Ep. 205: Dr. William Stixrud - How to Talk With Kids and Build Their Motivation

Sucheta Kamath: All right welcome. Welcome to Full PreFrontal exposing the mysteries of executive function. I am your host Sucheta Kamath, I believe we have been together on this journey, finding ways to connect neuroscience psychology, science of education, helping children, adults become independent helping parents to take care of their children by understanding the sciences and best practices, whether they are interpersonal or not. And in this journey, I have met some incredible folks, incredible leaders, incredible partners who are committed to this work, and it is beyond joy for me to have our guest return. To talk to us about his expertise. And his second book, Dr. Bill Strixrud, before I introduce you, to some of those who haven't heard his previous interview with me, please go back to the archives and find that episode. It's absolutely worth and more importantly, buy both of his books and his co authors. But before I kind of kick the conversation, one thing because we're going to talk about parenting, we're going to talk about this idea of improving connections with our children, communication skills. This story kind of stood out for me that I thought I'll share so many of you, you know, I consider parenting to be an act of courage, courage, to be with little people who depend on you, we love them. But we may not have the courage to love them unconditionally, because the way they behave, act, think or assert their own rights to be their little people. So the American filmmaker, writer, actor and artist, John Waters was once interviewed on Terry Gross' Fresh Air. And what was so striking that he was describing his relationship with his parents, and they were very fond of him, even though John Waters was a little odd, I would say slightly odd. And he describes that as a child who was obsessed, obsessed with car accidents, and now if you have a child that's obsessed with car accidents, you're gonna freak out. And your gut impulse is to kind of abort that mission, stop the child from being obsessed and Veer their attention. Guess what John Waters mother did. Now, she did not have a degree in psychology or speech pathology or she was just an ordinary, amazing, insightful parent. You know what she did? She took, she would take him to the junkyards and walk around with him. And he would be excitedly walking around, say, Oh, look at that car that got crushed. And eventually he would create scenes and act out these car accidents. One of the most beautiful things she did is she allowed that expression she participated made connections, and demonstrated her unconditional acceptance of this little boy and his interesting, inquisitive mind. Now, it may strike you as odd but that's just your personal preference maybe. But lastly, the way he introduced his most recent book, he finally remembers his his parents, and he talked about that. He said, My parents were very, very conservative. But they demonstrated this incredible acceptance and he says John and Patricia Waters, thank you for giving me the foundation of good taste to rebel against that was his tribute to him. So with that said, let's figure out how to become John Waters mother, and I hope our stressors are lesser than hers word. She was so graceful. So Dr. William Stixrud is a clinical neuropsychologist, founder, US textured group, as well as faculty member at the Children's National Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine. He's also the co-author with Ned Johnson, we have to get Ned on the podcast as well, of the national best selling books, I would say the the book, The SelfDriven Child, that was published a few years ago, and now it's been published in 18 countries and translated into 17 languages. And particularly, you're saying, You have a great presence in China. And they also have the second book, which we're going to talk about, it's called, What Do You Say? Talking with kids to build motivation, stress tolerance, and a happy home. And such a joy to be with you. Welcome to the podcast.

Dr. William Stixrud: It's really great to be with you again.

Sucheta Kamath: So as you heard me talk about this, this little story about John Waters. I was just wondering as a psychologist, what do you think? Think about that approach?

Dr. William Stixrud: Well, in both of our books, we talk about what we what we consider to be the postulates of motivation. And the first one is you can't make a kid do something against his will. And the second one is you can make them want, what they don't what they don't want. And the third one is you can't make them not want what they want. You know, I live in a very blue state, where I used to do psychotherapy with a lot of parents with kids were interested in goods, that they wanted me to try to talk the kid out of being interested in guns, which is the wrong use of energy. What we want to do to show empathy is that it's not pathological, be interested in guns. And when the parents changed their energy, it just showed more interested in bought some catalogs. Very often the kids interested in it, Wait, when did something else. But I think that when we fight it, we try to change it, kids hold on tighter. Oh, go ahead. I just think it's a brilliant way to do this. And certainly many kids on the autism spectrum, we try to we try to steer them away from their intense interest. And I think in many ways we want to do is use the is as much as we can.

Sucheta Kamath: And I think, to your point, I always say that interest is a sign of willingness, desire, and commitment to channel energy. And, and if there's a motivational mismatch, that means you're more motivated to get kids to do something they don't want to, and they're least motivated to engage, you're going to have a battle of bulges. And people respond to that with further inappropriate ways of handling it. And then it becomes a very unrestful home. And I really love your emphasis on in your subtitle like happy home. So let's begin with the the first question that I have for you is the the foundation here is even though you use communication as a vehicle, but you're really talking about the art of connection, and I think it's the art of people management, but managing people sounds like you want to control them, but you're talking about deep meaningful, forming connections with kids. So tell me a little bit what was your thought about that. And as a psychologist of what do you see, has changed in the culture that you have prioritize that because it's a common sensical thing we as humans want to connect.

Dr. William Stixrud: So we know that a close connection with parents is about the nearest thing you can get to a silver bullet. And in terms of protecting kids from from the harmful effects of stress and negative experiences. And yet, especially in communities, where affluent communities and kids in high achieving schools, kids, on average, don't feel as close to their parents, as kids in middle class schools or even lower class families. And so we started out actually, what happened was that our agent, at when the software in child was doing well. So the it's time to write a second book. He said, Just people love the language, you give them in September child, write a book with more of that about communicating with kids. And we thought, well, you know, between the two of us, we've been communicating with kids, one on one for 65 years professionally. And so if we can probably do this. And in our first book, we place a strong emphasis on a sense of control, which I think is the besides communicating to kids that they're deeply loved, is the most important thing we can do for them to help them develop, develop a healthy sense of control of your mind, when we thought about the book about communication, ultimately communications for connection. And so we've thought about what what do we know, but how to really deeply connect with kids in a way that that builds that strong connection, that builds that relationship that provides that really protective of fat for kids.

