• 2 days ago
Article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-to-raise-kids-with-no-punishments/ar-AA1sI6vk

In this episode, we examine the challenges of gentle parenting through Chelsea Haug-Zavaleta's experiences as highlighted in an article by Olga Kazan. We discuss the tension between her parenting ideals and the chaos of daily life, particularly during a hectic car ride home. This reflection prompts us to question the effectiveness of gentle parenting amidst overstimulation and the demands of modern family life. I emphasize the importance of prioritizing emotional connections over efficiency, encouraging listeners to reconsider their approaches to fostering deeper understanding and support for their children's emotional needs.

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Transcript
00:00Well, well, well, good morning, everybody.
00:03Stephen Molyneux from Freedom, Maine.
00:06And I'm up a little early, a prayer to the family.
00:10So I wanted to talk about this article by Olga Kazan from about a month ago.
00:21And this influencer says, you can't parent too gently.
00:26All right.
00:28So the article goes, the kids held it together pretty well until right after gymnastics.
00:34At the end of a long day that included school, a chaotic play date, and a mostly ignored
00:38lunch of sandwiches, the parenting coach, Chelsea Haug-Zavaleta, picked up her twins
00:45from the tumbling gym around 5.30.
00:48The two eight-year-olds joined their six-year-old sister inside Chelsea's silver minivan.
00:58Chelsea, an energetic 41-year-old, promotes gentle parenting, a philosophy in which prioritizing
01:07a good relationship with your kid trumps getting them to obey you.
01:11I was tagging along with her family for a few days to see how her strategy, stay calm,
01:16name emotions, and don't punish kids for acting out, works in practice.
01:22So it's not too hard to see the problem here, right?
01:30The end of a long day that included school, a chaotic play date, and a mostly ignored
01:33lunch of sandwiches, and a tumbling gym.
01:38Or maybe the tumbling gym was the chaotic play date.
01:42But this is something my daughter taught me relatively early, which is, the best time
01:52with your kids.
01:53I mean look, sometimes I would take her, I remember taking her and her friends out to
01:59go and see, we went to a movie, we went to an arcade, and we went to dinner, and it was
02:08really fun.
02:10It was really fun.
02:11That stuff can get kind of pricey, to be honest with you, but it was really fun and memorable.
02:15But some of the greatest and best times are calm, just sitting there on the couch and
02:25chatting or going for a nice long walk, and kids are drawn to overstimulation in the absence
02:38of genuine connection, right?
02:42So if you are this sort of conveyor belt of really wild stimuli, why is that?
02:53Why do your kids need all of that, right?
02:55They've had school, and a chaotic play date, and so on.
03:02That does not seem ideal.
03:04If you've got this parenting coach, so let's see the day, right?
03:08So it's a weekday, right?
03:09Because it's school.
03:10Parenting coach is waking up at probably 6 in the morning, 6.30 in the morning, she's
03:17doing stuff to get ready for the day, she's waking up her kids, she's got to hurry them
03:21to get their teeth brushed, and get them dressed, and get them lunch packed, and out to the
03:31school bus, or maybe she drops her kids off at school, so that's all just wild and chaotic,
03:36and then school is pretty wild and chaotic at that age, and then they go to a tumbling
03:42gym, and so she probably got them off to school at around, what, 7.30, 8 in the morning, depends
03:52how long the, some of the school buses can be pretty long, right?
03:56And she's then picking them up at about 5.30.
04:02So this is a parenting coach who's done almost no parenting until early evening.
04:11That's interesting, right?
04:14That's interesting.
04:17Why is there so much, like, when do the kids calm down, right?
04:23Because kids, I mean, they respond to stimuli, and they can get quite wild and excited about
04:28it, but when are they calm?
04:32When do they have that sort of calm, even, chatty, let-your-mind-wanderer connection
04:40with someone, right?
04:44Overstimulation is quite a big issue, and it's a big question as well, is where do you
04:50get this calm in your life?
04:52Now some people get it with meditation and so on, but where do you get this calm in your
04:57life?
04:58Where do you have this time to unwind, to unfold, to relax, and power and calm go hand
05:06in hand, right?
05:07I've made this sort of joke for many years, not really a joke, but this observation, that
05:10the king of the jungle is the lion, right?
05:12And why is he called the lion?
05:13Because he spends most of his time lying around, right?
05:16He doesn't run, he's not, right?
05:18Whereas the animals that are lower down on the food chain are always busy, right?
05:25Always kind of frantic, and chipmunks, you know, chipmunks don't lie around.
05:28Lions will lie around, right?
05:30So when do they get the calm base of their personality, right?
05:37So this article continues, this is the reporter who's with the parenting coach.
