Podcast Episode 356: Your Kid’s Not Doomed—You’re Just Anxious (And Here’s What to Do) Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

[00:00:00] Ned: A child is better off growing up with a loving parent in a war zone than growing up in a lovely community, a lovely house warring with their parent, literally you have better outcomes growing up in a war zone with high connection with a parent or caregiver than living in frigging Taj Mahal or some mansion someplace when you feel cold and distant and unsupported and unloved by your parents. 

[00:00:27] JoAnn: Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host, JoAnn Crohn. Joined here by my lovely co-host, Brie Tucker.

[00:00:34] Brie: Hello? Hello, buddy. How are you? I’m feeling so much better.

[00:00:37] JoAnn: so much better. We’ve talked at every single interview and I always out her for having a hurt back and she’s like, well, JoAnn, she was in bed the other day. There’s my out of the day Brie telling everything about

[00:00:48] Brie: There’s a podcast episode where everybody gets to see my bed. 

[00:00:50] JoAnn: Yes indeed. Well, today’s episode, we are bringing back two of our favorites, Dr. William Sticks root and Ned Johnson, because they have a workbook [00:01:00] coming out that aligns with everything they talk about in raising a self-driven child and also what you see. Say,and so we’re really gonna dig in with them today about how to be that non-reactive presence because Brie, you know all the questions we get from moms who just feel so guilty and so ashamed every time they lose it in front of their kids.

[00:01:19] Brie: Right. I mean, I know I’m not the only loud, jumpy, highly reactive person in the world. I know there are others like me. And also there’s the fact too that you have that if you’re trying to be calm. I feel like so many of us have that internal argument going on of like, am I being too cool? Am I, am I being too lax?

[00:01:40] Brie: And yeah, you second guess yourself so much.

[00:01:44] JoAnn: You’re gonna pick up some great tips from this episode. So without further ado, here we go. William r Stru PhD is a clinical neuropsychologist and founder of the Stru Group, as well as a faculty member at Children’s National Medical Center and an assistant professor of [00:02:00] psychiatry and pediatrics at the George Washington University.

[00:02:03] JoAnn: School of Medicine. Ned Johnson is a regular guest in friend of ours here at No Guilt Mom. He’s an author, speaker, and the founder of Prep Matters. Ned and Bill have co-authored the National Bestsellers, the Self-Driven Child, what do you say? Talking with Kids to Build Motivation and their newest edition.

[00:02:20] JoAnn: The seven principles for Raising a Self-Driven Child, which is a workbook and they’ve been featured in numerous media outlets such as NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Times of London, the Wall Street Journal, US News World Report Time Magazine, just to name a few. And with that, know what good hands you’re in today for today’s podcast episode and let’s get on with the show.

INTRO MUSIC

[00:02:40] Brie: I can’t believe you did that all in one breath. 

[00:02:42] JoAnn: I did it. I was breathing. I was I was breathing. 

[00:02:45] Brie: that, in 

[00:02:46] JoAnn: I ha. And lungs, swimmer.

[00:02:50] Brie: There you go.

[00:02:51] Brie: There you go. 

[00:02:52] JoAnn: back to the podcast. We are overjoyed to have you here today and especially to talk about your new [00:03:00] workbook, which is so cool. And like I, I was reading last night and you have a story about why you created the workbook about this woman that you were seeing at every single conference.

[00:03:09] JoAnn: Could you share that with us?

[00:03:13] Bill: Yeah. a mother of kids that I tested, so I knew this woman, but I just recognized that she came to four of our lectures in DC and basically it’s the same talk about the self-driven child. And so I, the fourth time after the lecture, I go up, I go up to her and say, why do you keep coming?

[00:03:27] Bill: And she said. Every time I come here and hear you guys talk, I feel so calm. I feel centered, and I feel so much better about my kid. And then I go home and he doesn’t turn in his homework, he screws something up. I talk to a mother whose kid’s way out, overachieving compared to my kid, you know? And I, I get all anxious again.

[00:03:44] Bill: So , I come back to, I hear you guys talk again to put things in perspective. And we we’re like a calm button.that’s what we wanna do. We want parents to help to feel that it’s safe and that it’s right to trust their kids and to worry about them less. 

[00:03:57] JoAnn: Like I, I, I being a calm button [00:04:00] because I saw that when I was a teacher, um, in education. I would in and I’d be like, I am not gonna use this with my students. I am not, for instance, like behavior charts. I’m not gonna use this with my students. I know. I see the eyes rolling back in your heads.

[00:04:15] Brie: You can, 

[00:04:15] Ned: We have feelings.

[00:04:16] Brie: in podcast, if you could see the eye rolls as soon as behavior charts came up. 

[00:04:21] JoAnn: But I would, I would and then I would go into the classroom. I would hit a, a like speed and I would see my colleagues using ’em and panic and then go right back to those behavior charts. So I could really, really relate to that woman who had that sense of panic. And I think like all of us can actually, as parents, that panic.

