The Collapse of Parenting | NYT Best Selling Author Dr. Leonard Sax Ep 114

Everyone has opinions on the best parenting style, but what does the research actually say? According to Dr. Leonard Sax, modern issues like a culture of disrespect and the over-prescription of medication have led to a generation of children who are less resilient, more anxious, and struggling academically.
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In this episode, Dr. Sax shares insights from his best-selling books, The Collapse of Parenting, Girls on Edge, Boys Adrift and Why Gender Matters. We explore the breakdown of the alliance between schools and families, the growing lack of respect for adults, the rise in childhood obesity and medication use, and the impact of these trends both in school and at home.
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Dr. Sax outlines solutions for parents to reclaim their authority and create a nurturing yet disciplined environment. Tune in to learn how to combat the negative influences of pop culture, strengthen your relationship with your children, and help them thrive!

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This episode was post produced by Podcast Boutique https://podcastboutique.com/

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to the Truman Charities Podcast. I am Jamie Truman, your host. Today I talked with Dr Leonard Sachs, new York Times bestselling author of the Collapse of Parenting. He also is the author of Boys Adrift, girls on the Edge and why Gender Matters. I could not put it down. I must have finished this book in probably three, maybe four days, and I had to have Dr Sachs on here to talk about some of the topics in his book, such as the culture of disrespect.

Speaker 1 0:34

Why are so many kids overweight? Why are so many kids on medication now? Why are American students falling behind and why are they so fragile? We speak about his solutions and the takeaways that he would like parents to have from reading this book. We also touch on his organization, the Montgomery Center for Research in Child and Adolescent Development. If you like this podcast, please make sure to rate and review it. All of the reviews really do count and I read every single one of them, so I want to thank you in advance for that and I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dr Sachs as much as I did. Hi, dr Sachs, thank you so much for coming on. I'm really excited to talk to you today.

Speaker 2 1:22

Thanks for inviting me.

Speaker 1 1:23

So I got introduced to you actually through another podcast that you were on and you were talking about your book, which is the New York Times bestseller, the Collapse of Parenting. So I went ahead and bought it. Could not put it down. I was really excited to find out that you were actually a pediatrician and practiced in Montgomery County, maryland, which is where I'm from. So actually some of your books you mentioned some of the schools around here, which is really neat. So right after I read that, I ended up doing the audio books Boys Adrift. And why? Gender Matters. So in the past month, dr Sachs, I've read or listened to three out of four of your books at this point, so I'm excited to talk about this. Tell me a little bit about your background and why you decided to write this book.

Speaker 2 2:08

So I earned my undergraduate degree in biology at MIT.

Speaker 2 2:12

I then earned my medical degree MD and my doctorate in psychology PhD at the University of Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 2:20

I then did a three-year residency in family medicine in Lancaster County, pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 2:26

I actually did one year in Prince George's County, in Bowie, but wanted to launch my own practice and scouted out Montgomery County and found this little town in western upper Montgomery County called Poolsville western upper Montgomery County called Poolsville and launched a practice from scratch in Poolsville, maryland, and over the next 18 years grew it from zero to 7,000 patients and watched children grow up which is a great privilege and noticed pretty early on these dramatic differences between what was happening with boys and what was happening with girls. Many, many families that I came to know well, where the girl was doing well and the boy was a goofball, and I was puzzled and wanted to understand why that is so. And that really led to my first book, why Gender Matters, and my second book, ways to Drift. But girls are not the winners here. Girls are much more likely now to be anxious or depressed than they were a generation ago, and that led to my third book, girls on the Edge, and all three of those books were based very much on my observations in Montgomery County, maryland.

Speaker 1 3:40

When I was listening to Boys Adrift, you had so many examples of different things that are happening within with the children. So tell me, why then you wrote those three? And then you wrote the Collapse of Parenting. Why did you decide to write that particular book?

Speaker 2 3:55

So the first three books were really focusing on gender differences, how things are different with girls compared with boys.

Speaker 2 4:02

But I then sold my practice and devoted the next five years to visiting schools. I have now visited over 500 schools worldwide, and not only in the United States but from Australia to Scotland, to Germany and Spain and Switzerland, et cetera, and really was struck meeting with parents, meeting with teachers and school leaders how the alliance between schools and families has broken down. You know, as recently as 20 years ago, if a kid got in trouble in school he'd get in more trouble at home. Teacher would call the parents and the kid would face major consequences at home loss of privileges, etc. But that alliance has broken and the kid now gets in trouble and it's common and this is very true in Potomac, bethesda, chevy Chase that the parents will swoop in like attorneys demanding evidence and mounting a defense. Why did this happen? Why do many parents now regard the school as an adversary, and what should we be doing as parents? That's a part of what led to the book the Collapsed Parent.

