New Year's Resolution: Aka, "How Do I Get My Kid To....?"

In this episode, I have a great conversation with my co-author and friend Dr. Bill Stixrud about motivation and change, especially as we start a new year. We discuss the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and how to help kids find their own internal drive.

Dr. Bill Stixrud is a clinical neuropsychologist and author. We have co-authored two books together - The Self-Driven Child and What Do You Say? He brings a wealth of knowledge about the adolescent brain and supporting kids' development.

Episode Highlights:
[02:18] - Sharing my own New Year's resolutions as an example.
[05:03] - Explaining intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation.
[06:16] - Discussing natural consequences using a story about my tractor.
[09:39] - Connecting coping skills to motivation and change.
[11:27] - Talking about the ambivalence people feel around change.
[14:51] - Sharing a story about motivational interviewing and drug use.
[20:32] - Emphasizing you can't force someone to change.
[26:22] - Offering advice for parents who want to reset their approach.
[30:14] - Laughing about a story from our new book.
[33:51] - Wishing everyone a happy new year!

Links & Resources:
•The Self-Driven Child by Bill Stixrud and Ned Johnson
•What Do You Say? by Bill Stixrud and Ned Johnson

If this episode has struck a chord with you, remember to rate, follow, and share the Self-Driven Child Podcast. Your support helps us reach more people and create more content that makes a difference. Here's to growing, learning, and thriving as adults in this wild world. Until next time!

If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a tutoring or college plan together, reach out to Ned's company, PrepMatters at www.prepmatters.com

Transcript

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 0:49

intrinsic motivation involves doing something that you enjoy doing, or something that's important to you, where itself fueled, and you are concerned about time, it's not so hard that it's really stressful. It's not too easy. So it's boring. What I love about intrinsic motivation is that you have more neuro chemistry of real derive that also really interesting. One thing they look at is the error detection systems in the brain. So as you're doing something, you're monitoring this going right, when they make a mistake. And when you're interestingly motivated, you're more alert to making mistakes, because you want to do it well as opposed to extrinsic through being rewarded, or you're doing something for fear of SEO to get punished. You don't want to make mistakes, you don't want to pay any attention to it. It really contributes to excellence, to higher performance to greater engagement, more positive mental health. And I think that the challenge for me is that many schools, the main motivators for kids are extrinsic their stars or a grades or detention, that stuff that this doesn't build that internal intrinsic motivation.

Ned Johnson: 1:56

Welcome to the self Tiffin Job Podcast. I'm your host, Ned Johnson, and co author with Dr. Williams pictured of the books, the self driven child the science and sense of giving your kids more control over their lives. And what do you say, how to talk with kids to build motivation, stress tolerance, and a happy home. When we turn to the New Year, often our thoughts turn to changes that we can make for ourselves and our world, sometimes for others. And that can be a source of great motivation that can also sometimes cause frustration for ourselves, and perhaps for others. I'm delighted today to be joined by my partner and scribe and dear friend Bill's pictured. We'd like to talk with you a little bit about motivation and the science of motivation and change, especially. But before we jump into that bill, I just wanted to share I spent some time over the holidays thinking about my goals, things that I'd like to see in 2024. And if I if it's a cool, I'd love to share with you some of the things I thought of goals and resolutions for you. 2024. Are you down?

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 2:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Ned Johnson: 3:01

I'll file those away. So always Ned,

Unknown: 3:04

I'd be eager to know.

Ned Johnson: 3:07

So you know, so the one of the things when we were writing what he said, the follow up to the subject and child, we included a few things. And a lot of it's expanded on the language and kind of scenarios and tried to go in deeper on how to apply the principles of the software and child. But we also fold it in a few things that just simply hadn't occurred to us, when we were writing the self driven child. And the science of change is one of them. Can you talk about that a little bit? Well,

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 3:33

it's so often parents ask you and me basically, they so often asked, How do I get my kid to be more motivated? No. And it's whether for it's for school, or for work harder in sports, or he's not practicing his music? How do I get him to be more motivated? And as we're working on, what do you say, we just struck us, they're really saying is, how do I change my kit? How do I make it different from where he is right now? And so we have this whole science of change, you know, that that people have studied? How do we help people change, we looked at a variety of things, including motivational interviewing and self affirmation theory, and to try to understand what's really the best way for parents to encourage their kids or have their kids find their own reasons for changing. So I think that that's where I've been parked here the last couple of years is this idea of, we really can't change somebody else who's not asking us to help them change at all, because they won't get conflict and resistance. But we can facilitate change, by helping people kids understand, helping them see why it's in their own best interest. And it's not that we know that the 100th time I told them, now we got it. It's really, it's using empathy and understanding, helping kids come to conclusions, and see the reason that it might be worthwhile to change.

