How to Not Raise a Nazi (with Alfie Kohn).... #39

Key Links:

📖 Get My Book: Punishment-Free Parenting: The Brain-Based Way to Raise Kids Without Raising Your Voice – Available Now

📖 Get Alfie Kohn's Books: Unconditional Parenting and Punished By Rewards  
📝 Join My Email List for exclusive insights, parenting tips, and updates – Sign Up Here

Episode Description:

What if the very thing we’ve been striving for as parents—obedience—wasn’t actually a virtue? What if, instead of making our kids good, it made them vulnerable?

In this episode, we take a hard look at the dangers of unquestioning compliance. We start at the Nuremberg Trials, where Nazi officials defended their crimes with four chilling words: I was just following orders. We revisit the infamous Milgram experiment, where 65% of ordinary people delivered what they believed to be fatal electric shocks—just because an authority figure told them to.

Then, we bring it home.
How does this obsession with obedience play out in our parenting?

With the help of Alfie Kohn—renowned author and parenting expert—we examine why traditional parenting methods prioritize compliance, why that might be a problem, and what we can do instead. We break down research showing that demanding obedience undermines empathy, critical thinking, and moral integrity.

By the end of this episode, you’ll learn:
✅ Why most parents unknowingly work against their long-term parenting goals
✅ How punishment and rewards both create conditional love—and what to do instead
✅ The real-world dangers of raising kids to obey without question
✅ What research-backed strategies actually help kids become ethical, independent, and strong

Because one day, we won’t be the authority in their lives anymore. And the only voice left… will be their own.

Chapters & Key Moments:

🔹 (00:10) The Chilling History of Obedience – From Nuremberg to Milgram: How history warns us about blind compliance
🔹 (07:00) The Parent’s Dilemma – Why parents say they want independent, critical thinkers… but demand obedience
🔹 (12:45) The Cost of Compliance – What happens when we condition kids to follow orders at all costs
🔹 (18:10) Unconditional Parenting with Alfie Kohn – A deep dive into parenting beyond punishment and rewards
🔹 (26:40) The Real Goal of Parenting – How to raise kids who think for themselves, challenge injustice, and make good choices

📲 Follow Me on Social Media – @WholeParent

Send us a text

Episode Transcript

Jon (00:10):
The year is 1945.

Alfie (00:15):
Defendants from the Nazi regime are about to take the
stand in what would later befamously called the Nuremberg
Trials.
Many of the defendants aregoing to plead not guilty, not
because they deny carrying outthe horrific crimes that they
trials.
Many of the defendants aregoing to plead not guilty not
because they deny carrying outthe horrific crimes that they're
being accused of, but because,in their words, they were just
following orders.
Perhaps the most infamousexample is Rudolf Huss, who had

(00:35):
been the commandant in charge ofAuschwitz concentration camp.
Huss was personally responsiblefor the deaths of over a
million people.
Here he is describing it.
I'll translate according towhat's in the historical record.
Treatment of prisoners wasstrict, but any methodological
physical abuse or maltreatmentwas out of the question.

(00:58):
During the summer of 1941, Iwas ordered to Berlin to receive
orders personally fromSS-Reichsführer Himmler.
He said something like this theFührer has ordered the final
solution of the Jewish problem.

(01:19):
We, the SS, are entrusted withexecuting his order.
He has chosen Auschwitz.
Hoss goes on to defend himselfextensively, explaining that he
had no ill will toward thepeople who he was violently and

(01:40):
viciously oppressing andmurdering, that the only times
when he carried out any acts ofbarbarism or hate were in
response to orders that hehimself personally received from
Adolf Hitler or from HeinrichHimmler, who was the
Reichsführer of the SS, the onein charge.
Haas would not be the only onewho said this.
In fact, over and over againduring the Nuremberg trials,

(02:03):
nazi leaders, who participatedin one of the greatest
atrocities in human history,defended themselves in the same
way.
It was just following orders.
Huss explains this later in asection cited in GM Gilbert's
the Psychology of a Dictatorship.
Don't you see, says Huss, we SSmen were not supposed to think

(02:23):
about these things.
It never occurred to us.
We were all so trained to obeyorders without even thinking
that the thought of disobeyingan order would simply have never
occurred to anybody.
And somebody else would havedone just as well if I hadn't.
I never really gave muchthought to whether it was wrong,
it just seemed a necessity.
Listen to what Haas is sayinghere.

