December 31, 2024 • 26 mins
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My book is behind on pre-sales and I'm trying to make up a lot of ground before release on January 28th, 2025. If you love the podcast, please consider preordering—it’s the best way to support me right now. If you don't typically read parenting books, I also have the audiobook version! Thank you so much!
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Description
This week on The Whole Parent Podcast, why is change is so hard? How can we finally stick to our parenting resolutions this year? Katy Milkman's book "How to Change" has answers. If you want 2025 to be the year you parent with purpose and patience, this episode is for you.
Here’s what I talked about:
- Traditions
I reflected on my family’s holiday traditions—both the people we’ve lost and the new faces who’ve joined us. Traditions aren’t just fun; they ground us in who we are and what we value. - Why Change is Hard
I explained how our brains are wired for routines and why we fall back on old patterns, even when we desperately want to do things differently. Spoiler: it’s not your fault. It’s science. - The Fresh Start Effect
One of my favorite insights from Katie Milkman’s book How to Change is the idea of using milestone moments, like New Year’s, to kick-start a fresh start. It’s a game-changer. - Identity-Based Resolutions
I shared why your resolutions should focus on who you want to be rather than just what you want to do. For me, it’s about being the kind of parent who stays calm, listens, and leads with curiosity. - The Power of Community
I talked about why the people you surround yourself with can make or break your goals—and how to build a community that supports the parent you want to become.
My Key Takeaways for 2025:
- Start Fresh: Use moments like New Year’s to reset and feel optimistic about change.
- Anchor Your Goals in Identity: Instead of saying, “I’m going to stop yelling,” say, “I’m the kind of parent who stays calm under pressure.”
- Surround Yourself with the Right People: Community is essential to lasting change.
A Few Quotes I Love:
- "It’s not about trying harder; it’s about trying smarter."
- "Every choice becomes an opportunity to affirm the parent you long to be."
Your Turn:
I’d love to hear your parenting resolutions for 2025!
Email me at podcast@wholeparentacademy.com—research shows that when you share your goals with someone, you’re three times more likely to stick with them.
If you’re curious, my resolution this year is simple: I am a punishment-free parent. It’s a journey, not a destination, but I’ve made so much progress by grounding my goals in the kind of parent I want to be.
A Special Thank You:
Thanks to everyone who sent in their resolutions to share on this episode. Listening to your goals inspires me, and I hope it inspires the rest of our community too.
Resources I Mentioned:
- How to Change by Katie Milkman
- My upcoming book: Punishment-Free Parenting: The Brain-Based Way to Raise Kids Without Raising Your Voice (available for pre-order now!)
Thanks for listening to this special New Year’s episode. I hope it helps you step into 2025 with clarity, optimism, a
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jon @wholeparent (00:00):
Welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast, if we
haven't met yet.
My name is John.
A lot of us have holidaytraditions.
The same place we go forThanksgiving or Christmas Day
year after year with the samepeople.
Just yesterday I hosted mydad's whole family, all the
cousins, his siblings, at ourhouse for our annual Christmas.
It's a gathering that's beenhappening the few days after
(00:21):
Christmas every year sincebefore I was born.
Some of the people are the same, some are different.
My mom, for example, took updance as a hobby last year.
She wasn't there last nightbecause she was in Tampa Bay
competing at her first everdance competition at age 72.
Others are missing too.
This is the eighth Christmasnow without my dad.
It's the 10th without his mom,who I sort of thought was
(00:43):
holding the whole thing together.
It's the tenth without his mom,who I sort of thought was
holding the whole thing together.
Yet here we are, ten yearslater.
But there's also new people Sixkids under the age of five,
seven if you count the onethat's still cooking.
Another four kids in school,three in college.
We know, psychologicallyspeaking, that these types of
annual traditions and ritualsare quintessentially human.
(01:03):
Traditions give us a sense ofstability in a world that often
feels unpredictable.
They're more than just rituals.
They're these threads thatweave meaning into the fabric of
our lives.
Research shows that traditionscreate a sense of identity.
They remind us who we are,where we come from, what matters
the most.
Families with strong traditionstend to feel closer and more
connected, not just because ofwho they are, where we come from
(01:24):
, what matters the most.
Families with strong traditionstend to feel closer and more
connected, not just because ofwho they are, but because of the
shared intention behind whatthey do.
Anthropologists and sociologistshave been speculating for a
long time why humans started todo the whole same-time-next-year
thing.
I don't think it's thatcomplicated.
Change is harder than justkeeping things the way that they
(01:44):
are.
One of my traditions is NewYear's Eve.
For most of the last 20 years,I've spent some or all of New
Year's Eve with my best friendfrom middle school, kendall, and
, before he died, nate, ourthird musketeer.
A lot of the years blendtogether, but I'm thinking
specifically today of 2009,where we spent the night at
Nate's house playing video gamesand telling jokes until they
(02:06):
stopped being funny, and then wekept telling them until they
started being funny again, ifyou ever did that in high school
.
That night at midnight we shotoff illegal fireworks with
Nate's neighbor, who actuallyhappened to be a former Bears
player.
His name was Mike Adamley.
He was a sports analyst on TVat the time.
But the thing that I remembermost about that night was this
feeling that this year, this NewYear's, was going to be a real
(02:30):
new beginning.
I was graduating high school.
I was increasingly in thisserious relationship with this
pretty girl that I had met injazz band Spoiler.