Ned Johnson: 4:50

And when one thing that occurs, to me, it is easy to fall back into thinking that motivation is motivation. And as long as the kid or in this case my writing partner is getting done, or working hard and the thing that we think matters, then that's all that matters. And of course, there's a very significant qualitative difference between inner drive and outer drive intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. And when I hear as you point out, parents ask him, well, how do I motivate my kid? How do I get my kid almost always are thinking angles towards their defaults to what are the things that we can do in ways that often are likely to fall into extrinsic motivators of how can I nudge them? Or how can I pressure them or how can I talk them into it and what so much of the I think really powerful science of intrinsic motivation is how do we help kids find their own reasons to do the things that They are, as you point out in their own best interest. Yeah.

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 5:53

Yeah, that's so important in part because when when kids are doing something, an intrinsic motivation involves doing something that you enjoy doing, or something that's important to you, where it's, it's itself fueled, and you are concerned about time, it's not so hard that it's really stressful. It's not too easy. So it's boring. What I love about intrinsic motivation is that you have more neuro chemistry of real derive. And also really interesting when they look at is the error detection systems in the brain. So as you're doing something, you're monitoring this going, right, they make a mistake. And when you're interestingly motivated, you're more alert to making mistakes, because you want to do it well, as opposed to extrinsic if you're being rewarded, or you're doing something for fear of to say, oh, to get punished, you don't want to make mistakes, you don't want to pay attention to it, that really contributes to excellence, to higher performance to greater engagement, more positive mental health. And I think that the challenge for me is that many schools, the main motivators for kids are extrinsic, they're stars or high grades or detention, that stuff that this doesn't build that internal intrinsic motivation. And

Ned Johnson: 7:06

the you know, in the in the easiest I was, I was just reading a neuropsychological evaluation and talking about a kid who struggled with attention issues, ADHD, organizational challenges, in terms of modifying behavior. The language used by the evaluator was that the parents used natural consequences of taking away privileges. And I smiled, I said, Well, that's not a natural consequence. And this is something we've talked about before, but it's worth just reminding ourselves, and everyone who's listening is that a natural consequence happens without any intervention by a parent or teacher or anyone else, if you indulge me for a moment, Bill, so my family has this cabin in upstate New York, it's a dirt road that's not maintained by the town. And so the handful of us who live on this road are responsible for it. Now my wife and I are not there full time. The folks who are there full time are between 70 and 85. And they're remarkably capable and responsible and wonderful people. It's just that they're not, not 70 to 85, right. And so physical tasks aren't quite in their skill set as much as they used to be. So I have this kind of proper farm tractor. And I bought a backhoe to dig things out. And there's this, there's this big dirt road to go up. And there's a trench along the side to gather water that seeps off a hill. And then so doesn't go over the road. And so this hasn't been dug out for a decade anyway. And it just fills in over time. And so I got this backhoe on my brother who was visiting me for the holidays, we dug the thing, I dug the thing, dug the thing out, and then he went home. And then the next day, I was going to grade the road. And I got too close to the edge of this ditch and the tractor and I'll put the picture I can do this for that for people who are interested in got the tractor stuck in the ditch. And then I tried to get out and dug itself deeper and deeper. And I'm in mud up to the axle about two and a half three feet of dirt is that my friend is a natural consequence. But the thing was so funny was I was hell bent on getting this thing out, ideally, without letting my wife know, whose reaction predictably was, again. So it was going to be 25 minutes of just grading the edge of this and making it you know, getting smooth and angled the right way. And it ended up being two and a half hours of extrication, you know, in 34 degree weather. Oh, my goodness. But the amazing thing about this is I mean, I was hoping it was annoying and painful and muddy and back breaking and on and on it goes. But when all this was said and done, and I did get the tractor I mind you without having to tow it. So I was quite proud of myself. And it occurred to me not once in that two and a half hours. Did I ever think of picking up my phone?