Speaker 1 5:16

Yeah, there was an example that you had in the book where there was a girl who she cheated on a test. The teacher, you know, said you know, you cheated, you failed. Go sit down. And she talked to her parents and the parents said you know, did you cheat? She said no, and so then she went to the principal and then the teacher had to.

Speaker 2 5:37

Okay, so that's a story from Menlo Park, california. So I was actually doing a presentation for parents at a middle school in Menlo Park, california, and talking about the importance of honesty and how honesty and self-control predict good outcomes. 20 years down the road and we had about 350 parents in the audience. So I had said at the beginning we need to hold questions till the end. So the woman in front row starts raising her hand, starts waving her hand. Well, I pretend I don't see her, I look away because you know, teaching honesty has got to be our first priority. Well, this woman's now having a convulsion and she's waving both hands and I can't ignore her. So I call on her and she stands up and turns to speak to her neighbors. I said Dan, and she took the microphone and she introduced herself and said that she teaches middle school there, a different school than the one I spoke at, and she was administering a closed book test. But standing at the back of the room she could see that one student was looking at her phone under the desk, didn't realize that the teacher could see her and the teacher came up behind her quietly, took the phone, which had answers to the test on the screen and the teacher said I'm very disappointed. I'm marking your test as zero and you can retrieve your phone at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 7:01

Two weeks later, this teacher was told that if she wanted to keep her job, she would have to apologize to this girl in front of the entire class. It turns out that this girl's parents are wealthy, have donated a great deal of money to the school. The daughter came home in tears, said that teacher totally humiliated me. I never want to go back. And the father said I'll take care of this. And he called up one of his friends on the board and said I want that teacher to apologize to my daughter in front of the entire class. And the board member said yes, sir, right away. Sir, consider it done. So.

Speaker 2 7:39

That's, in a nutshell, an extreme example of what I mean by the collapse of parenting A parent who is utterly clueless, who has no understanding of their role. I mean, what does that father think he's accomplishing? What message is he sending to his daughter? Hey, don't worry about following the rules, because if you get in trouble, daddy will fix it. That's a terrible lesson to teach your child. We'll fix it.

Speaker 2 8:06

That's a terrible lesson to teach your child and you are undermining the most important task of the parent and the teacher, which is to teach honesty and self-control. As I show in the book, honesty and self-control predict good outcomes health, wealth and happiness 20, 30 years down the road way better than grades or test scores. And this parent is just taking a sledgehammer to that. That's an unusual outlier, though Most parents would not do that, but many parents share the same confusion that they think it's their job to ensure their kids' academic success, and, again, that's a big mistake. Parents today, I find, are very confused about the role of the parents and what we should be doing and trying to do, and so that was a big motivation for writing the book.

Speaker 1 8:50

Yeah, I want to go through a couple of your chapters. So the first chapter that you have and we talk about the culture of disrespect. You have an example of kind of television shows 30 years ago until now and how they kind of show the parents' role within the family and how it's changed so dramatically. Let's talk a little bit about what you're talking about in that chapter with the culture of disrespect.

The Culture of Disrespect in Education

Speaker 2 9:14

My claim in that chapter is that American popular culture the culture of the most popular YouTube videos, most popular songs on Billboard, most popular TV shows has become a culture of disrespect, a culture in which kids are taught that it's cute and funny to be disrespectful to adults, to be disrespectful to one another. And one domain of evidence that you mentioned is TV shows. You know, back in the 1960s, most popular TV shows like the Andy Griffith Show. You know back in the 1960s, most popular TV shows like the Andy Griffith Show. Likewise, in the 1980s, family Ties were shows in which the parents were knowledgeable. How many of them today consistently or at least occasionally depict a parent as knowledgeable, competent, responsible? Out of 150 shows, I found one, blue Bloods, starring Tom Selleck, which at least occasionally depicts a parent as knowledgeable and competent. Blue Bloods is now a unique outlier. It's not characteristic of American television. A more characteristic TV show today would be Modern Family, where the straight dad is always an idiot whose bumbling antics are the butt of the joke. This is true on the Disney Channel.

Speaker 2 10:33

You look at the most popular songs. You know everyone talks about Taylor Swift. What a lot of people don't realize is that Drake is objectively more popular in terms of who's had more number one hit songs. Drake is objectively more popular in terms of who's had more number one hit songs, who's had more songs on the Billboard Top 100. And Drake epitomizes this culture of disrespect. His songs are filled with the F word, the N word, the A word and parents don't know who Drake is. Taylor Swift has captured essentially every demographic among English-speaking Americans. Drake has not. He is uniquely popular with teenagers and not so popular with adults. But Drake is hugely influential and it's not just entertainment.

