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Effective Parenting: The Evolution of Understanding (feat. Jon Fogel)
300 Plays1 year ago
In EPISODE 68 of The Therapy4Dads Podcast, Jon Fogel, parenting educator (@wholeparent), discusses the myths surrounding traditional parenting and the need for effective parenting education. He delves into his personal journey and various experiences, including his training in trauma-informed care and child development and his view on codependency and emotional regulation. Jon also emphasizes the importance of individualized approaches to parenting and how previous generations' lack of access to knowledge affected their parenting practices. The focus is on education rather than punishment and understanding behavior as a symptom of a deeper issue. Join host Travis Goodman and guest Jon Fogel on this enlightening episode about parenting beyond the myths.
Jon Fogel is a parenting expert who found his calling through personal experience. After becoming a parent himself, Jon realized that there was a fundamental dissonance in the way he was parenting versus the counseling techniques he was studying. He devoured books on child development, trauma-informed care, and psychology. As a licensed foster parent, Jon also received training from the state which further informed his techniques. When his friends started seeking advice for their parenting struggles, Jon's detailed responses earned him the title of parenting expert. He began sharing his knowledge on social media and quickly gained popularity because his techniques worked and he was a rare male voice in the parenting space. Jon is now an expert in anti-punishment techniques and firmly believes that parenting can be done more effectively and compassionately.
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Transcript
Crying as a Trigger and Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You know, the reason that crying is so triggering to you is because when you cried, often, not always, but when you cried, your parents shamed you for that. This is a Therapy for Dads podcast. I am your host. My name is Travis. I'm a therapist, a dad, a husband.
Podcast Focus and Guest Introductions
00:00:18
Speaker
Here at Therapy for Dads, we provide content around the integration of holistic mental health, well-researched evidence-based education, and parenthood. Welcome.
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome everybody to this week's episode of the therapy for dad's podcast. I'm very excited to have on. I say special guests, but everyone's special. If I'm honest, I say it every week. Everyone's a special guest. It's just a thing. Cause everyone is special. Everyone's unique. And I love everyone that I've met on the show. Um, so far in this journey, it's been amazing. I've been able to work with and talk with incredible people with amazing things to say with an array of life experiences. And without further ado, I'm walking and leaning John onto the podcast for the first time. So welcome. Welcome John. How you doing?
00:00:58
Speaker
Hey Travis. Yeah. Uh, super excited to be here. You may know me as at whole parent on the social media, whatever social media platform you're on. I'm, I'm probably there.
Connecting with Dads and Parenting Journeys
00:01:10
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, just glad to be here. I love talking to, especially to dad's dad's dad's have a special place in my heart.
00:01:17
Speaker
Yeah, mine too. And the name of the show. And I think that's how we found each other. You know, I've done my best to every time the algorithm has put people on in front of my page that I'm not following, especially when they're men or dads that I think are trying to achieve similar level of healing and reintegration and changing some of the dynamics, I immediately follow and reach out. And so I reached out to John and
00:01:47
Speaker
you know, we connected and talked and kind of some kindred heart and some similar passions and some, hey, we really want to help parents and dads. And so I'm like, I have to have him on the show because he's got some great things to say and some really good life experiences and kind of doing what he's already doing and supporting the work he already is doing. And for those that are listening, if they need of resources, it's like, I like connecting people to bridging them to things that are already out there that they may not know about. I think that's the,
00:02:13
Speaker
Sometimes the difficulty is just so much out there. Where do I start and trying to connect with some of these You know creators and people who are doing amazing work already who have done it. It's like great start here Listen to the podcast. Here's a person to follow if you need it. Go go check them out They're already doing some great work in a way. I've kind of done the vetting so, you know This I'm doing the vetting process here. So the actually the whole interview process if you don't know I'm vetting them they have no idea it's a psychological vetting and then I
00:02:40
Speaker
Either don't release the show or I do so we'll see if this gets aired.
Whole Parent Platform and Parenting Transformations
00:02:44
Speaker
I'm not sure yet depending on what John says So John tell us a little bit about and you're the whole parent With the W by the way whole parent with a W and it's gonna be linked in the bio everybody Everything's me linked to his his his resources and his accounts But can you tell us a little bit about what you why you started it what you're about over at the whole parent?
00:03:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And, and by the way, Travis, I also am the whole parent H O L E. I also have, I also have that account. Um, yes, I own that one. Smart. So if you're, if you're out there and you thought like, I'm going to jump on this and I'm going to like be fake, John, uh, not gonna work. I already own that one. And I think eventually when my life slows down, which maybe will be never, that one's going to be a parenting humor account. Um, nice. Yes. Yes. Uh, the whole, the whole, the whole pair. Um, so.
00:03:36
Speaker
Yeah. You know, my journey to being where I am right now is, you know, it was a very, I don't want to say it was a non-traditional path, but so many of us find ourselves in this space for different reasons and in different stages
Parenting Misconceptions and Education
00:03:52
Speaker
of life. And for me, I started the whole parent thing because
00:03:58
Speaker
I had gone through a parenting transformation myself. When we first had our first son, I didn't know. I mean, I think this is what kind of everyone finds themselves in. It's almost a universal experience, especially for dads, but I think for parents in general, you think that you know what it's going to be like. You don't know what it's going to be like. And I don't like the parents who are like,
00:04:22
Speaker
It's going to be so hard. It's going to be terrible. Don't hear me saying that. But you don't know what to expect. There are unique challenges in parenting, and especially in how you have to pre-process your own past.
00:04:39
Speaker
and have to do your own work that are just unique to this parenting thing that we do. And so for me, I was going, I was in school and I was studying, it wasn't therapy, it was counseling. So I'm in school and I'm studying counseling and how to counsel people, especially trauma informed counseling and marriage and family counseling.
00:05:03
Speaker
And this is part of a larger degree, and we don't have to get into all of it. But I wasn't becoming a counselor, but I was studying these things. And one day it just kind of clicked that the stuff that I was going home to a little human
00:05:18
Speaker
And I was kind of totally forgetting everything that I was learning in class.