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 10:05

Yeah, yeah. Because to your

Ned Johnson: 10:07

point, I was deeply engaged with that. And I was very attentive to is this going to work this way? And what are the possible outcomes of this? And attentive very quickly to am I making a mistake and make Am I making it better and making it worse? Because I was really intent on getting the stupid thing out in part because having said that, for the next four months probably wouldn't be great for anybody.

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 10:29

Well, you know, where my mind goes in response to that, Greg, great story is that we've been talking quite a bit lately about the idea that when kids have the experience of something stressful happens and they cope with themselves in the process of coping, their prefrontal cortex activates and whenever their prefrontal cortex activates it dampens down the stress response. If you think about an emergency room physician hear that there's some big emergency, they've done it 500 times, it's not very stressful for them, even though it's all kinds of stuff going on, it's very demanding. But they have that sense of control, because they've been there before. And what to think about is that experience that you had, it wasn't, you know, you were crying, you didn't try to avoid it, it was I can't handle this is too stressful, you engage your prefrontal cortex, you figured it out. And it wasn't that stressful. I mean, it was annoying, and painful and roll. But it wasn't that stressful, because you, you figure it out. And that's where we want kids to go is when something stressful happens is rather than trying to avoid it, or panicking or writing for help, and it's not that it's sometimes ready for help is the right thing to do. But ideally, they have enough experience of coping by themselves, that it trains the brain to conditions that brain when something stressful happens, the act, this gets activated the prefrontal cortex, and I go into coping mode,

Ned Johnson: 11:48

it's such a good point that I'll pull in our talk about the language of change. One of the things that we talk about in that chapter is the natural ambivalence that people have about anything, right? And so you know, if I'm trying to get in shape, or if I'm trying to improve my grades, or if I'm trying to whatever, I have reasons to want to do the thing. And I also have reasons to not want to do the thing,

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 12:12

what we're talking about the ambivalence piece is in the chapter and the language and silence of change. Yep,

Ned Johnson: 12:18

yep, thank you. And so when I think about, if a kid is, you know, someone's trying to improve, you know, change whatever they have reasons to want, if I work harder, maybe I'll get my grades up, maybe I'll feel better, my teacher will be more impressed, my parents will relax, whatever, but also that it can be a pain in the neck, I don't really like my teacher that much this class is kind of boring. And as we point out, that I could work really hard. And, and it might not get any better. And then it's kind of scary to to kind of put in maximum effort, and realize that your maximum performance is pretty substandard. And that's threatening and stressful, that oftentimes people don't want to take that on. And therefore they avoid that challenge. It's easier to say, well, if I wanted to, I could, but we kind of protect your ego that way. And so if you tie in that point that you just made, that when for me, it wasn't that stressful, because I knew I've been here before, I'm confident, I'll be able to figure this out someplace, the more that kids have the experience working through things that are hard, and the confidence that if I can make this work, that's one way that's likely to tell that ambivalence in the direction of doing the thing, rather than avoiding the thing, because they have an increased sense that yeah, this is going to be annoying, but I can do it, as opposed to this is annoying. And I have a fear that I don't know if it'll work. Yep,

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 13:42

this ambivalence piece is. So when we were working on that, that chapter in the language of silence of change, and studying quite a bit about motivational interviewing, where we're kind of where this idea of ambivalence comes from. We have a story in the book about this high school counselor, who is dealing with whatever students who have smoked a lot of pot, the story about how she intervened. And it started off as saying, I'm not going to try to make it stop smoking pot, you can figure that out. But basically, the way she talked to the girl eventually made the girl realize I need to change without any attempt to making a change. And while we're working on the book, I tested this 15 year old kid, who was a kind of mediocre student, but a really good basketball player. And he was going to 10th grade, and he wanted to make the varsity. And he smoked a lot of pot over the summer. When I tested him. I said the parents got a draft copy of this chapter, I said, you might want to just try this. And so the mom just said, sat down with him, said to tell me about what Pat does for you. What do you get out of it? You know what he thought about this? Most kids do much less stress or don't worry about everything. You know, that kind of stuff. I'm more fun to be with. I do have my friends more, then he said, but the problem is that I can't push myself hard enough. I'm not going to make the varsity move. If I don't practice harder. I'm not going to make the varsity. And the mom said Does that suggest it? What do you want to do about that? So I think I need to smoke last pot. But in the summer, he was one smoking pot at all, she helped him find his own reason for change by not by judging that by telling him a million times, you know, just simply by he really wants to like varsity. I don't know that this in certainly when if kids have serious drug and alcohol problems that then in any treatment, but think of a kid, the parent, you find your kid in big stash of pot, the first impulse is to come down. Right. And I think that part of our message is where we can try to understand before we judge before before we react in a way any kind of consequence. Try to understand what it is.