She became the mother of myfour children and I was a week
away from turning 18.
Chief among my resolutions wasto start being more responsible.
I never got into like realtrouble as far as the
(02:50):
responsibility thing, but beinglate has always been a struggle
for me and I basically never gotmy work done on time In fact,
I'm doing this podcast lastminute too but I thought in 2009
that I was becoming an adult,so I needed to start adulting.
I guess I walked out into thesnow on that New Year's morning
after we had stayed up way toolate, ready to quit being a boy
(03:13):
and finally start being a man,as I approached my first car, it
was a 2002 Ford Focus hatchback, black.
I noticed that I had somethingwedged under my windshield wiper
.
It was a parking ticket Expiredtags A hundred bucks Shoot.
On this episode of the WholeParent Podcast, we're going to
(03:36):
talk about why we keep doing thesame things over and over, even
when we don't want to, why it'sso hard for us to change, why
it's so hard to do the thingsthat we desperately want to do,
why we often fall short ofbecoming the parents that we
long to be, and how we can startkeeping our resolutions.
If you want to actually make2025 different, keep listening.
(04:08):
When I was initially outliningthe book that would eventually
become Punishment-Free Parenting, I was struggling through how
to articulate the structure ofthe book.
At that point I had just beencontracted to write the whole
parent book and it lacked maybewe should say direction.
My editor at the time he's notmy editor anymore had me read
this book.
It was called how to Change bya researcher named Katie Milkman
(04:31):
.
He thought it had a really niceflow and actually rereading the
book for this episode, Irealized that I did kind of
organize my book similarly A lotof stories trying to move
people from point A to point B.
But actually the thing Iremember most about the book is
not the structure, which is whatI was supposed to be paying
attention to.
It was the research that wasincredibly intriguing.
(04:52):
Katie, who unfortunately wasnot available last minute to
record a guest spot for thisepisode, is one of the world's
leading experts on how peoplecan actually change.
I knew her work was going to becentral to what I was trying to
communicate to parents.
Most parents that I work withdon't just want to parent
differently day to day.
They actually want to feeldifferent about parenting, and
(05:13):
that's the key.
We all want to be calmer andmore patient and more present.
But the truth is it's evenharder to make that happen than
to just change our actions.
One of the reasons that it's sohard to change is that our
brains are built for routines.
Scientists call this a habitloop.
It's a mechanism, a neuralpathway, that rewards us for
doing the same things over andover, even when it's not good
(05:36):
for us.
I think about a moment, like Ihad last week my toddler.
We're at the grocery store andwe're walking through the cereal
aisle and he sees somethingwith about 115 grams of sugar on
the top shelf, bright colorssparkling down at him.
I didn't get it for him.
I knew for a fact that it wassomething that nobody in our
house liked, including him.
(05:57):
And as we walked away from it,in the middle of the grocery
store, here is my two-year-oldnow dissolving onto the floor
total and complete meltdown.
I know that you've probablybeen there too.
Maybe you know, like I know, inthose moments, in theory, how
you want to respond with thiscalm, compassionate, empathetic
(06:18):
tone.
But what do most of us wind updoing?
We fall back on whatever workedbefore, even if it's yelling or
punishing, or reaching up andgetting that cereal box and just
handing it to them.
But in those moments it'simportant to remember that it's
not that you're failing, it'sjust that your brain is designed
to seek the quickest way toreduce the stress of the moment.
(06:39):
It's that neural pathway, thathabit loop and action.
And then there's whatpsychologists call status quo
bias.
It's this idea that we're allwired to stick with what feels
familiar, even when we knowsomething that we're doing isn't
working.
The devil that we know feelssafer than the devil that we
don't.
Status quo bias even though Idon't call it by that name in
(07:00):
Punishment-Free Parenting is anidea that permeates throughout
the whole book.
I talk about it as factorydefault settings.
We all have them.
There are ingrained responsesthat show up when we're tired or
stressed or overwhelmed, andespecially around the holidays,
when we're surrounded by our ownfamilies.
The goal isn't to blameyourself when your factory
(07:21):
default parenting takes over.
It's to learn how to rewriteyour factory defaults so that
your go-to reactions align withthe way that you want to parent
rather than the way that you'vebeen parenting.
But here's the thing it's not awillpower problem.
Willpower alone isn't enough.
Studies show that most of usthink that we can just white
knuckle change.
(07:41):
We can just muscle through ifwe try hard enough.
But, as Katie Milkman pointsout in how to Change, many of us
tend to overestimate ourwillpower as our actual path to
change.
It's not really about tryingharder, it's about trying
smarter.
But here's about trying smarter.
But here's the good news If weactually implement targeted
strategies, change not only ispossible, it's likely.
(08:02):
And if you're listening to thisepisode on New Year's Eve, the
best news of all is that theremay be no better time to start
than tomorrow.
This leads me to change tipnumber one change your start
(08:25):
date.
One of the interesting thingsthat change researchers found
when they started looking at howwe actually change effectively
is what katie milkman calls thefresh start effect.
It's this idea that certainmoments in time, like new year's
or a birthday, or when youstart a new job or your first
day of school, feel like naturalopportunities to start over.
She actually highlights in thebook that really any Monday is a
(08:45):
fresh start effect, but notnearly as impactful as those big
milestone fresh starts like NewYear's.
