reading it in his book Untethered or you're listening to his spoken words on this episode. Vanessa I know everyone in our audience has been so moved by how he describes belonging, community, relationships as a sort of a framework for getting through dysregulation. So we are replaying it for anyone who needs another dose of it or for those who have never heard it before.

[Vanessa]

Hi, Cara.

[Cara]

Hi, Vanessa.

[Vanessa]

So every once in a while, a book comes across our desk that changes our lives. And Doug Bolton's book Untethered, sent to us by our shared agent, the wonderful Heather Jackson, is one of those books.

[Cara]

We're going to keep the intro short and just get to the episode, but here's a little bit of Doug's cred so that you can actually understand where he comes from and why his advice is so salient. So Doug is a PhD clinical psychologist and he's an educational leader. He has been in education since 1987 and focused on students with social, emotional and behavioral challenges. And he's worked in a number of therapeutic schools, both as the school psychologist and as principal, namely North Shore Academy, which is a K12 public therapeutic school on the North Shore of Chicago. And in addition to his work in schools, he is also a therapist who works in private practice. He now consults. He's no longer the head of school. He now consults with schools and school leaders. He is so thoughtful and comes by this advice, which is built on decades of experience in a way that really will benefit everyone who is listening to this episode.

[Vanessa]

And I'll just say, it literally changed how I parented my kid in the midst of reading this book. In the most wonderful of ways, it changed what I did. So it's a long episode. Feel free to pause, come back to it, but listen to the entire episode. I promise it is worth it.

[Cara]

Hi, Doug.

[Doug Bolton]

It's so good to be here. Hi, Kara.

[Cara]

Okay, I'm starting with. With a story that you know, but our listeners don't know. But I think it will contextualize how obsessed Vanessa and I are with this book. And also a little bit of the why. This whole episode is going to get people to the why, because I am confident that as soon as you start to open your mouth, they're gonna become equally. They're going to be fanimals. Okay, so here.

[Vanessa]

Did you just.

[Cara]

I sure did. I made that. So here's the story. My agent. Your agent reached out and said, I'd love you to read this book and say whether or not you'd like to blurb it. And this was embarrassingly long ago. I mean, maybe it might have been early fall, late summer. It was a long time ago. We are recording in February of 2025. And I said, of course, because she doesn't do it often enough that I worry about the quality of what she's sending. She only sends good stuff. So Vanessa and I were traveling across the country, speaking, and for whatever reason, it got missed. And she would send me these little emails every once in a while. Hey. Which is her way of saying, have you read the book? And I would say, hey. Which is my way of saying, I'm getting to it. I swear I'm getting to it. And then she sent me this email, and she was like, just so you know, the window has closed and you cannot blurb the book. And she's never done this before. So I picked up the book and I read it, and I could not stop reading it. I got on the phone with Vanessa. I was like, vanessa, this is truly, like, truly. I think the best book. We've read all. All the books in this genre, you go to this shelf In a bookstore, which might be called parenting or might be called something else. And, I mean, we've read every single. And I was like, vanessa, this is a game changer of a book. And I wrote a book.

[Vanessa]

And no shade to the other books that we covered and love, but, Doug, this is.

[Cara]

This is like, next level. I wrote an email to our agent, and I was like, I know I missed the window, but I literally down on my knees begging you, here is my blurb, please. And even if you won't put it on the book, which is fine with me, please just send it to Doug. And I didn't know what had happened until we scheduled this podcast, and I found out I made it onto your book cover, which I'm very excited. I think I'm on the back cover. And I'm very excited because it really is, like, I haven't felt this strongly about people knowing how much I loved a book in, I don't remember how long.

[Vanessa]

Years, probably not even about our book.

[Cara]

No, Doug, you've been our book.

[Vanessa]

Okay, so with that preamble, Doug, I mean, our listeners are all sitting here like, okay, great, Cara, we got it. Can we get to the. Can we get to the.

[Cara]

Yes to the.

[Doug Bolton]

Why?

[Cara]

You always say, explain why, Doug.

[Vanessa]

Tell us. People have heard your bio, but essentially your work for decades has focused on the kids. And I'm going to use a phrase, and you may correct me or edit it a little bit, but your work has focused on the kids who are kind of at the final stop. Like, you were sort of the last stop on their educational journey. And if it didn't work out with you and your community of educators, then that was kind of it, right? They were the kids with behavioral issues, addiction issues, violence issues. Tell us what it's like to be that person, to be that school, to be that community, to be that psychologist.

[Doug Bolton]

Oh, it's a great question, and thank you both for having me on. I'm just so thrilled. And I just want to say that the blurb you wrote, I loved it because you described the book I had hoped to write, if that makes sense. And so I'm really grateful for all of this, so thank you. I think it's a challenge as I think about how do we conceptualize how to support the kids who are on the fringes of our communities. And when I went to North Shore Academy, one of the things that was very clear and something that was new to me was that these were the students who couldn't make it in their home schools. And the real mission was to keep them in their communities. And so instead of what was in the last 20 years been zero tolerance policies in school, we had the opposite. It was a zero reject. We took every student that would come to us, and it was our job to stay with them and not to have them go to residential treatment outside of the broader community. Oftentimes those facilities are out of state. It's not that it never happened, but when you don't have the option of quitting, it's amazing how resilient you can be. And then it's amazing how transformational the work can become. That was the piece that was most striking to me was when you're able to hang with kids and families long enough and provide that support and community, it's amazing what can happen and what outcomes can happen. And I spent every day inspired by the strength of these students who walked through the hallways every day. And I think that the key piece then is not, you know, if you're an expert in cognitive behavioral therapy, it's not about any of that. It's about can you create communities for kids where they can be resilient. And in order to do that, you need to create communities for adults.