Ned Johnson: 15:41

I think that's so well said because you know, so help me understand why, you know, why do you have this big stash of pot right and it might be further back? A student I worked with 20 years ago where there was a pipe burst in the basement and flooded the basement and one of the kids had his basement bedroom. And his mom and his sister went down and started pulling everything up, and they found this stash of pot. Because the kid was in there, there's going to be a big beach week and understanding where that's coming from, you get a different not that I don't recommend marijuana use for anyone, particularly for teenagers. But understanding that he was holding this for 20 Other people versus what he was making himself, you might end up you might approach that a little bit differently. Yeah. And if I may, I want his walk through for a moment, just kind of how one does the principles or the practice of motivational interviewing. And the idea behind this is because people are ambivalent, including our children. When we immediately start arguing one side of the equation, they're really likely to argue the other side all the reason we say the reasons why they see the reasons why not. And then the challenge is those reasons why when they tend to fight us, but to those reasons why become tainted, and kids are likely to that, why can't I can't think about those I can't, you know, here I told you, so I can't get my parents the benefit of the doubt. And so what we do is instead of arguing, trying to talk kids into and just as you shared bill, we asked his open ended questions will help tell me what you get out of it. And then we use reflective listening and kind of repeat it back to to convey to the other person that we're really trying to understand their perspective. And then ideally, we're creating space for change talk where kids that articulate for themselves their own reasons in this case, but gosh, who really would like to make Varsity. And there's a story that's not in the book I about a couple of them. Three months ago, I started working with this young woman who's at a local independent school here in DC, incredibly driven, incredibly academic, incredibly perfectionistic stressed on and on, it goes sleeping four or five hours a night. And she's on a collision course with some bad outcomes. And her parents can see this in the school administrators can see this. And so the started with her advisor at schools winter and said, Listen, you know, you got you got to drop these classes, because she was taking six academic classes rather than five. And all of them were AP level, or the like. And so the teacher went through and said, You really got to drop one of these. And then her advisor did it. And then the head of counseling, and there are four different concerned adults who went at her and told her you have to and gave her all the reasons why. And this kid is one bright enough to argue right back at them. And to stressed enough that she's not that she's incredibly rigid, inflexible in her thinking that she wasn't going to give an edge. So I was talking with her mom about this behind the scenes and thinking there may be a different approach here, because what they're doing is making this kid dig in the same way that I was taking my tractor into a ditch. Yeah. And she was hell bent on staying there just because she wanted to prove that you know that she wasn't going to be talked out of it. And so eventually, mom, there were the I forget exactly how it said, well, the girl asked, Hey, can I talk to you about some of my classes I said I'd be happy to. And so I reread the chapter on motivational interviewing. And it went right down the line. So tell me about the class that you're in. What do you like about this? And what do you like about that? Is there anything you like one more than the other? Is there anything you don't like about this? All these open ended questions? Reflective, reflective, reflective, reflective listening. And eventually she she started talking about the reasons why she didn't like these classes, you know, how much homework you do, and what do you get out of it? Blah, blah, blah. And then the opening question, I said, if you had more time, so what I think I'm hearing is you're getting, you know, five hours of homework at night, and you're only getting four hours asleep. I said if you made a change in class, and your point I was is really tentative language. If you were to go from AP to regular honors to regular whatever. And you had more time, what would you do with that? And what I thought she was going to articulate was to go deeper into computer science, which is her great love. And she said sleep. I said, Oh, really? So will tell me more about that. She said I'm just tired all the time. And that a question that always run through my head. I said, it's it's just out of curiosity, when you wake up in the morning and alarm goes off, and you really just want to beat it to death. You're thinking if we give X amount of money for another hour sleep for you, how much is that money? And she said $5 million. He said really? She said if I had $5 million. I said and I this was not quite motivational interviewing because it's leading her. I said, but I had to ask that about if I may, is being in that honors English class that she kind of said, you don't really love the teacher. I said, Is that worth $5 million to? And she said Not even close. I said well, and so by the end of it, she decided to downshift or whatever, on two of these classes. So she only had four advanced AP honors whatever, and to class that allowed her to read a little bit so I was quite pleased because you This was a girl who's incredibly committed to her own academic success in ways that may be slightly unbalanced. But she's also miserable. And most people, including this girl don't want to be miserable. But she really felt stuck. And by not telling her that she had to, or why she came up with her own reasons, I was delighted to have this tool in my toolbox. Yes, otherwise, I would have fallen in the same path of everyone else, of telling her all the reasons why to change and when she already had the reasons within her