[00:04:43] JoAnn: Um. Let’s talk that panic. that panic.  first and foremost? Because one of your principles is about being a non-reactive presence. What’s like first signs that we can look at to kind of start tampering that reactivity in [00:05:00] us as parents? 

[00:05:02] Ned: So first signs to identify that we’re even reacting? 

[00:05:05] JoAnn: That would be great for signs to identify. Yeah, let’s start there.

[00:05:07] Brie: Yeah, because I think sometimes we’re not even sure, right? Like I talked about in the intro, like I think that sometimes we think we’re being calm, but then we think that we’re doing it the wrong way. We think we’re calm, but really we’re not. 

[00:05:20] Ned: I might shift the language slightly. We always think that we’re rational even when we are emotional or anxious. You know, and for me, one thing I’ll talk about myself as a dad with my daughter who’s now 20, and if she’s listening,

[00:05:33] Ned: brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. But nobody could push my buttons the way that she would But to be fair, no one would push her buttons the way that I could. And we’re really, really close. And we’re probably built in very similar ways, though, she’s a lot brighter than her dad. And one of the ways that I am with her, certainly work with my students is when I feel myself being impatient, right?

[00:05:56] Ned: “I don’t have time for this.” When I feel myself being [00:06:00] frustrated, well, the chances are they are too and sometimes it’s my frustration. Because stress is contagious, my stress can become my daughter’s stressor or a student I’m working with, but it also goes the other way. I’ll be working with a kid and thinking, why am I feeling so intense?

[00:06:16] Ned: Well, it’s because this boy’s incredibly anxious and he’s sort of radiating this angst. Anxiety is just so contagious. So if as a parent, as a mom, especially, if you feel yourself impatient or anxious or frustrated or angry, these are all symptoms of your stress response going off

[00:06:35] JoAnn: and the hard part of course is your kid is likely to feel it too. So we have a whole part of this chapter of just starting with recognizing your own triggers because it’s hard to address a problem that you don’t first acknowledge as a problem. 

I love the whole quiz part you go, because you have “in the last month, how often have you…” It’s so easy to…I love quizzes. 

[00:06:54] Ned: Some of us are like, okay, how many in the last 10 minutes have I?

[00:06:57] JoAnn: Yeah, like that anxiety that we [00:07:00] feel creeping up into ourselves, especially the anger, how that’s some of our signs that we are becoming reactive, when we notice that what is something that we can do as a parent, especially if we have a kid in front of us, like…. 

[00:07:16] Ned: I wanna say really quickly before Bill answers that really good question. When you think about the stress response, the freeze, flight, or fight response, right? So some people just freeze and they don’t know what to say. “What do I even say?” You’re just frozen, right? Like the bunny in our front yard. They don’t see me, they don’t see me, they don’t see me. More often for women, it’s more often, but not always. It’s the freeze or the flight response. Men are more likely to go right to the fight response. So I see this all the time. I’m not anxious. I’m just pissed. Potato. Potahto.

[00:07:45] Brie: Exactly. 

[00:07:45] Ned: You know? 

[00:07:46] Brie: Exactly. 

[00:07:48] Bill: That’s true, and if you think about it, I’ve been practicing meditation for fifty-one years and there’s very good research that meditation calms anxiety and also calms anger. Because it’s the same stress response as Ned’s saying. I think…the way I think [00:08:00] about it is that some people are just naturally more laid back than others, and those who are more kind of intensely wired, have a more sensitive stress response. The goal is not to be just chill all the time. The goal is to move in that direction of being a non-anxious presence, meaning somebody who’s not highly anxious and emotionally reactive.

[00:08:19] Bill: ‘Cause you know that,families work. It’s just easier, it’s easier to be a parent if you don’t overreact, if you can stay calm. And,the way I think about it is there’s kind of emergency medicine and there’s preventative medicine. And the emergency medicine may involve saying, honey, you’re the most precious thing in the universe and I’ve started to feel myself getting really frustrated here, so I’m take a break. And leaving, going away til you cool down. just do some deep breathing. I can’t think clearly right now. I need a little space. that’s the first step in emergency medicine.

[00:08:51] Bill: And if I can jump in there for one second. Bill, I think your point is such a good one. People, we are all gonna to react the way that we react. We have the nervous system that we [00:09:00] have. We have a nervous system that’s already overwhelmed by what’s already gone down in our day, and so we’re not responsible for our reactions.

[00:09:07] Ned: But , we do have this potential to be thoughtful and responsible about our responses. , the real parenting, the real power is in then how you choose to respond. So instead of my blasting my daughter,exactly as Bill said, you know, I am really feeling a lot right now.

[00:09:22] Ned: I’m not mad at you, but I am mad and I just, I need to sort this out. I wanna have a conversation with you when I’m actually thinking clearly.If you can recognize them, put space, because again, if you’re intense enough, you think that your reactions are responses and they’re… 

[00:09:36] JoAnn: They’re not.