(02:46):
I didn't think about whether itwas right or wrong, I just did
what I was being told.
Later in his testimony, haasgoes on to name another person
in particular who he claimed wasdirectly responsible for giving
those orders, outside of Hitlerand Himmler, someone who had
escaped to Argentina and avoidedthe Nuremberg trials, but who

(03:07):
eventually faced his own trial adozen years later, not in
Nuremberg, but in Jerusalem.
I'll set the scene for you.
The year is now 1961.
Adolf Eichmann, an unassuming,balding man in glasses
testifying inside of a glass box.
This is not a guy who you wouldthink was one of the chief
architects of the Holocaust.

(03:28):
He looks like a middle schoolscience teacher, a friend of one
of your parents, someone youmight see in the grocery store.
He answers questions totallynon-emotionally.
The only sign that he's nervousat all is the way that he
twists his hands inside oneanother.
The defense that he attempts tooffer, wringing his hands,
sitting inside that bulletproofglass box, is the same defense.

(03:49):
I too was just following orders.
Eichmann's trial and theNuremberg trials before them
would go on to inspire one ofthe most famous psychological
experiments in history.
Yale psychologist StanleyMilgram wanted to answer a
simple question how far willpeople go just because someone
in authority told them to?
To do this, he set up a fakememory test, two participants, a

(04:12):
teacher and a learner.
Except in this case, thelearner was not actually a part
of the experiment.
They're an actor.
The teacher, the real subjectof Milgram's experiment, is led
to believe that they'redelivering electric shocks to
the learner again, just an actor.
Every time they got a questionwrong.
The shocks they thought theywere delivering weren't real,

(04:45):
but the screams and the protestsfrom the learners were.
This clip that I found onYouTube is around 150 volts,
where the learners in the nextroom were instructed to start
banging on the walls and beggingfor the experiment to stop.

Jon (04:57):
Experiment.
That's all.
Get me out of here.

Alfie (05:00):
Get me out of here.
Plea se Continue, please Goright ahead.

Jon (05:02):
You refuse to go on.
Let me out.
You refuse to go on, let me out.
You refuse to go on.
The experiment requires you tocontinue.
Teacher, Please continue.

Alfie (05:08):
Of the 40 teacher participants, every single one
of them kept going At 300 volts.
The fake learners kicked thewall and stopped responding
altogether.
It was at that point that thefirst of the 40 participants
dropped off.
Five of them one-eighth stoppeddelivering electric shocks.
Another off Five of them oneeighth stopped delivering
electric shocks.
Another four participantsstopped after the next shock, a

(05:29):
couple more after that, at 375volts again.
At this point the learner istotally non-responsive.
The participants begandelivering shocks labeled danger
, severe shock.
That express warning on theconsole that they thought that
they were operating deterredonly one of the remaining
participants.
The rest went all the way.
The test concluded at 450 volts, the highest level which, if

(05:52):
true, likely, could have beenlethal.
26 of the 40 participantsdelivered that shock.
Why Not?
because they wanted to, butbecause an authority figure in a
lab coat had told them to.
This is the Whole ParentPodcast, and this episode is not
about war crimes orquestionable 1960s psychological

(06:13):
experiments.
This is an episode like everyother episode about parenting.
This idea that obedience is avirtue, that following rules is
inherently good, is somethingthat most of us have been taught
since childhood.
It's something that we've beentold and perhaps we've told our
own children makes us goodpeople.
Obedience in our children isoften our most coveted trait.