05:44During the long, hot, winding ride back home, things began to devolve.
05:48One of the girls didn't want any music.
05:49One wanted music and to sing along.
05:51One was turning the heater up too high, at least according to her sister, who was overheating.
05:56She says, I agreed not to name the kids or to disclose which one behaved in which way.
06:00Chelsea pulled over to settle everyone down.
06:03In the soothing, melodic tone that she recommends parents use with their children, she assured
06:08the girls that having some dinner would make them feel better.
06:11Well, the children are upset, right?
06:18The children are upset.
06:19Now, the interesting question, and the essential question, is why?
06:27Well, she says, you're hungry, you're hangry, right?
06:31But that is utterly, completely, and totally denying the validity of your children's feelings.
06:39Right?
06:40If your children are upset, the important question is why?
06:44Maybe something bad happened at school.
06:46Maybe something bad happened at the, what was it, the tumbling gym, right?
06:54Maybe something bad happened there.
06:56Maybe they haven't been getting any sleep.
06:57Maybe they feel overscheduled.
06:59Maybe one of them is coming down with something.
07:02Maybe they heard something upsetting at school, like someone's dog died, and they've been talking about it.
07:08Like, who knows?
07:10Who knows why the children are upset?
07:12I mean, how do you know why they're upset when you really haven't seen them?
07:17Since yesterday, because when you're managing kids, and getting them teeth brushed, and hair brushed, and dressed, and fed, right?
07:25I mean, you're just managing them, you're not, like, there's just rush.
07:27Everything's rushed.
07:28And I remember seeing, when I was younger, seeing family members who had those kinds of families, and I was like, gosh, you do not want anything like that.
07:37So, how do you know?
07:41You don't know why your children are upset.
07:44And to me, if the parent says, the only issue that you have is that you're hungry, right?
07:54Then, what you're, you're kind of, in my view, I'm not saying that this woman is doing it, I'm saying that in my view, that's kind of dismissive and insulting towards the children.
08:06Well, you think you're upset about X, but actually you're just hungry, right?
08:14I mean, I've mentioned this before, I used to get this when I'd be upset about something, and family members would say, oh, you've had a big day, or he's just overstimulated, or, you know, and it's like, well, no, I'm actually genuinely upset about something.
08:29But this sort of waving away kids' feelings, how is it respectful to the children to say, well, you think you're upset about X, Y, and Z, but actually you're just hungry, right?
08:40So, she says, oh, having some dinner will make you feel a lot better.
08:44No, it won't, one of the girls says.
08:46You're feeling like it won't, Chelsea said, validating her daughter's feelings, another one of her parenting tricks.
08:52Don't talk to me like I'm three years old.
08:54The girl shot back, okay.
08:58So, what does that mean?
09:00How is it validating your daughter's feelings when you say you're not upset about what you're talking about or anything else, you're just hungry and don't even know it?
09:12I find that, I mean, I've seen these sort of memes where this woman is, you know, upset or angry about something, and the man just keeps stuffing food into her mouth.
09:25That is, it's treating your children, I mean, in a way, to me at least, like worse than pets, right?
09:34So, how is it validating your daughter's feelings to say your feelings are not real, you're just hungry and you're not aware of it, right?
09:43That is not validating feelings.
09:46Feelings are, you know, hey, everyone's upset, let's pull over, let's sit down, and let's talk about what happened with your day, and when did you first start to feel upset, and what's going on, and you take it very seriously.
10:02If children's feelings are taken seriously, they calm the heck down.
10:09And the big question is, so a good relationship with your kids, you know, she's barely seeing her kids at least, of course this is not an average day, I get that, right?
10:18But maybe this woman who's a, what's her parenting?
10:24She's a parenting expert, right?
10:26The parenting coach, right?
10:28So, having a good relationship with your kids means spending a lot of time with your kids.
10:35And really, really listening to them.
10:41And so, stay calm, name emotions, don't punish kids for acting out.
10:45Well, staying calm is fine, although you want to be honest with your kids, right?
10:50So if your kids have done something that upsets you, telling them that you're upset is being honest, right?
10:55I mean, I'm not saying yell at them or anything, but name emotions, you're angry, yeah, don't punish kids for acting out.
11:01Well, how do you know they're acting out?
11:03How do you know they're acting out?
11:04Maybe the kids, do the kids have the life that they want?
11:10Right, so again, I'm not saying this is a typical day, but it might be, right?
11:14If she's a parenting coach, she might be busy with other families and so on.
11:20Do the kids have the day that they wanted?