[00:09:37] Ned: It’s the stress part of your brain responding rather than the responsible part of your 

[00:09:41] Brie: Well, and I love what you both talked about because I think, and I know we’ve talked about this plenty of times in the podcast, but I think it’s so important for our kids to hear us talk through our calming mechanism, like our way to get our emotional regulation under control. Because, you [00:10:00] know, from working so many years with littles, like my under fives, it amazes me how much our kids think that we have all of our shiznit together.

[00:10:07] Brie: When we don’t.

[00:10:08] JoAnn: Never do we have it all together. Absolutely. 

[00:10:11] Brie: They’re like, well, Mom, you never get mad about this ever. And nothing ever makes you upset. And you’re like, oh girl, if you only knew. We don’t show them what we’re doing internally, they don’t know, no matter what age kids you have, like under five, school age, teens, they have to still have that help and understanding that it can be done and that it’s appropriate. 

[00:10:35] JoAnn: it’s interesting too because, so Bill, you started talking about emergency medicine and I wanna come back to that about anything else that we could do right there in the moment, because Ned, you said, that, I wanna talk with you about this when I’m in a calm state and that really hit me because I am definitely a flight when I come into a stressful situation like my daughter, she’s 16, she knows exactly how to push my buttons. I’m a more of [00:11:00] a, like, she’ll say something to me and I’ll be like, okay, and I’m outta the room, before I can even react. So you gave me a really, really great script to use there. And right after this break, Bill, I wanna go back to you and talk more about the emergency medicine approach versus the preventative medicine approach.

[00:11:18] JoAnn: And we’ll talk about that right after this. 

[00:11:20] JoAnn: So right before the break we were talking about there’s the emergency medicine approach and the preventative medicine approach. We talked about a few things to do, such as, have those deep calming breaths. Talk through your calming process. Is there anything else you recommend, Bill, that we could do right there in the moment? 

[00:11:36] Bill: I love what you were saying earlier about kind of talking through your own process and when my kids were little, I tend to be in good mood almost all 

[00:11:44] JoAnn: Maybe that’s the preventative part we need to about.

[00:11:46] Ned: 

[00:11:48] Bill: That’s my wife says to me, but know, some of it’s temperament, some of it’s practice and so I wanted to let my kids know how I’d do it. So I’d be driving in the car and I’d say, something happened and it made me really anxious.

[00:11:59] Bill: [00:12:00] Somebody’s mad at me about something and I was really kind of getting down on myself. 

[00:12:03] Bill: Are you saying you need to be perfect a hundred percent of the time? It doesn’t make any sense. I like that. So I love that idea of, of sharing with kids what we know helps us calm down in the moment. and the preventative medicine part is simply that, all of our worry about our kids, all our anxiety, all our emotional reactivity, it’s about the future.

[00:12:25] Bill: It’s not about the present. In the sense that, I saw, I talked to amother who’s a parent coach today who’s micromanaging her 16-year-old. She’s read our books too. It’s because it’s hard. It’s hard to do what we recommend, which is to give kids more control of their lives. It’s emotionally hard. 

[00:12:40] Bill: And what I saying to her is that, she’s worried about his grades. He’s not doing his homework. They’re on top of him about his schoolwork and stuff. And I said, he could flu every one of his courses in high school, and if he decided that was a bad idea, he could go to community college for 30 credits and then he can apply to almost all the colleges in the country.

[00:12:57] Bill: They don’t wanna see this high school transcript. It’s just not that big a deal. [00:13:00] I said, all you’re worried is about that he’s gonna get stuck in some negative place and not get better. Part of the long term that prevented medicine is getting our head around the idea that most kids turn out well, most kids don’t get stuck in negative spaces unless we get stuck in some kind of battle with them. We just go on and arguing about the same thing over and again, and also we always say, take the long view. Because most people turn out well. And I got a Christmas card a couple years ago, from a family. I tested all three of their kids, I followed them for years. And on the outside they wrote ” you were right.” And the inside, it’s these three young adults, very, very nice looking, all dressed up with their spouses and their parents wrote, they all turned out great. And they were all a hot mess at various points in life. One of them got so depressed and fell behind. They had to leave college twice. He’s now a successful attorney and I just as a neuropsychologist who’s done this work for 40 years, I’ve seen at least a thousand kids who were just a disaster, who [00:14:00] are incredible as adults.

[00:14:01] Bill: And that knowledge that I don’t have to get stuck in this moment. What I’m worried about is this moment that’s kind of irrational. Because he’s not going to stay in this moment.  

[00:14:10] Brie: Yeah 

[00:14:10] JoAnn: so like thinking about the future is really what keeps us in that cycle of being reactive and going down that road. I wanna know though, Bill, like how do you think meditation plays into that for you and calming down that reaction? I, I find it so hard when you’re in the moment to think about you’re like thinking about the future and that it’s not important How how do you turn that kind of thinking around?