(06:33):
Listen the first time, don'ttalk back Because I said so.
But what if I told you that themore obedient your child is,
the less prepared they would befor the actual real world?
What if I told you that thething that we've been striving
for as parents compliance mightactually be the thing that's
setting up our kids for failure,for manipulation, for the
inability to stand up forthemselves or for others,

(06:57):
because obedience isn't the sameas morality.
In fact, sometimes it's theexact opposite.
Today, we're talking about whytraditional parenting is
obsessed with obedience, whythat might be a problem and what
we can do instead.

Jon (07:14):
I begin my workshops and lectures by asking parents and
teachers, for that matter, whatare your long-term goals for
your kids?

Alfie (07:22):
How do you?

Jon (07:22):
hope they'll turn out years from now?
What do you hope they'll belike?
And everywhere I go, I find Iget the same kind of answers.
So I want my kid to be happy,to be ethical, to be caring and
compassionate, to beself-sufficient and independent,
to be curious learners and soon.

Alfie (07:38):
This is Alfie Kohn.
He's a writer and educator, andhe's been one of the leading
voices in rethinking traditionalparenting and schooling for
more than 25 years.
If you're one of the thousandsof parents who's been impacted
by my work or my book, you'vebeen impacted by his research
and his philosophy, even if youdidn't know it, and he's a
provocative voice.
He's not only anti-punishment,he's anti-rewards too.

(08:00):
We'll get to that, but whathe's saying here is pretty
uncontroversial, right?
I mean, who wouldn't want theirkids to grow up to be happy,
kind, independent, lifelonglearners?
But ask those same parents whatthey want from their kids today
, and most will say somethinglike I just want them to listen,
listen, obey, follow directionsthe first time.

(08:21):
It sounds reasonable, butthere's a big problem.
Those goals the short-term andthe long-term goals of most
parents are mutually exclusive.
Last week, I polled myInstagram followers for three
questions.
The first two were questionsthat respondents could either
agree, disagree or neither agreenor disagree with.

(08:43):
The first was this I want mykids to listen and do what I ask
the first time.
Over 60% of the nearly 3,000parents who answered this first
question agreed.
Another third of the parentsneither agreed nor disagreed.
Only 5.5% of the parentsdisagreed with this statement.
To be honest, I think theseresults are actually pretty

(09:06):
skewed by the population whofollows me.
If I polled the general public,my guess is it would be over
90% of parents who agreed.
The next question I asked waswhether parents had the goal of
fostering empathy and criticalthinking in the long term for
their kids.
The results were morepronounced here Nearly 97% of
the parents agreed, with lessthan 1% disagreeing.

(09:28):
It was over 3,000 parents.
But I'll admit those twoquestions were mostly just a
setup for this third question.
Instead of agreeing ordisagreeing, parents had to
choose between the two goals.
If you had to choose betweenobedience and empathy and
critical thinking, which wouldyou choose?
Over 93% preferred thelong-term goal.

(09:50):
In other words, while we mightlike compliance, we would
actually rather our kids beempathetic, critical thinkers.
Obedience might make our liveseasier in the short term, but,
given the choice, more than 9out of 10 of us would trade it
away if it meant that our kidswould be happy, healthy, good
people.
Here's Alfie, continuing wherewe left off.

Jon (10:12):
So what I do for a living is I say to people you say you
want this, so why are you doingthat?
Because here's the researchshowing that, that the common
practice actively underminesyour own long-term goals.
Never mind that I don't like it.
And so in the latter half ofUnconditional Parenting, I talk
about broad strategies, notspecific scripts, not

(10:34):
one-size-fits-all recipes, sothat you just stand here and say
the following in this tone ofvoice to get what you want.
But you begin by asking, as youput it, you know what's the
goal here?
Because you say you want yourchild to be happy and ethical
and caring and so on.