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 21:22

there, that's fabulous story. And I just think I was presenting in Ohio with a great scientist who studies basically mental health of medical students, compared as a question about a kid who is only my grades, you know, what should you do? And the scientist who doesn't, he's not a clinician, you're so used to you keep telling him, you know, you keep talking to you. That's right. You're more than that. Right. So from my point of view, what I would say is, I can't take that away from you. I see it differently could cut it. If you're just kind of run it how I see it. Because when people feel that we're trying to change them, they resist. So you're

Ned Johnson: 22:00

taking force off the table, just like a counselor with a kid who is smoking pot. I'm not going to try to talk you out of it. Yeah,

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 22:05

exactly. Yeah, yeah, I learned so much getting Ross Greene, who works in really difficult resisted angry kids. Where he came to is you say kids, I'm not going to try to use the force of my will to make you do things. You take your take force off the table, partly because as we said, that are all both our books, you can't make somebody do something consumed well, and you know, I consulted with this family from California a couple of weeks ago, who's Deb 11th grade kid, who is very motivated for sports, very motivated for social life. And you're getting a B's and C's, and this 11th grade, the parents are concerned about college, and the parents love the self-driven child. We've watched us lecture multiple times. And still where they went is how do I get any more? How do I change him? How

Ned Johnson: 22:52

do you get Ryan right?

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 22:53

How do you get them to see that he's the baby should we cut back or not to let him do do the some of the sports. And I said, it sounded to me. Like you have a wonderful kid that I listed all these things that they told me about, and I was the one. I said, if he has ADHD, so he's probably he's probably 17 years old, with a 13 or 14 year old prefrontal cortex, you just got to trust that you don't have to. But in my experience, it's safe to trust that he can figure this out without our attempts to try to but what do we do about what what do we do? How do we get into like that? And the dad said, It's so interesting. You said that because last night, I made a list of qualities, 12 positive qualities, or 10 qualities about this kid, two or negative? Those are the only two we focus on. I love that. And I kept coming back to get that how do we get him to that? I said, let's focus on you. Let's focus on what you're willing to do, what you're willing to support, not support to do or not do. And certainly one of the places where their parents said, Well, we told he's an independent school parent said, Well, you're not gonna pay for private school anymore. If you don't work harder. In the dance, is that reasonable? And I said, Well, no, I think that families can't afford it. It's entirely reasonable to say, Look, I just don't feel like that the expenditure you can get do not work very hard to the public school. And I said, there are different reasons why kids are psyched about public school, make some religious education, a private school. So religious education, some people feel it's more safe environment. And the dad said, Oh, it's completely empty. threatened, we'd never said they have a terrible public school system. Apparently, we've never seen a public school. And so where we left off with simply where we started, which is where we already started, which is this kid wants his life to work. And we can't change him. We're gonna focus on is what they have. So he always wants to party. He wants to get the others friends on school nights when there's a test. We know there's a test. So should we not let him go? And do that? I know you had a similar experience like that. Oh,