[Vanessa]

Doug, you talk about. So we're going to go broad first, and then we're going to really drill down into a bunch of terms and concepts that will help people appreciate how powerful your work is and your book is. But you talk about the importance of community to these kids, to all kids, as communities are disappearing and dissipating. So it's this incredible tension between something that is so important and yet has become so elusive for many people. Why is community so important for kids? Well, being.

[Doug Bolton]

It's deeply embedded in our evolution, this idea that we are community beings. And Jamil Zaki said, I can't remember exactly the quote, but, you know, we are not physically much to behold in the animal kingdom. And yet. And so the only way.

[Cara]

Speak for yourself, Doug.

[Doug Bolton]

So the only way that we could survive is as a community. I could sit there with fire and a spear and I would not be able to fend off the woolly mammoth or any of the other dangers. So we needed to come together in community. And as a community, we could do remarkable things. And so being disconnected triggers something very, very primitive in our biology that then triggers things emotionally that pulls us together. I think as society has shifted in so many ways, we've focused less and less on the power of community and begun, interestingly, I think, to engage more and seek. We've created more and more Experiences of scarcity, which pushes us to be competitive for these scarce positions, whether it be for our kids on travel teams, whether it be for slots in an AP class, whether it be for, you know, highly selective colleges. And as a result, we find ourselves more in competition with one another, even our good friends, than we do in collaboration.

[Cara]

So as Vanessa said at the top, your own professional experience is with kids who live on the fringe, who are at their sort of last stop on the educational journey before the journey ends and they get tossed out and essentially uneducated. And you write about them and you write about your experiences and you tell stories. It's really about all kids. I mean, there's nothing about what you describe that is anything less than universal. And I think the thing that makes that so is the loneliness epidemic. Right, Is exactly what you're describing is this sort of push away from community in the world where we're living that, you know, everyone has to fight hard to hold onto. And that's not always the primary value in a school, whether it's a school for kids who have struggled or whether frankly it's a high achieving school where kids are thriving and they're loving their educational journey. Still, community is not prized in the same way. So can we drill down a little bit? I have two questions actually. One is kind of what can the trusted adults, parents and trusted adults in kids lives do in order to help be in community with the school environments that the kids are in? And then second, and we can take the conversation in this general direction, how do behaviors become a symptom of disconnection and of lack of community?

[Doug Bolton]

Yeah, great questions in schools. I do a lot of this work now. I think that the mental health epidemic, there's a lot of reasons why there's a mental health epidemic. It's interesting if you track emergency room visits by week, emergency room visits for mental health, pediatric mental health, emergency room visits plummet when school's not in session and they skyrocket when school is in session. And even if you take a look at the week of Thanksgiving, which only has three days off, you still see that trend of those visits plummeting. And so schools have a role in this. And I think that there's been. And as we talk about scarcity and we talk about competition, schools are in competition with one another for test scores, countries are in competition for one another. Mental health and a sense of belonging in kids worldwide has plummeted in the last 10 or 15 years. And really you start seeing it happen in around 2006, which is, in my research, really corresponds to when we began to take test scores much more seriously. And all of a sudden, I think we went as schools to focusing on how do we help kids develop, to how do we help our test scores develop? And in doing so, and everybody in the community is drinking from the same water, whether it be students, parents, educators, the mayor, the real estate agents, want our test scores to go up because then housing prices go up. All of these things are signs of status. And it's not to say the data's wrong, that there's something wrong about collecting data. That's not it. But the piece that we forget, and I think is an important piece, is that we need to have connection in order to drive the data. What we know is that communities of belonging are what push the numbers. You need to feel a sense of belonging. You need to be emotionally regulated for your brains to open up so you can learn. And I think we've lost that.

[Vanessa]

Yeah, Doug, let's dive in there, because there's so many parts of your work that sort of upend what we imagine. You sort of are flipping paradigm after paradigm in terms of, like, the order of operations. And I just want to point out for our listeners that not only have you dealt with this journey that we're about to talk through as an. As a psychologist and as an educator in schools, but you've dealt with it with your own child, and you've dealt with aspects of this in your own story and your own history. And so the layer upon layer that you urge us to look at with the kids in our lives, you actually unpeel all of those layers yourself in the process of the book unfolding. And as everyone listens to this episode, I want them to keep in mind the unpeeling of their own onion as well, because we can't do this work. We can't be in this conversation. We can't guide and support kids without being aware of everything we bring to it in ourselves. And it starts, Doug, with attachment. And attachment theory is a term that I think they're, like, handing it out with, like, the Happy Meal at McDonald's. I mean, it's like everybody and their mother is talking about it. Half of the people talking about it are defining it incorrectly or partially or inaccurately. So let's ground the conversation in attachment theory and your definition of it and why it is such an important concept to this conversation.

[Doug Bolton]

Yeah. Thank you. So as I think about attachment, I think about our ability to make meaningful connections with one another. The challenge is that as we Take a look and dive deeply into the research on attachment. It begins in utero. Our ability to connect is done in. In so many different. There's so many different ways that. That we connect or that we get messages that being connected is not safe. So whether it be in. In our early lives. I think Bruce Perry talks about this beautifully in his work, is that these forms. Templates are our earliest relationships. Form templates for whether or not relationships were safe in the world or whether or not we need to be on guard, defended against relationships because they can cause us distress. And there's a conscious part of this, but so much of this is driven unconsciously through the kind of the parts of our more instinctive selves. And so what happens is, if we have early relationships that are full of conflict, full of fear, that those templates require more and more repetitions of connection, more and more repetitions of emotional regulation, regulated interactions, in order for us to be able to override those early connections. At North Shore Academy, where I was the principal and a school psychologist for years, that was really our work, was to try and give kids, many of whom who had early attachment challenges, to help them rewrite those attachment systems so that all of a sudden their nervous system could feel safer in relationship to other people.