Speaker 2 11:17

In 2009, while Barack Obama was giving a State of the Union address actually it wasn't a State of the Union address. Actually, it wasn't a State of the Union address it was addressed to a joint House and Senate on his health care proposal and a Republican shouted out you lie. The next day the Republican apologized and he was censured. Bipartisan resolution of censure passed the House condemning him, and other Republicans said look, our disagreements with the president should be presented in an orderly fashion and not like a middle school schoolyard. So fast forward to 2023. 2023. And Joe Biden doing the State of the Union address. Marjorie Taylor Greene shouted out heckled him and she did not apologize and she was not censured. On the contrary, then Speaker of the House supported her in shouting during the president's speech.

Speaker 2 12:27

That's less than 15 years and it illustrates what I mean by the culture of disrespect. Breaking the norms, being defiant, being disrespectful as recently as 15 years ago was outside the pale. Not anymore. American popular culture across the board has become a culture of disrespect and this is really harmful. It fundamentally undermines the whole educational enterprise from the grownups. So Lil Nas X had a number one hit song in this country in which he sings you can't tell me nothing, can't nobody tell me nothing. That's the culture of disrespect in a nutshell. Well, if you can't tell me nothing, can't nobody tell me nothing. That's the culture of disrespect in a nutshell. Well, if you can't tell me nothing, why should I learn about the War of 1812? Or Spanish? Grammar Education is based on the idea that kids have something to learn from grownups. But kids immersed in this culture of disrespect are like you can't tell me nothing, can't nobody tell me nothing.

Speaker 2 13:23

I was having a conversation with middle school kids and I was talking to asking them what movies they love, with super bad, okay. So I happen to know that these kids were also. These age graders were reading Hamlet, shakespeare's play and I said which is better, the movie Superbad or Hamlet? And they all said, oh, superbad, totally. Hamlet's stupid, it's boring, it's dull.

Speaker 2 13:50

Look, kids are not born knowing what makes Shakespeare or Beethoven great. They have to be taught. But they're now immersed in a culture you can't teach me nothing, can't nobody teach me nothing. They couldn't care less about Shakespeare. They're coming from a culture that has taught them to disrespect anything that is not amusing and funny, and this culture of disrespect profoundly undermines the educational enterprise. So I have a workshop I do for schools, called Building a Culture of Respect.

Speaker 2 14:23

How do you take this kid who's watching TikTok and YouTube and scrolling through Instagram and how do you get this eighth grader excited about Shakespeare and Beethoven? It can be done and I'm not guessing. I share strategies. I have learned from my visits to more than 500 schools worldwide, but it is no longer the default. Kids do not come to school respectful and courteous and ready to learn about Shakespeare. On the contrary, they come to school many of them defiant, disrespectful and uninterested in Shakespeare. As the student in the conversation we had said you know, hey, you like Hamlet. That's great. Whatever floats your boat, you do you this notion that the student is the final judge of quality, which is again a notion they picked up from this culture of disrespect that kids have nothing to learn from their adults. It's really harmful and parents and teachers need to understand what they're up against, because this was not a thing even 20 years ago. This is new.

Speaker 1 15:29

Well, listening to you all kind of makes sense. So if the children are not showing teachers and the administration, the staff at school, respect, then why would you expect them in their jobs as professionals when they're older, to have any respect either? So you're seeing it kind of seep into when they're older and grown adults. So where do you think the parents are making their mistakes? At home, where they are allowing their child to act this way to their teachers? I mean, there was, for instance, one of my husband's good friends. Their daughter became a teacher at MCPS about two years ago and she already quit. She said the kids are so relentless, they're mean and I can't do anything. I can't discipline them at all, because if I try to, then the parents get upset and then I get reprimanded.

Speaker 2 16:24

Yeah, so many parents read the New York Times, the Washington Post, they listen to National Public Radio and what they learn from those media is that good parenting means letting kids decide.

Speaker 2 16:37

Gentle parenting means letting kids decide and this is a very popular fad now middle income and affluent communities in the United States and it's profoundly mistaken. It's not true. Good parenting does not mean letting kids decide. On the contrary, it means being authoritative, meaning you set the rules, Not authoritarian, not too hard, but just right. You set the rules with love and kindness and courtesy and respect, but you still set the rules and you enforce the rules. But unfortunately, that's not what parents are learning from the Washington Post and National Public Radio and, as a result, they really think good parenting means letting kids decide.

