December 15, 2022 • 41 mins
Ali brings her fabulous co-host for ABC’s The Parent Test on to dig a little deeper into his parenting expertise. Psychologist, teacher, author, researcher and the father of eight kids, Dr. Adolph “Doc” Brown, shares some of his greatest gems to help parents gain clarity and insight into raising humans. He boils all the parenting books out there down to just five main takeaways - what he calls The 5 F’s. They talk candidly about the current crisis kids AND parents are in and why it can be hard for dads to find their space. He also shares some common parenting mistakes, the three greatest parenting traits, and how we tap into love. Clue: First Things First.
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Executive Producers: Sandie Bailey, Lauren Hohman, Tyler Klang & Gabrielle Collins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. I think, like
evor ginas have a lot to say. I think we
should let them speak out of it and they'll just talk. Yes,
one of the hardest things to absorb for those who
are new to these kinds of fights. Again, if we
want all of them, we wouldn't be here. If you
(00:21):
see a monster, don't try to run away, step right
up to it and say what do you have to
teach me? Why are you? In my mind, I want
to be the person who has cancer and doesn't run
a marathon, Like do I have to work that hard? No,
it's the best excuse not to run a marathon. Welcome
(00:43):
to Go ask Alli. I'm Ali Wentworth and I'm very
excited today because Dr Adolph Brown I call him Doc Brown,
is on Go ask Alle today. And I met Doc
about four or five months ago because we did an
ABC Prime time together called The parent Test, and he
(01:04):
is an incredibly special human being, a master class teacher
on all things to do with parenting. And we host
the show together that deals with what are the best
parenting types? And over the weeks that we shot the show.
Doc and I had many discussions about how kids these
(01:28):
days are dealing with anxiety, with schooling, with politics, with
peer pressure, bullying, social media, and so I wanted to
have Doc on today because I wanted to talk to
him about what he's feeling as a practitioner out in
the world when it comes to parenting and children. So
(01:49):
I'm not going to waste any more time. Dr Adolph
Brown is an educational and clinical psychologist, master teacher, author, researcher, entrepreneur, consultant,
and an influence a voice in the fields of education,
human behavior, and neuroscience. And he is, as I said before,
my spectacular co host on our new television show, The
(02:10):
Parent Test on ABC Prime Time, which premieres drum Roll tonight,
and Doc Brown is a real star. Hey Doc Brown,
Hey Ali, how are you. I'm good. So our show
is premiering tonight, which is very exciting. I am excited.
(02:32):
I'm telling you, I've been waiting for this and I've
been having to keep it a secret. So and we
haven't seen it. You and I haven't seen it, so
we don't know how they edited together. We might not
be in it um. But regardless of the show, we
(02:52):
had so many interesting conversations at breaks and at lunch,
and you are just a vault of knowledge and so
many things when it comes to parenting and and kid raising,
and so I really want to devote this podcast to
your specialty and what you're so great at. Do you
(03:14):
find with the people that you talked to, with the
parents that there's sort of an undercurrent of anxiety and
is that being passed on to their kids? Certainly? I
I see it in our business. I see it in
the focus groups that I conduct all over our country.
I jokingly said recently that the USA could easily stand
for the United States of anxiety based on everything that's
(03:37):
going on around us and Ali, one of the things
that we forget as parents sometimes is that we are
our children's first teachers. And when I say that is
that from pretty much birth to adulthood, they're taking their
cues from us more as caught than as taught in parenting.
So they're watching us. So first things first is taking
(03:58):
care of ourselves, and if if we aren't taking care
of our emotional health, is sending signs to them not
only is it contagious, but they're also seeing that it's
not something that is necessarily valued, And it's kind of
like the parent who focuses more on the child's academic
achievements than the child's emotional health. So we have to
(04:21):
really get back to first things first. So do you
think that right now? Certainly parents have a lot of anxiety,
whether that be about global warming or Russia, their own jobs,
their own income, gas prices, all of it. When they
get tight and anxious, their kids are absorbing all of that, definitely,
So what do we do as parents? Do we hide it? Like,
(04:43):
how do we process it for ourselves without affecting our kids? Well, Ali,
I write about this and I call it too backpacks,
And I call it to backpacks because there's one that
we have that we don't mind the world seeing, and
then there's that second one, that invisible one. And you
did a phenomenal show on this recently about secrets, and
(05:05):
I constantly say that we're only as sick as our secrets,
things that we don't want anyone to know about. Meaning
it's just like a little like children. When children don't
talk things out, they don't talk out their frustrations and
agitations and irritations, they eventually act them out. And that's
not just for children. That's where adults too, So I
(05:26):
encourage adults to reveal what's in their backpacks, even if
it's only to them, reveal it to yourself to heal it.
It does. It does actually make me think of so
many of these children that get involved. You know, of course,
there's mental health issues that get involved in these school shootings.
You know, because they have that second backpack that it's
(05:50):
full of all kinds of stuff that they haven't dealt
with and processed and exactly anyway, And what I'm saying
for parents is that as long as we continue to
put stuff in our backpacks, I mean, from the pandemic,
they told us it was going to be two weeks.
Most people said they could use a two week break,
but they ended up being in three years. So all
(06:11):
the other stuff that we carried on a regular basis,
then with the pandemic coming along, we stick other stuff
in from emotional stress, from the divide that was happening
in our world. We were getting sick, our children were
getting sick, loved ones were dying. All of that stuff
eventually comes out alley, And what happens is we allow
(06:32):
our personal storms to get our children wet mhm. And
and when that happens, you know, it's no good for
the family. We can't heal what we don't reveal. We
have to open our backpacks and process that stuff that's
in them. And it's not just all the things around
us island. I mean, yeah, of course we can talk
(06:53):
about all the decisions that are being made politically that
are really hurting our society, but we can also add
the fact parenting is stressful and and all the other
stresses that come on a in a personal level. So
all of that combine leads to or can ley to
be an overwhelmed and frustrated anxiety depression. And our children
(07:17):
are are oftentimes um victims of our inability to take
care of our emotional health. And so how so we
should shield them from it a little bit? Right? No,
I don't agree that we should shill them. In fact, Ali,
one of the things that it's kind of backfiring in
(07:39):
the generation that we have today is that when we
say shill them from it, what happens I hear we're
stealing their heart. And when you steal your child's hard
it oftentimes prevents the child from developing resiliency, It prevents
the child from understated ending that things can be hard
(08:02):
in life and failure can be a part of success.
So when we shield our children, sometimes we can actually
harm them. Because growth mindset is a big deal. You know,
it leads to all kinds of great things as children,
but it's a it's a skill that can easily be
carried into adulthood for success as an adult. So I
(08:26):
don't believe in shielding. I believe in parents allowing their
children to see them work through their crisis. So when
they can see that their parents have crises, but their
parents work through that, their parents don't run from it,
their parents aren't afraid of it, it's somewhat normalizes it
and kind of like what we do with mental health today.