These moments represent for usthis kind of psychological
do-over, a place where we canhave a clean slate to start from
that feels more capable forchange than just repeated
patterns.
Here's two quotes from Katie'sbook that I stitched together
that come from the section onfresh starts.
(09:06):
They're going to be read by mywife.
Jess Fogel (09:12):
When we surveyed a panel of Americans about how
they feel on fresh start datessuch as New Year's or their
birthday, we heard again andagain that new beginnings offer
a kind of psychological do-over.
People feel distance from theirpast failures.
They feel like a differentperson, a person with a reason
to be optimistic about thefuture.
We're more likely to pursuechange on dates that feel like
(09:32):
new beginnings because thesemoments help us to overcome a
common obstacle to goalinitiation the sense that we've
failed before and will thus failagain.
In my opinion, new Year'sresolutions are great.
Anytime you make a resolution,you're putting yourself in the
game.
Too often, a sense that changeis difficult and daunting
prevents us from taking the leapto try.
Maybe you like the idea ofmaking a change, but actually
(09:55):
doing it seems hard, and so youfeel unmotivated to start.
Maybe you like the idea ofmaking a change, but actually
doing it seems hard, and so youfeel unmotivated to start.
Maybe you've failed when youattempted to change before and
expect to fail again.
Often, change takes multipleattempts to stick.
I like to remind cynics that ifyou flip the discouraging
statistics about New Year'sresolutions on their head,
you'll see that 20% of the goalsset each January succeed.
That's a lot of people who'vechanged their lives for the
(10:18):
better.
Jon @wholeparent (10:21):
Basically, it boils down to this as hard as it
is to keep your New Year'sresolutions, it's a heck of a
lot easier to keep them than itis to keep your March 3rd
resolutions.
In fact, over a year ago, whenwe were initially discussing
publication dates for my book,this fresh start effect actually
came up.
I wanted the book to bereleased as close to January 1st
(10:41):
as possible because if peoplewere going to change their
parenting, I knew that this wasthe time to do it.
But here's the key you can'tjust think about resolutions,
you actually have to plan forthem.
Research shows that when we setgoals that are specific, with
specific dates, we are way morelikely to follow through.
Instead of just saying I wantto be more patient with my kids
(11:02):
this year, start sayingsomething like starting on
January 1st.
I'm going to take five deepbreaths every time I feel myself
getting frustrated with my kids.
It's way more likely to beeffective.
The fresh start effect worksbecause it gives you a sense of
momentum.
It's a way of telling yourselfthis is the beginning of
something new and because thecalendar date lines up with that
(11:23):
, it's so much more easy for usto actually believe it.
And because it's parenting thatwe're talking about here.
We are going to need all thehelp that we can get.
Tip two change yourself, tom.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Always with you.
What cannot be?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
done.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
All right, I'll give it a try, no try, not Do or do
not.
There is no try.
Jon @wholeparent (11:53):
One of the most powerful lessons from Katie
Milkman's book how to Change isthis.
True, lasting change beginswith how you define yourself.
It's not about what you'retrying to do.
It's not really even about whatyou do.
It's about who you are.
Katie shares research showingthat people are more successful
at sticking to goals when theyanchor their actions in their
(12:13):
identity.
For example, if your resolutionis the most common resolution
admittedly it's my resolutionalmost every single year that
you're going to try to get intobetter shape.
The difference between sayingI'm trying to work out more
versus I am a person who worksout might seem subtle, but
actually, psychologically, it'sa total game changer.
When you say that you're tryingto work out more, working out
(12:34):
becomes a temporary struggle.
When you say that you are aperson who works out, it becomes
part of your identity to thecore.
In the world of parenting,you're not trying to be a
punishment-free or respectful orconscious or gentle or whatever
you want to call it parent.
You have to believe that youare one.
As Yoda says do or do not.
(12:57):
There is no try.
When we make our resolutions asparents, we often focus too
much on the what I'm going tostop yelling or I'm going to
spend more time with my kids.
But those are actions.
They're behaviors.
What if, instead of resolvingto do something, we resolve to
be something?
I'm the kind of parent whostays calm even when things are
(13:18):
chaotic.
I am the kind of parent wholistens to my kids before I
respond.
I am a parent who gets curiousbefore I get furious.
When we frame our goals aroundidentity, something powerful
happens.
Every choice becomes anopportunity to affirm our
identity.
If your goal is to be a calmparent rather than just to
respond calmly, and you manageto take three deep breaths
(13:41):
instead of snapping at yourchild, it becomes a win to your
core, not just a temporary, tinyvictory.
It's evidence that you are thatkind of parent, the kind of
parent that you want to be.
Here's a practical way to startif you're looking to set this
type of resolution for 2025.
Pause the episode right now andwrite down the kind of parent
that you want to be.
(14:01):
Not the actions that you wantto take in parenting, but
specifically the kind of parentthat you want to be.
Literally, take out a piece ofpaper, open your notes app on
your phone, whatever, and writedown these words I am the kind
of parent who and then fill inthe blank.
If you're looking for theresolution that I'm using this
year, it's I am apunishment-free parent.
(14:22):
That might seem obvious, comingfrom the guy who wrote the book
called Punishment-FreeParenting, but honestly, I
struggle.
I am not perfect every singleday, not by any stretch of the
imagination.
Not perfect every single day,not by any stretch of the
imagination.