[00:14:36] Bill: Well, I think part of the preventative medicine is cognitive because it’s thinking, asking yourself, what am I afraid would happen if I weren’t upset about? Just if I was so worried because so much of our painful emotions are to motivate us. If I asked you what are you afraid would happen if you weren’t so worried about what your kid is doing?

[00:14:56] Bill: Parents often say, well, then I wouldn’t do anything I can to help them. [00:15:00] And I just say, are you saying that out of love? You wouldn’t do everything to help them? Of course I would. So some of it’s cognitive, but also some of it is just calming down your stress response and for some people, exercise is a really good way to do that. For Ned and I, we’ve’ practiced meditation for many years. When I was 23, three people told me I was the most nervous person they’ve ever met. One of them said, if there’s anybody on this planet that needs to learn to meditate it’s you. So I learned to meditate and, I’ve been meditating for 25 years and I went down to Tennessee to a one-on-one tutorial with a professor there who showed me this biofeedback, this neurofeedback program.

[00:15:38] Bill: And he demonstrated the assessment program on me. So he put some EEG leads in my head to pick my brainwaves. And he said, Bill, the first thing I want you to do is close your eyes. So I closed my eyes and about three or four seconds later, he said, Jesus Christ. I said, what? He said, the second you closed your eyes, there was this big, beautiful burst of alpha, these peaceful brainwaves.

[00:15:53] Bill: And I realized that I rewired my brain from being really anxious to not being really [00:16:00] anxious and reactive. 

[00:16:01] Brie: I need to learn that trick. I need to learn that trick. I close my eyes and it is not not calm. 

[00:16:06] JoAnn: I would never think that you were the most anxious person ever. Ever. 

[00:16:09] Bill: 30 days after I learned to meditate. I was just, I’d flunked outta graduate school, I was so anxious and I was working in a warehouse and my foreman came up to me on a break and said, whatcha on? He thought I was taking Quaaludes or some downers. 

[00:16:21] Brie: Because you’d gotten so calm? 

[00:16:22] Bill: He was drug seeking, yes. But I know this family where a mother and her 17-year-old autistic son learned TM together. And the mother was so impressed she had this reporter friend come and do a story and interviewed that 17-year-old and said, what does the meditation do? He said, it calms the mind and it calms the mom. 

[00:16:41] Bill: So, I think that part of it is cognitive, kind of getting your head around the idea that it’s right be a non-anxious presence. It’s a good thing not to be overly reactive and part of it is physiological and just calming down that stress response and both things enable us to get a stronger sense of control [00:17:00] over our own lives and low sense of control is what makes you feel stressed, makes you feel anxious, makes you feel angry. It’s that low sense of control. 

[00:17:07] JoAnn: Absolutely. I’ve seen that.

[00:17:08] Brie: I’m curious. I’m gonna ask for some advice on this. Anxious mom here in the room. if you are seeing let’s say like you said, like we worry so much about the future. We worry about the what ifs and JoAnn knows I am a crazy “what if”girl. 

[00:17:21] JoAnn: I have to talk her talk her down.

[00:17:23] JoAnn: 

[00:17:23] Brie: Yeah. Oh yeah. I worry about step 20 before I worry about anything before that. So I am a mom and my kid is let’s say middle school, early high school, my kid is starting to becomedisengaged from school. Their grades are starting to go down. They don’t like going to school. They’re unmotivated, whatever. And as the anxious parent, I am worried that they’re gonna go down this road.

[00:17:48] Brie: And in my head, they’re already doing drugs, drinking alcohol, mixing up with the wrong 

[00:17:53] Brie: people, and they’re…. 

[00:17:55] Ned: Living in a van down by the river. Yep. Yep. 

[00:17:57] JoAnn: Although everyone wants to live in a van down by the [00:18:00] river these days, Ned.

[00:18:01] Brie: I know, right? There was a time when we were like, oh, living in a van, down by the river. And now we’re like…

[00:18:06] Ned: Hashtag van life. 

[00:18:08] Brie: Maybe one day I’ll get to live in a van down by the river. But would you like vocalize that to your kids? I’m just worried that because you got a C in science that by next year you’re gonna have an F in science and math, and then you’re gonna be smoking doobies 

[00:18:24] Brie: under the high school, like 

[00:18:25] Brie: under those 

[00:18:26] Ned: Right. And then a In delinquency. yeah, yeah. 

[00:18:29] Ned: Yeah. 

[00:18:29] JoAnn: Oh my goodness. I love this question so much and we’re gonna hear you guys’ answers right after this. Okay. Right before the break, Brie asked you this question about worrying about a child who looks like they’re going downhill. How do you recommend addressing that without being reactive? 

[00:18:45] Brie: because I cannot be calm if I’m worried my kid is gonna be going down that hill. 

[00:18:50] Ned: Among other things, bill has had the opportunity to work with a lot of young people who seem to be just in this kind of situations that you’re describing. 