(08:47):
Now we can talk about it openly, it's not it
doesn't necessarily have that stigma that it once did because
we're talking about it. So, you know, I think when
children realize that we're human, right, that it allows them
to be human as well. What are some of the
things that you see as sort of parenting fails as
(09:08):
cautionary tales. You have eight kids, You've had a lot
of practice, that's right, thirty three Ali Ali, I would
say one of the first things. One of the first
things I would tell parents is parents, the child you have,
not the one you wish you had. And what that
(09:28):
basically means is, oftentimes, as parents we project things that
happened to us in our childhood onto our children, or
we want to live vicariously through our children. So we
should parent the child that's in front of us, not
that one that's in our head. I would also let
parents know that if if I had to kind of
(09:50):
just say, what parenting is all about. It's about guarding
and guiding our children. It's not about making decisions for them.
At the end of the day, we all have free
will HM. So it's important that as parents we don't
tether ourselves to the choices our children make. Now that's
a two way street. So I have a daughter who's
(10:12):
an epidemiologist and went to an Ivy League school. Will
you pen Leah did that. I didn't do that. She studied,
she applied, she did that. But I also told you
I had a daughter that had a d U I
she's never seen me drink and drive. So as parents,
(10:33):
we shouldn't tether ourselves to the choices our children make.
And I see parents that do that quite a bit.
They own it and it's hard not to, but we
do have to remember their separate human beings. But don't
we come into parenting with our own baggage. I mean,
I sometimes think that George and I parent through, you know,
(10:55):
the cracks we fell in as kids. So, you know,
my parents were divorced and they were sort of off
having other families and doing their careers, and because of it,
I didn't get a lot of attention. And I think,
you know, I am a little bit of a helicopter
parent now because of it, you know, because I'm trying
to sort of fill that hole in them when when
(11:17):
it's really my whole to fill exactly, Ali, we call
that ghost and the nursery. And what the ghost the
nursery is is that second backpack, That second backpack that
we haven't resolved eventually comes out. It doesn't just stay
in there, it comes out, and we call those projections
(11:37):
are unresolved. Rejections can be projected on our children, and
they often are. What we have to realize is that
every child is a study of one, and that's what
makes parenting so challenging. That's whether you have one to
three or eight they're each different and not only different today,
but they grow and they become different, and we're and
(12:02):
we're different parents. So so it's really really important that
we recognize that the stuff that we're carrying, I mean,
we have to really explore the stuff that we're bringing
into parenthood. And and it gives the children the space
to truly become who they're meant to be as opposed
(12:23):
to who we want them to become, because otherwise you're
just creating generations of reacting. You know. So I'm reacting
to my parents, and then my children will react to me,
and then it just goes I mean, and that goes
with trauma, but it goes with all of it, you
know what I mean that if you just continue this
bloodline of of reacting to how you are parented. Um.
(12:47):
And it's funny because I in my house, I have
two daughters raised by the same parents in the same house.
They ate the same meals, you know, they were put
in the same clothes, and they are so different. And
George and I have to wear two completely different hats
when we parent each of them, you know, and they
(13:09):
they need completely different tools as well. Well. Ali, I
tell you, if I had to take every parent book
that I've ever read, or even the ones that I've written.
I think it can boil down to like five f's.
And that's kind of what I talk about at parent universities.
And of course I start with the first F that
(13:29):
we sometimes overlook. But that's fun. You know, Einstein said
it much better than I could ever say it. He said,
creativity is intelligence having fun. So fun is an authentic
part of learning and should be. So, you know, how
do I children learn about fun from us? Uh? They
see a smile, you know, and smile the training wheels
for laughter. They we hugged them, we touched them, we
(13:49):
embraced them. When we discipline, we were teaching them as
opposed to punishing. So that first stuff is fun. That
second F it's fair, being fair, understanding that every child
is a study of one. It would be great if
one rule could apply to all the children, but it
doesn't because they're all different, exactly. And the one rule
(14:12):
doesn't apply to if you have one child, because that
child will change and the rules should change as well
be adjusted. Um, So I'd say fair fun firm. Firm
is kind of where we dropped the ball today. We're
in the social emotional learning environment where we're understanding where
children's behavior is coming from. But it's also important to
(14:34):
understand that there's certain behaviors that still need to be corrected.
So when I talk to parents about being firm, I
tell them every child needs consistency structure, limits and boundaries.
Regardless of the age. Consistency structure livings abound, and it
may look different, but every child needs it. And I
tell people my mom didn't necessarily say it that way.
(14:54):
My mom would say Burger King may have great burgers,
but you can't have it your way. It meant the
same thing great, so that I would say, Um, it's
okay to be flexible as parents. And sometimes we say,
you know, it's it's hard to be because we think
(15:16):
that we're giving in or we're compromising too much. But
you know that treat that doesn't bend in a strong wind,
we all know it breaks. And I've heard you mentioned Ali,
which was phenomenal about how the pandemic made you look
at your children's digital advices differently, and and and and
(15:37):
how you had to be flexible and adapt based on
what was going on around you and um, and then
lastly Ali, Um I'd leave it for last, but I say,
first things first, none of this matters if you're not
taking care of yourself as a parent. When you say
self care and taking care of yourself as a parent,
(15:58):
what do you mean exactly? Well, Ali, I asked parents
this question. Um, I say, if I ask you to
write down all that you love, how long would it
take you to add your name to that list? And
then I say how many of you even thought of yourselves?
And those parents don't raise their hands, So then I
(16:20):
tell them this doesn't work unless your name is at
the top of the list. That's so interesting. Yeah, it
didn't even occur to me to write myself. I mean,
I mean it didn't especially, but I think I think
that the majority of women would say that too. You're
just you know, as soon as you have children, and
I can't speak for men, but you know, as a woman,
(16:42):
you go, oh, this is now my main focus. It's
not me anymore. It's it's my children, and it's you know,
feeding them and sheltering them. And you lose yourself completely
if you if you don't sort of every day tap
into your own needs, you have to Yeah, yeh, there's
a lot more to come after the short break and
(17:11):
we're back all doc, Yes, I'm listening. You bring up
an excellent point there that we don't talk about enough
when you say that women immediately own it and and
the research supports that. However, um, women have to be
(17:33):
very careful in the family dynamic not to over function,
and over functioning what happens sometimes is that the dad's
will become periphal. And it's not necessarily that all dads
want to be periphical, but if mom's going to take
the kids to ballet and and and help with homework,
(17:53):
and you know, sometimes it's difficult to find your space
as a dad, and so so it's a balancing game.
And again, like I said, there are many men who
want to be a part of you know, taking them
around and spending time with them. But when mom owns
(18:13):
all of that and that mom gets her her self
esteem and self concept from that is very difficult sometimes
for dad to become a part of that. And by
the way, I'm not even talking about heteronormative relationships. I
know a lot of a lot of gay men and
one of them takes on that role and it's the
same dynamic. Thank you exactly, And I'm also noticing that
(18:37):
a lot of women I know who are becoming empty nesters,
and I'm you know, right on the verge of becoming one.
You know, the ones that have been overly functioning as
the sort of main nucleus of the family, They're the
ones suffering the most now from empty nesting because they've
projected all their self worth on the rearing of the children.
(19:00):
And the women that tried to find a balance between
career and also being a present parent are having less
of a hard time. And and let me ask you this,
So when you say I put myself at the top
of the list when you talk about self care, I
assume that you're talking about a parent who is um
(19:23):
physically strong, they're emotionally strong, and probably have other interests
outside of being a parent that sort of stimulates other
parts of their brain. Spot on Ali and and and Ali.