Ned Johnson: 24:48

yeah, this is in the book. This is hilarious. So for my different folks, I do test prep. And there was a girl the very start of her senior year of high school. And so they're all these goings on. And being a senior and all that's cool. And their last standardized test that she was taking up was two weeks away. And so the weekend before the test, she was going to take one more practice test, and there was this party. And so she asked her mom, hey, can I go to this party that I had before the practice test? And it was in hindsight, beautifully done by the daughter because she made it her mom's problem. And predictably her mom but are you kidding? We spent all this money spent most time this is your whole life and dented and of course, you're not going instead of me what I think your daughter did was pitched the problem to you. So you had to own it rather than her. And you there was no winning there because if you said Sure go to the party, no big deal and that it didn't go well and then the eventual testing go well, then the girls So Well, you said that I could enough of whatever, whatever and then blame the parent for being permissive. Right? And because the mom said, No, the girl blew up and had a reason to be outraged and blah, blah, blah, and then probably went in there and assault on taking the test. We see kids do this a lot about things that are stressful, because she was ambivalent. She wanted to go with her friends. But she also, you know, wanted to do on this test. And I said, if that were to come up again, I said, you might sidestep that and go back into the consultant role that we talked about in both books, and say, Well, boy, that's a good question. It sounds like you have reasons that sounds like a really good party. But I also know you've been working like crazy, you know, with with Ned for these silly, silly tests, and this is your last big testing, and how important is it to you to do well on that test tomorrow? How important is to go to this party? Maybe we can talk through the pros and cons on this. And there's a way that I am quite confident this girl at the end of the day was was, you know, to your appointment, wanted her life to work out. And I think she would have gotten to taking the test the way the mom wanted her to take the test, but would have done it under her own motivation, rather than under duress. Yeah,

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 26:59

yeah, that assumption that people want kids want their life to work out, you know, they want to be successful. They want people to be proud of them. I think that it's a pretty good assumption. It is, it is. So

Ned Johnson: 27:12

let me ask you one more quick question. So to pick up on, you know, Ross Greene said, I'm not gonna use the force of my will to make you do whatever, if for parents who have too often been or, you know, to consistently been trying to tuck their kids into things and kids fighting them, or using the force that well, in ways that have sort of tainted, what's in the kid's own best interest, or in ways that have really kind of polluted the relationship they have. So they the kids resent more than respect, the advice of the parents are offering, what's your advice for kind of a reset? If you know if if people are trying to turn the page turn a new leaf? started the new year? Yeah,

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 27:51

in this chapter in our in what do you say call the language and silence of change. We talk about the space program that this book is supported parenting, of anxious childhood emotions, that treats childhood anxiety just by working with parents. And one of the things that parents are taught to do is to pay attention to things that the way that they accommodate kids anxiety, you know, if your kid is anxious and standing at the bus stop by themselves, a parent will go out and stand with the kid, even though that no other kid needs his parent there. It turns out that those kinds of accommodations that we naturally make, because we're mammals, and we want to we want to soothe and protect our young, that those accommodations actually make kids more anxious. So part of the space program involves is you sit down and say I used to think that said at the best stop, bus stop with you was going to help you be less anxious pregnancy, it you're probably more interested in them, I started to do it realize it's not working. I'm not going to do it anymore. And I think that the same kind of thing to what you're saying that which is that I realized that I've been trying to make you do stuff or talking to stuff and thinking that somehow I know better than you do what's right for you. And I realized that's not that's not right, I don't, I don't really always know what's best for you. And also, I've been acting like somehow you couldn't figure things out for yourself. And it was, that's crazy. If you're a smart kid, and you care about your life, and you care about other people. And I'm 100% confident you can figure this out. I probably said before, maybe one of our books, but I'm old enough now that I don't remember a specific experiences. But I remember when I was in my 40s I could still remember a specific time that my father had gotten mad at me or something and come in to my room that night before I went to bed and apologized and said, You know, I had a hard day I drink too many cups of coffee or you know, and, and it just meant so much to me that he wanted to make it right with me that he cared enough about me respected me enough that I didn't deserve to be treated that way. So I just think that that kind of topologies are a you I used to think but now I realize I'm seeing it differently, empirically that expression of confidence. The other thing that is you know, that parents are taught to do in this space program is to say, I know that standing at the bus stop by yourself is makes you really anxious. But I'm 100% confident you can handle it. The shift from being able to handle anxiety as opposed to try to prevent anxiety. And I just love that idea. It's adding self driven child, we mentioned that I felt my whole career just about that the best messaging give teenager besides a love you is that I have confidence in your ability to make decisions about your own life, and to learn from your mistakes. It just grows kids up and express confidence. So my long winded answer to your question, in essence, say I want to apologize. I used to think that and now we realize that that like that, that can really help heal things to reset a relationship. So, so often, you know, we're lecturing, you know, we're about 15 minutes in we're talking about you know, our basic principles. 50 minutes in a parallel say, what if I've already screwed up my kid? Well, you Do you go back and say, right? I thought I was doing the right thing. But now I realized that wasn't very respectful to you. I'm sorry.