[Vanessa]

Can you give an example of a kid? I mean, there's several in the book, but I just want to. I want to help people visualize someone as we begin to unpack these concepts.

[Doug Bolton]

There's one that I think of, and I don't even think he's in the

[Vanessa]

book, but I'll allow it.

[Doug Bolton]

Yeah, he was a young man. He came to us as a seventh grader. And you could tell that he had attachment issues from his file just by seeing who he was living with. He was living with his grandmother and his great grandmother. And so there's a story there about he's not living with either parent. And it turned out that one parent had significant mental illness and the other had been incarcerated. And he came to us and he was about as disruptive and aggressive and defiant as we've had in a seventh grader. And he very much struggled. And slowly, by the time he was in ninth grade, began to stay connected. In a lot of ways, I feel like with kids with attachment issues, it often means that they're going to push others away. It's hard for them to trust. And as a result, the stronger the trust issues, the harder they're gonna push away from those who are trying to reconnect. Cause it's a threat to them. And it takes these repetitions. And so by the time he was in ninth grade, he started to connect a little bit more. Was still wildly disruptive, but then started he had a substance use issue. And he left us to address that, his substance use. And he came back, and slowly, and this takes years, slowly, he was able to reconnect and quiet that nervous system. And so by the time he was a junior, he started taking classes back at his home school. And I'll never forget one of the things that he said was, I'm so glad I'm transitioning back to my home school. It's a bit like. But when I walk into that school, I feel like I'm a number. And when I walk into North Shore Academy, he says, I feel like I'm walking into a hug. Isn't that a great line?

[Vanessa]

Beautiful.

[Doug Bolton]

He ended up going to Northern Illinois University, where he majored in business administration. And he came back and he spoke at an assembly for everyone. And he was able to say, I don't know how you kept me here. And he finished his talk by saying how important this community was to him. And he bounded off the stage and he fell right into the arms of his seventh grade teacher, who had felt like she had failed him because it felt like by the time she had left, he didn't seem to have made any progress. She felt like she had no connection to him. And so then the story continues, because he reached out to me a few years ago and wanted to get a letter of recommendation for graduate school. And so he's gotten his MBA from DePaul. But the key thing is we need to be resilient as adults to be able to stick with kids in this way, and. And to make sure that as much as he pushes us away, we can stay connected.

[Cara]

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[Vanessa]

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[Cara]

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[Vanessa]

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[Cara]

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[Doug Bolton]

Yeah, you know, and I like to think about it as, one is good, many is better, right? And I think about attachment as our connection to one person, and belonging is our connection to a community. And I talk about one of our students in the very first page of the book. Seventh grader was struggling with drug use and oppositional behavior, refusing to do any work. He had a Gandhi esque approach to his defiance. He wasn't necessarily in your face with it, but he's like, you can't hurt me any more than I've already hurt myself. So everybody's efforts to punish him for this, he would just kind of say, bring it on. You want to give me one day of in school suspension? I'll take three. He was adopted and his parents divorced. And as I. As his story began to unfold, what I realized was he never felt accepted by his. By his stepfather. And his mother really struggled to know how to navigate that, and she had her own mental health issues. And so he was with us for about, for about a year and a half. And then he went to live with his dad. So he had to leave our school because it was in a different school district, went to a different home, a different school, ended up having to leave that school, went to another school. And you just get this picture of a young man who lives with that disconnect and disconnection and the drug use and the challenges. He was stealing, and by the time he was 17, he had a drug overdose. And I'll never forget the call from his dad. It was a voicemail. And he said, he said, douglas, our journey is over. And that was very meaningful to me. What it helped me realize is that a lack of belonging can be lethal.

[Cara]

I mean, I want to talk about for a second about family structure and both having a secure attachment within a family and belonging in a family. Because we get questions all the time about how different family structures impact kids. That story was the hook for me, partly because I come from a family structure where I have two adopted brothers and my parents divorced. And that first anecdote, it painted such a broad stroke. So many of my brother's friends who also were adopted, so many of my mom's friends who adopted kids have talked about attachment in the face of building a family in a slightly different way. And so I wonder if you can give a little bit of advice or insight to families who are looking for pearls. Whether your family is built through remarriage, through adoption, through surrogacy, these can all feel like hurdles to attachment, and they are. What is the best advice that you can give These families for navigating those hurdles so that they can connect in a meaningful way. Because my understanding of attachment is ultimately, it's showing up. I mean, that's like the most base level. If you show up, then the recipient on the other end will feel secure. They will feel like you show up. So I don't know if you have any advice for people who are afraid their kids are at the front end of that road that you just described. How do you redirect them?

[Doug Bolton]

I think it's Joan Alero who said, insecure attachment is not a life sentence. It's a constant remodeling of our attachment system. We're constantly going through it. I think one of the things that's hardest about when kids do experience attachment issues is that our way of dealing with that is to push others away as opposed to bringing people close, because it's the attachment itself that causes this very primitive level of anxiety for them. I like the. And I think, again, this is Bruce Perry's language. I think is we need to provide doses of connection and support. And so when you say showing up, what I think of is, it's not just showing up and having everything be okay. It's being able to stay and be present even when you're getting pushed away. It's the steadfastness. I guess the other thing that we can do is we can try and overwhelm them with our love and attachment, and oftentimes that'll push them away farther. So I like the idea of showing up, and I think I use this line in my book. My daughter actually shared this line with me. She said, don't just do something. Stand there. Right.