What happens when when parents own the parenting ideology and
(19:45):
everything that goes with it before everything else. The latest
research on divorce shows that it's right around the twenty
one year mark. So what is being talked about is
that parents are waiting to the children are older to
make those decisions. However, they've really lost the connection, you know,
(20:08):
years before that, to the extent that they become parents
as opposed to spouses. When empty nest comes along, you
no longer have anything in common with your spouse. I've
seen that a lot, by the way, and I've also
been very aware of it in my own marriage, because
especially if one or both of the parents are working
(20:31):
and you have the kids, the marriage seems to be
the thing that gets the least amount of attention. It's
the most anemic part of the body of the family
because I have to check in with my husband all
the time, because it ends up being a very transactionary
relationship where basically all you're doing is saying, did you
(20:54):
call the plumber, did you read the report card? Did
you do this? And there's like thing left, and then
everybody's exhausted when they go to bed at night. And
I sort of joke about it, but the idea of
a date night um to me has become more and
more important the older I've gotten, because if I don't
have that with my partner, if I don't have a strong,
(21:16):
healthy connection with my partner, I the rest of the stuff,
like like the whole factory isn't working well, so believe me.
I can't tell you how many friends I have that
let their primary relationship fall by the wayside and because
of it. You know, there's a high divorce rate in
(21:36):
our country for a reason. Yes, and like you said,
we have to be intentional. I've seen post of you
and George on dates and I love it. I travel
quite a bit um in Riverside, California today, but maybe
two types of engagements a year. Um, my wife and
I we don't miss a date night if if she
(21:57):
has to fly out so that we can make pain
that I mean, parenting is extremely important to us. However,
we brought the children into our lives, they didn't bring
us into theirs. That's true. That is true. I mean,
I mean that's the real talk of it. Yeah, and
I I think I think about that all the time.
(22:18):
I think it's I do think it's one of the
biggest things we forget as parents is to pay attention
to our relationship. Um, We're gonna mess up, right, We're
gonna make huge mistakes, I particularly over George, will get
blamed for a lot of things. All I can do
is love my children. That's all I can do, is
(22:38):
just love them. And do you agree that that a
child that feels parental love is a child that already
then has a floor underneath them no matter what happens. Ali,
that's the number one thing. Lead with love. Lead with love.
(22:59):
At the end of the day, It's kind of like,
you know, parenting skills can be taught, but if the
one thing that we all have the capability of just
from the start is loving our child, So as long
as we're leading with love, I mean, that would eradicate
many of the mistakes and bad choices that are made
(23:20):
in parenting. I would imagine there's been a lot of
data that's been accumulated of children that did not get
the kind of love or you know, mother messages as
a baby. Uh. Marion Wright Edelman, who runs a children's
defense fun always talks about the cradle to the prison pipeline,
(23:41):
and I think a lot of that is because the
neglected children of our country who don't get any love
end up making bad choices, end up in horrible situations
that unfortunately lead to addiction and imprisonment, all kinds of things.
And I think this science would show that these were
(24:01):
kids that didn't get anything from any other human being.
They were prone to it. Definitely that that second part
is really crucial. The school to prison pipeline, the cradles
to prison pipeline, definitely has a lot to do with
children missing out on those very important factors and things
(24:22):
that they should have received, love, structure, unconditional positive regard.
And you know, we often think about trauma as something
that happens to someone. We don't often really focus on
the things that didn't happen to someone as being trauma.
And that's what you're talking about. And the research says
young people need one caring adult, at least one caring adult,
(24:47):
So some of the things that don't happen in a
home space can happen in other spaces. You know, we
remember two types of people in our lives. Remember those
who loved us and those who didn't. The good news
is at oftentime, when someone talks about someone who loved
them outside of a family, they're talking about a teacher,
an educator. So when we talk about that cradle to
prison pipeline, it's not just a home environment because there
(25:10):
are some protective factors that can override a bad start,
so to speak. I don't want to give a lot
of way about our show. But we actually have a
single parent on our show who adopted her niece from
a family that was kind of riddled in drugs and
prostitution and gangs and throw a very disciplined parenting has
(25:34):
raised an incredible daughter. Yeah, you know, I remember listening
and observing this particular parent and those five things that
I just discussed. I saw those things. I saw a
very disciplined parent that was also having fun appropriate fund
(25:55):
If you could pick three things that you think like
these are these are great parenting traits Besides love, what
do you see and you think that kid's gonna be okay?
Because those parents are that parent do what? Uh? That
parent's present, purposeful and intentional, those would be the three things. Present.
(26:17):
Doesn't mean that you have to be there for everything
that child does, but you have to be available. Um,
I'm in California today. I live in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
But if my phone rings while I'm conducting this interview
with you, Ali, my family knows what I'm doing. So
if my phone rings, I'm gonna answer it because it's important.
(26:39):
So that's being president. I have answered the phone on stage.
So I love what I do I don't call it
a job, it's a joy. But at the same time,
being present means being available. I don't know if it's
going to be a life altering decision that you know,
my child's gonna ask me, and I've been fortunate that
it hasn't been. It's you know that, can you put
some money on my you know whatever account? But that
(27:02):
kind of thing, I'm gonna start calling you for that.
So being being present would be would be a big one.
Being purposeful when you're with your child and you're playing kickball,
play kickball, don't send emails. At the same time, being intentional,
if you want your child to be a kind hearted child,
(27:27):
then make sure that in your parenting that that's what
you're allowing your child to experience with you, your kindness.
So intentionality is actually thinking about where you want to
be and then reflecting to make sure that that's what
(27:48):
you're actually expressing and communicating. So mirror mirror the behavior, right, Okay, Okay.
I want to talk about being present because I agree
with that, and I think people get confused by what
that really means because I've seen listen, I you know,
(28:10):
George has been guilty of it, where he will be
uh playing a game of online chess or something with
the kids. You know, We're all in the same room
and we're talking and I'll say, hey, you know, get off,
stop playing chess, and he's he says, why I'm here,
I'm listening, I'm conversing. But the very fact that he
(28:31):
is focused on something else makes us feel, or makes
me feel, you know, that he's slightly checked out that
we're getting And I think that a lot of parents.
I feel like, well, I'm out here throwing the ball
with my kid. Yeah, I'm on my phone, or yes,
i'm you know, thinking about how I'm going to clean
(28:52):
out the garage. But kids know when you're not present,
it doesn't mean you're physically standing in front of them. No,
and adults know as well what it means. Ali. First
of all, the brain can only truly focus on one
thing at a time. Well, so, whenever my wife speaks,
if I'm in the middle of watching a television program,
(29:12):
if i have a book in my hand, I put
it down and I face her. And you know, I
was fortunate, and I have grandparents who role model this
for me. A grandfather who told me, what do I
do with your grandma when she talks. I say, you
stop everything and you look at her, and he said,
you know why. I said, yeah, because you want her
(29:33):
to know that it's important. He goes, no, because she'll
tell me three more times. So so yeah, so so
it's important to be there, to be there, and with
every distraction that we have today, it's really challenging. Put
the phone away, put the phone down. It's respected and
(29:54):
it's honored. When when that actually happens. When I see
couples and restaurants, hmm, sometimes I see two people sitting
across from one another on their phones. I guess what,
no judgment. That could be texting each other. However, however,
the likelihood of that might be slim. Yes, So it's
(30:15):
just kind of the society we live in that being
present is more challenging than it ever has been because
of the distractions. And I would take it one step
further and say, it makes me sad sometimes when I
go out to a restaurant and I not only see
the parents on their phones, but the children. You know,
toddlers have an iPad in front of them, definitely, so
(30:35):
they're all sitting at a table together, but everybody's checked out.