Sucheta Kamath: You know, I think the minute ago you were talking about Suniya Luthar's work actually has been a guest on my podcast as well, who studies affluent communities and parenting. And there are two main issues that you also write about in the book is perceived excessive pressure. I mean, both parties, children and parents feel incredible pressure to succeed or to do well or have academic input success by hook or crook. That means if I'm going to come and drop the printed copy that was in the printer that the kid forgot, I'm going to do it. If that means I need to send an email to the teacher to advocate for Billy's absence, then he missed participation in the project. I'm going to do it because then I'm propping this kid for success because the grade matters. Somehow that grade means some sort of admission to some college, and then eventually some good paying job but the biggest thing that's getting compromised is that motivation, why why am I doing what I'm doing? But the second thing was So you talk about is the lack of closeness to parents. And I think the barrier I have as I was reading your book, and in my practice, private practice, I've seen that a lot, that a lot of parents don't know how to be close to their children, once they become pre adolescent, something about that change, they become either freaked out, or they feel these are grown ups, and they should know how to manage themselves or something. Can you speak a little bit about that. 

Dr. William Stixrud: I think what often what happens kids move into adolescence, pre adolescence, is that the parents feel that they don't want my input, they don't want to be as close to me as they used to. And it's not true. But they kids want it kids are all ages, they want a strong connection with their parents, there's it's just different. It just that we ship, they don't want to sit in our laps. anymore, you know, they don't want to constantly be with us. And certainly after puberty, peers become like crack cocaine in terms of the rewarding effects in the brain. And so that they we evolved, move away from our family did focus on peers move away from our family. But yet, there's plenty of ways to maintain strong connections with kids in a way that they feel deeply loved, that they feel supported, that they feel approved of, that they feel they feel that we're proud of them. And so, yeah, I think it's more challenging in some ways. I have a granddaughter and pre puberty, who is who kind of gives me the message sometimes that I'm kind of done with you and and, and yet, very often when it gallery, she she's, she's, she's still clearly wants to connect with me tells me everything. I pick her up in gymnastics twice a week, and she is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I think we can do it.

Sucheta Kamath: Yeah, you know, the funny thing is, we're one thing sorry, this is a sidebar, it's very much to what you're talking about. But so I don't know, every family has one video sender in their family, like, you know, Oh, watch this video. It's funny, and that's me and my family. So I'm converting my family. But there was a great little video that I saw, which just makes me My heart dances with joy, but also makes me cry with to see. So there's a video of these grandparents who are coming out of the airport. And and they're wearing dinosaur suits. Okay, they're coming to end, the funniest part is that the grandkids have worn dinosaur suits to greet them. And so the both have not planned it and they see and you see this reunion. It is so fun. Oh, that's great and heartwarming. And I think one thing if I may say that is missing, the ingredient is play, that not a lot of families are playing with each other, and not being fun with each other one of the best ways to build connection is that right? 

Dr. William Stixrud: Completely, when I used to do therapy with parents, and just say I want to set the highest goal of simply enjoying your kid there just be just be enjoying being enjoying being together because then the kid perceives himself or herself as a joy producing organism, as opposed to a fruit or frustration producing organism or a noise or anxiety producing organism. And I just think that, in both are both who we emphasize in the new book, and we will talk more about the use of empathy and validation that is ways of connecting deeply where we let kids know that we can handle their strong feelings and that we don't judge them. I talk more about that but certainly the idea of enjoying your kid and having fun with them. It's just I mean, it just changes I mean I just you know I think enjoy that I used to I used to spend an hour a week with both my kids I read when they were very little that the way you become close to somebody you just spend time alone with them. So I figured this 

Sucheta Kamath: I love that by the way, I still do I still do that with my kids.

Dr. William Stixrud: I know I there's 168 hours a week and I can't find two for my two kids and so and it changed when my son was about seven or eight wanted to play Batman or I had to be Robin. It was boring but But will I then evolved into you know, I play baseball with him. I teach him to drive. We get ice cream. We do various things, but until they left for college, I spent an hour a week with them on Sundays just doing something that was mutually enjoyable. 

Sucheta Kamath: Yeah, I got that a lot from you in its relationship with your own children. That there was a lot of joy playfulness As and little easy on your feet kind of thing. It was not like all being stuck up and just trying to program these kids to be become something. If I can share one quick story about my kids now who are have graduated from high school, and college and interesting thing that they came down for Thanksgiving, and we had a ritual. We used to go to Baskin Robbins to get a Sunday on ice cream sundae on Sunday. And they came down and they still wanted to do get an ice cream Sunday on Sunday. Yeah, and we always got one and we shared it. And we did that, even though these are grown kids. So your stories were so relatable to me. Maybe can you walk us through, you mentioned some ideas of fostering and making connections, including eye contact being present. But one particular thing I love that make me feel important is the pleading request that our children have in their hearts. So maybe tell us how can parents do that? Sometimes they are not present? Because their their minds are somewhere else? 

Dr. William Stixrud: Yeah, yeah. And I think that I just saw a study in China, or what they call phubbing, which is when somebody's talking to you, and you're on your phone, they aren't really and you're kind of dividing your attention. Yeah. Kind of pretending to listen. And, and, and I think it has a really bad effect on kids mental health. And I think there's there's times where we're just too busy

Sucheta Kamath: to flubbing. Yeah, it's

Dr. William Stixrud: P-h-u-b-b-i-n-g, phubbing. I never heard that I'd never heard of it either. But I think the idea is that if kids need our attention, and we're too busy, then we rather than trying to fake it, or do a half assed job, but we say, this is really important to me, I want to get this right. I want to help you as much as I can. I want to hear this story. But I can't give you my full attention. Now. Let's find a time to do it. Like that. So did the community. I think part of the reason I wanted to spend time with my kids, I wanted them to know that you're important enough to me that I'm going to find two hours every week to spend with my kids. One on one. I wanted to get that message that as you said that they mattered that they're important. And somebody once said that you should treat everybody like they have a sign in their head that says make me feel important. Enough that in so yeah, we talk about family rituals. I mean, your is another way of building connection. I remember when, when I was a kid, that one point, I can't remember why. But so I was going to my grandparents for for Christmas eve dinner. Yeah, they somehow they couldn't cook or something. So we stop at a drive in then got hamburgers and no shades. And for next several years, it was we did that every Christmas Eve. And I think that having these these these family rituals, or getting ice cream Sundays on Sundays is just another way to help kids feel like they're part of something larger than themselves, and something that they're important in the matter.