11:24Now, if the kids have had the day that they wanted, like they wanted to get up early,
11:28they wanted to be rushed to brush teeth, brush hair, eat food, get dressed, get on the school bus,
11:34and then they wanted to go to, and the school bus is a pretty manic,
11:37and then they go to school, which at that age is kind of chaotic and manic,
11:41and do they have the day that they want?
11:46Do they have the day that they like?
11:49Well, the problem is, if they really haven't seen their mother all day, right,
11:55and they're finally seeing their mother at 5.30 in the afternoon,
12:01after they're already kind of wired up and stressed out and so on,
12:06if that's the day they want, then that's not great,
12:08because it means that the day that they want does not involve seeing their mother at all,
12:13really, during the day, so that's not good.
12:16So do the children have the life that they want?
12:21Do the children have the life that they want?
12:23If the children do have the life that they want,
12:25then they want a life that doesn't really involve seeing their mother much during the day.
12:30I mean, during the weekdays, right?
12:33And if they don't have the life that they want, then maybe that's why they're upset.
12:39So if parents really do listen to their kids and the kids have the life,
12:49if the kids don't have the life that they want,
12:51and the parents really listen to the kids,
12:53do you enjoy getting up this early?
12:55Do you enjoy the rush in the morning?
12:57Do you really like and enjoy school,
12:59as opposed to spending time at home with your mother and father, right?
13:05If the kids don't have the life that they want,
13:10then parents often won't really listen to their kids,
13:13because the parents don't want to change.
13:15So, I mean, there was a time when, for the sake of the show,
13:19and I do enjoy giving public speeches and so on,
13:22but for the sake of the show, I traveled a lot.
13:27I was traveling, like, sometimes a quarter of the year, a third of the year I was traveling.
13:33I was doing documentaries and speeches and meetups and so on.
13:37And my daughter didn't really enjoy it.
13:40She enjoyed it for a little while, and then she didn't enjoy it, so we changed.
13:43I don't want to travel as much.
13:45Then we won't.
13:47If you don't want to do it, then we won't, right?
13:50Anyway, so you're feeling like it won't.
13:53So validating her daughter's feelings, another one of her parenting tricks.
13:57Well, validating feelings.
14:02What is it changing?
14:04To give a sort of, obviously, somewhat harsh example,
14:07let's say that a man on a date, it's a first date,
14:12and he wants to kiss the woman at the end of the date.
14:16And she says, I don't want you to kiss me.
14:20And he says, oh, you know, you just ate a little bit too much food.
14:25You're feeling a little bloated, and that's the only reason why you don't want me to kiss you.
14:30Right?
14:31And then she says, no, no, that's not it.
14:33I didn't really enjoy the date.
14:35I'm sorry I'm not particularly attracted to you.
14:37I don't think we have the same values.
14:40I just don't want to kiss you.
14:42And then he says, oh, you're feeling like you don't want to kiss me.
14:45And then he continues to try and kiss her.
14:48She would be annoyed, right?
14:52She would be more than annoyed.
14:53She'd be kind of outraged, right?
14:54If he said, well, the only reason you don't want to kiss me is you overate side paneer, right?
14:59Then that is saying, well, your feelings are not really your feelings.
15:02They're just based on something physical, which is like saying you think you're upset about X, Y, and Z,
15:07but actually you're just hungry.
15:09And then he continues to want to try and kiss her.
15:11He reaches in.
15:12He cups her cheeks.
15:13And she says, I don't want you to kiss me.
15:15And he says, you're feeling like you don't want to kiss me.
15:18And then he comes in to kiss her.
15:20Like, that would be a violation, right?
15:22That would be bad.
15:23And again, I'm not saying this woman is morally equivalent,
15:26but just saying, oh, the reason you feel the way you do is some physical thing,
15:30and then naming the emotions, and then continuing like it didn't matter, right?
15:37So don't talk to me like I'm three years old.
15:39Well, that's interesting, right?
15:40By the time they arrived home, the two girls were in tears.
15:43There were fruitless demands for screen time and ice cream.
15:47Chelsea held one slobbing child while another chopped vegetables
15:50while the freshly prepared soup was ignored,
15:52and the girls ate that ubiquitous kid comfort food pasta with shredded cheese.
15:56To an untrained eye, it might look like Chelsea's methods didn't work that night.
16:01So, I mean, I don't know.
16:03I mean, I'm sorry, because I sort of want to say,
16:09like, maybe this is just ridiculous and foolish,
16:12but to me, if you just enjoy spending time with your kids,
16:20and they know that, and you prioritize spending time with them
16:25because you enjoy spending time with them,
16:28that's pretty easy and positive.
16:30Like, I have a show.
16:32It's before 9 this morning, so I have a show at 11,
16:36and then my daughter and I have the afternoon, right?