Ned Johnson: 30:57

Well, I guess I should start by apologizing for that list of resolutions I have for you. walk this walk this back.

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 31:04

There's a story that our new book, which will come out and I think it was February 2025. Guy. Yeah, it's about just a little over a year about you're trying to solve a problem for Katie, as he called you out it. Oh,

Ned Johnson: 31:16

my goodness. Oh, it was such a wonderful parenting fail. Yeah, yeah. Just because, you know, she's she's, what does she say at the end of it? I wish everyone had calmed down, especially her father. I said, if I if I may, I said, it would help me if you could clarify for me just where I really missed on that. And she said, It's fine that you want to offer me advice. It's just that when I'm upset, I just want you to listen, and not tell me what to do and what to solve, or how to solve it. And I said, Boy, that's a good point. I should definitely write that down. Oh, wait, I. And still, you know, it's easy to fall back into the I

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 31:57

added a word, you know, because I did the draft, which is twice too well, that's it.

Ned Johnson: 32:06

Yeah. 1112 with a quick that one is so often with young people, really, of any age, we have this idea that we can't let them be responsible for things until they show us that they can be responsible. And we're talking through that kind of making the observation. The kids need to be responsible so much as they deserve to be responsible, because it's only when they feel responsible for things. They go back to that that activation of the prefrontal cortex that we're talking about, where they pay attention to, what do they want? How do they go about and that they're attentive to the mistakes that they make. And they work really hard to make things work, when we don't let them be responsible for their own lives? Right? How or when are they going to learn those things? And of course, kids do make mistakes, people, even sometimes adults do things like get the tractor stuck in the ditch. Because hey, life, right. And then the point you made earlier about that family whose kid said, I'm so glad reminds me of that. There's a New Yorker cartoon. And that's these two adults who are sitting on a couch. And they've it's their four or five year old daughter at their feet. And one, one of the other looks down them said, Well, your father and I are mother and I, we've been thinking a lot about what we want you to do with your life,

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 33:28

isn't it? We would think a lot about what we want to do with your life. Yes,

Ned Johnson: 33:32

yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. And, and of course, as parents, we think a lot about what we think would be in our kid's own best interest, and what we would like them to do. But I think we should remind ourselves that even if our kids haven't come to us and articulated their New Year's resolutions for 2024, and pasted them there and attack them on the refrigerator door. Children are constantly thinking about what do they want out of their lives, not just long term, but short term and down to the minute and so we don't always have to do all that thinking for them. Because last time I checked, most people are constantly thinking about their own lives. Yeah, that's a

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 34:11

great point. I was just talking to a friend of mine who has a friend who told his parents as an adult, I can't thank you enough for not having a plan for my life.

Ned Johnson: 34:21

My goodness. Yeah. And I agree. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that is so well. Yeah. It's our job to help them and support them. And to ask those opening questions. Be curious about them just because we're curious about them. And remarkably, that interest in what matters to them, is as motivating to them as anything that we can possibly say. Yeah.

William R Stixrud, Ph.D: 34:41

Which is why, you know, we've been lecturing to high school kids. It's called creating a life you want. Yeah, no, because ideally, we want our kids to have it as they get older to have a life that they're happy with. So many kids who kind of misguided understanding of what makes people happy. Develop wives that they think will make them happier, don't. Yeah,

Ned Johnson: 35:03

well, and to that, so. So wishing you and everyone who's listening, and of course, all of your lovely children, happiness, and this happy new year of 2024. Yeah, thanks, Bill. Hey, folks, Ned here. Over the past 25 years, I've talked with 1000s of parents of high school students, parents who care deeply about their kids education and how they deal with stress and the pressure to succeed. But these parents need to work with a team they trust won't just pile on more pressure to achieve better grades and scores. This is why I started prep matters in 1997 to create a different kind of experience for test preparation, tutoring in college admissions planning. This podcast and my books reflect our company's philosophy and approach to helping students if you have a high school student and with like to talk about putting in place a plan. Please get in touch with us, visit our website at prep matters.com or call 301-951-0350. That's 301-951-0350 Thanks