Sucheta Kamath: And, you know, it's so interesting, I grew up in India, and listen, my parents, my mother was a 10th grade graduate, my dad, you know, went to night school and had a very, very hard life and, and in spite of that, they had such a great parenting approach. And I want to say extinct, but they did have, and we had a lot of rituals, I was in fact, very fondly remembering this little ritual. So every summer we used to go to our grandparents home, and spend a month or two during, you know, Indian summer, which was very, very hot. And then when we came back, the night we came back, my mother used to make this one particular preparation called KitchenAid, which is like just rice and multiple lentils and vegetables and one pot and, and and we all would sit around the table and eat that and just reminisce on the whole summer. And that ritual became like this particular dish became a way to like nostalgically think about the past. And so my mother who just came back, she was spending, she spent a year with my brothers and she has now come back to stay with me for a year or so. And I made that particular dish and we all sat around and thought about our childhood in how she used to feed us this and now I was feeding her which was just such a so I know how deeply that act of connecting through food or rituals is so meaningful because to your point, we are seeing each other as a fully developed fully baked people, humans

Dr. William Stixrud: creatures. Yeah. Yeah.

Sucheta Kamath: So you know you one of the interesting things after kind of real We talking deeply about, I'm referring to your book about the, you know, theory of self determination, how people become in charge of their own selves. In this particular book, you have kind of concentrated on parents and one, one of the ideas that you, you Annette introduced is the idea of the parent as consultants, and in, in this parent as consultants with emphasis on language of the consultancy, so to speak, how to become advisors and advice givers. So can you talk us through that?

Dr. William Stixrud: Sure. I mean, I think that I gave a lecture in, in Houston, before the pandemic, that I happened to mention, what's probably the most elite, private high school in this area in the DC area, maybe the whole country. And, and after the lecture, this woman came up to me and said, I'm a psychotherapist at the Menninger Clinic, a really good mental health clinic in Houston, said, We know the school in DC really well, because so many of the graduates get into the top colleges in the country. But as soon as they get it be, as soon as they realize that everybody here is as smart as I am. As soon as they get ghosted, they get ghosted, or their girlfriend won't go out with them. They can't handle it emotionally. So they take a medical leave of absence and come in for treatment. And she said to a one, they simply don't have enough experience running their own lives, make your own decision solving their own problems. And I felt for many, many years I in 1986, I wrote an article about we should think of ourselves more as consultants to our kids than as their boss, or the manager or the manager or their home homework, police. Because our goal ultimately, in my opinion, is to if your kids to be able to run their own lives before they leave home. Many kids go to college, and we wrote an article in New York Times in 2019. Because by November 1, we knew seven kids who had started college and are already home, they just simply aren't readiness, they simply there's no evidence before they left that they could run their own lives. And so that's what that's my goal is is to to help kids run their own lives. And I think as parents, what we want to do is help kids figure out who they want to be, what kind of life they want, and how to create a life they want. And my feeling is many parents feel that I got to be on my kid pressure him to the maximize his potential. And what that does is it burns kids out, but maximizes their potential is creating the life that they want, that they're really happy with. And so we do you want to comment?

Sucheta Kamath: I was just gonna say about maximizing their potential somehow I think the relationship is to opportunities is of abundance versus lacking, I think they don't have a feeling that there's abundant opportunities on the horizon, they feel this is it. If they didn't act, somehow something is bad, it's gonna happen.

Dr. William Stixrud: It's crazy. And so we talked about the language of the parent consult. And I think probably the two most important aspects are number one, is the language of getting by it. Somebody's parents tell me I told a million times or, or I keep trying to get into see, you know, and net has this great cartoon, my co author is this great cartoon, as it says dad holding his two sons by the nape of the neck and saying, listen up boys, and listen up good, because I'm only going to tell you this a million times. And it just seems like such a waste of breath and waste of energy. And so what we suggest is, rather than laying stuff on kids say, I've got an idea about that, and I run it by you want to hear my opinion. I wonder what would happen if you tried it this way? What I say to kids a lot is I say, for whatever it's worth, and then I'll say your opinion or see my suggestion, but I want to make it tentative, I don't want to feel like I'm laying it on them. Because if we try to get people to change, weren't asking us to help them change. As you said earlier, all we get is conflict and resistance. And it's so the language of getting by and so and also simply saying, Is there a way that I could help. I was given a lecture in New York a few years ago and happened to be talking about this. And this woman got up in the front row told the rest is dead facing the rest of the audience and said, This idea has changed my relationship with my kid completely. She's ninth grade. She's in boarding school, in every every, every week, we talked on the phone a couple times. And it always turns into an argument because she brings up a problem. And I say, Well, you need to do this, or this or this. And she fights me on it. And it just devolves into this this kind of unpleasant argument. Last week, she called and I just said, is there a way that I could help? And that it was fun than the energy change? And we could brainstorm together and I wasn't trying to landing on her. And so this happens just all the time for me and I just I when kids parents often want me to try to talk kids into stuff. And I believe in do I don't believe in trying to talk them into stuff. I say I'll talk to him about it. And the second aspect of language is what we call the language of no force of you really can't make your kid do things and, and I just have great success, influencing kids, I think in a positive way, by not trying to force them. That I, there's a family. There's a very observant Jewish family that came to me a few years ago, couple, two or three years ago, and right before the pandemic, and they said, they were really distressed because our 13 year old son is refusing to have his bar mitzvah, which observed in families are really a big deal. And he was refusing because he didn't, he didn't have religious faith, and he didn't want to be a hypocrite, and said, What do you advise? And I said, tell him, obviously, no one can make you do this. And then we were going to do we can't make you learn your Bible portion. We couldn't drag him on the stage and move your lips, you know, we couldn't make it out. So no, you don't have to do it. But we want to know, it's really important to us, it's really important to your your aunts, and uncles and your grandparents, it's really important to our friends who want to welcome you to the Jewish community. I just hope we can find a way to do it. Two days later, after resisting for nine months, he said, Okay, I'll do it. And then you negotiate. I mean, he said, I don't want to do it for the whole synagogue, that he did. He did his apartments. And after nine months of fighting, I know killers who refuse to take his medicine for a ADHD medicine for six years. Mamma wanted  me to talk him into it. I said, I'll talk to you about it. I said, I don't want anybody to try to force you all you got to do it. So he tried to force you, put it in your cheek, and go spit it out and it goes better now. And I'll tell your parents the same thing. But you might want to make an informed decision, you might want to try and see what it does. Because Because some people like turning on a light switch. Because no, he's gonna know he's gonna make it take. And if it doesn't help you don't take it. You tried it two days later. And three months later, I got a letter from his mom or female from his mom says he's got straight A's from straight C's. And that doesn't usually happen was you know, but he didn't have any learning disabilities really? Yeah. But I just so the idea is that the parent consultant is that our job is to help kids figure out who they want to be what's important to them, it's important to support them in moving the direction that they feel is important to them got one of the coolest things that anybody ever said to me, is what I loved about raising adolescents, was it every day when they come home from school, you can see who they're deciding to be. So that's our job is to facilitate that. So we have this two aspects and two ways of thinking about communicating with kids that can foster that. Beautiful.