16:43We have the afternoon this afternoon,
16:45and we're planning on doing what we call, it's the roll around, right?
16:53We'll go someplace where there's cool walks,
16:57and we'll just walk around, and maybe we'll drop into a store or two if we want to,
17:04but we'll just do the roll around.
17:08No plan.
17:10We enjoy the drive, the chatting, and then we'll just walk around.
17:14We'll see things.
17:16We'll remember when this happened, and we'll chat about stuff,
17:19and honestly, that's about as great a day.
17:23It's about as great a day as possible.
17:26Like, we were talking last night in the car about the afterlife,
17:31and I was saying, like, I love the idea that I could spend eternity with you and mom
17:38and your husband and your kids,
17:41because I said, you know, for me, when you have a bunch of people around the dinner table
17:45and you're having great conversations and jokes,
17:47and there's good food and good conversation and games of cards,
17:51and maybe you play some charades or something, you know, some goofy stuff,
17:55I said, you know, that's about as good as things could get,
17:57and she said, well, yeah, but everybody's afterlife would be different
18:01because everybody loves each other in different ways,
18:04and that's a fantastic point, and we had a great conversation about that.
18:08I hadn't thought about it that way, which was really great to hear,
18:12and it's a great perspective,
18:14and, like, it doesn't get better than that to me in life,
18:21and it's not about being busy.
18:24Okay, so let's see here.
18:27So I don't like having methods with people, right?
18:30I don't like having tricks or methods.
18:33That's distancing, and it's manipulative, fundamentally, right?
18:37Well, I'm going to say, some kid's angry.
18:39I see that you're angry.
18:40It's like, yeah, of course, anger is a display.
18:43I see that you're frustrated.
18:45I understand that you're frustrated.
18:46You're feeling frustrated, which is kind of annoying to the kid
18:49because it's like, I already know I'm feeling frustrated.
18:51The question is, are you curious as to the deep reason why, right?
18:57But if you really listen to your kids, how much of your life has to change, right?
19:02If you really listen to your kids and what they want,
19:05how much of your life is going to have to change?
19:08Well, a lot.
19:10So, as she says, the article goes on to say,
19:13the evening seemed to substantiate the fears of parents and experts
19:16who think gentle parenting might be too gentle,
19:18turning kids into entitled monarchs and parents into their exhausted therapists.
19:23But Chelsea says her goal wasn't to get the kids to behave better.
19:25It was to maintain her loving connection to them.
19:28She blamed herself for placing too many demands on them throughout the day
19:31and for not preparing them for the presence of a reporter.
19:34They were super dysregulated, she told me later.
19:36They didn't have the capacity to cooperate.
19:41Um, okay.
19:44Again, I appreciate what this woman's doing.
19:47I really do.
19:48I know the fact that she's trying to take this approach
19:50as opposed to, you know, yelling and hitting and so on,
19:53is definitely a plus, right?
19:55So this is just sort of tweaks, right?
19:58Placing too many demands on them throughout the day.
20:01Well, and not preparing them for the presence of a reporter.
20:08So that's interesting.
20:10If the kids were acting out this way despite having a reporter out,
20:14it's almost like they want the reporter to talk about their distress.
20:18They were super dysregulated.
20:20They didn't have the capacity to cooperate.
20:23Yeah.
20:25Again, I mean, principles are universal, right?
20:28Principles are universal.
20:31Right, if you are on a date with a woman
20:37and the woman wants to go home,
20:39but instead you drive her to a distant mall
20:42and she gets really upset, right?
20:45Then you're not doing what she wants to do.
20:47You're not listening to what she wants to do.
20:48You're not respecting what she wants to do.
20:49You're just doing your own thing and sort of dragging her along,
20:52and she gets really upset.
20:55You know, would you say,
20:56well, I blame myself for not preparing her for a date
20:59that just went on and on and on.
21:01Oh, she was super dysregulated.
21:03She didn't have the capacity to cooperate.
21:06It's like, no, you're just not listening.
21:09And listening is not just aha, mm-hmm, aha, yeah, I understand.
21:13Listening is listening and changing.
21:15The purpose of communication,
21:16it's funny because maybe it's a male-female thing,
21:19but the purpose of communication is to change behavior for men, right?
21:25The purpose of communication is to change behavior.
21:28If you ask a woman out on a date as a man,
21:30you are attempting to get her to change her behavior,
21:32which is to have her go from not going on a date with you
21:36to going on a date with you, right?
21:38If you say to your teenage son,
21:42hey, could you really mow the lawn?
21:45It's getting too long.
21:46Then the purpose of that communication is to get him to change his behavior,
21:49so he goes and mows the lawn.