[Vanessa]

Yes, Doug. That's what's so important, because you get into the nervous system of it all.

[Doug Bolton]

Yeah.

[Vanessa]

Which I want to talk about. But I think this is a good moment for you to share, because people may be listening and they may be thinking, oh, well, he's so smart. And I'm sure he's the person. Perfect parent, because he has held fast to all these children who needed it. And he, you know, all these transformational journeys and all of that. And yet, as Cara and I talk endlessly about Doug, me, even more than Cara, is our imperfections as.

[Doug Bolton]

Yeah.

[Vanessa]

Parents. And you share that in the book. And so even knowing all of this. Right. Even decades of experience as a psychologist and an educator, when it came to don't just do something. Stand there. It was difficult for you, as it is incredibly difficult for the two of us.

[Doug Bolton]

Yeah.

[Vanessa]

What did you notice in your own family constellation. And listeners, please don't worry that I am delving into deeply personal topics with Doug that he doesn't want to talk about because he writes in great detail about this. So don't worry, I'm not putting him on the spot. What did you learn as a parent or what did you fail to learn as a parent that you knew as an educator and help our listeners understand. Don't just do something, stand there.

[Doug Bolton]

I love this question. You know, it's so funny. A number of people after they've read an early copy of the book said, how does it feel like having all that out there? You talk a lot about my own struggles as a parent. You know, my own struggles with attachment. You know, I think that my parents divorce. Before the divorce, I felt like I was in a, what felt like a very stable home. And then at age six, you know, just as, you know attachment can improve over time, there can also be these moments that really can undermine our attachment. So I think I was pretty securely attached until 6 and then I very quickly, as my, my dad left and my mom who hadn't been working before that went from being a stay at home mom to working full time and going to school to become a social worker. And all of a sudden the four of us kids were in many ways left to fend for ourselves, which we all survived. We're doing fine, but it wasn't pretty. And I think that at different points in time, you know, whether it be with, with my son Matthew, who, you know, struggled with executive functioning and then struggled in school in ways that helped made me feel powerless, that made me feel ineffective. We adopted my oldest daughter from, she was adopted, she had originally was born in Rwanda and has her own attachment story and I had my attachment story. And together those attachment stories, I think we triggered one another's attachment. And it, I learned a lot from my failures and I hope to write a book as I was writing it. I didn't want to shy away from that because I don't think any of this is easy. I don't think it's, it can be helpful to have the information, but it's also you can have the information but really struggle to show up. I guess I wanted to make that struggle real. And it's okay, it's part of the process. But we all are going to struggle and not to feel like, oh, if you just do it right, everything is easy. If you just know this stuff, read this book and parenting will be easy and it doesn't work that way. Right.

[Cara]

I Think I heard a little nod to your next book, which is very atypical as you're going out on book tour, thoroughly exhausted by writing your first book. So I give you a lot of credit there. But, you know, you're right. Of course, it's. There's also another layer for you, which is that people turn to you for expertise and advice at a really tricky time in their life. Like, it's not just like, you know, yeah, you're a run of the mill. Not that any educator is run of the mill. We worship educators. But, you know, you're kind of at a run of the mill school and everything's typical. You literally had the role of sort of saving kids who are hanging out over the abyss. And you're human, and it's not going perfectly in your own home. That feels very vulnerable, right? I mean, imposter syndrome is just the most benign way of describing at least how I feel in that scenario where people are asking me medical advice and my kids are, you know, not thriving because I missed something big. You know, how did you walk that tightrope?

[Doug Bolton]

I think the team that I worked with and the ability to know that it wasn't just me, and the ability to be able to laugh with people, to be able to develop relationships with parents and staff, and to know that one of the things that we really learned early on, and this is kind of an underlying theme of everything I think we've been talking about, is our own dysregulation. And typically the things that emotionally dysregulate us, I call them the holy trinity of dysregulation. But it's feeling disconnected, feeling powerless, and feeling devalued. And when I was at North Shore Academy, we had teams of people. So when I was feeling that way, there were always going to be other people who I could pass this off to. And it didn't have the same level of when a student is yelling at me, it feels really different than when my own child is yelling at me. And it just regulates me in a very different way. I think I was able to be present with students in a way that I wasn't able to be present at home because it cut deeper for me and triggered my attachment stuff more for me than it did at school.

[Vanessa]

I always say. I mean, I've coached thousands of girls in sports who are, like, just learning how to play sports, right? Which is, like, a very vulnerable moment. And I always say, like, I could go out there and coach thousands of them every day of my life and, like, never lose it. Give me 15 minutes with one of my own kids and it's like, 15. Yeah, I know, 15 on a good day. And it is. It's like somehow. I mean, not somehow. I'm sure there's all sorts of reasons, as you mentioned, why we are better with others who may be even more challenging than our own kids on paper, but feel much more challenging to us.

[Cara]

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[Vanessa]

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[Vanessa]

Kara and I spent a lot of time thinking about writing, about talking to audiences about how to support kids through mood swings, how to help them make better decisions, and kind of what happens in their brains as they're under construction and as they're sort of this hormonal stew and this all this wonderful, beautiful mess. But you talk about the stress response in all people and what role the prefrontal cortex gets to play or not play when we feel under threat and sort of what physiologically happens in the brain when our stress response kicks in and why the prefrontal cortex essentially gets kicked out of the process. Can you talk about that? It totally blew me away.