Cycle Breaking and Anti-Punishment Parenting
00:05:24
Speaker
There was like a fundamental dissonance in my brain where the way that I was parenting was just the way that I was parented. And I always say on these podcasts, in case my mom is out there listening,
00:05:35
Speaker
I had a pretty good childhood. Like I really didn't, you know, I don't have so many, so many of the people who are doing parenting are like hashtag cycle breaker. Of course I'm breaking cycles, but I'm not breaking the same cycles that a lot of people are bringing. So, so, you know, I had, I had this, uh, experience of, of going home and realizing, Hey, this is different or this is, you know, I, I,
00:06:00
Speaker
I'm not seeing my son the same way that I would see a family that I was working with. And it just clicked in my head, man, there has to be a better way. And so I started just devouring books. And there's a whole subtext, a subplot here where we were also becoming licensed foster parents. And that really, really, through that process of trauma-informed care,
00:06:22
Speaker
And a lot of my stuff that I talked today about anti-punishment stuff, which I'm sure we'll get into. But that stuff, a lot of it was coming from the foster care training for the state. So I'm getting this foster care training. I'm also getting this child development, basic, basic therapy, psychology counseling type stuff.
00:06:45
Speaker
And then I'm also a dad, a new dad, who's Googling, like, is my baby's poop supposed to be this color? Like, I'm doing the, like, total, typical, right thing at the same time. And those three things came together. And it happened for me young. And then when my friends started having kids a couple of years down the road, because me and my wife got married pretty young, and we started having kids pretty young, when it started happening for my friends a couple of years down the road, and they're going to their friends in kind of just the way that we do in society. And we say, hey, you know,
00:07:15
Speaker
Commiserating or or hey, what do you got advice for this and I would give them these kind of? Thesis on what I thought about their child's problem and they were like dude I was looking for like a three-word answer and you gave me like a dissertation and
00:07:31
Speaker
So maybe you should be doing this. And so I started doing this on social media and just trying to kind of address some of the basic, how can we be effective parents, the basic stuff.
Male Voice in Parenting and Shifting Methods
00:07:43
Speaker
And yeah, I don't want to say the rest is history, but all my accounts took off because two things. Number one, this stuff really, really works.
00:07:51
Speaker
I mean, that's first and foremost. And number two, similar to kind of what we were talking about before, many people have never heard a guy say this stuff, right? That was the difference. I think I have the benefit of that very few men are you and me, Travis, talking about this stuff. And I was able to connect with a lot of women's husbands. That was a big piece. Hey, I send my husband your videos. And so that was a piece of it. So that's how I'm where I am today in doing this parenting thing.
00:08:21
Speaker
And I like what you said, you know, it's something you got like the trifecta of training, trauma informed from foster, which that that's a whole training of itself. And then just basic developmental training of brain, I'm sure brain development, child, you know, early childhood development, and then just becoming a dad and just learning just in the fire of being a parent, you know, trial by fire. So you know, sink or swim situation, which all parents go through. Yeah.
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah, boots on the ground. And I think to some degree, myself included as a trained clinician, trained therapist, like I know a lot of this stuff already, but just to like kind of say yes to what you said is even then I was, there's still things I didn't know. I was still Googling things. The poop thing. Absolutely. I did that. Like, are they breathing or they're not breathing? Cause I knew stuff, but there's still stuff I don't know. Cause you and each kid, so right. Each kid is so unique.
00:09:05
Speaker
Now, there are foundational things that I fully believe in that every kid should have regardless, but each kid is unique and sometimes you have to adjust, and I'm sure we'll get into that in this podcast, but with effective parenting, since that's the topic of today, effective parenting and the shift or the growth, so to speak, out of what we just called earlier in the green room, ineffective parenting or maybe old school parenting or maybe non-informed parenting or traditional... Traditional parenting.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, and I would say probably someone that is probably based on what they knew back then. Oh, absolutely. Because there's things 50, 60 years ago that said, this is what you should do to a child. And that was taught by people with PhDs and doctors and the people that were trying to teach it. And now it's like with the new information that we have now with brain scan imaging and all this other stuff, we now know actually that was not helpful. Some of it, fine. But there's a lot of it that actually caused more pain, trauma, insecurity, things like that. And so today we're looking at effective parenting and your journey of
00:09:57
Speaker
becoming a dad, learn these things, understanding trauma, and saying, wait a second, hold on. Maybe some of the stuff in which I was parenting, my parents probably did the best they could, you know, hi mom, hi John's mom, did the best they could with the tools they had. And the reason why I say it is because I've talked to my dad recently. Well, we've been talking for a little while now. We didn't talk for about three or four years. That's a different story. But now we're talking and we've had some really amazing, really deep conversations. And he was like, you know, Trav, he said, you guys, what are you doing?
00:10:26
Speaker
you know, you're so far ahead of what I knew then. We didn't know any, this was not, he's like, we didn't talk, this was not, no one talked about this back then. No one talked about it. And it wasn't, he wasn't saying like an excuse, but it was more of an acknowledgement of reality of the, what he came out of and his parents being baby boomers and like what they were and just, this was not discussed.
00:10:46
Speaker
So he's like, you guys, you know, he's like, you know more than I did, not even close at your age. He's like, I'm still learning this stuff now at my age at 60 something. He's like, you know this. I'm like 30 years old. I'm just now learning this stuff. So there is something where we look at the generations previously and we can acknowledge, hey, they probably did the best, generally speaking, with the tools they had. And some of those tools were ineffective and not even helpful. And now we're doing things differently.
00:11:12
Speaker
Well, I think we're the first generation of parents who could parent differently in this way. And I think that this is definitely something that I've had to process with many people who I work with, is that I don't want to completely go down the path of your parents did the best they could with what they had. I think that that's a little bit of an overused, right? I think we all- I'm generalizing here because I work with a lot of trauma and stuff that was not the best. Was not the best that they could.
00:11:41
Speaker
Absolutely. And I'm a generally statement here. For sure. And I say this too, like I use it a lot, but I also think there's another piece to this, which is that goes a little bit deeper to that. I don't just say like, I think that you were getting at this. It's not just they were doing the best they could with what they had. They were also maybe doing the best they could with what
00:12:02
Speaker
was available. There's a whole second conversation to be had about, well, disproportionate poverty and marginalized communities. Is this research even available to them? And is it accessible? And are we doing this well, right?