Sucheta Kamath: And I have a little bit non glamorous term for internal consultants, I call it pentoring. Parent Mentor. And one of the framing of mentorship or consultants is you're consulted upon you do not give advice until you're consulted. Yeah. And one of the things that I've done with my kids is one first say, I'm so sorry, that sounds like a lot. Wow, that's a real difficult problem. I wonder what you're thinking about it? And then second, you know, I've seen you take really complicated decisions, and you think very deeply before you act. I'm wondering if there's anything I can do. I'm happy to give you a perspective. If you need it. Yeah, yeah. And that has been very helpful. Because one, they always come back and ask you,

Dr. William Stixrud: they do. Yeah, yeah.

Sucheta Kamath: And second is, I think, they really don't have a great range of ideas. Because ideas come from experience, you need some having lived life in a complicated, I mean, in spaces. So if you have never had your flat tire, you wouldn't know what to do. When you have a flat tire. You can hypothetically tell people what to do. But when it's your turn, so I think that's very interesting phenomenon. To me about your approach, as you're describing this book about that consultants, language of consultants, is very much you're there to see successful your clients, as you say, you're there to achieve help them achieve success they want, but you have taken the time to understand what they want.

Dr. William Stixrud: Well, it's true. And, you know, we consider we've been writing about this consultant idea for years, and we think about it in three dimensions. three aspects. One is we are as you just said, to shut it we offer help and advice. We don't try to force it down kids throats, say the things you just said. We encourage them to make their own decisions. And I feel the best message you can give a teenager besides I love you. I'm crazy about you, is that I have confidence in your ability to make decisions about your own life and to learn from your mistakes. And I want to have a ton of experience doing that because before you leave home because that's how you become a good decision maker and go with kids. And the third is simply kids need to be able to solve their own problems that they need to sculpt their brain. So when something stressful happens, they go into coping mode, as opposed to retreating or avoiding like that. So those three things, but the decision making is you're saying, we say it has to be an informed decision, because kids lack experience, just as you're saying. So we say as long as an informed decision, as long as they're willing to talk with other people and know more about a situation than they do that let them make their choice and go with their choice. Go and go with their decision. Unless it's crazy. Maybe almost any reasonable person, say a guy, that's, that's never going to work.

Sucheta Kamath: And, you know, I've also said to kids that I've worked with parents and families, I've worked with that. You know, when you have a clogged toilet, you don't start enrolling in a plumbing school. Like, you know, you don't do that. Why? Because there's something called experts. Yeah, we've spent all their lives understanding how toilets work. And we call them plumbers and they have consultancy, you bring them home. And I think this wisdom to know when it's time to ask somebody is also that self advocacy piece that you're so clearly advocating for. And I think that also the language of no force speaks so much to me, I think, I would love if you can shed some light about this psychological fear that parents, teachers, adults who are in charge of little bit kids, and particularly adolescent, is this feeling that if I'm accepting, I somehow become permissive? Like, if I acknowledge somebody's difficulty, immediately, they will be difficult, or they will never solve their problems. So I think there's a lot of shaming involved. There's a lot of reprimanding, why did you not do your homework? Didn't you know, you know, like, instead like, oh, well, I'm so sorry that you have three zeros now. Homework? 

Dr. William Stixrud: Well, I know that I think that we emphasize that in the first chapter, right post is the idea that first seek to understand, know it, try trying to understand before you judge, yeah, I think that the empathy, the expressive, being empathic is huge in terms of building the connection and validating kids feeling so you know, I just recently I was talking to parents about a kid who came home, who's like an eighth grade. So I'm so mad at Mr. Johnson. We took a math test, he gave us all this stuff. They weren't that he didn't even cover. And he spent hours, I spent hours studying for it. And the mom knew that dude, you spent hours Why were you watching football? He didn't really she knew he didn't really study that hard. And she said she was inclined to say, Come on, buddy, I did you want to say or Mr. Johnson is a really good teacher. I know he wouldn't, he wouldn't put stuff on the desk, he kind of talk him out of it. And instead, mom said, What I said is that sucks. I said, that must be really frustrating. And is just use empathy to kind of reflect his feelings, and eventually said, Well, maybe I didn't study as much as I needed to. Hmm, there he got there you got. And that's what we find is when we take this approach of listening carefully, treating kids respectfully, not judging them, that they find their own reasons to change. We asked kids in writing our segment right writing, what do you say, we interviewed dozens of middle school high school kids, we asked them who do you feel closest to in this planet? And often they said a parent, but just as often they said an aunt or an uncle or an older cousin, or a teacher. We said What is it about this person that makes you feel so close to them? And invariably, it says something on the order of they listen to me without judging me. And they don't tell me what to do.