(10:55):
But is that consistent with whatyou're doing on a given
Thursday evening?
Because it sure looks like youractions and even the questions
you ask of parenting experts aregeared to getting obedience as
opposed to how is myintervention or my lack of
intervention here going to help?
And of course I'm a parent oftwo children and I know what

(11:18):
it's like to just want to getthe kid into or out of the damn
tub or car.
But most of the time we need tobe thinking beyond that short
term to thinking about thelong-term goals.
We need to be moving from adoing-to approach, to a
working-with approach.
We need to be thinking aboutthe question, not how do I get

(11:42):
my kid to do what I want, butwhat does my child need and how
can I help to meet those needs?

Alfie (11:51):
What Alfie's saying here is, in short, that obedience,
compliance and control totallyundermine the long-term goals
that most parents set for theirkids.
When kids are raised to obeywithout question, two things
happen.
First, they become passive,blindly following rules, never
questioning authority.
This passivity on a grand scaleis where we began the episode.
When humans learn to ignoretheir internal moral compass and

(12:13):
comply with authority,catastrophic things can happen.
This is why, historicallyspeaking, nearly all of the
atrocities in human history werecarried out by members of a
totalitarian regime.
Take a moment to think aboutthat.
It wasn't Hitler himself, or,for that matter, even Himmler,
who murdered 6 million Jews.

(12:34):
It wasn't Stalin himself whosent 20 million of his own
people to die in gulags.
It wasn't Mao who starved tensof millions during the Great
Leap Forward.
It wasn't Mao who starved tensof millions during the Great
Leap Forward.
It was ordinary people soldiers, police officers, government
workers, teachers who carriedout every single one of these
crimes, not because theythemselves were evil, but

(13:02):
because they had beenconditioned to obey.
And before we start toself-righteously think to
ourselves well, I wouldn't dothat, or my kid wouldn't do that
, I want to return you again fora moment to the Milgram
experiment.
Prior to conducting theexperiment, stanley Milgram
writes in his own paper that hebelieved that the majority of

(13:24):
participants would stop at orbefore the 300 volts, that point
where participants would stopresponding altogether.
The experiment, in part, wasactually conducted to undermine
the testimony of the Naziofficers that they were just
following orders.
Surely normal American citizensraised with the cultural values
of liberty and freedom wouldstop when they heard screams and

(13:47):
protests from their fellowAmerican citizens.
At least they would stop whenthe participants became
incapacitated Right.
Instead, none of theparticipants heeded the pleas of
those they believed that theywere harming and only five of
them stopped when they believedthat the learner had been
shocked unconscious.
65% of them delivered shocksthat any reasonable person in

(14:09):
that situation must know couldhave killed the learner.
65% of normal people, peoplewho you go to work with, who you
sit in class with, who you goto church, with.
65% of the people, people whoyou go to work with, who you sit
in class with, who you go tochurch, with 65% of the people
who you see at the grocery storeor taking out the garbage on
trash day in effect obeyed inorder to kill.

(14:30):
But our children's passivitydoes not only extend to their
compliance and harming others.
It also includes being willingto accept harm themselves.
This is a story submitted by alistener who has chosen to
remain anonymous.
I'll just call her Mary.
I was raised by anauthoritarian narcissist who was

(14:56):
, ironically, trained in earlychildhood education and
development.
It was a completely toxicenvironment where I was gaslit
to believe that my dad wantednothing to do with me.
For as long as I remember, Iwas emotionally manipulated,
psychologically abused andphysically abused, and later,
when my stepfather came along, Iwas sexually abused.
The thing is, because I wasraised to be unquestioningly

(15:19):
compliant, I didn't even realizehow bad it was.
I have little to no memorybefore my teenage years, and
what I do remember isn'tpleasant.
My psychologist describes it ashorrific, but I don't know any
different.
So for me it was all normal.
That's what being raised to beobedient at all costs led me to.

(15:39):
I normalized the abuse becauseit was being done to me by the
grown-ups that I was supposed toobey.
Becoming a parent myself andlearning about parenting has
made me realize that all theemotions that I should feel
about my childhood are missing.
I feel empty.
I'm numb.
I was raised being told thatcompliance was what love looked
like, but in fact there was nolove at all.