But by identifying myself withthe idea of being
punishment-free rather than justtrying not to punish my kids, I
have had immense strides.
(14:45):
Once you've got those identitystatements down, wherever they
are, I encourage you to read itout loud to yourself.
Better yet, record yourselfreading it so that you can play
it back for yourself or, ifyou're really brave, play it
back for somebody else in yourlife.
Once you can hear that on loopfor yourself, you can start
looking for those small momentsin your life with your kids,
that grocery store moment that Idescribed earlier, where you
(15:06):
can actually live into that newidentity.
Remember, this is not aboutgetting it perfect every time.
It's not even about trying todo the right thing.
It's about who you long to beas a parent and then actually
believing that you can be thatperson, and then every single
choice that you make thataffirms that identity, helps you
to rewrite the story thatyou're telling yourself.
(15:27):
It starts to work with thosefactory default settings,
creating a better version ofyourself, better neural pathways
, more in line with your valuesas a parent for your kids to
look up to and for you to beproud of.
Tip three change who you'rearound.
To be honest, my favorite partof Katie's book was the chapter
(15:47):
called Conformity.
In it she tells the story ofthese identical twins who decide
to go to the Air Force Academyin Colorado Springs and
immediately upon arriving at theAir Force Academy, they are
separated into differentsquadrons.
I didn't know this about theAir Force Academy, even though
I've had family members who haveactually gone and graduated
from the Air Force Academy, butapparently all the freshmen are
(16:09):
separated into squadrons ofabout 30.
And then those squadrons arelike the only people that you
spend your time with for theentire first semester, maybe
even the first year, and sothese identical twins are split
up and they're not in the samesquadron.
But back in high school therewas one who is clearly better at
academics than the other.
(16:29):
The one that's better winds upwith a squadron that's not, as,
let's say, polished.
They're just not thatacademically inclined, they're
not as rigorous, they don'tstudy as much.
And the one who struggled morewinds up in this very rigorous
group of 30 cadets who are justlike absolutely killing it,
getting straight A's all of them.
And I think how the story goesis that when they come back for
(16:52):
like Thanksgiving break or maybeit's Christmas, the one who is
less academically inclinedannounces to the whole group
that his commanding officerwants him to be like a physics
major or something some highlevel thing that you're just
blown away that he would be thetype of person who would do this
.
And his twin, who has been kindof struggling up to this point,
is just like what the heck?
(17:13):
And eventually his twin goes onto research this and actually
study how his less academicallyinclined identical twin was able
to outperform him in theirfirst year of college, and the
evidence basically comes down tothe fact that one was
surrounded by people who he wasemulating.
This really isn't news to us.
(17:34):
We know that psychologicallythis happens, but to see it in
such a very clear way is helpful.
I've heard it said in a bunch ofdifferent ways.
One is that you are the averageof the five people that you
spend the most time with.
I think that that quote issupposed to be attributed to
somebody famous, but it actuallyisn't them.
And then David McLeland is this20th century psychologist.
(17:54):
He was attributed sayingsomething to the effect of and
again, I don't actually have acitation for this.
I don't know if he ever saidthis or this is just something
that everybody says that he said, but 95% of our success or
failure is influenced by thepeople that we associate with
the most.
So that's a pretty bold claim,but if you think about it,
almost everything that we do isshaped by the company that we
(18:14):
keep.
If you want to make lastingchanges, you have to look at who
you're actually spending timewith.
Are they helping you become theparent that you aspire to be,
or are they unintentionallyreinforcing the habits that
you're trying to leave behind?
Are you spending a lot of timewith people who are triggering
your factory default parentingsettings, or are you spending
time with people who you want toemulate?
Along with leveraging the freshstart effect and truly becoming
(18:37):
identified with the type ofparent that you want to be, I
think this is the most essentialpiece.
In isolation, it's almostimpossible to change.
But when you're surrounded by aisolation, it's almost
impossible to change.
But when you're surrounded by acommunity, it's almost
impossible not to.
That's why I wanted to end thisepisode a little differently,
hearing from members of ourcommunity the whole parent
community about their New Year'sresolutions.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
My 2025 parenting resolution is to listen before I
respond, and to handle each ofmy children as individuals and
not just like clump themtogether or have expectations on
them that are unrealistic.
Jon @wholeparent (19:18):
My new year's resolution is to look after
myself better, so I can lookafter my son even better myself
better so I can look after myson even better.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
My parenting resolution for 2025 is to have
kindness and gentleness governmy parenting to the point where
my kids start to mirror it,because I find when I'm like
harsh or like just like a bitsnappy with my kids, they start
to mirror that, and so I justwant to start turning that on
its head.
My resolution is to focus moreon the good instead of on the
(19:49):
bad.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
I think my New Year's resolution is get to know
myself better, find morestrategies and just things that
help me regulate myself so I canbe the loving, calm mom that I
want to be.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
My New Year's resolution is to quit losing my
cool on the small things with myson.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
My resolution for the New Year would be to get
curious, not furious, first,when he's having a big emotion,
to take a breath and understandwhy he's having this emotion and
react accordingly, instead ofgetting angry or frustrated with
him.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
My new year's resolution in parenting is to
get better at stopping myselfbefore really getting angry or
upset with my kids when they dosilly things.
My New Year's resolution is tobe a better grandparent than I
was a parent, be more patient,be kinder, be more curious.