[Doug Bolton]

Yeah, you know, it was so helpful for me. And that was one of the exciting things about being at North Shore Academy while also learning about these things. It was just like, oh, there it is, right, that we had developed these systems of behavior and so we're going to punish you this way. And we were successful at it, but for all the wrong reasons. When we began to frame these behavioral concerns as regulation and not motivation, it really shifted things. And in order to understand regulation, you need to understand a little bit about the brain. And I think that there's the triune brain theory, which I find helpful. And I, you know, it's Way more complex than just three different layers of brain. But it's a great metaphor and I think it, it's held up over several decades in terms of, I think, a metaphor for how the brain works. But there's the cortex, and the prefrontal cortex is really the executive center of how we make our best decisions. There's the limbic system, which is really our alarm system. We think about that as more of the midbrain. And that's our, it's our alarm system. What it's really doing is saying, am I safe or not safe? Right. And if I'm not safe, then I'm going to trigger the nervous system, the brain stem, which then automatically creates this cascading of neurotransmitter hormonal activity that really triggers that fight, flight or freeze response. And so the other thing that the limbic system does that midbrain does is it stores emotional memories. It stores things that really tell us, are we safe or not safe. And our brains are really built for survival. They're not built for rational thinking. And what happens is the cortex is very slow. It's very slow. And you don't want to, to put your hand on a hot stove and think, oh, I smell something burning. I wonder what it could be, right? And like, what you need is something to pull that hand right off or the number of times like I'm biking and I close my eyes before I feel something hit. It's like there's a lot going on way outside of our conscious awareness. And our limbic system is constantly monitoring our environment to see if we're safe or not. And that's where our early templates from early childhood show up later on is in these embedded memories embedded in our limbic system. What ends up happening is that our body has to is totally geared towards fighting and fleeing. And so what it does is it shuts down those parts of our, those systems in our body that use up the most energy. And our brains are 2% of our body mass, but take up 20% of our energy. And it's like you could take a three hour test and be sitting there and come out exhausted. And it's like, oh, I've just been sitting there. It's because you've been using all of that energy. And the next one, the next system is our digestive system that shuts down so that we can have energy, so that our energy moves to our skeletal muscles and we can fight and flee. And so all of a sudden we talk about, you know, some ways we talk about as full brain and lower brain. There's all sorts of ways that we talk about it, but we're just not as. We don't have access to. To our best thinking. When we feel some level of threat, the goal then. And typically, unfortunately, our efforts then are to get kids to listen to it. You know, Then all of a sudden we try and access parts of the brain the child just can't access. Right.

[Vanessa]

Probably we also can't access.

[Doug Bolton]

We can't access it because it's really hard when you're with someone who's dysregulated. It's really hard to stay regulated yourself. I think there's been research on this, but I remember hearing Ross Green mention this one time. He's done some beautiful writing on the clever problem solving with kids. But he said, when we are melting down, it's like we've lost 30 IQ points. I'd say 40 for me. Right. I just make really bad decisions in those moments. And it's not that I want to, it's just that I can't access those parts of my brain that. That aren't that helpful. When we're running from a grizzly bear, it's not that helpful to be able to listen.

[Cara]

What's so crazy is I don't know about you, but I am acutely aware that I am making that bad decision while I am making it.

[Doug Bolton]

Yes.

[Cara]

Right. It's like my prefrontal cortex is doing something. It's telling me that. And I often think about, do kids have the gift of not being aware that it's a bad decision while they're doing it?

[Doug Bolton]

I hope so. I hope so. You know?

[Cara]

Right.

[Doug Bolton]

It is funny that it's harder to inhibit our impulses. Right. That's what you're talking about. We're not as flexible. Think about the last time you lost your temper. Like, I become remarkably inflexible. I think I'm a pretty flexible guy. But you dysregulate me and I become inflexible. I lose empathy. We lose language. The only words I can think of are four letters long. Right. And I feel like I've got to yell them because somehow that makes it clearer. Right. And so all of a sudden, you know, I just can't access these skills of being. Have. Having empathy because it's not when we're fighting a physical threat, which is the way our brains were meant. This is how our brains were meant to react. It's not helpful to have empathy for the grizzly. I hope the grizzly bear doesn't hurt itself while it's chasing me. No, that's it. Like, we don't. We don't want to be flexible because we got to choose one tack and go for it.

[Vanessa]

So, Doug, let's take a reframe on this whole thing. That's so funny. I have a fear of caterpillars. I don't know why that's, like, what I picture that I'm being chased by which, like, hopefully I could outrun a caterpillar. No, I think I'm good. But, like, for some reason, that's my fear animal. Okay, so what I took from the book, so many things, but one of the things I took from. And you're actually quoting somebody else, but it's in the context of this conversation, right? Everyone's dysregulated. We're going straight to the four letter words and the shouting and the punishments, right? And we're locking stuff down and we're losing it, and we're. Disconnection is rampant, right? And then there's this sentence, which is, kids do well when they can. And I will tell you that you're reading your book couldn't have come at a better time, because I had a situation with my own kid, and my initial reaction was to go to that dysregulated place. And I actually had the benefit of not being with him in person when, you know, it was a. It's a homework situation. It was not like the world was coming to an end. But my stress response initially was as if the world was coming to an end. Right. But I wasn't there with him. And I had a minute, and I had literally just finished reading your book, and I'm like, kids do well when they can. Kids do well when they can. Kids do well when they can. What is it that's getting in the way of him doing well in this scenario? And it was, as you say at another point in the book, not, what can I take away? What can I give this kid to set them up for success? So in our regulated moments, we can have this thought. We can use this mantra. We can think about these things. Why is it that this works? Is it true that kids do well when they can? That's what Cara and I like to believe, right? Why is it that. What can I give this kid? Not when. What can I take away? Why does that work? Why does that matter when we're supporting kids?