[00:18:56] Bill: This family educator I talked to today, her kid is very [00:19:00] unmotivated and the adults in his life are spending 80 or 90 units of energy trying to make the kids work. The kid’s spending 10 to 20 and it doesn’t change until the other changes. So part of what we recommend is asking yourself: whose problem is it? And it doesn’t mean: this is your problem, buddy.

[00:19:18] Bill: It means respectfully. This is their life and expressing confidence, they can figure it out. And the first thing that I tell underachieving kids or kids who are kind of slacking in school, especially if they’re in high school, is I say, you can flunk every single one of your classes.

[00:19:34] Bill: If you decide that was a bad idea, you go to community college for 30 credits and then you can apply to virtually all the colleges in the country. They don’t wanna see your high school And just because when I tell them that it motivates them because they realize, oh, I haven’t screwed up my whole life.

[00:19:49] Bill: When we get anxious, we try to get more controlling.

[00:19:52] Bill: And, that’s why being in a non-anxious presence is so beneficial, in part because it’s so much easier to remember that it’s their lives. And I can offer to help. [00:20:00] I can offer support in any way, but I can’t change them and I can’t force them.

[00:20:05] Bill: The first principle in our new book is put connection first. Your relationship is more important than your kids’ grades. I consulted with a kid years ago who was 21. He really had a tough time in high school and since, and I ask him, is there anything that your,parents could have done when you were in high school that would’ve made it better?

[00:20:23] Bill: And he said, I think it would have helped me if they’d been happy to see me sometimes. But he was screwing up. So they always felt they had to be on him, or disapproving of him. And we think there’s nothing more important you can do than just enjoying your kids. So even if they’re going south, kind of academically, you’ll let them know it’s just not that big a deal. You could turn this around, I love you, no matter how hard you work. 

[00:20:46] Ned: Yeah. And if I can add onto onto that…when we are anxious, we become controlling. When our kids feel controlled, they become more anxious. We know that the major avoidance. [00:21:00] So 1, 1 One real concern that we have is a lot of kids who seem like they’re not trying hard at all, they’re actually frozen. We go back to the freeze fight flight response.

[00:21:08] Ned: They, They feel stuck. Things are not going well. They know loving. Parents don’t approve. They know that, you know their teacher’s looking at them like they’re a dope. They know. they know, they know, but they may not know how to do better, right? And oftentimes thing, is well you’ve just gotta study harder.

[00:21:21] Ned: Well, I I mean, I was with a kid the other day, um, whose mom’s saying, well, I know if he, if he if he works really hard, I know he can get As on all these things. The kid is anxious, he’s ADHD Learning is hard for him. I went out and folks, for a moment and then I said, you know, I, I I hear what you’re trying to say, but what you may be communicating to him, is that you can do this if you try, if you’re performing, and Cs, that must mean that your character sucks.

[00:21:43] Ned: You know, Because not a talent thing. There must be something wrong with, with you as a I closed the door. and I I said I, I can see where your parents are coming from, but but I’d love to hear your experience on this. He said, well, in ninth grade I locked myself in my room and I was in there doing work for three to four hours a night. I’ve never got worse [00:22:00] grades in my life. So from his perspective, harder work doesn’t =make any difference. And all that happens is when he really put his nose to the grindstone is he proved to himself that he’s just really a dummy, that he can’t do this work. So that feels hard. So kids run away from this, right?

[00:22:14] Ned: So we wanna be careful that we’re not controlling because when we lower their sense of control, we whack their motivation and we make them more stressed. Bill’s point about the the, the connection. When we are more anxious, it is hard for us to be and we just kind of pound on kids and beat them thinking when they can finally get their act together and everything’s good, then I can relax and love them.

[00:22:34] Ned: We wanna do the other way. We relax and love them from the get-go even, even, and especially when their grades are messy, their rooms are messy, their lives are messy because that’s how, as Bill said, that’s how what I, one of my favorite ex, and And this book is a workbook. So it’s not just the science of this and the stories, because Bill and I have a million of these, but it really was designed, if we can’t have a conversation the way that you do with your families, the way that we do with ours, how can we foster this?

[00:22:57] Ned: So the reflections, there’s questions, there’s activities to do [00:23:00] by yourself, with your spouse and with your kids. And my favorite one is this. That a kid who’s in that position is really ambivalent. There are lots of reasons why to get better grades, to have loving par parents be proud and blah, blah. blah.

[00:23:12] Ned: But they may also wanna try to be, appear cool to someone that they think that is really cute. They may rather be playing Xbox, but they also, again, may have an older sister and they’re never gonna compete with Brie and JoAnn. So like why even bother? Right? And so the exercise is to articulate, make a column, and write down all the reasons why you can think for a kid to do better, and frankly, all the reasons that you imagine your kid already knows why working harder and doing better would be a good thing. And then make another list and see how many things you can come up of reasons why your kid feels like maybe she doesn’t wanna do this, where she feels like she’ll embarrass herself. She feels like, she feels like, and when you go through this process, you’re gonna realize that part of the reason that kids are in a hard place and they’re stuck is they have reasons to and reasons not to. And as we talked about what you say, the more we [00:24:00] pound on this side, the more the other side, why not to? And it, And then we’re back and forth and we really have, have we, we pushed our kids. They feel alone and we feel helpless because our kids are not engaging with us.