21:52So the purpose of communication for men is to change behavior, right?
21:56Can you pass me the salt?
21:58It's to get someone to change behavior and then pass you the salt, right?
22:03The purpose of communication for a lot of women is to transmit emotion, right?
22:10So I think this is a miscommunication because the children are upset
22:13because they want something to change in their lives,
22:16whereas for the woman,
22:18the purpose of the communication is to listen to and validate the woman's upset, right?
22:25So if your teenage son is playing video games and you say,
22:28hey, would you mind going to mow the lawn?
22:31And he looks at you, gives you a hug, and says,
22:34hey, man, I totally understand that you want me to go and mow the lawn.
22:38I totally validate that.
22:39And then he goes back to playing his video games.
22:41Wouldn't that just be kind of annoying and manipulative?
22:43It's like I've got these magic words that means I never have to change
22:46called validation, right?
22:47But the validation of feelings is the changing of behavior.
22:51When my daughter didn't want to travel as much,
22:53then we had to, I mean, we didn't have to,
22:55but we chose to not travel as much.
22:57She doesn't really enjoy it,
22:59and she's not just some piece of suitcase of luggage that we can drag along.
23:04So, also looking for a father.
23:12Looking for a father in the situation.
23:15All right.
23:20So a reporter says,
23:21I wouldn't have handled a post-gymnastics meltdown exactly the way Chelsea did,
23:24but I'm also not sure how I would have handled it at all.
23:27My son is six months old,
23:28so I have a little time before he starts complaining,
23:30a little time about my song choices.
23:32So I guess that's another question, too,
23:34which is if there's this reporter,
23:36why is she, like, who's taking care of her son who's six months old
23:39when she's off writing articles and shadowing other families for a couple of days?
23:47Or if you just listen to your kids.
23:48If you listen to your kids, they'll listen to you.
23:50If you don't listen to your kids, they won't listen to you, right?
23:52I mean, of course, kids mirror, right?
23:56I understand that you're not supposed to yell at your kids,
23:58but also that occasionally you're supposed to get them to do what you say,
24:00like briefly stop looking at a screen or eat some actual food.
24:03Sure.
24:04This is the essential conundrum that brings people to gentle parenting.
24:09By day, Chelsea runs a parent coaching business with her own mom, Robin Haig.
24:13I'm like a lot of the parents who turn to them for help,
24:16and like a lot of the millennials who are nervously having kids these days,
24:19schooled in the latest child psychology research in possession of disposable income
24:23and desperately trying to do better than my own parents.
24:26Many clients, Robin told me, are, quote,
24:28searching for something different than they had.
24:30Maybe that's something I thought is gentle parenting, and that's, you know, great,
24:33and I appreciate what they're doing in a lot of ways.
24:39But let's see here.
24:43I found Chelsea through TikTok.
24:45She has some 300,000 followers.
24:47Almost as soon as the blue plus sign materialized in my pregnancy,
24:50the app's algorithm magically took note and began serving me her videos.
24:54My husband and I spurred this process along, cramming,
24:57as we were for the midterm known as baby.
25:00We bought books.
25:01We downloaded name apps.
25:02We fought sectarian wars over the relative correctness of rival infant sleep strategies.
25:08Okay.
25:12She shows just how solicitous gentle parents should be towards their children,
25:15role-playing both the parent and the child.
25:17She demonstrated what not to do when your kid refuses to put her jacket on.
25:22Wearing a pink, blue helmet, Chelsea portrays a willful child screaming,
25:27I don't want to put my stupid jacket on.
25:30Pull that aside.
25:31Put your jacket on.
25:34Well, the jacket's still not on, and everybody's mad.
25:37This kid needs help.
25:39When you tell a kid to put their jacket on, and then they yell back at you,
25:41I don't want to put my jacket on, and then you yell back at them,
25:44you have matched their energy.
25:46When you match a kid's energy who's distressed like this, you start to co-escalate.
25:50So you tell the kid to put the jacket on, the kid yells back, I don't want to.
25:53Then you yell back, I don't care.
25:55You have to put your jacket on.
25:56Then they yell back and start flinging the jacket around.
25:58And worse, in the actual video that somebody posted, like stop posting your kids to TikTok,
26:02but in the actual video that somebody posted, the kid hits himself on the side of the thing.
26:07So now we've got anger, frustration, and now it's not even about the jacket,
26:10and also the kid's not even wearing the jacket.
26:14So that's interesting, of course.
26:17But the question is, why are you in a situation where the kid doesn't want to wear the jacket?
26:25Why doesn't the kid want to wear the jacket?
26:27Well, the kid feels that he's not going to get cold.