[Doug Bolton]

I love the question. So the person I'm quoting is, again, it's Ross Green, and he worked with Stuart Avlon. To develop the collaborative problem solving method. They each have their own work on that, and it's compelling. I love the next line. Kids do well if they can. And then. I can't remember last line, can you? If they can. I'll come up with it later.

[Cara]

I feel so much better about my brain.

[Vanessa]

Thank you.

[Doug Bolton]

And. Oh, I've got it. I've got it. See, anyone's going to come.

[Cara]

Okay, go.

[Doug Bolton]

Doing well is always preferable to not doing well.

[Vanessa]

Yes.

[Doug Bolton]

Isn't that good? Right. And so then can we get curious about this, the challenge about being dysregulated? And as a parent, there are two things that show up for us. One is we are. There's a sense of urgency. Right. I've got to deal with this right now. Right. And there's an exaggeration. Or else if he doesn't do his homework now, he'll never do his homework. How is he ever as a. I don't know how old Your child is?

[Vanessa]

14.

[Doug Bolton]

14. He'll never be able to make it in college. Right. How will he ever hold on a job if he get, you know, like,

[Vanessa]

this is benefit for this fourth child is that all of those worries have been answered by his siblings screwing up and me realizing it'll be just fine.

[Doug Bolton]

And yet still in this moment, that's how our brains work.

[Vanessa]

What can we give them? Not what can we take away in order to motivate them or support them or move them past this situation?

[Doug Bolton]

So this is like, right at the core of so much of what we can do when kids are struggling. And we've created a system where we think it's about motivation. And if we think it's about motivation, then we're going to punish and incentivize. But Stuart Shanker really helped me understand this work. In his book Self Reg, he really says misbehavior is stress behavior. And when I think about myself, like, there are times when I can handle stress really well, and it's like, oh, no, I got this. And other times I completely fall apart as a parent or whatever. And it's not about the situation. Part of it may be about the situation I'm in and how stressful that is, But a lot of it is the stress that I'm bringing to this. And so the question then becomes, what is the stress? Why is it that this afternoon my son's struggling with homework and yesterday afternoon they didn't. What's different about that? Or every afternoon they melt down when I ask them to do homework or when I asked Them to do X, y and Z misbehavior is stress behavior. And so how can we understand what the stress is? And then if we can address the stress, then the behavior goes away. When we focus on the behavior, oftentimes we make the behavior even more challenging.

[Cara]

And this is particularly complicated because parents in particular tend to fall into one of two camps. Not all, but many. One camp is the sort of lens of I, what did I do to stress out my kid? Which creates a lot of anxiety for a lot of parents. And the other is the camp of you, you know, what did the world do? What did this other kid do? What did the school do? What did. And there's gotta be a better path because neither of those paths really is super effective as a first pass of getting curious.

[Doug Bolton]

I love that frame. And I think we do want to find someone to blame or something to blame. And I either blame myself. And I think that one of the things that we can really get in the way of our kids is to say that when they're distressed, when they're dysregulated, something's wrong. But the truth is, we all get dysregulated all the time. And the question is not how do we help them avoid getting dysregulated. And that's where the whole idea of a snowplow parent comes in, right? Or a helicopter parent to come in and rescue them so that just as they're getting no. Learning how to be self regulated is being able to experience dysregulation and find your way through it. And that's why I love that quote, Vanessa. And it's by Mike Lyons, who was an assistant dean of ours. And he said, when a kid is struggling, I think about two things. He says. I think, what would I need if I was in their situation? And what can I put on the table instead of what can I take away?

[Vanessa]

Well, that's exactly it. Because my temptation was to relitigate why my kid hadn't done the homework, right? That's where we go. Because it's like, that's sort of tangible. What the hell kind of situation? And again, I was on the phone. I was not in person. I was kind of tired. Which leads to either one of two outcomes. One, you're much less regulated and you lose it faster. Or you're so tired that you're kind of like, able to just sort of be because you're so exhausted. And I happen to have been in the second state of tiredness. Thank God. Literally, Doug, you were in. This is like A seminal parenting moment for me. And you were in my head, and I was thinking, okay, Vanessa, what can you put on the table for this kid? Because it went to. When I said to him, you know, how do we change this? His first reaction was, well, I think I should be banned from the Xbox for the next month, and I think I should have to turn my phone in every day when I get home from school. That was the image which tells me a lot about how we've handled this situation.

[Doug Bolton]

Yeah.

[Vanessa]

Historically. Right. That was his historical data. And I was like, okay, well, we'll get back to that, because those aren't bad ideas. But I said, what can I do for you? How can I help you to make it such that it feels more likely that you're going to do the homework, not avoid the homework or not do the homework? And then we. I didn't get into litigating, even though I know he was full of it, about that he'd done it and not handed in. I left that be. Even though a year ago I would have re litigated that. I left him be. And I really. We really got to the base of why. What was underneath his not having done it. And you know how he and Cara and I talk about this all the time with audiences. How do we help kids climb their way out of the hole they have dug for themselves? And that's why your colleague's question of what can I put on the table? We use the metaphor of throwing a rope down to the bottom of the well and helping them climb up. And it's like, instead of yanking the rope away so they have no way out, it's giving them a tool, giving them a way to get themselves out of the situation.