Jon @wholeparent (20:58):
Thank you to all those who sent resolutions
in to be featured on thisepisode Jana, william, victoria,
rebecca, sveriana, joy, marieland Nina.
I had you do these for tworeasons.
First off, so that all of thoselistening to the podcast can
hear that you're part of acommunity that do things
differently.
Second, for those of you whotook the plunge and actually
(21:20):
sent in these resolutions,research from the American
Society of Training andDevelopment says that now that
someone else knows about it,you're about three times more
likely to succeed.
Congrats, which brings me toone final point.
If you're listening right nowand you want a 3x your parenting
resolution success, feel freeto shoot me an email and let me
know what your resolutions are.
The email for the Whole ParentPodcast is podcast at
(21:42):
wholeparentacademycom.
Thank you to my wife, jess, forreading the section of Katie's
book for us, and a special thankyou also, of course, to Katie
Milkman for writing a book thathas helped me and so many others
change.
If you want another book thatwill help you achieve any of the
resolutions that we heard aboutfrom our community, help you to
become the parent that youaspire to be, go ahead and
(22:02):
pre-order my book coming out inless than a month.
Punishment-free Parenting theBrain-Based Way to Raise Kids
Without Raising your Voice.
Thank you for listening to theWhole Parent Podcast.
Happy New Year and I hope thisepisode helps you to become part
of the 20% of people whoactually keep their resolutions
in 2025.
See you next year.
Welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast, if we
haven't met yet.
My name is John.
A lot of us have holidaytraditions.
The same place we go forThanksgiving or Christmas Day
year after year with the samepeople.
Just yesterday I hosted mydad's whole family, all the
cousins, his siblings, at ourhouse for our annual Christmas.
It's a gathering that's beenhappening the few days after
(00:21):
Christmas every year sincebefore I was born.
Some of the people are the same, some are different.
My mom, for example, took updance as a hobby last year.
She wasn't there last nightbecause she was in Tampa Bay
competing at her first everdance competition at age 72.
Others are missing too.
This is the eighth Christmasnow without my dad.
It's the 10th without his mom,who I sort of thought was
(00:43):
holding the whole thing together.
It's the tenth without his mom,who I sort of thought was
holding the whole thing together.
Yet here we are, ten yearslater.
But there's also new people Sixkids under the age of five,
seven if you count the onethat's still cooking.
Another four kids in school,three in college.
We know, psychologicallyspeaking, that these types of
annual traditions and ritualsare quintessentially human.
(01:03):
Traditions give us a sense ofstability in a world that often
feels unpredictable.
They're more than just rituals.
They're these threads thatweave meaning into the fabric of
our lives.
Research shows that traditionscreate a sense of identity.
They remind us who we are,where we come from, what matters
the most.
Families with strong traditionstend to feel closer and more
connected, not just because ofwho they are, where we come from
(01:24):
, what matters the most.
Families with strong traditionstend to feel closer and more
connected, not just because ofwho they are, but because of the
shared intention behind whatthey do.
Anthropologists and sociologistshave been speculating for a
long time why humans started todo the whole same-time-next-year
thing.
I don't think it's thatcomplicated.
Change is harder than justkeeping things the way that they
(01:44):
are.
One of my traditions is NewYear's Eve.
For most of the last 20 years,I've spent some or all of New
Year's Eve with my best friendfrom middle school, kendall, and
, before he died, nate, ourthird musketeer.
A lot of the years blendtogether, but I'm thinking
specifically today of 2009,where we spent the night at
Nate's house playing video gamesand telling jokes until they
(02:06):
stopped being funny, and then wekept telling them until they
started being funny again, ifyou ever did that in high school
.
That night at midnight we shotoff illegal fireworks with
Nate's neighbor, who actuallyhappened to be a former Bears
player.
His name was Mike Adamley.
He was a sports analyst on TVat the time.
But the thing that I remembermost about that night was this
feeling that this year, this NewYear's, was going to be a real
(02:30):
new beginning.
I was graduating high school.
I was increasingly in thisserious relationship with this
pretty girl that I had met injazz band Spoiler.
She became the mother of myfour children and I was a week
away from turning 18.
Chief among my resolutions wasto start being more responsible.
I never got into like realtrouble as far as the
(02:50):
responsibility thing, but beinglate has always been a struggle
for me and I basically never gotmy work done on time In fact,
I'm doing this podcast lastminute too but I thought in 2009
that I was becoming an adult,so I needed to start adulting.
I guess I walked out into thesnow on that New Year's morning
after we had stayed up way toolate, ready to quit being a boy
(03:13):
and finally start being a man,as I approached my first car, it
was a 2002 Ford Focus hatchback, black.
I noticed that I had somethingwedged under my windshield wiper
.
It was a parking ticket Expiredtags A hundred bucks Shoot.
On this episode of the WholeParent Podcast, we're going to
(03:36):
talk about why we keep doing thesame things over and over, even
when we don't want to, why it'sso hard for us to change, why
it's so hard to do the thingsthat we desperately want to do,
why we often fall short ofbecoming the parents that we
long to be, and how we can startkeeping our resolutions.
If you want to actually make2025 different, keep listening.
(04:08):
When I was initially outliningthe book that would eventually
become Punishment-Free Parenting, I was struggling through how
to articulate the structure ofthe book.
At that point I had just beencontracted to write the whole
parent book and it lacked maybewe should say direction.