Sucheta Kamath: You know, this reminds me of Julius eagle, the psychologist from 70s, who says a presence of a charismatic adult, from whom children draw strength. And I think that brings me to this next question. Which again, being in your presence, I just have a sense of calm. I know you got this. I can feel my energy then I'm adjusting to you. So this this really and you write a lot about this, this way of being present, or with with with children or just being present in reality or in and you are a transcendental meditation practitioner. I am a team practitioner and I'm certified in mindfulness meditation. I've started something called Buckhead. Mindfulness Mondays, we meet in the community. I'm encouraged up been for past one year, we have had 22 sessions, just inviting the community to become a mindfulness community. So tell us a little bit about this idea of non anxious presence. I think it's so hard bill. I'm I'm not sure. Parents. This is this one is good. take a long time.

Dr. William Stixrud: Well, yeah. And so I written, I didn't make that term I wish I did. I love this the term of a non anxious presence. And I gave a lecture at a Baptist School in Texas A couple years ago. And it's a church school. And the people who are in the school told me that the Sunday before I came, the minister told the congregation, I want to become a non anxious presence, my family that I love. So the idea is simply that, that any, any system or organization works better. If the people in charge are not highly anxious, and emotionally reactive. We can be a calm presence, you think about it as a parent, it's much easier to calm an infant, if you say calm. If you've got a three year old who's having a tantrum in the store, you can handle a lot better if you stay calm. You got a 15 year old who flunked the test, you can be much more helpful that to him or her if you're if you're if you're calm, and thoughtful and respectful, as opposed to jumping off the making it worse. And so how do we do this? How do you move in the direction of being a non anxious presence. But one thing is that we remember that all of our all of our anxiety about our kids, our worry, and fear about our kids, isn't the future. Because the idea is that I've never found this not to be true. The idea is that if they're gonna get stuck in this negative place, and never get better, and we realize that most kids turn out well. And I can't tell you how many kids I've seen who who are complete disasters, especially kids with executive functioning problems with kind of immature frontal lobes, you know, who are a total mess, that 13, 15, 17, 21 Who Who two or three years later are incredible, I got a Christmas card a couple of years ago, from a family and the outside it said you were right. And I'll put it I'll put it up. And it's these three young adults with their spouses. And the parents wrote, The alternate great. And this happens just all the time when I learned in 1992, that there's very rapid development of the prefrontal cortex between 17 and 20, which is the first first evidence that I saw that the, the prefrontal cortex is late to develop. And we know with ADHD or significant executive function problems, it tends to be three to five years less mature physically. So the first thing is just realize that our anxiety is not about what kids are going through now. It's about them getting stuck. And my daughter, when she was to start as She stuttered for a while she just got so bad at one point that she wouldn't talk. And I've never been more panicked in my way. Because I thought, okay, she won't talk this, how could you shut and talk? How could this get better? And a couple days later, she stops you stop stuttering. And I realized that all my fear wasn't about two year old stuttering is about show started the rest of your life and the BTS that that kind of stuff. catastrophize. So the first thing is to take a long view, and remember how powerful the prefrontal cortex development is, and remember, how many influences on their white kids life that aren't us, and there's gonna be positive influences. 

Sucheta Kamath: You know, the, to your point, I think, the it's so interesting to me that God has given us this prefrontal system, which does future forecasting, and and this mental time travel. So when we travel back in time, it's nostalgia when we travel forward in time, that's a future prospection very, very important ways to have the long view. But if you look at all the mindfulness practices is really turning off your prefrontal system, and so that you can link to your present moment after so I think one of the things that might work, focus, help people understand the distinction between planning with the intention of planning, when you allow yourself to forecast, then you're done with planning. Now it's worrying, it's not planning.

Dr. William Stixrud: That's good. Lao Tzu said, if you're if you're anxious, you're in the future. If you're depressed, you're in the past. Yeah.

Sucheta Kamath: There's a movie did you in 2001, The Kids Are Alright, you remember, just two was so amazing to me that the adult lens is so jaded, because you look at children to be fixed, then getting out of somebody's way to let them grow. What a different way like you're becoming this tree who's overshadowing shadowing the growth of a little sapling? Yep, yep. Get out of the way.

Dr. William Stixrud: And part of the reason that I feel so strongly about taking this point of view is that we don't always know what's in his best interest. The first time I went to graduate school, I was in a Ph. D program and English literature. And I was so so anxious and insecure that I didn't turn in a single assignment for 20 weeks, two quarters. And like, when I talk with underachievers now I say I went 20 weeks turned in nothing on top that. That's not my point is when it happened that I was I was 23 years old. I felt like my whole life was going up in smoke. And it literally took me 30 days to realize it was the best possible thing that could have happened. There's no There's no way that I should have been an English professor. I just I felt like an impostor. And I needed to do something different. And I think so often, what seems like a disaster, it turns out, this leads to something that we didn't anticipate. So I think that, that, and two other things that one thing we talk about, is certainly mindfulness perspective, this won't be surprising to you, which is radical acceptance, meaning for all we know, whatever happens, whatever is happening with our kids right now, is what's supposed to be happening, because we've never seen a plan for their life, that somehow this is off course. So what we suggest is see what we see where they're at right now, even if it's hard, is part of their path, part of the path that they needed to go through to be who they're going to become. And don't don't touch or go against the fear that they're gonna get stuck in a negative place. And the last thing is certainly certainly what you were talking about, which is that calm is contagious. And if we have practices like meditation, or other things that make us feel calm, that we the fact that one of the mantra of the Navy SEALs is calm is contagious, because they go into these very stressful situations. And they try to keep calm so that they it's a practice. So I think that that we've certainly, as you said, I practice Transcendental Meditation, and I know this family, the mother and her teenage son who had 17 years autism, learn together, and learn TM together. Transcendental meditation. Yeah, a newspaper reporter asked the son, what he knows from meditation. What do you notice? And he said, TM calms the mind, and it calms the mom have a non non anxious presence, you know? Ned, Ned, Ned son that did that talks about this publicly my co authors, I can mention this, but two summers ago, had a brain tumor. Yeah, they're scrambling to get treatment for him. And his wife was asked about kind of a month into this, how can you how are you still calm? And she said, Well, they must be the meditation, she started three years. And she'd been missing for about three years. So I do think that that practices like that, that that that allow you to experienced the kind of inner state of calm, really benefit kids. 