Speaker 2 17:20

And, as you know, in my book, the Collapse of Parenting, I go through different domains and show how harmful this is. So in 1970, 4% of American kids were obese. Today, more than 20% of American kids are obese, so that's a quintupling since 1970. Why has that happened? Well, as you know that chapter, I go into a number of changes, but one of the changes that happened is that 50 years ago, parents decided what's for supper. Today, many parents, not kids, decide what's for supper. So I was speaking to parents in Chappaqua, New York, at Horace Greeley High School and talking about this topic, and husband and wife shared that they had made a healthy, nutritious supper for their son and daughter. And the son and daughter came home and said yeah, we don't eat that. Can we just order pizza? So dad gets out his phone and pulls up the Domino's app and daughter orders her personal pizza with her favorite toppings and son orders his personal pizza with his favorite toppings. And I said to dad, why'd you do that? Why don't you just tell them this is what's for supper? And he said dad, why'd you do that? Why don't you just tell them this is what's for supper? And he said well, I don't be even using starvation as a means of punishment. I said look, they're not going to starve.

Speaker 2 18:37

50 years ago, if mom made a healthy and nutritious supper and the kids didn't want to eat it, she did not run out and buy them a pizza. She would say this is what's for supper. If you don't like it, you can go to bed hungry. But today, parents are horrified. Well, the problem with letting kids decide what's for supper there are some kids who will choose broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, asparagus and kale, but there are many kids who will choose pizza, french fries, potato chips and ice cream.

Speaker 2 19:03

If you let kids decide what's for supper, you get a lot more fat kids. That's why they have parents. You need to decide what's for supper. You get a lot more fat kids. That's why they have parents. You need to decide what's for supper and you need to enforce those boundaries. And again, many parents are confused. They've been reading the Washington Post, They've been listening to National Public Radio. Good parenting means letting kids decide, and they think that applies in all domains. Kids decide and they think that applies in all domains. Well, it doesn't. It doesn't apply in the domain of what's for supper or where to go to school, or whether to go to school or whether to have a phone in the bedroom at night. These are all questions that parents have to decide and enforce the rules.

Speaker 1 19:47

Yeah, it's so interesting talking to you because I want to know kind of in your opinion, like where did that shift happen? Because I have friends that I speak to and they'll even make different meals for different children for what they want, and I just think that's so wild, like how did that shift happen so quickly? What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 20:08

Okay, so we don't have to guess. We do have sociologists who study this question, and the chief and the first among the sociologists is Norbert Elias, the late German sociologist who wrote an essay looking at changes in European civilization in the second half of the 20th century, and he was writing about the European continent. But his observations apply, at least with equal or greater force, to the United States. And he basically points out that we became uncomfortable with the notion of authority, with the notion of hierarchy, with the notion that anybody has the right to tell anybody else what to do. And he talks about how this transformed the workplace. Fifty years ago, workplaces tended to be more hierarchical. Now we're all supposed to give feedback and we address each other by first names instead of last names An informalization of the community, and that's fine. But what works in the workplace may not work at home, because the parent-child relationship is not analogous to the relationship between employer and employee.

Speaker 2 21:25

The parent has to teach right and wrong to the child. Adults don't teach right and wrong to the child. Adults don't teach right and wrong to other adults. We have our own morality and we would resent, quite rightly, any attempt by an employer to tell us that our standard of right and wrong is the wrong standard and that we have to change that. But that's precisely the job of the parent is to teach the child right and wrong. And to teach right and wrong you want to teach from a position of authority. If you're talking to your kid about not cheating on a test, if you say you know, I personally I don't think I would cheat on a test because that's just not my thing. But hey, you do, you whatever floats your boat, you're not teaching anything. In order to teach right and wrong, you have to teach from a position of authority. But parents, as Norbert Elias was the first to point out and it's gotten much worse since he wrote his essay parents now are uncomfortable with exercising authority. Because I'm your father, that's why those words. Authority because I'm your father, that's why those words. Many, many parents now are very reluctant to say such a thing. They feel that they need to persuade, that they need to explain, and explanations are fine and, as I say in my book, the Class of Parenting explain but don't negotiate.

Speaker 2 22:49

So one of the key points I'm often stressing when I meet with parents is no phones in the bedroom. Your teenager should not have a smartphone in the bedroom because your daughter's getting a text at two in the morning. Omg, jason and Emily just broke up. This is really amazing. Well, I'll talk about this. And parents are amazed to find that half the ninth grade class is awake and texting at two in the morning.