[00:24:12] Ned: And so, exactly as Bill said, if we can lower the energy, have planed, be thinking in our own head, even though, you know, we want them to get back on theLess, The more non-anxious we can be about this, the more supportive of their autonomy we can be and the more supportive of the connection and really empathetic with them.

[00:24:29] Ned: Because when we when we do that and feel like we’re working hard to understand what they’re feeling, they’re much more open with us. We lower that stress and we engage all those executive functions that are still being constructed, even while the plane is in midair. We get it, but it makes it much more likely that the middle school kid starts saying, “Well, Mom, could you help me with…” and starts looking for ways to they currently 

[00:24:50] JoAnn: seeing a pattern like, do not get into a battle with your kids. If you’re in a battle, it’s like you’ve already lost because they’ll just force back even harder and harder. 

[00:24:59] Ned: one of [00:25:00] the lines we the, with With research we found on, on connection, a child is better off growing up with a loving parent in a war zone than growing up in a lovely community, a lovely house warring with their parent, literally you have better outcomes growing up in a war zone with high connection with a parent or caregiver than living in frigging Taj Mahal or some mansion someplace when you feel cold and distant and unsupported by your parents.

[00:25:28] Bill: why “put connection first” is the first principle in the book, and so much of what we talk about in all our books is changing the energy. So if it feels like you’re trying to force and you really can’t force a kid to do anything, you change the energy. When you find yourself really frustrated, you change the energy, you take a break, you change the energy ’cause that energy is not gonna help.

[00:25:49] Brie: I was gonna say, I feel like you guys are on a mission to bring calmness to parents around the world to let them know that by trying to push and [00:26:00] control what’s going on with your kids, that that’s not going to give them the results that they’re looking for. 

[00:26:05] Ned: A hundred percent and part of it is few things can be more upsetting and more stressful for a loving – I’ll pick on moms because here we are – that for loving moms than trying to do something that may be impossible. Because if your kid refused to do his homework, refused to do her homework, you can’t make them – what, are you gonna duct tape them to a chair? What are you gonna do? What you can do, what you can do is make it so unpleasant where you’re so angry and so scared that the kid really feels like I’m gonna lose this connection with Mom. And if you’re 19, you can tell your mom to go pound sand, but you can’t risk that if you’re nine years old.

[00:26:40] Ned: And so children will sacrifice their own need for autonomy, you know, all kinds of things in order to maintain that relationship. And we just, as Bill said, so much of our work is to help parents feel that it’s safe to trust their kids more and worry about them less because it’s better for kids and it’s also better for moms because it [00:27:00] doesn’t feel good to worry all the time. It’s just not, you don’t wanna spend your every waking moment being anxious about your kid. It’s really hard to enjoy your own life, much less theirs and love on them. So yeah. We’re pretty sure the science is on our side.

[00:27:12] JoAnn: Yes. And with that in mind, we’re gonna do a little quickfire game that I’m gonna call “Calm Under Pressure.

[00:27:20] Ned: Oh. Oh, okay. Now I’m nervous. Am I allowed to be nervous?

[00:27:23] Brie: Well, you’re allowed to be nervous but not anxious.

[00:27:26] JoAnn: It’s called Calm Under Pressure, and it’s not a competitive game. It’s a collaborative game. And what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna give you a scenario and you can use your name as your buzzer if you want to answer this one and your response needs to be like what the parent could say to the child in this scenario. So just directly speaking to the child. So for instance, if your four-year-old’s having a full meltdown in the grocery store, because you won’t buy candy, you might go “Ned!” And you’ll say, “listen, I know you want the candy right now,” or [00:28:00] whatever you would say from that.Okay, we ready? We’re gonna go through and try to just throw these out because parents are always like, if you’re listening right now and you’re like, I have no idea what to say in these situations, oh my gosh, this is gonna be amazing for you. Here we go. We’re gonna start with a teen situation. Your 15-year-old rolls their eyes and says, “Whatever,” when you ask about their declining grades,

[00:28:20] Ned: Ned. Boarding Boarding school. 

[00:28:23] Bill: I was thinking military school, but yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:26] Brie: I have a stack of brochures boarding school right here! And I’m not afraid to use them! 

[00:28:35] Ned: Sorry. Well let’s see, an actual response to that question. “Hey, rolling of eyes. Something I said must have hit you the wrong way. Can you gimme a little more?”

[00:28:45] JoAnn: I love that. 

[00:28:46] Ned: I’d love to try this againbecause, if I’ve hit something wrong, I’d love to understand what your feelings are on this. 

[00:28:51] JoAnn: Next one. Your 7-year-old refuses to get ready for school and says, you can’t make me. 