Generational Differences and Conscious Parenting
00:12:23
Speaker
But there's another piece of this. Like you said, PhDs and doctors in 1989
00:12:29
Speaker
are giving people you know so this is the example that I use all the time you know we've known basically prior to 1990 we knew effectively nothing about the brain we knew about psychology yep right but we have we knew effectively nothing about the brain in comparison that's why they call the 90s the decade of the brain like we didn't really know anything about the brain
00:12:50
Speaker
And a great example of this, it's not exactly this but similar, is that the established medical treatment in 1985, not a long time ago. I mean, a lot of people who are parents right now in my membership were born in 1985. The established medical treatment for Braxton Hicks contractions in 1985
00:13:12
Speaker
was IV alcohol. That was how you stopped Braxton Hicks contractions. The idea, when people hear that, like, oh my God, what about fetal alcohol? Yeah, they weren't even not even thinking along those lines, right? And this is not a million years ago. This is 40 years ago that this is the real world that we're living in. So just understanding that that's the first thing that we have to acknowledge is that when we talk about effective parenting,
00:13:40
Speaker
We can't hold boomers and even you know early early Gen Xers to the standard that we hold ourselves to today And we can talk about why effective parenting is so important with the teen mental health crisis but totally we can't hold them to the same standard in the same way that you can't hold somebody from a
00:13:59
Speaker
a thousand years ago to the same standard of patriarchal views. It's context. Yeah, you need context. If you remove context, you have to look at the time and the day and the place to better understand someone. Even someone in my office. If I have a person in my office, I really have to know everyone's particular context and culture that they're from.
00:14:19
Speaker
their family culture, their ethnic culture, like, and I can't apply that to every single person because there's gonna be some nuance, even present day, right? So I have to, you're right, we have to take contacts, we can't remove it, because if we remove it, then that's actually, that's misinformation, that's actually a fallacy, and then you're looking at them not from the correct lens.
00:14:37
Speaker
It's like, no, you're right. They didn't have this accessible. In fact, because like you said, what was accessible was that IV alcohol, that was the treatment. So you're like, oh, I'm being told this is the, I'm going to do the very thing that doctor, what is told, right? Or spanking was a big thing back then. Strict and punished. Or back then I'm thinking of kids, leave them alone, right? I mean, this was taught, do not touch them. I mean, the 90s is the decade of leave your kid alone when they're crying because you're going to give them too much attention. Don't touch them.
00:15:03
Speaker
Yeah, you'll spoil them, right? Don't touch them, right? All these things, but we know that not right now. And we know that what we teach now that's actually creating more trauma in the brain and disconnection and these kids now have to become over hyper independent and not rely on people and they develop different insecure attachment styles because of this. And so, but then, but that's what was taught. And so you're right today, we have a plethora of knowledge, we have a plethora of information, but we're still healing and that's gonna take time.
00:15:29
Speaker
Well, and I think that we just, I think part of our healing has to be a real acknowledgement of that, of, you know, I think that part of the healing process, I, I, the more I go into this work and the more, and you're, you're going to, yes, amen this, but the more I go into this work and dig deep into this.
00:15:47
Speaker
the more I realize that all of the tips and tricks and hacks like these things without a deep sense of doing your own work and actually reprocessing your own childhood are band-aids on a on a gaping wound like yeah like you know if you're using the stuff on my account the stuff that you hear on this podcast
00:16:08
Speaker
to get your kid to repress their emotions and, you know, not actually trust themselves and ultimately to just be compliant and obedient at all costs, right? Like if that's your end goal, like you could use the stuff that I say to do that, but you're not gonna have great, amazing relationships long-term with your kid. You're not gonna foster healthy, emotional, physical, mental wellbeing.
00:16:34
Speaker
relational wellbeing with your child, if that's your ultimate goal. And so, you know, as we talk about effective parenting, which we should probably get into, but like, as we talk about what this is, like we can't divorce that. Like the first step is always in the first, like the first step is always looking back at what happened to me and why am I responding, reacting in this way?
00:16:59
Speaker
Hmm. Well, let's jump in. That's the first step, right?
Whole Parent Method and Parenting Goals
00:17:02
Speaker
I mean, I think it's good to have we were laying some contacts everybody laying some groundwork for you know Why affecting parenting and the first step is affecting parenting sounds like is looking inward who we know Why am I reacting right? Is that is that the first step of your model? Well?
00:17:14
Speaker
Well, yeah, I think that, yeah, if you asked me what the whole parent method is, I keep, people keep trying to nail this down. Like, okay, so like, what's the process? And really, I mean, I'm such a nuance driven person that I'm like, well, the process is different for everyone. People want three easy steps, right? So I think if you, if you, if you want the three easy steps, it's,
00:17:34
Speaker
uh number one you have to like shift your mindset you have to reframe the paradigm of what is my goal in parenting like is my goal ease like is my goal doing less work as a parent which by the way if you're a new parent if you're listening to this and your kid is six weeks old and you're like
00:17:55
Speaker
Am I ever going to go to another movie again? Yes, you will. But it's going to be some time, right? I understand the immediate, your freedom, there is a loss of freedom when in parenting, when another human is, you're responsible for another human.
00:18:13
Speaker
Um, and so I understand why people want to, you know, that, but if that's your ultimate goal is to be free of your kids. This is the people who say things like, man, just can't wait till they're 18 when they're like 18 months old. Yeah. If that's your ultimate goal out of parenting, like you're going to be supremely disappointed at the end of your life. And I think big piece of this too, was my primary counseling environment that I worked
00:18:33
Speaker
was as a chaplain at a hospital with people who were dying. Specifically, I worked at one hospital where the average age at this hospital was probably 75 or 80. And this hospital, it was all geriatric patients because it was part of a hospital system where if anybody was over 80, they just sent them to this one hospital. And so I'm sitting with all these people who are dying, and they're people who parented their kids with the belt, and they parented their kids with a voice or whatever, the obedience, compliance, this whole model.
00:19:03
Speaker
And not a single one of them was like, man, I really did a good job with my kids. And I am so grateful that I took out my frustration on them physically. Every single one of them was like, man, I could have been gentler. And I should have been. And so understanding, I don't remember if this is a Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Brysonism or who this is, but you start with the end in mind.