Speaker 2 23:12

This has to be the parent's call. It is not reasonable to put this choice the choice of whether or not to have a smartphone in the bedroom in the lap of your 14-year-old. What's she supposed to say tomorrow at school when her friend says hey, I texted you last night at midnight. How come you didn't answer? Is your 14-year-old supposed to say well, if you're stretching your phone, the symptom of deprivation in adolescence is a major risk factor in the etiology of both anxiety and depression. That's ridiculous. You can't expect a 14-year-old to talk that way. You have to allow her to say hey, my evil parent takes my phone every night at 9. We'll have it in the charger, which now is going to be in the parent's bedroom. She can have it back tomorrow morning. This has to be the parent's call. But then I advise the parent to do that, and the parent freaks out. She's like oh, I couldn't do that. My daughter would totally freak out if I tried to take her phone from her. That parent is intimidated by their own kid take her phone from her.

Speaker 1 24:12

That parent is intimidated by their own kid. I found it interesting when you were talking in your chapter and it kind of went with two things for kids being overweight and also the so many kids on medication. But the sleep deprivation you said sometimes mimics ADHD. You talked about one mother that was having a lot of issues with her son in school and after you kind of peeled back the onion with her and she was thinking maybe he needed medication, you were like hey, he might be up playing video games until two o'clock in the morning every night.

Risks and Realities of ADHD Medication

Speaker 2 24:42

Well, the example I'm thinking of is a boy who actually was diagnosed as having ADHD by a child psychiatrist and was on Vyvanse or Adderall one of those two and was doing better in school but was also experiencing loss of appetite, insomnia and palpitations. So the parents saw something I had written about the dangers of these medications the New York Times and brought them into me for a second opinion and I said to mom does your son get plenty of sleep? And she said, oh, absolutely. We make sure in his bedroom no later than nine o'clock at night. We wake him up the next morning at six. So that's nine hours, that's plenty, right. And the boy was right there and I said do you have video game console in your bedroom? He said yeah. I said were you playing last night? He said yeah, what were you playing? Rdr2. Excellent game, all right. So when were you finished? Like oh, 1.30, 1.45.

Speaker 2 25:41

So this boy is going to bed after 1 am. He's trying to wake up at 6. He's getting less than five hours of sleep at night. He's sleep deprived night after night. Sleep deprivation perfectly mimics ADHD of the inattentive variety. There is no Conner scale or Vanderbilt interview that can distinguish the kid who's not paying attention because he's sleep deprived from the kid who's not paying attention because he truly has ADHD. And then Rome said, yeah, but the medication really helps. Yeah, well, what's Vyvanse? What's Adderall? They're amphetamines. They compensate for the sleep deprivation, but the appropriate remedy for sleep deprivation is sleep, not schedule. Two amphetamines and my recommendation we got the video game console out of the bedroom. No more video games in the bedroom and he's getting plenty of sleep and he's off medication and he's doing fine. And I've written about this in other form, including scholarly academic paper, demonstrating that many of these kids who are diagnosed with ADHD don't have it. They have sleep deprivation is one common problem and they shouldn't be on medication. They should be getting a good night's sleep instead.

Speaker 1 26:46

Let's talk a little bit more about in that chapter. Sleep instead, but let's talk a little bit more about in that chapter. Why do you think American students are? There's so many of them that are on medication now.

Speaker 2 26:55

Yeah, so indeed, there is a chapter in the collapse of parenting where I compare rates of ADHD diagnosis in this country with rates overseas, and especially with United Kingdom, and I crunched the numbers and showed that a teenager in the United States is 14 times more likely to be on medication for ADHD compared to a teenager in the United Kingdom, and the United Kingdom is actually an outlier compared to the European continent. I wrote a book for a French publisher, t'as dit pourquoi les garçons perdent pied, les fils se mettent en danger. And working with colleagues in France, I learned that in all of France, in all of France, there are fewer than 6,000 kids on medication for ADHD. There are probably more kids in Montgomery County, maryland, on medication for ADHD than there are in all of France, a nation of 65 million people. Why is that? There are a number of reasons. We can begin with the fact that in this country, medication is the first resort, and it is common for American doctors to say well, let's try Adderall, let's try Vyvanse and see if it helps. Medication is the first resort and the medication helps.

Speaker 2 28:08

So I spoke at Harvard. The conference was titled Learning and the Brain, and I would love to tell you that my presentation was the buzz of the conference. My presentation was titled why Gender Matters, but it wasn't. The presentation that everyone was really excited about was a presentation by Dr John Gabrielli at MIT. Dr Gabrielli somehow got permission to give Adderall to normal kids and withhold medication from kids with severe ADHD, and he found that the medication helps normal kids more than it helps kids with ADHD. That's a hugely important finding because so many times I've done the evaluation and I've said to the parents look, your son doesn't have ADHD, doesn't meet the criteria, doesn't come close, and the parents will say well, the medication really helped. The parents are interpreting the response to medication as though the response to medication had some diagnostic significance. This medication was prescribed for ADHD. It helped. Therefore, the kid must have ADHD. Right Wrong, these medications help normal kids as much or more than they help kids who truly have ADHD. That's a really important finding. Well then, why not just give everybody the medication than they help kids who truly have ADHD? That's a really important finding. Well then, why not just give everybody the medication? Because you know it boosts mood these are mood elevators and helps kids to concentrate.