26:29So bring the jacket, and if the kid gets cold, like if you're going on a hike,
26:34my daughter doesn't want to bring her jacket.
26:36When she was younger, we'd go for a walk, she doesn't want to bring her jacket, but that's fine.
26:41Kids often little furnaces, right?
26:44Just because you're cold, right?
26:46There was an old Canadian tire ad about winter.
26:49Press five for the answer as to why you have to wear a jacket just because your mother is cold.
26:56So the kid doesn't feel like she's going to be cold.
26:58Maybe the kid enjoys that sensation of cold and so on.
27:01It's vivid and interesting.
27:03So the question is, why does the kid have to wear the jacket?
27:09Right, why?
27:10I mean, it's not going to get frostbite, lose a nose or something.
27:15Why does the kid need to wear a jacket?
27:17So these battles of will is, you're modeling the imposition of will.
27:23You have to wear the jacket, right?
27:25So if you model the imposition of will, then the kid is going to want to impose his or her will back on you, right?
27:32So don't force the kid to do things.
27:36Listen to the kid.
27:37If you think, and listen, if you go on a walk, let's say for whatever reason, your kid doesn't bring her jacket.
27:43You go on a walk, the kid gets cold, you just come back, right?
27:48I mean, if the kid's, oh, this is, sorry, this is too cold.
27:51So the kid learns from consequences and then you're not imposing your will, right?
27:56But reality imposes its quote will, right?
27:59So I don't, I don't, again, maybe this is a male perspective.
28:05I don't see, like, it's like, you must make your kid do what you want your kid to do.
28:10It's like, well, why?
28:11I mean, bring the jacket if the kid's cold, right?
28:15And, you know, the I told you so doesn't help, right?
28:19I mean, I'll make jokes about it from time to time.
28:21Oh, apparently you're cold, you know, just kind of a joke like that.
28:24But, you know, you can get that point across pretty, pretty nicely.
28:28But just do, I mean, why would, so I think, I think this is more like,
28:34well, you have to wear your jacket because you're going on a school bus
28:37and you're going to school and you're going to lose, you know, if you don't,
28:41if you're not wearing your jacket, you're going to lose it.
28:43So this is all about sending your kids off to school, which is, you know, not ideal in many situations.
28:48All right.
28:49I want you to think about a teeter-totter.
28:51So if the kid is up here, I don't want to put the jacket on.
28:54And you match him with, you have to put the jacket on.
28:57It's not, it's cold.
28:59Boy, she really doesn't look like she did in the previous photo.
29:02Tattoos on her arm.
29:03All right.
29:04Whatever.
29:05You're up here, too.
29:06And that's not what a teeter-totter does.
29:07On a teeter-totter, one person's at the top and the other person's on the bottom.
29:10Get on the freaking teeter-totter.
29:12So if your kid is like, I don't want to put the jacket on, you've got to be down here.
29:15Right?
29:16So you can whisper.
29:17You can say, okay, I'll take, I'll carry it.
29:21You can stuff it in the kid's backpack.
29:23You can just put it in the car and deal with it later after things have gotten calm.
29:26But before you do anything, before you have any hope of getting this kid to put the jacket on,
29:31you've got to get him into a place of regulation.
29:33Look, I know you're leaving for school and there's all kinds of stuff happening and you're probably going to be late.
29:36Okay, get him into a place of regulation.
29:38So this is just another way of getting the kid to do what you want to do.
29:42Okay, this is a pretty long video.
29:44But I'll link to it if you want to check it out.
29:48But, yeah.
29:50Is the kid happy with his life?
29:52Is the kid doing what he wants in his life?
29:58I mean, how do kids experience their mothers sending them off to daycare and sending them off to school?
30:06I mean, that's not how we evolved.
30:08We did not evolve this way.
30:10We did not evolve with mothers sending babies and toddlers off to be raised by strangers for, you know, six to seven to eight hours a day.
30:23This is not how we evolved.
30:25You're imposing something not just unnatural but anti-natural.
30:30How does a kid experience being sent off to daycare, being sent off to pre-K, to kindergarten, to school?
30:41How does the kid experience that?
30:43Well, the kid experiences it for what it is.
30:46That the mother would rather be doing something else than raising him.
30:52Right?
30:54That's a fact.
30:56Now, of course, women say, well, but my husband goes to work and I don't, right, I don't view him as rejecting me.
31:03It's like, yes, but that's an adult situation.
31:05Well, the husband goes to work, the kids don't experience the husband as rejecting.
31:09But we evolved with the husbands going to work and the women staying with the children.
31:16That's how we evolved.
31:17Now, just because we evolved that way, of course, doesn't mean that that's what has to happen, right?