[Cara]

At some point, they won't need the rope. Right? At some point.

[Vanessa]

But don't they always need the rope?

[Cara]

I mean, we all need a rope. I think that's the anxiety that you were describing earlier, Doug, which is like, you know, are they ever gonna get there? Are they ever gonna get there?

[Vanessa]

Right.

[Cara]

And that's really the question. Okay, Doug, so we're gonna do a little quick speed round. This is gonna be some tactical and strategic stuff so that people who are listening.

[Vanessa]

Nice term, Kara. That was really stuff.

[Cara]

It's a medical term. It refers to all of the chaos inside my brain. So the goal here is really to distill down. I mean, there's obviously so much to how you write about a life filled with these experiences around attachment and dysregulation. And everyone's going to bring their own stories to this. So let's give people just a little bit of quick nuggets. We're going to start with predictability. Why is predictability so important for kids?

[Doug Bolton]

Well, what predictability does, is it when we know what's coming? Our nervous system is constantly trying to predict what's coming. So if we know what's coming, then our nervous system can be more aware of other things. And I guess what I would say the caveat. See, it's not easy for me to do a lightning round, so this is a mistake for you guys. That's all I'm saying. But the caveat is we don't all have to say the same thing or have the but. But having a connected and regulated response helps their nervous system quiet. It doesn't have to be, oh, you know you're going to lose Xbox for X amount of time. It's no. When my parents are upset with me or when I do something wrong, people are going to be emotionally regulated when they talk to me about it and the relationship is going to be safe.

[Cara]

That's right. And predictability, I should say, is not just the predictability of the consequence, but the predictability of all of it. Like, you know, their schedules and rhythms and routines are predictable and they make people feel like they know what's coming. Rules that set limits, that have follow through feel predictable. So yeah, predictability really matters and that is a really helpful answer. Vanessa, you want to go with another speed question?

[Vanessa]

Yeah. So why don't punishment slash incentives work? Because we all use them and my kid volunteered one. And yet why don't they work?

[Doug Bolton]

Well, they can work in the short run, so that's why I think we continue to use them. The challenge is it focuses on two things. What's in my best interests right now and in terms of development. I think what we hope is that kids will be thinking about what's in my best interest in the future and what's in my best interest as part of this community. What's in the community's best interest right now?

[Vanessa]

But developmentally, how do kids get there? When do they get there? Thinking about beyond what's in my best interest right now.

[Doug Bolton]

Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I think that from very early on, from toddlerhood, kids are aware of other people's needs. So I think that we just want to continue to nurture every opportunity we can for kids to be able to be thinking about and understanding. They're always going to be thinking about what's best for me right now at some Level. But what we really want, we don't want to continue to have them focus on that by saying, if you do this now, this is what you're going to get. And so I think taking the pressure off of that is what's important. Not emphasizing it is what's really important.

[Cara]

And help us distinguish between punishment and accountability.

[Doug Bolton]

Yeah. So with punishments, what we're doing is. We are. It's interesting. I think we as a society, we equate the two. And oftentimes I think what happens is with punishments, we actually keep people from taking accountability. Accountability is really, I'm taking responsibility for what I've done. And a punishment is I'm going to do what you tell me I have to do because I've made a mistake. Oftentimes those things aren't connected. What I talk about is interpersonal accountability. The work is we all make mistakes. And so can we help kids learn at a very early age that when I make a mistake, it's not about, you know, if I get into an argument with my sister, it's not that I lose my Xbox, it's that I need to make it right with my sister. And then let's move on. Right. That this is kind of how life works as an adult. Why it's really important that we do this in interpersonal interactions with our kids, too.

[Vanessa]

What's your position on forced apology?

[Doug Bolton]

Terrible idea. If you want to breed cynicism in taking accountability, that's the way you do it. What I found that has been really helpful. There are a lot of kids who I'd work with who'd be like, I'm not sorry, I'm not going to apologize. I'd be like, that's okay. But would you agree that next time you'll try and do something different? And they're like, absolutely. I wouldn't. I don't. I shouldn't have done it. And then. Can you say that? And then they'll say, sure. And so then we'll get them in the room together and they'll say, I'm, you know, I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have done. I'm so sorry. Right. Like, like all of a sudden it'll just come out. I guess the other piece, though, is that the person who they're taking accountability with also has to be ready for the relationship to move forward. That you've got to accept their accountability as well. And sometimes that's really hard to do. But this is how we model this. One more thing real quick. And whenever my kids or another Student that I've worked with has been upset. There's almost always something that I can look back on and say, oh, I can see why that would have been upsetting for them. And for kids who struggle with knowing how to do this, whether. Cause they're young or maybe they just haven't developed those skills. Skills yet. It's really helpful for me to say, I'm really sorry I called on you. I know that you're anxious about your reading in that reading passage. And I. And I called on you and I wish I hadn't done that. And in this way, we're modeling how to do that. And then we'll say, I shouldn't have yelled at you anyways, or whatever.

[Cara]

You're modeling empathy.

[Vanessa]

I mean, right.

[Cara]

It's like. It's really simple. Okay, this speed round is going great. We've got two more. Okay, last two. Let's talk about when we should allow a kid to. I don't want to use the word suffer, but suffer. Experience the natural consequences of a behavior or a choice. We've all been there where we're at the starting line. We know if we let this go, we know where it's going. Talk us through that one.