00:19:27
Speaker
You know, if you, if you start under with the end goal in mind of like, what am I actually trying to achieve? And so if that, maybe if that's really step one is thinking about what your actual goals are for your kid and what you want your kid to be, not when they're 18, this is another big one, but when they're 38. So I, I like to tell parents stop focusing on how your kid's going to be at 18. Cause they say, well, I want my kid to go into Harvard, get into Harvard. I want them to play football for Ohio state, or I want them to do this or that. I want to get married to a beautiful,
00:19:57
Speaker
person or whatever, I want them to have a great first job. At 38, when they're engrossed in their career, what do you want them to do? Right? So starting with the end of mind, right? So start at 38. Your child's been doing their career for at this point, let's say 20 years, or maybe 15. They've reached the pinnacle. They have the corner office. Now what? How do you want them to feel?
Factory Default Parenting and Relational Goals
00:20:20
Speaker
I want my child to feel a sense that they go to work every day and that they're doing something good for the world.
00:20:26
Speaker
I want my child to have a loving and supportive family. Okay, now these are real goals. Those are real goals. Because from 38 to 88, those goals aren't going to change very much. Up until 38, your goals are going to change a lot. Or maybe until 28, your goals are going to change a lot. At 38, they're pretty locked in. That's where I'd start. So start at the end of mine, number one. Number two, now understand that if there's an opposite effect of parenting,
00:20:55
Speaker
It's factory default parenting. This is what I forgot. I forgot to say this before I had I had it in my mind. I was like I do call this something factory default parent
00:21:04
Speaker
It's okay dad brain dad dad brain dad brain. I'm still thinking about my kids are dusters. Um, so in fact the factory default parenting Now step two is to go back into your past and go What is my factory default parenting and why is it that way? Yeah, why? Yeah, why am I triggered by crying and people are like, I just don't like the sound of it and I'm like, yeah, but why
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. But exactly what, but is it because, and it's really interesting, even with people who are on the reparenting journey, I was just on a podcast a couple of weeks ago and I was talking to a mom who was on the reparenting journey. And I was like, I pointed something out that was a very kind of plainly visible in the, in the story that she was talking.
00:21:46
Speaker
She's like, no, I don't think that's it. And like five minutes later, she's like, no, that was 100%. Like our initial reaction to uncovering our own factory default settings is to rejection. So number one, start with the goal. Number two, do your own work. And then number three, now that.
00:22:03
Speaker
You're, for lack of a better term, conscious parenting. You're thinking about your parenting and you're thinking about what you actually want from your family and your children. Now, let's go forward and let's go into the strategies and what I call the tools of effective parenting.
00:22:19
Speaker
No, I love it. I think that I love and I know it's nuanced and but generalizing, generally speaking, that those three steps are so important of, you know, what is my default? Why? You know, and what's my what is my end goal? What are my real goals? Not just the Harvard, but how to want them to be? What kind of person, right? You know what? That's like real because that's that's really what we're aiming at or we need to be aiming it because it helps us get there versus the Harvard or the play ball is like, well, those are important, but
00:22:46
Speaker
You're getting a much deeper meaning, and also coming from your experience of meeting with these dying individuals and hearing these stories time and time and time and time again, themes of, wow, I could have been more loving, could have said I should have, I could have worked less, I could have been more, it's often the same stuff. It's like, I could have been there, could have said it more, I didn't need to work as much. It's really about relationship. And that's where you're getting it. We're very complicated people. Humans beings are very complicated. And at the same time, we're not that complicated.
00:23:10
Speaker
correct like at the same time like people said the same thing over and over and over and i understand they were coming from a given context right maybe if i was you know then you know uprooted myself and moved to the congo or moved to china or moved to
00:23:25
Speaker
to South America somewhere, maybe I would have gotten different responses. But at least in North America, in suburban Chicago, I mean, people had all sorts of different backgrounds. Universally, it was either I have a good relationship with my kids and it's the greatest achievement of my life, or I don't have a great relationship with my kids and it's the greatest regret of my life.
00:23:46
Speaker
And I think it's universal. I would say it's universal from authors I've read that have worked with people groups from different countries and nationalities and cultures. I'd say there's some definitely a universal connection there, right? Because they were relational beings. So there's definitely that universal connection. For sure. For sure. There's got to be some universality to it. But certainly with the context of what was in the way, what was in the way was either I was too hard on my kids
00:24:14
Speaker
Or I was too absent. Like there was never a, I was just too permissive, which, which I understand you can't like, you can't, I'm not saying that you can't be too permissive, but very, the only permissiveness, if you really want to know the only permissiveness that I've ever heard a child, a grown up child complained about in their parents was the permitting of the, another person in their life to continue to hurt them.
00:24:42
Speaker
Like if you were so conflict avoidant that you as the parent did not intervene with the other parents abuse or with another family member's abuse. Sure. That's the type of permissiveness that I'm worried about. Like that's the Amaya permissive parent. And are you believing adults more than you believe your child when they're telling you that there's something going on?
00:25:04
Speaker
that like that that's the permissiveness that I would say we gotta we gotta nip but but the the kind of thing that you hear on I hate to say this but from the gen x especially generation of like these kids just do whatever they want these days and these kids just the parents just let them get away with anything like
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I've never, I'm still waiting to find the people for whom that was the great sin in their life that caused them to be really messed up psychologically, you know? And thinking of some of the themes when you hear of this kind of introspection of the parents that you've heard, you can generalize this of course, but you know, what are some of those themes you've seen or heard reported when those, the default parenting piece, I think that's a,
00:25:50
Speaker
I think a thing a lot of us can get stuck in. So what are some of those themes of those parents that have gone through your program and they're like, whoa, those like aha moments as to why they're stuck in the default parent mode? What are some of the big ones that you see time and time and time and time again?
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm actually thinking, I'm kind of playing around with the idea of writing about this someday, but I think that it comes down to a set of myths, really. So the default parenting primarily are actions that are grounded in a certain, and I'm gonna use this word maybe in a way that your listeners haven't heard, but a certain mythology
00:26:24
Speaker
that they believe, right? So one was addressing this, I was, I was addressing this with a 75 year old woman yesterday, literally. So sitting at lunch with a 75 year old woman yesterday and she might be older than that. And she was like, do you actually think
00:26:40
Speaker
So we were talking about my son, actually, and my parenting. And I said, you know, oh, well, you'll never see me correct my son in front of you. You'll never see me punish discipline consequences in front of you, yell at him in front of you. And she was like, why? And I said, because anything he's doing in that moment, it's ineffective, not effective parenting, to engage him in the moment of dysfunction.