So you're already teaching them to you know, split off
at a young age. But a lot of times, I
do I think parents get confused by the idea of
being present. They do confuse it with physically being there.
And and like you said, how many how many situations
(30:57):
do you deal with now in your pract just or
even when you're out speaking that have to do with phones, phones, phones,
phones and social media. And I mean it's quite a bit,
quite a bit to where couples have said that, you know,
it's interfered with their intimate relationship, phones in the bedroom.
(31:19):
Of course, being present is real and it can't be faked.
And it's time for a short break. Welcome back to go.
Ask Alli, do you deal with a lot of families
(31:42):
with predominantly teenagers in crisis? All all ages? I deal
with every from the preschoolers all the way up to
the young adult children. And what I'm seeing is that
it's it's that middle school age group today that's having
the roughest time, and parents are also having a rough time.
(32:07):
You know, we constantly talk about children, but we also
have to remember that the parents are having a rough time.
And one of the biggest stresses of parents today, Alley
is that the majority of parents want our children to
grow up, become gainfully employed, contributing citizens of society and
outshine us in every possible way. And their parents today
(32:30):
that don't believe that their children will be able to
do that, And that's causing quite a bit of anxiety
for many parents. And they don't they don't think their
kids are gonna be able to do that because it's
just too impossible with wealth disparity and with politics. Yes, yes,
(32:50):
And I saw I saw you recently with your early
voting sticker. Everyone in my household voted as well, So
that's a big deal for us. UM I can imagine.
And I you know, we've talked about social media and
the internet and everything, and to me, it is now
kind of the wild West, and how the number one
reason for teenage girls suicide comes from social media and
(33:15):
and bullying and judging themselves. And do you have to
do a lot of parenting um or giving parents skills
on how to deal with this new world we live in.
I mean, everything is so accessible to our children now
and it's almost like we have to learn to parent
in a whole new way, in a way we weren't well,
(33:36):
boundaries have become even more important today than they were
yester years. I mean, I'm not sure how many people
out there grew up in societies where you could leave
your door open and not worry about someone coming in
your home. I had that type of community early on too,
So today it's a little different. And in the same
with parenting, with social media, those boundaries have to be
(34:00):
in place. When computers first came on the scene, my
wife and I we built a place in the kitchen
where every computer screen that if we walked past, we
could see what was on the screen, and and and
that was a big deal. Uh. You know, we need
parents all the time that believe that children should have
their own space and their own privacy. And I get that.
(34:21):
I get that. However, that's different. Yeah, they still need
guards and guides because they don't understand it. This is
like a whole new world obviously for all of us.
But you cannot leave children to their own devices, on
their devices, because they will end up in a place
(34:43):
that they're not prepared for, they're not equipped to deal with.
That's right, and exposure and experiences matter, right the same way.
You know, it's not the same world as go outside
and we'll call you at dinner time when it's night out,
you know what I mean? Like you said, you know,
go play kick the can and you know when you
(35:05):
hear the whistle, it's dinner time. Even if it's dark
out like that, that even doesn't exist anymore. Lights come on.
That's right, you know. Now it's like where have you been?
You're going to get abducted? Have your phone? You know,
there's it's a lot, and which adds to the anxiety
as well. Um, when you go around the country lecturing
and talking, what do you most enjoy talking about? What
(35:29):
do you get sort of passionate about. I get passionate
about about love, just love. Well, I call it love,
light and insight, and I talk about love and ways
that most people understand love is the greatest of all things,
and it's the most abundant human resource. And it throws
(35:50):
people for a loop sometimes because I come in as
this research scientist and and I'm talking about love, and
I'm primarily talking about first loving yourself, you know. And
I'd used a mirror as probably uh the most effective
intervention and prevention strategy possible, meaning that reflective people are
also the most effective people. You know, instead of looking
(36:13):
like the brain on autopilot looks out for an enemy
because you know, we had to scan environment for zabra
too tigers. One time in my classes, I say, let's
reboot the brain and look look first at ourselves and love,
light and insight. Just be light wherever you are. You're
responsible for the energy that you take anywhere you go.
(36:34):
You know, there's some physicists that say that energy is
neutral until we, as human beings, make it positive or negative.
So be the light and an insight. I describe it
as that's the greatest vision that any human being could
ever have. Insight. How do people How do you answer
this question when people say to you, I want to
live my life with love as a spouse, as a parent,
(36:58):
as a friend. How do I do that? How do
I tap into that? Well, first of all, it starts
with accepting yourself, accepting everything there is about you, and
that's what you allow people to see, as well as
everything that's in that backpack that you don't want anybody
to see. So when you can do all of these unconditional,
(37:20):
positive regard things for yourself, imagine what type of relationships
you can have for other people. But it starts with us.
It starts with assist individuals. You know. I tell parents
too that you know I'm concerned. Uh. I grew up
in politics. My mother would have me write letters, UM
(37:41):
early on and edit letters for some of our local
people running for different offices. And what I still believe
is that it's concerned as we should be about our
White House and our local state houses. Imagine a society
where we first got our own houses in order, I
(38:02):
mean imagine that. Yeah, if you love yourself, reflect on yourself,
you will then be a better parent, and a better
spouse and a better citizen. Um. Which brings us back
to what we were talking about the beginning of the podcast,
which is you have to really put your name on
(38:23):
the top of the list when Doc Brown asked you
to write down all the things that you love. Right,
that's right? Okay, So Doc, now it's the end of
our podcast because we want everybody to, you know, go
take a shower and make popcorn for the premiere of
(38:44):
our show. But now you get to ask me a
question anything you want. So Ali, I think I asked
you a majority of these questions that break. So my
question for yeah, would be if there was one thing
that you could remove from our world? What would it be? Hate?
(39:11):
I mean, you know, hate, hate, followed by guns, followed
by envy. I think those are the top three. I mean,
hate pretty much covers all of the subcategories. But yeah, hate,
hate makes human beings do really truly awful things. So
I would if I could get rid of hate, If
(39:33):
I could get rid of hate, and you could get
everybody to get their house in order, we'd be living
some utopian dream. But yeah, thank you so much for
doing this, Doc, I can't wait to see you on TV.
I love Doc Brown so much. He's so insightful, and
(39:56):
he's so smart, and he's the best laugh and I
really couldn't do the parent Test without him. And if
you listen to him on the show and even on
this podcast, you hear he like speaks in sound bites.
I tell him that he speaks in T shirt slogans,
which is so great because lead with love. Anyway, thank
(40:17):
you for listening to go ask Alli. To learn more
about my friend Doc Brown, go to his website doc
speaks dot com, and you can follow him on Instagram
at Adolph Brown. And if you'd like more info on
what you've heard in this episode. Check out our show notes.