31:22And without cell phones doesn't mean we can't use cell phones, I get it.
31:24But we evolved to communicate and cell phones facilitate that.
31:26It's still part of this general continuum.
31:28But we evolved with mothers raising children and fathers working.
31:35And then when the children got a little older, the children would accompany the fathers on the work and would help out.
31:43And the skills would transfer that way and so on, right?
31:46That's how it worked.
31:48It worked that the women had a whole bunch of babies and then by the time the first babies were grown and started to have their own babies,
31:55then the mothers would shift from raising their own children to raising grandchildren or helping their own children raise their children.
32:01So that's just how we evolved.
32:03So you can do something that's entirely anti-natural to the way that we evolved.
32:09But then expecting children to just comply and conform to that with no issues whatsoever is, I can't tell you how strange it is to me.
32:19You know, we evolved, let's say, you gotta wear your jacket because you're going to school, right?
32:25Right, because I think she mentioned getting up and getting off to school or whatever, right?
32:29Okay, so we didn't evolve with jackets and we didn't evolve with school buses and we didn't evolve with school
32:34and we didn't evolve with kids being away from their mothers, you know, babies, toddlers being away from their mothers for six to eight hours a day.
32:44And we certainly didn't evolve with these frantic mornings of getting everything hurried and everything stressful and, right?
32:51I write about this in my novel, The Present, which you should definitely check out at freedomain.com slash books.
32:56So we didn't evolve with any of this.
32:58And so you're asking your kids to do something entirely anti-natural and children experience having their parents send them away as parental rejection.
33:10Either the mother wants to do something other than raise them, in which case they feel like, why am I here?
33:18Or things are so desperate in the household that the kids need to be sent away, right?
33:25Like I sort of think about the London Blitz where the kids were sent to live out in the country because the cities were being bombed.
33:30Why is the mother unavailable to raise her children?
33:34Well, because the parents are slaves or heavily in debt or have to work like crazy or have no freedom or are serfs or like they experience this as a massive emergency as to why they can't be raised by their own parents.
33:46So it's very stressful for kids.
33:49And just, you know, instead of just trying to get kids to do what you want to do, maybe try to raise them in a more evolved and natural manner.
33:58It's just a possibility, right?
34:00Let's finish the article.
34:02Right.
34:05Playing the child again, Chelsea grabs a jacket and thrashes it around the room.
34:08Then Chelsea breaks character to the rest of the audience, yelling over, blah, blah, blah.
34:13The parents should soften her demeanor.
34:15They could, for example, apologize.
34:17You know what, sweet pea, that was really tricky with the jacket.
34:20The parents should say, I'm so sorry.
34:21I'm going to work on using my inside voice.
34:23Then she could cook her kids' favorite dinner to make up for it.
34:26If your child doesn't respond when you apologize, that's fine.
34:28It's on you to repair the relationship.
34:30That was really tricky with the jacket.
34:32Okay.
34:34Okay, so you apologize for yelling.
34:36And that's fair.
34:37That's right.
34:38Chelsea also explains how a parent should handle a child screaming about her jacket.
34:42Instead of yelling back, she says you should speak in a whisper and carry the jacket yourself and stuff it into their backpack.
34:47Frankly, she says, I would not force a kid to put a jacket on.
34:50Fantastic.
34:51That's exactly right.
34:52But then the question is, why is the kid so upset and angry, right?
34:56Watching the video, I tried to imagine my parents apologizing to me after I refused to do something they said.
35:02This was difficult because my parents have never apologized to me.
35:05And also, until I was well into my 20s, I never refused to do anything they said.
35:09There are Russian parents like mine who believe that children should always listen to their parents,
35:12and that getting a cold as a death sentence would have long ago hit unfollow.
35:16Indeed, when I recently told my cousin about gentle parenting, he scoffed.
35:20This is the road to prison, he said.
35:23All right.
35:24Don't mention parenting role models who aren't Russian.
35:26Most American friends don't have kids.
35:28West Texas, gentle punishment meant a detention instead of a beating.
35:32So good.
35:35Um.
35:38That's interesting.
35:42Some pictures.
35:43Okay.
35:44Chelsea and her husband Samuel.
35:45Okay, that's good.
35:46Live in the girls in an airy house tucked into a redwood forest north of Santa Cruz, California.
35:51Their days consist of work from home sprints, interrupted by taxiing their kids to school and activities,
35:57a lifestyle that's common in their area.
36:00Chelsea has a Ph.D. in education.
36:02Blah, blah, blah.
36:03Parenting three children under three.
36:05Also helping raise her teenage niece who had come from Mexico to stay with the family for a while.