Sucheta Kamath: And you know, the emphasis there is on the word practice, and the practice keeps insinuating or implying or really, really distinguishing that this is not a gift, it's a skill. And until that grows with incredible commitment to repeating and finessing and building a muscle memory.

Dr. William Stixrud: That's beautifully put in we wish, we have a chapter in a book called The language in silence of change. And that the idea is that we spend so much time trying to change our kids. And really, we feel that, especially if our if our kids aren't doing well, our most important work as parents is on ourselves. You know, it's managing our fear or anxiety, keeping things in perspective, and remembering along development, is it communicating competence and kids going against that tendency to catastrophize?

Sucheta Kamath: Yeah, you know, and can I give you a little bit of a perspective, that, you know, because I was born and raised in India, and a little bit of a background of Eastern practices, I find this very interesting trend that has happened. So we have highly stressed lives in western world. We have heavy emphasis on personal success. And somehow personal success is simply representation of personal effort. And and there's the encouragement that you can stall, stand tall, and have agency over your life by self effort. And and then these some of the Eastern contemplative practices that are introduced without the context of culture. So we I'm seeing lots of stress that people having to themselves and anchoring with a really believing in creating cultures and communities where they belong mindfully, like, how do you have a townhall without confrontation? Like how do you actually, you know, walk into a principal's office and express your grievance because you belong to a community where mindfully expresses concern Learn and not make policy change or something, something for one child, you know, like, so I feel like we need to really bring this back into the context of mindfulness. I love like Ellen Engers, you know, she says meditation is for post meditation mindfulness. So why are we practicing because you will become more mindful and less mindless. And so as I think really this becoming mindlessness, your own mindlessness can be one of the reasons to cause grief to other people. And you as a parent, your own mindlessness can really be like, you know, you were you have many examples of parents just not listening to their kids, and the kids not feeling being heard. And that can be a huge traumatic experience. If I'm a child.

Dr. William Stixrud: They say that kids listen better when they feel heard. 

Sucheta Kamath: Yeah, exactly. So you know, you have, and this goes so much on that agency issue. But maybe you can share a little bit some ideas for educators to motivate the kids as much as we're talking about parents. Who are because how do you achieve the same as a parent, you're in charge, maybe your own kids, and there's some blood relationship that makes you maybe even want to understand what motivates them, what interests them, but how do educators achieve that when they have to do group cooperation. And also, they don't have time to "Wait for the buy in to kick in" I mean, I do not agree with that. But I'm just curious.

Dr. William Stixrud: So Nick, and I are working with a group of educators around the country who are focused on student directed learning, and then really promoting autonomy and view because that, it turns out that a sense of control healthy sense of control or autonomy is absolutely the key to mental health. I mean, think about if you're anxious, your thinking is out of control, you'd like to stop worrying, but you can't, if you're depressed, forget it, you have no sense of control. If you have an addiction to something, forget your life is completely chaotic. And so it turns out that the reason that cognitive behavioral therapy helps people with anxiety, depression, and the reason that meditation it helps is in part is it increases a sense of control doesn't mean that you control everything, it means you don't feel helpless, or hopeless, or passive or chronically anxious or driven. And so it's huge for mental health. And also, that sense of autonomy is crucial for that self motivation. And yet, in schools, kids sense of control or autonomy gets lower every year, they're in school. And by time in high school, you got to ask permission to go to the bathroom. And so we're working with these educators who are really interested in, in getting kids to kind of be responsible for their own learning and direct their own learning. And it ranges from there's I went, I visited a school in Colorado Springs, where basically, it's a high school where the kids run the whole time, then the teachers are mentors, there are there 10 tour so their teacher mentors, and they really consider themselves as guides to sit the kids who, you know, here's the here's the here's the curriculum, and here's the stuff you got to master for the state tests and stuff. But let's figure out the best way for you to get them where you get the material, it ranges from school where that that's what they do to schools where they have half a day, we're committed to kids, kids have all their academics, the morning, then that afternoon is spent working on their own projects. And so I think that it's not through skillfully is to some teachers are just masters at getting it bringing kids in and getting them to do the teachers agenda. But I think the future of education is going to be on the student directed learning, because we have this mental health crisis in adolescence where the Surgeon General recently said, the status of adolescent Melfa mental health is the defining public health crisis of our lifetime. And just some new research suggests that the mental health of young adults 18 to 25 is even worse. And the sense of control is so huge in schools have the potential to really transform the life of young people by supporting autonomy, and a sense of control. And we think about a sense of control and two dimensions. One is the subjective sense of autonomy or agency, and set second is that the brain state and supports it, which is when the prefrontal cortex regulates the amygdala that senses react to threat and the rest of the brain. And so we can get to that sense of control, in part by promoting autonomy for agency and in part by making sure they get enough sleep, meditation things it seems that strengthen the connections between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala, that sculpt a brain that's just used to being have met healthy sense of control.