Be sure to subscribe, rate and review, Go ask Alli
and follow me on Instagram at the Real Ali Went
work Now. If you'd like to ask me a question
(40:39):
or suggested guests or a topic to dig into, I
would love to hear from you, and there's a bunch
of ways you can do it. You can call or
text me at three to three four six three six,
or you can email a voice memo right from your
phone to Go ask Alli podcast at gmail dot com.
And if you leave a question, it just might hear it.
I'm go Ask Alli. Y Go Ask Gali is a
(41:09):
production of Shonda land Audio and partnership with I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. I think, like
evor ginas have a lot to say. I think we
should let them speak out of it and they'll just talk. Yes,
one of the hardest things to absorb for those who
are new to these kinds of fights. Again, if we
want all of them, we wouldn't be here. If you
(00:21):
see a monster, don't try to run away, step right
up to it and say what do you have to
teach me? Why are you? In my mind, I want
to be the person who has cancer and doesn't run
a marathon, Like do I have to work that hard? No,
it's the best excuse not to run a marathon. Welcome
(00:43):
to Go ask Alli. I'm Ali Wentworth and I'm very
excited today because Dr Adolph Brown I call him Doc Brown,
is on Go ask Alle today. And I met Doc
about four or five months ago because we did an
ABC Prime time together called The parent Test, and he
(01:04):
is an incredibly special human being, a master class teacher
on all things to do with parenting. And we host
the show together that deals with what are the best
parenting types? And over the weeks that we shot the show.
Doc and I had many discussions about how kids these
(01:28):
days are dealing with anxiety, with schooling, with politics, with
peer pressure, bullying, social media, and so I wanted to
have Doc on today because I wanted to talk to
him about what he's feeling as a practitioner out in
the world when it comes to parenting and children. So
(01:49):
I'm not going to waste any more time. Dr Adolph
Brown is an educational and clinical psychologist, master teacher, author, researcher, entrepreneur, consultant,
and an influence a voice in the fields of education,
human behavior, and neuroscience. And he is, as I said before,
my spectacular co host on our new television show, The
(02:10):
Parent Test on ABC Prime Time, which premieres drum Roll tonight,
and Doc Brown is a real star. Hey Doc Brown,
Hey Ali, how are you. I'm good. So our show
is premiering tonight, which is very exciting. I am excited.
(02:32):
I'm telling you, I've been waiting for this and I've
been having to keep it a secret. So and we
haven't seen it. You and I haven't seen it, so
we don't know how they edited together. We might not
be in it um. But regardless of the show, we
(02:52):
had so many interesting conversations at breaks and at lunch,
and you are just a vault of knowledge and so
many things when it comes to parenting and and kid raising,
and so I really want to devote this podcast to
your specialty and what you're so great at. Do you
(03:14):
find with the people that you talked to, with the
parents that there's sort of an undercurrent of anxiety and
is that being passed on to their kids? Certainly? I
I see it in our business. I see it in
the focus groups that I conduct all over our country.
I jokingly said recently that the USA could easily stand
for the United States of anxiety based on everything that's
(03:37):
going on around us and Ali, one of the things
that we forget as parents sometimes is that we are
our children's first teachers. And when I say that is
that from pretty much birth to adulthood, they're taking their
cues from us more as caught than as taught in parenting.
So they're watching us. So first things first is taking
(03:58):
care of ourselves, and if if we aren't taking care
of our emotional health, is sending signs to them not
only is it contagious, but they're also seeing that it's
not something that is necessarily valued, And it's kind of
like the parent who focuses more on the child's academic
achievements than the child's emotional health. So we have to
(04:21):
really get back to first things first. So do you
think that right now? Certainly parents have a lot of anxiety,
whether that be about global warming or Russia, their own jobs,
their own income, gas prices, all of it. When they
get tight and anxious, their kids are absorbing all of that, definitely,
So what do we do as parents? Do we hide it? Like,
(04:43):
how do we process it for ourselves without affecting our kids? Well, Ali,
I write about this and I call it too backpacks,
And I call it to backpacks because there's one that
we have that we don't mind the world seeing, and
then there's that second one, that invisible one. And you
did a phenomenal show on this recently about secrets, and
(05:05):
I constantly say that we're only as sick as our secrets,
things that we don't want anyone to know about. Meaning
it's just like a little like children. When children don't
talk things out, they don't talk out their frustrations and
agitations and irritations, they eventually act them out. And that's
not just for children. That's where adults too, So I
(05:26):
encourage adults to reveal what's in their backpacks, even if
it's only to them, reveal it to yourself to heal it.
It does. It does actually make me think of so
many of these children that get involved. You know, of course,
there's mental health issues that get involved in these school shootings.
You know, because they have that second backpack that it's
(05:50):
full of all kinds of stuff that they haven't dealt
with and processed and exactly anyway, And what I'm saying
for parents is that as long as we continue to
put stuff in our backpacks, I mean, from the pandemic,
they told us it was going to be two weeks.
Most people said they could use a two week break,
but they ended up being in three years. So all
(06:11):
the other stuff that we carried on a regular basis,
then with the pandemic coming along, we stick other stuff
in from emotional stress, from the divide that was happening
in our world. We were getting sick, our children were
getting sick, loved ones were dying. All of that stuff
eventually comes out alley, And what happens is we allow
(06:32):
our personal storms to get our children wet mhm. And
and when that happens, you know, it's no good for
the family. We can't heal what we don't reveal. We
have to open our backpacks and process that stuff that's
in them. And it's not just all the things around
us island. I mean, yeah, of course we can talk
(06:53):
about all the decisions that are being made politically that
are really hurting our society, but we can also add
the fact parenting is stressful and and all the other
stresses that come on a in a personal level. So
all of that combine leads to or can ley to
be an overwhelmed and frustrated anxiety depression. And our children
(07:17):
are are oftentimes um victims of our inability to take
care of our emotional health. And so how so we
should shield them from it a little bit? Right? No,
I don't agree that we should shill them. In fact, Ali,
one of the things that it's kind of backfiring in
(07:39):
the generation that we have today is that when we
say shill them from it, what happens I hear we're
stealing their heart. And when you steal your child's hard
it oftentimes prevents the child from developing resiliency, It prevents
the child from understated ending that things can be hard
(08:02):
in life and failure can be a part of success.
So when we shield our children, sometimes we can actually
harm them. Because growth mindset is a big deal. You know,
it leads to all kinds of great things as children,
but it's a it's a skill that can easily be
carried into adulthood for success as an adult. So I
(08:26):
don't believe in shielding. I believe in parents allowing their
children to see them work through their crisis. So when
they can see that their parents have crises, but their
parents work through that, their parents don't run from it,
their parents aren't afraid of it, it's somewhat normalizes it
and kind of like what we do with mental health today.
(08:47):
Now we can talk about it openly, it's not it
doesn't necessarily have that stigma that it once did because
we're talking about it. So, you know, I think when
children realize that we're human, right, that it allows them
to be human as well. What are some of the
things that you see as sort of parenting fails as
(09:08):
cautionary tales. You have eight kids, You've had a lot
of practice, that's right, thirty three Ali Ali, I would
say one of the first things. One of the first
things I would tell parents is parents, the child you have,
not the one you wish you had. And what that
(09:28):
basically means is, oftentimes, as parents we project things that
happened to us in our childhood onto our children, or
we want to live vicariously through our children. So we
should parent the child that's in front of us, not
that one that's in our head. I would also let
parents know that if if I had to kind of
(09:50):
just say, what parenting is all about. It's about guarding
and guiding our children. It's not about making decisions for them.