My editor at the time he's notmy editor anymore had me read
this book.
It was called how to Change bya researcher named Katie Milkman
(04:31):
.
He thought it had a really niceflow and actually rereading the
book for this episode, Irealized that I did kind of
organize my book similarly A lotof stories trying to move
people from point A to point B.
But actually the thing Iremember most about the book is
not the structure, which is whatI was supposed to be paying
attention to.
It was the research that wasincredibly intriguing.
(04:52):
Katie, who unfortunately wasnot available last minute to
record a guest spot for thisepisode, is one of the world's
leading experts on how peoplecan actually change.
I knew her work was going to becentral to what I was trying to
communicate to parents.
Most parents that I work withdon't just want to parent
differently day to day.
They actually want to feeldifferent about parenting, and
(05:13):
that's the key.
We all want to be calmer andmore patient and more present.
But the truth is it's evenharder to make that happen than
to just change our actions.
One of the reasons that it's sohard to change is that our
brains are built for routines.
Scientists call this a habitloop.
It's a mechanism, a neuralpathway, that rewards us for
doing the same things over andover, even when it's not good
(05:36):
for us.
I think about a moment, like Ihad last week my toddler.
We're at the grocery store andwe're walking through the cereal
aisle and he sees somethingwith about 115 grams of sugar on
the top shelf, bright colorssparkling down at him.
I didn't get it for him.
I knew for a fact that it wassomething that nobody in our
house liked, including him.
(05:57):
And as we walked away from it,in the middle of the grocery
store, here is my two-year-oldnow dissolving onto the floor
total and complete meltdown.
I know that you've probablybeen there too.
Maybe you know, like I know, inthose moments, in theory, how
you want to respond with thiscalm, compassionate, empathetic
(06:18):
tone.
But what do most of us wind updoing?
We fall back on whatever workedbefore, even if it's yelling or
punishing, or reaching up andgetting that cereal box and just
handing it to them.
But in those moments it'simportant to remember that it's
not that you're failing, it'sjust that your brain is designed
to seek the quickest way toreduce the stress of the moment.
(06:39):
It's that neural pathway, thathabit loop and action.
And then there's whatpsychologists call status quo
bias.
It's this idea that we're allwired to stick with what feels
familiar, even when we knowsomething that we're doing isn't
working.
The devil that we know feelssafer than the devil that we
don't.
Status quo bias even though Idon't call it by that name in
(07:00):
Punishment-Free Parenting is anidea that permeates throughout
the whole book.
I talk about it as factorydefault settings.
We all have them.
There are ingrained responsesthat show up when we're tired or
stressed or overwhelmed, andespecially around the holidays,
when we're surrounded by our ownfamilies.
The goal isn't to blameyourself when your factory
(07:21):
default parenting takes over.
It's to learn how to rewriteyour factory defaults so that
your go-to reactions align withthe way that you want to parent
rather than the way that you'vebeen parenting.
But here's the thing it's not awillpower problem.
Willpower alone isn't enough.
Studies show that most of usthink that we can just white
knuckle change.
(07:41):
We can just muscle through ifwe try hard enough.
But, as Katie Milkman pointsout in how to Change, many of us
tend to overestimate ourwillpower as our actual path to
change.
It's not really about tryingharder, it's about trying
smarter.
But here's about trying smarter.
But here's the good news If weactually implement targeted
strategies, change not only ispossible, it's likely.
(08:02):
And if you're listening to thisepisode on New Year's Eve, the
best news of all is that theremay be no better time to start
than tomorrow.
This leads me to change tipnumber one change your start
(08:25):
date.
One of the interesting thingsthat change researchers found
when they started looking at howwe actually change effectively
is what katie milkman calls thefresh start effect.
It's this idea that certainmoments in time, like new year's
or a birthday, or when youstart a new job or your first
day of school, feel like naturalopportunities to start over.
She actually highlights in thebook that really any Monday is a
(08:45):
fresh start effect, but notnearly as impactful as those big
milestone fresh starts like NewYear's.
These moments represent for usthis kind of psychological
do-over, a place where we canhave a clean slate to start from
that feels more capable forchange than just repeated
patterns.
Here's two quotes from Katie'sbook that I stitched together
that come from the section onfresh starts.
(09:06):
They're going to be read by mywife.
Jess Fogel (09:12):
When we surveyed a panel of Americans about how
they feel on fresh start datessuch as New Year's or their
birthday, we heard again andagain that new beginnings offer
a kind of psychological do-over.
People feel distance from theirpast failures.
They feel like a differentperson, a person with a reason
to be optimistic about thefuture.
We're more likely to pursuechange on dates that feel like
(09:32):
new beginnings because thesemoments help us to overcome a
common obstacle to goalinitiation the sense that we've
failed before and will thus failagain.
In my opinion, new Year'sresolutions are great.
Anytime you make a resolution,you're putting yourself in the
game.
Too often, a sense that changeis difficult and daunting
prevents us from taking the leapto try.
Maybe you like the idea ofmaking a change, but actually
(09:55):
doing it seems hard, and so youfeel unmotivated to start.
Maybe you like the idea ofmaking a change, but actually
doing it seems hard, and so youfeel unmotivated to start.
Maybe you've failed when youattempted to change before and
expect to fail again.
Often, change takes multipleattempts to stick.
I like to remind cynics that ifyou flip the discouraging
statistics about New Year'sresolutions on their head,
you'll see that 20% of the goalsset each January succeed.