Sucheta Kamath: You know, and this reminds me of one amazing educator, I had Esther Wojcicki. She's the, you know, journalist, American educator, and she actually was the founder of the media. She is the founder of Media Arts program at Palo Alto High School. And one of the things that she also, you know, you've heard of Creative Commons. And she's the vice chair of that. But I think what's so interesting is in that school, to the Colorado School example you're giving students are given choice to set their learning goals and truly lead their day to achieve the goals that that are, but they're also given this opportunity to see the transfer of these abilities and skills in real life, like what to be a journalist, like you're actually publishing a paper that everybody's going to read. Yeah, then suddenly, the language arts comes into focus, right? 

Dr. William Stixrud: Yeah, exactly. And I met Esther in Colorado Springs. Yeah, we both went to the school that were this high school that I mentioned. And the cool thing is that to the kids that we interviewed, said, it's so much less stressful here, because because we have a sense of control. The teachers who function was didn't have to try to control the classroom, it tried to make them do what they want, they felt they had to do, they really supported the kids in defining their own ways of learning. The teacher is that they had dozens of applications for teachers from from other public schools wanted to teach there, because it's just such a healthier way to be with kids. And so many people get into education, because they want to, they want to have a positive influence on kids. And I think that one of the guys that we call it middle school principal, where the kids spent half the day, doing their own projects, said, I'm six years old, and I'm just not gonna do anything anymore. That's harmful to kids. And so much we do. So much of what we do in traditional schooling is horrible, because I'm not going to do it. And I am older than that. But I feel that same way. And it turns out this school, this high school, it I asked, I asked the head of the school in Colorado Springs. I said, How do you folks doing standardized test? You said, we have the highest scores in our district, I've all the high schools in our district. And I said, Why don't you emphasize that more? Who said, that's not what we're about? 

Sucheta Kamath: They don't even need to? Yeah, I guess it's a byproduct of the environment that I've created. We excell because we have agency over our lives. Yeah. What a great illustration of that. Well, you know, I think as we close, one of the most interesting parts that I spoke to me from, as I think about executive function, and you know, there's so much emphasis on behavior. So the underpinning skills, my inability to sustain focus, my ability to exercise, mental flexibility, my ability to plan, organize systematize and create a a roadmap for execution, all those skills are skills, but they may present themselves as behaviors, which gets a lot more attention and particularly framed as appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, they can come across as failure to meet expectations. So I would love for you to maybe talk about what how you have written beautifully about healthy versus toxic expectations. Can you tell us the distinction between the two and how parents as well as educators can communicate healthy expectations to the students?

Dr. William Stixrud: Yes. I think that I started thinking about this in part because so many kids I see who are really intelligent, but have executive function problems. They, they feel that their intelligence is like a 200 pound weight, because they feel that they're constantly letting people down and causing disappointing people because they can't perform as well as they want to as other people think they should. And so I started thinking about this and started reading about expectations. And we know that the until kids are 14 or 15, their placebo responses is even stronger than it is for people as they get older. Unbelievable. We also know that teacher expectations have a profound effect on kids kids competence, as do parent, kids academic achievement, as to parental accommodations, but healthy accommodation, expectations are expressed through conference expressing confidence. I believe in you, I believe you can do this. I've compensated if you wanted this important. You I believe that you work hard, you can do it. As opposed to saying you gotta get those bees up to A's you know that that's unacceptable. And so because you might start out talking about unconditional love. And I believe in telling kids, I love you no matter what you say, what you do, what you achieve, or how are you work. I love it just as much if you, you know, if you're a slacker, I love you just as much. And I think that attitude helps kids find their own motivation and find themselves. And so I think that the idea is healthy expectations. Communicate that unconditional love and approval and express to confidence in kids. And I believe that you can meet your own goals, accomplish accomplish things, you know that the toxic is where it's conditional, where it's a demand, because it feels threatened. And we know that kids function best in environments characterized by high challenge and low threat. And then the idea is, is that so many kids tell me God, they completely, they think they are their grades. They can't they can't get a B, they can't go on the show to their parents who are parents will go ballistic. This is toxic stuff. And it's all based on the crazy crazy idea, in my opinion, that the most important outcome of a kid's life, their young life is worth to go to college, as opposed to what kind of brands are scalping and what kind of person they're becoming. When you look at the mental health problems in college, your college level, you think we got to start talking with kids about what really makes people happy, which is one of my passions now because I saw these kids in Houston Sucheta, I've made several trips to Texas, but I saw when the student leaders one time, and I said how many of you want to be happy as adults? And they all kind of sheepishly raise their hand I'd die. Okay. Yeah. So what what do you understand it takes to be happy in adult life? In this one case? Probably? Well, they said, We understand if we can do good enough College, everything set? Oh, my God, how could they be so is nobody told them about Laurie Santos, the psychology professor at Yale who live with with Yale undergraduates, it was struck by how they got themselves in the most elite college in the country of arguably, maybe in the world arguably. And yet, they didn't enjoy anything about being yelled are so stressed, so tired, so competitive with each other. They didn't enjoy anything about it. So she started teaching a course on the science of happiness. Yeah, quickly became the most popular course in the history of young university. And these young people is like, why didn't somebody tell me that achievement, it's important, but it's a very, it's a really small part of what makes you happy. Your relationships are as it were more important, doing this and meaningful, being deeply engaged in something you really care about. These are the things that really make you happy, achieve, it's not trivial. But it's like 20, maybe 10-20% of what really makes you happy. And I think so many kids grow up without having any sense of this at all. Because we soak was focused so much on achievement and prestige.