[00:28:56] Bill: Bill. “Absolutely. I couldn’t make you do this.” Just telling [00:29:00] kids, recognizing, acknowledging: I couldn’t make you do this. “You know, if you gimme a real hard time about this, I’m not sure I’m gonna feel like reading you three or four stories. I might just read you two stories tonight because that’s the way relationships work. But we’re gonna goto school. So, yeah, acknowledge. Acknowledge clearly I can’t, then negotiate. 

[00:29:16] JoAnn: You have no control. You really have no control in the situation and negotiate. Okay, next one. This one I have seen repeatedly in my house. Your teen is giving you one word answers and refusing to participate in the family dinner conversation.

[00:29:30] Ned: Ned, I’m like boarding school. Sorry.

[00:29:34] Brie: Boarding school, and you get boarding school! 

[00:29:36] Ned: It seems like you don’t wanna share a lot of what your thoughts are right now, and that’s, that’s okay. That’s okay. You’re under no obligation to do this. But, you know, if or when you feel like it, I’d really like to hear your perspective on this becausewhat you say matters to me. 

[00:29:49] JoAnn: Love it. 

[00:29:49] Brie: That just made my heart melt.

[00:29:51] JoAnn: Yes. We’re gonna end our game right there. Bill or Ned. What are you excited about that’s coming up in your life right now? 

[00:29:59] Bill: [00:30:00] Ned and I are working on an article called “Calm Is Contagious.” And we’ve been writing a book about the idea, because the idea is that a wise meditation teacher once said that a green forest requires green trees, and a peaceful world requires peaceful people. And so if you want a peaceful family, we work on our own. We work on ourselves. So we’re writing about, as Ned said, all emotions are contagious.

[00:30:23] Bill: And what we wanna do ideally is radiate calm. Radiate peace, not fear, not anger. If we do, not to say that we should never be angry and never be afraid, never be anxious. It’s just that, the goal is moving that direction of being a non-anxious presence ’cause then we radiate calm, we radiate clarity, we radiate peacefulness to our family, to the world.

[00:30:45] Bill: And given the level of conflict in this world, it seems like we need more of that.

[00:30:49] JoAnn: I like that idea of radiating calm. Ned, what about you? What are you excited about? 

[00:30:54] Ned: Oh, I’m sending a kid to boarding school. No, I’m teasing. I’m teasing. I’m teasing. I’m teasing. [00:31:00] You know, I, it’s funny, kind of related to what Bill said. We both had people ask us, so how are you doing? I say, I’m great. How can you be great right now? Everything is such a mess and, da, da da, you know, political and discord and, da da da. And I picked this up from Bill who said I don’t know that it helps the world or I can help other people when I suffer more, I feel like I can help people more when I suffer less. And so I sort of roll pathologically optimistic. We had a really fun interview last night and people are like, what are you optimistic and what are you hopeful for?

[00:31:33] Ned: And I’m like, kids. Kids, my kids, other people’s kids. Because in the same way that young people always want their lives to work out. They may make bad decisions along the way. They have setbacks and all kinds of things that can go sideways. But don’t all of us, all of us always want our lives to work out, even if it’s a mess right now?

[00:31:54] Ned: And children, especially, there’s, I think it was… oh, gosh, I’m trying to remember who the psychologist was, or [00:32:00] philosopher. He said “the real journey of discovery is not traveling to foreign lands, but seeing with new eyes.” And that’s the great thing about children. And Bill has, you know, a gaggle of grandchildren, many of whom were currently living with him.

[00:32:12] Ned: And you just, we were on a call last night and I was hearing these little voices like, “Ah! Ah!” Because no matter what is going on,children wake up with an eagerness to see what the day brings and endless curiosity. And that always, always gives me hope because you know the problems that what did Einstein say?

[00:32:32] Ned: “We will not solve our problems using the thinking we used when we created them.” And by definition, children don’t yet know the ways of the world. And so they’re very likely to see things with different eyes. With new eyes. So yeah, children make me happy. Young people, me happy.

[00:32:47] Ned: Even old people like Bill and me old farts, we still wanna see the world work out. 

[00:32:51] Bill: Speak for yourself.

[00:32:53] JoAnn: I have to say too, even seeing Gen Z, like the [00:33:00] teenagers, they are so feisty in a good way, and that makes me very hopeful for the future as well. Well, Bill and Ned. This has been amazing as always. I always love our conversations together. Thank 

[00:33:12] JoAnn: you so much for being here, 

[00:33:14] Brie: I also feel calm just from being in this interview.

[00:33:18] JoAnn: You’re our human Xanax. 

[00:33:20] JoAnn: Xanax 

[00:33:21] Ned: You two are such a force of good in the world, we’re really grateful. Really, I don’t know anybody who makes us laugh as much as you do. So we’re… you know, that, that alone is good for our spirits but, you guys just do a world of good in the world. So, we thank you. 

[00:33:33] JoAnn: Thank you. 

[00:33:34] Brie: Okay, thank you. 