At the end of the day, we all have free
will HM. So it's important that as parents we don't
tether ourselves to the choices our children make. Now that's
a two way street. So I have a daughter who's
(10:12):
an epidemiologist and went to an Ivy League school. Will
you pen Leah did that. I didn't do that. She studied,
she applied, she did that. But I also told you
I had a daughter that had a d U I
she's never seen me drink and drive. So as parents,
(10:33):
we shouldn't tether ourselves to the choices our children make.
And I see parents that do that quite a bit.
They own it and it's hard not to, but we
do have to remember their separate human beings. But don't
we come into parenting with our own baggage. I mean,
I sometimes think that George and I parent through, you know,
(10:55):
the cracks we fell in as kids. So, you know,
my parents were divorced and they were sort of off
having other families and doing their careers, and because of it,
I didn't get a lot of attention. And I think,
you know, I am a little bit of a helicopter
parent now because of it, you know, because I'm trying
to sort of fill that hole in them when when
(11:17):
it's really my whole to fill exactly, Ali, we call
that ghost and the nursery. And what the ghost the
nursery is is that second backpack, That second backpack that
we haven't resolved eventually comes out. It doesn't just stay
in there, it comes out, and we call those projections
(11:37):
are unresolved. Rejections can be projected on our children, and
they often are. What we have to realize is that
every child is a study of one, and that's what
makes parenting so challenging. That's whether you have one to
three or eight they're each different and not only different today,
but they grow and they become different, and we're and
(12:02):
we're different parents. So so it's really really important that
we recognize that the stuff that we're carrying, I mean,
we have to really explore the stuff that we're bringing
into parenthood. And and it gives the children the space
to truly become who they're meant to be as opposed
(12:23):
to who we want them to become, because otherwise you're
just creating generations of reacting. You know. So I'm reacting
to my parents, and then my children will react to me,
and then it just goes I mean, and that goes
with trauma, but it goes with all of it, you
know what I mean that if you just continue this
bloodline of of reacting to how you are parented. Um.
(12:47):
And it's funny because I in my house, I have
two daughters raised by the same parents in the same house.
They ate the same meals, you know, they were put
in the same clothes, and they are so different. And
George and I have to wear two completely different hats
when we parent each of them, you know, and they
(13:09):
they need completely different tools as well. Well. Ali, I
tell you, if I had to take every parent book
that I've ever read, or even the ones that I've written.
I think it can boil down to like five f's.
And that's kind of what I talk about at parent universities.
And of course I start with the first F that
(13:29):
we sometimes overlook. But that's fun. You know, Einstein said
it much better than I could ever say it. He said,
creativity is intelligence having fun. So fun is an authentic
part of learning and should be. So, you know, how
do I children learn about fun from us? Uh? They
see a smile, you know, and smile the training wheels
for laughter. They we hugged them, we touched them, we
(13:49):
embraced them. When we discipline, we were teaching them as
opposed to punishing. So that first stuff is fun. That
second F it's fair, being fair, understanding that every child
is a study of one. It would be great if
one rule could apply to all the children, but it
doesn't because they're all different, exactly. And the one rule
(14:12):
doesn't apply to if you have one child, because that
child will change and the rules should change as well
be adjusted. Um, So I'd say fair fun firm. Firm
is kind of where we dropped the ball today. We're
in the social emotional learning environment where we're understanding where
children's behavior is coming from. But it's also important to
(14:34):
understand that there's certain behaviors that still need to be corrected.
So when I talk to parents about being firm, I
tell them every child needs consistency structure, limits and boundaries.
Regardless of the age. Consistency structure livings abound, and it
may look different, but every child needs it. And I
tell people my mom didn't necessarily say it that way.
(14:54):
My mom would say Burger King may have great burgers,
but you can't have it your way. It meant the
same thing great, so that I would say, Um, it's
okay to be flexible as parents. And sometimes we say,
you know, it's it's hard to be because we think
(15:16):
that we're giving in or we're compromising too much. But
you know that treat that doesn't bend in a strong wind,
we all know it breaks. And I've heard you mentioned Ali,
which was phenomenal about how the pandemic made you look
at your children's digital advices differently, and and and and
(15:37):
how you had to be flexible and adapt based on
what was going on around you and um, and then
lastly Ali, Um I'd leave it for last, but I say,
first things first, none of this matters if you're not
taking care of yourself as a parent. When you say
self care and taking care of yourself as a parent,
(15:58):
what do you mean exactly? Well, Ali, I asked parents
this question. Um, I say, if I ask you to
write down all that you love, how long would it
take you to add your name to that list? And
then I say how many of you even thought of yourselves?
And those parents don't raise their hands, So then I
(16:20):
tell them this doesn't work unless your name is at
the top of the list. That's so interesting. Yeah, it
didn't even occur to me to write myself. I mean,
I mean it didn't especially, but I think I think
that the majority of women would say that too. You're
just you know, as soon as you have children, and
I can't speak for men, but you know, as a woman,
(16:42):
you go, oh, this is now my main focus. It's
not me anymore. It's it's my children, and it's you know,
feeding them and sheltering them. And you lose yourself completely
if you if you don't sort of every day tap
into your own needs, you have to Yeah, yeh, there's
a lot more to come after the short break and
(17:11):
we're back all doc, Yes, I'm listening. You bring up
an excellent point there that we don't talk about enough
when you say that women immediately own it and and
the research supports that. However, um, women have to be
(17:33):
very careful in the family dynamic not to over function,
and over functioning what happens sometimes is that the dad's
will become periphal. And it's not necessarily that all dads
want to be periphical, but if mom's going to take
the kids to ballet and and and help with homework,
(17:53):
and you know, sometimes it's difficult to find your space
as a dad, and so so it's a balancing game.
And again, like I said, there are many men who
want to be a part of you know, taking them
around and spending time with them. But when mom owns
(18:13):
all of that and that mom gets her her self
esteem and self concept from that is very difficult sometimes
for dad to become a part of that. And by
the way, I'm not even talking about heteronormative relationships. I
know a lot of a lot of gay men and
one of them takes on that role and it's the
same dynamic. Thank you exactly, And I'm also noticing that
(18:37):
a lot of women I know who are becoming empty nesters,
and I'm you know, right on the verge of becoming one.
You know, the ones that have been overly functioning as
the sort of main nucleus of the family, They're the
ones suffering the most now from empty nesting because they've
projected all their self worth on the rearing of the children.
(19:00):
And the women that tried to find a balance between
career and also being a present parent are having less
of a hard time. And and let me ask you this,
So when you say I put myself at the top
of the list when you talk about self care, I
assume that you're talking about a parent who is um
(19:23):
physically strong, they're emotionally strong, and probably have other interests
outside of being a parent that sort of stimulates other
parts of their brain. Spot on Ali and and and Ali.