That's a lot of people who'vechanged their lives for the
(10:18):
better.
Jon @wholeparent (10:21):
Basically, it boils down to this as hard as it
is to keep your New Year'sresolutions, it's a heck of a
lot easier to keep them than itis to keep your March 3rd
resolutions.
In fact, over a year ago, whenwe were initially discussing
publication dates for my book,this fresh start effect actually
came up.
I wanted the book to bereleased as close to January 1st
(10:41):
as possible because if peoplewere going to change their
parenting, I knew that this wasthe time to do it.
But here's the key you can'tjust think about resolutions,
you actually have to plan forthem.
Research shows that when we setgoals that are specific, with
specific dates, we are way morelikely to follow through.
Instead of just saying I wantto be more patient with my kids
(11:02):
this year, start sayingsomething like starting on
January 1st.
I'm going to take five deepbreaths every time I feel myself
getting frustrated with my kids.
It's way more likely to beeffective.
The fresh start effect worksbecause it gives you a sense of
momentum.
It's a way of telling yourselfthis is the beginning of
something new and because thecalendar date lines up with that
(11:23):
, it's so much more easy for usto actually believe it.
And because it's parenting thatwe're talking about here.
We are going to need all thehelp that we can get.
Tip two change yourself, tom.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Always with you.
What cannot be?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
done.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
All right, I'll give it a try, no try, not Do or do
not.
There is no try.
Jon @wholeparent (11:53):
One of the most powerful lessons from Katie
Milkman's book how to Change isthis.
True, lasting change beginswith how you define yourself.
It's not about what you'retrying to do.
It's not really even about whatyou do.
It's about who you are.
Katie shares research showingthat people are more successful
at sticking to goals when theyanchor their actions in their
(12:13):
identity.
For example, if your resolutionis the most common resolution
admittedly it's my resolutionalmost every single year that
you're going to try to get intobetter shape.
The difference between sayingI'm trying to work out more
versus I am a person who worksout might seem subtle, but
actually, psychologically, it'sa total game changer.
When you say that you're tryingto work out more, working out
(12:34):
becomes a temporary struggle.
When you say that you are aperson who works out, it becomes
part of your identity to thecore.
In the world of parenting,you're not trying to be a
punishment-free or respectful orconscious or gentle or whatever
you want to call it parent.
You have to believe that youare one.
As Yoda says do or do not.
(12:57):
There is no try.
When we make our resolutions asparents, we often focus too
much on the what I'm going tostop yelling or I'm going to
spend more time with my kids.
But those are actions.
They're behaviors.
What if, instead of resolvingto do something, we resolve to
be something?
I'm the kind of parent whostays calm even when things are
(13:18):
chaotic.
I am the kind of parent wholistens to my kids before I
respond.
I am a parent who gets curiousbefore I get furious.
When we frame our goals aroundidentity, something powerful
happens.
Every choice becomes anopportunity to affirm our
identity.
If your goal is to be a calmparent rather than just to
respond calmly, and you manageto take three deep breaths
(13:41):
instead of snapping at yourchild, it becomes a win to your
core, not just a temporary, tinyvictory.
It's evidence that you are thatkind of parent, the kind of
parent that you want to be.
Here's a practical way to startif you're looking to set this
type of resolution for 2025.
Pause the episode right now andwrite down the kind of parent
that you want to be.
(14:01):
Not the actions that you wantto take in parenting, but
specifically the kind of parentthat you want to be.
Literally, take out a piece ofpaper, open your notes app on
your phone, whatever, and writedown these words I am the kind
of parent who and then fill inthe blank.
If you're looking for theresolution that I'm using this
year, it's I am apunishment-free parent.
(14:22):
That might seem obvious, comingfrom the guy who wrote the book
called Punishment-FreeParenting, but honestly, I
struggle.
I am not perfect every singleday, not by any stretch of the
imagination.
Not perfect every single day,not by any stretch of the
imagination.
But by identifying myself withthe idea of being
punishment-free rather than justtrying not to punish my kids, I
have had immense strides.
(14:45):
Once you've got those identitystatements down, wherever they
are, I encourage you to read itout loud to yourself.
Better yet, record yourselfreading it so that you can play
it back for yourself or, ifyou're really brave, play it
back for somebody else in yourlife.
Once you can hear that on loopfor yourself, you can start
looking for those small momentsin your life with your kids,
that grocery store moment that Idescribed earlier, where you
(15:06):
can actually live into that newidentity.
Remember, this is not aboutgetting it perfect every time.
It's not even about trying todo the right thing.
It's about who you long to beas a parent and then actually
believing that you can be thatperson, and then every single
choice that you make thataffirms that identity, helps you
to rewrite the story thatyou're telling yourself.
(15:27):
It starts to work with thosefactory default settings,
creating a better version ofyourself, better neural pathways
, more in line with your valuesas a parent for your kids to
look up to and for you to beproud of.
Tip three change who you'rearound.
To be honest, my favorite partof Katie's book was the chapter
(15:47):
called Conformity.
In it she tells the story ofthese identical twins who decide
to go to the Air Force Academyin Colorado Springs and
immediately upon arriving at theAir Force Academy, they are
separated into differentsquadrons.
I didn't know this about theAir Force Academy, even though
I've had family members who haveactually gone and graduated
from the Air Force Academy, butapparently all the freshmen are
(16:09):
separated into squadrons ofabout 30.