Sucheta Kamath: And, you know, I think the there's a fantastic book that gave me has given me some tremendous insight into I won one, two books, actually, one is called Nobody's Normal by Richard Roy Grinker, he's an anthropologist. And the history of normal, like, where we got this concept of people are and, and the work and second book is called work won't love you back. And I think this identity that I am as good as the work I do, is the bane of a cultural I mean, you whenever you go people ask you two questions, what's your name? And what do you do? Yeah. And then if you're a stay at home mom, you almost do nothing. If you have anything non influential job, you are nothing, you know, but this idea that what is non influential job is becoming even narrower and narrower. So to your point, I think I really love this. This you know, I believe in you, I love you. And the expectation is you do right by you. And I really think one of the things that I say often to educators and parents that you know, I think hard work is hard and teach children to love hard work. Yeah, because hard work, it leads to this very inner cycle social emotional state called pride, pride in your work. And I think that can sustain you that that just pride that I do write things because I enjoy them like even it was so cute. My husband was emptying trash on Thursday night at two trash days Friday. And a self respecting man that he is uh, he not only removes the bag, he props that so everything goes down, removes the air bubble, ties it twice so there's no leak and now people may think like Why care just throw it dump it in the and then he replaced the trash bag. And I was just standing there watching this with glee, like the joy and pride that he felt doing it. Right, buy his home, you know, whatever it is. Same thing I get up in the morning, I make my bed like I feel when I put my mom was so funny. She was telling me the story. I you know, when I removed my clothes, I remove the sleeves. So they're proper. So when you come up when it comes out of some future prospecting, but I think that that joy, not not that I'm being like, I'm not telling anybody to do it. But just feeling the sense of pride and joy of doing right by whatever that may be. is wonderful. Anyways, beautiful.

Dr. William Stixrud: I love it. I love you. I tell kids, I want you to work hard, and play hard. And watch the rest heart.

Sucheta Kamath: Rest. So we did not get time. But I think people listeners, this is one of the most fabulous books. So since we are on YouTube, I'm going to show you the book. So please check it out. Please buy it. If you're lucky, and you have friends, you might even get some signed copies. So my oops, I thought I had a signed copy. So this is my signed copy. I'm so grateful for you being here. As we end up episode. Bill, I always ask what you did last time, but do you have any new book recommendations for our audience? 

Dr. William Stixrud: Well, I like there's a new book. What is it, something is about focus? Oh, you're talking about? Yeah, journalist.

Sucheta Kamath: Johann Hari? 

Dr. William Stixrud: Yeah, Johann Hari. Yeah, Johann Hari. You got it you got That's right. It's about why we can't we can't focus as well as we used to. And that I don't agree with everything in it. But but there's a lot of really interesting things in it. And I liked that. That I I just I keep going back to to Madeline Levine's book, the Price of Privilege, which talks about senior losers research because some of the families that I work with, and some of the people buy books are in affluent communities in high achieving schools. And I think so many people don't know that these kids in affluent communities and high achieving schools are so much higher risk than other kids are for depression, anxiety and substance use disorders. So I continue to go back to that. There's a really there's an interesting article, you know, the construct of learned helplessness, yes, yes, it is suddenly developed in the 1970s and 80s. And the idea was that the paradigm was these dogs would be in a cage, and they'd be shocked. They couldn't escape. So they had that experience several times. And eventually, they'd open the cage door that the dogs wouldn't even try to get out. So the scientists Martin Seligman and Steve Mayer concluded that these dogs learned helpless, what can I do? Why bother trying, and what they wrote an article called, Learned Helplessness in 2017. This is what we got right? And what we got wrong. And what they got wrong, was the dogs didn't learn helplessness, they failed to learn control, they failed to learn that that sense of control, they can quit, because when you had that experience of controlling a stressful situation, what happens is your prefrontal cortex activates, you're going to coping mode and try to figure out what to do. And whenever your prefrontal cortex activates, it dampens down the stress response. And that's ideally that's why we say, support kids in solving their own problems. Because what kids have a lot of experience, something stressful happens. And rather than is, rather than just whipping in to save them, let them figure it out. Let them prefrontal cortex activate, because then they're, they get less stressed when you're coping. So it's helping, it's not as stressful. What's really stressful is when you don't know what to do. When you feel overwhelmed.

Sucheta Kamath: By the way, did you know that this was discovered by Pavlov. So I was at the trauma conference with Bessel Vander Kolk, three weeks ago, and he mentioned this story that Pavlov had a lab and he's most known for this Pavlov's reflects, right? Well, he had these dogs in cages, and the river flooded, and the river next to his clinic, or his lab flooded, and all the water came into the lab, and all the dogs that were caged and nobody was there. They tried to start stand on their toes to survive with the water came to very top of the cage. And then what happened is the water level subsided when they return back to the lab. They saw that these dogs were unable to participate in any experiments they were conducting. So they were unable to participate in previous ongoing research. So the lab assistant came to Pavlov and said, We need to get rid of these dogs. They're just not performing. And so then Pavlov said, Wait, but why. And then he studied, he began to work on them and understood that even when the cages, the because they had this traumatic experience of being locked in the cages, when they were in the flood happened even when the gates I mean, the the cage doors were open, they weren't unable to activate their agency law they'll completely lost bearing about their sense of control.

Dr. William Stixrud: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's it turns out that what happens is to actually that rather than rather than learning, you know, there's nothing I can do. What happens is that the part of the brain that the parts that that does that we have the fight flight or freeze, the part of the the triggers that freeze response is what happens, and so did that they weren't doing it, as opposed to, but why bother trying? It's just they're so panicked, they freeze. 

Sucheta Kamath: Well, we were supposed to end a minute earlier. So sorry, guys, but well, that's all the time we have for today. Thank you so much Bill for being our guest. Your conversations, you're bringing and highlighting this incredible understanding that our parents and educators need to have we collectively as society, you don't even need to be a parent or an educator, if you're running teams. If you are a young person, part of a team, you need to understand how to really find motivation or motivating people we don't we all want to yield group cooperation where people are likely to pursue goals that are important to them and having a good read on what what's important to people can be really, really powerful. Yeah. So listeners, keep listening. Keep leaving us review. If you loved what you're hearing, please share and follow us on social media. And definitely don't forget to purchase amazing books that our guest, Dr. Stixrud has has written with his co author, Ned and thank you so much for your time, and thanks, Bill for being with us. 

Dr. William Stixrud: Thanks for having me. It's really fun.