(16:03):
That's the thing.
What Mary highlights here ismassively important.
When we teach kids to followdirections of those in authority
without question, we teach themto follow directions without
question.
And what about when theirfuture boss is that authority?

(16:23):
Do we really want them to besuch good employees, so obedient
to their employer that they'rewilling to compromise their
ethics or values when they'reasked to lie to save the company
from a potentially damaginglawsuit?
Or what about their romanticpartners suit?
Or what about their romanticpartners?
Do we want them to be socompliant to their future spouse
that they endure years ofgaslighting and abuse to do

(16:44):
whatever she or he wants them todo without question?
What about their high schoolfootball coach, who offers them
a way to gain a little extramuscle overnight, guarantee
their spot as the starting,running back with a couple doses
of something that they'reencouraged not to look too
closely at?
How do we feel about theirobedience to that authority

(17:04):
figure?
Or perhaps one of our greatestfears?
What about when our children areput into the same situation as
Mary?
What about those far too commonscenarios where the dad or
older brother of their middleschool friend who acts
inappropriately towards them,asks them not to tell.
Unquestioning obedience all ofa sudden doesn't seem like such

(17:29):
a good goal for our kids, doesit?
Sure, it was handy when youwanted them to shut up and get
into the car at four years old,or when you wanted your
two-year-old to be quiet ontheir very first flight, but at
what cost.
So what is the cure?

(17:50):
If there is a cure to thisobedience mindset, how can we
teach our children to be ethical, critical thinkers?
Since Alfie was my guest onthis episode, I wanted to give
you his take.
He points to this concept ofunconditional parenting as the
solution.
I'll let him describe it.

Jon (18:10):
So the book begins with the premise that it's not enough
for us just to love our children, or even love them a lot,
because not all love is equaland what children need what we
all need actually, butespecially children is to be
loved for who they are, not forwhat they do.

(18:34):
That means that even when theyfail to impress us or do
something that disturbs us, theyknow that our love won't be
turned off as if we're turningoff a tap, that we'll continue
to love them no matter what.
That's what unconditional means.
We love them, as a friend ofmine likes to say, for no damn

(18:56):
good reason.
We love them, as a friend ofmine likes to say, for no damn
good reason.
And it's not just that if weare asked, we say, of course I
love my child, no matter what.
Almost everybody says that it'sthat children experience that
unconditionality.
So the problem is that the vastmajority of parenting resources
are not just failing toemphasize this point and this

(19:20):
distinction, but are activelyencouraging us to use strategies
to make kids obey that amountto the opposite, where our care,
our attention, our approval aremade contingent on their acting

(19:44):
the way we want, so that kidsknow they will get that
excitement from us, thathigh-five, that fist bump, that
big smile, that hug, that praiseonly when they are impressive
or well-behaved, and the waythat that conditionality

(20:08):
manifests itself typically isthrough some variant of either
threats or bribes.
That's what makes the loveconditional.
Did you catch what Alfie'ssaying here?

Alfie (20:31):
That's what makes the love conditional.
I was just at the museum and Iwas sitting next to a parent who
was doing a really great job Infact, the overwhelming majority
of parents that I see out inpublic are doing a really great
job but this parent, not reallyknowing what to do in a moment
of dysregulation I think we'veall been there starts talking
about what their child will getas a result if they stop

(20:54):
throwing a tantrum.
I'll get you this.
This can be your reward If youeat a little bit more of this
healthy food.
I'll get you this Stop throwinga tantrum, acting right.