36:09Oh, that's probably pretty bad, right?
36:13One morning, all three of the girls fought over the white purple spoon in a set of rainbow-colored spoons.
36:20Chelsea tried suggesting the yellow spoon or the red spoon,
36:23or that they take turns with the purple spoon, no dice.
36:26It was like everybody all crying all the time.
36:28Right.
36:29So then why?
36:30Right.
36:31Why is everyone stressed and tense and crying all the time?
36:34So if you want to make sure that your children fight over things, then send them away from home during the day.
36:42So as I said before, when you send children away from home during the day,
36:46the children interpret that as we are in a very dangerous, scarce environment, right?
36:52This is an emergency environment.
36:54It's an emergency environment.
36:56Why is mama unable to raise us?
36:59Because things are so scarce in resource that she's got to go out picking food all day.
37:04We're so starved.
37:05We're so low on resources.
37:07And so if you send your kids away, they interpret that as we're in a desperately dangerous and problematic
37:13and scarce and famine and starvation and whatever.
37:18And so they're going to fight over everything
37:20because their systems interpret the lack of parenting as a desperately dangerous situation
37:27and therefore they have to fight for every scrap, otherwise they're going to die.
37:30Right?
37:31So that's not complicated, right?
37:34All right.
37:35How much further are we at here?
37:36I don't want to do a 9,000-hour show.
37:39Okay.
37:40So I'll do a bit of a skim here.
37:41I think we've kind of got it.
37:46Let's see here.
37:47Challenging her struggle.
37:48Her mom runs a school for children with behavioral problems.
37:50Parenting class she offered.
37:52How to handle challenging children.
37:54Okay.
37:57Chelsea was skeptical.
37:58Changed everything.
38:03She was speaking to her kids negatively much of the time.
38:05Stop hitting your sister.
38:06Why are kids hitting each other?
38:09I mean, I've got friends who've got, you know, three sons
38:13and they're very supportive and helpful with each other.
38:16They teach each other chess.
38:17They help each other on the playgrounds and there's not any fighting.
38:20I mean, it's not because when you invest in your kids heavily,
38:23then your kids grow up in an emotional regulation system
38:28that's primed for plenty rather than starvation, so they don't fight.
38:39The correct way to resolve the spoon fight, Chelsea says,
38:41was to validate each child's reality, saying something like,
38:44you really wanted the purple spoon.
38:45The orange spoon doesn't taste good.
38:46The child might still pout, but that's okay.
38:52Chelsea and Robin both say Chelsea and her brother were parented gently.
38:56So, okay, so this woman's mother never yelled.
38:59Okay, but then if this woman's mother never yelled, then why is she yelling?
39:05Right?
39:06That's very interesting to me.
39:07So if, right, so the woman who's being mirrored,
39:10being sort of followed here by the reporter.
39:13So Chelsea's mom never yelled at her, but she's yelling at her kids, right?
39:22Interesting, okay.
39:27Chelsea left her job at Stanford to help her mother teach a course
39:29called Guiding Cooperation.
39:30Together, they grew that course into a business.
39:32They charge a fee that starts at $5,000 per family
39:35for a 12-week parenting program that includes video lessons
39:37along with group and individual counseling.
39:40At any given time, the program includes about 40 to 50 families.
39:43Wow.
39:45Wow.
39:49Wow.
39:55Okay.
39:56Oh, so that's a lot of work, man, 40 to 50 families.
40:05That's wild.
40:10All right, so.
40:15I mean, read it, and I certainly appreciate what they're doing,
40:18but if you really listen to your kids, you have to change your life
40:21to something that's more natural, right?
40:24And when the kids feel truly wanted and you enjoy their company
40:30and you seek out their time and all of that is really, really important.
40:35So, yeah, I agree that kids don't punish, right?
40:43And so we agree on that, right?
40:45So this is just a tweak, right?
40:47This is just a tweak.
40:48If you really listen to your kids, how much is your life going to change?
40:51And as dozens of people have already warned me,
40:56parenting is the hardest job you'll ever have.
40:58Absolutely not true.
40:59Absolutely not true.
41:01Philosophy can be tough.
41:03And working up north, dragging giant drills around in the snow with snowshoes,
41:08that was a tough job.
41:10But parenting is a blast.
41:12All right, so again, I appreciate this philosophy.
41:15I think it's interesting, a couple of tweaks,
41:17and I'm curious what you guys think, if you've had any experience with this.
41:20And I think we've had now, this is the third generation of this gentle parenting,
41:27where kids are still fighting and having meltdowns and being upset
41:31and having tantrums and so on.
41:34So something's not quite going right, and I'm curious what you guys think.
41:38Bye.