What happens when when parents own the parenting ideology and
(19:45):
everything that goes with it before everything else. The latest
research on divorce shows that it's right around the twenty
one year mark. So what is being talked about is
that parents are waiting to the children are older to
make those decisions. However, they've really lost the connection, you know,
(20:08):
years before that, to the extent that they become parents
as opposed to spouses. When empty nest comes along, you
no longer have anything in common with your spouse. I've
seen that a lot, by the way, and I've also
been very aware of it in my own marriage, because
especially if one or both of the parents are working
(20:31):
and you have the kids, the marriage seems to be
the thing that gets the least amount of attention. It's
the most anemic part of the body of the family
because I have to check in with my husband all
the time, because it ends up being a very transactionary
relationship where basically all you're doing is saying, did you
(20:54):
call the plumber, did you read the report card? Did
you do this? And there's like thing left, and then
everybody's exhausted when they go to bed at night. And
I sort of joke about it, but the idea of
a date night um to me has become more and
more important the older I've gotten, because if I don't
have that with my partner, if I don't have a strong,
(21:16):
healthy connection with my partner, I the rest of the stuff,
like like the whole factory isn't working well, so believe me.
I can't tell you how many friends I have that
let their primary relationship fall by the wayside and because
of it. You know, there's a high divorce rate in
(21:36):
our country for a reason. Yes, and like you said,
we have to be intentional. I've seen post of you
and George on dates and I love it. I travel
quite a bit um in Riverside, California today, but maybe
two types of engagements a year. Um, my wife and
I we don't miss a date night if if she
(21:57):
has to fly out so that we can make pain
that I mean, parenting is extremely important to us. However,
we brought the children into our lives, they didn't bring
us into theirs. That's true. That is true. I mean,
I mean that's the real talk of it. Yeah, and
I I think I think about that all the time.
(22:18):
I think it's I do think it's one of the
biggest things we forget as parents is to pay attention
to our relationship. Um, We're gonna mess up, right, We're
gonna make huge mistakes, I particularly over George, will get
blamed for a lot of things. All I can do
is love my children. That's all I can do, is
(22:38):
just love them. And do you agree that that a
child that feels parental love is a child that already
then has a floor underneath them no matter what happens. Ali,
that's the number one thing. Lead with love. Lead with love.
(22:59):
At the end of the day, It's kind of like,
you know, parenting skills can be taught, but if the
one thing that we all have the capability of just
from the start is loving our child, So as long
as we're leading with love, I mean, that would eradicate
many of the mistakes and bad choices that are made
(23:20):
in parenting. I would imagine there's been a lot of
data that's been accumulated of children that did not get
the kind of love or you know, mother messages as
a baby. Uh. Marion Wright Edelman, who runs a children's
defense fun always talks about the cradle to the prison pipeline,
(23:41):
and I think a lot of that is because the
neglected children of our country who don't get any love
end up making bad choices, end up in horrible situations
that unfortunately lead to addiction and imprisonment, all kinds of things.
And I think this science would show that these were
(24:01):
kids that didn't get anything from any other human being.
They were prone to it. Definitely that that second part
is really crucial. The school to prison pipeline, the cradles
to prison pipeline, definitely has a lot to do with
children missing out on those very important factors and things
(24:22):
that they should have received, love, structure, unconditional positive regard.
And you know, we often think about trauma as something
that happens to someone. We don't often really focus on
the things that didn't happen to someone as being trauma.
And that's what you're talking about. And the research says
young people need one caring adult, at least one caring adult,
(24:47):
So some of the things that don't happen in a
home space can happen in other spaces. You know, we
remember two types of people in our lives. Remember those
who loved us and those who didn't. The good news
is at oftentime, when someone talks about someone who loved
them outside of a family, they're talking about a teacher,
an educator. So when we talk about that cradle to
prison pipeline, it's not just a home environment because there
(25:10):
are some protective factors that can override a bad start,
so to speak. I don't want to give a lot
of way about our show. But we actually have a
single parent on our show who adopted her niece from
a family that was kind of riddled in drugs and
prostitution and gangs and throw a very disciplined parenting has
(25:34):
raised an incredible daughter. Yeah, you know, I remember listening
and observing this particular parent and those five things that
I just discussed. I saw those things. I saw a
very disciplined parent that was also having fun appropriate fund
(25:55):
If you could pick three things that you think like
these are these are great parenting traits Besides love, what
do you see and you think that kid's gonna be okay?
Because those parents are that parent do what? Uh? That
parent's present, purposeful and intentional, those would be the three things. Present.
(26:17):
Doesn't mean that you have to be there for everything
that child does, but you have to be available. Um,
I'm in California today. I live in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
But if my phone rings while I'm conducting this interview
with you, Ali, my family knows what I'm doing. So
if my phone rings, I'm gonna answer it because it's important.
(26:39):
So that's being president. I have answered the phone on stage.
So I love what I do I don't call it
a job, it's a joy. But at the same time,
being present means being available. I don't know if it's
going to be a life altering decision that you know,
my child's gonna ask me, and I've been fortunate that
it hasn't been. It's you know that, can you put
some money on my you know whatever account? But that
(27:02):
kind of thing, I'm gonna start calling you for that.
So being being present would be would be a big one.
Being purposeful when you're with your child and you're playing kickball,
play kickball, don't send emails. At the same time, being intentional,
if you want your child to be a kind hearted child,
(27:27):
then make sure that in your parenting that that's what
you're allowing your child to experience with you, your kindness.
So intentionality is actually thinking about where you want to
be and then reflecting to make sure that that's what
(27:48):
you're actually expressing and communicating. So mirror mirror the behavior, right, Okay, Okay.
I want to talk about being present because I agree
with that, and I think people get confused by what
that really means because I've seen listen, I you know,
(28:10):
George has been guilty of it, where he will be
uh playing a game of online chess or something with
the kids. You know, We're all in the same room
and we're talking and I'll say, hey, you know, get off,
stop playing chess, and he's he says, why I'm here,
I'm listening, I'm conversing. But the very fact that he
(28:31):
is focused on something else makes us feel, or makes
me feel, you know, that he's slightly checked out that
we're getting And I think that a lot of parents.
I feel like, well, I'm out here throwing the ball
with my kid. Yeah, I'm on my phone, or yes,
i'm you know, thinking about how I'm going to clean
(28:52):
out the garage. But kids know when you're not present,
it doesn't mean you're physically standing in front of them. No,
and adults know as well what it means. Ali. First
of all, the brain can only truly focus on one
thing at a time. Well, so, whenever my wife speaks,
if I'm in the middle of watching a television program,
(29:12):
if i have a book in my hand, I put
it down and I face her. And you know, I
was fortunate, and I have grandparents who role model this
for me. A grandfather who told me, what do I
do with your grandma when she talks. I say, you
stop everything and you look at her, and he said,
you know why. I said, yeah, because you want her
(29:33):
to know that it's important. He goes, no, because she'll
tell me three more times. So so yeah, so so
it's important to be there, to be there, and with
every distraction that we have today, it's really challenging. Put
the phone away, put the phone down. It's respected and
(29:54):
it's honored. When when that actually happens. When I see
couples and restaurants, hmm, sometimes I see two people sitting
across from one another on their phones. I guess what,
no judgment. That could be texting each other. However, however,
the likelihood of that might be slim. Yes, So it's
(30:15):
just kind of the society we live in that being
present is more challenging than it ever has been because
of the distractions. And I would take it one step
further and say, it makes me sad sometimes when I
go out to a restaurant and I not only see
the parents on their phones, but the children. You know,
toddlers have an iPad in front of them, definitely, so
(30:35):
they're all sitting at a table together, but everybody's checked out.