Jon (21:04):
Here's Alfie idea that when you punish people, we'll just

(21:42):
talk about kids here, sincethat's our focus in this
conversation, but this applieswith how teachers treat students
and how managers treatemployees as well.
But with our children?
When we want them to dosomething, we often threaten
them by saying, in effect, dothis, or here's what I'm going
to do to you, and punishmentbasically is we're threatening

(22:09):
to deliberately make themunhappy in the hope of eliciting
mindless obedience.
And a vast number of parentingresources are all about calling
that by sweeter names, you know,instead of forcible isolation
of young children when they needus most, we call it timeout,

(22:30):
you know, because that makes usfeel better, about making
children feel terrible.
And punishment of whatever kind, you know from timeout or
spanking or withdrawal ofprivileges, can only succeed
ever at getting one thing, whichis temporary compliance, but at
an enormous cost.

(22:50):
And there's a huge amount ofresearch on how punishment of
any kind, you know, and for anyreason, isn't just ineffective.
In the long run, it's actuallycounterproductive.

Alfie (23:06):
Well, at this point I would be a little bit remiss to
say that I don't talk about thisextensively in my book.
I do.
I have multiple chapters aboutthis and, in fact, one of the
best parts of my book thataddresses this specifically is
the chapter that I read a longsection from two podcast
episodes ago.
You can go listen to that andthink about how you might parent
differently if your goalsweren't obedience and compliance

(23:28):
, following directions.
I'll also say that, as I'm inthe process of beginning to
write proposals for my next book, this is probably going to be
the chief and primary focus.
This is probably going to bethe chief and primary focus.
I don't know exactly whatthat's going to look like yet,
but if you're staying tuned withme, if you're on my email list,

(23:50):
you will hear much more aboutthis going forward.

Jon (23:51):
Back to Alfie continuing here about rewards.
So I got to looking at theresearch and discovered that
virtually everything I've justsaid about punishment is also
true of rewards.
Rewards are not really anopposite to punishment, they're
just the other side of the coin.
Now, instead of saying, do this, or here's what I'm going to do

(24:15):
to you, we say to them do thisand you'll get that.
It's still about doing thingsto children rather than working
with them.
And the research finds thatrewards, exactly like
punishments, can be effectiveonly at getting one thing ever
temporary compliance, but at ahuge cost.

(24:38):
What rewards tend to do is,first of all, they warp our
relationship with children.
Now, instead of seeing us asenforcers they have to fear and
hide from, they see us as giantgoody dispensers on legs, which

(24:59):
is no closer to the kind ofcaring alliance that helps kids
to flourish.
But a huge amount of research,which I did for that other book
and then periodically updated,shows that the more you reward
people for doing something, themore they tend to lose interest
in whatever they had to do toget the reward.

(25:22):
So just one example is studieshave continued to show that
children who are frequentlyrewarded or praised by their
parents tend to be less generousand caring than other kids.
You might buy the behavior ofgetting them to do something,

(25:47):
but now the point is to see thatactivity as a means to an end.
So if you wanted to destroychildren's interest in reading,
you would give them a prize forreading a book, or give them a
good grade or a sticker, or patthem on the head and say good

(26:08):
job, you're such a good reader.
You could almost watch theirinterest in reading evaporate
before your eyes because nowyou've taught them that reading
is just a tedious prerequisiteto getting the doggy biscuit,
you devalue whatever it is theyhave to do to get the reward.
That includes reading, itincludes caring, sharing,

(26:32):
whatever your goal is.
So, exactly like punishments,rewards, a way of doing things
to kids, make it less likelythat kids will grow up into the
kind of people we hope they will.

Alfie (26:54):
Years after his infamous obedience experiments, stanley
Milgram reflected on why so manyof the people had followed the
orders, even when they knew whatthey were doing was wrong.
He said the disappearance of asense of responsibility is the
most far-reaching consequence ofsubmission to authority.
This is the cost ofunquestioning obedience, the

(27:18):
cost of just following orders.
This is the cost of a parentingphilosophy that prioritizes
compliance over connection.
We want our kids to listen, yes, but more than that, we want
them to think, to ask questions,to challenge unfairness, to
know that their voice, thattheir judgment matters, because
one day we won't be theauthority in their lives anymore