00:27:08
Speaker
always more effective to reengage later. And she just spit the meth out, right? She said, you're telling me that three hours later, your six-year-old is going to be able to remember what happened? I'm like, I'm telling you that three months later, my six-year-old will be able to remember what happened.
00:27:24
Speaker
Now, not every kid is that is like that, but three hours later, every kid that is verbal, who has neurotypical cognition is going to be able to reef, readdress something that happened later down the road. But this myth that kids, if the kids are like dogs, and if you don't discipline them in the moment of dysfunction, then you minus you didn't do anything or you don't, you know, you don't yell at them when they're doing something wrong, then they'll just keep doing it. That's a myth.
Redefining Discipline and Self-Awareness in Parenting
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah. And it also goes into how you define discipline. Sure. Right. That's a thing, right? Because, you know, how is she thinking? What does discipline mean versus what you mean by discipline?
00:28:03
Speaker
Well, right. And it's a generational gap. So she raised her kids. She raised her kids in the 19 probably seventies and eighties. Um, and so her kids were raised in the seventies and eighties are like, she's like, you don't do any spankings, do you? And I'm like, no, I don't. And she's like, Oh, so you're just, you just got to give them those constant timeouts. And I was like, no, I actually don't give my kids timeouts. Actually don't punish them at all for anything.
00:28:26
Speaker
And she was like, what? What do you mean you can't you? What do you mean you don't punish him? And I said, well, I'm trying to teach them.
00:28:34
Speaker
I'm not trying to hurt them. And I want to say punishment is always hurting, but I'm not trying to de-incentivize the action. I'm trying to educate around the behavior. And I'm trying to get to the, here's another myth, behavior is never the problem. Behavior is always the symptom of the problem. Your kid, your kid's behavior, and maybe it's like a habit, they chew on their shirt, and then the behavior might be the problem because it's habitual and they have a compulsiveness to it.
00:29:03
Speaker
But with actual relational stuff, the behavior is never the problem. The behavior is always the iceberg underneath, right? That's what's going on. And so you want to discipline. You have to educate. This is what discipline means. And for Western history, let's just say the last 200 years of Western history for this context.
00:29:29
Speaker
For the last 200 years of Western history until about 20 years ago, the idea was the only way to educate is to cause discomfort. De-incentivize through discomfort. We now know that that's pretty ineffective. It's ineffective with kids. It's ineffective with adults. The more harshly you punish someone does not change whether they will commit a crime or not.
00:29:51
Speaker
If the speeding ticket is $800, or it's $100, or if it's $2,000, people speed at the same rate. If you lock somebody up on a third strike drug offense for 45 years or life sentence versus a fine, there's no decrease in the amount of illegal drug sales and use.
00:30:12
Speaker
Punishment is not a good teacher. It's just not so at what point are we going to start parenting effectively and actually? working within a system that's about retribution and it's about education Which by the way in those environments the way that you can stop somebody soon from speeding Education the way that you can stop somebody from reoffending who's incarcerated education. That's really what it is This is how humans developed and learn we learn through education. We don't learn by punishment and
00:30:41
Speaker
And there's reasons in the brain why that doesn't work. But suffice to say, if you if you're willing to believe Travis and I, it doesn't work.
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't. And in some of that too, I would add with some of those things is we had also do some healing too. Healing some old wounds, some old myths. Because I think what John's on to is really when you ask that why question, why am I doing this? Why am I parenting this way? What is my mode of defaulting or yelling or crying pisses me off, I scream.
00:31:15
Speaker
Or I spank, like, where is it coming from? And often it's our own hurt and pain and wound anyway, you know, often, generally speaking. It's often our own stuff, our own fear of control or fear of something bad happening or why we think we deserve it or they deserve it or, you know, whatever it is, often from our own pain and hurt. And so that's like, we got to go through our own healing process, like you said. And now for a short break.
00:31:37
Speaker
So if you're looking for ways to support the show and my YouTube channel, head on over to buy me a copy.com forward slash therapy for dads. There you can make a one time donation or join the monthly subscription service to support all that I'm doing at the intersection of fatherhood and mental health.
00:31:54
Speaker
and all the proceeds go right back into all the work that I'm doing, into production, and to continue to grow the show to bring on new guests. So again, head on over to buymeacoffee.com forward slash therapy for dads. Thanks and let's get back to the show.
00:32:10
Speaker
big part of being an effective parent is also doing your own work, right? So can you tell us a bit more about that, doing your own work? Yeah, yeah, you know, I think a big piece of this is, you know, one, I mean, there's the kind of, there's the multiple layers of this, right? So the first layer is, you know, me making a TikTok video or something that says, you know, yelling is selfish because yelling is about getting your aggression out, not about educating your chip, right?
00:32:37
Speaker
So like that's like the first level is just OK, recognizing that so many of the punishments or I guess just parenting moments that I regret had way more to do with how I where I was and way less to do with where my kid was in that moment. So that's number one. The deeper level is when you get into the spanking and the physical, the stuff that in many, many of the circles that I run in, we would now say is abuse.
00:33:04
Speaker
When when you get into the abusive which by the way, you know extreme timeouts Extreme cold shouldering. This is emotional abuse. So so, you know, I probably the thing that blew me up initially more than anything else on tik-tok was when I
00:33:25
Speaker
I made a video about how there was this dad who was making his daughter smash her own cell phone because she had been disrespectful to him on her phone. And he made her smash it with a hammer. And she was clearly in great distress. And I said, that's abuse. And it's not abuse because of what he's doing. It's abuse because he's not stopping when she is in this state.
00:33:47
Speaker
Right. Right.
Understanding Children's Emotional Needs
00:33:48
Speaker
So she's not helping her regulate herself. Right. She's more dysregulated. Right. She's this 12 year old kid and she is like you're watching a person be traumatized. Right. And I don't care what it is. Whatever it is. Right. Yeah. For what for for some kids you look at them the wrong way and that's enough.