[Doug Bolton]

Well, first of all, I love the idea. I think, as much as we can let them experience their own natural consequences. But the key thing is they've got to be natural consequences. So natural consequences are consequences that we don't administer. That's why they're natural. Oftentimes we'll throw a lot of things into the natural consequences. But the goal would be then for them to experience distress and then to help them learn how to cope with that distress as opposed to trying to figure out how do I save them from the distress. And I think that's a. It's kind of walking a fine line, but I think it's an important line to be aware of.

[Vanessa]

So it's like they forget the homework assignment on the kitchen counter and instead of dropping the homework assignment off for them, that's a Jess Leahy reference. You let it sit there and you let them take a zero on the homework and sort of suffer the distress and then have the conversation. But Doug, sometimes the stakes are so high in letting them experience the natural consequences. Right. They're college stuff, for example, or, you know, jobs.

[Cara]

Physical safety.

[Vanessa]

Physical safety. So are there moments to step in?

[Doug Bolton]

Yeah, I think that ideally there's a Goldilocks ness about this. Right. This. You don't want to make things too easy for them and you don't Want them to be completely overwhelmed. But a lot of times you don't assume they're going to be overwhelmed. You watch them begin to get overwhelmed and then you step in to figure out, how do we want to, how can I support them in a way that doesn't undermine their ability to learn from this moment, their ability to learn how to experience distress and know that's okay, that they'll survive this distress, but also not overwhelming them with distress.

[Cara]

Okay, last question. Can you help us understand why development is on their side in terms of all of this? Is time and brain development really medicinal in many ways for all of this?

[Doug Bolton]

I learned a lot about this from my good friend Dave Gleason, who's a psychologist and he wrote a book, at what Cost? About the stress of kids in high achieving schools. You know, the first piece is that the prefrontal cortex, which is really driving a lot of the behaviors that make us most anxious and drive us most nuts, is not fully developed into the late 20s. Sometimes they're thinking early 30s now. So if you've got a, you know, if you've got a seven year old who's struggling with these things, they're only a quarter of the way through this development. And everybody develops at a different rate. And yet we think they've got this under their. At 7 years old, they should be able to do this. But you guys who have multiple kids know that somebody's at 7 years old, one of your kids can do this and the other one is still a couple years away from doing that. But then what we do is we end up using things to punish and motivate them to do things that they don't just don't have the skills to do. And so it's a little bit like with physical development. We look at it and we can see, oh, they just haven't hit their growth spurt, right? When you've got a, you know, you've got two kids walking in a middle school and one six foot tall with facial hair, and the other one is clearly still three years away from puberty. You guys know more about this than anybody. But we would never say to the kid who's three years away, because you're right. So anyways, I don't mean to mess up your work, because facial hair is. I learned a lot from you about facial hair and puberty and everything else. So let me just. Before I put my foot in my mouth too much, but we'd never, we would never put a kid on a behavior plan to grow facial hair, right?

[Vanessa]

It's not their fault. It's not under their control. They are work in progress.

[Doug Bolton]

Exactly. And so the same thing is true in this way. And so I think that's our work is to figure out when we talk about stress, and this will be my last thing, I promise I'll leave.

[Vanessa]

We don't want you to go, Doug. We just want to leave with you forever.

[Doug Bolton]

But the challenge that we face is that because kids develop at different rates at different times, when we ask one kid to do something, they're able to do it. Other kids, they just aren't developmentally able to do it yet. And it's this incompatibility between what we're asking kids to do and what their brains. You know, my friend Dave Gleason calls this developmental empathy, which is really understanding what a kid's brain is able to do and making sure that we're asking things that are developmentally appropriate. And for different kids, that's different. But that's where a lot of stress comes in. And one of the things that I think is that the question core of this mental health crisis we're experiencing is we're asking kids to do things in 8th and 9th grade that we. I didn't have to do until I was a junior or senior. Their brains don't develop quicker because we change our curriculum.

[Vanessa]

Right.

[Doug Bolton]

And so we're creating more stress because some kids are able to manage that better than other kids because their brain develops a little quicker. But that's. I think one of the things that I worry most about is we're asking things of kids brains that they're just not able to do. And that's creating a lot of stress for kids and then for parents.

[Vanessa]

Doug, as you can tell, we would spend several more hours with you tethered. We feel tethered.

[Doug Bolton]

I'm in.

[Vanessa]

So we hope you will come back and visit us. We urge everyone listening to buy Doug's beautiful book Untethered or get it from your local library. Because I promise you, it has changed me as a parent. And I don't say that often. And if my 14 year old was sitting right here, he would agree with me.

[Cara]

He'd high five you right now, Doug.

[Vanessa]

Yeah. He would say, thank you. So much gratitude. And what's so amazing about what you do is all these concepts sound very familiar. Right? They're things we cover all the time. It's how you talk about them. It's your unique voice and your unique way of helping people understand them that is so powerful. And we're just really grateful that you're putting it into the world so we can tell everyone to read it and use it. And thank you, thank you, thank you for creating this beautiful gift.

[Doug Bolton]

Well, I've loved the time with both of you. I could go on, as, you know, as you can probably tell, I could keep going, but I'm so grateful for. I'm grateful for how you understood the book I was hoping to write. And so it's very meaningful to me that it's had meaning for both of you because I just admire your work so much.

[Cara]

Well, obviously you wrote it. I mean, you really did. You keep saying the book I meant to write, and I know what you mean by that, but really, you wrote it. It's amazing. Also, I'm raising my hand to, like, do any acting in the audiobook that you might need. I can play act those roles. You know, I can be a kid. Grab it now, people, while you can, because this book, you can say I was the first of so many who read this book. That's what this book is going to be.

[Doug Bolton]

Thank you both so much.

[Vanessa]

Thanks, Doug,

[Cara]

Sam.