(27:40):
.
One day they'll face decisionswhere we aren't there to guide
them, and when that moment comes, the only voice left will be us
, their own.
And so, contrary to whattraditional parenting seems to
teach, the real goal ofparenting isn't raising obedient
children.
It's raising kids who can standon their own two feet, who can

(28:00):
weigh what's right and what'swrong, who will say no when it
matters, even when no one elsedoes, who will say yes when the
world desperately needs them to.
We don't need more rulefollowers.
We need more critical thinkers,more ethical leaders, more kids
who will grow into adults whodo the right thing, not because

(28:21):
that they're afraid of what willhappen if they don't, but
because they know that it'sright.
Obedience is easy.
It takes real courage to raisea child who questions.
But here's the uncomfortabletruth.
We say we want kids to thinkfor themselves until they think
differently than we do.
We say we want them tochallenge unfairness until the

(28:41):
unfairness that they'rechallenging is ours.
We say that we want them tostand up for what's right, but
then they refuse to say I'msorry, when they don't actually
mean it, or they call out ourhypocrisy at the dinner table or
they ask why, one too manytimes, when all we needed them
to do was just listen.
We want them to questionauthority, but what happens when

(29:01):
we are the authority that theyquestion?
Because here's the thing thefirst system that they will ever
challenge is us.
The first power that they willever speak truth to is ours, and
that thought makes usuncomfortable.
And maybe it should, because ifwe demand blind obedience from

(29:23):
them now, if we treat every actof defiance as disrespect, if we
crush their resistance insteadof teaching them how to use it
wisely, then one day, when itreally matters, when they're
asked to do something that theyknow is wrong, when they're
pressured to conform at the costof their integrity.
When the moment comes to say no, they might not.
They might stay silent whenthey see aid being stripped from

(29:45):
the most vulnerable people insociety.
They might stay silent whenthey see companies abandon
efforts to promote diversity,equity and be more inclusive.
They might stay silent whenpeople who look different than
them are at risk of beingdeported, put on trains or
planes, put in camps oreradicated entirely.

(30:07):
They might stay silent as theywatch the next fascist dictator
attempt to seize control.
Not because they're bad people,but because they never learned
how to stand up to power,because they spent their
childhood learning thatquestioning was dangerous, that
pushing back meant punishment,that their voice didn't really

(30:31):
matter meant punishment, thattheir voice didn't really matter
.
And so if we truly want toraise kids who can stand up for
what's right, we have to letthem practice now with us.
It's easy to say that we wantto raise leaders.
The hard part is raising kidswho practice leading, even when

(30:52):
it means that we have to be theones who follow, because
parenting isn't about control,it's about guidance.
And if we want to raise kidswho will change the world, we
have to be willing to let themchange us first.

(31:15):
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of the Whole Parent
Podcast.
I have three quick favors toask you before we end the
episode.
No-transcript.
It's the single best way tohelp more parents find this show

(31:38):
.
It'll take you less than aminute.
Just scroll down on yourpodcast app, tap those stars and
, if you've got an extra 30seconds, leave a couple words
for me to let me know how thispodcast has been helping you.
I read every single review it.
I read every single review.
It really means the world to meNumber two.
After you rate it and review itfor the masses, I really want
to encourage you to think aboutwhat we talked about in this
episode and send it to oneparent in your phone who you

(32:00):
feel like might benefit fromthis specific episode.
It's great to have ratings andreviews and, yes, they help so
much, but there's nothing like apersonal recommendation from a
friend.
Hey, you got to listen to this.
It's really been helping me.
Last, if you wanna go deeperwith me, get exclusive parenting
insights, free resources andupdates on everything that I'm
doing, go ahead and join myemail list.

(32:21):
It's where I share things thatI don't get to get into.
On the podcast, I also will letyou know about upcoming
episodes and events and, best ofall, it's completely free.
You can sign up atwholeparentacademycom or just go
to the show notes below andthere'll be a link there.
All right, that's it for now.
Thanks again for listening andthank you in advance for doing
those three quick favors.
For me, this has been the WholeParent Podcast.