00:34:02
Speaker
Oh yeah, I think of my two boys, very different. Very different. You know, I have to approach them, there's definitely similar base, but I have to approach them differently because definitely my second has that more emotional, you know, again, by look.
00:34:18
Speaker
he takes that, that's like everything. Like he just, it hits him differently. My oldest is, he's more in his head. So it's like, okay, whatever, you know, whatever dad, you know, so I have to reach him differently. So you have to, you have to think each person's unique and how are they, what are they, how are they picking up and what are they reading? What, how are they picking up the energy, my energy of the room of the world world around them. So yeah. Right. Well, and so, and so when we get into these, whatever you want to classify as abuse, when we get into abuse at this point, we're talking about really disorganized memories.
00:34:47
Speaker
And, um, the process of actually, it's hard to even call the memories, right? Cause they're just fragments and intrusions into our psyche. And sometimes it's not even explicit. Sometimes it's implicit. We don't even remember what happened, but we know how it made us feel. Um, and so what, what, what happens then is that we have to start, well, I banged my microphone here. We have to start to actively like, I'm trying to think of the right word for this.
00:35:15
Speaker
We have to think very critically now about these things because the natural default way that many humans, if not most Western thinkers, will organize a disorganized memory, which includes, by the way, their primary caregiver, which they feel like, this person loved me,
00:35:37
Speaker
That has to be a fundamental principle of most of our lives is that our parents loved us. Like if our parents love us and they also hurt us and that creates this great dissonance and disorganization, then we have to justify our parents' actions. And so one of the fundamental re-parenting type work things that I do is, hey, how are you justifying what your parents did to you? Because whatever you can justify your parents doing to you, you will be able to justify doing to your kid.
00:36:06
Speaker
If you think, you know, hey, I deserved it or I, it made me the person I am or I'm better for it. I was a snot nose little kid and now I'm better for it.
00:36:19
Speaker
If you're able to do those mental gymnastics in order to come to a place of baseline where you're not actively being traumatized, I mean, this is a coping strategy. It's subconscious, but it's a coping strategy. If you're getting to that point, then we have to deconstruct that because if you think that being hit made you a better person, it will always be within your power to hit your kids. It will always be there at the back of your mind going,
00:36:49
Speaker
maybe they need it too. If you think that your parents yelling at you straightened you out, it will always be in the subtext of your mind. Maybe sometimes it's okay to yell at your kids or it's good to yell at your kids. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny, not funny. I think what you're saying is so important because a lot of the work that I do with trauma and attachment, wound healing, deficits, things that a lot of shame and a lot of these things that we go back to.
00:37:15
Speaker
whether it's implied or explicit, intentional, unintentional, you know, when I'm sitting with them and I'm in the place and I go back and kind of ask these questions like when maybe they're in some level of distress and their parents were yelling. And he's giving me good intentioned parents who for the most part were fine, but they have these moments. This is a memory though of like there's a sense of shame like I wasn't enough or I was somehow bad or I'm somehow
00:37:36
Speaker
on a failure, so that we internalize this message of like, well, that's why I'm being yelled at. And so then I'm deserving of this later because, and they even do it themselves, by the way, when they're in adults, like 38 now. They do that, they have the internal critical voice of anytime something goes wrong, it's like, well, because I'm bad, I'm deserving, they take the place. I'm stupid. I'm just so stupid. I mean, how many people do you work with, right? And their default when they make a mistake is, I'm so stupid. I'm stupid, or I'm not enough, or I'm worthless, or I'm a failure. I mean, these are, it's every, and when I go back to those places. Oh, that's my internal voice.
00:38:05
Speaker
I mean, that's my intro. Like that's the work that I'm doing currently. I mean, it's a real thing. Yeah. No. And mine was, I was not enough. Um, and I had to work through that in my own therapy. But when I, when I sit with these people and I get to that soft place and I'm able to kind of get there with them. Yeah. 99.99999% of the time.
00:38:22
Speaker
is not that they didn't need yelling, they didn't need a spanking, they didn't need to be put in the room, they didn't need, no, they needed someone to hug them. I wanted a hug. They needed connection. Yeah, they needed connection. They needed comfort, they needed to admit someone to say, you're okay, I'm here, I'm not leaving you, I know you're having a hard time.
00:38:38
Speaker
because we all, it's like built, it's wired into us, that's what we need.
Connection vs. Independence in Parenting
00:38:42
Speaker
But then what we learn along the way is that, well, I can't really trust this, so I have to kind of shut that part off of myself and like not need these things and tell myself, well, it's because I'm not enough, right? So we, because we have to make sense as part of our brain of survival is like, what we do, we got to do to survive. In some ways we do that, by the way, is by blaming ourselves for the problem, because that's the only thing we could do to cope.
00:39:03
Speaker
Right, I mean, no, I'm like jumping in here because it's super exciting to me to talk about this stuff because this is another one of the myths, right? Independence. That independence is somehow a goal. One of the things, now this is one that I will get at 38 while I want my child to be independent. And I'm like, really? You're hoping that they don't need other people and that they're so fiercely independent that they don't rely on anyone for anything? Yes.
00:39:29
Speaker
okay like where's that come from let's let's talk about the story there there's let's talk about that because because none of us like when you have a hard day you go home to the people who who care about you whether that's a spouse or whether that's a trusted friend or colleague
00:39:48
Speaker
or your parents still, even as an adult, you go back to the people with whom you are safe. And that's not a bad thing. That's actually a good thing. That is a good way of processing. There are so many worse ways
00:40:06
Speaker
of coping with disappointment and harm and hurt and having a bad day and not getting the promotion at work that you wanted to get or the breakup that you just went through or the loss of a parent. There are so many worse, more destructive ways to go through this than to lean on people who love you.
00:40:30
Speaker
Yet one of the myths is, you know, Hey, I want my child to self soothe. And we talk about this in, in, in a sleep training or in, you know, at nighttime, but really where this falls into the greatest issue is the, I'm going to ignore you when you're crying. Cause I want to teach you how to self soothe instead of teaching kids how to cope and coping.