Speaker 2 29:29

But the problem is we now have a great deal of evidence that these medications damage the motivational center of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, and I present that research in chapters four and eight of my book Boys Adrift. The risks great, they outweigh the benefits for most kids. There are safer alternatives and in this country doctors don't know about that research. I've spoken about this topic in other countries. I spoke to parents at the Passage of Haberich in Munich.

Speaker 2 29:53

German is my one language and doctors and parents in Germany know about the risk of these medications. But here the doctors don't know about the risks and parents will say doctor, are you aware of the risk of these medications to the nucleus accumbens? The doctor's never heard of this and this is a board-certified child psychiatrist. So I say the parent photocopy chapters four and eight of Voice Adrift, including the references, so he can see the 18 different scholarly papers documenting this risk. Doctors can make wise decisions only if they know the risks of the medication. And there's a lot of problems with child psychiatry in the United States. It has been corrupted. The leaders of child psychiatry take millions of dollars from the drug companies which they're not required to disclose and they're functioning as paid spokespersons for the drug companies and that's well documented.

Speaker 1 30:44

And I wanted to know, in your opinion, because obviously you've treated so many children throughout your years as a pediatrician and I wanted to know do you think that it has any type of impact on the fact that I feel like you have to tiptoe around parents so much about their parenting that you can't say anything negative towards them, so it's easier to just say, okay, well, you know, he may have ADHD, instead of being looking at how they're parenting that child.

Speaker 2 31:14

Well, and indeed in that chapter of the collapse of parenting where I looked at the prescribing of psychiatric medications in this country, I quote many psychiatrists who have said exactly that major problem is you. You're not doing your job. This kid is defiant and disrespectful at school because you haven't taught your kid to be courteous and respectful. It's easier just to write the prescription, and the prescription works. The medications are effective. That's what's really scary, but the psychiatrists themselves have observed this, not just me. Many, many doctors are finding it's easier to write the prescription and the parent leaves happy than to try to dig deeper and say this that your child's problem begins with you, the parent.

Speaker 1 32:08

Let's talk a little bit about your chapter. Why are so many kids so fragile? Why do you think that is why?

Speaker 2 32:15

do you think that is? Yeah. So we now know a lot about how to build resilience in kids, and it begins with failure and disappointment. Kids need to experience failure and disappointment in order to become strong. But many parents don't get that and they function. Like you know, there's various terms snowplow parents, lawnmower parents who try to make the path smooth for their kid. Parents who think that if my kid comes home upset for any reason, the school screwed up and they don't realize that that low mark on a test, not being invited to a party these are all opportunities to help your kid to become strong, and if you don't understand that, you end up with kids who are fragile.

Speaker 1 33:04

And do you think that all of this kind of stems from? Well, in my opinion, when I'm looking around a lot in Montgomery County, it's a lot of this gentle parenting is sort of this negotiation with your kids. Do you think that kind of all of this stems a little bit from this over-emphasizing gentle parenting, or no?

Speaker 2 33:26

So let's consider this statement. It's important for parents to validate their kids' feelings, and that's a statement you will find in the Washington Post. It's repeated endlessly on National Public Radio and almost any segment on parenting. Parents need to validate their kids' feelings. Is that true or false? Well, it depends. So I'll give you an example.

Speaker 2 33:52

A girl in third grade, another girl in the class, is talking about how her parents are going to make a really big deal out of her birthday party. They're going to pay to charter a bus to take everybody to Six Flags Great Adventure for Saturday and it's going to be great. And she told all the kids what the day of the thing was going to be. But then this girl the girl I'm talking about discovered she was not invited and she came home in tears and she said to her mother everybody else got invited and I didn't. And mom called the school angry, saying her daughter was being bullied, that everyone else was invited and she wasn't. Everyone else was invited and she wasn't. And the head of the lower school explained that. Well, actually you are mistaken. Of the 17 girls, 10 were invited, 7 were not, and that's not bullying. It is human nature to prefer the company of some over the company of others and your daughter is not friends with the birthday girl so she chose not to invite her. Part of our job as parents is to teach our child what matters, what's important and what's not important. What is best practice for a parent in that situation? Your daughter comes home and says that big party everyone's talking about, I just found out I'm not invited Week from Saturday. I submit the best practice would be to say to your daughter okay, week from Saturday, you know that new bike trail. They just say to your daughter okay, week from Saturday, you know that new bike trail that just opened up. You, me, let's go. Let's write it on the calendar. We're going on the bike trail week from Saturday. Walk it off.