And then those squadrons arelike the only people that you
spend your time with for theentire first semester, maybe
even the first year, and sothese identical twins are split
up and they're not in the samesquadron.
But back in high school therewas one who is clearly better at
academics than the other.
(16:29):
The one that's better winds upwith a squadron that's not, as,
let's say, polished.
They're just not thatacademically inclined, they're
not as rigorous, they don'tstudy as much.
And the one who struggled morewinds up in this very rigorous
group of 30 cadets who are justlike absolutely killing it,
getting straight A's all of them.
And I think how the story goesis that when they come back for
(16:52):
like Thanksgiving break or maybeit's Christmas, the one who is
less academically inclinedannounces to the whole group
that his commanding officerwants him to be like a physics
major or something some highlevel thing that you're just
blown away that he would be thetype of person who would do this
.
And his twin, who has been kindof struggling up to this point,
is just like what the heck?
(17:13):
And eventually his twin goes onto research this and actually
study how his less academicallyinclined identical twin was able
to outperform him in theirfirst year of college, and the
evidence basically comes down tothe fact that one was
surrounded by people who he wasemulating.
This really isn't news to us.
(17:34):
We know that psychologicallythis happens, but to see it in
such a very clear way is helpful.
I've heard it said in a bunch ofdifferent ways.
One is that you are the averageof the five people that you
spend the most time with.
I think that that quote issupposed to be attributed to
somebody famous, but it actuallyisn't them.
And then David McLeland is this20th century psychologist.
(17:54):
He was attributed sayingsomething to the effect of and
again, I don't actually have acitation for this.
I don't know if he ever saidthis or this is just something
that everybody says that he said, but 95% of our success or
failure is influenced by thepeople that we associate with
the most.
So that's a pretty bold claim,but if you think about it,
almost everything that we do isshaped by the company that we
(18:14):
keep.
If you want to make lastingchanges, you have to look at who
you're actually spending timewith.
Are they helping you become theparent that you aspire to be,
or are they unintentionallyreinforcing the habits that
you're trying to leave behind?
Are you spending a lot of timewith people who are triggering
your factory default parentingsettings, or are you spending
time with people who you want toemulate?
Along with leveraging the freshstart effect and truly becoming
(18:37):
identified with the type ofparent that you want to be, I
think this is the most essentialpiece.
In isolation, it's almostimpossible to change.
But when you're surrounded by aisolation, it's almost
impossible to change.
But when you're surrounded by acommunity, it's almost
impossible not to.
That's why I wanted to end thisepisode a little differently,
hearing from members of ourcommunity the whole parent
community about their New Year'sresolutions.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
My 2025 parenting resolution is to listen before I
respond, and to handle each ofmy children as individuals and
not just like clump themtogether or have expectations on
them that are unrealistic.
Jon @wholeparent (19:18):
My new year's resolution is to look after
myself better, so I can lookafter my son even better myself
better so I can look after myson even better.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
My parenting resolution for 2025 is to have
kindness and gentleness governmy parenting to the point where
my kids start to mirror it,because I find when I'm like
harsh or like just like a bitsnappy with my kids, they start
to mirror that, and so I justwant to start turning that on
its head.
My resolution is to focus moreon the good instead of on the
(19:49):
bad.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
I think my New Year's resolution is get to know
myself better, find morestrategies and just things that
help me regulate myself so I canbe the loving, calm mom that I
want to be.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
My New Year's resolution is to quit losing my
cool on the small things with myson.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
My resolution for the New Year would be to get
curious, not furious, first,when he's having a big emotion,
to take a breath and understandwhy he's having this emotion and
react accordingly, instead ofgetting angry or frustrated with
him.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
My new year's resolution in parenting is to
get better at stopping myselfbefore really getting angry or
upset with my kids when they dosilly things.
My New Year's resolution is tobe a better grandparent than I
was a parent, be more patient,be kinder, be more curious.
Jon @wholeparent (20:58):
Thank you to all those who sent resolutions
in to be featured on thisepisode Jana, william, victoria,
rebecca, sveriana, joy, marieland Nina.
I had you do these for tworeasons.
First off, so that all of thoselistening to the podcast can
hear that you're part of acommunity that do things
differently.
Second, for those of you whotook the plunge and actually
(21:20):
sent in these resolutions,research from the American
Society of Training andDevelopment says that now that
someone else knows about it,you're about three times more
likely to succeed.
Congrats, which brings me toone final point.
If you're listening right nowand you want a 3x your parenting
resolution success, feel freeto shoot me an email and let me
know what your resolutions are.
The email for the Whole ParentPodcast is podcast at
(21:42):
wholeparentacademycom.
Thank you to my wife, jess, forreading the section of Katie's
book for us, and a special thankyou also, of course, to Katie
Milkman for writing a book thathas helped me and so many others
change.
If you want another book thatwill help you achieve any of the
resolutions that we heard aboutfrom our community, help you to
become the parent that youaspire to be, go ahead and
(22:02):
pre-order my book coming out inless than a month.
Punishment-free Parenting theBrain-Based Way to Raise Kids
Without Raising your Voice.
Thank you for listening to theWhole Parent Podcast.
Happy New Year and I hope thisepisode helps you to become part
of the 20% of people whoactually keep their resolutions
in 2025.
See you next year.
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