00:40:53
Speaker
Oftentimes, as an adult, looks like processing with a trusted person. And by the way, your child's brain is not developed enough to cope on their own anyway. No, they need us. Yeah, you're just putting them in a supremely, you know, destructive cycle. You're putting them in distress. Yeah, you're putting them in outside, this is a Dan Siegel term, outside of their window of tolerance, right? Sure. Because they need us to regulate because their brain's not developed yet.
00:41:19
Speaker
You're right. Sue Johnson coined this term. She's a Canadian psychologist, developed emotion-focused couples therapy. She said, you know, I like how she coined it. She doesn't believe in co-dependence. I don't actually like the term either, being a co-dependent, because I think that's the fear, right? I don't want to be co-dependent. I want to be hyper-independent. She calls it an unhealthy dependence.
00:41:39
Speaker
versus a, actually, what we need is a healthy interdependence, which goes to attachment. If I have securely based with my family caregiver, my spouse, my friends, I know I can come and be connected and attuned and co-regulate, I have a hard day, I can come to my spouse or my whatever and talk about it, or my good buddies, I could phone a buddy up and say, dude, I had a rough day, can we talk? You're able to kind of regulate with their nervous system, which helps you calm down.
00:42:01
Speaker
But then you're also able to go explore the world, right? It's all about attachment. Because if I feel safe here, I can actually go venture out into the world knowing I have a safe haven to come back to. So it's this sense of healthy inter-reliance on one another, but it's balanced, right? Because if we swing the pendulum one of the other ways, it's unhealthy independence, where it's like emotionally now I'm being cut off, which leads to things like depression and panic and a whole bunch of things I see in my office all the time is people who are over-independent, but they have no connections, no relationships, especially men.
00:42:31
Speaker
who are dying inside because they don't have no one to turn to and talk to. Or you become the term that's used as the codependent which is really an unhealthy dependence where you lose your identity in the other person because you're afraid of being alone and so I do whatever I gotta do. So either way, what you're teaching your kid going back to the effect of parenting is
00:42:50
Speaker
What I see you're doing is teaching, helping parents teach their kids that have a healthy dependence on each other, which enables them to actually go on the world and explore, which enables them to better regulate their emotions because the reality is, yeah, my wife is not always with me 24-7. So as an adult, you do get to the place of being able to cope on your own, but also knowing I can't turn to her when I need her, right? That's the point. We need a community as well as ourselves. It's not that she's regulating me, but I go to her when I need to.
00:43:16
Speaker
and we rely on each other or a friend, because then you're equipping your 38-year-old to be able to do that when they had a hard day at work. They have their why of like, here's what I'm doing, I had a rough day and I'm not going and turning to the bottle and drinking my sorrows away or numbing out on TikTok and just, you know, I'm able to like talk with people and regulate myself and healthily be effective and then to my kids.
00:43:40
Speaker
So there's this, what you're doing, what I'm seeing is you're really building for the next generation, for the generations to come, that they're going to be better equipped for their kids. Healthy interdependence, where they're more conscious parenting, not being stuck in default. And maybe their default then, maybe. Maybe that'll be the new term. Maybe default parenting then will be actually conscious parenting. Yeah, I mean, we can hope, right? Maybe that'll be the new one. Yeah, you know, so here's a term that I'm beta testing. I don't think I've ever said that on another podcast.
00:44:09
Speaker
The term that I'm starting to play around with using is intra-dependence. So it's not a real word. We're making it up as we go along here, but that's okay. We're on the cutting edge of parenting, right? So, um, interdependence is the space between us in like international, right?
Creating a Safe, Accepting Home Environment
00:44:28
Speaker
Is like the space between two nations. Um, intra-dependence is, I know that I can go outside of myself for what I need. I also know that I can go inside of myself for what I need.
00:44:39
Speaker
Like I am enough, but also we are enough at the same time and that we can actually get to this point of like oscillating as is necessary back and forth between what we need at any given time, which may look like I don't scroll tick tock while I'm driving on the interstate on the way home because I cannot be alone with my feelings and wind up wrapping my car on a pole, but, but also means.
00:45:07
Speaker
I also know that there are safe people. There is a safe haven. And I think that this is one of, you know, a lot of people are like, okay, John, what, give me the, give me the basics. How do I not mess my kid up? Right? Like I don't want to go do all the self work. My dad was an alcoholic. I don't want to deal with it. And I'm like, Oh, that's really sad that you don't want to deal with it. But, but okay, fine. You want the basics. Like just make sure that your child knows that they're always safe at home and they belong. And
00:45:32
Speaker
If you can do that 95%, we're gonna run into some problems. And I say, you don't even have to do this 100% of the time. If 70% of the time you interact with your child in a way that reinforces that they belong and that they are accepted regardless of what they do or that they're unconditionally accepted, if you can do that, you're probably gonna do a pretty good job, period.
00:45:58
Speaker
Like, if you need like the Cliff Notes version, if you can just do that, you're going to raise a child who at least has the basis of resilience to be able to foster that later for themselves. If they don't grow up feeling like they have a place to go with their big feelings, then you will see what we are seeing.
00:46:21
Speaker
Which totally through the birth of the internet the birth of the internet is not, you know, Dave Chappelle, this great sketch, the internet's a place. Um, right. But the truth is the internet is not a place and the same is true. Your relationships on the internet are relationships, but not in the same way. And so, you know, with the birth of social media and the internet, with all of the amazing connection and obviously, you know, me and you are sitting here today, Travis, because of the internet.