Speaker 2 35:30

Whether or not you're invited to a party of someone you don't even know is not a big deal. Now, in other settings, best practice would be different. If your daughter's best friend of years betrays her and rejects her and tells lies about her and your daughter comes home and cheers because the girl she thought was her best friend has betrayed her and is being mean to her, then I would validate that feeling, because a best friend's betrayal is a big deal, and I would show that, oh honey, I get it and I would feel terrible too and I would validate that feeling and I would support it. But the girl who comes home upset because she wasn't invited to a birthday party you don't want to validate that feeling. You want to instruct your child that whether or not you're invited to a party is not a big deal.

Speaker 2 36:24

Again, I don't really blame the parents. I blame the culture of the New York Times and National Public Radio and the Washington Post, which is promoting this notion of gentle parenting, which explicitly says that you validate your kid's feelings at all times and all domains, with no exceptions. Gentle parenting means you don't use the term no, and this, I believe, is psychotic. It is utterly detached from reality. It completely fails to understand. The parent's job is to teach the kid what matters and what doesn't matter your friend betraying you, that matters, not being invited to a party, that doesn't matter. These are the distinctions we have to teach and these are the distinctions that gentle parenting does not teach.

Speaker 1 37:15

I do love towards the end of the book. So you go through a lot of and gosh, I could talk to you for hours but we can't go through everything that you went through which is going on in the first few chapters of your book. But then you go through some of your solutions. You said it's very important for your children to respect your opinion over your peers and to do that you have to be spending time with your children and, most importantly, you have to enjoy the time with your children which in the book you say. That seems strange to say that, but it is true because we are spending our time with our children, but is it quality time that you are enjoying and they are enjoying as well? So let's talk a little bit about kind of those two things about how important it is for you to be the person that your child looks for the most is their opinion and that quality time.

Building Strong Parent-Child Relationships

Speaker 2 38:05

Okay, so that first point. Researchers at Johns Hopkins 60 years ago went across the United States conducting structured interviews with high school kids all across the United States and one of the questions they asked high school kids was if all your friends wanted to join a particular club but one of your parents did not approve, would you still join? And 60 years ago the Johns Hopkins researchers found that the majority of high school kids said no. They would not join. The opinion of one parent counted more than the opinions of all their peers. Over the last 10 years I've conducted an updated version. I've posed an updated version of that question to middle school and high school kids across the United States. I said to them if all your friends wanted you to join a particular social media app, would you consult your parents first? And the most common answer I get from kids is not yes or no. It's laughter. They literally burst out laughing. They're like my parents have no idea what's going on. You know why, would I ask them Now? These kids may say they love their parents, but they care more what their peers think than they do what their parents think. Their primary attachment is now to their peers and that's really harmful.

Speaker 2 39:25

Many researchers now found that American kids' primary attachment is to their peers, which is a fancy way of saying they care more what their peers think than they do what their parents think. That's fairly new. It was certainly not true 60 years ago, as the John Topping researchers documented. But it's true today and it's really harmful. You could be the most popular girl today and you could be the odd girl out tomorrow. Your standing in the eyes of your peers is contingent and ephemeral. It's just a fancy way of saying. It can change overnight and every kid knows it. You want to see an American girl have a total meltdown. A teenage girl take her phone from her without warning. She will totally melt down because she'll be like Melissa doesn't know, I don't have my phone. What if she texts me and I don't answer? She's going to think I'm ignoring her. She's going to think I don't like her, because they know that their standing can go from top to bottom in one day, in five minutes, so they're all glued to their phones.

Speaker 2 40:28

Your kid's primary attachment has to be to you, not to their same age peers, and that's true of five-year-olds and that's true of 16-year-olds, and that's a major point that I'm trying to make in the book and how's true of five-year-olds and that's true of 16-year-olds, and that's a major point that I'm trying to make in the book. And how do you do that? Well, that's what that chapter about enjoying the time you have with your kid is about. It means you find time to do fun things with your kid. What kind of fun things? Things you're good at. So I sail.

Speaker 2 40:56

We used to have a sailboat when we lived in Montgomery County, maryland. We sold it, but I still love to sail. I've taught my daughter how to sail and we love going sailing. You can rent a catamaran at the state park here. It's not expensive. The last time we went sailing we capsized. We got this huge gust of wind and the thing literally went flying through the air and flipped over and threw us in the water and my daughter, sarah, said it's the most fun she ever had.