So you're already teaching them to you know, split off
at a young age. But a lot of times, I
do I think parents get confused by the idea of
being present. They do confuse it with physically being there.
And and like you said, how many how many situations
(30:57):
do you deal with now in your pract just or
even when you're out speaking that have to do with phones, phones, phones,
phones and social media. And I mean it's quite a bit,
quite a bit to where couples have said that, you know,
it's interfered with their intimate relationship, phones in the bedroom.
(31:19):
Of course, being present is real and it can't be faked.
And it's time for a short break. Welcome back to go.
Ask Alli, do you deal with a lot of families
(31:42):
with predominantly teenagers in crisis? All all ages? I deal
with every from the preschoolers all the way up to
the young adult children. And what I'm seeing is that
it's it's that middle school age group today that's having
the roughest time, and parents are also having a rough time.
(32:07):
You know, we constantly talk about children, but we also
have to remember that the parents are having a rough time.
And one of the biggest stresses of parents today, Alley
is that the majority of parents want our children to
grow up, become gainfully employed, contributing citizens of society and
outshine us in every possible way. And their parents today
(32:30):
that don't believe that their children will be able to
do that, And that's causing quite a bit of anxiety
for many parents. And they don't they don't think their
kids are gonna be able to do that because it's
just too impossible with wealth disparity and with politics. Yes, yes,
(32:50):
And I saw I saw you recently with your early
voting sticker. Everyone in my household voted as well, So
that's a big deal for us. UM I can imagine.
And I you know, we've talked about social media and
the internet and everything, and to me, it is now
kind of the wild West, and how the number one
reason for teenage girls suicide comes from social media and
(33:15):
and bullying and judging themselves. And do you have to
do a lot of parenting um or giving parents skills
on how to deal with this new world we live in.
I mean, everything is so accessible to our children now
and it's almost like we have to learn to parent
in a whole new way, in a way we weren't well,
(33:36):
boundaries have become even more important today than they were
yester years. I mean, I'm not sure how many people
out there grew up in societies where you could leave
your door open and not worry about someone coming in
your home. I had that type of community early on too,
So today it's a little different. And in the same
with parenting, with social media, those boundaries have to be
(34:00):
in place. When computers first came on the scene, my
wife and I we built a place in the kitchen
where every computer screen that if we walked past, we
could see what was on the screen, and and and
that was a big deal. Uh. You know, we need
parents all the time that believe that children should have
their own space and their own privacy. And I get that.
(34:21):
I get that. However, that's different. Yeah, they still need
guards and guides because they don't understand it. This is
like a whole new world obviously for all of us.
But you cannot leave children to their own devices, on
their devices, because they will end up in a place
(34:43):
that they're not prepared for, they're not equipped to deal with.
That's right, and exposure and experiences matter, right the same way.
You know, it's not the same world as go outside
and we'll call you at dinner time when it's night out,
you know what I mean? Like you said, you know,
go play kick the can and you know when you
(35:05):
hear the whistle, it's dinner time. Even if it's dark
out like that, that even doesn't exist anymore. Lights come on.
That's right, you know. Now it's like where have you been?
You're going to get abducted? Have your phone? You know,
there's it's a lot, and which adds to the anxiety
as well. Um, when you go around the country lecturing
and talking, what do you most enjoy talking about? What
(35:29):
do you get sort of passionate about. I get passionate
about about love, just love. Well, I call it love,
light and insight, and I talk about love and ways
that most people understand love is the greatest of all things,
and it's the most abundant human resource. And it throws
(35:50):
people for a loop sometimes because I come in as
this research scientist and and I'm talking about love, and
I'm primarily talking about first loving yourself, you know. And
I'd used a mirror as probably uh the most effective
intervention and prevention strategy possible, meaning that reflective people are
also the most effective people. You know, instead of looking
(36:13):
like the brain on autopilot looks out for an enemy
because you know, we had to scan environment for zabra
too tigers. One time in my classes, I say, let's
reboot the brain and look look first at ourselves and love,
light and insight. Just be light wherever you are. You're
responsible for the energy that you take anywhere you go.
(36:34):
You know, there's some physicists that say that energy is
neutral until we, as human beings, make it positive or negative.
So be the light and an insight. I describe it
as that's the greatest vision that any human being could
ever have. Insight. How do people How do you answer
this question when people say to you, I want to
live my life with love as a spouse, as a parent,
(36:58):
as a friend. How do I do that? How do
I tap into that? Well, first of all, it starts
with accepting yourself, accepting everything there is about you, and
that's what you allow people to see, as well as
everything that's in that backpack that you don't want anybody
to see. So when you can do all of these unconditional,
(37:20):
positive regard things for yourself, imagine what type of relationships
you can have for other people. But it starts with us.
It starts with assist individuals. You know. I tell parents
too that you know I'm concerned. Uh. I grew up
in politics. My mother would have me write letters, UM
(37:41):
early on and edit letters for some of our local
people running for different offices. And what I still believe
is that it's concerned as we should be about our
White House and our local state houses. Imagine a society
where we first got our own houses in order, I
(38:02):
mean imagine that. Yeah, if you love yourself, reflect on yourself,
you will then be a better parent, and a better
spouse and a better citizen. Um. Which brings us back
to what we were talking about the beginning of the podcast,
which is you have to really put your name on
(38:23):
the top of the list when Doc Brown asked you
to write down all the things that you love. Right,
that's right? Okay, So Doc, now it's the end of
our podcast because we want everybody to, you know, go
take a shower and make popcorn for the premiere of
(38:44):
our show. But now you get to ask me a
question anything you want. So Ali, I think I asked
you a majority of these questions that break. So my
question for yeah, would be if there was one thing
that you could remove from our world? What would it be? Hate?
(39:11):
I mean, you know, hate, hate, followed by guns, followed
by envy. I think those are the top three. I mean,
hate pretty much covers all of the subcategories. But yeah, hate,
hate makes human beings do really truly awful things. So
I would if I could get rid of hate, If
(39:33):
I could get rid of hate, and you could get
everybody to get their house in order, we'd be living
some utopian dream. But yeah, thank you so much for
doing this, Doc, I can't wait to see you on TV.
I love Doc Brown so much. He's so insightful, and
(39:56):
he's so smart, and he's the best laugh and I
really couldn't do the parent Test without him. And if
you listen to him on the show and even on
this podcast, you hear he like speaks in sound bites.
I tell him that he speaks in T shirt slogans,
which is so great because lead with love. Anyway, thank
(40:17):
you for listening to go ask Alli. To learn more
about my friend Doc Brown, go to his website doc
speaks dot com, and you can follow him on Instagram
at Adolph Brown. And if you'd like more info on
what you've heard in this episode. Check out our show notes.
Be sure to subscribe, rate and review, Go ask Alli
and follow me on Instagram at the Real Ali Went
work Now. If you'd like to ask me a question
(40:39):
or suggested guests or a topic to dig into, I
would love to hear from you, and there's a bunch
of ways you can do it. You can call or
text me at three to three four six three six,
or you can email a voice memo right from your
phone to Go ask Alli podcast at gmail dot com.
And if you leave a question, it just might hear it.
I'm go Ask Alli. Y Go Ask Gali is a
(41:09):
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