00:46:47
Speaker
on opposite sides of the country. There's good in this. But at the same time, the internet will never be a replacement for a stable family home. And the more kids think that they can replace their unstable family environment with some sort of arbitrary Instagram community,
00:47:10
Speaker
Says the guy who intentionally tries to foster intentional Instagram communities like the more you think that that's gonna replace it The more you're gonna realize that it's it's an empty bucket like the added or it's a bucket with a hole in it you keep pouring in and it just keeps coming out and So yeah, you know, that's the basis right if you if you're like I can't get with you on the punishment stuff John punishment I got to use punishment sometime, you know, I'm still gonna yell at my kids. Okay, first of all me too long I
00:47:40
Speaker
I'm going to give you a book for you to read on science, but okay, yeah. I would say if you want to see me again, read this book. Even if they go to the point of like, I can't do it, I can't get to that point with you. If really at the core your kid feels accepted and loved unconditionally, like the rest of it is cheese on the nachos, right? So that's the basis of effective parenting is raising a kid who actually grows
00:48:08
Speaker
up to feel secure. And in order to do that, you have to be secure. Yeah. Well, I think it comes back to that as we start to wrap up is the reality is it's going to require some level of your own work. Um, whether you do it as you realize what your kid needs in a way you're reparenting yourself, that can happen as you start to do things differently of like, wow, I didn't get this, but I know somehow deep inside, I know if my kid needs this and I've seen this happen where
00:48:35
Speaker
I've seen people come from horrific, horrific, horrific backgrounds, but give their kids, like, really what they needed. Love, affection, care, support, love. Like, not even close to what was given them. But they didn't have a grid for it, but they knew somewhere deep down that, you know, my kid needs love, affection, not to be hit or whatever. I'm not doing that.
00:48:57
Speaker
I know that's wrong. And they're able to give that space of love, affection, and you belong here because they know that they didn't get
Managing Emotions and Addressing Triggers
00:49:05
Speaker
that. So sometimes it's possible. And I think even through their reparenting, in a way, they kind of reparent their own inner child, like that wounded self. And that can be very healing. Other times it does require work, you know? Especially, I'm thinking of dads right now, being on a dad podcast. Or man, is that, man, if you're shutting your boy's emotions, because you were told to shut him down,
00:49:27
Speaker
He's going to be very similar to how you're struggling right now because he's going to hear that he can't feel. And so I think if I challenge guys, I'm challenging men, you know, we got to be comfortable with emotions. We got to learn to be comfortable in our body and to teach our boys and our girls the same. But I know a lot of men come into this because it wasn't safe. They were told not to feel.
00:49:45
Speaker
And so I think for that, they have to do some work in order to be present for their kids' emotions because what's gonna happen for them is they're gonna go right back into their survival states of, well, this is a threat, this is a danger for me, so I gotta shut this down somehow, whether you're yelling or go to your room or whatever, because I can't handle this.
00:50:02
Speaker
Right, well, it's an implicit memory, usually. So what we get into, and you know this, but just to say it for anybody who hasn't heard this, especially the guys, the reason that crying is so triggering to you is because when you cried, often, not always, but when you cried, your parents shamed you for that in one way or another. Boys don't cry, whatever. They just turned a shoulder to you. They ignored you, whatever, right? When you cried, your parents shamed you for that. And you might never remember that happening
00:50:32
Speaker
but your body remembers like your body, like your your your your a nervous system, your nervous, your autonomic nervous system members. And so when your kid starts crying, you feel ashamed because it's a trigger for you in the same way that a person who's been through a traumatic assault might be triggered by a smell or might be triggered by a certain song or might be triggered by a certain location.
00:50:59
Speaker
you are triggered by crying because the last or what the during the formative years of your life when you heard crying coming out of your own mouth the way that you felt immediately after that was shamed which which by the way the opposite of shame is belonging so when we talk about belonging
00:51:15
Speaker
The opposite of shame is playing right shame is the end. That's the end it up. Yeah shame is saying I don't know if I have a place in the in the pack my place in the pack is insecure so so you know that's I think that that's like you Fundamental as a guy I just don't like when kids cry. There's not a I'm not a baby person It's like yeah, well, maybe your parents weren't kind of treated you like they weren't a baby people. Yeah when you were a baby I
00:51:39
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah that dude that's powerful i mean that's like a this is the work man this is the 100 yeah this is the real work no this is the stuff this is the nitty gritty that we get into and yeah all those men that i work with too when i get there it's always rooted in some level of abandonment rejection shutting down every single one of them not one of them i go to is no my parents comfort me and love me and hug me said i was okay nope that didn't exist
00:52:04
Speaker
Not even in the slightest.
Engaging with John's Work and Closing Thoughts
00:52:06
Speaker
So to close up, if you could leave, you know, where can we find you? Where's your work? Anything else we need to know just to kind of get you?
00:52:12
Speaker
Yeah, best place to find me probably is on social media at Whole Parent with a W. The H1 is not set up yet. W-H-O-L-E-P-A-R-E-N-T, Whole Parent. You'll find all the links in my bio are always just my email list, and that is because if you really want to do this work for real, that's where the work happens.
00:52:36
Speaker
The quick little mindset shift, oh, it's fun. Here's how you raise good siblings for in a minute and 25 seconds on Instagram reels or TikTok or whatever. Sure. Like it's all good and fun. My goal is to get you on my email list and maybe eventually to get you in the membership, but, but really to get you on the email list because that's where we're going to go deep. And every Thursday I send out an email, usually over a thousand words. Sometimes there's a video version of it that's embedded in there.
00:53:05
Speaker
But that is where if you really want to do this work and start thinking differently and start parenting, not out of your default parenting, but actually out of your conscious, thoughtful, goals-driven, values-driven place, that's where you're going to get it from me.
00:53:21
Speaker
Because the goal is one for you. What is your goal? I mean, I think, I think I want my kids to be physically, this is what I say. Um, I have to think about this, how, how, what this really means. Cause it's become almost wrote for me at this point, but I want my kids to grow up to be physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and and relationally healthy. I want them to be able to be healthy in all of those aspects of their life. Yeah.
00:53:43
Speaker
And I think if they're healthy in all those aspects of their life, they will be happy, but my goal is actually not their happiness. My goal is their fulfillment, because I think if they're fulfilled, then that's what happiness comes from. If you're healthy in all those ways, it's hard not to be happy. That's what I'll say. Yeah. Boom. Oh, fire. Dude, thank you so much, John, for being on the show. Thank you, Travis. Everything's in the show notes. You'll see at the bottom of the links, everything we linked, all the John stuff. You'll find it there. Just click in the description. It's all there for you to find it.
00:54:09
Speaker
Have a blessed day, dude. Looking forward to connecting again on the next podcast when you do, you know, maybe your stuff and maybe the other whole parent thing. Yeah, for sure. Thanks, man. Thanks for joining and listening today. Please leave a comment and review the show. Dads are tough, but not tough enough to do this fatherhood thing alone.