[00:33:34] Bill: Bye.

[00:33:34] JoAnn: Thank you so much. 

[00:33:35] Brie: You know, the first time we interviewed, Ned, ’cause I think the first, he was our first connection, between Ned and Bill. Ned mentioned that parents focused too much on like that first 18 years with their kids and forget that, or not forget, but don’t always realize that the connections and the relationship you have with your kids during that time is what [00:34:00] builds the rest of their life. Do you want them to just leave home at 18 and be like, peace out? You were kind of a jerk, so I’m not gonna hang out with you that much. And I always remember that whenever they’re talking, just like everything that they say, I feel it.

[00:34:12] Brie: I’ve seen it in my own family that it makes a huge difference.

[00:34:17] JoAnn: I always try to make it a safe place to land and it’s hard sometimes because, for instance, right now I’m navigating this area with my daughter who’s 16 and driving where lately she has forgotten to inform me when plans change and then I can’t get ahold of her and I don’t know like where she is and of course I know where she is. She’s on Life 360, but I would like to be informed about it. And so this happened once when she was babysitting and happened last night too, when she said she’d be home by eight and it became nine o’clock. And I’m like, where’s my daughter? I found it hard not to harp on it and be passive aggressive.

[00:34:56] JoAnn: That is what is my normal tendency. I’m [00:35:00] like, well, you don’t love me enough to tell me when you’ll be home. Like, that’s the thought that automatically pops into my head and I’m like, where did this come from? This is not a healthy thought, JoAnn. This does not help relationships, JoAnn. 

[00:35:14] Brie: I can tell you, I would be right there too, like the voice in my head would be saying that my child doesn’t respect me enough and doesn’t think that I am important enough to know what’s going on in their life.

[00:35:25] JoAnn: Yes, and that’s exactly what hits you. Like your ego hits you so damn hard.

[00:35:29] Brie: It’s ego. Yes, you’re right.

[00:35:31] JoAnn: Always. And, , becoming that non-reactive person that doesn’t listen to their ego, that’s able to counter their ego, even though it makes you feel like total crap. I mean, when she was late coming home last night, I felt like total crap because here’s this voice in my head telling me I’m unrespected, I’m unloved.

[00:35:49] JoAnn: I don’t matter to my daughter and I’m here trying to come in with the opposite. No is everything is okay. You know, take care of yourself. All other parents have felt this way [00:36:00] before, you know, going into our self-compassion practice we learned from Dr. Kristin Neff. But still, it’s hard as a parent to be that non-reactive presence.

[00:36:10] Brie: It’s hard and like the question I had for them, I feel like so many of us, we get stuck in that area of societal pressures, and we have so much pressure on us these days to be a great parent because we see it plastered all over social media, all over TV and movies that the typical role of, well, look at this family.

[00:36:34] Brie: They’re so wonderful. They’re able to get everything like figured out and, like let’s just take Modern Family. All right. I love Modern Family. My daughter is obsessed with it right now, so I’ve probably watched the entire series four or five times. In it, even though they’re not perfect, they still manage to, nobody has had major, major challenges in that show, none of those characters.

[00:36:54] Brie: And so you think that that is normal because they have little issues, but nothing big. So when [00:37:00] a big issue comes in, you’re like, well, I must be doing it wrong. And I’ve had somebody say that to me that like, I must be doing a better job at this because I don’t have problems with, you know, my kids at home.

[00:37:10] JoAnn: And you’re like, duh, duh duh. Just wait for it. Wait for it…

[00:37:14] Brie: right. And it’s not necessarily a bad… yeah, it’s not necessarily a bad parenting thing that makes it happen. It’s life. Things don’t always work out fantastically for everybody. Some people are gonna have more challenges than others. It doesn’t mean you’re doing a bad job.

[00:37:29] JoAnn: Nope. The absence of problems does not mean that you’re doing a bad job. To check how you’re doing as a parent, look to see how you’re solving those problems or going about it, not fixing ’em, but working to solve them for all parties involved.

[00:37:45] Brie: Yes.

[00:37:46] JoAnn: Wow, this has been an amazing episode. I feel always so calm after talking to Bill and Ned and, uh, make sure to go get their book.

[00:37:54] JoAnn: It’s called The Seven Principles for Raising a Self-Driven Child. It’s a workbook you can write in it. They have all these [00:38:00] quizzes in it, which, you know, we love the quizzes.

[00:38:02] Brie: I love anything that’s interactive. I feel like I learn a lot more when there’s parts where I can digest and try to use the tools that I’m reading about rather than just reading it. At least that works great for my brain.

[00:38:16] JoAnn: Yes. So until next time, remember the best mom is a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later.

[00:38:23] Brie: Thanks for stopping by.[00:38:25] JoAnn: If you’d like to support the show further, you could share episodes with your loved ones. Leave a positive review or follow us on social media at No Guilt Mom. You could also show your love by visiting our amazing podcast sponsors. We have a link in the show notes.