Speaker 2 41:20

So find time to do fun things with your kid. That's where you begin building that primary attachment, that strong parent-child relationship. I've got a presentation for parents of young kids titled Cancel the Play Date, make a Family Date Instead, because, again, as a family doctor, I see these parents who are spending their Saturday driving their four-year-old from one play date to another in the belief that four-year-olds having lots of four-year-old friends is important. There's no research to support that. On the contrary, we have a great deal of research showing that the quality of the parent-child relationship at age four is hugely important. Cancel the play date. Make a family date instead. Prioritize time doing stuff with you and your kid together. Don't worry so much about the play dates.

Speaker 1 42:10

You also emphasize the importance of family dinners too. No phones, no distractions, and I'm a huge advocate of that too. So it really is when your kids will sit and talk to you about their day and what's going on, and it's a good recap for you guys as a family. So I know you're so busy, dr Sacks. So what are maybe one or two takeaways that you would want parents to get from the collapse of parenting?

Speaker 2 42:37

Well, certainly one big takeaway is to prioritize this, and I see parents picking up their daughter from school and going to computer coding class and then they're going to go to travel team soccer and they're literally eating supper as a sandwich on the way from computer coding class to travel team soccer and you're teaching your kid that being amazing, and doing all these activities is more important than relaxed time at home. As you noted, we now have good research that the more evening meals a child has at home with at least one parent, the better the outcomes. The lower the risk of anxiety and depression, the greater the life satisfaction. If an activity conflicts with an evening meal at home, cancel the activity. Prioritize family time over extracurriculars.

Speaker 2 43:25

No earbuds, no headsets in the car. When you're in the car, you should be listening to your kid and she should be listening to you, not to Drake or Bruno Mars or Cardi B or Cardi B. No smartphones in the bedroom, fewer screens and more time together as a family. There's a lot more tips like that, but that's the direction that I'm encouraging parents to move in.

Speaker 1 43:51

In the book, yes, you go into so much in depth about a lot of the things that we've kind of breezed over, so you have to get the book and read it. It talks all about gosh, the downfalls of the different video games that we have now and just the over scheduling that we just kind of breezed over a little bit. I promise you, as soon as you read this book, you're going to be like, okay, if you're a boy, boy mom, like myself, you're going to be like boys a draft I got to write like I gotta get that, but if you have a, you'll be girls on the edge of both. You're going to have to get both books, because all of your books are amazing and I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today. So I want to thank you, dr Sachs, and tell everybody how they can follow you and how they can purchase your book.

Speaker 2 44:31

Okay, so I don't do social media, but if you go to my website leonardsaxcom L-E-O-N-A-R-D-S-A-Xcom, I hope you'll sign up for my newsletter. I do send out an email newsletter with links to articles I think are important or interesting about once a month, and that way you'll also know the next time I'm speaking in your area.

Speaker 1 44:53

Yes, yes, and I want to, right before you leave, as you know, for all of our guests that we have on here, we have them choose a charity that is meaningful to them for us to donate to, and you chose the Montgomery Center for Research in Child and Adolescent Development.

Speaker 2 45:11

So just, take a minute or two and tell us why that organization is important to you. Well, it's important to me because I started it and it is the nonprofit through which we conduct research. Our most cited paper is titled how Common is Intersex, scholarly paper published in the Journal of Sex Research, in which we demonstrated that fewer than 2 in 10,000 children are intersex. Another study funded and conducted by the Montgomery Center was a study that I conducted in Montgomery County. Well, I actually surveyed all the doctors in Montgomery County, peachy County, the district and Northern Virginia, asking them who first suggests a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder. And is it the doctor, the parent, the teacher, another professional? And it is most often the teacher who suggests the diagnosis we found so trying to conduct good, non-biased, useful scholarly research on a variety of topics relevant to child and adolescent development MCRCAD.

Speaker 1 46:14

So I'm on your newsletter and I love all of your emails. You take so much time and effort into everything that you write and it is very educational and it should be something. Every parent should be on this newsletter, Absolutely. So make sure to go on to your website and sign up. So thank you again, Dr Sachs, for coming on, and I want to thank everybody for tuning in to another episode of the True Minute Charities podcast. Until next time, If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to rate and review our podcast. The reviews really do count and I make sure to read each and every one of them. And, while you're at it, subscribe to the Truman Charities podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. Follow us on Facebook at Truman Charities, Instagram at Jamie underscore Truman Charities, LinkedIn, Jamie Truman and our website, trumancharitiescom. Don't forget to pick up my book Vanishing Fathers the Ripple Effect on Tomorrow's Generation on Amazon or any other online bookstore. 100% of the proceeds from my book will go to charities that serve at-risk youths. Thanks again for listening to the Truman Charities Podcast.